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Both of these articles describe the military applications of bathythermographs. Although there are other applications for oceanography in general, their importance for naval sonar is significant. In such a field, and with modern low-cost electronics, the expendable bathythermograph has become the dominant form. As such, we can give a clearer overall picture of the topic in a single article, not split across two. There is no use case for the expendable specifically in its own article. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:13, 28 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Since the deployment of an XBT does not require the ship to slow down or otherwise interfere with normal operations, XBT's are often deployed from vessels of opportunity, such as cargo ships or ferries, rather than a dedicated research ship where a CTD would normally be used in preference.
This is not entirely correct. Research vessels drop XBTs on a daily basis precisely because they do not require the ship to slow down or stop, whereas CTD casts take hours. The XBT data is necessary to calibrate acoustic instruments, e.g. multibeam sonar. RV time is precious and expensive.
I worked for three years as a shipboard computer technician for the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. My responsibilities included operating the multibeam sonar. Our policy was to drop a minimum of one XBT per day whenever we were operating the multibeam sonar, which we operated continuously whenever possible as a blanket policy. Sometimes we'd drop more. We'd only turn off the MB near shore or in a foreign EEZ when we couldn't obtain permission to run it. The primary purpose of the XBT in this, as in military sonar, was to correct the multibeam sonar data for differences in water density. All UNOLS research vessels (which means pretty much all US RVs) operate similarly. International vessels probably do also. Although we could use CTD data instead, and occasionally did, a CTD cast takes hours to complete. Ship time is expensive and precious. Since we were often operating the MB opportunistically during transit periods, stopping the ship was not desireable. Even during official scientific MB surveys, the ocenographers would prefer to drop an XBT than cast the CTD and lose hours of survey time.
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