Shipbucket

Klag, if you intending to begin an argument best quote the opposition in full; he was pointing out that the Virginia's draft would preclude operation in shallow water, and not that they were a bad design. On balance I would think that having both would be worthwhile. The hasty cancelling of the RN diesel subs removed a very valuable asset for littoral operations, and the thought of substituting nuclear subs (in a simliar role) just wouldn't be as useful

Why?

Being able to deploy in shallow water is only a relevant operational requirement for a defensive mini-sub. The Virginia is designed to engage threats like these, but not necessarily in their territory.

But since this is getting off-topic, I'll leave it at that. I'll admit to nitpick it from that standpoint was overly doing so.

Polish navy has become to conclusion that the pr.877 is allready way too big ship to be practical in Baltic enverioment... In narrow waters, its not just the depth but also the length of the ship and its turning circle that matters.

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Shipbucket mainsite, aka "The Archive"
New AU project "Aravala"

True, Kilo is good submarine but as you say is just too big for Baltic. Our Kobben's are much better for this water.

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Nobody expects the Imperial Inquisition!

As an aside on the original concept post, I read a few months back that the Taiwanese are using the Barbel-class plans to develop an indigenous SSK. So the idea of a modernized Barbel has been seriously proposed within the last five years or less.

American littoral ships are way too big to be called that I think but everything is relative especially when you have so many huge ships in your navies arsenal
Looks like a nice little submarine thou

Just looking at some of the reply's on Littoral class subs and their respectful usefulness as it relates to the US Navy. I guess the first thing I would point out is cost difference both in terms of ops cost and acquisition cost.

A single Virginia Class boat is roughly 1.8 billion dollars to acquire without taking into consideration life cycle costs and operating sea day costs. It has a crew of over 150 and for most coastal patrol duties is overkill. One could argue usefulness of blue water capable boats vs Littoral till you are blue in the face. The Virginia class is a monster at almost 8,000 tons submerged as compared to say a Gotland class boat at just under 1,500 tons with a crew of 26 and an acquisition cost of just over 220 million USD. That is about an 8:1 advantage. For the cost of 2 Virginia's, the US Navy could put 6 SSK's on each coast, east, west and Gulf of Mexico.

Their mission cost I make the assumption would be close to the same ratio on a sea day basis and would free up nuke boats for blue water and international commitments ultimately meaning, less of the nuke boats are truly required. This isn't to say that you wouldn't deploy an SSK say to Middle East or SE Asian duties either. Lots of really skinny water to operate in both those locals with tons of US interests in each. The only weird requirement is oxygen. That being said, a small ASU and storage system aboard any support vessel is not that big of deal as the amounts carried on board an AIP sub of this nature are minimal. Transit to and from an operating area is no different than any other SSK............you snort and burn diesel only and have close to 8,000 mile transit range. Once in their operating environment, they are a very tough nut to crack.

Having said that, the US pacific fleet now has operating experience with a Gotland class that was sent over from Sweden. That experience should pretty much rule out any perceived operational shortcomings in a local operating theater as whether it was in deep "Blue" water environment or littoral, it made a mockery of the elements of the Pacific Fleet operating against it in 2006 and 2007. There were some very embarrassing lessons learned from that deployment that has caused an internal rethink into SSK's and the real value they bring to an overall naval operating theater. During those 2 years the following key observations were made.
* The submarine was extremely difficult if not impossible at times to locate in any environment.
* It could virtually close with and attack at will any surface and subsurface asset the Pacific Fleet could throw at it including the carrier the Ronald Reagan.
*Any third world country can afford this type of boat and many already do that are not necessarily friends with the US.

What I throw out there for anybody to counter is the cost argument. Given the extreme budget constraints that are here now and given the proven performance in theater and coastal operations freeing up the big bad boats for their true intended purpose, how could one "not" justify their existance in the US Naval inventory?

Best Regards to All
Mike

funny to read about that gotland class submarine that hade ... som fun wit the pacific fleet. I remember the Blue Game exercise, where one of the norwegian submarine of the Ula class got disqualified because it sunk to many ship. Amer...anypne should see / realize something then ... size doesn't mather

Why don't people get it?

An SSK can't transit fast enough (West Coast to Manila bay is about 7500 miles so an SSN can make the trip in 8.5 days, and be ready to deploy the moment it's in theater while the SSK takes twice as long and has to refuel at least once on the way and after it gets there*), have the mission capabilities of, or do anything better than an SSN (Those 8000 tons give you a lot play with), except maybe die in a blue water environment. I hope anyone who reads your fallacies above realizes that the future of USN littoral warfare lies in a UXV swarm.

Your cost argument is also silly. The Collins class subs (a useful analog to the Gotland class), cost 5 billion AUS for six ships, or on the near order of 800 million AUS per boat. Very suddenly your 8:1 advantage is now 2:1.

*This also presumes that you don't make the transit while using AIP, because then it takes damn near 50 days to make the trip. Obviously you wouldn't do this, but the SSN can stay underwater and meet the profile that the AIP mode SSK does.

If you can afford it SSNs win out over SSKs every day of the week†, and the Aussies get this now. There is a reason they are looking at the French export SSN for the Collins replacement.

†Do not pass go, Do not collect $200

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Indeed, the only time a SSK is likely to get the upper hand is in environments where the SSN can't use its speed and the distance s involved are small enough that the SSK can transit it in reasonable times. The Baltic is a good example of this, but then again the Baltic is considered the place to be for an SSK.

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