There.
Fixed.
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 ...
I believe the 212 is a better sub. It has a non-metallic hull that makes it very hard to pick up with a magnetic sensor. The 214 is the same model, sans the classified hull composite. The 214 is the export model.
Wasn’t aware of that. Thanks for the info.
After that, we'd take off with everything left never expecting to return, because we'd be wiped out trying, ideally giving them a bloody nose, but the whole thing was expected to go nuclear within 24-48 hours.
It was all pretty grim but we were fatalistically real about it. I really expected we'd have a nuclear war with the Soviets in the late 70’s / early 80s.
That said the Pentagon and congress mothballed the Hoovers which were effective in anti submarine warfare. At sea we either kept a S-3 or helo aloft or a LPH in our carrier group did. But we had one more thing others CV's didn't which was a Sonar Dome. The ships in company when a carrier deploys has shrunk. Stupid blunder are being made in DC which would not have passed muster in earlier times such as the Cole bombing. WTH putting any ship two days away from another? Any ship is sinkable but like you said it would have to be massive. It would also have to be remote detonation because a sub is not going to withstand such a shock if in the vicinity.
The O2N2 plant had my utmost respect. The bombs didn't worry me even the nukes onboard. The O2N2 plant was another matter altogether. Short of a catastrophic full blown boiler rupture it was the most destructive accident waiting to happen likely with Zero warning. It also usually had the best guys in Engineering working in there. On a carrier it was A-Division's shop.
They mothballed the S-3’s which was a considerable part of a carriers anti submarine operations. It’s land based equal the P-3 is not carrier capable due to design and size. The numbers of ships in company has also been greatly reduced. The Navy is at 285 ships total counting subs and auxiliary ships. This link shows the decline. http://www.history.navy.mil/branches/org9-4.htm#1993
To be fair, the US Navy’s is in such sorry shape I am amazed the boats still float. For the Chinks to sneak up on a carrier group is a dismal review of our preparedness. I doubt we could win the next big fight with Zero as the CiC.
Not even in the Carter term did it get to this point. We always made light offs and got underway when ordered. But our ships scheduled yard repairs weren't being screwed with and postponed.
This stuff began happening even before Clinton took office. My old ship America had a Boiler Room explosion at the pier after getting back from the MED. She went Cold Iron under tow up to the yards for a bandaid. From what I read about the ship it wasn't fit to even made that deployment due to very serious mission critical issues.
The worse thing I saw happen in the late 70's was we lost use of #3 MMR or Three Main Machinery Room entirely. A feed water line for the boilers ruptured right over the switchboard and melted it. That was about a month or two before our scheduled one year overhaul starting in Nov 79. It did not effect our readiness just minimal issues with cooling electronics spaces etc because we lost one of the Chillers that fed off the switchboard.
In 1993 I think it was same ship was unable to get under way due to only two of six generators operational, unable to pump fuel, and no radar. Two of six generators functional? That meant no Air conditioning thus No Radar. I knew that ships A/C and Refroigeration like the back of my hand.
Hypersonic wave skimming missiles are a big worry for carriers. They can be launched from land, from small boats or from subs. Coming in swarms they are hard to defend against.
Hindsight will be 20/20 on the S-3 retirement. But recall that they’d had their ASW gear yanked years before and had been relegated to tanker and “Sea Control” (long-range armed surveillance) years before. Heck, the last S-3 deployment wasn’t even carrier-based - the last squadron went to Iraq where, outfitted with the LANTIRNs bought for the F-14 fleet, it provided pretty good manned surveillance capabilities.
The loss of the S-3s and their ASW capabilities arose out of the shift from a CBG/CVG to a CSG mindset. IOW the carriers operated as the core of a battlegroup that was intended to go forth and fight the Soviet Navy on the high-seas in a scenario where land bases were out of reach and possibly even smoking holes in the ground. Once they shifted to the “Strike” (power-projection against land targets, with an emphasis on all thing “Littoral”) mentality the S-3s became redundant to the existing P-3 (and now P-8) capabilities. The land-based aircraft could (allegedly) handle the threat through the outer layers, with the helos and then ship-based ASW providing the inner ones.
Of course like I said hindsight is 20/20 and at the moment it looks like retiring the S-3s was lamentable, but also absorb-able given the other capabilities. But that can change. Apparently the S-3s wouldn’t be that difficult to restore to active service (unlike the F-14s which were mostly cut up, the Hoovers are nicely mothballed out at AMARG) and several are currently being flown (VX-30 has three as range control aircraft and NASA-Glenn has another one or two) in a pinch.
Basically you are saying that you agree with my summation.
There.
Fixed.
Not quite. The assumption is that the Rooskis would try to do to our forward bases what we did to the airstrip the Japanese so thoughtfully built for us on Okinawa.
We still had plenty of bases not quite so Spetznaz accessible.
Yes. Space based sea surface radar.
With enough time and enough data averaging they could tease out the little ripple the sub leaves on the surface.
A bit of both...
Survival kit contents check. In them you'll find: one forty-five caliber automatic; two boxes of ammunition; four days' concentrated emergency rations; one drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills; one miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible; one hundred dollars in rubles; one hundred dollars in gold; nine packs of chewing gum; one issue of prophylactics; three lipsticks; three pair of nylon stockings. Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.
The picture is a reflection of the stupidity and arrogance of those calling the shots today. Another one I've seen is four in a row at NOB in Numerical Order.
There is another issue doing this and that is weather risk. A straight liner coming across from Hampton Roads has been known for putting ships out in the channel. It's not rumors I saw it happen before. Our brow blew off, portable buildings on the pier blew away, and a truck flipped. We were on the inside berth of Pier 12 and the Francis Marion I think was the ship opposite of us. When we got the all clear to open hatches and step out Francis Marion was in the channel along with others. Pier 10 I think it's called the new carrier pier is wide open to wind.
We would likely win but not without some firings of the current civilian side leadership from Def Sec on down to Branch Secretaries and likely JCOS as well. Give a sailor a reason to fight and they’ll get it done. The one disturbing thing is you don’t want too or rather really you can’t afford to take maintenance or make it work temp fixes with them on the propulsion plant end the way you could with conventional.
You’re thinking the leadership would want to win the fight. I have not seen the slightest indication that Zero has a spine and that is needed to manufacture the desire to win in a dirty fight.
no kidding.
Lesson not learned, eh?
To be honest? The White House leadership lost interest in winning wars after Truman left office. Since then? Only one POTUS has served that the world understood if needed would give an all out military response. That determination worked.
The big question I guess would be would enough DEMs and GOP come together in a national emergency {attack} that if an appropriate order of response wasn't given that they would proceed to impeach and remove. The problem is that leaves Biden. Maybe his advisers could persuade a needed order maybe not. As for our troops? I'd say 90% plus would be ready to go. The 10% being typical do nothings or the exempted ones not allowed in a couple decades ago.
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