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Comment by dontlaugh | Hacker News Reader

The US uses submarines to threaten attacks on far away countries, not for defence.

The US uses ballistic missile submarines to provide counterstrike capability that can't be destroyed by a nuclear first strike. This deters adversaries from attacking us because they'll know that no matter what they do, we'll still be able to annihilate them in response.

If, as this article claims, it will be impossible for submarines to hide in open waters in the future, hiding submarines in large, protected bodies of water such as the Great Lakes becomes a compelling option.

For the military, anyway.

Shouldn't be an option for us.

How viable freshwater sources do we really have left to play with?

MAD is a form of defence at the level of nation states with ballistic missiles that can reach anywhere else on earth.

subs can deny access to an incoming navy by sinking them

Can nuke subs do that much damage to a ship? I thought they were equipped to hide from everything and deliver massive damage to large land-based targets.

A few Virginia class escorts could probably sink almost any non-NATO navy task force on their own. Add a carrier group on top/to the rear of them, and you can scratch "almost".

The Ohio subs do not go unprotected. However, they are designed to be able to carry not only nukes but also cruise missiles (up to 154 Tomahawks for instance), which would make the a huge threat to any naval force.

Also, let's say that these subs were used to deliver a few hundred anti-surface Tomahawks against for instance a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Not only would the missiles themselves be able to sink a lot of surface assets, the use of these subs would also signal their presence, indicating that the USN was meaning business.

Yes. The primary mission of “fast-attack” submarines are to shoot torpedoes and destroy ships and other submarines.

It takes only one torpedo to disable most surface ships. An American Seawolf class submarine can carry ~50 torpedoes.

And 8 launch tubes to use them.

8 ships disabled on the first volley!

Different classes of subs are specialized to do different things. Some specialize as missile platforms, some specialize in hunting other submarines. Many can do both at least to some extent.

No it doesn't. Ballistic missile submarines are exclusively useful as second strike weapons: they don't carry enough warheads, nor are they accurate enough to first strike weapons (which have to reliably hit military targets and threaten an opponent's retaliation ability).

Not true; subs are part of every carrier fleet.

Those would be Virginia class attacks subs, not ballistic missile subs, I think. An Ohio class could be added temporarily, though, to add even more cruise missile capability to the task force. (Since they, or at least some of them, are now dual purpose platforms.)

And how many of those Ohio class subs actually carry missles and have not been filled with cement ballast?

I expect such things to be confidential....

So confidential that the information is listed on wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio-class_submarine

A treaty limited them to 20 ICMB’s on each of 14 subs down from 24. Each ICMB can hold 12 independently targeting 100kt warheads or 8 larger 0.45 MT nukes.

However, it might be that less than 20 missiles are loaded and or teach ICBM is not carrying the maximum capacity of nukes, but we just don’t know.

You would be impressed at how good INS systems have gotten plus if GPS is still up you have just as good a fix as on land.

If doing a first strike, submarine launched missiles could easily be useful simultaneously with land based launches.

Again: no they aren't, except in a narrow and strategically irrelevant "well it's still a missile you can launch".

If you're executing a first strike, then your goal has to be to take out your opponents ability to retaliate...or you're trying to pull off a limited first strike.

In both cases, submarines add no strategic value if used: in the limited strike scenario you give away a submarines location, and in the first-strike scenario you are not going to have enough missiles, with up to date enough targeting data, in order to hit targets any quicker then land-launched ICBMs are.

The time you waste trying to maneuver your submarines close enough to your target to launch, the fact that it's entirely possible they get taken out before they launch their entire payload (US and Russian subs shadow each other as a matter of course to track their movements), and the inherent communications problems coordinating with submarines all make them irrelevant as first-strike weapons.

The point of a nuclear ballistic missile submarine is a guaranteed second-strike capability. Your opponent might surprise you take out your bombers. They might surprise you can take out your land-based ICBMs. But there's no way they can ever be sure they got every boomer sub, and boomer subs don't target military targets: they target cities, capitals and command bunkers. They exist to ensure no useful advantage is ever gained from first-strike.

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