If N Korea could use subs to deliver nukes.....

I can answer the last poster's question simply: Yes, it is that good.

The reason I can be so sure is because of one simple fact: North Korea only has Diesel Submarines.

Diesels run on battery power when they are underwater, and when those batteries run out, they must run the engines in order to charge them. Think of it like this: if you are underwater in the pool, and you can only use your ears to find things, someone who isn't paddling is going to be a heck of a lot harder to find than someone who is.

Now I'm not saying that it isn't impossible for a diesel to go completely quiet. In fact, that is about the only advantages that diesel submarines have down on their nuke brethren. Nuke subs have moving parts to circulate the water which cools the reactor. The only way a nuke sub can be completely quiet is if its reactor is shut down, which makes it useless. But this is something that many of the newer submarines (I think starting with the Seawolf class maybe....not sure) this is being overcome. Soon this be a thing of the past and nuke subs are going to be capable of being superquiet just like diesels.

When a diesel starts its engines, its going to be detected so long as it is within range of any ship's sonor or of the SOSUS. The only way I could think of getting around this would be to have a detailed map of the SOSUS, and navigating around it, which I think is about as likely to happen as Russia just giving the US the plans to the Su-47 fighter or something like that.

Originally posted by DontTreadOnMe
Our submarine surveillance is so good that it is not possible for one to get near our ports?
Has it ever happened that a foreign sub ended up undetected in US waters?


BTW, thanks for all the great info

There area a couple of articles that may help you understand the answer to that question:

1)An incident involving a chinese sub(this one was an old noisy nuclear one though) intruding in Japanese territorial waters. Now remember that the Japanese ASW (anti sub warfare/weaponry?) tech is definitely one of the best in the world if not the best. It is highly probable that the Chinese were testing the the reach of Japanese ASW capabilities here.

Good Read

2)AIP technology which just maybe can be applied to NK subs, but thats a very remote possibility:
AIP(Air independant Propulsion?) technology allows diesel subs to remain submerged for longer durations thus drastically improving stealth longevity in Open seas.
The USN was recently involved in hunting war games with a Gotland Class Swedish diesel electric sub having AIP, and they(USN)didn't find it to be extremely easy to detect/hunt down that Swedish sub.

AIP 101


ATS Links on the Gotland-USN exercise:

www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Keeping the above two points in mind, IMHO it is not impossible for NK subs to slip through USN ASW nets, but it is highly improbable not only because USN ASW is good, but also because the N Koreans would need to jazz up their sub fleet by a LOT to be able to even attempt such a thing..





EDIT: Needed to debug my bbcode


[edit on 19-10-2006 by Daedalus3]
mod edit, fixed code

[edit on 20-10-2006 by DontTreadOnMe]

Hmm, very interesting on both accounts!

The article for the Chinese sub intrusion makes a very important point: the Chinese sub was probably a Han class sub, which is very noisy for a nuclear submarine. Also it said that the JMSDF had been tracking the sub for days before it even went into territorial waters.

As for the AIP, I hadn't heard anything on this, so I'm amazed! If this could get a little bit more effective, you could see the development of an alternative to Nuclear Subs (I know I'm overstepping on that, but for less developed countries it would be a real idea). I had known that there were some experiments with fuel-cells, but that was the last time I was 'caught-up' with sub tech (which was probably back in the late 90's...).

Although I have to make an important point on this: Does North Korea have access to purchase an AIP capable sub? I don't think so, since if they can't produce it in their own country, and if China won't sell it to them, there wouldn't be any other access points, would there?

Really interesting stuff!

Mods plz help with my post above!!
I thought I'd fixed it but its all messed up..
Forgot a '/' in '[/url]' I think..

AIP is not with the N Koreans, and it is rumored to be recently acquired by the Chinese.

There's no reason to believe that North Korea has suitcase nukes.
Building a nuclear bomb that small is HARD!

If they were to aquire one, it would be a purchased bomb from Russian stockpiles... and in that case, it's prolly safer that North Korea would have one that many of the other people out there.

I wouldn't worry much about North Korean subs, with or without suitcase nukes.