It depends how the bottom will look. If it will be rocky, yes, any sub would be fine. If it was sand, or mud, it would not help so much, if at all.
And then you would send helos, which can get close fast, they have MAD too, and even laser scanners are tested these days.
You can only be save deep and far away. And that is what Kilo can't do easily.

Modern german submarines I think have a new missile system that can launch from deep down a surface to air missiles. Helicopters and p-3 etc.. could easily be victims to this system.

surely hard to answer and like said here much depending on situation, sonar condition, sub and escort skills.

the best shot is that a single kilo sent against a well protected task force would hardly be able to reach a good firing position without detected by active sonar and so probably would not sink a carrier.

in a hunt for the kilo i would give it a reasonable chance for surviving in deep waters with some layers at the first escort response,but of course they can play and wait until its batterises are down.

so my guess for real life- the kilo has in deep waters a 50% chance to survive the respone, but only 10% to score a hit at a significant ship of the task force.

for RL operations we also have to consider one more faktor-even the knowledge that the enemy has kilo subs gives the need for a big escort in asw and so even without a kill the kilo could fullfill its mission since many resources are used up fot the potential danger and since the rosources are always limited they may lack in other conflict scenarios.

lol I don't wish the Kilo is a junk. I tried real hard to survive in the Kilo I played. Just that I found its weapons have a very limited range forcing me to approach within 3nmi of the nearest escort which was pinging actively. Had that been RL the escort would have picked me and started closing in and the task force would have edged away.

As for shallow water I guess the Kilo would have tremendous help in rocky bottom sea.


I think the Kilo biggest help is an unsuspecting enemy.

And it's best used against civilian shipping and a single or a pair of warship formation. And not used to challenge a task force(that's the job of a nuclear subs with free maneuverability, longer range weapons and for Russian or US Seawolf with more ready tubes). Well it could be used to challenge a task force but once it launched its weapons then it became exposed and once a Kilo is exposed it's only a matter of time before the ASW forces takes it out. And that is assuming it could approach a suspecting or an alert enemy within kill range of its weapon salvo without a hint of detection.

Castout, how do you know that a Kilo wouldn't be able to sneak up to 3 nmi of a ship ? Just because the ship is pinging doesn't mean it can pick up the Kilo. Consider enviromental conditions, consider the skipper manouvering the Kilo so that it is in line with the active ping (cross section is minimised) etc...
Diesel eletric subs using batteries are dead quiet, and if the enviroment is adverse, pinging will do you no good.

You have to know where to ping, take the frigate for instance, you have different modes for active pings. Single beam, omni and omni rotational. Getting a contact on single beam doesn't imply you'll get the same contact on omni for instance. And in single beam you must know where to send the ping. So you see even generic pinging theoretically will do you no good.

Hi goldorak I was referring to that specific scenario but I assume a continuous omni directional pinging would have exposed a Kilo approaching from more than 3 nmi. I admit that it's very hard to find a Kilo passively but that's all more reason the enemy will try to find it with other ways such as disembarked helicopter and active sonar.

Remember the Kilo must maneuver itself first and foremost to the ambush area ahead of the task force vector it can only try to maneuver to pose the minimum cross section to enemy active sonar when it has arrived at its ambush position.:).

Anyway all these are only my personal opinion :O:

Just a thought to consider ...

The Effectiveness of Active Pinging in RL is hugely dependant upon enviromental conditions and lots of other factors. Read up on various open publications and you can find instances where the detection occured at less than 1nm and sometimes detection occured at over 20k yards. Since passive detection of a conventional sub on batteries is extremely hard one's major chance of catching a conventional sub is to use active sonar. That ups the odds but its not a given that it will be detected at all.

So for the sake of argument, if the Kilo gets in close undetected then its chances after shooting to escape are not great but it should be doable (given that it can disguise the point from where it shot). However without disguising the datum, and if the ASW forces react decisivly, then the Skipper can kiss his *** goodbye

Most russian diesel boats were designed with expendability in mind remember 1982 whiskey on the rocks personally that was a setup how could a submarine just run into that by mistake.

Kilo's just the same designed to protect the borders of russia.

Are you saying Russians are incapable of making mistakes? History absolutely does not support your theory. Ths Soviets/Russians made tons of mistakes.

I think the whiskey incident happened just like any other incident where the human factor is present. I fail to see the Russians setting themselves up to potentially lose high value national assets like submarines on purpose. Especially ones carrying nuclear weapons.

Are active sonars all created equally? Are there perhaps other navies of the world that don't have an active sonar as powerful as the western countries?

Also, at the time the Kilo was introduced, what was the performance of active sonar then?

No totaly not at all, every one makes mistakes and the Russians are no exception, put it this way.

The submarine that ran aground in 1982 was built in the 1950's so its already a 30 year old obsolete boat, hell they even had kilos in service at this time ! the foxtrots were more modern!

Now the captain had reported compass troubles so they assigned him a senior navigator now why would they do that? to replace the compass is a few hours job they werent at sea at the time.

And a whiskey carry nukes that stopped late 60's to mid 70's and besides it wasnt exactly the most modern boat or eliete boat of the time back then.

Loosing a whiskey would be no big deal a 30 year old boat over due for retirement to put it precisely once they returned it to russia it went straight in to severmorsk and most likely never moved again, the captain who was captain 3rd rank not exactly the hieghest of ranks either would probably be expendable.

i along with some others including american analysts and also swedish officals believe it was a PR stunt designed as a last show of force in the day of a dying superpower.

History supports either side depending on what side you read from, i sit in the middle my theory is backed up by a discovery channel show i will find the link it has been posted on the forums before but it depicts vessels such as NR1 and whiskey on the rocks in clandestine and public relations stunts.

And it states there is a theory that the grounding of a whiskey class submarine in karlskrone in 1982 could have been a total set up i mean come one 3 navigation systems compass PIRS and a map and stars both trainined to navigate off all 3 and 1 is a senior rank you cant really state they were clueless the whole time.

why did the submarine enter swedish waters if it had navigational problems why did it not just run on the surface, the soviets would have sent a frieghter out to act as a lead and guide it back, surely some where some one may have had a compass, and theres always more than one on a boat theres atleast 3 one in the wepaons control one in the con and one in engineering so all of them went down along with PIRS at the same time i dont think so.

The programme also interviews the captain of the submarine when i find it i shall post it up and note his body language closely!

I read that the Swedes detected the presince of nukes onboard the WOTR. :hmmm:

Except it has to have the lattest code books and comms gear otherwise once it left port it would not be able to recive orders covertly. Getting those is worth while. Even examining a smashed radio system could be worth while, they figure out how Russian technolgy worked in 1950 they can see how it fits in with the equipment built latter on and make a guess on how it works in the lattest boats. Of course examining the CREW would be the real prize, until the fall of Comunisim the west knew very little about the real lives of Soviet Citizens.

Of course a western nation is going to find nuke on board any stranded submarine, even though whiskeys couldnt fire the 25inch nuclear torpedos and didnt carry missiles unless its the long bin version.
The government of sweden was under pressure in them days and as i believe the prime minister had to be seen doing something about the incursions what better way than to annoucne it has nukes on board and look i managed to get rid of it!



Code books would probably have been destroyed on the grounding, the machinary taken apart, so no real value, the swedes didnt really bord the submarine so didnt get a look inside just the out side, you can bet they would have sealed themselves in should the swedes have tried to bord the submarine.
Forceful entry could also be seen as an act of war a small country like that you dont need the northern and baltic fleets on your door.
You were expected to die protecting your country so if they had of sealed themselves in the only way to get them out artillery! again your shelling someone elses property so again could be seen as an act of war.

If it carrier nuclear torpedos well karlskrone wouldnt be here they probably would have ejected one and let it go bang incinerating them aswell.

Just some wacky theories for you there :D but i couldnt see that it had thee most up to date equipment onboard anyway if it was a stunt chances are it would have been taken off.

The Soviet Navy had a 21in nuclear torpedo as well. The Foxtrots sent to Cuba had them. The Soviets also had a warhead that could be attached to a torpedo while the sub was under way.

Probaly true...



even a smashed code machine would be valuable. Heck the CIA pieced together an intire Golf lifted from the Pacific.

Naw the Swedes just need to delay the Soviet salvage tugs until the Whiskey's crew runs out of food and shoots the Political Officer. ;)