UK Subs

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elcid The USN/RAN/RN/SN results of Western Australia in Australias sub warfare/training area never get air 7/27/2004 5:46:01 PM

But they do. And they are not making US forces look very effective.

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elcid that means to operate in pairs as the Chinese have this vision of using one as the bait and the othe 7/27/2004 5:52:12 PM

It is very hard to operate together. If there is a friendly in the same "box" one must be pretty careful about shooting - even if one is not confused. And communications is remarkably hard - at least if you don't want to betray your location and intentions to the enemy. I suspect the solution to the ambush idea will not be pairs of patrol submarines - if there is a solution of the sort you have in mind. [The solution might be to avoid littoral operations altogether, so there is no way to hide the hunter of the pair near the bottom. Since littoral operations are the one place the Chinese navy is thought to be dangerous to our subs (even aside from the submarine threat), and since it is less than ideal to operate an SSN in such waters in the first place (its sonar is a lot less effective, and it cannot play games with the layer when there is no layer to play with), it might be this solution is the most practical one. In any case, there is no prospect of deploying enough submarines to deal with a PLAN fleet surge.

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Nemesis1 RE:Brits 7/29/2004 4:57:47 PM

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gf0012-aust Training results: 7/30/2004 12:49:14 AM

will try once more to post, darn website keeps on carking it. but as per the training results for the USN off WA - BOLLOCKS - all data is not available. If someone is telling you all the results then they're indulging in onanism. In the last 2 months there has been a significant shift in the USN attitude to sub warfare - if the source hasn't included that in conversations then he's 2nd guessing.

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elcid In the last 2 months there has been a significant shift in the USN attitude to sub warfare 8/2/2004 5:30:40 AM

There is this change: The USN established a new ASW training facility in California. The idea was to raise the bar a little. But it is a vast oversimplification to claim the fundamental attitude has changed. On the contrary, most USN people have little knowledge of ASW, and the vast reduction in ASW specialists is ongoing - not abating. Similarly, the funding is going for lots of programs, but not for replacements for the Spruance destroyers or the Lafayette frigates, nor for restoring the S-2 to its ASW role or augmenting the P-3 force as needs to be done. Instead, P-3s still fly over land in Iraq, hunding terrorists, not submarines. This "anyone who says all is not changed is uninformed" statement is pretty uninformed itself. For the informed people are worried, not sanguine.

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doggtag US ASW assets, or lack thereof.... 8/2/2004 11:42:41 PM

I agree that since our former Soviet adversary has fallen into disarray with their sub assets, we have become lax in the ASW department. Even with the ALWT and hybrid 12.75inch torps, the latest Mk48 ADCAPs, and the massive 660mm beasts of the few Seawolfs, we seem to be not realizing that those weapons are only as good as the detection equipment and crews manning the systems. We may well have to "get educated" in the latest ASW capabilities by a foreign nation. What with our involvement in trials and programs from other countries, perhaps we should lease a Nansen from Norway for about a year and get our USN and USCG (yes, they should know it also) crews up to snuff on just how effective current subs are and the level of training and equipment needed to acquire them. Perhaps it will take an incident of a "throwback" non-nuke sub to sink a US surface vessel for us to realize we need a balanced, all around force, not just "own the air" mentalities. We get too foolish and start thinikng that just because we haven't faced off against a competent sub force, we never will. I only hope that with such an attitude, we never have to..

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elcid We are already being sunk by non-nukes (and USCG is NOT in ASW) 8/8/2004 7:20:19 AM

There have been several incidents where non-nuclear submarines have done far too well against US forces in exercises in the past couple of years. And formally USCG has removed all submarine detection gear and ASW weapons from the few vessels that had a "secondary" capability. While I am offended at this, it is true it was more of a "feel good" thing than a real one: you cannot have a "secondary" ASW role that you treat as a tenth rate priority and be any good at it. USCG diserves the submariners saying "there are two kinds of ships - submarines and targets" in spite of its proud ASW history. I would change that, but I take ASW seriously. The fact is that terrorism must be the USCG priority, along with other border and maritime protection issues. The real problem is that no one wants to do ASW any more, and even those who do are not given the time they need, and the training opportunities, to get good at it. Worse than this, it appears that not even our best in the Cold War was very good. One can tell tales on both sides of the equation - there are stories of patrol planes and even destroyers making submarines miserable - one sub even surfaced with an (unarmed) ASROC torpedo in its sail after dening it had been close to the weapon (surely they heard it hit but apparently thought no one would know). But far too much evidence suggests that even the best sub hunters would not do very well against real submarines not playing with rediculous restrictions about where they can be and what they can do. The vaunted NATO ASW specialists - the RN - failed to sink the only submarine operating as such in 1982 (although they did manage to sink an ancient relic running supplies on the surface - using helicopters and anti-surface missiles rather than ASW weapons). They thought they had spotted the enemy enough to expend weapons about 200 times, and apparently they were right exactly one time - but didn't manage to deter either of two attacks - both of which failed after torpedo fire control solution when wires broke. I do agree the RN is better at ASW than USN was, impressively so: so I am not pleased they could not find a submarine even when it was there to find. I am also not pleased they could not tell a whale from a submarine most of the time. Granted both are underwater things, it is still not good news.

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gf0012-aust We are already being sunk by non-nukes - elcid 8/8/2004 7:41:11 AM

then how would you consider the outcomes of DS31 compared to prev results? there's a doctrinal response and theres an outcome response in the above.