U.K. to Launch New 'Super Submarine'

[Gerald]

The Royal Navy has a new hunter-killer submarine in its arsenal of weapons. Its name: HMS Ambush.
The submarine has the ability to send guided missiles at the enemy more than 1,000 miles away, and it will never need refueling and can detect ships approaching at 3,000 nautical miles away.This titan of the sea is able to make oxygen and fresh water from ¬seawater, to keep the 98 crew members alive in time of crisis, the U.K. DailyMail reports.Ambush replaces smaller vessels such as the Swiftsure and Trafalgar subs, but despite its size is much quieter, making it virtually undetectable to enemy vessels.The U.K. Daily Mail reports that the vessel is more complex than U.S. space shuttles and is able to circumnavigate the globe without surfacing.Ambush is 291 feet long, as wide as four double-decker buses and 12 stories high. HMS Ambush will carry 38 missiles as ammunition. Its nuclear-powered engine will propel the submarine through the water at more than 20 knots, allowing it to travel 500 miles a day, U.K. DailyMail reports.This super sub cost $1.2 billion dollars and will be launched at Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria, U.K. on Thursday.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/12/14/uk-launch-new-super-sub/?test=latestnews


Note: Published December 14, 2010


Click here for more on this story from the U.K. DailyMail.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1338351/Set-launch-nuclear-Leviathan-The-enormous-scale-biggest-submarine-built-Britain.html

[the_tyrant]

there has been a lot of bad luck with the royal navy these days....

[Gerald]

This might change the situation ....

[TLAM Strike]

Try not to run her aground too... :nope:

[onelifecrisis]

Great. Now we just need another war to justify the expense. That shouldn't take long; over the last three centuries we've averaged one war every three years.

[Reece]

There are some good testing areas around North Korea.:hmmm:

[TLAM Strike]

There are some good testing areas around North Korea.:hmmm:

Bad idea the Yellow sea is about as shallow as the waters off the Island of Skye. :haha:

Wouldn't be very good for the Royal Navy to have her run aground there and gets captured.

... actually I think that is how Oberon and I will start chapter one of our upcoming techno thriller! :O:

[the_tyrant]

Bad idea the Yellow sea is about as shallow as the waters off the Island of Skye. :haha:

Wouldn't be very good for the Royal Navy to have her run aground there and gets captured.

... actually I think that is how Oberon and I will start chapter one of our upcoming techno thriller! :O:

I have it thought out already!
the introduction:

Kim Jiong Il: We the glorious North Korean people have managed to capture the capitalist "Paper Tigers". The so called British super sub has been captured my the working class!
We have ambushed the HMS Ambush, and captured 98 capitalist pigs.
We will be executing them in three days......

Can the super-agents TLAM Strike and Oberon beat Kim Jiong Il and his army? Will they be able to save the crew in time?

[TLAM Strike]

Can the super-agents TLAM Strike and Oberon beat Kim Jiong Il and his army? Will they be able to save the crew in time?

"I am not field personnel, I am only an analyst." :O:

Although I do know our book needs an underwater battle between Navy SEALs and North Korean frogmen in the shadow of a the sunken British Sub while the the USS Texas and a couple Chinese Shang class SSNs face off for who will recover the Ambush and her trapped crew. :ping:

[Gerald]

I think she is to be launched somewhere where there is deep enough, where there are no stones to encounter, :yep:

[Catfish]

Hello,
hmm they just scrapped or at least decommissioned the "Ark Royal" because of insufficient funds, and now .. that ?

OK the project was launched some 10+ years ago, so maybe it's all in the planned budget. I just wonder why they accuse the old government to have wasted 20 millions on poor and jobless people in England, and now launch a 2+ billion pounds sub with 1.2 billions over the estimation ? This sure makes sense economy-wise.

I like subs and technology, but just to have another toy to get into the act with the superpowers ? Uh, let's say China.

"Less noise than a baby dolphin", from the hull's shape i really doubt that.
It is a big sub (not a bit too big for a "hunter-killer"?) that will have to avoid shallow waters (so what is the small minisub for?), it will have difficulties to hide, it has no fluid a-drag system and the size will make the wake of the submerged ship obvious for satellites looking for such patterns. 20 knots ? I hope they just said it to cover up its real speed.
It uses an older reactor but at least it is able to produce drinking water from the sea, and its own oxygen.
So the english Navy has finally found out how electrolysis works :O:
This is really new technology huh ?

/rant :03::DL

Nah i like it, and i wish her more luck than the HMS Astute :-?

Greetings,
Catfish

[papa_smurf]

Lets hope this one works first time, unlike here sister ship; HMS Astute:damn:

[gimpy117]

The U.K. Daily Mail reports that the vessel is more complex than U.S. space shuttles and is able to

it better be. We built the shuttle in the early 70's :hmmm:

[Jimbuna]

I have it thought out already!
the introduction:

Kim Jiong Il: We the glorious North Korean people have managed to capture the capitalist "Paper Tigers". The so called British super sub has been captured my the working class!
We have ambushed the HMS Ambush, and captured 98 capitalist pigs.
We will be executing them in three days......

Can the super-agents TLAM Strike and Oberon beat Kim Jiong Il and his army? Will they be able to save the crew in time?

They will need to be very 'astute' if they hope to succeed.

[XabbaRus]

Most defence journos don't know jack and write stupid things like "more advanced that the space shuttle"...

Oh well..

[Oberon]

Don't ask me why...but I've got high hopes for Ambush. :salute:

[razark]

Most defence journos don't know jack and write stupid things like "more advanced that the space shuttle"...
The space shuttle doesn't work very well under water, but the HMS Ambush does. Therefore, it must be more advanced.

[Jimbuna]

The space shuttle doesn't work very well under water, but the HMS Ambush does. Therefore, it must be more advanced.

LOL :DL

[Weiss Pinguin]

Most defence journos don't know jack and write stupid things like "more advanced that the space shuttle"...

Oh well..
You're just jealous you didn't think of it first :smug:

[Gargamel]

Great. Now we just need another war to justify the expense. That shouldn't take long; over the last three centuries we've averaged one war every three years.

Really? I knew you guys were fiesty blokes, but jeez......


And bigger but quieter, yet the "Hole in the Ocean" type sonar search will pick it out quicker then.

[TLAM Strike]

And bigger but quieter, yet the "Hole in the Ocean" type sonar search will pick it out quicker then. Maybe it employs active noise cancellation like the Akula to solve that problem? The UK has had quite a while to figure that little secret out since the cold war ended... :hmmm:

[Gargamel]

"

Although I do know our book needs an underwater battle between Navy SEALs and North Korean frogmen in the shadow of a the sunken British Sub while the the USS Texas and a couple Chinese Shang class SSNs face off for who will recover the Ambush and her trapped crew. :ping:


Dont forget the Ambush can still fire some eels even though she's been sunk!

[the_tyrant]

is there anyway to hide a sub as a school of fish or a whale?
maybe by playing sounds in the ocean? or by changing the shape of the sub?

[Skybird]

Anyone else having a problem with believing the claim that passive sonar type 2076 finds and tracks objects at ranges of 3000 miles...?

[Gargamel]

Anyone else having a problem with believing the claim that passive sonar type 2076 finds and tracks objects at ranges of 3000 miles...?

you mean when it leaves New York it can't hear ships in San Francisco!?!
Gasp! :doh:

[krashkart]

you mean when it leaves New York it can't hear ships in San Francisco!?!
Gasp! :doh:

It would be able to in SH3. :O:

[Madox58]

It would be able to in SH3. :O:
No, in SH3?
The DD in port at SF would see YOU!
Then it would ground itself and sink trying to get to you.
:haha:

[krashkart]

No, in SH3?
The DD in port at SF would see YOU!
Then it would ground itself and sink trying to get to you.
:haha:

Right, I got that mixed up. :haha:

[TLAM Strike]

is there anyway to hide a sub as a school of fish or a whale?
maybe by playing sounds in the ocean? or by changing the shape of the sub?
Not really, do this experiment: Talk to a friend in person then have them talk to you on the phone. Notice how they sound different each time. The speaker reproduces their sound but not exactly, it cuts off the bottom and top of the amplitude sine wave. Narrowband analysis can show this. But that is not to say that artificial noise can't mask a submarine's tonal by flooding the freqs around that with random noise.

Anyone else having a problem with believing the claim that passive sonar type 2076 finds and tracks objects at ranges of 3000 miles...? Its possible but under very specific circumstances. In WWII detection of sounding charges were heard as far as 900 miles using the deep sound channel. Three SOSUS stations (Newfoundland was one) detected the implosion of the Scorpion near the Azores, thousands of miles away.

[Gargamel]

Its possible but under very specific circumstances. In WWII detection of sounding charges were heard as far as 900 miles using the deep sound channel. Three SOSUS stations (Newfoundland was one) detected the implosion of the Scorpion near the Azores, thousands of miles away.

But I think the problem most of are having are the words, "finds and tracks"

I understand loud noises over great distances, or sound channels carrying intermittent sounds great distances. Detection is not the problem, tracking is. But isn't one of the problems with tracking through the deep sound channel the fact that range (Other than "It's really effing far way cap'n") is practically impossible to tell since it's actually based on some sort of harmonic? IE, the contact would be a possibility of ranges of multiples of say 30 miles, ie it could be at 60. 90, 120, or 150 miles, etc?

[TLAM Strike]

But I think the problem most of are having are the words, "finds and tracks"

I understand loud noises over great distances, or sound channels carrying intermittent sounds great distances. Detection is not the problem, tracking is. But isn't one of the problems with tracking through the deep sound channel the fact that range (Other than "It's really effing far way cap'n") is practically impossible to tell since it's actually based on some sort of harmonic? IE, the contact would be a possibility of ranges of multiples of say 30 miles, ie it could be at 60. 90, 120, or 150 miles, etc?

You are sort of confusing it with a Convergence Zone I think. Those occur every 30 miles while the Deep Sound Channel sucks in certain frequency tonals in for lack of a better word vortex a couple of hundred feet tall where sound waves refract back and forth very quickly across the axes of the channel.

Take a look at this:
http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/2662/raystest.gif
at about -1 (thousand meters) is the DSC. The larger bounces are the convergence zones. if your sensor is above or below the axis then you could lose the contact as the sound waves bounce (you would be in their "Shadow Zone") but if its in the axis then the waves are bouncing along such a narrow corridor that you can't miss them.

[Gargamel]

I'll take your word for it. I know just enough about sonar to sound impressive, but do no more than just confuse myself and others.

[Jimbuna]

Anyone else having a problem with believing the claim that passive sonar type 2076 finds and tracks objects at ranges of 3000 miles...?

That's been possible for quite a few years according to a friend of mine who was a PO in sonar.

I'm not entirely convinced about the accuracy of tracking at such ranges though...not that any navy is going to go public on precise details.

[Skybird]

Its possible but under very specific circumstances.

The novice sitting at my end of the wire assumes that this is the detail to be aware of. I would not believe this capability to be the normal state of things in submarine operations, but being the result of several factors meeting in time and space.

[TLAM Strike]

The novice sitting at my end of the wire assumes that this is the detail to be aware of. I would not believe this capability to be the normal state of things in submarine operations, but being the result of several factors meeting in time and space.

Well I'll put it this way, in certain regions of the world like the North Atlantic or the Pacific where the waters are very deep its possible if you have a sensor also in the deep waters and the acoustic conditions are uniform. But there are many things that can mess it up like a current of warm water.

Lets take the locations of the SOSUS stations as a base.
http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/8458/1stsousesensors.png
Lets assume we would not design a system with any gaps, now draw a circle around each station (assuming the arrays are within a 50 or miles of the station on the edge of the continental shelf). Now lets remember back to the Cuban Missile Crisis where the Soviet Foxtrots were basically detected every time they snorkeled by SOSUS and it gave the Ship and ASW Plane commanders an area sufficiently small to search. That was 50 years ago, in the 1980s we started putting this on surface ships (SURTASS), its very possible today that systems of this scope are small enough to install on a submarine.

[Oberon]

That's just the tracking methods we know about.

I know the Russians put a lot into wake detection on their boats, and there was talk of using lasers to probe the depths either from a submerged boat, surface ship or satellite in orbit. However, given the loss of energy water would cause a laser, I'm not sure if that's particularly practical. :hmmm:

[TLAM Strike]

That's just the tracking methods we know about.

I know the Russians put a lot into wake detection on their boats, and there was talk of using lasers to probe the depths either from a submerged boat, surface ship or satellite in orbit. However, given the loss of energy water would cause a laser, I'm not sure if that's particularly practical. :hmmm:

Yea lasers stop being effective after about a 100 feet. Although Helis do use them for mine detection.

The wake detection sensors the Russians developed were mostly abandoned, the latter model Akulas either had them removed or they were never installed.