ORIGINAL: Chickenboy
For all the hotshot submarine stud Captains that get their photos of a CVN's screws, I wonder if they're detected coming in. For these wargames, I wonder if the ROE allow the submarines to be hit by active sonar from dipping helicopters or blasted by concerted ASW attacks. In the case of that Collins' class submarine pictured above, that's a dead sub by my reckoning. I wonder if the submariners realize that they just got greased in their quest for fame. In real life, any submarines detected in the CVNBG region would be treated with the utmost hostility. In peacetime, the risk:reward just isn't there for these guys, so they can shoot the moon.
Also, there's a benefit for CVNBGs to lament how open they are to attack by submarine. "Oh, look how easily our screen can be penetrated! Please, oh please Mr. enemy man, please don't try to track us with your submarines! Look how closely you can get! We're defenseless!" I wonder whether these same vulnerabilities would be echoed in wartime or whether the ASW is-perhaps-more formidable than letting on.
As a rule, in games with submarines, the game is badly skewed in favor of the surface ships. The submarine is required to be within a given geographic box - not large -
and it is forbidden to do many things that would really be done in combat. The problem is that surface ship ASW is very hard, and training with an actual submarine is relatively uncommon - there are not many to play with and not many opportunities to do so - so they want the surface people to get basic experience. In peacetime - we have not operated that way for a long time - a typical destroyer is lucky to get a single training session every couple of years: it happens less often when there are many actual operational requirements as in this age. It is very unusual for a surface ship to actually win a game vs a submarine - never mind the restrictions on the submarine. But it does occasionally happen. In times past, when there were specialist ASW ships, some would become very good - and virtually always win - mainly because their commanders performed many training exercises - even without submsrines - or on any submarine around - even when it wasn't part of an exercise. Non-specialist ships have never had a very good record in ASW - which makes the decision to retire such ships of doubtful wisdom - but sometimes they win too. Aside from luck, it can happen when a tactical situation works out. Subs have so little respect for surface ships they say "there are two kinds of ships - submarines and targets" - and that may lead them to take risks they should not. One time, a sub at the ASW school off San Diego decided to use his periscope radar to detect my destroyer - on the assumption detection of the radar was very unlikely. The standard intercept set (AN/WLR-1) of that age would only "hear" one frequency at a time - on one band - and it was manually tuned - so most of the time it was not on the target frequency. However, I made it practice to record the frequency of every radar emission in every place we ever visited - US, foreign, military, non-military, everything - and merely looked up his signal in my notes - and then sat on it. When he turned it on, I knew at once it was the right kind of radar, and called it out over a special speaker system we had installed in CIC for use by the ECM intercept station. The duty chief - a radarman in those days - had confidence in my bearings - as we practiced regularly - and knew I would call the bearing to half a degree - never mind the 5 degree bearing marks on the tiny display. He told the controller (officer in charge of CIC - normally the exec in a battle in that era) order a sharp turn - and the bearing began to drift - usually a sign of an aircraft radar. But I knew it was a sub radar - and continued to call out bearings: the drift meant he must be close by - and every single iine crossed at the same point on the paper. So the ship fired an ASROC at that bearing - simulated - and did so before the sub could solve the fire control problem vs a maneuvering ship - winning the contest. At the school they said this was almost unique - ECM rarely led to successful submarine engagements - and no one could remember the last time it happened.
The problem of ASW engagement is locating the submarine. Sonar is usually the sensor - but it is subject to lots of problems - not least of which is the range is less clear than the bearing - and the bearing is less precise than with radar. If the water is deep enough, there is usually a thermal layer which can both bend the sound and reduce the return by a close order of magnitude - often meaning you either do not detect at all - or you cannot rely on the reported data. Sonar use is as much an art as a science, and you can actually analyse a signal with your brain if a powerful active sonar acquires a target: the echo tells you there is a target, the pitch of the echo compared to the original pulse tells you if range is opening or closing, the time between pulse and echo tells you the approximate range - etc. But actually getting a weapon to the position of the submarine takes time - during which the submarine moves - which is why smart weapons that try to follow the target are preferred. But the sub might mess with their sonar sensors using various kinds of countermeasures. Subs also have sonar that can go below the layer - which ships usually do not - although a helo might have a dipping sonar that can - and time was that some ships had variable depth sonar (sonar on a cable) that could. Such things are not magic wands - and it takes time to change the depth of the sensor - and you don't know before you detect which side of the layer you want to be on - so it gets quite complicated. In general, however, ASW is harder than is generally understood - so hard many in the naval community believe submarines are the capital ships of the age.
