Shipbucket

I guess I didn't expect to get insulted by bringing a factual argument forward. To be very clear, I made no argument what so ever about the abundant capabilities of an SSN be it US, British, Russian ect. They all have there place and are very capable boats indeed. My post was based on cost and support for demonstrated capability. Both of which still appear to be lost in your last response. I didn't realize I hit such a sore spot. Even the mighty US of A is going to have to revisit it's future construction strategy as they simply don't have the bucks any more. I think everyone should pay a bit more attention to what is going on in almost every allied country. They are all in financial disarray. Dramatic military budget cuts have already started in most of these countries and this will continue unabated for the foreseeable future. This includes the USA.

So in my first post, again, I simply presented facts and nothing more. I have no idea what a Collins class boat has to do with a Gotland class or this discussion for that matter. Aside from the fact that they were both initially designed by Kockums in the beginning all similarities end there. A Collins boat is over double the size of boat vs a Gotland and built in Australia from an indigenous, highly controversial, start from scratch program vs built at Kockums in Sweden. From the weapons system to sensor suites they are simply tech grabs from any country that would offer help and support their local trade unions. That is why three of them are still sitting unable to function properly, because they are essentially unworkable. If you want to buy an Aussie sub that is up to you, however if you want to buy a Gotland class from Kockums they are currently in discussions with a number of countries with a delivery price that varies in that 200 to 220 million range +/- depending on systems. When they were first introduced they were closer to the 100 mil a copy less then ten years ago. This again is all very factual.

Back to the discussion at hand, again I make no argument against an SSN. All your points for them are valid. I simply make the point that most countries that operate them will not be able to deploy them in the numbers they would like to going forward and have to evaluate real live options that cost a lot less and not be less capable in theater. That means more than one class of system. The argument that an SSN does "ALL" everywhere doesn't hold water "so to speak" either. Why would the Navy field a couple of classes of subsurface combatants and literally dozens of classes for surface combatants? It's a pretty straight forward answer. Different missions matched to appropriate engagement assets. Even as an old cold war warrior I can still remember the lectures we used to get from our commanders..........don't use a 20 thousand dollar missile to blow up a 5 thousand dollar jeep (mid 70's dollars of coarse). Mean while, the rest of the world is adding SSK's at an alarming rate, including the US's new best friends.......China. One Chinese SSK even surfaced right in the middle of the US fleet operating in SE Asia. Again, a very embarrassing moment for US Naval command. They had no idea it was even there. The point being SSK's are a lot more capable than most people realize. Their operating tactics are simply different.

Again I will point out, the US Pacific fleet deployed Orions, Vickings, ASW helo's, Frigates and Fast attack SSN's for two years against the Gotland operating out of San Diego. It won, over and over again and they lost........with precious few exceptions. The original contract was only for a year but they extended it for an additional year as it was unbelievably high value training, all be it very frustrating.
The US is faced with dramatic military procurement reductions going forward with virtually every program being reduced or some even being eliminated entirely. I guess I have to ask, what do they do to fill the gap? Personally I think it would be pointless to start a program from scratch, but alas, that is never the US way. Again for the cost of a couple of Virginia class boats, they would have sufficient SSK's for coastal and forward based littoral operations that the Navy does not like operating it's nuke boats in. The US Navy boys have been very open and vocal about this on many occasions. That would leave in my opinion sufficient deployable Seawolfs and Virginia class boats to do what they do best...........true blue water missions. It just simply comes down to economics in my opinion................oh ya, and some proud nuclear sub Admirals may have to swallow a bit of pride to lower their standards to have some boats that burn diesel, and operate a design that has proven itself against the best the US navy had to offer.
Oh Darn!!

Again, Best Regards
Mike

You couch your argument well, but is still based on a flawed premise - That the US can swap out a few SSNs for some SSKs. Therefore I'm only going to touch on some salient points, because I'm not sure I have the patience to deal with this (just like I don't when dealing with the battleship fanboys).
Yep, we're rapidly heading toward a 200-220 ship navy, and we need to evaluate what systems we keep and what systems we lose. With that in mind, the life cycle costs for a pair of SSN are going to be lower than those for a small fleet of SSKs, partially because the SSKs requires an entirely new infrastructure to be established.
The Collins class is an excellent analog because it's a solid data point for what happens when you take an SSK designed for the Baltic and put it out in the rest of the world. Size, cost, and complexity balloon when the design changes sensors weapons, and internal equipment fit, ect.
What are you smoking Buddy? The 2020 USN is going to field the following classes : Ticos, Flight 1 Burkes, Flight 2 Burkes, Flight 2A Burkes, Flight 3 Burkes, Freedom Class LCS, Independence Class LCS, and maybe even Zumwalts. That's 8 surface combatant class, not 'dozens'.

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The United States has a two-ocean commitment.
A diesel sub cannot make the transit fast enough- even before that moron Carter *spits to clear mouth* gave the Panamanians back the Ditch- to ensure redeployment during wartime. The only way that the United States Navy would have a 'niche ' to guarantee a need for SSK's would be a conflict with an alliance of nations in the Gulf/Caribbean. Other than that, SSK's become a waste of money- a single-ocean ship in a two-ocean navy.

<Ding> <Ding> <Ding>

People forget just how much speed and ergo transit times are important to the USN. Subs don't have to worry about the Canal as much as they can make high speed runs under the Arctic (good luck doing that with an SSK), but it's nice to be able to circumnavigate the globe in a month (26k nautical miles at 30 knots).

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Well..........I guess at the end of the day you are correct as to what the Navy wants and feel they need. It will ultimately come down to budget constraints which like it or not are coming and coming hard. In advance of that I was simply putting forward what I feel is a respectable option as the US Feds try to trim hundreds of billions from their budget which will no doubt impact current and future submarine construction as well as the rest of the future fleet. When I look at current Federal debt levels, I get an ominous feeling that someone is going to hurt what I love most...........military spending. Being a Canadian I get that feeling a lot. The US military has for years been insulated to some degree as their military spending as compared to US GDP ratio is something up here we could only dream about. Going forward however is an entirely different matter.

Best Regards
Mike

Mike...

I get that feeling as well.

I grew up in the 'Bad Old Days' of MAD and Reagan's "1000 Ship Navy"- one of the last generations of Americans to do so. We lived in a nation that was aloof, untouchable and light-years beyond the competition. My Pops (paternal grandfather) told me stories from the Western Front- how us 'upstart colonials' saved the bacon of every European nation that had paid through the nose to colonize our continent. Pa (maternal grandfather) told sea stories over coffee that 'you can't drink till you have hair on your chest' about Japanese who refused to concede that the war was over. Their brothers and nephews recalled places with names like Chosen, Hue City, Da Nang, Khe Sanh- and some places with only numbers for names- where friends and brothers died.

The United States of America might be battered, but we were never bowed.
Even if America lost a battle, or even the war, we were never defeated.

What no nation outside our borders could ever do, however, we have now accomplished ourselves. We have lived up to Lincoln's prediction that this nation would 'as a nation of free men, endure for all times- or die by suicide.' Like Alexander's Greece, Caesar's Rome and the Victoria's Britain before us, our nation ascended to the top and tried to re-make the world into our image... and have found that it is an endeavor that can never be achieved. Such is a deed so all-consuming- so expensive in both gold and blood- that no one nation can ever accomplish it...

and no nation which attempted to do so has survived the attempt.

I think as a Canadian, you are about to have a new pride in your military... in fact, I will boldly predict that you are about to see it GROW. It will not happen in the next few years, mind you- maybe not even in the next decade. It will, however, come before you are no longer around to see it (barring something unfortunate). Other nations are already seeing what I'm talking about- and preparing for it. Japan has built two small aircraft carriers (let's not play politics, let's call them what they are) and plans two more. South Korea has built an amphibious assault ship on par with anything the U.S. has. Great Britain has begun work on two ships which were once the trademark of the United States Navy. China is planning on giving her own navy wings in the near future.

The U.S.A. is flagging, and our grand, virtually invincible military is about to dry up and blow away.
Heck, the whole country might.

Yep, you'll be a lot more proud of the Canadian military soon.
Because if the U.S.A. has to come to terms with spending less on military expenses, if the U.S.A. has to make do with fewer ships, if the U.S.A. has to build tanks with inferior capabilities... well, the rest of the world will have to pick up the slack and spend more, build more and invent better.

Well..........I certainly hope to see more effort on our military. The one thing that has happened in the last few decades is the advent of various forms of PGM's (precision guided munitions). These have been enormous game changers in all forms of combat and are considered the "great equalizers" or "force multipliers". It is one bit of technology that has allowed military planners to spend less and get more from less. Look at the most recent conflicts. It is almost like video game warfare. Being an ex combatant, the last place I would want to be in a modern day conflict between two fairly equally capable forces is anyware that I could be seen.........day or night.

Although I have never been a mariner, never mind a submariner, I think beneath the surface is where I would want to be. Because of these types of weapons launched from submarines especially, both SSN's and SSK's alike, I can envision less investment in surface combatants and more investment in subs with a gradual shift in various countries fleet profile. I get the feeling that in any high density future conflict of equals, there is going to be a lot of surface vessels turned into artificial reefs. Most recent toy from the Germans is a subsurface launched antiaircraft missile. Although I buy into the argument and capabilities of SSN's, for a lot of less financially capable countries, smaller cheaper well armed SSK's may ultimately be their next Corvettes. I know in Canada, even if we could afford SSN's, our population here would never support a nuclear powered vessel. So in our case and certainly many other small countries case, they will buy the most capable politically correct and financially sustainable assett. Hell we didn't buy the last ones new.......they were used British SSK's and a number of years later they are still not capable of firing our own Mark 48's as they are having trouble converting.

Crap anyway :S

All the Best
Mike

One thing I failed to mention right off in my first post was that Barbel Class with the propulsor is one really cool looking boat. My understanding is that not only do they eliminate prop noise, but from 15 knots and slower are a lot more efficient than a prop as well.

Mike

I just read what you guys wrote about the SSK vs SSN debate, that was very interesting.

In France, we operate both SSK and SSN until 2001. Even after the SSN were commissioned, the SSKs remain very useful in order to protect the SSBN when they leave there harbor for example. They were also used in the Mediterranean Sea for every kind of missions.

But they sure don't have the ability to deploy fast and far away, that's why we have a SSN only fleet now, like the UK. But we still have to protect our SSBN and survey the Mediterranean Sea, and we have no choice than using the SSN for that, meaning than less of them are available for over-sea operations. Another point is that with no tiny SSK for littoral missions, we had to limit the size of our future SSN (the Suffren Class), then limiting its weapon load.



Of course, the USN has 10 more SSN than we or the British have. But is it so impossible to imagine some SSK only dedicated for littoral combat missions?
I mean, the USN will have LCS next to its Ticon and Burke class right? How will those LCS deploy around the world? Will they travel by themself (requesting tanker already deployed in the theater of operation before them)? Will they be carried by ships like the MPL? Will they operate from allied base in the area?
Whatever the answer is, is it so impossible to imagine the same thing with SSK? Larger DDG and SSN will continue to serve as rapid reaction forces, while smaller LCS and SSK could arrive after them but stay longer and operate closer to the coasts.

Just my 2 cents As it's the "Personnal Designs" forum and we are talking what-if, then what-if a Littoral Combat Sub alongside the Littoral COmbat Ship ?

The major disadvantages of an SSK over an SSN are speed and range. The US doesn't have a lot of need for submarines in the Caribbean, which would be the equivalent of the Mediterranean to France. As for why no Littoral SSKs to work with LCS, the answer comes down to speed. The LCSes can run with their support ships at 20-30 knots. An SSK can only run long ranges at 10-15. This means that the SSK would, even in the best of cases, take twice as long to get there.

Rereading what you state, you actually get the LCS-DDG arrival time backwards. The LCSes are designed to run into a theatre very quickly, but lack staying power once they get there. The DDGs may take longer to get there, but will be able to stay on station longer

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