Something better than a carrier navy?

[LoBlo]

The article (http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=108023&ran=77668) on the front page (http://www.subsim.com/index.php) brings up a curious and interesting point: Is a "supercarrier" navy the most effective use of naval resources? Is there perhaps a better and more cost effective fleet strategy?

Discuss. :)

[Kapitan]

The soviet navy built submarines to combat the carriers, at the hieght there was over 500 in service, thats about 70 submarines to 1 carrier.

Soviets used SSGN's to great effect and attack submarines how ever they didnt realy depoy then sucsessfully.

[Takeda Shingen]

The Soviet Union relied heavily on their numbers. They had to because, frankly, the vast majority of their ships and weapons were, for lack of a better term, junk. Essentially, Soviet thought ran as follows: 'We have junk. But, we have lots of junk.' Their gamble was that at least some of the ships and weapons would survive long enough to make a sucessful attack. That's not a navy that I would want to serve in.

[Kapitan]

And you call the SS-N-22 and SS-N-19 a pile of junk? considering they can mission kill if not totaly wipe out a carrier single handed, and are classified as the most powerfullest anti-ship missile in the world not to mention are highly feared in the USN. hence why they dont like the oscars getting too close.

[Takeda Shingen]

You are quoting fleet strength from the late 1960's and weapons technology from the early 1980's. A submarine fleet of 500 and the missiles given above never did co-exist. Therefore, yes, the Soviet Navy relied heavily on the doctorine that I stated earlier in the heyday of the fleet.

[Kapitan]

Yes but im generalising the whole era not just 60's or 80's the lot, the heyday was the 1970's realy thats when the most submarines were in active service.

[Takeda Shingen]

Numerically, it is not possible to have the largest numbers of submarines in the 1970's. A fleet in the numbers that we are discussing requires nearly the full class of Whiskeys being in service. You and I both know that they were being decommissioned like crazy at that time.

[Kapitan]

Yes that is 100% true, but i always believed the heyday was the 70's the whiskeys well wouldnt have gone too far in war.

60's most numerical, 80's good weapons and 00's a good mix lol

[Takeda Shingen]

I'll buy that. In defense of the Soviet navy and the Whiskey, it did serve the purpose, at least the short-term purpose, of the time. The USSR had to prepare itself for a global conflict with the US, and had practically no navy at the time. The Whiskey, although little more than a glorified Type XXI and outdated even as the first unit was commissioned, gave the Soviets large numbers, and did so cheaply, enabling them to focus on development for future generations. It was painful and frequently deadly, but they (now Russia) did eventually catch up to the west.

[Kapitan]

id like to add a bit there.

And in 1984 over took the west with the launch of project 971 akula seeing as its quieter than the 688i. *insert smug look here*

[tycho102]

id like to add a bit there.

And in 1984 over took the west with the launch of project 971 akula seeing as its quieter than the 688i. *insert smug look here*
Aureal made a really awesome 3-dimensional audio algorithm, and then were brutually conquered and subjugated by Creative Labs. It was a totally awesome spatial algorithm, but they're dead now. God intended for Aureal to stand as a warning to any other sound company that would stand against Creative Labs.

Aside from analogies to the 1991 failed USSR coup attempt by 6 generals, 4 of whom committed suicide (or the GRU made it look like a suicide), I can't imagine smaller carriers. We can't use conventionals, so that means nukes. We need mobile airports, and VSTOL aircraft just can't manage the combat takeoff weights that we need.

Smaller planes, sure. We could load up our carriers with *thousands* of drones, all run by 13 year old Nintendo gamers in Montana. Give'em little coverall uniforms to wear, with badges and a ball cap that says "L33t Skillz Team Alpha -- VFA-1337 -- Flying Ownzorz".

[Kapitan]

i have know idea what you are gabbeling on about!

True fact the akula at 6-9 knots is quieter than the 688i is the akula also carries more weapons tubes and weapons than the 688 and 688i (excluding VLS), dont know wether i can say this but the akula has a top speed in excess of 34 knots, and a diving deapth greater than 600 meters.

[SUBMAN1]

id like to add a bit there.

And in 1984 over took the west with the launch of project 971 akula seeing as its quieter than the 688i. *insert smug look here*
Puke puke puke! :p

Even though they had Toshiba's prop milling machines at this time, they still were louder than a 688i, giving the edge to the 688i! They did not have the 688i's prop design either, but made something sort of camparable, but not quite!

[Kapitan]

Well why did you americans openly state now and then that the akula is quieter than the 688i at slow speeds its a well known fact and has been a fact for decades, the akulas are now like the 688is anyway getting old need replacing.

[Takeda Shingen]

Well why did you americans openly state now and then that the akula is quieter than the 688i at slow speeds its a well known fact and has been a fact for decades, the akulas are now like the 688is anyway getting old need replacing.

I think you are talking about the Flight 2, or 'Improved' Akulas. The Flight 1's are still nosier than the Improved '88's.

[Kapitan]

Yes thats the ones im getting at seeing as the bars class are well not used much any more.

As for USN defence they have an excellent system to protect thier carriers so the way i see it you would have to do it like this.

Put the akulas out first to pick off the escorts with torpedos (include submarines)
Then the oscars to kill the carrier
Then a kilo to hang around incase anything has been missed.

[Skybird]

what I find strange is that russia today developes and builds new nuclear submarines - while germany in specxial and the EU in general are expected to pay the better part of costs for deconstructing their radiating old naval crap boats and reactors in Murmansk and elsewhere. That's as if we would arm them, and for free. They shouldn't start to buold new boats unti, they can afford all by themselves to take care of their radiating heritage all alone.

[XabbaRus]

Just shows Russians are smarter than they are given credit for. You pay to take my junk and I will build more new better weapons...Thankyou very much.

As for the Toshiba MMM although it is touted as the big deal that in itself wasn't what made the Akula suprisingly quieter than previous soviet subs and pretty much equal to the 688i. The Walker spy ring helped a shed load. Soviets found out how noisy the subs were started a quietening programme. The prop was only one small bit of that. Also Subman, the Akula always had the scythe bladed prop.

You should check this forum out

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=48279

Many knowledgable people.

[Kapitan]

Alot of people reject the russian submarines because of the past, alot of accidents did happen yes but the question is why?

Well for a start if you take a look back the worst accidents occoured on the 1st generation boats and as time goes on saftey improves back then we knew little about nuclear power its affects causes and how to treat it, thanks to these accidents and chernobyl we are able to now say we know just enough.

These boats were largely prototypes they were rushed to sea to counter a threat, if you were in your home and some one parked a tank outside your door and said do something i dont like il come in there and smash it down wouldnt you hastily construct a wall to stop that? and after time rebuild it to make it even better?

Russian submarines are not a large pile of junk as many seem to think alot of americans british and others dissmiss the fact that they are any threat at all, well if they are not a threat why do we train our navies to destroy them?

If they are not a threat how comes they have some of thee best anti ship missiles on the planet?

Mant people say they are bankrupt, well yes they did go bankrupt but since then its improved some what funding is adaquate enough to put the 2nd largest navy on earth to sea (china catching up and so is india), Russia still maintains the largest SSBN force on earth and also the largest SSGN force.

Just because we dissmiss thier products as junk doesnt mean to say they are not good at what they do or designed for, put it this way if i was on a carrier and i was told an oscar II is going to be shooting at me in 5 minuets my first place to run would be the life rafts.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

The Soviet Union relied heavily on their numbers. They had to because, frankly, the vast majority of their ships and weapons were, for lack of a better term, junk. Essentially, Soviet thought ran as follows: 'We have junk. But, we have lots of junk.' Their gamble was that at least some of the ships and weapons would survive long enough to make a sucessful attack. That's not a navy that I would want to serve in.

At the time they used the most numbers, that may not have been a bad strategy, because of limitations of detection tech. The American equipment was better than the Soviet, but the circles were still pretty small. For example, Mackey was supposed to have trailed the first Yankees at 4000m. Yes, the story went that he didn't get counterdetected, but 4000m reliable tracking circle (and at only a certain angle) is pretty tiny when you got the whole ocean to worry about, or even if you are defending a battle group.

The time when people remember NATO having the most ridiculously large acoustic advantage is the 80s, when they already figured out the joke, but they still had a bunch of old subs. The Americans could now track the old subs in ridiculously large circles, and that became a generalization.

More later.

[Iceman]

Just shows Russians are smarter than they are given credit for. You pay to take my junk and I will build more new better weapons...Thankyou very much.


Is it just me or is that an incredibly smug and arrogant statement saying..I crapped all over the world you take it and eat it?

what an A-Hole! :)

[Takeda Shingen]

At the time they used the most numbers, that may not have been a bad strategy, because of limitations of detection tech.

I never said that it was a bad strategy, as far as theoretical strategy goes. All I said was that it was not a particularly 'sailor friendly' strategy. Soviet doctrorine, whether naval, ground or air, held that in the event of war, the USSR could expect large numbers of casulties due to the superior detection, fire control, tracking and weapons technology of the west. They needed all of those units to 'clog the system', as it were. They certainly could have sunk the carrier at the center of the CVBG, but they would have lost many units in doing so. Therefore, if you are a Soviet sailor, you can expect to have a far greater chance of dying than the enemy.

Effective, but not efficeint. Of course, it was not intended to be efficient.

[XabbaRus]

Just shows Russians are smarter than they are given credit for. You pay to take my junk and I will build more new better weapons...Thankyou very much.


Is it just me or is that an incredibly smug and arrogant statement saying..I crapped all over the world you take it and eat it?

what an A-Hole! :)

Don't care if you put a smilie after it, I don't care for being called an A-hole whether you spell it out or not.

Hmm it isn't smugness but sarcasm. It is also fact. Russians figured out how to get something for nothing using a situation to their advantage. Just as people bash the US, Russia though not on this forum of late, also comes in for a lot of generalised bashing.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

I never said that it was a bad strategy, as far as theoretical strategy goes. All I said was that it was not a particularly 'sailor friendly' strategy. Soviet doctrorine, whether naval, ground or air, held that in the event of war, the USSR could expect large numbers of casulties due to the superior detection, fire control, tracking and weapons technology of the west. They needed all of those units to 'clog the system', as it were. They certainly could have sunk the carrier at the center of the CVBG, but they would have lost many units in doing so. Therefore, if you are a Soviet sailor, you can expect to have a far greater chance of dying than the enemy.

Effective, but not efficeint. Of course, it was not intended to be efficient.

I think that this not only has to do with an acknowledgment that overall they have the inferior technology (what they tell their troops in propaganda might be another matter), but also their operational emphasis as opposed to the tactical emphasis in doctrine.

Putting it very crudely, an operational emphasis you are out to win "campaigns", and thinks though of course at some point you have to win a battle, you can actually lose or tie most of your battles and still win. A tactical emphasis means that you are more out to win "battles", and hope that by winning as many battles as you can, you can win the campaign.

So NATO tries to build the best subs. The Soviets try to build lots of what they think are good enough subs. But if you assume the tactic is effective, it may actually be more efficient even in terms of sailor lives. For example, every time a Soviet sub gets killed trying to attack a CVBG, 80-100 lives goes. But when one sub succeeds, not only does it create an operational victory, but potentially several hundreds of Americans may die in the sinking, which will go a long way toward counterbalancing this.

[LoBlo]

So this really wasn't the discussion that I was hoping for... but oh well.

Its hard to compare "which naval architeture was better" between the now dead USSR and the USN, becuase the two sides each had different objectives.

The USSR would have its war at its borders and would need naval power to prevent foreign supplies and naval sorties from interfering with its land and air campaigns. The US on the other hand faced war an ocean away and would need naval fleets that could travel across an ocean and take up shop of a coast providing strike sorties, air support, and reinforcements from sea.

So while the US navy built an expeditionary navy that could travel far and accomplish everything from ground strikes, sea control, and air superiority, the USSR built a carrier-killer navy that would be mostly concerned at keeping british and american ships from interfering with its border campaigns.

[LoBlo]

I've always thought that Tom Clancy's "Red Storm Rising" was one the best books depicting the differences in the to strategies. The first thing the Soviets do is step up a clever attack on the US carrier and cripple it, preventing it from interfering in its ground efforts. Meanwhile the US naval support is crippled and can not help in the Europe war effort, having to make do with what ever European forces were already in place and can now only rely on its sub forces for naval efforts.