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Old 05-23-11, 09:10 PM   #6
CCIP
Navy Seal
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Waterloo, Canada
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I'm pretty sure that sounds like a job for an SSN. I don't think there is any advantage for attempting to use surface vessels for the job anymore. Except possibly cost, but that would largely be negated by utter inefficiency of keeping anything on the surface. Any jamming measures would only go so far before it's picked up, photographed, and tracked down. Once it is, no amount of stealth paint and jamming will allow it to hide - a sub, on the other hand, still has some chance to hide. Even subs, which would never be seen or heard by vessels they attacked, wouldn't be immune to eventually being found by enough ASW assets - all they really need to know is a general area of its operation, and they already have a good chance of finding it. But with something that floats on the surface, that chance is 100%.

I think a modern commerce raider would be a small, quiet SSN with special design adaptations for that purpose. I could see an adaptation that would not be designed to fight other subs or carry out land attacks, limiting its armament, sensors and power, but optimizing it for stealth and ability to track and follow surface ships, with non-lethal ways of stopping its targets discretely and some sort of detachable vehicles for boarding/jamming/fire support purposes. But the sub itself would always stand off and remain stealthy.
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Last edited by CCIP; 05-23-11 at 09:21 PM.
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