In an extended naval shooting war, would subs rule?

Factual Questions
1

If the Warsaw Pact and NATO had started fighting WW3 sometime in the 70’s or 80’s,
would surface ships have a hard time surviving?

My bold conclusion is that they certainly would: after about a month’s worth of
fighting most of the remaining ships still operational would indeed be subs. Those
which weren’t sunk would likely still be cowering in port somewhere. Think
about it: lose sight lose the fight. A surface ship’s location is much more easily
determined than a sub’s; they would take damage not only from subs but also from
other enemy surface assets as well as aircraft. Weapons on this time period (up to
today too) were much more destructive than they were in WW2. Recall that the
aircraft carrier made the battleship (mostly) obsolete; well I think subs would have
made CVs (and other surface ships) similarly obsolete. Frankly I can’t think of a job
which a CV does that a sub (or several, if you compare equivalent costs) couldn’t do,
and subs can do it much more stealthily.

Since we had no shooting war, there are still plenty of surface ships, and since the
main enemy of the US/NATO, the USSR, has seen its once-proud fleet turn into
rust buckets, it is unlikely that the inferiority of surface ships will be demonstrated
any time soon. But I wonder what would have happened if they did have to
fight it out…

2

Actually this problem was highlighted in the Millenium Challenge exercise. Carrier groups are very vulnerable apparently

3

I’m not an expert by far but it sure looks to me like the thing would end up as submarive vs submarine.

4

What’s the lifetime of the average Soviet sub in that situation? NATO has extensive passive sonar networks and lots of quiet hunter-killer subs and ASW aircraft. My guess is that the Soviet submarine fleet would be quickly eliminated.

Anything on the surface is going to be visible to ocean radar surveillance satellites. The problem is getting close enough to deliver a warhead.

5

Yeah, subs are sneaky, and most surface ships quite vulnerable to them, but it’s worth noting that there are lots of tricks for locating them. I’ve heard that one trick is to use a satelite to literally look for a hole in the water (since it is now supposedly easier to see where the water isn’t than where the sub is). ASW aircraft also have various gadgets for spotting subs underwater, including air-dropped sonar bouys and an EM-detector that looks for the variation in the local magnetic field caused by a large metal object lurking underwater. While many of these are dependent on surface ships for support, many aren’t.

As was mentioned before, the US and NATO have a large system set up for looking for enemy subs, and if things were getting to such a state that war with a major naval power was imminent, we’d probably have our own attack subs lurking around, shadowing their subs (and they may very well have their own subs trying to shadow ours; during the Cold War, there was more than one instance where a Russian sub was being tailed by an American sub which was being tailed by another Russian sub). The beginning of large-scale hostilities would probably be punctuating by a whole bunch of ships a’sploding at once, as subs opened fire on the ships they were shadowing. It’s possible that whichever nation had the least stealthy subs would lose their subs first.

A problem is regional navies that use diesel-powered subs instead of nuke subs. Modern diesels can be considerably stealthier than a nuke sub can hope to be. Currently the US Navy has a Swedish Navy submarine on a long-term lease (along with her officers and crew) to help train our people in ASW against diesels.

Something else to take into account is that subs don’t operate in a vacuum. They need various support facilities that can’t hide underwater, such as tenders and bases. The Air Force (and the Navy, if they could get a carrier close enough) would probably be more than happy to blow the snot out of such bases and do their best to starve any diesel subs out of action. Meaner tricks could include mining the channels that a sub would have to use to get to or from their bases, which would mean that if a sub did try to sneak back into or out of it’s base, it’d likely hit a mine and turn itself into an obstruction.

That said, any large-scale naval war versus an enemy with a large fleet, submarine or otherwise, would get pretty ugly pretty fast, though it’s worth noticing that large surface battlegroups never go anywhere without a wolfpack of attack subs and various ASW surface ships to protect them with.

6

The reason for that is that the US, being the pre-eminent naval power, NEEDS to maintain supply lines to Britain and Western Europe, where the land war was going to be. The Soviet Navy, on the other hand, was automatically on the “offensive” in the Atlantic, just as the Germans were.

7

The major role of carriers today isn’t necessarily supremecy at sea, but in effect to be floating air bases for extending strategic power. They might be vulnerable in wartime but even with their known weaknesses, they’re still vital in peacetime.

It wouldn’t even necessarily be subs that would be the major problem. The problem is that an enemy could put a bunch of antiship missiles aboard a mosquito fleet of expendable small craft. If we sank 99 of them but the remaining one put a carrier out of commission, that would be a net loss for us.

8

As a former submarine officer, I’m firmly of the belief that, in a real shooting war, surface ships wouldn’t last long. Surface ships today are not just vulnurable to modern nuclear subs, they are sitting ducks.

[QUOTE=Raguleader]
Yeah, subs are sneaky, and most surface ships quite vulnerable to them, but it’s worth noting that there are lots of tricks for locating them.
[/quote]

None of which are particularly effective, especially if you don’t know where to start looking. It’s very difficult, for example, to keep ASW aircraft on station indefinitely.

[QUOTE=Raguleader]
I’ve heard that one trick is to use a satelite to literally look for a hole in the water (since it is now supposedly easier to see where the water isn’t than where the sub is).
[/quote]

Satellites have trouble finding surface ships, much less a submarine. Big ocean, small ship. And looking for a “hole in the water”? :dubious: Cite?

[QUOTE=Raguleader]
ASW aircraft also have various gadgets for spotting subs underwater, including air-dropped sonar bouys and an EM-detector that looks for the variation in the local magnetic field caused by a large metal object lurking underwater. While many of these are dependent on surface ships for support, many aren’t.
[/quote]

But again, unless the aircraft has an initial datum to work off of, it’s just like looking for a needle in a haystack.

[QUOTE=Raguleader]
As was mentioned before, the US and NATO have a large system set up for looking for enemy subs…
[/quote]

You are likely referring to the SOSUS network.

[QUOTE=Raguleader]
…and if things were getting to such a state that war with a major naval power was imminent, we’d probably have our own attack subs lurking around, shadowing their subs…
[/quote]

Probably. :slight_smile:

[QUOTE=Raguleader]
…(and they may very well have their own subs trying to shadow ours; during the Cold War, there was more than one instance where a Russian sub was being tailed by an American sub which was being tailed by another Russian sub).
[/quote]
Cite? Let me just say such a situation is not just unlikely, but virtually impossible, given the manner in which we conduct submarine tracking.

[QUOTE=Raguleader]
The beginning of large-scale hostilities would probably be punctuating by a whole bunch of ships a’sploding at once, as subs opened fire on the ships they were shadowing. It’s possible that whichever nation had the least stealthy subs would lose their subs first.
[/quote]

I agree.

[QUOTE=Raguleader]
That said, any large-scale naval war versus an enemy with a large fleet, submarine or otherwise, would get pretty ugly pretty fast, though it’s worth noticing that large surface battlegroups never go anywhere without a wolfpack of attack subs and various ASW surface ships to protect them with.
[/QUOTE]

Another thing to to keep in mind is the vulnurability of a carrier battle group to nuclear attack.

9

You might want to read Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy. He covers just what happens in this scenario.

10

I’ve had at least one Naval CPO tell me that carriers tend to do rather poorly in wargames againest submarines.

One who was a submariner told me that they were told to bang on the bulkheads during wargames to make it easier for the ASW to find them.

Another told me about a US sub sneaking so close to a US carrier that it wasn’t noticed until it surfaced nearby. Kinda of a “If this was a war, you’d be dead now”.

11

[QUOTE=robby]
Satellites have trouble finding surface ships, much less a submarine. Big ocean, small ship. And looking for a “hole in the water”? :dubious: Cite?
[/QUOTE]

Eh, now that I think about it a drunken sailor BSing over IM. Sorry :smack:

I got this from a book written about the sinking of the Russian submaine K-219, but Wikipedia (and the US Navy, it seems) appears to say that my source is bunk. I’m on a roll tonight, huh? :rolleyes:

Now, being a fan of JAG, I know that any aircraft carrier is impervious to any kind of attack (up to and including submarines launching nuclear weapons) as long as it has a Navy Lawyer/Ace Fighter pilot embarked. :smiley:

12

So, a random question about submarines. Read a pretty good book (“Red Phoenix”, by Larry Bond, IIRC) that detailed a war breaking out between North and South Korea during the 1980s. A recurring theme was submarine warfare (along with lots of really thrilling infantry fighting, air combat, and even political maneuvering)

Anyhow, at one point, a North Korean sub shoots down a P-3 Orion with a SAM launched from a periscope-mounted launcher (the sub, in return, is destroyed by the P-3, which had just dropped a torpedo after hearing the sub’s cook scream after getting scalded by boiling water). Are periscope-mounted SAM launchers feasable or practical?

13

In a NATO-Warsaw Pact conflict (especially in the early Eighties) you’d also have to account for the likelyhood of going nuclear, initially on the tactical level. Carrier groups are enormously sensitive; all it takes is a single cruise missile and they’re gone.

SOSUS is a good tool for tracking subs across The Gap, but doesn’t do much once they’ve penetrated. Don’t believe everything you read in a Clancy novel; while the Soviets hadn’t achieved the same level of silent movement that comperable US subs had, they had an extensive attack sub fleet that was well versed in convoy attack tactics and could have made life bad for the merchant marine. If the Skval torpedeo was in service at that time (as it is claimed to be) it could have made a bad time for the NATO sub forces as well. The same is true (if not more so) for Soviet carrier groups, which were pretty much limited to the equivilent of thru-deck carriers with short range air superiority capability.

In short, surface ships (or “cans”, as the submariners call them) would be sitting ducks, even the ones with fancy anti-missile systems. I’d expect little in the way of surface group vs. surface group action; it’s mostly going to be cruise missiles and submarines.

Stranger

14

[QUOTE=Raguleader]

Anyhow, at one point, a North Korean sub shoots down a P-3 Orion with a SAM launched from a periscope-mounted launcher (the sub, in return, is destroyed by the P-3, which had just dropped a torpedo after hearing the sub’s cook scream after getting scalded by boiling water). Are periscope-mounted SAM launchers feasable or practical?
[/QUOTE]

I remember seeing it included in a sub sim. I think the developer’s notes said that it had been proposed, but never deployed.

See Encyclopedia Astronautica Index: 1.

15

As Naval Officer, I can say that as good as subs are, we and the Russians and the Chinese, have spent a ton of money on how to acquire, track and sink tthem. Nukes are easier to find than diesel subs are, but they are more lethal. Diesel subs are very hard to find, because they are so quiet, but they have a number of issues, not the least is speed and endurance. Most of the war games that I’ve seen, and that I’m willing to discuss, have a fairly even distribution of kills among surface ships and submarines.

16

[QUOTE=spifflog]
As Naval Officer, I can say that as good as subs are, we and the Russians and the Chinese, have spent a ton of money on how to acquire, track and sink tthem. Nukes are easier to find than diesel subs are, but they are more lethal. Diesel subs are very hard to find, because they are so quiet, but they have a number of issues, not the least is speed and endurance. Most of the war games that I’ve seen, and that I’m willing to discuss, have a fairly even distribution of kills among surface ships and submarines.
[/QUOTE]

One deficiency of such war game exercises is the time limitations and the spatial limitations of the exercise.

During an exercise, for instance, a surface ship can deploy ASW aircraft and keep them in the air for most of the exercise. The ship (and aircraft) also know there is an “enemy” sub in the area, and that the sub is actively trying to attack the ship.

Out in the wide blue ocean, over an indefinite period of time, however, the submarine’s stealth becomes an overwhelming advantage, IMHO. ASW aircraft are only typically deployed if the presence of a sub is suspected. However, in a shooting war, the first indication a typical surface ship would have that there is a sub in the area would be the big explosion. :cool:

17

Diesels are harder to find than nucs? I don’t get that. IC engines are loud, and I thought I had specifically heard the reverse.

18

This was definitely touched upon, but the Op has to get past one initial misconception. The Carrier Fleet (and Battleship Fleet of the Eighties) was not for Total War against the Warsaw pact but for Force Projection against the third world, use in smaller conflicts, ground support, invasion support and here is the big one for the Battleships, ‘Waving the Flag’. Reagan and Lehman cribbed that right out of Theodore Roosevelt’s book.
In total war, the surface fleets would require constant protection and vigilance by Fast Attack Submarines. I am not sure what the USN could have done to protect her Flag Ships in such circumstances. On board a carrier* in this time period, we were told that almost no nation on earth could get through the protective fleet and air cover of a modern carrier fleet on the surface or in the air, but we had only the unknown number of escort Fast attack subs to protect us from Soviet Subs. We might get lucky with the ASW Helicopters and Frigates, but only another sub was likely to protect us. We were also told that only Soviets of our expected enemies had subs quiet enough to get through the protective ring around a carrier fleet. Chinese subs were believed to be noisy and no other nations that we expected to face of against had even their quality of subs. The Soviets were scariest threat and they had been caught in at least one incident of getting within guaranteed torpedo range of the USS Enterprise CVN-65. They were flushed out, but they may have tipped their hand on purpose. Fast attack subs were apparently playing tag with surface vessels quite often and rarely discovered. Good practice for both the Soviet and US submarine fleet.

Jim {USS Ranger CV-61, 1985 to 1988, EM3}

19

[QUOTE=robby]
…snip…
Out in the wide blue ocean, over an indefinite period of time, however, the submarine’s stealth becomes an overwhelming advantage, IMHO. ASW aircraft are only typically deployed if the presence of a sub is suspected. However, in a shooting war, the first indication a typical surface ship would have that there is a sub in the area would be the big explosion. :cool:
[/QUOTE]

I tend to agree with your statement and I am much less knowledgeable than you on this subject. However, I believe in the eighties we had one to two ASW aircraft in the air around the clock. We also had one or more fast attack subs assigned to the carrier and BB fleets. When the Ranger CV-61 and the New Jersey BB-62 were put together as a joint fleet for exercises outside the Persian Gulf*, we were told we had an escort of at least six fast attack subs.

Jim

  • This exercise was a classic example of the USN deploying a small portion of her force to remind Iraq and Iran that we had floating enough power to wipe out their Air force and much of their Infrastructure or “Flag Waving”.
20

So what it sounds like, is if a shooting war does break out, subs have a distinct advantage against surface warships, but are severely limited in what they can do OTHER than destroying the enemy surface warships (I mean, you can try to build a submarine aircraft carrier like the Japanese did, but somehow I doubt such a thing would be terribly effective nowadays…)