Classical wave theoretical treatments can be used to predict the general characteristics of the acoustic field scattered from a roughened time‐varying sea surface. Various approximations can then be invoked to handle the so‐called slightly rough and very rough surface cases. In this paper an expression for the spectrum of the scattered sound is derived for the very rough case in terms of specific surface‐wave parameters. This expression is then evaluated for several surface spectra, including the fully aroused Neuman–Pierson and Pierson–Moskowitz surface wave spectra. Finally, these results for special cases of the Neuman–Pierson spectra are compared with those obtained by numerically integrating the general form for the same spectra, a technique that does not involve the very rough case approximation.Subject Classification: [43]30.40; [43]20.15.