Diesel Submarines: The Game Changer the U.S. Navy Needs

[Onkel Neal]

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/bu...vy-needs-31827

Among the more-than-ample reasons for acquiring a flotilla of diesel-electric submarines for the U.S. Navy: SSKs could help deter war by demonstrating American resiliency should war come in the Western Pacific. Deterrence comes from capability and visible resolve to use it. And from staying power. Foes blanch at starting a fight if they fear they can do little to blunt an antagonist’s warmaking capability. In short, resilient contestants deter. And should war come anyway, an artfully employed diesel contingent could help the United States and its allies—principally Japan—prevail in that war.

An allied sub squadron wouldn’t need SSNs with breakneck speed and unlimited underwater endurance to defend a static island perimeter. SSNs excel at open-ocean combat, but they represent excess capacity and expense—and thus waste—for sentry duty. A U.S.-Japanese squadron would need subs to man the barricade in concert with surface craft, missile-armed troops on the islands, aircraft roving overhead, and well-placed minefields. Picket subs thus need to hover silently and stealthily along the island chain, awaiting their chance to strike.

Diesels can do that. The alliance needs enough sentries to keep up a constant rotation, assuring enough subs are always on guard, along with a reserve to shore up the line when vessels are lost in action. A U.S.-Japanese sub fleet would boast enough hulls to keep up a rotation along the Ryukyus. The JMSDF gets by with nineteen boats after a modest buildup, but the leadership wants more. Add a dozen or so American boats to the combined order of battle, and you’d have an undersea fleet able to hold the line with enough units to spare for offensive missions such as raiding shipping within the Yellow or East China Sea or the Sea of Okhotsk.

[ET2SN]

SSNs with breakneck speed and unlimited underwater endurance

Trust me, the Navy and the Pentagon like this part.

I was one of the last guys to serve on both types, we ain't going back.

[Cybermat47]

In 2000, one of our Collins-class diesel-electric boats managed to “sink” two USN nuclear boats and get in range of a Nimitz. The diesel-electrics still have their place in a modern navy.

If America goes back to making diesel-electrics, they need to name the first one Tang

[Mike Abberton]

The chances of the US Navy purchasing a weapon platform that they can't staff,
would need to develop an entirely new logistics train for, can only realistically base at foreign nation's ports to be useful, and only buy from a foreign nation for the 10-20 years it would take to get US production of a replacement on line, seems extremely unlikely to me.

Mike

[ET2SN]

Originally Posted by Mike Abberton

The chances of the US Navy purchasing a weapon platform that they can't staff,
would need to develop an entirely new logistics train for, can only realistically base at foreign nation's ports to be useful, and only buy from a foreign nation for the 10-20 years it would take to get US production of a replacement on line, seems extremely unlikely to me.

Mike

Ding!
You win the cookie.

[Penner10000]

What kind of Submarine is on the picture?