I suspect a dry deck shelter and a full load of TLAMs (assuming they were in the inventory) would be the big thing. The thing about TLAMs, every time there's a big war the inventory is hugely depleted so for a while afterwards SSNs are often just leaving with ballast in their missile tubes.
They might keep a couple torpedoes on board, still though, as much for ceremony as the possibility of actually using it, though. If they were called upon to sink a vessel believed to be carrying a high value target, it'd be nice to have. Other than that, it'd be mostly TLAMs.
The mine hunting gear would be there if they felt like there was a credible mine threat, but I doubt there's really much of one in Somalia. Mines would impliy organization and that's something Somalia really lacks. The ELINT UUV idea might be a good one if they had it.
If I was doing it, I'd use the SSN in support of an ESG carrying special operations forces. I'd stick them outside of the mouth of a harbor and have them set up a barrier and just call in anything they saw. If I decided I wanted to deliver SOF then I'd call the SSN back over the horizon from the beach, and have a helo bring the special operators to them from the ESG. Then the SSN could deliver them covertly.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by LoBlo
Seems like the most important component would be the TLAMS. That way you sit a ready sub off the coast of every nation with suspected terrorist cells and hover. Then you wait for a terrorist leader sighting and launch immediately. The rest of the loadout are for just in case some ELINT snooping, anti-mine for terrorist mines, or anti-shipping for smugglers comes up while on patrol, waiting for the signal to strike.
Sounds like a plan?
|