AW1Steve
Posts: 14507
Joined: 3/10/2007 From: Mordor Illlinois Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: gradenko_2000 quote:
ORIGINAL: bigred quote:
ORIGINAL: crsutton I am beginning to suspect that almost any carrier is just too vulnerable these days to be worth it. The only thing that makes our American carriers useful is that at this time there is really no world power with the capability to take them. But I bet if they were in the hands of another nation that we would have no trouble taking them out....Which means that sooner or later somebody else will have that capability. I have heard the subs in operation today have the ability to sneak undetected w/in torp range of any CVBG and place torps into the screws of any capitol ship. So I figure the CV will go the path of the BB. I expect this to happen w/ in the next 3/4 years. This already happened before. A German Type 206-class diesel-electric sub managed to penetrate the USS Enterprise's battle-group while it was on maneuvers in the Caribbean and got close enough to photograph it through its periscope, which is as good as saying it got close enough to fire a likely fatal spread of torpedoes if this was not an exercise. You may be right that carriers are too large targets to be effectively protected against swarms of cruise missiles and/or subs, but at least on the sub front, the only ones quiet enough to do this are the diesel-electrics, who have their own obvious limitations, as well as practically being a one-shot weapon. That is, you might be able to get it to sink a carrier, but you'll pretty much have to write-off the sub completely after that single attack from all the ASW attention it's going to attract. It's definitely a trade-off that would be massively in the sub's favor, though. In my much younger days , whenever my P-3 squadron had to do "CORD-OPS" (coordinated ops) with a carrier group (We generally called them OPS with the Uncoodinated!) we would frequently be tasked by the CV ASW commander to search ahead of the group. If at any time were "given our head" were to go , we would beeline for BEHIND the carrier, where upon dropping our sonobouys 9 time out of 10 we would find the sub! Sometimes he'd be laying there (especially in a cruise missile equipped sub) lining up for a shot. Usually he'd be trying hard to catch up with the carrier. (As the old Naval saying goes, "A stern chase is a long chase!"). While I freely admit that a diesel sub is extremely quiet on batteries, that's because it pretends to be a "hole in the water". Problem is , a hole doesn't move very far or very fast. That's why a diesal sub depends on hiding in "choke points" and hoping the target will blindly run over it. In the past , this problem has been nuetralized by "beating the hell out of the bushes" , or what the Russians used to call "Mobbing tactic's". Before the CV goes through the coke point , you saturate the area with small ASW assets (Soviet style) of Dipping Helicopters (Western style) with active sonar. Anything there , sub , fish.whale or whatever is going to come off the bottom and dash in the opposite direction as fast as possible. The same goes for a bigger scale , in blue water ops. Before a carrier goes into a contested area , you heavily sweep it , 1st with MPA (Maritime patrol aircraft like P-3's or Nimrods) , then the Carriers own fixed wing intermediate assets (like S-3 Vikings , now retired) , then surface ships and their embarked helicopters (like FFG's and DD's with SH-60's , or Westland Lynx's). And lastly the carrier's own dipping helicopters , sweeping with active SONAR. Yes some good SSN skippers could penetrate that screen by using "sprint and drift" tactics to stay ahead of the "Dippers". But then they would have a surprise by running into the SSN's that would be accompanying the CV group. Great tactics, which pretty much worked (with modification) from 1945 till the late 1990's. Then the politicians (both in and out of uniform) got cheap. They make the CV escort much smaller, pealed off the SSN's, cut back on P-3's (by 2/3's and started using them for everything BUT ASW....like gunfire spotting in Afhghanistan!) and the biggest cut of all, they retired the S-3 Viking with no replacement. That's like re-equipping a police department with high powered rifles and mace , but taking away their pistols! So I agree , that sooner or later a fat bird farm is going to collect a couple of fish in the fanny. But it is absolutely , totally avoidable. Then will learn. Again.
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