ahow do we combat modern submarines?
 

Just finishing watching Grayhound, finally. Great movie BTW. It got me thinking, how do we sink or combat modern subs, I haven't a clue? Depth charges, still? What protection do they have against battle ships or the latest and the greatest out there today?

One word - Sound - They go to extraordinary lengths to mitigate sound in a submarine.

They're always working on something new but as far as I know that's the only reliable way they can track a submarine. (I'm sure Mr SeaHawk will chime in shortly.) There are "new fangled micro torpedoes" (less than 10 foot long) that pose a real threat but a submarine at depth is very hard to detect and deal with.

Your nuclear powered submarines can stay submerged for a very long time. They make their own air and water. Their only real limitation is the amount of food they can store onboard for the crew.

I think we only use battleships against the aliens these days, from what I hear. Though a USN battleship nerd/metallugrical eng prof on sabbatical some years ago at Colorado Mines had an amazing two hour talk on the Iowa class. What tremendous machines!

I have no real knowledge in the field, but I wonder at some point if you have to start looking for "dark/quiet" parts of the ocean. The newer generation (see the Swedes) of electric boats are stupid quiet, and they can take out any surface ship, period. It's not a superpower-only game anymore. The ability to take out capital assets so quickly is kind of terrifying in that things could escalate very (very) quickly to nuclear exchanges.

Or, we had analogous discussions in the 1960s and yet here we are today - so who knows of the future?

Frightening.

Yes, Gotland class (run by Stirling engines) is quiet but still not a nuke sub... quiet for a while but needs to surface eventually to catch a breath.

a school of self-learning, underwater, autonomous drones will find, track and follow submarines

Back in the mid to late 80s, my dad was in the Navy. He wanted to advance in rank and decided to take a tour of duty at sea. His theory was that you could either go on a submarine or a target (ship). He chose submarine. He would go out for 4-8 weeks at a time on nuclear fast attacks. I don't remember exactly, but I think he went out 5-10 times during a 3 year period. We then moved to a new place and he got his next rank.

What ever happened to the Red October and it's silent drive?

Similar to how we all learnt of the stealth fighter and bomber years after they'd been in the sky - I'd bet this is already out there.

Another game changer is that micro-drone swarm aircraft tech that came out a few years ago.

Strange new world...

No doubt the smart people are working on ways to track subs. The USA has been ahead of the game on nuke subs that are really quiet, and can stay submerged for 6 months of more. Max depth will be the only safe areas and water pressure builds really fast.

The only real way to stop them is have our own silent subs with lots of nuclear warheads on board to strike back very hard to any attack on us. Several off the coast of China and Russia will make them think long and hard before they try to attack our ships or the cities.

From my dad's days, they were only allowed to say that the subs could go to 400'. Hahahah

The hunter killer sub class now has robotic drone subs that work in conjunction with each other.
The maritime P-8 aircraft has smart torpedo's .
The boomer subs have Trident missiles, most powerful weapon system on the planet.

My older brother spent six years aboard the USS Pollack, a Permit class nuclear fast attack submarine, in the late 1970's - early 1980's. He has remained somewhat a student of the submarine in his post Navy life.

In short, in each and every "war game" played with either our own Navy or with our allies' Navies, the submarines never lost. Never "lost" a boat, never "suffered" any "damage". Ever.

Submariners' favorite saying is that "there are two kinds of ships in the Navy - submarines and targets". It really was (and he tells me it still is) that lopsided.

The Permit class (all now retired) carried nuclear tipped torpedoes. All they had to do was to put one in the middle of your battle group - just one. All that remains is a big boiling bubble in the ocean where your fleet used to be...

i was hoping the answer would be Dolphins.

:) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_marine_mammal

In a way, it is. The insignia for qualifying on a submarine, both O and E, are called earning your "Dolphins".

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1631719159.jpg

I have a lot of experience tracking submarines. That was part of my job as an SH-60B pilot. There are a number of ways to do it (SOSUS, Active and Passive Sonobuoys, Ship based active and passive SONAR, ship towed arrays, Helicopter dipping SONAR, Magnetic anomaly detection, LiDAR, even radar in some scenarios, etc.) but the best is another submarine.

Electric boats are great, extremely quiet, but they are limited in range. In the 80's Russian subs sounded like dump trucks on the 405. Not anymore.

I have a million stories.

We did a "PASSEX" against the Australian electric subs in 1987 headed to Perth. It was a night op.

When an "enemy" sub gets a targeting solution on a ship, they launch a green flare that breaks the surface and explodes like a 4th of July Firework.

There were a lot of green flares that night.

BTW, the "condition" of the water plays a huge role in anti-submarine warfare.

Mr Hawk... Just quietly I was at Campbell Barracks, Perth, Western Australia in 1987. ;)

youtube, sub brief
former sub sonar dude that explains all sorts of stuf bout subs

Quietly? I bet:D

I had breakfast in DC this morning with one of the other pilots from the 1987 cruise/detachment, we were on FFG-37, the USS Crommelin, named after five brothers.

There was evidentiality a tie in with an Australian family related to the American Crommelin's. We had a great time in port.

Mike, the other pilot, was an excellent golfer and we were invited to play at the Royal Perth Golf Club due to the Crommelin tie-in.

We talked about it this morning. We were both a bit "under the weather" and the day started rough. By the end, Mike had shot a 1 over, much to the delight of the guys we were playing with. Mike said this morning, "From regret to one of the best days of my life!"

Anyway, thanks to all you folks.

Concerning subs. There are books written about anti-submarine warfare (ASW) that are very well done and up to date. If anyone is so inclined, the ocean environment impact on ASW is worth a high level review; from thermoclines, BT buoys and minimum detection ranges based on salinity, temperatures and ambient noises. The environment changes daily. Sensor performance is greatly affected.

That said, we are working on a sub-launched UAS to help gain a better tactical advantage over other countries subs.

One last bit: When the threat gets serious, the carrier will go high speed and erratic. The best defense a surface ship has is speed and unpredictability.

At least we think so.:cool:

I am certainly not up on the state of the art, but I believe many of the principles are the same as I learned them years ago: detection using sound (very often from airborne sources via air-dropped sonabouys and dipping sonar, deployed to various depths) and magnetic anomaly detection (MAD).

Interestingly, one exercise I remember is evaluating passive sonar signals by what was being "masked", i.e. the intermittent absence of sounds as if something was blocking a source.

It is also interesting to note the "camouflage" systems developed at that time - the Prairie-Masker for example - a system that made it more difficult for the subs to determine surface ship identity and movement.

As said in a post above, there are many good books on modern ASW. My training was on the SQS-26 and I know the signal processing and system integration got a lot better since then - like with the SQS-53.

- USN STG3 (about a million years ago)

Here's one. IIRC most of them, in real life w/o caterpillar drive, have been cut up.

You know that these also had a swimming pool inside.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1631734538.jpg

That's not a Typhoon.

But a Delta variant.


https://i.ytimg.com/vi/PSTmvyMbOcQ/maxresdefault.jpg

Typhoon (Red October) looks like this

http://www.hisutton.com/images/Typhoon_SSBN940.jpg

I retired 30 years ago. But we used to take her out before patrol for tests. Take her to Test Depth and the always fun Angles and Dangles. The boat goes crazy, just about turns over looking form anything that might make noise. Noise is Death.

Test Depth is fun for the Newbies, We'd tie a line across the hull on the surface. Then let you watch it get looser the deeper we went, test depth, usually on the floor.

Oops. I grabbed the first one I saw and did it without really looking. But they still had a swimming pool. Pretty gross though, FF to 4:00 in the vid.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NjXDqSCyjlw" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

My motto is "why - yes! I'd love to have that cool experience." And I've had a few.

This has my "nope" light blinking so hard. I'm thankful others can do it but I'm tagging out on that one.

I've been on a brit trident sub, but it was at the jetty. That was enough for me...

Fill them with magic white powder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS4HSPCjC28

What I wonder about is carrier vs long range missile.

As I understand it, the range of carrier aircraft vs the range of antiship missile is not moving in the right direction (for the carrier).

There’s a lot of places close to China that we care about.

This sounds like a sub can pretty much take out an aircraft carrier without too much effort? My question is, how or what is the anti sub menthod to blow em' out of the water if they are found?

Carrier Battle Group
 

Have you ever seen a picture of a Carrier Battle Group? Every ship there is to protect the Carrier with multiple weapons systems. What you don't see is each group has at least 1 if not 2 Fast Attack Submarines. They're good, really, really good. The Carrier also carries Sub Hunter/Killer Aircraft that are constantly hunting. There's more. The Navy has mined the oceans with Sonobouy lines and listening stations. They listen to everything in the ocean, record ships noise signatures. Everyone of our boats will have all the signatures downloaded. The first thing they do is look for a match. The Carrier can call up all noises the sonobouys hear. One more, some of the escorts have Sonar, they can deafen a boat, because you hear every ping, now multiply the pings. The boat acts like a echo chamber. Oh yeah, almost forgot, Magnetic Anomaly Detection. The iron in a boat deflects the earth magnetic lines and we can measure that. I think that's enough.

I served on carriers, fast attack/boomers, PBR's, Air/Sea Rescue, Staffs, etc. Top Secret SBI.

Missiles, yeah. They can be a problem. I got sent to fix the USS Stark in 87. She'd just caught 2 Exocet missile from Sadam. +20 killed. Flipped the Emergency Generator upside down, Chief Quarters, empty hole. BUT, she did not sink and she's a small frigate, IIRC she was independent steaming Carriers are a harder. The Battle Group has the Aegis Combat System based on a Cruiser can operate Every Escorts Weapons System and track over 100 targets simultaneously and that's not all. Well, this has been fun.

We have microphones on the floor of the seas.
we know where their subs are.
We follow them and can kill them all after they can launch the first salvo.

All true.

I have done more than a few Battle Group "cruises". There is a layered defense approach across the air, surface and sub-surface mission sets.

It is absolutely true that the Battle Group is being pushed father out to sea from certain threat areas. So much so that the CNO wrote a directive and established a group to study the problem: "Project Overmatch" and "Novel Force".

Really stunning letters.

Also, unlike video games, a Battle Group does not have an endless supply of anti-ship, anti-air missiles and capability. I won't go into the details but the rise of cheap UAS with sufficient range and payload to engage the BG has become problematic...we call them airborne IEDs.

That and power projection at distance is hard.

Again, there is any number of articles and studies addressing this very real problem.

There was a time in my career (ok, two years ago) that in doing vulnerability analyses of some other parts of our defense stuff, we would ask the leaders "what keeps you up at night?" What they described with UAS was terrifying and now I'm kept up at night.

A strange new world.

I had a conversation the other day with an ex-submariner that gave me the impression that our best boats can’t be found.

No other country has submarines as good as ours.

depends on the type of submarine work.
full ocean worldwide patrols, endurance, yes, versatility, yes

But there are some very very good diesel electrics out there for near own coast operations that are very good as well, if not better because they can really shut down EVERYTHING and become way more silent then a nuke boat.
Ability to quiet everything down is pretty important for subs.

Swedish Blekinge class by Saab just to name one, and the German Type 212 are not to be underestimated

I don't know how well these boats can detect, or how well they can train their sonarmen. The US probably has more advanced training simply because of scale of the program and a bigger pool to pick people from.
But the best sonar man in the world can't hear chit if the boat truly has everything turned off.. Which a nuke cannot do and a diesel electric can

Some related local news...

"10 News First Adelaide

BREAKING: AUKUS SUBS TO BE BUILT IN ADELAIDE
Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom announced a defence agreement called AUKUS this morning.

The agreement will see a fleet of nuclear-powered subs be built in Adelaide.

AUKUS was designed to build security and stability within the Indo-Pacific region.

Scott Morrison, Joe Biden and Boris Johnson were all quick to reiterate that these submarines will be nuclear-powered and not nuclear submarines.

It is unclear how many submarines will be built, but it means the current submarine deal with French company Naval Group will now be scrapped."

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1631806006.jpg

Coastal waters are usually more shallow than the deep blue sea and there are ways to find subs in those waters that don’t rely upon sound transmission.

Good luck finding a boomer down deep in the middle of nowhere.

well sure, but those boats are not limited to just the littoral waters
They can get in the deep blue sea, they just don't have the endurance to do so and cross oceans as such. In that deep blue sea, they can park their ass and be ultra quiet, and wait for such a boomer to come by, for instance at certain areas where traffic has to cross.

Way back in 69' flying in the P3's out of Kodiak, we searched for Soviet Subs with Sona-buoys.
12 hour flights. I was the Radioman and also photographer. Pretty cool thing to do as a 19 yr old.

Today, without up to date information on how the technology has advanced I am clueless on answering the OP.

If I was in the Navy today.... I would probably feel real comfortable on board a Fast Attack Nuke.

The Russian and Chinese subs are noisy, even if running on batteries as their electric motors are not quiet. Their reactors are noisy even though the Russians tried pressurized water systems with natural circulation which had issues with the water cavitating at speeds over 2 or 3 knots!

Back in 1978 I was on the CGN25, USS Bainbridge, over in Hawaii with "war games" with Japanese, Australian, and Singapore Navies. Sooooooo we loaded up a test ASROC to show all those guys how to "kill" a submarine. There were 9 of us "good guys" going to get the "bad guys" on the boat. So we all sailed around for about 4 hours in the box are that the sub was supposed to be in, no luck at all by any of us! So after time ran out the sub surfaced about 1/2 mile away and actually flashed the signal lamp to us of all things. They started to dive and we ran the ASROC torpedo out on the forward launcher and a count down started and boom away the ASROC went. About the time the missile left the rail that sub went to silent running. Down goes the ASROC at what looked like right on top where the sub had been, but noooooo they weren't there. The ASROC looked around like they really do and guess what, even though we were doing only 5 knots our screws made so much noise that thing ran right under our stern!!!! If it had been live....KABOOM for us. Those were older boats too.
John

He's kind of a blabber mouth but he's been there and done that

I've always wanted to know if he retired as a chief or a 1st class