How not to build a submarine. The Collins Class.

[McPherson]

Coukd you explain this novice what the difference between those approaches is?

It comes down to the methods of hunt-search. A submarine can wait and listen for a contact to come into signal detection threshold and then try to launch a fish and sneak it in close to endgame on the target, or a sub can try to sneak in close itself and then maneuver to get in the sound shadow of the target to take a short ranged no-escape shot on it.

The difference is the %s and how good the sonars are. The Russians were usually on the short end of the sonar stick so they tended to get bounced. They were inclined to turn to fight and that usually was a short ranged knuckle biter affair in the bump and scrape war. The other submariners tended to try to let their fish do the stalking and this was the ambush method. It, in simulation, at least had a lesser % chance of mutual assured destruction, but a greater chance of the prey escaping if the stalked enemy heard the torpedo inbound.

 

[Count of Crisco]

Coukd you explain this novice what the difference between those approaches is?

Knife fighters charge the opponent, get in close, and then wheel around close in. Dodging the other guys torps while you fire your own. Ambush is when you sit on the bottom nice and quiet and use your passive sonar set to get a firing solution. Letting loose at him suddenly and without warning.

 

[gatordad699]

Knife fighters charge the opponent, get in close, and then wheel around close in. Dodging the other guys torps while you fire your own. Ambush is when you sit on the bottom nice and quiet and use your passive sonar set to get a firing solution. Letting loose at him suddenly and without warning.

Modern SSNs don’t/can’t “sit” on the bottom (Jimmy Carter is an exception but it’s been modified). Sitting on the bottom would clog the seawater suctions. No seawater no reactor cooling. The boat might also get stuck in the mud. You also would not be able to use your towed or side arrays. Passive sonar is always used. All subs try and detect the other sub as far away as possible. They then maneuver to get in the other boats baffles. Once in the baffles they would get as close as possible. Just far enough from them for the weapon to arm. Firing from any distance can be dangerous. Shooting a torpedo can make a lot of noise. Once the torpedo activates it’s really loud. If a boat is shot at it will immediately fire a torpedo down the bearing the bad torpedo is coming from. It will be set to go active as soon as it leaves the tube. This is to try and hit the other boat or get it to at least cut its wire. McP is close. It is possible to shoot a weapon below the layer and guide it close to the target. You would drive it above the layer and have it go active then. Firing deep would use up a lot of high pressure air though. The sub v sub parts in RSR are fairly accurate.

 

[Riain]

Please note with this comment that I am not being nasty to you Rian - are you sure about that? IF this was put together since Jan aka post Trump, that's well quite an achievement

I think so because the UK and more importantly the US would not have agreed to transfer the technology without a quite detailed proposal.

In the last week, using open sources and snippets of information, we've reached a consensus that the Astute is more appropriate than the Virginia, what Britain's shipbuilding capacity is. We've also heard Ministers talk about leasing, and we can likely figure out the decommissioning schedule of the LA class to find a likely candidate for short term lease for training and interim capability. I think this is what the small numbers who knew about this last week had already worked out.

The next 12-18 months will hammer out more details of what we've figured out, with particulars of crews, availability and the like.

 

[Riain]

On that comment of Riain's re: 10 people knowing about it, he's taken that out of context. An article referenced 10 people in the British government but that was referencing some time before it was announced. Obviously there were many more than 10 people who knew about all of this before it got leaked to the media.

Fair enough, I heard that only ScoMo and Linda Reynolds knew about this in the early stages and assumed it was similar in Britain.

If in the latter stages 10 people in Britain knew about it, and presumably similar numbers in Australia and US then that is a plenty big enough group of people to make quite detailed investigations and produce realistic plans.

 

[Riain]

What about leasing? The Defence Minister Dutton and Trade Minister Birmingham have mentioned leasing and joint crewing. Greg Sheridan has said that the USN has retired LA class subs with 5-7 years life left to convert to the Virginia.

What's the conversion from LA to Virginia like in the next few years? Will there be any 'surplus' SSNs in the pipeline resulting from the likes of LA refits, Virginia building, USN crew availability that one could be leased to Australia?

 

[Sanderford]

What's the conversion from LA to Virginia like in the next few years? Will there be any 'surplus' SSNs in the pipeline resulting from the likes of LA refits, Virginia building, USN crew availability that one could be leased to Australia?

Perhaps? That said, those boats are old, and very likely not as quiet as the Australians would like, even with upgrades.

They're certainly less quiet than a Virginia.

 

[gatordad699]

What about leasing? The Defence Minister Dutton and Trade Minister Birmingham have mentioned leasing and joint crewing. Greg Sheridan has said that the USN has retired LA class subs with 5-7 years life left to convert to the Virginia.

What's the conversion from LA to Virginia like in the next few years? Will there be any 'surplus' SSNs in the pipeline resulting from the likes of LA refits, Virginia building, USN crew availability that one could be leased to Australia?

The US is always short on fast boats. The ones I was on went to sea 85-90% of the time. With 688 retirement and Virginia’s building schedule they are facing a big shortfall in the near future. They are not a sea duty for the faint of heart.

 

[Riain]

Perhaps? That said, those boats are old, and very likely not as quiet as the Australians would like, even with upgrades.

They're certainly less quiet than a Virginia.

Certainly, but Australia is going from diesels to nukes which is a huge step. A leased LA us not the solution the way a UK built Astute is the solution, but it's a step towards the solution. A leased LA would be like an OCU, so when we finally get the first definitive Australian SSN we'll have a crew trained and with operational experience.

 

[Riain]

The US is always short on fast boats. The ones I was on went to sea 85-90% of the time. With 688 retirement and Virginia’s building schedule they are facing a big shortfall in the near future. They are not a sea duty for the faint of heart.

So the USNs limiting factor is a shortage of hulls? For us it's crews.

 

[gatordad699]

So the USNs limiting factor is a shortage of hulls? For us it's crews.

Been that way for 50 years. Fast boats do so many missions that people have no clue about. Crap always comes up. People say a crisis happens and the President wants to know where the nearest carrier is. There’s a fast boat with that carrier. Other fast boats conducting “oceanographic research” somewhere. Add in maintenance (steel boats in salt water need a lot of maintenance), some time off for the crew, limits on how long they can stay out (food, toilet paper, and copier paper do run out), and there is always a shortage of boats. Manning issues for US boats is only Nukes. They can usually always get coners.

 

[Riain]

Been that way for 50 years. Fast boats do so many missions that people have no clue about. Crap always comes up. People say a crisis happens and the President wants to know where the nearest carrier is. There’s a fast boat with that carrier. Other fast boats conducting “oceanographic research” somewhere. Add in maintenance (steel boats in salt water need a lot of maintenance), some time off for the crew, limits on how long they can stay out (food, toilet paper, and copier paper do run out), and there is always a shortage of boats. Manning issues for US boats is only Nukes. They can usually always get coners.

So if you had more hulls you could crew them? Why don't you have more hulls, is it budget or industrial capacity? Are all the LAs being used right up to the end of their lives, or are some being retired 'early'?

 

[Not James Stockdale]

So if you had more hulls you could crew them? Why don't you have more hulls, is it budget or industrial capacity? Are all the LAs being used right up to the end of their lives, or are some being retired 'early'?

The problem with the size of the US SSN fleet was the cancellation of the Seawolf-class in 1995 and the slow start to Virginia production in the early 2000s. The last Los Angeles-class was ordered in 1989, laid down in 1992, and commissioned in 1996. The first Virginia-class was ordered in 1998, laid down in 1999, and commissioned in 2004. Between 1997 and 2008, there should have been 24 attack boats commissioned assuming a fleet of 60 boats and a lifespan of 30 years. Instead, we got 2 x Seawolf in 1997 and 1998, 4 x Block I Virginia (2004 to 2008), and 1 x Block II Virginia (2008, no more until 2010).. The end of the Cold War marked a significant transition from production of warships of all types in classes built as quickly as possible to lower unit costs to rolling production needed to maintain fleet size and industrial capabilities in operation at acceptable levels. The necessary reduction in production rates to extend procurement to basically indefinite replacement levels would naturally result in either overcapacity or undercapacity at certain points over the life of the transition (depending on starting fleet and selected procurement rate), and the situation was significantly worsened by the cancellation of several classes of warships in the 1990s.

 

[gatordad699]

So if you had more hulls you could crew them? Why don't you have more hulls, is it budget or industrial capacity? Are all the LAs being used right up to the end of their lives, or are some being retired 'early'?

Not sure if I’m qualified to answer the idiocy that is US weapons buying. Most are used as long as possible. A couple of been lost early (San Fran, Miami). The Soviets collapsed and we didn’t need the Seawolf. War on Terror and the US pissed away $2T in stupidity. Ford Class, Zumwalt Class, Boeing Tanker, F-35, politics. Subs are not sexy. USN is run by carrier people. Air Force wants and gets the most money. Up to a point the US could crew more boats. Bottleneck is the Nuke pipeline. It’s designed for so many students. Since you need running reactors to train on, you can’t raise capacity very fast, if at all.

 

[Sanderford]

Certainly, but Australia is going from diesels to nukes which is a huge step. A leased LA us not the solution the way a UK built Astute is the solution, but it's a step towards the solution. A leased LA would be like an OCU, so when we finally get the first definitive Australian SSN we'll have a crew trained and with operational experience.

That had actually been part of my thinking when it came to the Trafalgar-class boats, though as the OP pointed out those aren't viable for technical reasons. As has been mentioned already, the U.S.N. is always short on attack boats, especially right now as more and more of the 688 hulls are being removed from service, such that even with the 774 boats entering service relatively quickly we are looking at a shortfall in the near future.

That said, if production capacity were to be increased, both to make some fresh Virginia boats for the R.A.N. and to increase their rate of introduction to the U.S. fleets, you could maybe pitch the idea of leasing two boats and basically using them to build an experienced core of officers and rates accustomed to working aboard a nuclear submarine.

Having said that, I think Australia would basically have to accept an American design offering to get such a deal, and would likely need to give at least a little bit of ground on the insistence on domestic production.

 

[alspug]

The capability of the Virginia class especially now it has the VLS tube setup, 40 SLCM and 26 or so other weapons is huge. The single biggest reason for Australia buying the Virginia Class is interoperability with the USA. The odds of us doing so is low. What I expect to see is an Astute Hull design with a full Virginia class weapon management and Sonar combination. The boat will be able to leverage the incredible capability of both boats and also possibly Australian Sonar and weapons tech. Australia having worked with the USA on Mk 48 improvements. As for the French I think paying them even a billion to go away is money well spent. The Boat they quoted would have been a silk purse with major rectification required. Submarines being something you can't just design and expect to work perfectly without all the experience needed behind you.

 

[jsb]

What I expect to see is an Astute Hull design with a full Virginia class weapon management and Sonar combination.

This would also save RN/GBs face at swapping over to being "joint" developers (ie 10%) with US on them, like also using standard US reactors and common missile bit on dreadnought?

They can say that it's worth it to sell boats or at least big parts of them to RAN and be all allied, not we can't afford to develop top end by ourselves for just 7+4ish boats....?

 

[McPherson]

Two pieces of information.

If you ever wondered why the Astute looks "weird".

And something that may upset the AUKUS deal.

Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Mike Gildey, has a BIG LOOSE mouth that he should learn to keep shut. We already KNOW that the shipbuilding tech transfer would take some lengthy time. The point is to get the boats built while the tech transfer happens to operate them.

 

[Riain]

Two pieces of information.

If you ever wondered why the Astute looks "weird".

And something that may upset the AUKUS deal.

Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Mike Gildey, has a BIG LOOSE mouth that he should learn to keep shut. We already KNOW that the shipbuilding tech transfer would take some lengthy time. The point is to get the boats built while the tech transfer happens to operate them.

I thought the Trafalgar class bow sonar was a phased array rather than a 'bulb', hence the flat panels at the front. I also seem to recall the Trafalgar anechoic tiles were supposed to work against active sonar and were harder than the US ones. But that is SUPER hazy, probably 20 years ago now.

Yeah, ScoMo said we want to start building an SSN by 2029, which given the long build time will push the first one out to close to 2040. This is why leasing is getting traction, and I suspect one or two built overseas as well.

 

[McPherson]

I thought the Trafalgar class bow sonar was a phased array rather than a 'bulb', hence the flat panels at the front. I also seem to recall the Trafalgar anechoic tiles were supposed to work against active sonar and were harder than the US ones. But that is SUPER hazy, probably 20 years ago now.

Yeah, ScoMo said we want to start building an SSN by 2029, which given the long build time will push the first one out to close to 2040. This is why leasing is getting traction, and I suspect one or two built overseas as well.

The Germans figured it out around 1944. Then Lockheed worked out how to make it actually work about 1984. US did not adopt it because there were problems with float reserve and SPEED. Also it seems that sticking a reactor inside a double-hull would have been "difficult".