[Onkel Neal]

Are Diesel-Powered Submarines Better Than America’s Leading Nuclear Fleet?

Before its 2017 decommissioning, the USS Corpus Christi, a Los Angeles-class fast-attack boat, participated in “Malabar,” an annual naval exercise contested by the United States, Japan and India, all powers that have various reasons to fear a rising and aggressive China.

In the 2015 edition, the Corpus Christi and the Indian Navy’s INS Sindhudhvaj were both tasked with finding each other in a simulated “search-and-destroy” mission—and according to the Indian Navy, it was the Sindhudhvaj, a Russian-built Kilo-class boat, that “found” the American nuclear boat first using sophisticated sonar. (The game “ended” when both boats were informed that India had reported finding the Americans first, and had fired a simulated torpedo that would have hit the target, were it real.)