Matrix Games Forums

During the Falklands war one UK sub sunk a cruiser and basically kept the entire Argentine navy in port. Not bad value for money from one sub.

oh dear maker, what a question!



attack subs eat anything at sea, like cerberus. the best antiship platforms ever. they are so dangerous that now counter-torpedo systems are deployed. a dead giveaway that ASW is not so effective against recent subs.

attack aubs love High Value Assets like carriers, cruisers, amphib ships, ssbn's. the best subs will be around 2050 without a reactor but 3rd or 4th generation AIP (air independent propulsion) with endurence of 6-12 weeks. because noise is the only way to find a sub, also metal-hull subs with MAD (magnetic anomaly detection).

want so see russian, chinese and us navy surface officers sweat? bring in recent swedish, german, italian subs with AIP. you will listen and detect nothing. a hole in the water. it is so scary. so deadly.

all you hear is a torpedo launch or acceleration noise. maybe 20 seconds to impact or less. only counter-torpedos, masker and nixies (decoys) will work but you dont have the time to deploy them.

even the chinese have mastered the attack sub forte: in october 2006 a Chinese Song-class diesel-electric attack submarine quietly surfaced within nine miles of Kitty Hawk in the waters between Japan and Taiwan. peek-a-boo!

be afraid, very afraid

google "us carrier periscope photo"

because noise is the only way to find a sub, also metal-hull subs with MAD (magnetic anomaly detectiob).

Don't forget the other non-acoustic ASW methods involving wakes. It's assumed the Soviets (now Russians) are quite advanced in this regard, to the point where some have theorized that the Russians could have a picture of most US SSBN bastions.

Ref1:The Naval Institute Guide to the Soviet Navy, P.28
Ref2: Center for Naval Analyses paper
Ref3: Even the US is (probably) getting in on it

ORIGINAL: ExNusquam
the Russians could have a picture of most US SSBN bastions.

What do you mean?

What do you mean?

Using a space-based IR system to look for water disturbances, you could theoretically track SSBN deployments and determine their operating areas/tracks. A second-strike capability isn't worth much if REDFOR can track it.

Do they disturb the water in a way detectable by IR while at depth? If so, how?

google "us carrier periscope photo"

Thanks for the tip, that was...eye-opening...[X(]

As the old saying goes...there are only two classes of ships, submarines and targets.

Do they disturb the water in a way detectable by IR while at depth? If so, how?

As it's been explained to me, submarines leave a fairly pronounced underwater wake. This wake can be pronounced enough that it could affect the thermal characteristics of the surface water.

However, it should be fairly obvious why this tech isn't a deciding factor yet; you've got to filter out every surface ship wake as well.

People have been talking about doing that sort of thing since the 80s. It's actually discussed in a book called Strategic Antisubmarine Warfare and Naval Strategy by Tom Stefanick. On p. 202 they talk about reactor generated IR plumes. The problem is that temperature variations of a similar magnitude can be caused by multiple phenomena, making it difficult to distinguish between a submarine plume and other natural phenomena.

ORIGINAL: ExNusquam

Do they disturb the water in a way detectable by IR while at depth? If so, how?

As it's been explained to me, submarines leave a fairly pronounced underwater wake. This wake can be pronounced enough that it could affect the thermal characteristics of the surface water.

However, it should be fairly obvious why this tech isn't a deciding factor yet; you've got to filter out every surface ship wake as well.

Wow excellent book! Hard to find that one.

There's a few different ways of detecting submarines from space as outlined here:

https://fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/slbm/detection.pdf

Tracking a wake and making sure it's not a surface ship is easy with the correct algorithms in place. Below is a site on tracking ships from space with Synthetic Aperature Radar.

http://www.crisp.nus.edu.sg/~research/ship_detect/ship_det.htm

Tracking submarines from LEO with SAR satellites outlined here: http://gentleseas.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/satellite-detection-of-submarines.html

UK paper on LIDAR for use in Submarine detection. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1252/1/2009birkelandmphil.pdf




This is a LIDAR image of HMS A1.

I wouldn't hold too much emphasis on random photos through submarine periscopes from any country, because many of the exercises can be taken too easily out of context if you don't know the specific ROE or the reason for the training being conducted, the limited space or the way they set up the scenario or force structures.





Additional info on ship detection, this service provides multiple satellite info. I would imagine the service is rather expensive, but you can see where pirates took your cargo vessel if such a thing should happen.

http://www.geo-airbusds.com/en/4445-ship-detection-tracking

Very useful info, thank you!