Simple answer.The Russian Kilo is a quieter sub that a USN Los Angeles SSN.Russian conventional boats and most of their late model SSN/SSGNs are far quieter than any Chinese boat as well.last year a RUN Akula patrolled off US waters for over a month without detection.In pervious posts,US graphs have shown the quietness factor of USN,RuN and PLAN subs,with the PLAN subs being by far the noisiest. It is the number of Chinese and Paki subs that are the present and future future problem. Just as Hitler sent
into the Atlantic swarms of U-boats with devastating results,even breaking the German code through ULTRA, the RN was unable to stem the tide and millions of tons of tonnage of merchantmen were sunk. German sub production was greater than subs sunk. It was only after the US entered the war and added their considerable ASW assets to the fight were the Allies able to counter the U-boat menace.
In future, it will the numbers of subs of the PLAN and PN combined to be the most threatening force against us in the IOR.
Viv,Guys ,take a dekko also at Cold War sub duels.A lot is now coming out about this,some good books too. Stealthy N-subs were more than a match for surface warships and ASW aircraft.Detecting subs was a thankless task despite a wealth of ASW surface and air assets.The real duels and successful detection were fought between Soviet and US subs UW. It requires at least 3 assets to pinpoint a sub's location .As for the great P-8,here's a 2014 report.One hopes that the IN's P-8Is are better performers as our aircraft have a MAD "sting" and supposedly other India-specific/developed eqpt.Those who fondly imagine that just surface platforms and ASW aircraft like P-9s will do the business are deluding themselves.Study ASW warfare in history and today's developments in sub tech and sub warfare.
It will take a combination of assets to successfully counter enemy subs even of the type that Pak and China possess/will possess,and that will include the best sub-detection asset,another sub.
http://defensetech.org/2014/01/24/repor ... esnt-work/
Report: Navy’s New Submarine Hunter Doesn’t Work
Posted By: Mike Hoffman January 24, 2014
The U.S. Navy’s next generation submarine hunter isn’t any good yet at hunting enemy submarines, according to recent Defense Department tests first reported on by Bloomberg.
A report filed by Michael Gilmore, chief of the Pentagon testing office, stated that the P-8A Poseidon exhibited flaws in the “plane’s radar performance, sensor integration and data transfer,” according to Bloomberg reporter Tony Capaccio, who received an early version of Gilmore’s report.
The U.S. Navy has spent about $35 billion on the P-8. The reported stated that the aircraft, which was built to replace the P-3 Orion, is not yet deployable, according to Gilmore’s report.
The Navy ran the P-8 through strenuous combat testing from September 2012 to March 2013. Results of those tests led Gilmore to conclude that the P-8 “is not effective for the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance mission and is not effective for wide area anti-submarine search,” according to the Bloomberg report.
U.S. officials outfitted a Boeing 737–800 with sensors capable of tracking submarines to produce the P-8. The Navy expected the P-8 to replace the P-3 and effectively track Chinese submarines.
The Navy plans to buy 113 of the P-8. So far, Boeing has delivered 13 of the aircraft.
Navy leaders told Bloomberg they are aware of the problems discovered in the P-8 and are working on software solutions to those problems.
Here is a good article on how the US took its eye off ASW warfare post C-War,
Relearning Anti-Submarine Warfare
The U.S. Navy’s post-Cold War holiday from history is drawing to a close—if it hasn’t expired already. By James R. Holmes
October 30, 2014
Welcome back to history, mariners of the world! Your post-Cold War holiday from history is drawing to a close—if it hasn’t expired already. Last week’s imbroglio between the Swedish Navy and an apparent Russian submarine in the Stockholm archipelago was only the most recent reminder of certain verities about combat at sea.
To name one, hunting submarines is hard—today as for the past century. It takes golly-gee hardware to detect, track, and target submersibles plying the deep. It takes plentiful anti-submarine craft to search the enormous volumes of water where subs may lurk. And, most of all, anti-submarine warfare takes patient, resolute, technically savvy hunters to employ this high-tech gear to good effect.
Success is hardly a foregone conclusion, even when a fleet surmounts such benchmarks. American military people tend to think of the Cold War in triumphal terms. But during the late Cold War—when Western fleets stood at the apogee of their supremacy over Warsaw Pact foes—U.S. Navy wargames involving undersea warfare typically started out the same way: the game administrators let U.S. Navy ASW units find the adversary boat. Their quarry then dove beneath the waves, there to be tracked—or not—by American aircraft, surface warships, or nuclear-powered attack boats that had a fix on the enemy’s original position.
That hostile boats would obediently let themselves be caught on the surface constituted quite an assumption, even in those halcyon days. It’s yet more suspect today, after a quarter-century of technological advances and cultural atrophy. No longer is it a given, for instance, that diesel submarines have to surface frequently, exposing themselves to radar detection. Many diesel submarines now sport “air-independent propulsion” that lets them stay in the deeps for long intervals rather than come up to periscope depth to snorkel. No Soviet boat enjoyed such marvels. And modern boats benefit not just from AIP but from better acoustic properties—quieting, in other words—and an array of other innovations.
Meanwhile, ASW skills have decayed among navies grown obsessed with projecting power shore. In the early 1990s, U.S. Navy directives bearing titles such as …From the Sea instructed seamen to turn their attention ashore. That sent a powerful bureaucratic signal. With the Soviet Navy rusting at its moorings, it appeared, no one could contest American rule of the sea. Why bother practicing to fight nonexistent foes? Instead the navy busied itself exploiting its seemingly everlasting command of the sea. Disciplines such as ASW, surface warfare, and mine warfare fell into disuse.
*( The IN being touted a nuclear-powered large/supercarrier,EMALS,etc. by the US should read this carefully!)
New aspirants to undersea prowess understand all this, of course. China has centered its new-and-improved PLA Navy mainly on diesel-electric attack boats, importing some and building its own, while also experimenting with nukes. Russia has fielded new classes of nuclear-propelled boats. To guard their interests—against China in particular—smaller Asian powers have taken to constructing or importing undersea flotillas of their own. Japan deploys some of the most impressive diesel boats in the world. Vietnam has taken delivery of Russian-built Kilos, while more are on the way. Taiwan wants to build submarines at indigenous shipyards. Indonesia and Bangladesh recently voiced interest in purchasing boats abroad. India and Australia are trying to get their submarine programs on track. And on and on.
How should the U.S. Navy cope with submarine proliferation in the Pacific and Indian oceans, its primary theaters of endeavor? American seafarers appear confident in the kit installed aboard ASW vessels and patrol planes—sensors, processors, and the like. Whether the human factor is up to the challenge is another question. Cultures are resilient but can be broken. Ordering a navy not to concentrate on the central function of navies—winning sea command—could fracture one in a hurry. Reversing cultural decay—restoring, or remaking, the culture of a naval service—demands leadership from on high as well as from the middle ranks.
In short, the naval establishment needs to send a countervailing signal, overriding the one it sent back in the early 1990s. You’d think resuscitating the ASW culture in the U.S. Navy would be a simple matter. After all, Admiral Jon Greenert, the chief of naval operations or America’s top uniformed naval officer, is a submariner himself. Why not just give the order to restore ASW to its former prominence? But think about it. …From the Sea appeared in 1992, making that a convenient year to date the navy’s turn from war at sea to power projection ashore. That’s fully twenty-two years—meaning ASW has been a subsidiary function for a generation now.
That means a generation’s worth of naval officers and enlisted technical specialists entered the service and ascended the ranks during an age when ASW was an afterthought. Nor did the surface navy in particular do itself any favors around 2000, when it shut down junior-officer training for several years. Newly commissioned officers were issued stacks of CDs and told to learn such skills as ASW while also doing their shipboard—i.e., full-time—jobs. Thankfully, the surface community partially corrected this practice some years back, restoring some classroom training. But several years’ worth of officers have reached or are approaching mid-career—the time when they form the backbone of any crew—without that foundational training. One hopes the DIY training took.
So it remains to be seen who will spearhead the revolution in ASW tactics, techniques, and procedures. Doubtless today’s crews can bombard land targets with aplomb, or police the sea, or render humanitarian or disaster aid. That’s what they’re trained to do and have done all their careers. But have they learned the reflexes and habits of mind needed to prosecute elusive submarines in densely populated waters? That’s another matter.
This is not a slam. This wouldn’t be the first time misbegotten doctrine or strategy instilled counterproductive habits in seafarers. For instance, the interwar U.S. Navy taught a generation of submarine skippers to seek safety in the depths upon sighting an enemy surface task force. Subs were thought to stand little chance against destroyers and other sub hunters. The best they could do was hide. Fine. After Pearl Harbor, though, the chief of naval operations ordered SUBPAC, the Pacific Fleet submarine force, to sink not Imperial Japanese Navy men-of-war but tankers, freighters, and tankers—unarmed or lightly armed ships that ferried raw materials and finished goods hither and yon among the islands and territories comprising the Japanese Empire.
You’d think torpedoing largely defenseless vessels would be easy. Yet many SUBPAC captains found it impossible to jettison their cautious ways and go on the attack. To break this culture of reticence, the Pacific Fleet leadership instituted policies that culled out timid captains remorselessly in favor of youth and derring-do. Skippers who produced few results after two patrols found themselves canned—and replaced by others given a chance to show they could produce. A swift turnabout in attitudes ensued.
SUBPAC boats’ lethality improved as the culture changed. The wreckage of Japanese ships strewn across the Pacific seafloor attests to it. One hopes today’s cultural revolution won’t demand measures that ruthless. Still, the navy may again find itself compelled to speed up cultural change through expedients resembling those deployed seven decades ago. Some candid self-assessment is a must. If last week’s Russian adventure spurs introspection, it will have done our navy a favor. Admitting you have a problem is the first step toward finding a solution.
PS:There have been over the last few decades so many reports of alleged Soviet/Russian sub intrusions in Swedish waters,British waters,etc.,
but how many successful contacts? Just one,when a Soviet Whisky class sub ran aground in the famous "Whisky on the rocks" episode.Recently,the RN desperately asked for French assistance to search for an alleged Russian N-sub.
The RN possesses so many modern ASW helos,DDGs and FFGs,though it asininely scrapped its Nimrod LRMPs,yet couldn't deliver!It is only now its new Astute hunter-killer class SSN is entering service.These boats too have had some well-publicised teething problems.
What is the max detection range of a contemporary surface warship's sonar? How does it compare with that of a sub's sonar? One has some info but can't reveal it for obvious reasons.In the IOR with thermal clines,muddy waters,etc. ASW detection is v.complicated.
The RN boasts that its Astute class SSN's sonar can detect from UK waters a merchant vessel in New York harbour!
leaving that grandiose boast aside and getting more practical,the range of a modern torpedo today outperforms that of a ship's sonar capability.Several assets are required as said before to acquire a contact,its bearing ,etc.,and work out a successful solution to attacking it with weaponry options. The German Sea Hake torpedo has an advertised range of 80km. France has a torpedo under dev. that has an endurance of sev. hours,which even if fooled by decoys,continues the attack again and again until it scores a hit.Russia also has its Shkval rocket torpedoes for a "quick draw" win.
This is a fascinating topic ,a fav. of mine,with many viewpoints,perhaps there should be a separate td. where we could continue the debate
