How defended is the SSK's dock?

Dont the Germans have the most advanced submarine out at the moment, i read somehwere on this site they had the most technoloicaly advanced submarine?

I'm not sure, but there are a number of subs that could stand in this category. If you want to talk about packing the most new technology per square inch, combined with overall performance, I'm not so sure that the German's latest conventional subs would stand up to that. I do however think that these German subs have some of the most, if not the most innovative propulsion, and quieting measures ever built into a submarine. In their environment, they would be utterly difficult to detect and defeat. While the 212's 214 may be the most advanced in the category of conventional submarines, the Virginia and Astute's are not to be taken lightly by any means. There have been tremendous innovations built into them as well. Of course, they are nuclear subs, and could be taken into another category of submarine as their operations would be different that what the 212 would do.

I think it is truly hard to measure most advanced sub because of the difficulty in knowing what they can actually do in their classified stats. But all in all, I wouldn't be surprised if the German subs had the most innovations built into them, awarding them that honor.

I would put the Swedish Gotland class beside that German type 212/214. Both are a class of their own currently, it seems to me. BTW, the boat the US navy has leased in order to train against it, is a Gotland class. After over one year, or is it even already two?, the Navy still sees the score to nil against it. If you are up against a Gotland or 212, you are most likely sitting on the loosing end of the deal.

Sweden is a top inventor and producer of military equipment. Often they produced a worldwide first in the past, and came up with ideas that were seen in the West just some years later.

I agree with everything below but want to add some more.

Some were laughing at the Iranians for claiming that their sub could avoid Radar not sonar. But those who laugh need to remember the history of WWII submarine combat. It was not until the allies started using radar and catching German U Boats on the surface recharging their batteries at night that we started to turn the tide in the battle for the Atlantic. If not for radar we would have all been talking and singing in German or Japanese.

These new fuel cell powered submarines are a huge threat to the USA and our allies. And these type of submarine are going to help shut down the oil that's flowing out of the Persian Gulf if we are not careful.

Like Skybird said below: We can't find the Swedish sub in our war games. That scares the holly crap out of me.

Sometimes were are so full of ourselves and overconfident that it scares me. We need to stay vigilant and prepare for the worse case scenarios not cake walks.

The Persian Gulf is an ideal hunting ground for an SSK. It may not be able to run down a task force, but it can lie in wait for them, and if they're in the right position, can creep in to a task force an cause untold amounts of greif.

The U.S. has been found short dealing with convetional subs in the past (the Australian Collins class has been able to humble them many times at various RIMPAC exercisies) The U.S. has also drawn down alot of it's sub hunting skills for carriers (the S-3 Viking into retirment). If a shooting war starts and the subs have left there base beforehand they could cause many problems if not stopped quickly.

I have also read the Germans are relasing a new class which will have these "cells" no idea what they, are jst a quick look over. They are also apparantly unbelievably hard to detect so within the new few years I wouldnt be surprisde of the Germans were sporting the best sub around. but yet again they can go into categories so.

You mean the Type 212A, which is allready in service.
The technology is available for export with the larger but simpler Type 214.
Basically, you have different ways of making a diesel submarine air independent:

- fuel cells
A fuel cell creates electricity by a reaction of hydrogen and oxygen.
This is used by HDW for Types 212A and 214 and apparently also a US company tries to build such a system for the spanish navy.
Advantages are that it is basically untracable (the result of the reaction is water), but as a disadvantage the electrical output is not that great and in direct mode you can only go a few knots. If you want to sprint, you have to recharge the batteries, either with the cells or with diesels.
Also it requires huge amounts of hydrogen, which means a quite dangerous refuelling process. As soon as it is refuelled, the risk is fairly small, as the cell is outside the pressure hull. No hydrogen ever enters the pressure hull. Also, a fuel cell uses no moving parts at all.
On the other hand, hydrogen is basically available everywhere.
It wouldnt suprise me if that system would be internationally adopted. A fuel cell can be build by high school students, the tricky thing is only to increase its size to such a point it can power a submarine.
Russia is reportedly working on a fuel cell submarine, and the US apparently tries the technology as well. Wouldnt suprise me if China and Iran acquire it as well.

- stirling engine
A stirling engine is basically a mechanical device that converts heat into motion. Old technology, almost older than the steam engine and as reliable.
Also a nice project for a high school physics class.
The disadvantage is that you need an external heat source to keep the machine moving. Kockums uses diesel fuel and Oxygen, but the system is less efficient than to run a diesel with the same amount of fuel, but more quiet. Of course that has the advantage that the AIP fuel is also the normal fuel.
The swedish Gotland class (the one the USN failed to detect) uses this system, the Australian Collins class (swedish design) is to be upgraded with it.

- MESMA
Basically a french modification of the old Walther engine of WW2 vintage, it is a turbine driven by Ethanol and Oxygen. In contrary to Walther's design, the turbine is used to charge batteries, not to directly drive the boat.
Used in Pakistani Agosta class submarines and offered for the Scorpene class export SSKs, but apparently the Spanish prefer a US build fuel cell for their Scorpenes.

Closed cycle diesels and Walther turbines were once used, but are no longer in service.

Iran does pose a major threat along with N. Korea. A naval war whit either country will be fought in the littoral area. Most of the current US Navy had been focused around a Blue Water Navy due to WWII and the Cold War. The pentagon and NAVSEA however have long seen this threat and have numerous programs to counter this threat. The Littoral Combat Ship or LCS is being built right now for this specific area of operation. The Virgina class sub has been equipped with many technologies the fight in shallow water. Sea TALON is a specifically to find and hunt the newer quitter subs.

There is not a whole lot a public information about Iran's military power and most of whit is out there is unconfirmed. There are reports that Iran is still flying F-14s. That impressive considering how much work it was taking the US to keep its fleet flying before decommission.

Here is some info about the Iranian Navy unsure creditable but does make for an interesting read.

www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread215234/pg1

The Ghadiar-Class
Iran's sub base is in a prime location right at the throat of the Gulf.:damn:

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie...&t=h&z=18&om=1
http://i6.tinypic.com/1zlrs5t.png

yeah... iran is playing a war of words, and just trying to make life hard for us by messing around with "new devlopments in tech" (like the enriched Urainium issue). theres no doubt that the sub is using modern tech (at least more modern than other irainian subs) but i also highly doubt it has sonar avoiding tech. probabbly it's a half truth, and, it has design to make it more stealthy than it's predecessors.

in a nutshell, iran is just screwing with us, heck maybe they don't even have it deployed in the gulf at all and want us to go on a wild goose chase. (maybe they don't even have it at all and it's just a dressed up older sub)

IMO mini subs are ideal for defending coastal areas. Even one of these could pose a real threat to an invading force. Missile frigates and carriers would be easy targets causing an 'Opertation Shock and Awe' type assault to end in a possible disaster for the attacker.

Iran are simply letting the world know that if you attack them, it's not going to be as easy as 'capturing' Iraq.

It's interesting to speculate on how good the Iranian submarines are, but some of that is probably a moot point anyway, as the complexity of the topography of the ocean floor, the Tigris outflow and Gulf of Oman inflow coupled with the wildly varying depths, temperatures and levels of salinity in that particular stretch of water are going to make it difficult to detect any sub as long as it isn't cranking along at twenty knots just under the surface. And that works both ways, it's going to be tricky for a sub to locate stuff too at the degree of accuracy required for a shot with all that freaky water behaviour bending sound transmissions around all over the place, which I guess means 'local knowledge' might just come into play.

So it would be also interesting to know just how good the Iranian's survey knowledge is of the ocean floor topography and sound transmission behaviour in that area, as knowledge of that has traditionally not been that great as far as Western powers go. Following the recent Gulf War, both US and British ships have been conducting bathymetric surveys of the region and they recently handed much of that data over to the Iraqi Navy as part of the overall plan to have the Iraqis police the waters themselves, so some new data is reasonably widely available. But that survey was far from complete, aimed largely at harbour navigation in fact, and as far as I'm aware, HMS Echo and Enterprise are still merrily sailing around there doing more work along those lines, or at least, they were until recently.

What I'd also be interested in knowing, is how good the Iranian's C-cubed data is that can be transmitted to an Iranian sub floating a wire, so that it could learn surface ship dispositions from satellite and aerial reconnaissance. And that might be a tad trickier for the Iranians, as there's no doubt they are not going to be leaders in satellite, AWACs and jamming capabilities in comparison to someone such as the US, at least not at the moment anyway, although for much of that stretch of water, ships are going to be plainly visible from the land, so I guess that might not be that hard to circumvent much of the time.

It's a massively complex region as far as sonar detection goes, and you can get some idea of that from this (rather boring and technical) but informative article:

http://www.whoi.edu/science/PO/peopl...ulation_ms.pdf

I bet all this would make a brilliant sub sim if someone could pull it off:rotfl: That was a hint, by the way, Sonalysts

:D Chock

It's never good practice to underestimate ones enemy, but neither is underestimating ones friends.

It's a safe bet in a shooting war against the US, that Irans sub base is going to be rather quickly turned into a smoking ruin long before any US ship is within "littoral" waters, and that those subs, if any survive that attack, are going to be very actively hunted until their threat is eliminated.

Here's an interesting article at miltary.com which talks about Irans sub threat:

http://www.military.com/soldiertech/...hkval,,00.html

fair point, never underestimate ur enemy. but the thing is, if any war breaks out between the US and Iran. We all know for a fact the US will bomb anything that poses a slight threat to them. Then send in the navy to do what they can and if those subs are out in the sea they will be hunted down n no doubt destroyed.

Thanks Niel for posting the video on the home page.

After seeing it it doesnt look like the threat it once was. It appears as though it uses windows as an operating system I can just see it:

WO: Capitan solution ready.
Capt: Ready fire tubes...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ws_XP_BSOD.png

God damn it... I mean Allah.

As a real US Navy submarine sonar man (currently serving on the USS Texas) I would have to say that SSK's scare me. They are really very quiet and very deadly in shallow waters. I would not be suprised if the Iranian's flexed a little muscle in the Perisan Gulf and scared the crap out of someone in a suprise war game (IE: Like the chinese).

Pingjockey

Isn't every submarine invisible to radar when submerged ?

Drebbel! Long time no see (post). How have you been dude?

If you dominite the air - and the surface of the ocean - why not just ping the crap out of everywhere, those mini-subs show up on active sonar yes? Whats a mini-sub going to do when hearing an active ping? Fire torps and reveal position!

Active sonar = dead mini-subs (if they show up on active sonar) And what about MAD sensors on ASW aircraft? min-subs show up on MAD sensors in shallow water?

That's a bit disturbing as Texas is one of the "latest and greatest" Virginia-class boats...