Challenge: Submarine world

Just use a bigger torpedo. Soviet November-class was originally meant for delivering hydrogen bombs.

The T15 torpedo with which the November class (1958+) might have been armed, while massive enough, was a project that never got off the ground. And for the Soviets to give up on something that goes "boom" in such a big way, I'm thinking the project had to have had practicality issues. Reliability, accuracy? Who knows? "Just use a bigger torpedo" isn't apparently as simple as it sounds, given technology comparable to the early Atomic Age OTL. And the T15 project was attempted after that technology had been around and developing for at least a little while.

An earlier poster made the case that subs today are already the dominant type of vessel; he makes a good point. I just am not convinced that nuke-tipped torpedos are a plausible means by which that state might happen during the earliest Atomic Age days.
 
The problem with submarines is that their cargo-space is limited, and thus they don't make good transports, and make terrible landing craft.
 
probably does, since the Russian Iskander missile (TBM) is reputed to have a CEP of 5-7 meters....a carrier deck is MUCH wider

....and you could overwhelm ballistic missile defence ships simply by putting more warheads.....

The dif here though is that the Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile is trying to hit a moving target (a ship) on the other side of the hemisphere.

Say 10-25 minutes time on target from when someone in a bunker under Beijing pushes the button, the missle launches from Xinjiang, and then re-enters the atmosphere over the South Pacific. So more than enough time to try and get the hell out of the area.

What the Chinese have apparently invented is a steerable re-entry stage with one hell of a terminal guidence system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-ship_ballistic_missile
 
Again, if it works.

At the speeds we're talking, hundreds of kilometres a second, it has got to work perfectly to hit the carrier.

Any technical, electronic 'oops' and it will miss by miles.
 
I'm skeptical about the capabilities of ASBM's, it's one thing to have a CEP of a few metres of a fixed target at a known location but it's another to hit a moving target thousands of miles away. I've no doubt that the Chinese have developed a missile that can get within a very close distance of a carrier group, probably close enough that if the missile had an EMP warhead it could fry the electronic equipment and knock the carrier out of action for a considerable period. But to physically hit the carrier is a much harder problem. The main issue is how the warhead is able to accurately track the target after launch, especially during re-entry when it is ensheathed in hot plasma that prevents communication. There's also the real risk that firing a ballistic missile against the armed forces of another state could be interpreted as a nuclear strike and causing a retaliatory response.

However it should be remembered that there's no such thing as an invincible weapon or an invulnerable defence. The only way we'll ever know if the DF-21 ASBM or the AEGIS system work as they're meant to is if a Sino-American shooting war ever happens and that's something I'm sure we all hope never happens.
 
The problem with submarines is that their cargo-space is limited, and thus they don't make good transports, and make terrible landing craft.

Indeed their volume is necessarily limited, because the sub must have a density equal to (or greater than) water to submerge, whereas most vehicles have a much lower density, reflecting both that we often transport things less dense than water and that we need elbow room for storing and handling them. So it's very tricky to design a sub that can hold a decent cargo of any sort, and there are many cargoes it can't really handle at all well.

In addition to that, there is the problem of power supply. (And the related problem that the crew would prefer to keep breathing, but clearly if we have plenty of power we can probably keep the air breathable one way or another). Except for nuclear power, there is no good way to propel a submarine long distances unless it can at least from time to time take on fresh air.

The potential economic advantages of a submarine boil down to just two--one, getting well below the surface eliminates a lot of drag, as the major drag force ships suffer from is the wave drag on the sea/air interface.

The other is being able to travel where the surface conditions, such as ice packs, would be prohibitive--this also includes the advantage of being able to operate well below surface storms.

Clearly either advantage is offset or fully wiped out if the sub's engines need air to breathe.

There are other air-independent systems I know of besides nuclear power. Sweden has commissioned a number of subs that use liquid oxygen to burn fuel to run a Stirling engine. Fuel cells, again using stored oxygen, have also been tried. A more exotic and probably hare-brained scheme would be to use metals like sodium or potassium, or other substances that react strongly with water, as the heat sources.

I seriously doubt that these water-burning substances carry anything like enough chemical potential relative to water to make themselves competitive with liquid oxygen plus conventional fuels. But clearly if we need to carry the oxygen as well as fuel the effective energy density of these fuels is far lower than the same fuels burning in air.

Thus the cargo submarine is limited in utility by its need to be dense; it is more difficult hence expensive to construct than a surface ship; it has limitations on submerged power--all these reasons seem to explain well enough why the only sub transports I've ever heard of were those meant or improvised to run an enemy blockade.

Aside from its scientific uses, the main thing a submarine is good for is being stealthy.
 
it's very tricky to design a sub that can hold a decent cargo of any sort, and there are many cargoes it can't really handle at all well.
Perhaps, but the advantages of shorter routes (under the North Pole) & higher speeds (avoiding surface effect) tends to balance this.
In addition to that, there is the problem of power supply....Except for nuclear power...[/quote]
Why disallow nuclear? Though I will say fuel cells are promising... I happen to prefer RTGs, but...
Aside from its scientific uses, the main thing a submarine is good for is being stealthy.
I entirely agree, subs would make excellent oceanographic platforms...

As for the sub threat, you all appear to be ignoring two things. Nuclear mines are an attractive option, & could be laid by purpose-designed sub, where weapon size is less crucial.

If you demand an SP weapon, you're forgetting something the Japanese figured out as early as 1941: the payload need not be carried inside the hull. IJN bolted minisubs to the deck; why wouldn't a DSRV-like hull with a nuke integral work just as well? The guidance package need not be sophisticated, & the range in such a weapon could be substantial...even if it wasn't driven by nukes.
 
One wonder if in a probably distant future, we will see UNDERsea complete warfare. not just subs... 'Deep Sea Marines', 'Battle Subs', 'Undersea Forteresses' and 'Artilery', etc...
 
As for the sub threat, you all appear to be ignoring two things. Nuclear mines are an attractive option, & could be laid by purpose-designed sub, where weapon size is less crucial.

If you demand an SP weapon, you're forgetting something the Japanese figured out as early as 1941: the payload need not be carried inside the hull. IJN bolted minisubs to the deck; why wouldn't a DSRV-like hull with a nuke integral work just as well? The guidance package need not be sophisticated, & the range in such a weapon could be substantial...even if it wasn't driven by nukes.

Excuse me? Some bright fellow pointed out mines and the idea of external carriers for weapons in the 6th post in this thread...
 
Perhaps, but the advantages of shorter routes (under the North Pole) & higher speeds (avoiding surface effect) tends to balance this.
No it doesn't not by a long shot (anything that requires that much speed is going to go by aircraft anyway). The operational advantages of a cargo submarine are way more than weighed out by the building and maintenance costs, which are going to be absolutely extortionate.

Even worse than the cargo submarine is the landing-craft submarine, something that not only has to transport cargo, but also deliver it without additional facilities, and brave enemy fire, especially while doing so.
 
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As Polish Eagle suggests it has effectively already happened two torpedoes from HMS Conqueror effectively ended the Argentinian Navy as a fighting force. Only their submarine gave any further trouble. The point of divergence was 1951 when congress authorised the building of the USS Nautilus
 
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