Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!usc!ucsd!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!cbnews!military From: xrtnt@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (Nigel Tzeng) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Submission for sci-military Message-ID: <1990Aug23.015128.3150@cbnews.att.com> Date: 23 Aug 90 01:51:28 GMT References: <1990Aug21.025615.2757@cbnews.att.com> Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker) Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center - Greenbelt, MD, USA Lines: 66 Approved: military@att.att.com From: xrtnt@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (Nigel Tzeng) In article <1990Aug21.025615.2757@cbnews.att.com>, terryr@cse.ogi.edu (Terry Rooker) writes... ^ ^In article <1990Aug15.032837.27755@cbnews.att.com> welty@lewis.crd.ge.com (richard welty) writes: ^> [nuke vs conventional sub discussion deleted to save bandwidth] ^ ^There is also the problem with maintaining two separate personnel ^training and qualification systems. It is the lack of specialized ^training and experience that have been attributed to causing the ^accidents on the USN's conventional boats. That may just be political ^chaff to justify scrapping them. Of course the accidents make the ^decision for the boat that burns. During this fiscal year, or by next ^fiscal year the last of the USN SS's will be gone. At that time the ^USN will have the distinction of having the only all-nuke submarine ^fleet. ^ ^-- ^Terry Rooker ^terryr@cse.ogi.edu Wasn't there also the assumption that the Europeans would concentrate on conventional subs for "coastal" defence while we would worry about the long ranging sub activities? I assume that is also why the US has very few PHMs but the Europeans have quite a few. Another debate of the same period was the double hull vs the single. It would seem that there is some concern that the US may have made a bad choice to go with single hulled subs now that it appears that the Soviets has made the concept work. On the other hand we did enjoy a long period (40 years?) where US subs were much better than the Soviet counter parts. Aren't there concerns that US ASW torpedoes may have trouble killing the later generation Soviet subs (I guess we're talking about the lighter ASROC Mk50s and helo dropped torps rather than the Mk48) because of the standoff distance between the double hulls? Add the fact that the new Soviets are as quiet as older LAs and new models are expected to be quiter the Seawolf and Improved LAs may be badly outclassed in the years to come. The problem appears to be that subs are approaching the point where further reductions in noise are less important (although being quiet at any significant speed is still difficult) since they will approach the ambient noise. This is very bad for US subs as doctorine has been to take the noisier Soviets out at long range with our better detection gear. Now it seems that we may have to engage much closer and we may not get a clean kill with the first shot. Assuming the Soviets continue to develop their "wolfpack" tactics a LA in that situation would find it self engaging several subs all of whom are going to "shooting from the hip". This means 4 torpedo tubes against quite a few more. What it probably really means is a dead LA. This brings us back to the original discussion with something of a different aspect: Would more conventional subs (we're assuming that conventional subs are much cheaper to build and perhaps to run) organized in hunter packs be more effective than fewer, nucs that will probably have to operate alone? NT -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- // | Nigel Tzeng - STX Inc - NASA/GSFC COBE Project \X/ | xrtnt@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov | Amiga | Standard Disclaimer Applies: The opinions expressed are my own.