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Originally Posted by magicstix
While these tidbits tend to make for good PR, they don't really mean anything as far as a Gotland's noise level compared to a Virginia...
In an exercise, there are training objectives to be met, and carrier strike groups aren't always in an ASW posture, not that skimmer sonar operators are all that great anyway... Besides, if the USN just killed everyone in wargames there wouldn't be much point to holding them, would there?
There's also not much point in comparing a Gotland to a flight 1 688 like USS Houston, since the old 688s are probably the loudest submarines in the fleet...
Modern diesels are quiet, no doubt about it, and they're certainly a pain to track, but just because they get a kill in an exercise doesn't mean they'd out-sneak a cutting edge design like a VA.
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Like it or not there are modern diesel boats that are far quieter than any nuclear powered submarine simple truth. Now of course the trade off is a diesel boat has less electrical output and therefore can not carry as powerful of senor gear as a nuclear powered submarine can. The trade off for a nuclear powered submarine is that it they use steam turbines which no matter what is done make a certain amount of noise that simply can not be avoided. A diesel electric on the other hand which can run purely on batteries (while still having full use of its weapons and sensors) can be very very hard to detect.
Another factor that is changing is a shift in what waters one needs to control.During the Cold War this was the major oceans.Today littoral waters(the zone from 0 to 600 feet in depth) are far more important. A nuclear submarine whose element is the deep sea has much more area to hide itself and its sound signature in meaning that you do not have to be that quite you just have to be quite enough to hide in the ambient sounds.
In littoral waters you do not have nearly as much ambient noise and depth to hide your noise in.