| Interesting new development for those of you into modern submarine warfare.
North’s New Midget Subs Are Torpedo Equipped
(Source: Korea JoongAng Daily; published Dec. 7, 2010)
link courtsey of Defense-Aerospace.Com
( http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/120797/north-korea-has-torpedo_armed-midget-subs.html )
What this could mean is,
troublesome nations who previously could not afford submarines (advanced SSK types) could well now afford these modern midget subs if they're put on the export market.
Even if minimally armed (2-4 torps?), the harassment value they represent could considerably tie up ASW assets, moreso for the fact that these subs are true littoral specialists: though their endurance may be limited, the fact they can hide in the shallowest of bays, deltas, ports, even river basins suggests an extreme headache could present itself to nations who could be harassed by these small craft, which could launch their torpedos at vessels or targets in shallower waters where larger submarines, even numerous heavier frigates and destroyers lacking shallow draught, cannot track and pursue them.
There is also the potential that drug sumgglers may well find them affordable: it's already been seen in the Central Americas region that drug smugglers are resourceful enough to create semi-submersible craft (no true submarines in the sense of prolonged underwater duration, but rather semi-submersibles as they operate near-surface and cannot dive to any depths to evade countermeasures other than optical detection).
In previous ASW discussions, a growing trend in torpedo countermeasures has seen a majority of current-crop ASW types (US Mk 50 & Mk54 and Mk46 hybrid derivatives, the troubled Eurotorp MU90 IMPACT, etc) being retrofitted with hardware upgrades and software profiles enabling them to function as hard-kill anti-torpedoes (track and attack inbound larger torpedoes),
but another system that came to light in all these developments has been via Penn State University's Applied Research Lab and its anti-torpedo torpedo (ATT), also known as the Countermeasure, Anti Torpedo (CAT).
Some links I quickly dug up,
Penn State lab develops torpedo countermeasures
( http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_291277.html )
Countermeasure, Anti Torpedo (cat) @ FedBizOpps.Gov (unclassified)
( https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=568b630d6102ec0272db4e034a63037d&tab=core&_cview=1 )
Smaller Is Better @ Military.Com
( http://www.military.com/forums/0,15240,98288,00.html )
and an article from (USN) Navy.Mil's Undersea Warfare site
( http://www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87/usw/issue_32/antitorpedo_2.html )
While certainly these small-form subs could create a lot of headaches, there are capabilities available to curtail their activities.
The question remains: is this going to be the start of a somewhat prolific shallow-water/littoral raider capability for some potentially hostile nations and even pirates and drug smugglers?
It could certainly come as a surprise the first few times these midget subs are used agressively and it's discovered that these are the culprit.
Hopefully, the intel types are watching this North Korean development with great interest... |
