I think that's pretty good speculation Sea Demon. The US shooting down a satalite is almost certainly meant to send a message. But they better hit it :hmm:.

Yes. They better. The fact that they announced it, I hope that's a sign of confidence.

I agree.

As far as America shooting down a satelite is concerned, the gas inside is a smokescreen imo.

I saw the news article where they said it had never been done before... never been done by the U.S.A maybe, China did this succesfully some months ago.

China and Russia are currently pushing for a treaty banning the use of weapons to destroy satelites and things in orbit. Much like the rush to conduct nuclear tests before the test ban treaty, this is merely an attempt by the U.S.A to redress a technilogical imbalance before any treaty discussions.

As far as Putin and Russia are concerned, Russia spends no more on arms than say, the U.K or France or Japan. The U.S.A spends possibly more than the rest of the planet combined. With that in mind, everything is just posturing. Russia has a massive nuclear detterent, making them unlikely to ever be invaded, aside from maybe a suicidal enemy. The missile shield could possibly negate this last defence for the Russian state, thus the new rush by Russia to upgrade their technical conventional forces. The commitment to numbers will be small, but the russian state has a long history (at least since WWII) of having things on the drawing board in the eventuality they may need to produce something at a moments notice.

The new sub under construction in Russia, with a crush depth of 450m is a prime example. This is far greater than the 250m boasted by new model American subs.

There is no threat from Russia, there is merely a response to current trends.

Incorrect. Both the Russians and the USA have conducted successful ASAT tests in the 1980's. Way before China. Actually, this would be a much greater technological capability demonstrated by the USA due to the fact that it is being conducted from a deployed tactical sea-based mobile platform. The USA already did what China did a couple of decades ago. More than once even.

While I can't speak for actual depths, I don't see Russia's new subs outdiving their American counterparts. The days of the Titanium hulled subs are over for Russia. While I'll never know the actual depth, 250m sounds a little shallow for an American nuke.

Well, then the news article is probably a CNN piece ^^ who else would make things up and say they are news ^^ If this is also the case, why are people specualting as to its results??? after all, as you say, its already a done deal.

Both of these statistics are from newly launched or freshly commisioned Submarines. If the americans can go greater than 250M and the Russians cant go down to 450m, then someone is lying. which one is it? I'm only re-iterating the documentaries... can you supply more information please?

Given the Russians track record of greatly over exaggerating abilities which we only found out about after the iron curtain fell I doubt their claims. At the same time we all know the Silent Service is very tight lipped about the true abilities of its machines. This has always been her motto and it served her well for many years (and probably a huge reason the fleet was so successful during WW2). 250m is only a bit over 700 feet. We know that the Thresher back in 1963 was way below 400 m when she imploded.

http://www.csg2.navy.mil/Texas.htm

USS Texas(SSN 775)

Depth: Greater than 800 feet

http://www.milparade.com/security/49/01_01.shtml

K-335 Gepard

operational diving depth 520 m and max depth 600 m

I don't know the conversion. Feet and inches are french to me ^^ Have a tool here somehwere but can't find it to convert.

As a side note, many of the workers who built the Russian sub, were so poor, that they took their families to the dockyard to feed them, as food was supplied there.

I heard on the doco, (The russian one, sorry they might be lying?) that at 450m, the pressure is like balancing an elephant on a dinner plate.

OK. Why don't we start from your sources. Can you provide them? We can start from there. But looking up US ASAT tests is very easy to google. The current US test, if successful would break a new trend for sure. That would mean we could forward deploy and have the capability to put BMD platforms in any ocean. And could modify missiles for the ASAT role if worse came to worse from anywhere in the world...at any time. As far as documentation that shows 250m depth's for US subs, I think it's officially "greater than 800 ft." That's "greater than". But like I said, we'll never know russia's or the USA's actual depth figures for their current subs.

Right. Exactly. Greater than 800 Feet. Are you absolutely certain Russian subs can outdive the USA's subs using this information?

It was a documentary, all the information came from sailors and captain on the newly commisioned american sub.(including the depth capabiliteis as supplied by the captain of the ship, i suggest you question him over hot coals)

I realise that elite hunter has you all riled up, but being defensive and ripping apart my statements without providing ANY information of your own is worse than stating something from memory.

I suggest you take a break from the forums. As you may notice, im not american or russian and I dont care who has the 'Better' of this that or the other. I'm here because I like subs and the SH4 game.

P.S can a moderator please lock this thread before demon has an anuerism

:lol: Oh come on. :roll: elitehunter is of no consequence to me. That is laughable. I'm just asking for you to back up your claims that nobody has done any ASAT tests, or that Russia can outdive American boats. I simply ask you to provide evidence of that.

But here:
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_securit...-programs.html

and here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon

these are just starters. There is much much more for you.

And I ask for you to provide info of sub diving depth. You make a claim, I just ask where you're get the info from. Don't be so defensive. I have never seen anything that dilineates Russia's current subs diving depths greater than American subs depth. In the 80's the russians had the titanium hulls. and yes, their diving depths were known to be deep. But it's not the same anymore. Russia's not building subs from that material anymore. Do you have something that is definite? I'm just interested. You do know the Seawolf's are constructed from HY-100 steel.

That's interesting. I didn't know that. I like that elephant to plate analogy.

Entirely agree on the ASAT stuff, but on the subs...
 

Primary source for the below from Polmar's Cold War Submarines.

Don't be so impressed. First, HY-100 is nothing new. They actually considered making Los Angeleses out of that stuff. They just couldn't quite hack the metallurgy back then, especially with the Los Angeleses already running late and overbudget. So it was HY-80 for all of them.

The Russians actually had a long history of outdiving American subs. The November, for all its reliability horrors, still had a test depth of 300m at a time when Skipjacks were only rated for 700 feet, and crush was estimated at 1050. However you define "test", when one side's test is w/i50 feet (K-3 wound up diving to 310m/1017feet) of your Crush, the other side definitely has the deeper diving boat.

The Thresher then went all the way to 400m test depth by improved wielding and weighed 700 tons more. The Soviets then went to AK-29 steel (HY-100 equiv) for the Vics and matched it at ~100t lighter (surface displacement) than Thresher despite a weight-consuming double-hull configuration.

Then came the all too famous decision to shed hull weight for the 688s, cutting the test depth down to 300. The Soviets had their run with titanium subs, but at around the same time they advanced to AK-32 (100kg/cm^2 or about HY-140 equiv). The Akula wound up having a test of 600m, and a "normal operating depth" of 400-480m. That's actually comparable to even Sierra. When you are almost getting the same results with steel (still at a heavier weight, but hardly the chasm it was at the beginning) as you can with titanium, obviously you are going to go with steel.

Part of the reason, that Russian subs successfully used higher yield steels, I suppose, may have to do with their work with titanium as well as their choice of a double hull. It allows the hydrodyamics to be "separated" from the strength. So while the Americans struggle to get the complex hydrodynamic shape without cracking any of the steel, the Soviets can make the hydrodynamic outer hull out of thin plates of lower grade steel and make the strength pressure hull in a way that's easy to make, not in a way that's good for hydrodynamics.

Roughly, the factor is 3 (feet to meters). Not exactly, but for most estimations, multiplying or dividing it by three serves it's purpose.

The precise factor is 1 foot=30.46cm (shoe size 46).

Exact crush depths are classified anyway, I heard rumours that the Traffie can go near 2000ft which is just insane depths for an SSN. The Alfa, Mike and Sierra classes could go damn deep but in the Alfas case it was damn noisey, in the Mikes case it caught fire and was too expensive to build a new one, not so sure about the Sierras, heard they were quite effective.
The major problem the Soviets had was a lack of money to run their navy the way they wanted, something which thanks to the global oil crisis, is now solved for the most part.
I think this is the first time in many years that the Russians are virtually neck and neck with the US in terms of technology, perhaps because of the 'glasnost' of technology which occured at the end of the cold war, more people now know about the capabilities of US submarines and US technology, we know how Stealth works, we know about pumpjet propulsors, and while I have no doubt that the US has even better toys that we DON'T know about, now that the Russians are getting more money, I have no doubt that they will begin making their own special toys.
Who knows, we might not be far off from a global arms race the likes of which hasn't been seen since the 50s/60s.