ASW is extremely unromantic. And labor intensive. And expensive. It takes a fusion of technology and tactics in this day and age, and as you said pabianice, it is a orchestra of skills, tactics, communications and deployments that have to be practiced all the time, or it doesn’t work.
In general, I believe most upper brass USN line officers understand the importance and necessity of ASW even if they don’t like it, but, like kids with a shiny toy, they are easily distracted by bigger and shinier toys. You never, ever see video or images of ships doing ASW, because...it doesn’t look like anything to an outsider. You always see them launching missiles, firing their guns, etc.
And ASW likely wasn’t viewed as being necessary “at this time” by those same people, which is a flaw. We all do it, administering to the fire that is burning our ass the hottest, but ASW needed to be maintained and it wasn’t.
And the problem is, civilians with power and purse strings need to be explained to and convinced ASW is important and necessary, or they are going to do what they want.
FWIW, I loved the S-3 from an aviation perspective. I thought it was a beautiful aircraft, made an interesting sound, and those wings seemed elegant, especially when unfolded. I have no idea how good they were from an ASW perspective, but they sure did seem like very cool planes to me. I always thought that if I could have a private plane to fly around, I wanted a C-1 Cod (Trader) or an S-3 Viking, assuming I would be taking people, luggage and equipment to places! One night in a storm, I climbed into the wheel well of one of those things and took a nap while my buddy kept a lookout. (There was no flying in that storm, so I wasn’t concerned I was going to wake up to the sound of the gear being retracted after a cat shot!) I felt like you could almost put a couch in there...
Being a sonar technician on a fancy, guided-missile cruiser in the late-1980s, I understand completely. Although there are some very capable surface platforms from which to conduct ASW ops, ASW is not their primary mission.
I think for the most part, the brass has resigned itself to allowing the sub force to conduct ASW; subs are far more capable than the surface for finding and tracking other subs, anyway.
The surface fleet, along with IUSS, SOSUS, satellite, and whatever other sensors they have will all provide auxiliary ASW functions to the sub fleet.
I have a buddy who joined the navy in the early 80’s. Before the Regan buildup took hold. Assigned to the Nimitz, elinsisted, worked on S-3s.
They had MAD - I remember him mentioning it.
He didn’t last more than two years. Old civilian habits had him fail a wiz quiz.
S3s were also used as tankers.
S3’s had a nickname I remember hearing. “Hoovers” because they sounded like a vacuum cleaner LOL.