[DownInFlames]

Diesel boats are very quiet under water running on batteries.

[allendale]

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.

[BenLurkin]

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?

[FlipWilson]

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.

[ExNewsExSpook]

The larger problem here is the inattention (historically) paid to anti-submarine warfare. It became priority one during World War II because the Germans were sinking merchant shipping at a rate faster than we could replace it.

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.

[Carriage Hill]

Over here...

[rfreedom4u]

My brother was on a fast attack sub and he said there are only two types of naval vessels:

submarines and targets

[Mike Darancette]

I don’t know; some of the new ant-ship missiles are wicked bad.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

About five or so years ago there was a single mention of a possible surveillance innovation that would allow a satellite to actually look through the ocean to spot the submarines within.

The article was intentionally vague about the details, other than noting that this capability to see through water was useful at far greater depths than crush depth for submarines.

There has not to my knowledge been a single mention of this capability since. But if it does exist, it would make any unfriendly submarine obsolete.

[cva66snipe]

I think carriers are a lot tougher than even our own Navy realized. A few years ago the Navy spent over a week intentionally firing on a Kitty Hawk Class carrier. Real rounds real hits. It didn't sink her. She went down finally when pre-placed explosives done in the ship yard were detonated. Carriers of today from the Forestall Class on are built much tougher and each class since more so. Not saying it's impossible but just a lot more difficult than many realize. Short of a nuke? No the ship will likely not sink. They have hundreds of WTC's.

As for subs? Well there's a major issue to consider. The sub would have to be considerable distance from the carrier to launch a torpedo with enough payload to inflict major damage. Why? Sound travels in water. A surface to shore would inflict major damage but again one with large enough payload to do the damage would have to be considerable ways off. If you fired a Howitzer off in your living room the house would likely collapse.

[The Great RJ]

Iranian submarine sinks a US warship in the Persian Gulf. Obama will: (a) play golf (b)Send a nasty letter to the mullahs (c) have the State Department sorority girls send nasty tweets (d) beg the UN for help

[DoodleDawg]

bump

[Pelham]

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.

[Delta 21]

Great thread.

The way they talk about it in the story and just from looking at it, that pic looks photoshopped by a third grader.