Are Submarines About to Become Obsolete?
nationalinterest.org
nationalinterest.org
What happens to MAD after we have a reliable way to detect subs? :/ Don't really know.
This has no implications for MAD.
Industrial inertia more than increasing opponent capability has been the driving force behind continued maintenance of a substantial attack submarine fleet via the development of replacements for the Los Angeles class...somehow the reduction in boomers to hunt for didn't mean significantly fewer attack submarines and there are more in service now than at the turn of the millennium.
Suppose in a future "Battle of the Taiwan Straight" the PRC makes it sufficiently unhealthy that our carriers can't support the ROC? And things are marginal for the destroyers we can spare? If they can't also negate the attack subs....
I would cut the carrier force before I'd cut the attack subs.
The Chinese were more than a match sixty years ago to the point that MacArthur was fired over wanting to go hot with the nukes. Their strength relative to that of the US has only increased in the interim. In addition the US's interests are less aligned with those of 中國國民黨 with each passing year. The Koumintang lost the civil war and communism has been replaced by other bogeymen.
The reality is that the US is at best in position to broker a reasonably peaceful solution along the lines of the British transfer of Hong Kong.
Even then, with the PRC entering the war rather late in the game, the total for the war kill ratios were 1-3 in our favor.
The ability of the ROC and the US to win such a modern battle of the Taiwan Straights depends on too many unknowns for us to make any solid predictions right now. How much of Taiwan is the PRC willing to destroy to capture it? Can a clever attack by air avoid the "million man swim"? Will we even have enough time to mobilize, or would it be a a Bolt Out Of the Blue attack? Would they even try if the new PRC leadership starts failing hard on the mainland? Or might that prompt them to try, but perhaps badly? Would we even try if Obama was still President?
As for "a reasonably peaceful solution", I don't see that even being a possibility with the new leadership's program of repression.
You'd also have to be very confident in your ability to carry out a first strike. Ah, and there's a quick fix, a limited ABM deployment (we've got them and are pretty confident they work). Since you can't pick which warheads get taken out by the ABM systems, the difficultly becomes massively greater.
Note also that historically only the US believed in MAD, the Soviets correctly thought it was unmitigated evil. Then again, they had to accept it....
And we'll also see advances when it comes to very long range, hypersonic strike weapons that can carry nuclear payloads (Prompt Global Strike, you can bet they'll be able to slap a small nuke on it, whether they openly admit that or not).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targeta...
A first strike requires reliably hitting a bunch of targets, often on a schedule. If your intended target has a possibility of randomly (from your viewpoint) taking out some fraction of these incoming warheads, how much more complicated does that make your plan?
If you're talking about protecting a target (nation) from an attack, then "Missile Defense" shouldn't even be your first line of defense. Civil Defense is to protect the people's lives, anti-missile defenses to protect their possessions and those who don't make it to a shelter in time.
If the US has a first strike weapon, it's a fleet of nuclear-capable stealth bombers employing GPS-guided laydown-capable munitions, coupled with a pretty nasty set of eyes in the sky to find mobile launchers. F-35 is also stealth and MAY get a B61 interface to replace NATO Tornados and F-16s, etc.
Also, what happens if one side develops or believes they've developed that capability, and the other doesn't know? For example, a surprise attack to forever end U.S. power could be very tempting to competitors. They may decide they never will have a better opportunity, to grab the brass ring and do something historic, or that their odds are better in a surprise attack than in some expected future conflict.
I see many responses dismissing your concern. How much are they willing to bet on those theories? The future of humanity?
It does seem that the detection people have data and CPY on their side.
You could boil this down to saying that moving things fast and stealth are fundamental tradeoffs.
The energy for the former has to come from somewhere, and at anything less than ideal conversion there are only so many places to hide the waste without compromising the latter.
Regardless of the foreseeable improvements in submarine detection, they'll still be harder to find than surface ships.
Obsolete is definitely a little strong- the original report leans toward area denial for littoral operations and says nothing about almost nothing about Boomers.
The evolution of the submarine to an underwater mothership with UUV and other components is well underway, especially for littoral operaitons- see, for example the cancelled http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_SEAL_Delivery_System.
The real means to obsoleting boomers and other weaponized menaces is to create a world where the consumerism dominates any nation with sufficient means to go to war. Simply put, their population will demand everything but war.
The only threat to that is sliding backwards from a consumer driven economy to a state driven one like Russia is experiencing.
OTOH, relying on ICMB's is contingent on enough people at SAC being sober, which may not be a safe bet.
A first strike can target ICBM launch facilities and effectively neutralize them, meaning those birds either fly when the balloon goes up or they don't fly at all. SSBNs have to be hunted down and destroyed individually. This provides a retaliation capability that cannot easily be destroyed by a massive first strike. They are "second strike" in the sense that they will be available to respond to any nuclear attack, no matter how overwhelming, thus ensuring MAD remains an effective deterrent to nuclear weapons use.
Their missiles don't have the range to hit launch sites that are far inland in North America or Eurasia. Even if they did the missiles would be vulnerable to anti defence. Additionally they are slow moving, which is very undesirable in first strikes.
However they can get really close to major population centers near the oceans and kill millions. Thus second-strike forces are supposed to act as deterrence. Area denial can make them much less effective if combined with proper air defence to take down the missiles.
This is just wrong. We're talking about ballistic missiles here, not cruise missiles. There isn't a spot on the face of the earth that can't be nuked by a sub from a safe distance.
>Even if they did the missiles would be vulnerable to anti defence.
Also mostly wrong. Only a handful of countries have any defense at all against an IRBM, those defenses only cover a tiny portion of their respective territory, and are both unreliable and relatively easily defeated.
>Additionally they are slow moving, which is very undesirable in first strikes.
Why? If I launch a missile hundreds of miles from enemy ships they're not going to find me. The only thing I have to worry about is a nuclear response, which is a hazard for any platform conducting a first strike.
>However they can get really close to major population centers near the oceans and kill millions.
If by "close" you mean 4000 miles. I guess it's a relative term.
>Area denial can make them much less effective if combined with proper air defence to take down the missiles.
Air defense that wasn't specifically designed to take down ballistic missiles won't have any effect at all.
You're confusing ballistic missiles with cruise missiles. The former are an order of magnitude more difficult to deal with from a planning perspective.
You're severely underestimating the range of SLBMs. The Russian RSM-56 can cover the entire continental US from both Saint Petersburg and Vladivostok.
Right but their survivability is contingent upon their not being detected.
I agree that UUVs could play a big part in underwater warfare/intelligence gathering 10-20 years from now.
If you posit that submarines are going to be highly detectable (which is reasonable, and has been a risk since the '80's, when thermal signature tracking looked like it might become viable) then there's no particularly compelling reason why you would deploy UUVs from subs rather than from planes or surface ships.
Options for interacting with a target land location (dates extremely rough, in rough historical order): - Subsonic aircraft: outpaced by projectile-based anti-aircraft since ~1935 - Supersonic aircraft: outpaced and obsoleted by missile and satellite technology since ~1970 - Satellite: excellent for reconnaissance and elint, limited interactive capabilities due to treaty obligations - Subsonic cruise missiles (aka light missiles): limited range (relative to coastal approach), limited survivability against active anti-aircraft defenses - ICBM (aka heavy missiles): expensive, high risk of escalation due to detection, risk of nuclear payload, and ability to apply last minute target corrections - Carrier launched aircraft: limited range, limited survivability against active anti-aircraft defenses - Supersonic cruise missiles: limited range, limited survivability against active anti-aircraft defenses - Drones: limited range, limited survivability against active anti-aircraft defenses
You ideally want an aerial platform (freedom of movement, ability to interact with land targets), survivable in a hostile environment, as cheaply as possible.
This was solved by a carrier air wing.
However, the idea of A2/AD is to push the survivability line out far enough that the carrier can no longer approach close enough to let its air wing operate efficiently.
The obvious go to is to take a platform that can penetrate that A2/AD coverage to a greater depth with acceptable survivability. (It's a lot easier to hide a submarine than an aircraft carrier / it's a lot more expensive to build a submarine detection net across large ocean regions)
Then have that platform launch the equivalent of an air wing.
E.g. stealth submarines serving as carriers for limited-range (because that buys you design to make them stealthier / more survivable / faster) aerial drones
The "risk of nuclear payload" is only a severe problem if overflight is necessary. The RF would be able to assess that a non-overflying SLBM was not targeting RF territory as soon as it traveled through the radar nets. Obviously this is still probably a stupid weapon to use in a conventional context.
For long term UUV deployments however you would have to deal with the "fuel problem." They will be more efficient than a manned submarine, and can be quite streamlined, but regardless moving water is expensive.
So, for example, dropping them into the water at Hawaii and expecting them to make it to China and back seems "unlikely" because anything large enough to have enough fuel to do that would also likely be detectable (which is the reason you aren't using manned submarines to begin with).
So maybe that's why they're talking about manned submarines as UUV carriers. So that the UUV can have batteries in them and electric motors, maybe 24 hours max of power, and only need to make it 1/8th of the distance otherwise.
It's a good dive :-)
I acknowledge that technology will require subs to become even more quiet, but new propulsion systems are now on the boats instead of propellers. They are quieter than ever and no one could detect us before.
Subs have already become “carriers” of SEALS and rockets. So that mission can only be expanded.
Not much new in the article.
Edit: Source: US Navy submarine nuclear reactor officer, 20+ years
What about Bryan Clark? Is he? http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/naval/submarines/20...
>There is not much danger that these new technologies will be able to detect a sub in our lifetime.
Really? Are you qualified to say that?
>>"We need to think about a new strategy for undersea warfare," said Bryan Clark, a former submariner and Navy strategist now with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
This Clark guy, writing for DefenseNews claims to have been on a sub, and a place named the CSBA hired him. The trouble here is that I can't see why I should take either of yours or their assertions at face value. I don't know what their angle is, nor yours.
Granted this would only pertain to some of the current fast attack missions in regards to some countries. SEAL delivery is a relatively close up mission considering how big the ocean is.
The Navy wants railguns. Eg, http://www.wired.com/2014/04/electromagnetic-railgun-launche... :
> The Navy likes the weapon for several reasons, not the least of which it has a range of 100 miles and doesn’t require explosive warheads. That makes it far safer for sailors, and cheaper for taxpayers. According to the Navy, each 18-inch projectile costs about $25,000, compared to $500,000 to $1.5 million for conventional missiles.
http://www.onr.navy.mil/en/Science-Technology/Departments/Co... says there's a goal of 10 rounds per minute.
These don't need to be on battleship. Here's one on a destroyer. http://news.usni.org/2015/02/05/navy-considering-railgun-thi...