Posted on 09/02/2014 6:53:51 AM PDT by C19fan
A photo depicting an American nuclear-powered submarine poking its periscope above the waves—within shooting distance of a British aircraft carrier during a war game—is a useful reminder of one of the most important truths of naval warfare.
For every sailor who’s not in a submarine, submarines are real scary.
Stealthy and heavily-armed, subs are by far the most powerful naval vessels in the world for full-scale warfare—and arguably the best way to sink those more obvious icons of naval power, aircraft carriers.
(Excerpt) Read more at realcleardefense.com ...
Diesel boats are very quiet under water running on batteries.
Stealthy shore to ship missiles have made the narrow, shallow Persian Gulf a death trap for American ships. If war breaks out the US Navy faces a debacle worse than Pearl Harbor in less than 15 minutes.
There are the newer Air-independent propulsion systems making non-nuclear subs even stealthier.
“Diesel boats are very quiet under water running on batteries.”
And far superior to what they used to be. It it a common mistake to assume that after nuclear boats were developed that diesel boats simply stagnated.
If the carrier is steaming in narrow shallow waters — why not plant huge “IEDs” on the sea bottom and wait for until it is directly above one f them?
Can they keep up with surface ships though? Thing about nukes is that they have more speed and can catch up to targets. This is why uboats during ww2 where only truly devastating against slow merchant vessels rather than speedier warships except in narrow straits where they could ambush them.
US carriers are extremely fast... much faster than a diesel sub can go underwater.
Unless the sub captain already knows where the carrier is going, and is already there in front, quietly waiting.
Can they out run a torpedo? The Skvall goes 200kts.
In the world of the Cold War, aircraft carriers were intended to survive long enough to get rid of their aircraft and hit their targets.
Nuclear boats carry batteries in the event that the reactor scrams thereby leaving the it helpless.
The Germans has developed fuel cell powered "littoral" boats that are as quiet as a tomb. The Swedish design uses a Sterling engine fueled by diesel fuel and liquid oxygen which is also dead quiet.
Regards,
GtG
You just described half of US assets during the Cold War. Based in Germany, our orders were to begin base denial as soon as the planes left.
But it cannot turn to follow a moving target. The sub has to get very close.
That’s what the nitrous is for. /s
Those are called mines.
That’s exactly it. Diesels usually wait for their unsuspecting target. They don’t have the speed or distance underwater to pursue like the Russian nuke subs.
Quote: “You just described half of US assets during the Cold War. Based in Germany, our orders were to begin base denial as soon as the planes left.”
Yep, that is why I am shocked that people are shocked that aircraft carriers are easy to sink. It all depends on their mission and how that mission has evolved from deliver and die to project power and stay on station. That works when the opponent does not have a credible submarine force. I wonder how it would work now against China and other potential threats that are building that force?
The Battle of the Atlantic was fiercely contested, but the implementation of convoys, the development of escort carriers and patrols by long-range aircraft (notably B-24s) finally broke the back of the German Wolfpacks. Before Pearl Harbor, the ASW mission was a backwater, something assigned to older destroyers and their crews while the Navy's best and brightest planned for the next Jutland.
No one really believed Germany could produce subs (and crews) fast enough to mount an even greater threat than during World War I. But when cargo ships and oilers started going down off Cape Hatteras and in the Gulf of Mexico, the ASW effort finally received the resources it deserved.
There has been a similar decline over the past 20 years. With the end of the Soviet Navy, it was assumed (incorrectly) that the sub threat had largely vanished, except for a few diesel boats here and there, in the hands of rogue states like Iran or North Korea. As a result, we retired much of our P-3 fleet, and began moth-balling some of the Los Angeles-class attack boats as well. Meanwhile, the Orion's replacement (the P-8) was years behind schedule and way over budget, while other ASW tools (sonabuoys, various types of ship-based sonar failed to keep pace with diesel-electric technology and some of the ultra-quiet drives now found on conventionally-powered boats.
Being an ASW specialist in the Navy is a bit like flying tankers in the Air Force. Both missions are vitally important; without them, other operations simply aren't possible. But neither is a career-enhancing job; a very few get their first star, while the rest top out at the O-5 or O-6 level. And because the Navy is ruled by surface warfare officers and aviators (just as the Air Force is run by fighter pilots), the ASW community is poorly positioned to compete for badly-needed resources. For example, I've heard that P-8 has trouble tracking subs, because (as a jet-powered aircraft) it has to fly too/high fast for the optimum deployment of sonabuoys. It really doesn't matter that the P-8 can cover much more territory than the P-3; if the sonabuoys fail on impact, you won't detect very many subs, unless you happen to sight a periscope.
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