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Originally Posted by Ultraboy
Sure, they don't have to be for coastal defense only, that's not what I'm saying.
I believe the argument is that coastal defense/littoral operations are the only areas where the diesels are actually superior to the nucs.
Now, while littoral ops may be more prominent in the near future for the US, I think the main question is is it worth a whole new class of boat?
I believe the economics of that argument will be/have been the deciding factor for the US Navy, more so than the perceived prejudice against diesels.
Of course I don't consider myself an expert, I'm just giving my opinion. But I haven't forgotten about all the open-ocean boats past or present TLAM.  |
There's also a lot of politics to the submarine industry and there always has been. Anti-Soviet fervor was Adm. Rickover's way of getting Congress to appropriate money for more submarines than frequently even the Chief of Naval Operations wanted. Now a days, people try to play the same game, only they've crossed out "USSR" and replaced it with "PRC" in all their slides. There's also the fact that Electric Boat has what amounts to a government sanctioned monopoly on the submarine business. It's the sacred cow of Connecticut, and predictably, every Congressman from Connecticut says that a submarine is THE ultimate weapon at sea. It's the ONLY thing that can save us from rapid submarine proliferation throughout the developing world.
The truth is, it's not that simple.
Thankfully, the complete lack of fiscal restraint demonstrated by the Republican party in spite of their ideology has managed to put a damper on a lot of this sort of talk, simply because no matter how much you exploit scare tactics to create anti-Chinese paranoia, the money for the submarines you want to build simply isn't there. So... right now... this doesn't fly far.