A $6B Nuclear U.S. Navy Aircraft Carrier 'Sunk' by $100M Diesel 'AIP' Sub

https://nationalsecurityjournal.org/a-6000000000-nuclear-u-s-navy-aircraft-carrier-sunk-by-100000000-diesel-aip-sub/

by voxadam • 10 months ago

52 94 10 months ago

nationalsecurityjournal.org

markemer• 10 months ago

Isn't this like the exact plot of Down Periscope?

boricj• 9 months ago

It depends, did they sing Louie, Louie while cosplaying as a fishing trawler?

jakedata• 9 months ago

My takeaway from this story is that as an (aspiring) billionaire I can buy an awesome Swedish submarine for less than the cost of a crazy megayacht.

Unfortunately, skull shaped volcano islands are harder to come by.

gottorf• 9 months ago

Billionaires don't exactly have a great track record in submarines. A crazy megayacht, or even a regular yacht, might serve you better!

iamgopal• 9 months ago

Is there something inbetween ? A yacht with optional submerging feature ? May be just 100 feet ?

jacquesm• 9 months ago

Given how the last Nordic submarine adventure by some tech moron ended I think we can do without that.

mongol• 9 months ago

For those that miss the reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kim_Wall

ActorNightly8• 9 months ago

You would also need to find a crew to run it. Which requires either a) ex military dudes with direct experience b) extremely talented engineers who can reverse engineer stuff and make it work.

For either, you are going to have to spend basically close to 5 mill a year just on salaries.

digdugdirk• 9 months ago

That's the same ballpark as running a mega yacht. So instead of cruising into the Monaco Harbour to watch an F1 race, you get to park yourself on the seafloor just outside the harbour and single handedly blockade a sovereign nation.

palmotea2• 9 months ago

You would also need to find a crew to run it. Which requires either a) ex military dudes with direct experience b) extremely talented engineers who can reverse engineer stuff and make it work.

If you're buying a submarine, I'd assume the manufacturer would provide crew training on how to operate it. It's be kinda dumb if they didn't.

ARandomerDude• 9 months ago

You also need a construction team to insulate the lair and install trap doors over the lava.

softwaredoug• 9 months ago

Ukraine has had success sinking large vessels with drones etc, so it doesn’t seem surprising the lessons of this articles are even more true today.

IAmBroom3• 9 months ago

A US carrier is a bit more daunting a target than the Moskva was. Still, they're not unsinkable.

exabrial2• 9 months ago

The Moskva was also being sailed by drunken idiots, literally while a P8 was circling above.

My hope is the US Navy would exercise much better situational awareness and discipline.

numpy-thagoras• 9 months ago

This wasn't the first time a diesel-electric has caused havoc for US Navy expectations during a war game.

The article even mentions the added use of layered defence to try and counter this move.

perilunar• 9 months ago

Yes. Australian diesel subs have also done this in exercises.

ElevenLathe• 9 months ago

Yeah, /Down Periscope/ wasn't the greatest, but still worth checking out.

labrador4• 9 months ago

It's a given that aircraft carriers will be sunk in an all out war. They're useful to project power in anything less than an all out war, which fortunately is most of the time.

Edit: I'm a former nuclear submarine sailor. We call aircraft carriers 'targets'

nocoiner• 9 months ago

Isn’t “targets” just all non-submarines?

stoneman24• 9 months ago

Actually Other submarines are also prospective targets until proven to be allies.

Great profession for the paranoid, everyone else trying to find you.

Worked in shipyard with submariners, who are great people once you get to know them.

cperciva• 9 months ago

I thought "targets" was just anything designed by civil engineers.

psunavy037• 9 months ago

While I support inter-branch shit-talking, even from you bubbleheads, when push comes to shove, CVNs aren't "targets" for SSNs. We're on the same team, fighting against our true enemies . . . the Army and the Air Force.

labrador4• 9 months ago

But seriously... Google returns this for the keywords 'falkland war submarine aircraft carrier submarine sights periscope'

"During the Falklands War, the British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror used its periscope to sight the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano before sinking it, but did not engage the Argentine aircraft carrier ARA Veinticinco de Mayo. The carrier was also stalked by British submarines but ultimately retreated and was never attacked."

OG_BME• 9 months ago

The writing style of this article is interested, on one hand, it's packed full of details and information like a well-researched, human-written article.

On the other, there are many ChatGPTisms, it's not this, it's that, groups of 3 terms, em-dashes, etc.

My thinking is that there was a thorough draft written by a human that then was passed through an LLM and heavily modified. Not that there's a problem with that.

adastra224• 9 months ago

That’s just good typography and editing.

matusp• 9 months ago

My exact reaction. I noticed the repetitiveness. Count how many times they reiterate the point that this was a shock for the US Navy.

z3ugma• 9 months ago

Yeah and right at the top: "Key Points and Summary – " followed by the ChatGPT writing tell of "It's a <statement>: x, y, and z."

ck2• 9 months ago

$45 BILLION in F-35 orders have been cancelled by European countries because of the (illegal) tariff war

Nothing on the "tariff shelf" is gonna fix that, only bankrupt the country like his casino

And next war is going to be just thousands upon thousands of drones since apparently we have no way to stop them over airports and everything else

bad_haircut72• 9 months ago

It wasnt because of Tariffs, its because its clear that they have no soverignty being apart of the F35 program. USA can try and keep up with China in sixth gen with its own money now, instead of spreading the cost amongst allies. Trump might be playing 4d chess but hes blundering queens left right and center

ActorNightly8• 9 months ago

There are 2 things that are VERY classified when it comes to US military.

First is missle defense capability

Second is sonar.

I believe something like 10 years ago, the declassified sonar capability was that it could reconstruct a 3d image of a goldfish 10 miles away.

TLDR; US is never going going "win" wargames because its not a good idea to showcase the true capability. Same reason why F22 and F35s "lose" to other jets - US purposefully nerfs them and flies them at decreased envelopes.

vjvjvjvjghv• 9 months ago

I think it’s pretty clear that these shiny super expensive weapons systems will be overwhelmed by cheaper autonomous systems like drones . They are good for bullying less capable adversaries but I think in an all out war they won’t have a good time. As far as I have read the F22 has never been used in combat because it’s too expensive to lose.

ActorNightly8• 9 months ago

F22 has never been used in combat because nobody wants to go up against it. We deploy F22s and enemy is basically like "well we cant see it and it probably out turns any of our shit, so whats the point"

Drones are cheaper, but also not robust like human operated machinery. Great for bombing, not so great for air supreriority. UCAVs may be cheaper in getting missles off, but comms are easy to disrupt and ai capabilities arent there

pqtyw2• 9 months ago

Or maybe the Typhoon is actually better than the F35 and F22 at dogfighting and general "within visual range" combat. But its unlikely that would really matter in a real war, F35 doesn't need to be good at those things if it just shots you down long before you know its there.

loloquwowndueo• 9 months ago

Isn’t that like how the F4 didn’t need to be good at dogfighting because it would shoot enemies down from BVR (first versions didn’t even have a gun, only missiles) and then rules of engagement over Vietnam nullified that advantage?

Also ignore me, all I know about air combat I learned from top gun and iron eagle.

MengerSponge2• 9 months ago

The F35 RFQ specification had two bullet points:

0) Spread the pork into as many congressional districts as possible

1) Omae wa mou shindeiru

rafale• 9 months ago

That's one way to nerf them, force them to fight in situations they would never find themselves in.

In real life, if they can't neutralize the threat in BVR they just turn around and run before getting in range.

Their stealth allows them to get the enemy in range before the enemy has them in range. It's like a boxer with a long reach: jab and move.

ActorNightly8• 9 months ago

F35 maybee. F22 has never been publically flown within its actual combat envelope. Super maneuverability probably makes it possible to notch the living fuck out of heat seakers, i.e turn past 180 degrees, afterburner out.

nradov• 9 months ago

The F-35 can self escort to an extent, but the concept of operations is generally to avoid direct air combat. Instead they would try to attack at night, relying on low observability, jamming, and careful route planning to avoid detection or interception and then destroying adversary aircraft on the ground using stand-off weapons. That's basically how the predecessor F-117 operated.

jncfhnb4• 9 months ago

Ehhh I think it’s all moot. These high end weapons aren’t 1000x better than 1000 cheaper weapons that cost 100000x less.

How many jet powered or submersible drones can an aircraft carrier defend against?

ActorNightly8• 9 months ago

Not an aircraft carrier but a destroyer or battleship in a group certainly has awacs that can knock shit out of the sky pretty reliably, and probably something anti torpedoe as well.

IAmBroom3• 9 months ago

I believe something like 10 years ago, the declassified sonar capability was that it could reconstruct a 3d image of a goldfish 10 miles away.

I'm in optics, not sonar, but I have a hard time believing that sound waves are such unbelievably reliable tools for accurate FFT's of a target. Ultrasonics begin at 100 mm, while "long" visible light is 200x shorter (and wavelength is proportional to resolvable detail). Noise and dispersion in the ocean are significant.

Reminds me of when the CIA planted stories that they could recover data from multiply-erased hard drives using electron scanning microscopes. Possibly - one bit at a time.

ActorNightly8• 9 months ago

Phased radar is a thing. Phased sonar is also a thing. Couple that with a bunch of ML and its very doable.

psunavy037• 9 months ago

This "news" was 20 years ago.

davey48016• 9 months ago

The survivability of aircraft carriers in modern warfare has been in question since the 1980s.

https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa134.pdf

psunavy037• 9 months ago

"In question" != "proven." Sure, Tom Clancy wrote a whole chapter on what would or wouldn't have happened if the Backfires had sortied from Murmansk. But it's funny how the people who push the idea of carriers being obsolete are the military equivalent of the chattering classes, not the people whose job it is to fight and win wars.

Armchair admirals can pontificate all they want.

mbreese• 9 months ago

That doesn’t necessarily make it uninteresting. One can always learn from surprises by competitors, military or commercial.

lenerdenator• 9 months ago

IIRC, isn't the expected US response to the sinking of an CVN the use of weapons of mass destruction?

maxglute6• 9 months ago

Wonder if US/USN is even institutionally capable of moving away from carrier expeditionary model if on paper it's borderly demonsntratbly not survivable. Feel like too much of US national prestige is tied to muh 11+10 carrier+lhd literally legislated into law (10 US Code 8062a). Too much big dick energy ego tied to arguably obsolecent platform, well at least for peer war.

andrewl• 9 months ago

The article did not say carriers were demonstrably not survivable in warfare. Or it said that that was not the conclusion of the navy.

The lesson wasn’t that aircraft carriers are obsolete; it was that air-independent propulsion and patient SSK tactics demand layered, disciplined, team-based ASW. ... The U.S. answer isn’t to panic about aircraft carriers; it’s to layer defenses and distribute risk—push the air wing’s reach (tankers, long-range weapons), fill gaps with manned and unmanned ASW platforms, and keep expanding the fleet’s acoustic picture with fixed and mobile arrays. The Gotland episode didn’t say “carriers are obsolete.” It said “carriers must be escorted by a navy that trains, equips, and fights as if quiet SSKs are everywhere.”

maxglute6• 9 months ago

More of a generalized comment, not limited to article. IMO even less point worrying about ASW lessons from 20 years ago vs peer threats with A2D2 that pushes carriers outside their strike distance while being able to hit them outside of it. TBH the entire point those stories were making rounds 20 years ago, i.e. around US pivot to Indopac was because PRC had mediocre legacy diesel subs. It was security theatre of the era, i.e. around the time muh carriers are fast filtered down to lay talking points. The strategic landscape against carriers vis-a-vis medium/long range strikes has change - flip side israel surviving 95% iran missiles is can US csg survive 5% PRC missiles. Likely not.

My comment was more directed at if US planners thinks no, would they even be capable of divesting, moving away from carrier model. My guess is no, there's too much sunkcost ineria across domains to pivot. USN is doctrinally, culturally built around carriers, which again numbers are legislated by law, hence extraordinary resource allocation, with layers of industrial and political inertia (no one is going to close/downsize Newport shipyard). The only thing to do is try to patch a potentially obsolete model like distributed survivability to duct tape around the fact that the csg probably doesn't work anymore.

dmix2• 9 months ago

Submarines similar to spamming ballistic or antiship missiles is one of those things we'll never really have a full answer for. There's only so many sonobouys you can drop in a huge ocean you need to transit. Ships just like soldiers will always be expendable at some level.

kitd• 9 months ago

Interesting (to me) that the AIP is based on a Stirling engine. It's the first time I've heard of one being used at scale. No doubt HNers will have countless other applications at their fingertips, but to me they've always been only theoretically useful desk toys.

exabrial2• 9 months ago

Wasn't this exercise completed years ago? The article is dated 7 days ago which is surprising.

rich_sasha3• 9 months ago

Only an armchair enthusiast, but: these diesel/electric subs are quite slow and have limited range, certainly compared to a carrier group. Even with the new(ish) Air Independent Propulsion, they can stay underwater for a long time - maybe weeks - but can't go very fast. Their limited endurance also means they have to stay close-ish to their bases. The AIP bit often relies on special fuels (hydrogen, ethanol, and in any case, compressed oxygen) meaning they can't refuel at any random port, or generate the fuel at sea, like recharging batteries from diesel power.

They are amazing and great at coastal operations, but I just don't see how they can chase a carrier group around. They could of course lie in wait and pick the right spot/get lucky, but I'm not sure if this is a viable strategy.

maxglute6• 9 months ago

See PRC recently revealed XXLUUVs (US will be building them too I imagine), large submarine drones, long endurance, no crew, i.e. expendable blue water one way munition launchers. Space ISR means all movement of carrier groups at any given time is essentially known. Group of XXLUUVs can be plotted on different intercept trajectories. They can be spatially distributed to handoff shadowing. The real problem is not even ASW anymore, imagine subsect of XXLUUVs fleet blasting active sonar not trying even to hide to find subsurface, queue meme of that trumpet boy following annoyed girl. i.e. loud drones that weaponize their expendability as trip wire. Imagine conop: we know where your expensive manned surface/subsurface platforms are, we don't care about being sunk, we're always going to be blasting sensors so we know if you're trying to take us out, mean while we're close enough that we can counter fire before your munitions reach us, and since we're in terminal range, we have weapons grade track all ready. If you ignore us, we're just going to keep following you with weapons grade track that we're broadcasting for other platforms, some of which are other XXLUUVs just outside your ASW range that you don't know about. This moves away from technologic subsurface cat and mouse to industrial/attritional, i.e. PRC can crank out more theatre level XXLUUVs than US can SSNs or their own UUVs.

rich_sasha3• 9 months ago

I see this narrative everywhere: that drones are inherently, and always, much cheaper and effective. I think it's maybe more complicated than this.

In some cases, sure, you can strip out 90% of the ability and pay 1% of the price, and that's a great tradeoff. Eliminating the human means cost savings and greater expendability - a significant consideration is losing your trainer operators and not being able to replace them.

But let's take an advanced aerial drone. Not a one-way Shahed drone but a F-35 or F-22 contender. It will still need all or most of the advanced avionics that make F-35s expensive. If this is the expensive bit, then you can't save that much by just taking the human out.

So an advanced submarine will surely still be expensive if it aims for a similar level of capability.

And if not... Sure. You can make it Nx simpler and hope it is at least Nx cheaper. But even then there's the question of how expensive it is to defeat. Ukraine is ingeniously working to defeat Russian drones at ever lower costs, as Russia tries to send ever more and more of them at lower and lower prices. It's not enough to make something cheaply - it comes down to "value" for money. If these super-simple super-cheap Chinese drones can likewise be defeated by cheap weaponry, the impact is limited.

The other thing Ukraine war demonstrates is that there are limits to what you can do with cheap drones. They are fine for harassing each other - terrorist bombings of civilian areas, disrupting oil refining etc. But apart from stunning special operations done by drones by the Ukraine side, the deep and painful strikes are still done by expensive classical rockets - ATACMS, Storm Shadow etc.

daymanstep• 9 months ago

Space ISR means all movement of carrier groups at any given time is essentially known.

Do you have a source for this claim? I have argued with colleagues for years and they all say that satellites cannot track carriers

cwillu3• 9 months ago

Diesels are basically intelligent mines.

advisedwang• 9 months ago

They could of course lie in wait and pick the right spot/get lucky, but I'm not sure if this is a viable strategy.

"we have only to be lucky once, you will have to be lucky always"

psunavy037• 9 months ago

As a former Navy officer, the best description I ever heard of a conventionally powered submarine is "a mobile minefield." Nuclear is a different story.

credit_guy• 9 months ago

In case of a war with China, the US aircraft carriers would operate quite far out in the sea, most likely many hundreds of miles away from the continent. Submarines could try to get at them, but again, the most likely US tactic would be to have the carriers constantly on the move. China has 48 old Type 33 diesel-electric submarines, with a top (submerged) speed of 13 knots, less than half the top speed of any US carrier. The only hope for such a submarine to catch a carrier strike group would be to lie in wait. But the ocean is very large, and such a strategy is probabilistically very unlikely to succeed. China also has 6 nuclear attack submarines. It is however quite likely that in the even of a war, they'd be the first to be targeted by the US Navy. Sinking ships (or submarines) goes both ways.

A $6B Nuclear U.S. Navy Aircraft Carrier 'Sunk' by $100M Diesel 'AIP' Sub

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