Why not a Ballistic missile/Attack sub?

reply to post by Harlequin


But what about the extension of the Seawolf class sub USS Jimmy Carter? Originally the submarine is about 350 feet in length, and this boat has extended to another 100ft to total of about 450 feet. It has barely lost any of its potency to act like a true attack sub while able to do special operations in littoral warfare where the original Seawolf cannot.

see I'm not crazy. The US has some serious stuff under the hood of their subs. Just to be clear I still think the Astute kicks ass. it's a bad ass boat period, full stop end of story. it can hand most (just about everything except maybe a few other boats that exist) navy's their hiney on a silver platter and with ease.

Personally it doesn't matter which boats are better in regards to the US and UK. we are both on the same side. and if I was on a US ship and knew an astute was down there somewhere escorting us I'd feel pretty damned safe. but all that being said the US navy fleet is on a whole other level.

The jimmy carter is a great boat. but it isn't used like a hunter killer. its a modified Seawolf but this boat is meant to do some serious spying and sneaking. not dog fights with navy vessels. it's a quite boat and yes it could attack just about anything, but it's torpedos and other basic weapons are probably meant for defense only in a last ditch resort.

She isn't supposed to make contact with anything other than undersea fiber optic cables, and enemy sosus systems. hte Jimmy carters job is to sneak in spy and sneak out. the extension is a wasp hull I believe and it's meant to carry seal delivery vehicles secretly to their insertion points. hide in waters with 109's prowl and to remain unnoticed like a very serious game of marco polo.

The extension could also be used like the cargo bay of the space shuttle to ferry equipment to secret undersea location.

The sea wolf and the NR1 probably have a whole lot in common.

reply to post by BASSPLYR


All the attack submarines are capable of spying, the Jimmy Carter was specially modified with more capabilities as you mentioned than the rest of the sub fleet, but it still is capable of what other attack subs can do. Its still a Seawolf.

yes and no. in an ambush which would be easy for it since it's so stealthy it will kill anything, but in a head to head confrontation with another capable modern sub, it's hull extension would make it's maneuvering a little ungainly. they have packed so much cool top secret stuff in that boat that no captain or admiral would ever use the carter like that. she is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay toooo valuable to the US navy fleet.

I bet if we really knew what that sub packed we would never even consider using her as a pure attack sub, or even want to get into that sort of thing with her.

She does enough super cool stuff. she doesn't need bragging rights about sinking frigates and escort cruisers. all the other stuff she does is probably the envy of every other sub captain and xo in the know.

But yes I suspect she could smack around most boats and ships with ease. it's just not what you'd want to do with her.

it's like trying to race a stretched out lamborghini meant to seat 4 instead of 2. yeah it could probably give a mercedes a run for it's money but wouldn't you rather reserve that job and roll to the normal lamborghini? It's better at it. It's like using a mercedes braubus to race instead of a 65SL AMG.

You'd want to keep both cars to their respective rolls.

And yes the seawolfs are the lamborghinis of the sea. no doubt.

[edit on 13-7-2008 by BASSPLYR]

reply to post by BASSPLYR


Even with its hull extension the Jimmy Carter is still capable of going on a dogfight one on one with another nuclear attack submarine.

Various information tells you that it still can.
www.submarinehistory.com...

JIMMY CARTER will also be special-warfare-capable as well as Arctic-capable, and will be able to dive to in excess of 800 feet, and will carry, among other weapons, a varying mix of Mark-48 anti-submarine torpedoes, Harpoon surface-to-surface missiles, Tomahawk anti-ship and land-attack missiles, and mines. It sports an eight-tube, double deck torpedo room to simultaneously engage multiple threats. With twice as many torpedo tubes and a 30% increase in weapons magazine size over the LOS ANGELES-class submarines, JIMMY CARTER will be capable of establishing and maintaining battlespace dominance. Among the broad spectrum of missions likely to be assigned to JIMMY CARTER, according to the Navy, are anti-submarine and anti-surface ship warfare, surveillance and intelligence collection, mine warfare, special warfare, and covert cruise missile attacks (such as those launched against Iraq during the Gulf War). But, as the last and most advanced ship of the SEAWOLF-class, JIMMY CARTER has also been chosen to serve as a test bed for studying the evolution of submarine missions in the 21st century. JIMMY CARTER will support classified research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) efforts for naval special warfare missions, tactical undersea surveillance, and undersea warfare concepts.

navysite.de...

As the most advanced submarine in the SEAWOLF - class, the JIMMY CARTER has built-in flexibility and an array of new warfighting features that enable her to prevail in any scenario and against any threat – from beneath Artic ice to shallow water.

well She certainly can kick ass. Great article by the way. but I personally think that the carter although capable of doing everything thats said in the article is stricktly used to do a refined sort of spying. THey may be talking about all the threats it can attack to take attention away from it's real capabilities in the spying espionage and SF delivery arena. Hell they gotta talk about something in the article and god knows it's main mission isn't something they can disclose which is spying and delivering all sorts of spooky stuff to undisclosed locations.

I still doubt that she will be used to attack offensively fleets of ships. it's much smarter to leave that to a normal seawolf or a virginia or any 688. they are all equally capable in kicking survace ships butts.

The carter is being used sorta like a test bed for new systems and tech. the nifty multiple attack capabilities are probably being tried out on the carter to get the systems ready to put into all the new boats. shes a test bed in a way.

You think the carters a killing machine. wait until they put these systems into the seawolfs and virginias. if they haven't already. besides those boats could be testing out tech thats so secret that they won't even talk about it in any article. stuff that maybe even the carter can't do. no two boats in the fleet are alike not even all the 688s. each one has some unique capability or trick up it's sleeve.

But I don't disagree with you that the carter could tear the enemy a new one. just that IMHO we have other boats more adapted to that roll that are better at it.

I could be very wrong though. it would be good to see what oranagetom thinks about this. he knows a whole lot.

By the way I am enjoying our banter back and forth in this thread. it's the first time I've really ever gotten to interact with you delta and I see a lot of the posts you write and I enjoy them. so I think this is pretty cool.

hey orangetom. on the domes of the cutthroat are a group of black openings? any speculation as to what they do? Just test sensors for the lab on the surface? propulsion. new kind of electronic device to be used in conjunction with the sonar and other equipment. a whole new class or type of tech or equipment? i donno. any speculation. are there things you tell me they are not? perhaps?

reply to post by BASSPLYR


Are you talking about the two penetrations near the front of the sonar dome?

They don't correlate to anything on the Virginia, so it's reasonable to assume they are for test or transport only.




As for a boomer being able to attack, remember that boomers, even if only carrying 2 Tridents would need a serious increase in beam or would need a huge turtleback, or fairing on top of the hull to accommodate the very tall ICBMs. More beam = more water resistance = less speed. A turtleback = more hydrodynamic disturbance = more noise. For these reasons, boomers don't make for good attack boats. Because they're too small to carry Tridents, attack boats don't make for good boomers.

As for NR-1, mentioned earlier, that was as much Rickover's baby as it was a spy boat. The US Navy has other capabilities for spying without NR-1 and her required surface ship escort. What's the most famous compromised submarine spy story? Operation Ivy Bells. What boat was that? USS Halibut, a modified SSGN.

yeah lots of towing mishaps with the NR1 and her surface escort. Also a lot of tricks we had to pull to get it deployed to the med to hunt for soviet misbehavior below the seas. and phoenix missiles and tomcats.

But what I'm saying is wouldn't it be nifty if they incorporated that subs mission profile and tech over to subs like the 688, seawolfs, virginias and even the jimmy carter.

Whats your opinion on the scorpion. everyones got one. whats yours. I personally don't believe the hot run story.

Also whats your feelings for the case of the K129?

I am wondering what thos black things are on the front of the sub. It's possible that because they aren't on the virginias that they could be something completely new. or they could just be really mundane in explanation. who knows. maybe orangetom. wanna get his input.

yeah blind mans bluff was a cool book. we americans are sneaky. shame on you pelton. ewwww I'm broke I'm gunna go sell out my country. I have less money than pelton did when he decided to blab our secret to the soviets for petty cash to get out of his lame financial problems, and I would never, ever, ever do what that little piece of whale crap did.

pretty sure the seawolf can do plenty of littoral warfare if it wants to. If the carter can than so can any other seawolf. I bet even a 688 could .

But maybe in the area of littoral warfare the whole jimmy carter thing is more of a front to distract people from our Unmaned underwater subs that we are designing (or have already designed and have operating in hostile waters, who knows) to specifically deal with any potential future conflicts in littoral waters.

The carter is a test bed. but she sure would be one bad ass seal delivery vehicle. and I bet what she keeps in that wasp bay can dive real deep. to get to those underwater cable lines. although the us navy has found a bunch of those cables suspended hundreds off the bottom dangling between seamount crests before.

These other countries with the exception of the UK and maybe a few others are busy trying to build a really neat crossbow while our cross bows are really high powered rifles in disguise. They are not even developing their tech in the right direction I bet to even catch up to the novel toys our subs are packed with.

sorry but statements like

They are not even developing their tech in the right direction I bet to even catch up to the novel toys our subs are packed with

are very egotistical and blinded - the US likely hasn`t got the same type of toys other countries have - russian boats can do things US boats can only dream of - but its a different ethos and RoA rather than `The way of the USA is best` , its just 1 solution in a miriade of problems; remember russia are fielding guided super cavitating torpedo`s - the US has nothing like it and little defense.

Super cavitating torpedoes are old news and unlike russia if we had them we wouldn't be telling anybody. It's not that complex a design. We don't need a defense against it if they don't have a clue where our boats are. and it's very very ...very very very easy for a US sub to give the soviets false contacts to fire at. very easy. It's one of the tricks we have. The real question is how are they going to use super cavitating torpedoes when they can't even see the US sub?

The soviets designed their boats to be able to take the first hit from a torpedo and then to counter attack the US hunter killer and hope to sink the US boat. wanna make a bet we have torpedos way more dangerous than MK 48 that would take out a soviet sub in one shot. All this time building these leviathans that would still fail in a confrontation.

Other navy's literally haven't got a clue. They are busy still building crossbows thinking that that is still the pinnacle of weaponry when the US is already on a whole other level.

Hey america doesn't build everything right. Our firearms suck, we have a lot of weapon systems that other countries make better. but not submarines.

Super cavitating torpedo`s are not `old news` and the USA does not have them ; this is exactly what i meant by different countries have different design ethos , and yet you are simply saying `its not made in the USA so its crap` US submariners ARE concerned about what the other side are doing , simply because they ARE taking a different approach to a given issue , the russians do have faster and deeper diving subs compared to the west , but until the akula they were far noisier - now they are just as deep diving but a hec of a lot quieter

also they have the likes of the SS-N-19 `shipwreck` (P-700 Granit) which , quite frankly the US has nothing at all like it - a supersonic , sub launched fire and forget ACSM , capabale of AI based swarming and if the reports are true , also the new ones are ramjet based with a terminal phase speed of M4 , all over a range of 600KM.

thats just the point. Other nations build their subs for different reasons. Ever think that maybe we send them down the wrong paths intentionally so that they just end up building useless tech that wouldn't work against our subs. you know waste their resources, let them think they really have some sort of edge so that when a showdown actually happens the jokes on them?

ask yourself this, if russias subs were all that special than why would they even risk selling them to other countries. you know the did try to sell some typhoons to their neighboring countries after the soviet union collapsed for some quick cash. not something you would do with top secret tech.

Also nobody except those serving on the subs know what their true dive depths are, what the real armaments are, and what the subs real capabilities are. the soviets make neat boats. but are they really building in a direction that will actually serve them in the future, or are they building blindly. making things like supercavitating tech which although really fast are useless when you can't see your enemy. In fact I say that the only time the russian are even aware of one of our modern boats is when the US wants them to be. We've come a long way. longer than anybody else. we just don't disclose it. and supercavitating torpedeos are old news just by the fact that we even know they exist. if it was some of the shockingly advanced tech that US subs use it wouldn't be paraded all over for the world to see. thats just foolish. Just like the stealth fighter was not the pinaccle of US air power, we already had something better, thats why we even disclosed the fighters existence in the first place, cause it wasn't a threat to our security to let the world know we already had something niftyier.it's not a new idea at all.

I'm not saying america builds the best everything, we don't. but when it comes to subs, we actually do. thats all.

also granted the nature of our subs ever unfolding espionage rolls i wouldn't be so sure that we can't dive our boats as deep as the soviets. we have been working on that tech for a long time to, except we don't have mike class boats imploding due to crappy welding techniques on titanium.

I am confident that our subs can dive at least twice their professed dive depth. Stop thinking the world of subs is so transparent or superficial that what you see is what you get. it's not how the sub world works. at least not the US sub world. maybe with the soviets it is. US subs have some seriously spooky stuff. stuff that will ensure that they remain unopposed to preform their jobs.

but seriously what do you make of the K1229/scorpion debacle? all other things aside.

Originally posted by BASSPLYR
Super cavitating torpedoes are old news and unlike russia if we had them we wouldn't be telling anybody. It's not that complex a design. We don't need a defense against it if they don't have a clue where our boats are. and it's very very ...very very very easy for a US sub to give the soviets false contacts to fire at. very easy. It's one of the tricks we have. The real question is how are they going to use super cavitating torpedoes when they can't even see the US sub?

The soviets designed their boats to be able to take the first hit from a torpedo and then to counter attack the US hunter killer and hope to sink the US boat. wanna make a bet we have torpedos way more dangerous than MK 48 that would take out a soviet sub in one shot. All this time building these leviathans that would still fail in a confrontation.

Other navy's literally haven't got a clue. They are busy still building crossbows thinking that that is still the pinnacle of weaponry when the US is already on a whole other level.

Hey america doesn't build everything right. Our firearms suck, we have a lot of weapon systems that other countries make better. but not submarines.

The Scorpion went down and it's an open secret the Soviets sunk her, you sound like a child whoreads/listens to the "fantastic tales of U.S propaganda, the double hulled Subs are SSBN's not SSN's that are also HUNTER/KILLER subs, and just as you say, "don't give out your secrets" I'm more than sure there is a reason why after the coldwar Russia doesn't talk about how many U.S. subs they've tracked.

[edit on 16-7-2008 by Lambo Rider]

reply to post by Lambo Rider


The US is just now talking about Soviet subs they were able to track in the 60's. Neither Russia, nor the US, nor any capable Navy with a submarine force will ever really talk about their tracking capabilities and successes. If you read anywhere about a relatively recent tracking encounter, it's pretty safe to assume that it's either disinformation or authored by someone who doesn't really know what they're talking about.

By no means am I implying here that what goes on in the submarines of the world is as exotic as some may think. There are no flux capacitors or antimatter in these vessels, just some of the finest engineering, materials and construction put into naval vessels. Protecting that investment to maintain an edge in stealth is what all the secrecy is about.

Originally posted by oxillini
reply to post by Lambo Rider

 

The US is just now talking about Soviet subs they were able to track in the 60's. Neither Russia, nor the US, nor any capable Navy with a submarine force will ever really talk about their tracking capabilities and successes. If you read anywhere about a relatively recent tracking encounter, it's pretty safe to assume that it's either disinformation or authored by someone who doesn't really know what they're talking about.

By no means am I implying here that what goes on in the submarines of the world is as exotic as some may think. There are no flux capacitors or antimatter in these vessels, just some of the finest engineering, materials and construction put into naval vessels. Protecting that investment to maintain an edge in stealth is what all the secrecy is about.

The U.S. is NOT "just now" they've been talking about this scince the 80's how old are you kid?, anyways I've always believed it was exageration anyways.

reply to post by Lambo Rider


I'm 30.

My point was that the US Navy isn't going to acknowledge any tracking done in the recent past. It's not in their nature or best interest to acknowledge that it occurs in specific terms. Incidents that happened 30-40 years ago? Sure, they're more likely to talk about that.