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An interesting article from a well-known Naval War College professor:
http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/story.asp?STORY_ID=2382
http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/story.asp?STORY_ID=2382
Retired AF Guy said:" FMF CS as a TSS."??? Sorry I'm not familiar with navy lingo.
Why do you believe that an SSK requires a tender to deploy with it? Name a single western nation that deploys tenders with their SSK? SUBPAC had a number of forward deployed diesel boats [USS Barbel (SS-580), USS Blueback (SS-581), USS Bonefish (SS-582), and others] in WesPac without tender support, or need for tender support, for most of the cold war, including a number of black ops during the Vietnam War. Voyage repairs and overhauls were conducted in Yokosuka and Subic Bay.drunknsubmrnr said:Tenders are extremely expensive to build and run. They require most of the manpower and capabilities of an FMF, while keeping everything in a basic hull. That hull is also very vulnerable. Losing it will cripple a Navy's SSK capabilities to the point the money would have been better spent elsewhere.
How do you deal with the reactor cooling inlets?drunknsubmrnr said:SSN's are also able to sit on the bottom, using the same techniques as SSK's.
Many submarine forces have QA programs that are equivalent to SUBSAFE. The major portion of the budget for an SSN is the reactor (never mind the TBD disposal costs). Look at what a T-Boat cost vs. an Upholder. Essentially the same hull, auxiliary systems, sensors, but substantially more expensive.drunknsubmrnr said:He's also mixing costs. An SSK built to USN standards wouldn't be much cheaper than an SSN, since almost all of the really expensive equipment would be the same between the two types. Same combat system, same sensors, same weapons, same diesels. That leads to pretty similar costs for a lot less capability.
Why do you believe that an SSK requires a tender to deploy with it? Name a single western nation that deploys tenders with their SSK?
SUBPAC had a number of forward deployed diesel boats [USS Barbel (SS-580), USS Blueback (SS-581), USS Bonefish (SS-582), and others] in WesPac without tender support, or need for tender support, for most of the cold war, including a number of black ops during the Vietnam War. Voyage repairs and overhauls were conducted in Yokosuka and Subic Bay.
How do you deal with the reactor cooling inlets?
Look at what a T-Boat cost vs. an Upholder. Essentially the same hull, auxiliary systems, sensors, but substantially more expensive.
Where does the 1000 mile limit come from?drunknsubmrnr said:Math mostly. Boats normally operate <1000 miles (aka ~1 weeks transit) from their base/tender. If you happen to have a properly equipped base within 1000 miles of all probabable targets you probably don't need a tender but I think you'll find that isn't the case for even the US.
Even if an SSN skipper was willing to get his inlets that close to the muck on the bottom, how do you avoid damaging the bow array?drunknsubmrnr said:Same way you keep muck out of your tank inlets and the screw clear: trim forward when you're just above the bottom. The bow sits on the bottom, and the screws and inlets stay a few feet off the bottom.
Lex Parsimoniae said:Even if an SSN skipper was willing to get his inlets that close to the muck on the bottom, how do you avoid damaging the bow array?
Where does the 1000 mile limit come from?
Even if an SSN skipper was willing to get his inlets that close to the muck on the bottom, how do you avoid damaging the bow array?
Not a bad guess. Older SSNs did indeed have their sonar arrays on the top but many/most navies went away from that approach with the advent of wire guided weapons.Sub-normal said:Most boats have their bow array on the top half of the forward dome and the torpedo tubes on the bottom. This includes the USN SSNs. The Victoria class is one of the only ones to be reversed.
I’ll try re-phrasing my question. Why do SSKs need a tender but SSNs don’t?drunknsubmrnr said:It's about 1 week's transit. Leaves about 30 days on patrol out of a nominal 45 days endurance.
Without explaining the technical reasons for why the fibreglass needs to be protected, look at pictures from the groundings of USS San Francisco, HMS Trafalgar, and HMS Superb…drunknsubmrnr said:The bow array is inside a free-flooding fiberglass shroud, as well as being placed away from the bottom. It's in more danger from a collision than a grounding.
Older SSNs did indeed have their sonar arrays on the top but many/most navies went away from that approach with the advent of wire guided weapons.
Why do SSKs need a tender but SSNs don’t?
Without explaining the technical reasons for why the fibreglass needs to be protected, look at pictures from the groundings of USS San Francisco, HMS Trafalgar, and HMS Superb…
Which leaves them vulnerable to your proposed touch down and trim forward technique. The lack of a keel block is another impediment to bottoming since the base of the sonar array doesn’t appear to be sufficiently reinforced to support that kind of weight. However this discussion is about USN SSNs and they clearly cannot bottom due to their spherical arrays. Take it from an anonymous internet source – SSNs cannot bottom due the reactor cooling pumps regardless of bow sonars.drunknsubmrnr said:If you look at the non-USN SSN's, you'll see that that the arrays wrap around the front and both sides. They don't carry directly under the bow where they'd touch down.
Using assumed speeds of <6 kts for an SSK and >35 kts for an SSN???drunknsubmrnr said:SSN's can transit roughly 6000 nm in a week, rather than an SSK's 1000 miles. That means they can use a base that's a lot farther away. SSN's also have longer endurance, allowing worldwide deployments from just a few bases.
True enough but that wasn’t the case for the two British boats.drunknsubmrnr said:There's a big difference between a light touchdown at very slow speed, and smacking into a seamount at 30 knots.
Which leaves them vulnerable to your proposed touch down and trim forward technique. The lack of a keel block is another impediment to bottoming since the base of the sonar array doesn’t appear to be sufficiently reinforced to support that kind of weight.
However this discussion is about USN SSNs and they clearly cannot bottom due to their spherical arrays. Take it from an anonymous internet source – SSNs cannot bottom due the reactor cooling pumps regardless of bow sonars.
Using assumed speeds of <6 kts for an SSK and >35 kts for an SSN???
True enough but that wasn’t the case for the two British boats.
from Wikipedia...drunknsubmrnr said:Cough...Ivy Bells...cough.
.. August 1968 when she transferred to Mare Island for overhaul and installation of: side thrusters; hangar section sea lock; anchoring winches with fore and aft mushroom anchors...
Since it is not really relevant to the debate of SSK vs. SSN, I'll move on from your insistence that SSN can bottom despite Dr Vego publishing in a USN journal that "...an SSN cannot sit on the bottom because of the danger of clogging vital inlets to condensers..."
The thrust of Dr Vego's pro-SSK argument doesn't rely on their ability to bottom but instead centres around cost, size, and their ability to perform some missions in the littorals more effectively than SSNs.
Bottomed and anchored? ;Ddrunknsubmrnr said:She needed anchors because she routinely stayed on the bottom for extended periods, and the operations she conducted needed an extremely stable platform.
USNI is as close to an inside journal as possible but whatever. Dr. Vego is a professor of operations at the Naval War College. Before coming to the United States in 1976, he served as commanding officer of torpedo boats and gunboats in the former Yugoslav Navy and as 2nd officer (Deck) in the former West German merchant marine. He is the author of Naval Strategy and Operations in Narrow Seas (London: Frank Cass Publishers, 1999 and 2nd ed., 2003), and of many articles on littoral warfare. I'll take his word over some bloggers who let their obvious nuclear bias overrule any possible discussion of non-nuclear for the USN.drunknsubmrnr said:Dr Vego's article was in Proceedings, which is published by the US Naval Institute and is not part of the USN. FWIW, that article was thoroughly fisked in submariner circles when it came out..
Such as?drunknsubmrnr said:A lot of the reasons he gave to back up his opinions were factually wrong, leading to incorrect conclusions.