The Navy Thread

Those carrier subs were pretty neat and IIRC pretty damn large subs.

And they worked! Which was the biggest surprise of all. They could launch those three planes, recover them, do everything an aircraft carrier could and still submerge.

The biggest question surrounding the I-400 series is...why has no one built a successor or built upon that design? Surely it could be improved upon for heli flight ops these days.

Because submarine launched cruise missiles and SLB Ms became a thing.

Though I vaguely recall talks about submarines acting as UAV/USV/UUV motherships.

They were actually the largest submarines in the world during WWII, and it's a tragic pity that after the war they all were destroyed and had their designs, records, and blueprints purged to the point where a researcher several years ago made an amazing discovery in finding some stuffed away for decades in a warehouse. If at least one had survived, it would have made a killer museum ship.

edited 17th Aug '16 4:49:35 PM by FluffyMcChicken

Tom: The problem is that very limited capacity, slow rate of travel, and limited stowage compared to a flat top. Even the smaller flat tops carried tens of craft their supplies, munitions, and spares. The subs had to be huge just have room for three planes never mind everything else.

Parable: The tests far seem to be aimed at firing them from the sub in an encapsulated container as either a disposable or retrievable at another point. Maybe with automation the use of smaller craft could permit more effective numbers to be deployed.

Fluffy: That would be a really neat museum ship.

edited 17th Aug '16 4:52:59 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Another issue with the supersized diesel subs: in the time it takes for it to submerge, you could design, build, launch, commission, and send a destroyer escort to hunt it down.

That was the problem with the German Type XIV "milk cows" — basically oversized U-boats with no torpedo tubes or deck guns, just AA guns. They carried fuel and supplies to the U-boat wolf-packs on extended cruises. However, if an Allied airplane suddenly appeared, the U-boats could crash-dive and escape, but the milk cows were sitting ducks.

There were ten built in total. Most were sunk by 1943, the last one was sunk shortly after D-Day.

Got to go on a tour of a Navy ship that was in port at my deployed location. Pretty neat stuff. I feel like I could deal with doing that for a living if I could manage to not fall down any ladders or hit my head on any hatches too many times.

The thing that stuck with me was the guy talking about Damage Control stuff. Man, that would be a scary job to have to deal with in the confines of a ship if anything really bad went down.

As far as Navy jobs are concerned, Damage Control teams are like scariest jobs imaginable in a combat zone. Especially aboard a submarine.

"Sometimes I like to full up the bathtub, then turn on the shower, and pretend I'm in a submarine that's been hit." — Steven Wright

Oh, and of course after talking to the Damage Control guys, the ship's bosun showed us the ship's fine selection of boats, including the inflatable lifeboats "just in case we can't control the ship's casualty".

Can't control the ship's casualty. Damn.

They did make a point of boasting that they had far more lifeboat capacity than they would actually ever need. "This ain't no Titanic bullshit either."

A sunken Steam Mine Sweeper from WW I is now an underwater WW I monument. The UK government declared the wreck a monument recently.

edited 22nd Aug '16 5:34:48 PM by TuefelHundenIV

There has been a data leak of the capabilities of the Scorpene submarines being built for the Indian Navy. The leak is estimated to contain 22,000 pages of documents.

Holy shit. 22k of Tech and Spec is bad.

.....OUCH. That's going to really damage the Indian military's reputation for letting a leak like that happen

Not a leak obviously. It's a "if you can't send it over to us secretly, or you think you'll be compromised soon, leak everything instead" order from China.

Nothing worse than a submarine leak.

That's not a leak, it's a screen door in the outer hull.

With or without ductape.

^ A combination of duct tape and 550 cord.

Ehhhh, that could probaly hold out the water for a little while.

In the old days, they'd use sails to patch leaks. Have divers drag them down over the hole and let the water pressure hold it in place.

In various things today:

• US Navy patrol ship USS Squall fends off Iranian incursion via warning shots. (They shoulda sunk the bastards.)
• The Age Of The Aircraft Carrier Is Over. (And ushers in the Second Coming of the Battleship! This time armed with railguns and point defense lasers galore! )
  • The document cited in said article. (currently reading this.)

Tom: Um no they shouldn't have sunk them there was no need to. As per usual you jump to the worst possible solution.

Oh look another WIB article that completely fails to understand or even note what their sources are saying or the multitude of other considerations that are left out which their source has done as well.