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Originally Posted by ikalugin
France is not the only (or first) country using main hybrid electric drive for SSNs.
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IIRC, it's the first series-SSN to have one. I think a couple of boats were made with this during the Cold War by the US but with the technology left aside for not being good enough then. From what I see, only Tulibee and Glenard P. Liscomb ever used turbo-electric transmission, the solution having shown insufficient speed performance back then to be used in the LA class, and I haven't heard either Virginia or Seawolf having it. I think the
Columbia SSBN will have a hybrid drive, though.
Maybe the new Russian boats have a hybrid drive, but I'm not aware of it, not having much information on these.
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To be honest I think the displacement is more of a consequence of French requirements - for the minimal SSN, particularly armament wise.
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Heh, we're not planning to fight the entire Russian navy head-on. 24 weapons are enough for most realistic scenarios.
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As that navigational accident - have you ever seen a towed array on the French boomer?
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Problem with the "human error", "technological weakness" or "incompetence" scenario is that it also requires a Royal Navy boomer crew to fail just as hard. And if you think the Her Majesty's Silent Service is LARPing
Down Periscope...
In the end, the fact is that a
Vanguard-class SSBN on patrol couldn't notice its counterpart in time to avoid a collision. That alone should say a lot about the discretion of both boats.
Oh, and to your question, yes, the French boomer has a towed array, a DSUV 61B. Source (in French):
http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/13...a3809-tVII.pdf Search "DSUV" and you'll find the reference on page 216, the acronym SNLE being SSBN in French, while "antenne remorquée" means "towed array".