Russian Subs Patrolling Off East Coast of U.S.
- Thread starter Dark Matter
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The Cold War really never ended. It just went underground. The Russians still consider the US to be their "number one adversary" and all the espionage, propaganda, arms races and proxy fighting still go on. I wish it wasn't so but it will probably always be.
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
With the ending of the Cold War, I think the Russians took a back seat to emerging threats and a change in mission strategy.
The Russians are still a force to recon with, but aside from China, I think the days of the "clash of the Titans" are behind us.
The media is just suffering from slow news, and looking for stuff to fill thier headlines.
The Russians are still a force to recon with, but aside from China, I think the days of the "clash of the Titans" are behind us.
The media is just suffering from slow news, and looking for stuff to fill thier headlines.
Civettone
Tech Sergeant
I agree with GrauGeist. But not only the media. Also politicians like to create the illusion that the Soviets are back. Russia will not be a superpower again, at least not this century ! One of several superpowers ... maybe.
Kris
Kris
RabidAlien
1st Lieutenant
For some reason, Stasoid's comment made me think of the ending to "Hunt for Red October" (a hacked-up movie version of an excellent book....I mean, c'mon...Alec Baldwin????), where the Russian ambassador is talking to the US Sec of State (or whatever his job title was), and mentioned another Russian sub that was missing. The American looks at him for a second and says "Alexie, you mean to tell me you've lost ANOTHER sub?"
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
That was a good part, but my fav was the "One ping...one ping only" part...
RabidAlien
1st Lieutenant
Alot of bad acting and even worse filming aside, they got that part right. Passive sonar echoes through the hull. Active is much much louder. And whales/dolphins....we grew to hate the bastards.
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
Well, my Uncle Fred and the crew aboard the Grayling (209) were saved by a whale...the Japanese destroyer was working them over, and took off chasing the whale and the Grayling got away! 
parsifal
Colonel
There are any number of reasons for those subs to be there. Rest assured, if they didnt want you to know they were there, you wouldnt know they were there. It takes a LOT of effort to track an SSN. They can move, and the new ones are quiet.
Its the ones you dont know about that worry me.
Many centuries ago, a friend of mine spent some time in an aussie sub. He was a trainee, and expressed a vague interest in the submarine arm. Next thing he knew he had done the conversion course and was aboard one of the Oberons. These things were ultra quiet , and hard to detect. He then spent the next three weeks sitting outside a certain Russian harbour, identiying ships, and recording prop signatures. That gave our allies a tremendous advantage in tracking Soviet ships allover the world. So Im told. But my friend tells me it was the most stifling, mind numbing excercise he has ever undertaken. He never wanted to do it again.
Makes me wonder if the US has kept up with its homework. I know that the RAN has not been to Vladivostock since the mid '90s, and since this sort of surveillance cloak and dagger stuff is strictly niche market, I am not sure the USN has the capability or know how to do this sort of thing. Its not something nukes can do all that well to be honest.....just sitting on the bottom watching the world go by .....
Its the ones you dont know about that worry me.
Many centuries ago, a friend of mine spent some time in an aussie sub. He was a trainee, and expressed a vague interest in the submarine arm. Next thing he knew he had done the conversion course and was aboard one of the Oberons. These things were ultra quiet , and hard to detect. He then spent the next three weeks sitting outside a certain Russian harbour, identiying ships, and recording prop signatures. That gave our allies a tremendous advantage in tracking Soviet ships allover the world. So Im told. But my friend tells me it was the most stifling, mind numbing excercise he has ever undertaken. He never wanted to do it again.
Makes me wonder if the US has kept up with its homework. I know that the RAN has not been to Vladivostock since the mid '90s, and since this sort of surveillance cloak and dagger stuff is strictly niche market, I am not sure the USN has the capability or know how to do this sort of thing. Its not something nukes can do all that well to be honest.....just sitting on the bottom watching the world go by .....
RabidAlien
1st Lieutenant
Bein a nuke has nothing to do with whether or not it can sit quietly. The reactor makes no noise, they dont need to surface to recharge batteries, they can create their own O2 and H2O...the only real limiting factor is the amount of food they can carry. And yes, the Russian subs are alot noisier than the US and several other countries' subs. They're not the noisiest in the water, but they're fairly easy to track. Don't let "Hunt for Red October" fool you. I have no idea whether we still have subs parked in the middle of their harbors taking names, but I will guarantee you that we know when they put to sea and at the very minimum, which direction they're headed.
Glider
Captain
I don't claim to be an expert on subs but my understanding was that the one thing a nuke cannot do is sit still in one place for long. The problem isn't the noise as they, which you correctly say, are very quiet its the water they use to cool down the reactor. If you sit still for too long the localised heat of the water can give you away and make life very uncomfortable for you.
parsifal
Colonel
I dont know about today, but tracking US SSN and SSBNs back in the seventies and eighties was a relatively simple excercise because of the excessive cavitation they tended to generate. In comparison the Oberons were much quieter. Saying that the reactors are quiet is not the issue. The battieries in a diesel electric boat are just as quiet. The drive systems are where the noise comes from, and most frequently this comes from the cavitation of the props. Because US nuclear powered subs move quickly, they cannot help but generate more noise. To be fair however the US subs had two priceless advantages....it could dive deep, very deep, and it could use exceptionally high speeds to extricate itself from a situation if the need arose. And in terms of attqack systems it was very advanced.
Common belief is that Soviet Subs are noisier than their western counterparts. This is true, but not for anythng to do with their reactors. They are not noisier because of their propulsion systems, so much as their drive systems are noisy. In particualr their props suffer from a lot of cavitation and this makes them easier to track. However, without the basic intelligence gathered about the signatures of each hull's special noise characteristics, it is is impossible to tell exactly what you are up up against, and what are the optimum frequencies to set your passive listening gear to.
And even though Soviet Subs are noisy, it is anything but easy to firstly achieve contact in the first place, but then, having made contact, maintain surveillance and not get detected yourself. Getting detected means that the excercise will be reduced to who gets the draw first, and thats basically a 50/50 chance of getting yourself sunk before them. Since the Russians have more subs than us (or did have), the math is simple....we run out of subs before them. So, from a western allied perspective it becomes imperative to maintain an undetected status to maximise our chances of a kill, and minimise the chances of them killing you.
Soviet tactics often involved the use of two subs....one acting like a beater (in a tiger hunt) , making a lot of noise and attracting a lot of attention, and a second operating in the shadows, and not so easily detected. Though only ever practised in excercise, I dont know how many times I have seen US Subs report that they have tracked and destroyed the enemy contact, only to be told they were sunk by the targets shadow. Maybe the Yanks got better at this game in the 90's, but they would fall for the same ruses again and again back in the 70's
Plus, a nuclear powered sub is an expensive and valuable piece of hardware. I never once heard of them being used to undertake the job of sitting outside Soviet ports and recording signatures. To do so they would have to operate inshore, in shallow waters, therby denying them one of their fundamental means of defence (their deep diving ability) Because they are nuclear powered, it would almost certainly have triggered WWIII if they had been detected. The Soviets back then would not have allowed nuclear subs that close to their main bases. We were confident that they never knew our Oberons were so close, but even if they had caught us, the worst thing would probably have been a stern message for us to bugger off. We were always careful to stay in International waters incidentally
Common belief is that Soviet Subs are noisier than their western counterparts. This is true, but not for anythng to do with their reactors. They are not noisier because of their propulsion systems, so much as their drive systems are noisy. In particualr their props suffer from a lot of cavitation and this makes them easier to track. However, without the basic intelligence gathered about the signatures of each hull's special noise characteristics, it is is impossible to tell exactly what you are up up against, and what are the optimum frequencies to set your passive listening gear to.
And even though Soviet Subs are noisy, it is anything but easy to firstly achieve contact in the first place, but then, having made contact, maintain surveillance and not get detected yourself. Getting detected means that the excercise will be reduced to who gets the draw first, and thats basically a 50/50 chance of getting yourself sunk before them. Since the Russians have more subs than us (or did have), the math is simple....we run out of subs before them. So, from a western allied perspective it becomes imperative to maintain an undetected status to maximise our chances of a kill, and minimise the chances of them killing you.
Soviet tactics often involved the use of two subs....one acting like a beater (in a tiger hunt) , making a lot of noise and attracting a lot of attention, and a second operating in the shadows, and not so easily detected. Though only ever practised in excercise, I dont know how many times I have seen US Subs report that they have tracked and destroyed the enemy contact, only to be told they were sunk by the targets shadow. Maybe the Yanks got better at this game in the 90's, but they would fall for the same ruses again and again back in the 70's
Plus, a nuclear powered sub is an expensive and valuable piece of hardware. I never once heard of them being used to undertake the job of sitting outside Soviet ports and recording signatures. To do so they would have to operate inshore, in shallow waters, therby denying them one of their fundamental means of defence (their deep diving ability) Because they are nuclear powered, it would almost certainly have triggered WWIII if they had been detected. The Soviets back then would not have allowed nuclear subs that close to their main bases. We were confident that they never knew our Oberons were so close, but even if they had caught us, the worst thing would probably have been a stern message for us to bugger off. We were always careful to stay in International waters incidentally
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RabidAlien
1st Lieutenant
Anything in contact with the hull will radiate noise out into the water. A pump mounted on its base will transmit the vibrations of a bad bearing out into the sea. A vacuum cleaner placed on the deckplate will put a little bit of noise into the water. There's so much more than just drive-systems that create noise at sea! Dropping a handful of quarters (ala "Down Periscope") will not make much of a difference, but its not that far from the truth.
Harbors are busy places, with traffic coming and going all the time. Tides, currents, etc will ensure that no "heat buildup" occurs in the area, and other traffic will ensure that any warmer water due to discharges will not be noticed. The only thing that'll keep a nuke from parking on the bottom of a harbor is the fact that they're not designed to park on the bottom. The hulls are round. Stick it in the sand, and it'll roll a little bit, which is decidedly uncomfortable for those inside. I was on a sub that had a "liberty call" in Astoria Oregon. A fishing town. At low tide, you could look at the boat from the pier, and it was cranked over at a 10-degree angle. It really sucked for those who's racks were on the uphill side...Anyhoo, any monitoring would be done from offshore, in deeper water, doing laps in front of the harbor entrance where sonar could still cover who was coming in and going out.
Harbors are busy places, with traffic coming and going all the time. Tides, currents, etc will ensure that no "heat buildup" occurs in the area, and other traffic will ensure that any warmer water due to discharges will not be noticed. The only thing that'll keep a nuke from parking on the bottom of a harbor is the fact that they're not designed to park on the bottom. The hulls are round. Stick it in the sand, and it'll roll a little bit, which is decidedly uncomfortable for those inside. I was on a sub that had a "liberty call" in Astoria Oregon. A fishing town. At low tide, you could look at the boat from the pier, and it was cranked over at a 10-degree angle. It really sucked for those who's racks were on the uphill side...Anyhoo, any monitoring would be done from offshore, in deeper water, doing laps in front of the harbor entrance where sonar could still cover who was coming in and going out.
Matt308
Glock Perfection
I agree with you Rabid. You guys need to read "Blind Man's Bluff" to brush up on your historic settings where subs routinely were used for reconnaisance and subterfuge during the cold war. Historical truth is more fantastic than fiction.
Messy1
Master Sergeant
I have that book Matt. It is a great book, a real page turner. I have read it twice now. Hard to put down! Everyone would be surprised at what has gone on under the water during the Col War. Love the Batcave
