I'd go with the Han. Or maybe an old November. :doh:

In seriousness, I think the Virginia would be the best option. Having 20 years on the Akula design, they will give you more 'bang for your buck', as they will remain technologically competitive longer than any Cold War design.

I agree that there is nothing that can touch the SSN-21 class, but the US only built three of them If anyone needs a fleet, this is not an option.

there was ment to be 10 SSN-21's wasnt there? that would have worked out super expencive!

There were indeed intended to be ten of them, but the 21's were quite the runaway project. New bell and whistles were piled upon each other, which did greatly enhance the boats, but Congress' collective jaw hit the floor when the bill came along. Yes, the SSN-21 was the ultimate submarine. In fact, it was a little too ultimate.

I'd take an Akula with Virginia sensors, a Seawolf propulsion plant and weapons from an Astute. :D

Yep, exactly. We don't have the population or the desire to build and man a massive navy, we're not into nukes, and our modern history has been pretty peaceful (not quite Switzerland peaceful but peaceful none the less); also treaties and our major role in NATO and NORAD means we're not likely to be invaded anytime soon. BUT we still need to effectively patrol our massive coastlines, and corresonding territorial waters and only a few recent examples from history are enough to demonstrate we haven't been doing that.

P_Funk mentioned one especially relevant example with regard to the Northern Passage, and then there's the foreign overfishing - within our own territorial waters and in violation of our sovereignty - that helped destroy the Atlantic fishing industry even after we put a moratorium on domestic fishing.

Therefore I think what we most need, as far as seapower goes, are more small coastal PT boats (we have only a total of 12 altogether) along with another few frigates and destroyers. As far as subs go, an expanded fleet of diesal subs to keep tabs on things invisibly from below would be a boon too (right now we have only 4 problem riddled Victoria Class SSK subs).

The nice thing about smaller vessels is that you can blanket more coastline without requiring a big increase in budget or man power.

But for us nuke subs aren't the way to go. Too wasteful of resources that can be better allocated to our other naval needs.

[Edit] Also its worth mentioning that, aside from protecting the sovereignty of our coastal waters, the biggest threat we face (and the same in the US) is from Jihadists coming ashore by way of a small trawler and carrying a dirty bomb or other nasty chemical or bio weapon and a long range top of the line nuke sub won't do any good to protect against it, nor would a carrier group in the middle of the Altantic for that matter.

Fine, fine. I'm going to change the scenario to Brazil then :):p

Yes its interesting to see the different roads the US and Canada have taken. The US has decided to become the worlds "policeman" sending its army and tax dollars into any and every hotspot on the globe... while Canada has pretty much stayed outta most conflicts.

To be honest, its nice having such a passive and productive neighbor to the north. Makes the neighborhood (N. America) a nicer place... never met a bad Canadian yet, usually good people.

I still wish someone would defend the choice of an Astute over a VA though ....

I was with Scandium all the way until he mentioned Jihadists on a little boat...

Imagine an army of extremists on a boat in the Canadian arctic with their beards all frozen, used to their hot climate.:rotfl: I think I'd rather face customs!

I'd go with the LA class subs. I bet you can get them quite cheap, and their TLAM ability is very nice.

If they're coming through customs then they're either flying in from overseas or coming up from the US. In the former case they've already been vetted, while in the latter there's little incentive to risk customs.

My scenario is not as unlikely as it sounds, nor do they have to necessarily be Islamic extremists for that matter. I know you're on the west coast, I'm on the east coast here and there's a still a lot of inbound fishing trawlers from various parts of the world that tie up here every other day for refuel/resupply so we don't take that much notice of them. And these boats are small, innocous, ocean going, and suitable for any kind of (concealed) weaponized cargo that, once it hits the shore, can be transported anywhere.

And as to the risk, well as I pointed out before we couldn't even defend our waters from foreign overfishing; though don't get me wrong, I don't consider myself an alarmist nor do I lose sleep over such scenarios - but since the will is there now to beef up our military and since we've been trying to beef up security as well, then to me this is a good way to do it. Better transparent solutions like this that don't compromise liberty than draconian legislation or Big Brother surveillance IMHO.

I vote Seawolf. The ultimate hunter/killer nuclear subs. I'd then budget in some VLS modifications to give it a deep strike warfare role. Very expensive option, but worth the costs. Astute or Virginia would be tied for second.