America's Virginia-Class Submarine vs. Russia's Lethal Yasen: Who Wins?

[Onkel Neal]

New material for a Sonalysts revival?

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the...al-yasen-17892

The United States Navy’s submarine force emerged from the Cold War as the undisputed masters of the undersea realm. The elite, all-nuclear submarine force watched as its Soviet submarine force rivals rusted away pierside, the newly founded Russian Federation unable to maintain them.

After more than twenty years of American submarine supremacy, a new challenger has arisen from the deep. Slightly familiar and almost two decades in the making, it’s an unusual challenge to U.S. naval superiority, but nevertheless one with a long, lethal pedigree. How does this new old upstart, Russia’s Yasen-class submarine, compare with the new backbone of the U.S. submarine force, the Virginia class?