Long ago I was “one of those guys” who would have been tasked with planning, leading, and executing this exact type of mission.
To recap: I’ve locked in and out of nuclear subs. I’ve been a passenger inside mini-subs (SDVs). I dived with air, mixed gas, and pure oxygen (shallow but no bubbles.) I’ve practiced with every kind of explosive above ground and underwater. I even cross-trained with the frogmen of Norway, Denmark and Germany, among others.
One thing I can say with 95% certainty, based on the repeatedly demonstrated caution of our military leadership: this kind of mission would NOT EVER rely on torpedoes dropped from a P-8 Poseidon long-range patrol aircraft, wich is basically a military 737. (In wartime, yes, they’d drop torps to try to destroy enemy subs. In peacetime, this would be a sledge hammer swung blindly in a china shop.)
Why not use the P-8 and air-dropped torpedoes for the pipeline mission? ASSURED CONTROL.
In the past, US Navy and NATO warships have, in training, fired medium and long-range munitions and had disastrous outcomes. Once, a USN ship fired a Sparrow missile and hit a Turkish warship by mistake. Turkish sailors were killed. WHOOPS! Another time a Tomahawk hit a Danish seaside villa (unoccupied, thankfully.) WHOOPS! I could list many, many other “whoopsies!” on this vein when medium or long range ordnance is used. (Theories about TWA Flt 800 also come to mind.)
Multiple torpedoes dropped from a 737 fall into this extremely high-risk category. When doing wartime ASW, you’ll drop all the torps you have going after one enemy sub, “stray” torpedoes be damned.
But in peacetime, as a covert operation weapon? NO WAY.
When you plonk a torpedo out of a USN 737 P-8 jet, there are myriad ways it can turn into a wrong-way “own goal” or a dud that goes aground on a beach on, say, Bornholm Island. Odds are much worse with 4 torpedoes. Not a good look in the world media if 2 or 3 out of 4 pipeline targets are exploded, but a “stray” USN torpedo is photographed next morning on a beach, or is later found, intact, during an investigation, near a pipeline.
To approve a peacetime covert operation like this, the military brass want assurance of a 99% success rate. With 4 targets, that means each weapon must be EXTREMELY reliable and under VERY close human control. With the ability to self-destruct on command at any point in the mission.
That’s why I show these images a lot. The Kearsarge Amphibious Ready Group spent the summer practicing “counter-mine warfare” in the western Baltic (a NATO lake).
Why is this significant? Because “counter mine warfare” can become “pipeline demolition” with a mere change in targeting. (In my old life, this kind of “training” was also known as “cover for action” in spook lingo.) Trust me, a modern enemy sea-mine the size of a refrigerator, half buried in silt, is MUCH harder to find than a pipeline, located on every chart to the meter!
Our military brass are VERY risk averse on controversial covert operations such as these. To sign off on this mission, they would demand that every aspect of the mission be practiced, recently. Training, plus “cover for action.” The high brass don’t just say, “Hell yeah! Why not! Roll the dice! What the hell! Go for it!”
They didn’t get to be peacetime admirals by taking wild risks. They are by nature risk-averse.
They’ll only sign off on a high-profile peacetime covert operation when they are sure their forces can do the mission and not get caught, or leave evidence behind.
Please watch the embedded 4 minute video in the first link, and the short YT video at the 2nd link. Then I’ll post again.
https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/News-Stories/Article/2656237/baltops-50-site-for-experimental-mine-hunting-equipment/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kegFJgpNNmg&ab_channel=DefenseFlashNews
Think of the big unitary Mark 18 Kingfish in the photo below and the submunition-capable Archerfish as basically interchangeable. This is not to say that the Kingfish in the photo can be dropped using the exact Archerfish launcher shown in the 4X photo. What is interchangeable are their capabilities.
Over the past decade plus, our UUV capability has, no pun intended, exploded. Every year, new versions are introduced, tested, and sent out out to the fleet.
But the essential point is that our USN Sea Hawk helicopters, launched form the Kearsarge ARG (BALTOPS 2022 training) or from Gdansk Poland (we have USN Sea Hawks stationed there), can lower "counter-mine" UUVs.
In the 4X "Archerfish" example, that full-size munition-carrier is capable of sending out up to 4 smaller submunitions, each one guided by a fiber-optic cable and controlled second-by-second by an operator in the hovering Sea Hawk. They each have sonar, lights, and a camera to close in on their target and detonate it.
Importantly, instead of the system deploying 4 independently fiber-optic guided sub-munition UUVs, the system can deploy one big Mark 18 Kingfish size unitary munition, carrying 500+ # of high explosive.
The target is, in training, a refrigerator-size sea-floor sea-mine. A charged pipeline is a million times easier to find and destroy.
Very important point: These UUVs are not "dropped" from a P-8 Poseidon 737 at a thousand + feet altitude traveling at a minimum of 150 knots. These UUVs (NOT torpedoes) are LOWERED from a hovering helicopter into the water. A delicate fiber-optic cable must be carefully spooled out, to allow the UUV to be controlled from the helo.
These are NOT "drop and forget" ASW torpedoes. This is why I rule out the Monkeywerz P-8 hypothesis, and rule in the hovering Sea Hawk lowering down fiber-optic-controlled "counter-mine" UUVs theory.
