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Kris Osborn writes at DefenseTech that the US Navy is outfitting a prototype Virginia-class attack submarine platform with a series of upgrades designed to improve sonar detection and make attack submarines less detectable and more stealthy with upgrades including the addition of a large vertical array, special coating materials for the exterior of the submarine and special noise-reduction technologies for the engine room. “The USS South Dakota is a platform for three crucial aspects of our efforts to work on acoustic superiority. The large vertical array is about 60-percent designed with a preliminary design and we are installing a similar array on the USS Maryland that is 75-percent complete,” says Rear Adm. Joe Tofalo, director, submarine warfare. Virginia-class submarines will be acquired through 2043, and are expected to remain in service past 2060. Mainly aimed at dominating the world's littoral and deep waters, the Virginia-class submarines are capable of conducting anti-submarine; anti-surface ship; strike; special operation forces; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; irregular warfare; and mine warfare missions. The idea is to stay in front of fast-moving technological progress on the part of potential adversaries and help ensure undersea dominance for the US Navy and provide a technological advantage to US submarines looking to operate beneath or behind barriers erected by the weaponry and sensors of potential adversaries.
Many countries such as China, North Korea and Iran have or are developing long-range anti-ship missiles designed to prevent surface ships from operating within a certain distance of the shoreline. These technologies and weapons could be intended to deny access or deny an area to US forces, making it much harder to operate and project power. “We need to be ready for a Russia, China, Iran or whoever else who – recognizing the superiority we have today – seeks to develop an A2/AD like network underwater to match what many of them currently have on the surface and in the air. We know that is going to happen,” says Vice Adm. Mike Connor, commander of the Navy’s Atlantic submarine force. "We are the folks who are expected to get in underneath and – at the time and place of our choosing – do what needs to be done. A significant part of our ability to do this is an acoustic advantage."
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday November 04 2014, @02:50PM
Why does it only have to be two options? Why not a proxy war. Korea II perhaps. Or the Russians and Chinese fight it out over Siberia or whatever and we somehow get roped into proxying Taiwan, assuming we'd be on the Russians side instead of the Chinese/Walmart alliance side. Just because we haven't had a proxy war recently, doesn't mean they're somehow impossible.
Other than that observation I more or less agree with you.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Wednesday November 05 2014, @01:37AM
Uhhhh because we HAD proxy wars, remember Vietnam? Korea? At the end of the day BOTH sides send in second stringers to keep from risking WWIII. in fact the closest either side got to first stringers was the USSR pulling a "flying tigers" and having WWII vets fly the Mig 15 in civilian getups. in that case pilots carried a pistol with strict orders to blow their brains out if they were shot down behind enemy lines, which they did just FYI.
If you bring in the first stringers and are still losing? One side or the other WILL go nuclear, this is the very basis of MAD and the reason we haven't had another world war, nobody wants to risk putting a nuclear superpower against the wall because the risk is simply too great. But because of this spending insane amounts on "wonder weapons" is totally fucking pointless as you just won't go head to head with another equal for fear of the bombs falling, the closest you'll get is another Korea.
And again even if you buy into "wonder weapons" the simple fact is we just do not have the money to fund enough of these extremely temperamental things to make them a "war winner" because as Stalin said in WWII "quantity has a quality all its own". I am reminded of an interview I saw with the commander of a PAK-88, the most deadly anti-tank gun of WWII in Italy. he had set up his unit in the perfect spot, a choke point where the American tanks HAD to go single file and where he could see and fire on them with pinpoint accuracy while they couldn't get even a single shot anywhere close to his unit....he lost. When asked why he ended up retreating he said simply "we ran out of shells, the Americans didn't run out of tanks" and THAT is what we'd face in a proxy war, we'll have a couple dozen F22 and F35 fighters while the enemy will have a half dozens of Mig 29 and 31 fighters for the cost of a single one of ours!
Now I'm sorry but as we saw in Kosovo stealth tech isn't magic, in fact its really not that hard to beat by switching wavelengths and when we are talking about planes that would be facing 30 to 1 odds? Planes that can't carry but a couple of missiles because it'll fuck up the stealth? Yeah its not hard to guess who will come out on top and it ain't the USA. At the end of the day we are looking at a fleet of 30+ year old planes because the DoD is trying to make one plane that will work in EVERY branch of service for EVERY role....we already tried that in Vietnam and it didn't work out so hot there, but here it'll be 10 times worse as we won't be able to build the numbers required to even replace what we have, much less have any growth. Remember with military gear the price shoots waaaay up as the number drops because you start running into serious problems with spares and trying to keep the lines going long enough to build up enough spare parts to keep 'em in service. From the looks of things most of NATO is gonna pull out of the F35 program which will leave us with another F22, less than 500 units that will dwindle rapidly in combat as you run out of parts...NOT a good way to be.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.