Defenses on subs to be reviewed

Washington Times ^ | November 14, 2006 | Bill Gertz

[Paul Ross]

Navy officials confirmed yesterday that an aircraft carrier battle group failed to detect a Chinese submarine that surfaced within weapons range of the USS Kitty Hawk. Anti-submarine defenses for the carrier battle group will be reviewed as a result, they said.

[Paul Ross]

The Administration and Congress have been warned:

China's Submarine Challenge

John Tkacik notes therein:

America’s Endangered Submarine Supremacy
In February 2005, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld commented that the size of the Chinese fleet could surpass the United States Navy’s within a decade. “It is an issue that the department thinks about and is concerned about and is attentive to.” Indeed, the U.S. Navy will hold a series of major naval exercises in the Pacific this summer that will involve four aircraft carrier battle groups, including a carrier normally based on the U.S. East Coast. This will be the first time the Navy has deployed an Atlantic Fleet carrier to a Pacific exercise since the Vietnam War.

However, there is little indication that the Pentagon is taking the Chinese submarine challenge seriously. If it were, the QDR issued earlier this month would have recommended that the erosion of the U.S. submarine fleet come to an end."

[pabianice]

Not a problem. The several dozen P-8As the Navy will be able to buy by 2019 will solve that problem... /sarcasm

[bnelson44]

OOPSEE. Some LA Class submariners in trouble!

[Jacquerie]

Anti submarine warfare is the bastard son of the US Navy. It is about time the stinkin' carrier admirals were put in their place, given a history lesson of WW1 and the WW2 Battle of the Atlantic. The best ASW weapon is another sub. Preferably a Seawolf.

[Names Ash Housewares]

How and why is any of this being made public knowledge?

[Jeff Head]

Start by refitting the S-3 Vikings for ASW duty and redeploying them to the carriers. Then repidly build more attack subs such that each CSG is escorted by at least two nuclear attack boats, in addition to those boats fulfilling all of their other duties.

That would be a good start.

Then...rapidly build up the force of Littoral Combat Ships, heavily weighted to anti-mine and anti-submarine warfare in the littorals and take the fight direct to the littorals, finding and outing the diesel electrics that lurk their.

[Blue State Insurgent]

Ruse?

[Severa]

They've stopped the Seawolf class at three boats, the last one being the USS Jimmy Carter. Moving on to the Virginia class now.

[Citizen Tom Paine]

It was my understanding, from my experience in the 50s, that a submarine could approach a large ship without detection if it stayed in the ships wake. Apparently the ChiComs figured this tactic out.

More aggressive ASW work is required by the screening vessels and perhaps the carrier itself.

[Jacquerie]

Virginia class, okay. Whatever, build several dozens of them. China's intentions have been discerned for a couple of decades. History will not look kindly on a US that abandons the far east to the Chicoms.

[Ronin]

The Viking was originally built for ASW. The idiot who downgraded that role needs to be outed and publically flogged.

Carriers are nice, and we need them, but if that Song class had been serious the Kitty Hawk would have been toast. That is doubleplus ungood.

Modern diesel-electric boats are getting faster, quieter, smaller and cheaper. They don't have to snort anywhere near as often as older models and lots of countries are making them.

ASW is serious business and we damn well need to get serious about it again.

[Taylor42]

Stalking the carrier is one thing, but surfacing a few miles from it is something totally different. Why did the Chinese boat surface?

It was to send a message, my take, back off of North Korea.

[Severa]

*LOL* My husband was a sonar tech on a Los Angeles class submarine, and we agree with you that the submarine fleet needs a major boost. It's especially important now that the LA class boats are getting old and are being decommissed at a rate of a handful a year now. Whether or not our current leadership agrees with us remains to be seen...

[rottndog]

Deliberate misinformation.

[RightWhale]

Results of the review are in. The sonar should be turned on in case of possible hostiles. Ping.

[bmwcyle]

I was a submarine sonar tech from 1984 to 1990. Our sonar systems have trouble hearing diesel boats. We knew this for all this time. We have have worked to correct this problems.

[Jacquerie]

I flew the S-3A/B in the Mediterrenean during the cold war. We regularly coordinated our activities with other airborne ASW assets, the P-3, H-3, and H-60.

IMHO, there is no better sub hunter than the latest US attack submarine.

[Severa]

Man I dunno if they'd be that stupid to do something like that, but that's just me. Call me naive or whatever you want.

What I find interesting, and maybe my more submarine experienced friends on here might help me on this, is that there's no mention of one of our SSNs (there's at least one with every carrier battle group) tailing this Chinese boat. That's the feeling I get from this story, that there's more to it that what we're seeing here. Again, I could be wrong.

[BradtotheBone]

Exactly ! People are reading what we want them to hear !

[Jeff Head]

Yes we absolutely and most certainly do need to get much more serios. It is THE critical threat to our CSGs..

But that Song would not have been there in war time situations...at least not very easily at all. We announce where our carriers are going right now...for all the world to see. We shouldn't do that, and wouldn't in any serious conflict with any maritime power.

The DEs are not fast enough and do not have the endurance to try and keep up with, intyercept or shadow a CSG in transit...even the best of them. All they can do is hope to wait in the right place for a CSG to come along. In war, that would be a long shot...but one I am sure they would take.