Posted on 10/17/2025 7:19:55 AM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?
Key Points and Summary - In a massive 1999 naval exercise, the Dutch diesel-electric submarine HNLMS Walrus, playing the role of an adversary, achieved a stunning simulated victory against a U.S. aircraft carrier strike group.
-Told it was "expected to lose," the submarine's skilled crew used stealth and passive sonar to penetrate the defensive screen.
-The Walrus "sank" multiple escorts before launching a successful mock torpedo attack on the supercarrier USS Theodore Roosevelt. The carrier is valued at around $4.5 billion and has thousands of personnel on board.
-It then daringly sailed directly underneath the carrier to escape, proving the profound vulnerability of even the most powerful surface fleets to quiet, modern conventional submarines.
Ever since the end of World War II, the aircraft carrier has been the centerpiece of the U.S. Navy's strategy.
Carrier strike groups allow the U.S. Navy to project power all across the world and provide assistance to any allies in need.
However, despite the comprehensive measures taken to protect them, aircraft carriers are not invincible.
In one such instance, a Dutch Walrus-class diesel-electric submarine was able to penetrate an American carrier’s defenses and simulate a successful torpedo strike against it.
This was just one of many instances of a small submarine slipping through a carrier strike group to “sink” a super aircraft carrier.
JTFEX 99-1 was one of the largest naval exercises since the Gulf War, involving 24,000 personnel, with 15,000 at sea, and a vast array of ships and aircraft.
The exercise spanned a massive area from Norfolk, Virginia, to Puerto Rico, simulating a high-intensity conflict scenario.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Never take such reports at face value. In all war games there are limits and conditions to set up such results.
[Think Taiwan Strait. Should the Chicoms do a massive amphibious assault a trap could be set for them. The assault would only happen after a major air assault when all bets are off. The troop carrying ships would/could be sitting ducks.]
“You are going back over 25 years now, I am certain many lessons were learned, and tactics and technologies have changed since.”
We went undetected under the fleet and fired a flare over the carrier during exercises back in 1972.
And we were not allowed to go deep to hide.
I thought the lesson there was that the Brits need to reprogram the computers on their defense systems to recognize that a French Exocet missile fired from an Argentine jet is hostile.
Surface ships are here to stay. Not everything can be done with airplanes and submarines. The role of surface ships in battle will undoubtedly change over time but they are not going to go away. Aircraft carriers are bigtime targets but they are about as well protected as technology allows. I don't dispute that their future usefulness is likely to decline but currently they remain a difficult target to take out and their ability to deploy massive air power is valuable.
Indeed it is! Let’s kick this pig!
There are designs for submersible aircraft carriers.
https://indowflavour.artstation.com/projects/d8L9e1
The fundamental defect not highlighted here is the seeming reliance upon passive sonar by surface combatants.
“Active” sonar.
I disagree.
The Brits fundamentally underestimated the capabilities of the Argentine AF and, combined with both poor intelligence and glaring lack of airborne surveillance - e.g., US Hawkeye - they were left vulnerable.
I view their losses as failure of leadership.
The 5 “P’s”:
Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance............
I think you're making this up.
He was retired when he took on the role of the commander of the aggressor forces; his pension was already carved in stone.
“The exercise rules had the ships stationary, and did not allow the surface fleet to actively search for submarines. Not a realistic scenario.”
Not a realistic post.
In a massive 1999 naval exercise...
[I think you’re making this up.
He was retired when he took on the role of the commander of the aggressor forces; his pension was already carved in stone.]
Van Riper took superhuman to embarrassing levels. Where the rubber meets the road, Iran was unable to sink a single Navy vessel even as its nuclear installations were rubbled. In a backhanded way, Van Riper’s critics proved correct about the limitations of the Iranian military, and not by just a little. For the Iranians not to shoot down a single USAF plane, let alone hole a Navy vessel, is more of a repudiation of Van Riper’s claims than any recitation of the ways in which he made the war game not just irrelevant, but comical.
We set these up to fail.
Plus, most folks in 1999 are retired from the Navy by now.
Why the hell are we worried about this now?
Interesting. So it appears they would go the blockade route-starve them. Does that mean a Berlin Airlift response? Doubt the Chicoms would stop them. Then there’s those islands they’ve built up. During the standoff the pipsqueak Philipine navy could take them over and dare the Chicoms to respond with the US there locked and loaded.
“Underscores the reality that naval surface combatants are obsolete death traps.”
Stand by for the “carriers are invulnerable” crew to arrive.
Nah, it merely calls for upgrade in equipment and procedure.
Our military typically loses all of those international exercises on purpose. They don’t divulge our capabilities and can observe those of future enemies.
That is pretty cool and consistent with the idea that weapon systems will continue to evolve. I suppose it makes sense to design this type of submarine to work both in ice because it is primarily designed to deploy in the artic but also in an ice-free environment just to increase its versatility. I take exception with the article’s mention of a future ice-free artic as a reason for those design considerations. An ice-free artic isn’t going to happen.
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