US NAVY punked by upstart Third Worlders!

Originally posted by defcon5
...Its not like the Nanny Ship did not have to cross one of those patches of ocean and pay the tolls to get it there.

I repeat: The tolls for submarines are excessive (as well as the costs to drive a fully equipped and manned warship around the world). In 2003, Submarines counted for less than 0.1% of Canal transits within their type segment... but paid 5% of the toll fees. Go figure...

Not to forget, it sure is a pain in the backside to access certain civilian harbors/tank ships with a non-NATO warship.

What you two cannot take a lighthearted jab, bit on the defensive aren’t we?

First rule of a good joke is that it cannot backfire on the comedian

[edit on 21/10/2006 by Lonestar24]

Originally posted by defcon5
Yes, I am well aware or the location of Sweden as well as San Diego. I realize they would have to go through the Canal, around the Horn, or over the Arctic. But hey they wanted the training for the crews, why not give it to them…

Or maybe they should hold the war games in Lake Michigan...

Its not like the Nanny Ship did not have to cross one of those patches of ocean and pay the tolls to get it there.

What you two cannot take a lighthearted jab, bit on the defensive aren’t we?

I think it was partly due to the US being cheapskate and not paying the Swedish for the transit of a fully manned sub.

Originally posted by planeman

I think it was partly due to the US being cheapskate and not paying the Swedish for the transit of a fully manned sub.

Planeman,

Actually this very scenerio you propose is what happened to the USS Cole in Yemen harbor.

US Navy ships ..especially under certain Presidential Administrations are tasked with going into foreign harbors to spread goodwill and "moneys" around to help in these nations. This is nothing but politics and it resulted in the deaths of many sailors.

YOu wont find this information on the web...I found it out from several olde Navy Chiefs.
I am sure there are several retired Navy peoples on this and other threads who can confirm.

The Swedish being a soverign nation have the option to turn down the opportunity to operate against our boats in these exercises.

We...the United States of America are "Breastfeeding" many nations and "Many" nations have gone so far as to think this is thier due....entitlement. I see this in many of your posts. The major "Nation" we breastfeed" is that usless bunch in New York called the United Nations.

My apologies to the board for getting off topic here. I remind some of the other posters that people are crossing the oceans in Rowboats and very small sailboats. The Gotland would have no problem navigating to any destination it requires. Submarines tend like surface ships to have many modes of navigation available from simple star sightings/stellar navigation/sextant to GPS.

Thanks,
Orangetom

Originally posted by orangetom1999
We...the United States of America are "Breastfeeding" many nations and "Many" nations have gone so far as to think this is thier due....entitlement. I see this in many of your posts. The major "Nation" we breastfeed" is that usless bunch in New York called the United Nations.

You see what in many of my posts?

Originally posted by planeman

Originally posted by orangetom1999
We...the United States of America are "Breastfeeding" many nations and "Many" nations have gone so far as to think this is thier due....entitlement. I see this in many of your posts. The major "Nation" we breastfeed" is that usless bunch in New York called the United Nations.

You see what in many of my posts?

Planeman,

Entitlement mentality.

Thanks,
Orangetom

No you don't. I guess you just see what you want to see to validate your political bias'.

Thanks Stellar,

What it comes down to is either the USN has a lot of toy enablers in their playbook (look through on the oceanic basins would be a HUGE technical edge) that they are not talking about or they are indeed setting themselves up to for a very rude awakening for which no amount of 'Remember Pearl Harbor!' ("Varus, give me back my Legions!" might be closer) will suffice as we will be operating as an offensive force in an area where we ARE NOT wanted

The value of CVSF is so high and our tendency to operate in regions which demand inshore ops for geographic (PG) or operational (AfG) reasons so common that we simply _cannot_ afford to treat ANY ASW threat as an 'engageable' one.

Because, with the systems we now have obviously on the board, that can only mean killing them at the same or shorter distances than they can do for us and value-for-value _no matter who has the technical edge_ that is simply unacceptable. Particularly when many of the petrowealthy and Communist-Capitalist countries, include military doctrine which specifically puts people in a position to die just to /embarrass/ the U.S.


KPl.

Lonestar,

>>
Sorry, I´m losing you there.

First, you say that the modern fuel cell approach is "largely unchanged" from the Walter prototype. This may be true for almost all kinds of AIP systems so far EXCEPT the german fuel cells of U212A and U214, since most others still use a form of combustion engine. The Fuel cells however are a decidedly different approach.
>>

The overall range penalties remain unchanged and indeed can be said to be exacerbated in that now you have gone from a 2-source power system to a three source system in which one of volume-competitors is additionally highly explosive.

i.e. Without definitive operational radii your sortie lengths and prepositioning intervals become very predictable.

>>
Second: What do you mean with the "reduction in operational range"? The surface/snorkel range of modern submariens are usually 8000nm or higher, and the submerged range using AIP is DECIDEDLY better than any previous battery-based range - try and find a submarine that does more than 500nm on batteries, hmm? (I don´t really know where to fit your "2500nm range" in.)
>>

Discovery Channel's 'Modern Weapons' or whatever it is (The ex-SEAL narrator) stated that the U-212 range was on the order of 2,500nm.

Which means that both your maximum patrol area and lead time to get there is going to be a lot more littoral than you might wish.

>>
Yes, the AIP does not work endlessly as it consumes its own share of fuel... but calling it a "one-per-engagement afterburner" misses the point. The usual modus operandi still is the Diesel-electric cruising with the ADDITIONAL capability of engaging the AIP whenever necessary. The AIP usually has a lower power output than what the charged batteries can deliver, so this defies your assessment of AIP being an "afterburner", and with its endurance certainly not "one-per-engagement".
>>

Because to engage a CVSF you need to be able to MOVE at 20 knots for extended periods, very quietly. You get bogged down with a pair of helos running sonobuoy 'L's and/or a dunker and a TACTASS on a picket and you can burn off your 'A/B time' in just one engagement trying to move past a threat screen to get /into/ engagement parameters.

>>
3. Of course a nuclear boat like the Seawolves is faster with a higher range... but who exactly needs this performance? The ones that include the whole globe into their "national interest sphere". A nation that however keeps a Navy to protect its own waters does not need nuclear boats.

The term "littoral waters boat" does not only describe the technique a sub operates on... it also describes its whole purpose. Once you enter coastal waters or narrow shipping lanes, you suddenly realize that the Ocean has become A LOT smaller than it looks on the map... and you don´t need your excessive speed and endurance anymore... you need to be small, silent and evasive. A huge Seawolf will ALWAYS be in a worse position against a pair of small coastal subs that together cost half and and have half the crew of the huge nuclear boat.
>>

First off, as I said, I have no pity for those who die like rats crushed in a mailtube by a semi. Because there is no margin between 'acceptable battle damage' and _dead_ in a game where the target area is some 350ft long.

Secondly, you're thinking only from one side of the equation. I'm trying to say in my head "Okay, so what IS 'acceptable' given we can no longer count on for-NATO-only control over the export/proliferation of these systems?"

And the answer I continuously come up with is range overmatch as a function of COE.

If a carrier operates a minimum 300-400nm out into the blue with a 1,000nm+2hr radius strike wing capability (i.e. nothing Manned-Moronic) THEN your blue water nuke boat starts to have real value. Because the bastion you are trying to sanitize against SSKs can be 'anywhere' over the local radar horizon which means that the threat sub has limited vectoring and has to come waaaaay out there, looking for you THROUGH a maze of fast lay SOSUS, robotic hunting subs and CAPTOR++ type mines (SCT torpedoes taking datalink handoffs from satellite networks on a creep-to-sprint basis of potentially 100nm engagement distances) inshore.

If you can layer your defenses, you gain time as a function of hull size required to generate persistent hunting-cruise. And your SSN in particular again becomes dominant through a better hull and a faster _sustained_ transit through it's given patrol zone which lets it dominate layer-warfare at or off the deep continental shelf and into the abyssals.

CONCLUSION:
The best conventional ASW tool is active sonar. Particular in blue water conditions, it gives you immense, 360`, coverage range options from which there is little to be gained in conventional quieting tactics and for which 'bistatics' is already a given.

However; this option comes at a cost in letting everyone and their mother know you are out there. Such is where I would put all efforts in AIP work. Because a small sub which is neither cost nor human life restricted in it's emission patterns can act like a wolf howling it's prey into the jaws of fellow hunters.

If you fight back, you are trading million dollar warshots for 10-50 million dollar hunters that are likely 60-70 knot capable themselves.

And you are making noise in the process which will only serve to let a gertrude-to-relay-buoy system call in more help as you effectively isolate and confirm your position by your very efforts to survive.

Talking about manned-anything in this context is _stupid_. Because even a 212 or Gotland class is going to run the better part of a billion dollars before you get a trained up crew rotation and tactical patrol capability bedded down. While, to the baseline construction-by-ton pricing leverage of robots must be added the notion that, as with UAVs, cost is a direct equivalent to scale in the fuel cell technology as a function of productionized:power output.

Seen under a harsher light, The Dolphineer Clubs' 'worries over AIP boats' is really just another Tradition looking to self-perpetuate itself through paranoid means in the face of the most efficent alternative ('submarine tender' gains a whole new meaning when you are looking at refueling/recovering automated patrol systems with 10-14 day sortie times) to completely, cheaply, suppressing the threat.

When Kim Jong Il pulls this cult of personality crap as a means to personal dynastic integrity, we call it totalitarian and insane.


KPl.

Have any of you people actually heard sonar operating from a submarine. I dont mean in movies ..I mean actually heard the real thing?? Active sonar??

Think long and hard on this one.

Orangetom

Originally posted by orangetom1999

Have any of you people actually heard sonar operating from a submarine. I dont mean in movies ..I mean actually heard the real thing?? Active sonar?

I am no expert on the navy or subs, but to my knowledge subs don’t run with active sonar, they use a passive sonar unless they are sending a ping for some reason.

I guess what I am saying is that I don’t get your point, please explain it…

Originally posted by orangetom1999

Have any of you people actually heard sonar operating from a submarine. I dont mean in movies ..I mean actually heard the real thing?? Active sonar??

Think long and hard on this one.

Orangetom

OT1999,


What's your point? Though they don't use it very much for fear of pinpointing their own location, all subs from the late fifties onwards have the capability. Whether it be a small thimble atop an early boomer or occupying the entire bowdome.

My understanding is that because of the size of the later systems especially, they are generally LF which makes for a very long sustained peak BA-WAAAH sound when it hits the hull of another target as a function of the large amplitudes/long period effect creating a resonant pattern in the hull before reverberating back.

Far more power than say a sonobuoy could generate and thus largely unmoderated by tile dampening systems as an effective return.

What I specifically said was that active sonar _on a robot_ gives you the option to make the sanitization process very quick over wide areas, simply because you can pound the water and then sprint off, only to pound the water again while your _partner_ listens for echoes and then you switch places.

Given you do it in a small enough body enclosure without high frequency beat sources inherent to a conventional propellor system, I doubt if even the flow noise of a super-torpedo moving at speed would be discernible much outside 3-4,000yds.

But I wouldn't be surprised at all if you couldn't get decent _bistatic_ returns within a 7-8,000 yard circle. That's 4nm people. If you can keep your drag (as a modifier to power:weight and fuel consumption as much as noise) levels low thanks to massively reduced frontal areas and patrol at 40 knots for even just 7 hours on a 10 minute cycle of Sprint-to-Drift coverage overlaps, you are looking at 168 miles of ocean under constant patrol from _one pair_ of hunters.

In a world where 20 knots is considered to be pushing the envelope for quiet speeds, there is no way for any manned boat to penetrate that kind of defense on even a 650:50 million dollar asset valued level. Because you are looking at a 13:1 'presence ratio' which means that, like a bus on a route, the NEXT pair of robots (out of 4 total with a spare) could easily be fifteen minutes behind or fifteen miles further inwards towards the center of an exclusion zone that is a hundred miles across.

And in the 10 minutes of a single STD cycle, a 20 knot sub is going to move less than three miles. While in 15 minutes, it's going to change locii by only 5.

Assuming it's not locked in mortal combat with a freakin' silicon chip that moves twice as fast with the same noise signature and _doesn't care_ if it's own position is given away because it is doing what all good sentries do: screaming 'HELP!' at the top of it's lungs.

Go ahead and /try/ to crunch a robot that moves like a torpedo.

Or the quick-lay passive array hydrophones that support it.

Like that certain corn chip: _WE WILL MAKE MORE_. And in the time you are wasting trying to nail a gnat with a hammer, you will be bringing 10 kinds of ugly down on you while You Too are noisy trying to avoid the kamikaze sentry system hell bent on a pulling you into a 'Muslim Hug'.

At 300ft or more underwater, near is good enough with a couple hundred pounds of torpex or the modern day equivalent. And again, I _will trade you_ a half billion dollar boat for a 50 million dollar robotic torpedo-sub.


KPl.

You guys arent thinking hard enough.

I wont explain it for certain security reasons but you told me enough of what I need to know.

I am not talking about movies or video games...or what is in Janes or whatever defense publications or web sites are wont to put out certain informations.

I merely ask you gentlemen to think about what you are saying. Suggest some of you use the KISS principle.

Keep working on it.

Thanks,
Orangetom

Ahhh Yes,

The old "I'm too sensitively connected to come out and say it but I'll let you pretend I have a clue" argument.

The one thing I've tended to see as a constant in separating those in the know from those who wish they were is that they who hold sensitive information cannot comment at all and won't even try to disinform for fear of reprisals from those who can ruin them in a your-life-as-a-signature-here sort've way.

That said-

www.e-telescope.gr...

Sure looks like an HF send, LF receive bow array to me.

And as long as you insist on wasting time with acoustics for general localization for (much later) approach-to-kill short range engagement _within the threats counterfire capabilities_; you're better off doing things robotically than trying to be 'subtle' with a 350ft hole-in-water approach.

KISS that OT.


KPl.

P.S. There has GOT to have been some kind of change in the seawarfare strategy by which subs are doctrined into the overall warfighter approach.

Because the littorals where you expect to find SSKs is exactly where you DON'T want plant noise. So why go from a 40ft Seawolf (potentially easily compatible with a natural circulation stack) to a 30ft Virginia class hull diameter which is more or less back to being a late LA class 'mission platform' for landattack and special warfare systems with a PWR?

IMO, the only answer is that they think that they have the bluewater undersea superiority game wrapped up and so don't need more than 2 platform while they are doing the littoral ASW mission with something cheap and simple to save the Virginia's the trouble.

At least I hope so because planting a nuke boat inshore is not only embarrassing (politically, environmentally and intel wise) it is also NOT what these platforms will be 'best at', provided only that they can get the sub-to-surface LINK arranged sufficiently to run a UAV+SOF+CM game as an instant-on power projection system without the contestiveness of a CV group.

Use them as the high value assets they are and then SURROUND them like a spider in a web of remote bodyguard and monitoring assets.

[edit on 22-10-2006 by ch1466]

Originally posted by orangetom1999

You guys arent thinking hard enough.

I wont explain it for certain security reasons but you told me enough of what I need to know.

I am not talking about movies or video games...or what is in Janes or whatever defense publications or web sites are wont to put out certain informations.

I merely ask you gentlemen to think about what you are saying. Suggest some of you use the KISS principle.

Keep working on it.

Thanks,
Orangetom

Lol, you think that anyone is going to believe that you are a genuine expert?

KPI, I see the sense in what you are saying. There are already some navies looking at the practicalities of off-board sonar "hunters" - beyond towed arrays. The Swedish are an obvious example: www.kockums.se... (promotional clip by manufacturer of Gotland class AIP SSK)

www.kockums.se...

I neve said I was an expert. I merely asked if any of you had actually heard a subarine sonar in operation..not in video games not on a web site etc etc. This is not drama nor histronics. It is an interrogatory statement. A question.

Thanks,
Orangetom

Planeman,

Well, aside from taking me about 2 run thrus to 'get the plot of the story' (convoluted mission justifications as a means to sneak by the manned-uber-alles defense); the big problem with using a true torpedo sized (limited by launch tube diameter and length) system is that not only do you get volumetrics compromises on total endurance. But your useful value vestment fraction goes down for much the same reason as it would if you cut the wire on a conventional fish.

If you are going to stay that small, what I would like to see is something like a Chinook or V-22 recoverable system which can cruise for extended periods within a given ops area and still be _light enough to be extracted_ at the end-of-mission window (GPS mast and some kind of interrogateable beacon) to be pulled and flown back at 100-150 knots for refueling and relaunch, possibly even reinsertion if weight allows.

Such allows you to really configure your on station times with a minimum of 'getting back as much as there' interval.

Like I said, 'wasp waisting' MMP/OI asside, the day of the submarine tender may well be dawning again because these are essentially _simple_ systems which could be mounted on a high performance trawler or merchant hull, well away from the primary battle group.


KPl.

how do the british 'astute class' subs compare when they enter service??

I still don't understand the point Orangetom is trying to make.

But don't those carrier group surface ships have that new super sonar that kills whales miles away? Those things won't light up everything thing in the ocean like a 2000 watt floodlight? Spot anything hidding around just incase.

Like if you were assulting another country. Have the surface naval ships blast the water ahead for a few hundred miles, let the hunter subs running escort go in for the kill on the enemy fish that will be light up like a christmas tree. THen allow the surface ships to enter the choke point drop tones of captator mines on their way through the choke point and then leave a sub behind to keep rear security and maybe launch a few tomahawks at some land targets. while the carrier group are now in a green zone so to speak where they are dominating the cost line. The only threat would then be surface ships and air power, maybe a few land to ship missiles which could get cleaned out fast by a few airstrikes and a fast moving ground force to control the costal land. Not a military stratagist but wouldn't that work to some degree.

Originally posted by orangetom1999

Have any of you people actually heard sonar operating from a submarine. I dont mean in movies ..I mean actually heard the real thing?? Active sonar??

Think long and hard on this one.

Orangetom

While you guys are beating up on Orangetom, I'd point out he is asking a legit question.

Keep in mind over a 1 billion dollars a year are spent in preventing the US Navy from using Active Sonar in exercises and tests. They spend that much money for a reason.

And in the meantime, in case you were wondering, I am an expert on the US Navy, and anyone who wants to debate that can first go back and review my threads on ATS.

What do you make of Akulas in the Indian Ocean Darksided? (presuming you're Australian)
Because the Agosta 90B PN subs are rumored to have AIP and I doubt the IN Scorpenes are going to have the same.
The AIP subs(probably 1 and maybe 3) will pose a major threat for the IN surface fleet.

Originally posted by orangetom1999

Have any of you people actually heard sonar operating from a submarine. I dont mean in movies ..I mean actually heard the real thing?? Active sonar??

Think long and hard on this one.

Orangetom

Yes I have. I've heard the active sonar from a Los Angelas class attack sub, by way of the dipped sonar transducer in an SH-3H Sea King helicopter. One thing that you need to consider about active sonar. Active sonar in shallow water is almost usless unless it is used at short range in a directed beam. The frequency of the sonar also needs to vary between pulses.

Ever hear of a "convergence zone"? You get a convergence zone where sound energy that is reflected off of both the surface and bottom converges. Think of it like a pair of sine waves exactly 180 degrees off from each other. Where they converge is the convergence zone. If a target is in the zone it can be detected at a greater distance. The problem with shallow water is that there are too many convergence zones too close together and this creates interference.

I could go into more detail but I'm not sure what is and is not classified these days. I got out of ASW 19 years ago. Nothing that I have mentioned here hasn't already been published in Popular Science or by Tom Clancy. By the way I remember when Clancy was investigated by the Navy for information in "The Hunt For Red October". One of the pilots in my squadron went to High School with him and was questioned by NIS.