Why Did America Stop Building the Best (and Most Dangerous Sub)

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

In an SSN you can always outrun those light UUVs, decoy them (remember small size = poor sensors and processing power) and so on and so forth. Under water you then get the comms problem, that is - it is hard to make a good and stealthy comm system for under water (though I guess there was decent work done on green lasers).

Mmm I dont know, if have to you pick up speed to out run something then its too late, you've been discovered and another can easily find you. As far as sensors go, they are not all that 'poor'. Commercial research firms already use magnetometers in their drones. I can only imagine but I'm sure U.S. and Russian navies are aware of this and have developed MAD designs that can easily fit in a suitable drone.

[ikalugin]

That is no limitation for a swarm per se, but for the individual unit. Once a unit has overcome that limit, many units building swarms can be build. And will.

If a single unit cannot move at 30 knots for multiple hours then the swarm can't either.

Thus physical limitations (in propulsion, weapons and sensors) limit the usefullness of the swarms and thus limit their applications.

Mmm I dont know, if have to you pick up speed to out run something then its too late, you've been discovered and another can easily find you. As far as sensors go, they are not all that 'poor'. Commercial research firms already use magnetometers in their drones. I can only imagine but I'm sure U.S. and Russian navies are aware of this and have developed MAD designs that can easily fit in a suitable drone.

The only reason why it is too late nowadays to run when you are detected is because weapons outrun platforms reliably (and even that can be debated on case to case grounds).
In case of swarmer UUVs and SSNs - SSNs, ie platforms can outrun UUVs, ie the weapons. And speed is only one of those problems.

The other one is about the sensors - small individual vehicles in the swarm imply small individual apperture (and power if we are talking about active sensors, but those are less relevant in the ASW nowadays). Unless you can create a synthetic aperture sensor (which needs processing power and comms) those UUVs would have more problems than large SSNs. While you can argue about processing power either way - the comms are physics limited.

I mean there is a reason why now modern SSNs (ie Astute class) get massive sensor apertures (towed and those side mounted apertures).

TLDR - new tech is cool and exciting, but then people overestimate importance of technology on the human activies in general and war specifically.

[ikalugin]

On the topic of UUVs.

One of the most common ways UUVs are presently used in combat roles is mine hunting. However since early 00s (when mine hunting UUVs became a thing) we can already see the full dialectical circle happening, with the shift from the recon+killer UUV combo to the unmanned trawlers due to the introduction of counter UUV means.

[Mr Quatro]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

I've heard autonomous technology is the biggest thing since the Manhatten Project. You could probably buy a dozen autonomous subs for half the price of one seawolf.

Agreed, plus drone submarines don't have men inside and in just five more years anyone's navy will be able to use a drone sub to ward off intruders into their waters.

Just a few months ago we had a visitor from Canada interested in the piping diagrams for the USS Nautilus ... he was probably successful in his quest, but not from us. That data is probably already in Iran and North Korea.

Five (5) more years till they have a submarine drone that can kill you.
Five (5) more years till their Admirals ask permission to take out one of ours sneaking around their harbors.

We need more drones without men that can get the job done and those drones need a surface combat ship to protect them.

I hope that politics doesn't dictate the use of our submarines, but I can't continue to hold to that hope for much longer.

[Rockstar]

I reckon another reason why they stopped building the big bad wolf is even they , the quietist submarine on the planet, will soon not be able to escape the advances in detection technology.

http://www.defensetech.org/2015/02/1...ardy/?mobile=1

Enter the autonomous drone wars.

[eddie]

New class of sub being built.

https://www.cnet.com/pictures/all-ab...065f2bf12d93b5

[Mr Quatro]

Originally Posted by eddie

New class of sub being built.

https://www.cnet.com/pictures/all-ab...065f2bf12d93b5

You need a submarine without air in it ... I don't know a lot about sonar, but I think that's where the ping on active sonar might be coming from.

Come to think of it ... our submarines could use drones for decoy's and miss-leading surface craft active or passive sonars.

There's the future ... drones for submarines.

[Rockstar]

We need autonomous machines. "Since humanity will be unable to unite itself to a point where it wishes to put others before itself, it may be left to a machine to calculate the best course of action in a situation.
Of course, such a machine would have to be strictly protected from outside interference and yet have enough awareness of outside matters to be able to make decisions based on all the information that it receives, and there is a Massive ethical problem since a machine will not take things such as empathy or emotions into account when making decisions. Decisions would be cool and calculating and it may decide to sacrifice sections of society in order to preserve more useful other sections."

Just as long its our autonomous machines protecting our section of society I'm all for it!

[mapuc]

I can very well imagine unmanned mini subs that can travel with a speed of 70-80 knots without any cavitation and they have developed torpedo that is only 1/20 of the size of todays MK 48 torpedo and the speed is about 100 knots and its 10 times stronger in explosion(I forgot what all these technical things are called while I wrote this comment)

Markus

[ikalugin]

Originally Posted by mapuc

I can very well imagine unmanned mini subs that can travel with a speed of 70-80 knots without any cavitation and they have developed torpedo that is only 1/20 of the size of todays MK 48 torpedo and the speed is about 100 knots and its 10 times stronger in explosion(I forgot what all these technical things are called while I wrote this comment)

Markus

Does it use dilithium?

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

Does it use dilithium?

I guess at that time one would simply beam the bomb aboard the other's ship and be done with it.


But i thought arms race is about willy-waving, so where have the times gone that the biggest usually won