Kilo vs Trafalgars, or Strong Resolve

[Amizaur]

I've read much about Australian Collins class submarines "sinking" several LA class SSNs that were trying to hunt them, or even actively seeking, hunting and sinking LAs during various exercises with US Navy. According to RAN the tactics of US subs were poor and they underestimated the capabilites of both Australian boats and crews. The "we are the best and no one other even close" syndrom ;-) I can understand it easily as Collins at slow speeds is much quieter than 688s or 688is, and have excelent sensors, also I can easily imagine US commanders being surprised that any OTHER navy knows how to can operate submarines ;-))

But now I hears something that was more surprisong for me. I heard from few sources, one of them being an officer from ORP Sokol, Polish Kobben class submarine, that during regular exercises Strong Resolve on North Sea, the polish Kilo class SSK ORP Orzel that is playing the "hunted" to allow western navies train against a Kilo class, not only the Orzel regulary don't allow to be detected and hunted, but usually detects and "sinks" the hunting Trafalgar class SSNs !! Current score is 4:0 for Orzel :-).
Now this has surprised me more, because the Trafalgar is comparable quiet as a running Kilo, according to some data the Trafalgar is little quieter (of course Kilo becomes much quieter when stationary), and most probably the Trafalgar has much better sensors and data processing. And most importantly, I don't suppose the RN commanders and crew to underestimate the threat or poor/wrong tactics. To sink several Trafalgars that were hunting you, without being killed, well it's quite a achievement I guess ? :-)
I could easily imagine Kilo being not detected, if staying dead in the water (or on the bottom), but up to now didn't think they are able to detect, track and engage the hunting Trafalgars. Of course, by a chance, but not regulary !!
Hmm have to try if it's possible in DW (substituting 688i for Trafalgars) and think how to change data (noise levels or sensors) if it's not.

Anyway, I wanted to ask if anyone knows more details about those exercises (Strong Resolve, at least three years) and the Trafalgar's being "sunk" by Kilo ? Any info about tactics or ROE of the exercises ?
Or is it known fact at all ? I suppose it's little frustrating for RN commanders :-)

[XabbaRus]

I think micky1up would be the guy to ask.

Also this is the North Sea we are talking about. Not that deep really for an SSN to operate effectively in. I'm not making excuses out of patriotism, it is always possible for a good crew in an inferior machine who try hard and play smart to beat a superior vessel even if it has a good crew.

Obviously being a diesel-electric going dead slow and almost stop would put the Kilo at the advantage, plus it would have the maneauvering advantage given its size. Also it depends on the size of the exercise area. Starting positions etc. What you are telling does show how a Kilo class sub should not be underestimated. Used as a smart mobile mine it can be deadly.

It would be interesting to find out more. I don't however think you should start changing values in the database based on this exercise until more info can be found out.

good luck though.

[Kapitan]

Since strong resolve the orzel went on to challenge USN SSN's and won 4:1 i do believe it was, it was an exercise held with the USN RN polish and german navies in the baltic sea back in 2002, kilos are deadly in shallows catch them in deep ocean they can disapear.

But as xabbarus did say good crew inferior boat normaly wins, its not what you have that counts it what you know.

[LoBlo]

Yeah, your probably right to try to get more information before drawing to many inferences. What are the chances of a Polish officer exaggerating results in a Polish vs British contest? Pretty darn good.

The details of the scenarios would have to be known too. Personally I think the scenario, objective, time constraints, etc are the most cruical factor in deciding who wins and looses. Did the T-boats need to pick up speed in order to cover the op area in a certain amount of time? Was the Kilo free to sit, or did it have to reach any coordinates?

What if it was the other way around? With T-boats hiding and the Kilo hunting them? What if it was a scenario where T-boats needed to penetrate a barrier and launch strikes and the Kilo needed to protect the area? Would it still be 4-0, or would it be 0-4? What's the definition of "a kill"?

Its darn hard to find anyone willing to talk about the details... and probably illegal for them to do so... If you find anything let us know

[Linton]

Question has been asked.Whether anybody answers remains to be seen!

[LoBlo]

I've never quite understood the origin of this "our training is superior" attitude that most British forces present. "Better trained" has become almost a catch phrase amongst UK advocates, but what supports that claim?

You can't tell me that the methods used by the British sub forces are much different than seen in any other modern western navy. No doubt that the French are using top notch training methods with the use of top notch simulators, training software, exercises, drills, and qualifications. German submarines are no doubt using top quality tatics and training methods as well, as are the US, Dutch, and Australian forces. Human psychology and learning tatics probably don't vary much either.

So where does this claim that UK training is better than French, German, Australian, or any other navy come from? What supports it? Its more reasonable to believe that the command and crews of any modern navy have more than likely received comparably rigorous, viligent training with equal competance.

[Kapitan]

Well where do they stake thier claim

In the fact we help train them perhapse, its no seacret that USN russian dutch german indian pakistani french all have taken part in the BRITISH perisher course the hardest test you will ever take in your submarine career.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by LoBlo

I've never quite understood the origin of this "our training is superior" attitude that most British forces present. "Better trained" has become almost a catch phrase amongst UK advocates, but what supports that claim?

Actually, while the basic training may be similar, there are countless procedural differences that may affect competence.

For example, a valid case could be made that US officers are at a disadvantage, simply because they have to waste years on joint duty and as I understand it they diversify more even on boat, which reduces the amount of time they have on their real specialty.

There is also sailing time per year which varies - some navies get more than others.

Another factor is political constraints, which affect the realism of the exercises you are allowed to do. It isn't a very good idea, for example, to be in a Navy where you are given one or two exercise torps, then have to ask and get permission to shoot the torpedo (which forces you to raise a scope).

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by Amizaur

The "we are the best and no one other even close" syndrom ;-) I can understand it easily as Collins at slow speeds is much quieter than 688s or 688is, and have excelent sensors, also I can easily imagine US commanders being surprised that any OTHER navy knows how to can operate submarines ;-))

Yeah... but what you're not hearing about is an exercise where the SSK we had simulating an enemy sub reported sinking a destroyer, and in the reconstruction we looked at the report, looked at each other, and said, "but... there wasn't any destroyer in the exercise?" I wonder if they saw any mermaids...

It's not like the rest of the world isn't giving US commanders plenty of reason to believe they're the best, believe me. Although honestly, it's not that we're that good necessarily, it's that most of them are that bad, lemme tell ya. I think the most challenging thing for any submarine is having any really good idea of what's going on around it at all. I've seen enough stuff to be led to believe that real masters of sonar and TMA are rare at best, and most submarines from every nation sort of wander the ocean, dazed and confused and by a combination of statistics, patience, and the fact that nobody happens to notice them, manage to be able to inflict awful damage upon their adversary.

Now this has surprised me more, because the Trafalgar is comparable quiet as a running Kilo, according to some data the Trafalgar is little quieter (of course Kilo becomes much quieter when stationary),

Trafalgar = nuke
Kilo = diesel electric

Diesel electrics on the battery are obnoxiously quiet compared to nukes. If the data is unclassified, it's most likely unreliable, or else meaningless. Unless someone sticks a gram in front of you and a bunch of oceanographic data to go with it, nothing you hear about the relative "noisyness" of any particular submarine really means anything.

And most importantly, I don't suppose the RN commanders and crew to underestimate the threat or poor/wrong tactics. To sink several Trafalgars that were hunting you, without being killed, well it's quite a achievement I guess ? :-)

If Americans can do it, why can't Brits?

I could easily imagine Kilo being not detected, if staying dead in the water (or on the bottom), but up to now didn't think they are able to detect, track and engage the hunting Trafalgars.

One of the tough things about going after SSKs is that to detect them, you often need to get close. Even if they can't detect you, necessarily, all they often need to do is detect your weapons launch, because you're so close, their counterfire becomes very effective. Then it just boils down to a battle of statistics, what's your torpedo's Pk versus his? In light of that, it's not impossible at all for someone to get 4 kills and 0 losses just on counterfire.

Then again, in a different place or at a different time of the year, everything could be different. Without specifics, it's impossible to understand exactly what happened, or even attempt to reconstruct the exercise.

Anyway, I wanted to ask if anyone knows more details about those exercises (Strong Resolve, at least three years) and the Trafalgar's being "sunk" by Kilo ? Any info about tactics or ROE of the exercises ?
Or is it known fact at all ? I suppose it's little frustrating for RN commanders :-)

Someone probably does, but they won't be able to tell you. Specifics of these kinds of things are not generally for public consumption.

[LoBlo]

Originally Posted by Kazuaki Shimazaki II

Actually, while the basic training may be similar, there are countless procedural differences that may affect competence.

For example, a valid case could be made that US officers are at a disadvantage, simply because they have to waste years on joint duty and as I understand it they diversify more even on boat, which reduces the amount of time they have on their real specialty.

There is also sailing time per year which varies - some navies get more than others

Or a valid case could be made that the experience gained in joint duty gives US submariners a better understanding of other platform capabilities, operations, strengths, and weaknesses and how they can be exploited thus making them better submariners.... so that example could be viewed either way.

Regarding sailing times. What are the sailing time differences between the navies?

Those differences sound pretty trivial. Got anything more concrete?

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by LoBlo

Those differences sound pretty trivial. Got anything more concrete?

Americans mostly practice against each other (i.e. other nukes). That's why we do these international exercises, we have no SSKs to practice against. I think if we had more opportunities to practice against SSKs, we'd improve.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by LoBlo

Or a valid case could be made that the experience gained in joint duty gives US submariners a better understanding of other platform capabilities, operations, strengths, and weaknesses and how they can be exploited thus making them better submariners.... so that example could be viewed either way.

I guess that was the theory behind the joint stuff, but as I understand it, "joint" does not mean an operational tour on say a surface warship to broaden experience. It means a staff assignment, and not even a Navy assignment - its more like a Pentagon assignment. It is highly unlikely you will get any kind of insight about say surface ship weaknesses that you shouldn't have gotten by self-reading or tactical education.

So the gains are dubious and the loss is definite - a loss of 3 whole years (JDA tour length) of experience, a 3 year gap in which your shiphandling goes to corroded rust and your tactical instincts are dulled.

I guess the only thing worse will be to an Air Force officer doing his JDA - he doesn't fly, or fly minimally to keep his flight status, and his proficiency goes to the toilet.

Regarding sailing times. What are the sailing time differences between the navies?

Not sure about the Brits. I heard that the Belgians spend 280 days/year at sea, and the US about 200. I suspect the average Brit rate is somewhat lower than the American due to their lesser commitments, but the Brits probably do go out more than the Poles, thanks to money.

Try going to RAND and search for an article called Finding the Right Balance: Simulator and Live Training for Navy Units. The article's real value is stating some of the differences b/w American, British and French training. Training methods do vary b/w navies, and so do personnel policies. Each may only have a small difference, but added together, combined with the fact there are no 2nd place prizes in sub warfare, makes a huge difference.

[PeriscopeDepth]

Questions for SeaQueen:

I've read that diesels are handicapped sensor wise because of their size and lack of power. Basically, they can't carry the whiz bang sensors the nukes can and run the computers that power them because of these limitations. Have you heard anything like this?

What kind of programs do you guys use at work for simulation? Off the shelf stuff like Harpoon or puprose built? Understand if you can't talk about it.

PD

[SeaQueen]

Originally Posted by PeriscopeDepth

I've read that diesels are handicapped sensor wise because of their size and lack of power. Basically, they can't carry the whiz bang sensors the nukes can and run the computers that power them because of these limitations. Have you heard anything like this?

That's the first time I've heard it. I'm probably not the best person to ask, though. My knowledge of naval architecture is limited. I know that in all warships there is always electricity issues any time they want to add a new gizmo, but usually they are able to work something out. I suspect it all depends.

What kind of programs do you guys use at work for simulation? Off the shelf stuff like Harpoon or puprose built? Understand if you can't talk about it.

It depends. I don't use Harpoon at work, although I've talked with a coworker about using Harpoon Pro for certain types of things. It really depends on the questions we're trying to answer.

Often, the best thing to do is just sit down with Excel and make a spreadsheet. You can build surprisingly sophisticated things in Excel. We made a really cool sonar search Monte Carlo with Excel once. You just had to plug a transmission loss curve in and you could get pretty good results in comparison to what the "official" models did. There's also a whole universe of mathematical models that have been build for various things ranging from barrier searches to cruise missile exchanges. There's Koopman's search theory, and any of the other stuff stemming from military operations research. There's Lanchaster models, although we don't do that so much.

Sometimes we use MATLAB as well. I use Maple for some stuff, because I'm odd that way.

There's other things too, though. We have a modeling language called GCAM, which allows one to build wargames up to the campaign level. There's models like NSS, which is less flexible than GCAM, but is good for what it was designed to do. There's a model called CAPS which is for ballistic missile defense. I always thought that one was kind of cool. There's AREPS for modeling radar problems. There's EADSIM which is a lot like CAPS but more detailed. Sometimes we even build our own. There's a girl at work who built a really cool model of hypersonic re-entry bodies. I was jealous of that project. I wanted to work on it too.

There exists a ton of different computer models for dealing with different sorts of things. Sometimes we use different models to feed into other models. Other times we use canned values, or even just make things up that look reasonable because nobody really knows. It all really just depends. What do you want to know? How well do you need to know it? Etc. etc.

[Henson]

Getting back to the Australia vs US exercises....keep in mind that they shoot the same weapons and operate the same CCS as we do. Their intimate knowledge of the ADCAP's operating characteristics has resulted in some less than realistic evasion tactics.

As for nuc vs diesel, diesels are limited by speed. You cannot effectively track a nuc while maintaining tactical control when you're limited to less than 5 kts.