Military buildup

[magicstix]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

There was a time when submarines were designed to fight on the surface. They were quite successful. If a submarine could be equipped to defend its self from air attacks either with LR SAMs or Fighters then the submarine becomes very capable of defending its self on the surface.

There will never be a *modern* submarine that carries aircraft.

Submarines today aren't designed to fight on the surface, and for very good reason. Lack of hydrodynamics kills stealth for one. For two, WW2 era submarines didn't have to deal with the kinds of threats that subs have to deal with today. In WW2, sub on ship fights were generally close range engagements where the surface ship was more or less blind. Today subs can be detected long range and attacked at stand off.

There are no aircraft that could be fielded from a submarine. Neither harriers nor F-35Bs have folding wings, and even taking an Ohio class SSGN and dumping as much as you can to put aircraft on it would give you 2 or 3 aircraft at best, with NO air defenses added, and these are the second largest subs ever built. Add in all the machinery required and crew to support the aircraft, and you very quickly have an impractical design.

If the design was practical, it would've survived beyond WW2 and we'd have sub carriers today.