Plus, winning a war is not only destroying an enemy. If you deny the enemy to project that power over you, you already have a diplomatic advantage, a leverage at negotiations. A submarine can't project power, but can prevent you enemy to do so over you.

Unfortunately, it is unlikely you can win a war only with subs. However, if a submarine can sneak into a CVBG, and get off a couple missles and takes the CV (or CVs), guess what happens.
You lose an ungodly expensive boat with ungodly expensive equipment onboard along with ~2000 valuable seamen. That, and the whole point of the battlegroup is lost, thereby making that force now incapable of its most likely important mission.


And,a tac nuke isnt as ranged as a regular thermonuclear bomb, obviously, and therefore a submarine about a mile and a half away under 1000 feet of water could easily survive a tac nuke.

Not to mention how it could launch its payload against your docks, shipyards, and the civilian populace. can you win a war with only subs? its possible. A CVBG to help protect your landing ships from ASM missiles and aircraft would be great. but a war solely at sea can be won by submarines

More likely over 4 miles from the target since a nuclear torpedo could be expected to have a kill radius of about that.

Exactly the point I was originally trying to make.

Simply put, submarines are not as invincible as the movies/games make them out to be. :>

Without their stealth, they don't have much left to play on. They can't take a hit and they can't run if they get spotted.

They're rarely without their stealth and they seem to be getting to damn close range with it.

http://www.internnett.de/files/zielf...enterprise.jpg

The sad state of affairs in terms of ASW on surface ships these days is mostly a crew problem, not an equipment or superiority of submarines problem. :O:

why do you say that?

The second poster to affirm my point :salute:

That problem ain't limited to one navy then:
http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/9...pekieviilg.jpg

As far as actual combat records go submarines have a decent record since WWII 3 Ships sunk in 8 attacks with only two losses in combat (one an maybe an operational casualty). Most of the failures were from technical problems cause by 3rd world crews.

In a word, training. The surface navy has let their ASW skills decay significantly after the Cold War ended. Ask any bubblehead sonarman what he thinks of a skimmer sonarman, and you're not likely to get an answer that's fit to print.

A good book to read on the subject is "Lessons not learned: the U.S. Navy's status quo culture."

For submariners, sonar is life. For surface folks, it's just another thing to worry about.

The unfortunate reality is that surface sonarmen spend most of their time doing anything but sonar, as they're usually the first to get grabbed for odd jobs around the ship. Combine this with a mentality that ASW just isn't important, and you rarely have time to train or willingness to train.

IMO, what the Navy needs to do is rotate surface sonarmen through tours on submarines, and vice-versa to get the skimmers caught up on the finer points of sonar technique. At least then they'll be in a position to *find* the submarines, to say nothing of being able to go and kill them.

...or they could use aircraft, unless I have missed sub with area air defence capability - without telling everyone where it is.

In case of Taiwan air route maybe a bit challenging.

Take into consideration that this snapshot was taken in peace time when guards are relatively relaxed.

http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/5738/98366a.jpg
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http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/6339/blowpipe01.jpg
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http://img813.imageshack.us/img813/1753/ssdgb.jpg
:rock:

This one better then?http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/3494/...osunkcopy2.jpg