Short, hard gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are believed to originate from the coalescence of two neutron stars (NSs) or a NS and a black hole (BH). If this scenario is correct, then short GRBs will be accompanied by the emission of strong gravitational waves (GWs), detectable by GW observatories such as LIGO, Virgo, KAGRA, and LIGO-India. As compared with blind, all-sky, all-time GW searches, externally triggered searches for GW counterparts to short GRBs have the advantages of both significantly reduced detection threshold due to known time and sky location and enhanced GW amplitude because of face-on orientation. Based on the distribution of signal-to-noise ratios in candidate compact binary coalescence events in the most recent joint LIGO-Virgo data, our analytic estimates, and our Monte Carlo simulations, we find an effective sensitive volume for GRB-triggered searches that is $\approx 2\mathrm{times}$ greater than for an all-sky, all-time search. For NS-NS systems, a jet angle ${\theta }_j=20°$, a gamma-ray satellite field of view of 10% of the sky, and priors with generally precessing spin, this doubles the number of NS-NS short-GRB and NS-BH short-GRB associations, to $\sim 3–4\%$ of all detections of NS-NSs and NS-BHs. We also investigate the power of tests for statistical excesses in lists of subthreshold events, and show that these are unlikely to reveal a subthreshold population until finding GW associations to short GRBs is already routine. Finally, we provide useful formulas for calculating the prior distribution of GW amplitudes from a compact binary coalescence, for a given GW detector network and given sky location.

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