[Lou L]

...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.

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.

[rlmorel]

Exactly. I think the captain of a carrier knows full well the importance of ASW, but...I think they pooh-pooh it with “Well, that is the responsibility of my screens and the subs underneath me. I’ll let them do their job” and that is it.

They KNOW, but it is a lazy way out.

What we will find out in a future war with countries that have subs, is that our ships may have two choices: Get sunk, or hightail it out of areas where there is known or suspected sub activity.

We saw how well that strategy worked for us in the Guadalcanal campaign back in WWII when our larger ships had to run for it, leaving damaged ships to fend for themselves (or not) or leave the troops on the beach to their own devices.

Better if we didn’t go down that road, but...well...human nature being what it is, I am not hopeful.