the problem with sub to sub combat is that the only actual war where both sides had submarines to use and willingness to sink them....

Was WWII... and you need to understand two major points about submarines in WWII.

1) The torpedoes were unguided, they were fired in a straight line and that was it, they could do some manuvers once they left the tube on the fancier ones... like undergoing a pre-defined turn, or rising or lowering to a specified depth... but this was all set in advance, there was no guidance outside of maned torpedos which yes were a thing, and no they were not exclusive to the IJN contrary to the popular preception, and even the IJN's ones were built with escape hatches because every one including the imperial military knew it was better to recover the person if you could for training reasons... the IJN's are just notable because there is no documented instances of the pilot bailing even though there commanding officers told them too, and they had a hatch right behind them.... they had a similar problem with fighter pilots and parachutes though, but this is getting off topic.

2) Submarines in WWII were primarily SURFACE VESSELS they could generally only travel for a couple hours while submerged after which the submarines would need to surface any way for 2/3rds to 3/4ths of a day to refill the air supply, and recharge the batteries... Plus there was the whole fact that a submerged sub could only travel at a speed of 4-5 knots, the IJN with there monster cruiser subs which were speed demons with there huge engines could manage a speed of a whole 8 knots... On the surface tough they could generally manage between 18 and 24... for context upper 20s was considered slow top speeds for the vessels they were trying to hunt with old battleships generally topping at 27, and new ones at 33...

The end result of these two factors was that WWII subs generally sat around, and moved around on the surface, and only dove below the water when they spotted aircraft, or when they knew enemy forces were nearby and were preparing to ambush.

Now remember, a sub is a very small vessel, unless your counting the cruiser subs of the IJN or the french's one... and even they were on the smaller end of ships... and there delicate weight balance means they don't have a lot of free board... so they could really sneak up on you even on the surface.

All this added together means that when submarines DID run into each-other, both of them were normally cruising around on the surafce, at which point they would STAY on the surface and pelt each other with deck guns because diving was not a free action and took a little bit of time, plus hits while submerged were more dangerous any way....

Or in the very rare event that they managed to run into each-other while both of them were submerged, under conditions that neither ship really sat in for long... well why are they going to waste a salvo of torpedoes (they don't fire them individually, unguided remember they fire in a fan) that there is a pretty good chance are just going to sail by the other submarine because there set to the wrong depth and have no guidance... torpedoes that they could use on more valuable targets, like enemy shipping or capital ships.

No in that rare event, both submarines would just make a note that they ran into an enemy submarine and where, and then radio it back to there respective fleets when they surfaced again for some one else to go take care of... its not like it could have gone far with its blistering 5 knott speed after all.

So that one incident isn't just a case of rare conditions lining up perfectly, its also a case of "what the hell were those crews thinking"

TL:DR Submarines Mostly hung out on the surface, not under water in the only war with sub combat, and thus unguided weapons made even trying to shoot at each-other an exercise in stupidity.

Edited by Imca on Apr 2nd 2021 at 3:01:51 AM

If I recall correctly, acoustic homing torpedoes were developed during and did get used in WW 2. Limited compared to the others but present.

It just wasn’t until well into the Cold War circa the 1960s that performance of guided/homing torpedoes improved to the point to supplant all existing unguided ones at least in US/Soviet service. (Elsewhere unguided torpedoes lasted til the 1980’s.)

The captain of a US destroyer doesn't give a shit about your tiny little aircraft carrier.

To be fair an Arleigh Burke has enough missiles to destroy Liaoning several times over.

An Indonesian submarine has gone missing near Bali.

They have a maximum of 72 hours at time of reporting (so about 65 hours now) to find the sub and her crew before they run out of air.

If a DDG gets into a direct engagement with an enemy carrier, the carrier commander is having a spectacularly bad day even before the DDG opens fire. I think at that range the carrier's jets are in danger of getting tagged by the DDG's Anti-Air battery as soon as they clear the ramp.

Makes one wonder where exactly the Liaoning's own escorts were.

Likely somewhere off camera but nearby the US destroyer. The Chinese task force commander must have ordered his escorts to let the US destroyer through out of fear of causing a collision or another mishap that would lead to a naval crisis with the US.

She didn't have any.

Then pray the balloon between China and the US never goes up. Otherwise Liaoning is going to become easy bait for submarines just like IJN Shinano. A good Mk 48 between the screws and suddenly the Chinese have to swim home.

Again, the PLA's branches don't have an NCO Corps or field grade officers who are combat vets nor those who are highly trained. Against a military that has trained and drilled like the US and one that is filled with combat veterans - it won't be pretty for China.

That said, if they were just out showing the flag and not looking for a fight, they probably didn't see any need for escorts. The Americans aren't going to take shots at them without some serious provocation, and we're probably the friskiest folks they're likely to run into out there unless some pirate mistakes Liaoning for an oil tanker or something.

53 sailors presumed dead after sunken Indonesia submarine found.

Question for a historical fiction. Yes, that one.

I'm working (specifically, elaborating) on the chapters where the main character attends the United States Naval Academy from 1902 to 1906.

The question is, what kind of courses do you suppose midshipmen learned back then?

Would it kinda look similar as ones described in this page? Most of the subjects sound timeless, but I wonder what kind of courses were taught in place of "Introduction to Cyber Security." Maritime Security, maybe?

Interesting enough, the field of cybersecurity arguably dates back to the American Civil War, but I'm not sure when it became a specific field of study that you'd see formal college curriculums for.

(If you're curious, the answer to your question is "telegraph lines", they were a target for both disruption and what we'd now call hacking, with folks cutting lines or tapping into them to listen in on enemy communications)

And the Russo-Japanese War happening at the time had the first recorded instance of wireless radio jamming, when Russian radio operators in besieged Port Arthur managed to jam Japanese radio transmissions directing their naval artillery fire.

,...Wow, I did NOT know that at all. It never even came to me as a possibility. Neat stuff!

Edited by dRoy on Apr 25th 2021 at 5:57:53 PM

Anyway, I'm not familiar with the USNA curriculum in any era; but if I had to guess, these things probably would've fallen under cryptography, or battlefield signalling more generally.

For a member of the USNA Class of 1906, his classmates would have included luminaries like Raymond Spruance, Frank Jack Fletcher Henry Kent Hewitt, and John S. Mccain Sr.

The curriculum was heavily weighted to mathematics and the science, as well as practical applications to steam engineering. The first American to receive the Nobel prize in Physics, Albert A. Michelson, was a 1873 USNA graduate, so the 'hard science' credentials were well established. Spruance had advanced education in Electrical Engineering, and Hewitt taught at the Academy in Physics and Mathematics.

As for practical matters like actual electronic warfare, not a chance. That would be very much a learned in the field item at that point.

Edited by MrThomps on Apr 27th 2021 at 3:52:20 AM

Not gonna lie, if Liaoning did a pleasure cruise like this and got attacked by pirates and sunk I probably wouldn’t ever stop laughing.

MQ-8B Fire Scout Crashes Into Littoral Combat Ship USS Charleston On Deployment.

If some pirate mistook Liaoning for a freighter or something and got themselves nabbed or sunk attacking the PLAN I would probably laugh just as hard.

Imagine the kind of day you're about to have when your next catch of the day launches a couple of helicopters or a fighter jet.

That happened a couple years back with a french replenishment tanker and got the french in trouble.

Because there responce was just to return a reply with the CIWS and kill every one, even the people who bailed on the ship.

Like just as a reminder, even a naval replenishment tanker is plenty armed to deal with pirates.

Interestingly accidents with the Fire Scout seem to be rare.

@Mr Thomps - Yeah,that's actually why I had the main character enter Annapolis at that period.

Also, I didn't know that about USNA-educated Nobel Prize winner. That's pretty damn cool!

Speaking of which, here's another question about United States Naval Academy:

In the early 20th century, the graduates of the United States Military Academy with highest graduates went to become engineers. Does anyone know what kind of MOS did the top graduates of USNA got during those periods?

I know that nowadays being top graduates in USNA means that you get to choose the best ship to serve in, but not sure if it was the same in the early 20th century as well.