US needs more subs to counter China ...

[Vympel]

In other news, Russia needs more ICBMs to counter Pakistan.

Link

The United States Navy is building too few attacks subs needed to counter an aggressive Chinese effort to beef up its navy, members from both sides of the partisan aisle said today.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, led the charge for more subs. The Chinese are building 3.4 attacks subs for every one the U.S. Navy is building. If you include the Russian subs that China is buying that ratio, Hunter said, worsens to 5-1. The Pentagon should be shifting money to build more Virginia-class submarines, asking the witnesses if they didn’t think the needs to “make substnatial changes” in its procurement decision to address the growing Chinese Navy.

Hunter was joined by Rep. Joseph Courtney (D-Conn.), a fervent supporter of the Virginia class which supplies many voters in his district with jobs and family income. Courtney cited the Chinese success in surfacing completely undetected an attack sub within weapons range of the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier as proof of the increasing capabilities of the Chinese navy and of the need for more US subs.

Aside from the push for more subs, the most telling result of the hearing was the distinct change in tone — if not in substance — from earlier hearings when then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was in charge.

The two administration witnesses, James Shinn, assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs, and Maj. Gen. Philip Breedlove, vice director for strategic plans and policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made a point of praising recent Chinese moves toward greater transparency, citing the recent activiation of a hotline between US and Chinese military leaders and the first regular talks between Chinese and US military officials on nuclear issues held in April. Holding out the promise of better relations with China if the growing Asian giant conforms with basic international agreements and norms, Shinn and Breedlove said in their joint statement that they aimed to use “a policy of constructive engagement” so that when the interest of the US and China do overlapthat becomes “opportunities for cooperation with the Chinese, rather than points of conflict.”

Shinn and Breedlove made clear there are areas where the US would like to see China change its ways, such as when arms sales by Chinese commercial companies violate UN sanctions and Chinese law but no action is taken against the company. They mentioned sales of weapons-related materials and technologies to Burma, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Sudan and Syria.

I do like it how these sorts of articles report straight out about the vested interest these pork-shovelling pricks have in pushing these absurd arguments, but don't point out what a transparently corrupt indictment it is of the military-congressional-industrial complex.

Re: the absurdity. The USN currently has 47 SSN-688/688i, 3 SSN-21s, 3 SSN-774s (with 27 more scheduled), 14 SSBN-726s, and 4 SSGN-726s. Or 71 nuclear powered submarines.

The Chinese navy has 2-3 SSBNs and 4-5 SSNs - oh and probably 24-26 SSKs on the books that are worth fuck all (half of them being Kilo SSKs bought from Russia).

[Surlethe]

In other news, India's GDP is growing eight times as fast as that of the US, so they are now a major economic threat to us.

[phongn]

Well, to be fair, the SSBN and SSGN force hardly counts when it comes to countering the PLA(N).

[The Grim Squeaker]

In other news, India's GDP is growing eight times as fast as that of the US, so they are now a major economic threat to us.

Unlike China

[SVPD]

That, and the older 688/688i boats are getting along in years; the Flight I vessels are, at the youngest, 23 years old, and Los Angeles herself is 32 years old. Also, of the 47 688/688i boats available, 2 are in reserve/standdown. (Hyman G. Rickover and Honolulu)

[Pelranius]

Well, to be fair to Mr. Hunter, the PLAN only needs to be in one place while we have to be all over the globe.

That doesn't excuse his scaremongering. Funny how the biggest wankers of the Chinese military are usually people trying to sell weapons to the Pentagon and China's neighbors.

[Stuart Mackey]

I know of one guy who is 'in the industry', does development of underwater stuff for subs, who call the sound signature of Chinese subs "kelvinators" after the home appliance, that is to say really noisy.

[PeZook]

Uh...why do you need attack subs to counter enemy attack subs?

You need attack subs to counter SSBNs on patrol in the open ocean, but the Chinese aren't doing that. You also need attack subs if you can't afford heavy surface ships like carriers but need to interdict enemy shipping. Carriers, incidentally, are real effective sub killers in their own right, as is anything which can carry a helicopter.

[Stuart Mackey]

Uh...why do you need attack subs to counter enemy attack subs?

Because attack subs are the best anti-sub weapon system by virtue of the fact that they operate in the same environment. Moreover, by eliminating enemy SSN's, SSK's, you eliminate a very potent sea denial system that can have a detrimental effect on your own operations, as well as merchant shipping, and you can do it comparatively unseen and without risking your offensive systems.

[PeZook]

Because attack subs are the best anti-sub weapon system by virtue of the fact that they operate in the same environment. Moreover, by eliminating enemy SSN's, SSK's, you eliminate a very potent sea denial system that can have a detrimental effect on your own operations, as well as merchant shipping, and you can do it comparatively unseen and without risking your offensive systems.

This does not compute. Aircraft carriers (fixed-wing and rotary) can cover far more ocean than an SSN, are very difficult for a sub to attack (or even detect) and can engage one very easily. You can buy dozens of maritime patrol aircraft for the price of one SSN, and if you saturate the ocean with them, it will become completely impossible for attack subs to actually operate.

[RIPP_n_WIPE]

What the fuck congress!?!?! You're complaining now magically about attack subs when you fucked over the Sea Wolf because "0 n0es eet cahst 2 much" made the virginia and ended up with a "cheaper" (lets completely forget the economics of scale) boat with crappier weapons.

[RIPP_n_WIPE]

Because attack subs are the best anti-sub weapon system by virtue of the fact that they operate in the same environment. Moreover, by eliminating enemy SSN's, SSK's, you eliminate a very potent sea denial system that can have a detrimental effect on your own operations, as well as merchant shipping, and you can do it comparatively unseen and without risking your offensive systems.

This does not compute. Aircraft carriers (fixed-wing and rotary) can cover far more ocean than an SSN, are very difficult for a sub to attack (or even detect) and can engage one very easily. You can buy dozens of maritime patrol aircraft for the price of one SSN, and if you saturate the ocean with them, it will become completely impossible for attack subs to actually operate.

If I'm not mistaken subs at certain operational depths can't be countered by surface ASW.

[PeZook]

If I'm not mistaken subs at certain operational depths can't be countered by surface ASW.

They are more difficult to detect, but they pay for this with a reduction of effectiveness of their own sensors. And, of course, to launch stand-off ASMs they need to come up from the crushing depths of oblivion

Another problem with surface-denial role of SSNs is that they gain stealth by sacrificing everything, from speed to detection range. If it goes too fast, it will be detected - and once detected, it's just a matter of diverting a helicopter to drop a torpedo on it and it's dead.

Seeing that surface merchant convoys will steam around at 20 knots or more, this provides considerable problems. A carrier will steam around at 25+ knots and won't stick to constant shipping routes, making it even more of a problem to attack it.

Pretty much the only option for an attack sub to attack a convoy nowadays is to launch a wave of stand-off ASMs from maximum range and skitter away. And, in a total war situation which would actually necessitate convoys, it will still run the risk of being intercepted by a patrol airplane which would patrol the sea lanes and probably even escort convoys. Say, if an Akula detects a convoy from, say 50 kilometers (that's pretty far for sonar), sets up and launches a wave of missiles, a patrol helicopter can get there in 10 minutes and start looking for it. A P-3C can react even faster and litter the area with sonobuoys. If you want to get a desireable kill ratio in such a situation, you pretty much have to use nuclear-tipped ASMs, so that you kill an entire convoy for the price of one sub.

[MKSheppard]

That, and the older 688/688i boats are getting along in years; the Flight I vessels are, at the youngest, 23 years old, and Los Angeles herself is 32 years old. Also, of the 47 688/688i boats available, 2 are in reserve/standdown. (Hyman G. Rickover and Honolulu)

exactly

And we need to develop a programmatic replacement for the Los Angeles class, a lot of which will reach block obsolecence at the same time; that's 40 boats we'll have to replace...

[Ma Deuce]

This does not compute. Aircraft carriers (fixed-wing and rotary) can cover far more ocean than an SSN, are very difficult for a sub to attack (or even detect) and can engage one very easily. You can buy dozens of maritime patrol aircraft for the price of one SSN, and if you saturate the ocean with them, it will become completely impossible for attack subs to actually operate.

I think you're overestimating the effectiveness of surface and aerial ASW a wee bit, if the results of actual exercises between them and subs are any indication. Sure, an SSK is going to have to need a considerable stroke of luck to actually catch a carrier, but that doesn't mean tracking and and killing a sub lying in wait will actually be easy, and it's besides the point anyway, because even if SSK's can't actually hunt down carriers, they can serve as an effective area denial weapon to keep carriers from daring to tread certain areas (i.e. confined littoral waters), and force them to run a constant evasive pattern, reducing their combat effectiveness and denying them the ability to attack certain inland targets they would otherwise be able to.

Virtual Attrition.

If I'm not mistaken subs at certain operational depths can't be countered by surface ASW.

Yes, if they're below the thermocline layer which reflects sound waves very effectively, making it much more difficult for a submarine below the layer to be detected by a surface ship or submarine above it. On the other hand, the effects of the thermocline work both ways, so a submarine below the layer would also have difficulty acquiring and attacking contacts above it.

Of course, it's not always quite that simple; other factors like the Deep Sound Channel add additional dynamics to the art of ASW, but the above is generally how it works.

[Sea Skimmer]

They are more difficult to detect, but they pay for this with a reduction of effectiveness of their own sensors. And, of course, to launch stand-off ASMs they need to come up from the crushing depths of oblivion

Actually to a large extent sonar works better the deeper you go; and you don’t know much if you think Air to Surface Missiles, or missiles of sorts a submarine can actually launch, are going to be the primary weapon.

Another problem with surface-denial role of SSNs is that they gain stealth by sacrificing everything, from speed to detection range. If it goes too fast, it will be detected - and once detected, it's just a matter of diverting a helicopter to drop a torpedo on it and it's dead.

Modern nuclear submarines can go pretty damn fast without making excessive noise; and one lightweight torpedo is highly unlikely to be effective, especially if you don’t happen to have one of the handful of Mk50s or Stingrays that actually got produced.

Seeing that surface merchant convoys will steam around at 20 knots or more, this provides considerable problems. A carrier will steam around at 25+ knots and won't stick to constant shipping routes, making it even more of a problem to attack it.

High speed works against diesel submarines; it doesn’t work against nuclear subs which can outrun any surface ship and don’t have to worry about the weather. Also remember that surface ship sonar cease to work at high speeds, and the faster you go the less time aircraft have to sanitize the route ahead. This is made all the worse by the retirement of the carrier S-3 squadrons leaving each battlegroup with perhaps a dozen ASW helicopters, enough to maintain only 2-3 in the air continuously.

Pretty much the only option for an attack sub to attack a convoy nowadays is to launch a wave of stand-off ASMs from maximum range and skitter away.

You have no idea what you are talking about. A submarine will fucking massacre a merchant convoy today, no single navy on earth can assemble as proper escort for its merchant shipping or anything close too it. All of NATO couldn’t have properly defended the sea lanes to Europe.

And, in a total war situation which would actually necessitate convoys, it will still run the risk of being intercepted by a patrol airplane which would patrol the sea lanes and probably even escort convoys. Say, if an Akula detects a convoy from, say 50 kilometers (that's pretty far for sonar), sets up and launches a wave of missiles, a patrol helicopter can get there in 10 minutes and start looking for it.

50km is long range for sonar? Ever heard of a convergence zone? A modern sub could reasonably detect a big ship, especially a big diesel merchant ship as so many are, in the third convergence zone, which could be over 160km away. Stop talking about missiles; sub launched anti ship missiles suck, its near impossible to get off a big enough salvo to be effective and no sub captain would use them as his primary weapon unless he commanded an Oscar II. Modern heavyweight torpedoes can in fact reach as far as 50km at speeds as high has 80 knots and will sink or cripple anything they hit. No real defence exists against them except to expend one of your escorts to save a high value unit.

10 minutes is plenty of time for a nuclear sub to evade, course since in reality the submarine is going to fire torpedoes from much closer range it hardly matters.

A P-3C can react even faster and litter the area with sonobuoys. If you want to get a desireable kill ratio in such a situation, you pretty much have to use nuclear-tipped ASMs, so that you kill an entire convoy for the price of one sub.

No, a spread of torpedoes will work fine.

Reality is surface ship ASW is almost useless against nuclear subs, and you need a whole lot of aircraft to be effective. Nuclear submarines are by far the best counter to enemy nuclear submarines. The PLAN however, is not much of a threat owing to its shear incompetence. Just a few years it had one of its diesel submarines turn up adrift with the entire fucking crew DEAD from gas poisoning. The force is by far dead last in Chinese military funding and it isn’t even building enough ships and subs to replace its existing pile of obsolete crap, let alone expand its frontline strength. I can't imagine the new SSNs they've built are worth a damn, they simply don’t have the experience to build a good one no matter how hard they try.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

No, a spread of torpedoes will work fine.

Reality is surface ship ASW is almost useless against nuclear subs, and you need a whole lot of aircraft to be effective. Submarines are by far the best counter to enemy submarines. The PLAN however, is not much of a threat owing to its shear incompetence. Just a few years had one of its diesel submarines turn up adrift with the entire fucking crew DEAD from gas poisoning. The force is by far dead last in Chinese military funding and it isn’t even building enough ships and subs to replace its existing pile of obsolete crap, let alone expand its frontline strength.

How did that sub captain manage to drift right into the middle of a US surface group a year or so back? Sounds like a navigational error, if they are as incompetent as you say.

[SVPD]

No, a spread of torpedoes will work fine.

Reality is surface ship ASW is almost useless against nuclear subs, and you need a whole lot of aircraft to be effective. Submarines are by far the best counter to enemy submarines. The PLAN however, is not much of a threat owing to its shear incompetence. Just a few years had one of its diesel submarines turn up adrift with the entire fucking crew DEAD from gas poisoning. The force is by far dead last in Chinese military funding and it isn’t even building enough ships and subs to replace its existing pile of obsolete crap, let alone expand its frontline strength.

How did that sub captain manage to drift right into the middle of a US surface group a year or so back? Sounds like a navigational error, if they are as incompetent as you say.

Institutional incompetance doesn't preclude occasionally competant, or even brilliant, leaders at lower levels. It just measn they will be, at best, uncommon.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Institutional incompetance doesn't preclude occasionally competant, or even brilliant, leaders at lower levels. It just measn they will be, at best, uncommon.

The full details of that issue was never made public. Last it was mentioned on this board, Stuart made it sound like it was a total mistake.

[Sea Skimmer]

The sub surfaced without being forced to; that’s a pretty certain acknowledgment that the captain did not intend to run into a bunch of US warships. If it had been any kind of tactical exercise the sub would have naturally attempted to covertly escape after having gotten within firing range. Nothing else makes any sense.

The main way diesel boats are going to get kills is basically by sitting in one spot and hoping a ship passes by. That WILL work in the narrow waters around China but its not any great threat to US naval power, we just can’t assume we can fight a fucking 1.3 billion person nation with zero losses. Once we surged a dozen or so of our own submarines into the area we’d be able to sanitize large areas, and seal off all the Chinese naval bases with mines while also creating defended bastions inside which our carrier groups can circle.

[SVPD]

The sub surfaced without being forced to; that’s a pretty certain acknowledgment that the captain did not intend to run into a bunch of US warships. If it had been any kind of tactical exercise the sub would have naturally attempted to covertly escape after having gotten within firing range. Nothing else makes any sense.

What I find bizarre about this entire incident is that the sub surfaced at all. Modern diesel subs don't need to surface in order to run their diesel engines or exchange air; it's done by snorkel.

Normally yes, a sub would always attempt to escape undeteced after penetration a CVBG screen and completing the exercise, but what if the surfacing were to fulfill a larger objective? Maybe send a message that they could do it, create international stir, maybe call the abilities of the U.S. Navy into question?

I'm not saying that was necessarily the case, but what's the likelyhood of it being an unusual form of political/military gamesmanship?

[Stuart]

What I find bizarre about this entire incident is that the sub surfaced at all. Modern diesel subs don't need to surface in order to run their diesel engines or exchange air; it's done by snorkel.

It's not bizarre at all, its very simple. It's the equivalent of saying "Please don't shoot, I'm coming out with my hands up."

Look on it this way, you are driving a diesel-electric submarine, minding your own business when you decide that it would be nice to see what the world looks like so you come to periscope depth and stick your scope up. You find yourself looking at the biggest warship in the world. Takinga quick scan, you find a lot more ships, all gray, all suddenly getting very interested in your little scope. What do you do?

Try and run for it? Impossible, you can do 16 knots underwater, perhaps 20, the surface ships can do twice that and they carry helicopters. Try and go silent? Even worse, that could be considered the precursor to an attack and all those screening ships might start shooting. Or, you surface, send a friendly message something along the lines of "Sorry, didn't know you were here, I'm going away now."

The poor Chinese sub almost certainly didn't know he was in the middle of an American task group. Surfacing was the sensible, indeed clever thing to do.

On the thread matter, going by present force levels is absurd. What the article is saying is that the current replacement for our nuclear boats is too low to sustain current force levels.

Do the maths. A SSN has a life of around 25 years. We maintain a force level of 55 boats. That means we have to build a total of 55/25 = 2.2 boats per year to maintain that force level. At the moment we are building one boat per year. So, in the future, our SSN fleet will drop to a total of 25 boats that have to be split between four oceans.

So, to maintain our current force level, we have to increase submarine production. So, Hunter and Courtney are perfectly correct.

[Vympel]

On the thread matter, going by present force levels is absurd. What the article is saying is that the current replacement for our nuclear boats is too low to sustain current force levels.

Do the maths. A SSN has a life of around 25 years. We maintain a force level of 55 boats. That means we have to build a total of 55/25 = 2.2 boats per year to maintain that force level. At the moment we are building one boat per year. So, in the future, our SSN fleet will drop to a total of 25 boats that have to be split between four oceans.

So, to maintain our current force level, we have to increase submarine production. So, Hunter and Courtney are perfectly correct.

The article isn't talking about force levels directly, they're trying to make out that they're in danger of being out-submarined by the Chinese. That's patently idiotic when you look at the utterly anemic state of the Chinese submarine force- never mind it's navy as a whole. Just where do they get the "3.4 attack subs for every one the US Navy is building"? Leaving aside for a second the dishonesty of almost certainly including SSKs and SSNs as being one and the same, there's absolutely no evidence of any Chinese navy intent to churn out either in quantity greater than the rate at which the Virginia's are commissioned - usual Chinese navy practice over the past two decades has been to build a handful of ships of a particular class, usually no more than 8 at the very most, and then move on to the next project - it takes forever and they're not built quickly.

So far as force levels are concerned, even in 2025, there'll probably be 30x SSN-774s, 3x SSN-21s, and 12x SSN-688i (relying on gs.org's decomm dates here) in the USN (not including whatever new submarine the USN may start building in the meantime). That's still 45 SSNs - it's highly doubtful the Chinese are going to be able to match that sort of level (never mind technology) by 2025, if ever.

[SVPD]

What I find bizarre about this entire incident is that the sub surfaced at all. Modern diesel subs don't need to surface in order to run their diesel engines or exchange air; it's done by snorkel.

It's not bizarre at all, its very simple. It's the equivalent of saying "Please don't shoot, I'm coming out with my hands up."

Look on it this way, you are driving a diesel-electric submarine, minding your own business when you decide that it would be nice to see what the world looks like so you come to periscope depth and stick your scope up. You find yourself looking at the biggest warship in the world. Takinga quick scan, you find a lot more ships, all gray, all suddenly getting very interested in your little scope. What do you do?

Try and run for it? Impossible, you can do 16 knots underwater, perhaps 20, the surface ships can do twice that and they carry helicopters. Try and go silent? Even worse, that could be considered the precursor to an attack and all those screening ships might start shooting. Or, you surface, send a friendly message something along the lines of "Sorry, didn't know you were here, I'm going away now."

The poor Chinese sub almost certainly didn't know he was in the middle of an American task group. Surfacing was the sensible, indeed clever thing to do.

All right, that sounds quite plausible.

[Sidewinder]

While we're talking about getting the USN more Virginia class subs, how about getting the USAF the 381 F-22 fighters the blue suits keep demanding? Not enough pork to support that? You congressmen are fucking hypocrits.