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Originally Posted by locusjag

In international waters, if a US Navy SSN tails a Russian Yasen class ballistic missile submarine, what're the rules of engagement if and when the Yasen detects the American sub on its tail?

I know how intercepts by air forces play out. Wonder how it works out in the ocean depths.

I'll assume you mean the Borei class, an SSBN or boomer, as the Yasen is an SSGN, an attack sub with cruise missiles; more likely to have the former be tailed by say a Virginia class boat. Anyway, it's hard to make a direct analogy really because in the air to air domain, you have both visual cues from actually being able to see the other side and then you have audible signals too in terms of radio communication between the two parties, all to make sure nothing untoward happens that could snowball. Down in the depths you don't really have either. I mean you're relying on what you hear of the other side and then have to essentially infer on who it is exactly you're hearing (remember the scene in Hunt for Red October where the USS Dallas sonar man Jonesy was refuting what his onboard computer was identifying the sound signature of Ramius' boat as? Something like that). And while computing power and passive sonar have come a long way you still end up with cases like this: where a Royal Navy SSBN collided with a French SSBN!

I think it's going to be unlikely that you'll have very much out in the open domain if any about what exactly the protocol is in terms of rules of engagement in the subsea domain. Secrecy is paramount to either side. Remember, in your scenario say the USN have successfully detected the Russian boat, they won't want to give away to the Russians that they've done so. Similarly the Russians might want to give away the fact that they might be aware of being tailed. Come back to say an air to air intercept between a Russian Bear bomber and an F-15 on patrol, and both sides will be awfully keen to make the other aware of their presence. With submariners it's like playing tag in a large empty hall with blindfolds on.

It's only years later do we hear the stories from former submariners about successful tailing operations and close calls and what not. Good luck getting your average Admiral to declassify any of those reports.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by ads11

Anyway, hopefully that was a brief but rudimentary primer on the physics involved. To answer your original question Rahul Bhagat, I'll double down just like V.Narayan did. Submarines aren't going anywhere.

Thank you @ads11 for your, as always, excellent posts and detailed explanations that we all learn from, especially me. To complete my answer to Rahul Balghat posted here are two diagrammes to emphasize the point of what things look like in 3 dimensions something that gets obscured in the two dimensional charts we see in books. The diagrammes I've scribbled are to show that not only does the submarine hide in rivers of sea of differing temperatures-density-salinity in the vertical plane but also if you view it from the sky.

The first time the Americans acknowledged that a diesel electric boat had got the better of their carriers was versus a Dutch Navy Zwaardvis class boat in the 1980s. It is alleged something similar happened with a Kilo class boat while exercising with the Indian Navy in recent years. This means these boats {Kilo, Zwaardvis, Gotland} got through the multi-layer protective screens surrounding the carrier to get into a firing fix!

[ads11]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Thank you @ads11 for your, as always, excellent posts and detailed explanations that we all learn from, especially me. To complete my answer to Rahul Balghat posted here are two diagrammes to emphasize the point of what things look like in 3 dimensions something that gets obscured in the two dimensional charts we see in books. The diagrammes I've scribbled are to show that not only does the submarine hide in rivers of sea of differing temperatures-density-salinity in the vertical plane but also if you view it from the sky.

The first time the Americans acknowledged that a diesel electric boat had got the better of their carriers was versus a Dutch Navy Zwaardvis class boat in the 1980s. It is alleged something similar happened with a Kilo class boat while exercising with the Indian Navy in recent years. This means these boats {Kilo, Zwaardvis, Gotland} got through the multi-layer protective screens surrounding the carrier to get into a firing fix!

Loving these schematics! Actually it reminded me of an excellent resource available from NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, called the World Ocean Atlas or WOA for short. It's an open source database covering global salinity, temperature, density amongst other properties for the worlds oceans, that you can play with dynamically to see for yourself.

Summary publications for each data type from the most recent 2018 tranche:
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/wor...an-atlas-2018/

WOA home:https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/world-ocean-atlas

The way NOAA presents this data is as follows:

• You can select the grid square resolution - essentially the size of the grid in map view or plan view that they've used when averaging the data globally (you have to remember it's impossible to have measurement nodes spaced with a uniform dense distribution across the worlds water bodies and thus a significant amount of statistical averaging or interpolation is necessary to present a product that is fairly robust across the board)
• In terms of depth, NOAA separate the ocean into non uniform depth intervals (this is a bit of a headache, trust me I did a double take when I first realised at the start of my PhD). Essentially they divide the ocean into depth slices of say X m height and then display the temperature across the top of this depth level.

This is how it should look. Essentially you define the box within which you want to generate your map/figure, after selecting the property you want. I've selected temperature in this case and then you can toggle between settings for the size of the grid square - think of it as the resolution of the source dataset and the time scales for the averaging. Finally you select the depth you want and it crunches the numbers (this takes time depending on the size of your search area) to present to you the requested map

If anyone wanted to do some simple reading the three things to look out for are as follows:
Thermocline - this concerns the temperature profile
Halocline - this concerns the salinity profile
Pycnocline - this concerns the density profile

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cline_(hydrology)

Start getting your head around these and you're on the first steps to becoming a ASW specialist. The next part is when you actually understand the physics..

[dragracer567]

Thank you all for what has been quite an interesting read. As an amateur enthusiast, it was a delight reading about the basics of ASW and the various submarine doctrines.

Please bear with me on what might a very basic question. While we have discussed ASW by helicopters which use the dipping sonar to get around the limitation brought about by thermocline, where do the fixed-wing aircraft-based ASWs come in? I roughly understand how the MAD in P3s and Indian version of the P8s work but what other ASW sensors do these aircraft carry (eg the American P8s)? Do fixed-wing aircraft function in a complementary manner to ASW helicopter platforms or are they independently formidable ASWs platforms?

Originally Posted by ads11

If anyone wanted to do some simple reading the three things to look out for are as follows:
Thermocline - this concerns the temperature profile
Halocline - this concerns the salinity profile
Pycnocline - this concerns the density profile

Start getting your head around these and you're on the first steps to becoming a ASW specialist. The next part is when you actually understand the physics..

It's always interesting to see familiar terms in completely different contexts. We study about thermocline extensively in Marine biology (for phytoplanktons mostly) and IIRC thermocline is most pronounced during Spring and diminishes during Autumn. This seasonal fluctuation is mostly in temperate regions and within what we call the euphotic zone (<80 m deep). Given the depths at which submarine, are these seasonal fluctuations taken into account by ASW and submariners or are the scale of fluctuations too minimal in this context? Again, this may not be relevant in the Indian Ocean or the SCS but could be the case in the Northern Atlantic or the North Sea. Do bear with me on my ignorance in this regard

[DrPriyankT]

Sonar Operations are highly classified by the world's navies and very rightly so. All we can do is just speculate at their techniques and tactics. Please go through these links to help understand the complex world of Sonar better.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...ctics-and-tech

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AqqaYs7LjlM&t=11s

[Jeroen]

Sonar secrets brought to you by the Internet. Wait, there is no Wikipedia page on sonar secrets? Bummer!

[Rahul Bhalgat]

Dear Sirs V. Narayan and ads11,

Thank you so much for sparing a lot of your precious time and for taking so much effort to write and to draw, to make us understand why exactly the submarines will continue to be important in future.

I could realise that:

• The vastness of the oceans and the dynamic variation of salinity, temperature & density in 3 dimensions make it very difficult and complex to detect and accurately locate the submarines.
  
• Technology for detection isn't yet able to penetrate this natural protection effectively.
  
• This imparts a tremendous sonar invisibility to a silent & stationary deep submarine against a moving noisy surface ship.
  
• The depth matters solely for the purpose of sonar invisibility. The decision on the design depth of a proposed sub will obviously depend upon the temperature, density and salinity profiles of the oceans it is supposed to operate in. A navy may need different types of subs having different design depths, depending upon their intended roles.
  
• Even the torpedo design will change with the design depth of the submarine. Not only for the ability to withstand the pressure but also for the capability to home in through the jungle of thermoclines, heloclines and pycnoclines. Is it so?
  

Thank you once again.

[locusjag]

Originally Posted by ads11

I mean you're relying on what you hear of the other side and then have to essentially infer on who it is exactly you're hearing (remember the scene in Hunt for Red October where the USS Dallas sonar man Jonesy was refuting what his onboard computer was identifying the sound signature of Ramius' boat as? Something like that).

Thanks for straightening out my thought process!

I know that every submarine force has a repository of acoustic signatures on file, including those of natural background noises and that of marine life. On Sunday I was watching a documentary series by Russia Today on Russia's Baltic submarine fleet titled "Combat approved". An officer explained that he can tell if there's a Los Angeles class sub, a commercial trawler, oil tanker, shrimp (knocking sounds), whales or dolphins (staccato clicks) in the vicinity.

Here's a rather poor joke, but I remember watching a slapstick comedy movie when I was a kid on Star Movies; two enemy subs are on complete silence, prepared to fire torpedos at each other. No one so much as walks about on either sub, to prevent giving away tell-tale sounds. A fat submariner on the American sub suddenly breaks wind noisily and the American Captain's heart skips a beat; but the Soviets pick up the noise and say "It's just a whale, false alarm" and move away from the vicinity don't judge me on it but I literally rolled on the floor laughing when I watched this scene ~20 years ago.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by Rahul Bhalgat

Thank you so much for sparing a lot of your precious time and for taking so much effort to write and to draw, to make us understand why exactly the submarines will continue to be important in future.

I could realise that:

The vastness of the oceans and the dynamic variation of salinity, temperature & density in 3 dimensions make it very difficult and complex to detect and accurately locate the submarines.

...or even know that a submarine is lurking around. The question of detecting and locating only arises when you believe that in a given patch of 500 sq kms lies an enemy submarine. That is what makes them dangerous. Just the thought that a competent quiet enemy boat might be around somewhere within 75nm of your major port is enough to tie down several surface and air ASW assets. In the Falklands War of 1982 the thought that a couple of SSNs of the Royal Navy were hanging around blocked up the Argentine Navy in port. Same thing happened in 1971. After our missile boat attack with Styx SSMs the mere knowledge, or belief, that 2 I.N. Foxtrot class boats were hanging around Karachi and Gwadar was enough to block the Pakistani Navy in port for the duration of the war.

[*] Technology for detection isn't yet able to penetrate this natural protection effectively.[*]This imparts a tremendous sonar invisibility to a silent & stationary deep submarine against a moving noisy surface ship.

Yes. Correct. And also as a quiet running diesel electric boat is more silent than the ambient noise of the ocean makes it even harder to locate. It is like searching for a black cat in a large bungalow, with several floors, that is completely darkened and the cat is blacker than the darkness.

[*]The depth matters solely for the purpose of sonar invisibility. The decision on the design depth of a proposed sub will obviously depend upon the temperature, density and salinity profiles of the oceans it is supposed to operate in. A navy may need different types of subs having different design depths, depending upon their intended roles.

Submariners like depth for the invisibility as you mention and because more depth gives them more vertical room for manoeuverability. A modern sub flies through the ocean much like a fighter, moving in three dimensions, only with gentler and slower manoeuvres. Unlike most fighters a submarine can move vertically up or down and even backwards.

It would be too expensive to build any submarine with a limited design depth for presumably coastal operations. The cost of the steel is a fraction of the cost of a submarine. For coastal operations you may, may need, in some cases only a shorter submarine. But modern subs are already quite short and hence manageable in shallow and confined waters. A typical modern diesel electric long range boat is 65 to 70 metres in length compared to 90 to 100 metres a generation ago. And the longer range of both torpedoes and sea skimming missiles means a sub can stand off in slightly deeper and less confined waters today. So the approach is to build a standard submarine that is short enough for coastal work (or littoral as the Americans call it now) and yet has the displacement and internal volume for long range open ocean operations and to perform all the tasks required of it - anti-submarine, anti-surface vessel, inserting commandos, surveillance and in larger boats land attack. And always but always go for maximum depth that you can design.

Or you may discover that you need a sub of type A on the West coast on the very day all type A's are on the East Coast for an exercise! The more multi-purpose a submarine or tank or combat aircraft is the more useful it is. In war you don't know what will happen and you don't want your weapons to be specialized to a point that they cannot be used for the task at hand. That only works in video games. Which is why there are only two types of submarines in the main - the boomers and the hunter-killers. The latter, as we know, can be either nuclear powered (SSN) or diesel-electric (SSK).

[*]Even the torpedo design will change with the design depth of the submarine. Not only for the ability to withstand the pressure but also for the capability to home in through the jungle of thermoclines, heloclines and pycnoclines. Is it so?[/list]

See answer just above. A navy, any navy wants a multi-purpose torpedo to address any situation it faces and not specialist weapons. Because you don't get to choose the situation you are going to confront. All torpedoes today are multi-taskers useful against ships or submarines alike; in shallow or deep waters alike.

Real war is not like a video war game where things are (I'm told) boxed in relative to real life. In real war never underestimate the wisdom, competence and shrewdness of the man behind the gun. I'll share a short anecdote from 1971. One of our Foxtrot class boats which was patrolling, on her batteries, off the Makaran coast, on the Western half I presume, needed to surface to snorkel depth to recharge her batteries. She could also hear in the distance the sounds of a steam turbine driven submarine patrolling somewhere in the vicinity. Probably an American SSN keeping an eye on what we were up to. We experienced the same in the Bay of Bengal too. Clearly the IN sub did not want to be tracked by a, presumably, American boat while charging batteries. So this commander slowly sailed his boat westward towards the crowded Gulf of Oman full of tanker traffic, found a safe spot and fired his diesels for the few hours he needed camouflaged by the enormous amount of ship noise in a busy traffic area. And then got back to where he needed to be. The nuclear powered boat had by then moved on. This was narrated to me by the commander himself decades after 1971. Sadly he is no more. From your questions I get the impression (maybe unfairly) that you are viewing war and tactics as a set piece game where things are in neat clearly defined boxes. Nothing can be further from the truth. Hope this helps.

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Originally Posted by dragracer567

It's always interesting to see familiar terms in completely different contexts. We study about thermocline extensively in Marine biology (for phytoplanktons mostly) and IIRC thermocline is most pronounced during Spring and diminishes during Autumn. This seasonal fluctuation is mostly in temperate regions and within what we call the euphotic zone (<80 m deep).

I figured as a marine biologist you'd have some familiarity with the thermocline. You're correct, an even simpler way of splitting the thermocline is to break it up into the photic and aphotic zones (ie, the depths with light penetrating from the sea surface and the threshold of darkness essentially). The reason I split it into the pelagic zones is actually for modelling reasons (long story short I needed to be able to synthetically model the hydrothermal gradient anywhere in the oceans as part of my work and the way the regressions worked best was that tripartite split).

Originally Posted by dragracer567

Given the depths at which submarine, are these seasonal fluctuations taken into account by ASW and submariners or are the scale of fluctuations too minimal in this context? Again, this may not be relevant in the Indian Ocean or the SCS but could be the case in the Northern Atlantic or the North Sea. Do bear with me on my ignorance in this regard

Good question. So I tend to work in really deep waters where the thermocline barely varies so I've been fortunate enough to be able to not have to consider the impact of seasonal variability in the water temperatures. At the depths submarines are going to be operating, let's say 100-200 m, again referring to that thermocline, it's clearly obvious that it's likely to be subject to not insignificant variability on the order of maybe 10 K. That's pretty significant. I think for sure that's going to considerably impact your sonar propagation especially when coupled with your ocean conveyor belt, ie, thermohaline circulation. As any oceanography student will tell you, much like in our upper atmosphere we have prevailing winds and the jet stream, so too in the oceans do we have a linked system of currents driven by buoyancy, density and temperature differentials.
Attachment 2154560
If you look at this diagram you can start to see how you're going to have, say in the Arctic circle, near the GIUK gap, very cold Arctic Bottom Water currents moving southward. Similarly in the North Atlantic along the Eastern seaboard you have the interplay between colder Arctic bottom waters moving southward and in the upper part of the water column, the warmer currents at surface level moving northwards. Factor in more localised stronger currents like the boundary currents and you start to have a great deal of temporal variability in your ocean systems - now you can just imagine how that plays with both the sonarmen on the boats themselves and the ASW guys tasked to hunt them.

Originally Posted by dragracer567

While we have discussed ASW by helicopters which use the dipping sonar to get around the limitation brought about by thermocline, where do the fixed-wing aircraft-based ASWs come in?

So if you look at the underside of a fixed wing ASW platform like a Orion or a Poseidon/Neptune, you'll notice a section with multiple openings for all the sonobuoys it can deploy. The main difference between a rotary wing ASW platform and a fixed wing when it comes to the sonobuoys is that in the case of your helicopter they can drop theirs almost like a fisherman can throw his line and tackle, let it bob and then maybe pull up and move to another spot. For the fixed wing ones, they sort of spray a target area with the sonobuoys (which aren't tethered physically to the plane for obvious reasons but connect wirelessly I assume) and create a search grid in that manner. I think that's a large reason why as V.Narayan pointed out, the most highly proficient ASW crews still tend to be the rotary wing ones because they can really hone in on a target. To my mind the way the search would be conducted is with a fixed wing platform narrowing it to a say grid zone and then your ASW surface combatant and it's helicopter moving in to really pinpoint the boat.

Originally Posted by DrPriyankT

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...ctics-and-tech

Oh man JiveTurkey's Youtube channel is a great one! He's been a valued member of the War Zone (TWZ) community from it's Foxtrot Alpha days and the best discussions threads were when Kevin Noonan, also known as AncientSubHunter got involved. Kevin is another stalwart from the ASW community with a colourful twitter account (linked here). In fact, TWZ has an amazing series of articles interviewing him from his days as a fixed wing Viking ASW operator during the tail end of the Cold War. I thoroughly recommend reading it to those on here wanting to know about the ASW doctrine and those who did it day in day out. I'll link the articles below:

1. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...viking-crewman
2. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...f-the-cold-war
3. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...the-s-3-viking
4. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...bmarine-hunter

PS: dragracer567 - on your fixed wing ASW question, I definitely recommend taking the deep dive into AncientSubHunter's stuff!

Originally Posted by Rahul Bhalgat

[*]The depth matters solely for the purpose of sonar invisibility. The decision on the design depth of a proposed sub will obviously depend upon the temperature, density and salinity profiles of the oceans it is supposed to operate in. A navy may need different types of subs having different design depths, depending upon their intended roles.
[*]Even the torpedo design will change with the design depth of the submarine. Not only for the ability to withstand the pressure but also for the capability to home in through the jungle of thermoclines, heloclines and pycnoclines. Is it so?[/list]

Right, so here's something I realised thinking about it last night. For context I work with offshore seismic data and there, geophysicists have got it to the point that for geologists looking at seismic images, they can make the water column seismically invisible (as we're really only concerned with the actual subsurface). And that's pretty easy right. All you have to do is disregard any returning waves that have the same velocity as sound waves in water (roughly 1480 m s-1). Anyway coming back to your point yes, most boats are designed in a way to reflect the operating conditions. Smaller AIP boats are best adapted to littoral environments compared to say the big nuclear boats which are very much designed to patrol vast swathes of the open ocean. A smaller AIP type like the Gotland for example will be able to come in much closer to a coastal setting. In fact you have further specialised midget submarines that are designed to get as close as possible to shore. The North Koreans and the Iranians I believe have a few types like this. These midget subs though are clearly designed to work in tandem with bigger vessels and there you might have special missions boats like the kind the Russians and Americans have. These tend to be designed specifically for bespoke intelligence gathering or tampering purposes, usually to intercept undersea communications lines and other such infrastructure. Think of mothership subs and a small boat piggybacking on it designed to actually go tamper with the cable. Finally broadly speaking you have attack boats which are as V.Narayan pointed out at the very top of the thread, hunter killers. Tasked with hunting enemy boomers (ballistic missile subs) and other attack subs. A sub variant of that are boats adapted to sling cruise missiles instead of ballistic missiles, thus giving a highly valued long range strike platform.

I'm not as well versed with torpedo designs but I would expect that their designs focus primarily to deal with pressure extremities. You have torpedoes with active guidance that are linked by a connecting cable to the boat that launched it. There the torpedo wouldn't really have to think about all the water column variability as the controller is doing that to guide it to target. I suppose those torpedoes that are fire and forget so to speak are the ones where there will be some element of accounting for the variability in the water column as it moves in on target.

Originally Posted by locusjag

A fat submariner on the American sub suddenly breaks wind noisily..

I can't remember where exactly I read this but there's actually (predictably) some level of gentle hazing or shall we say initiation for new recruits to the submarine service. Now the article I read was concerning the USN but it seems there's distinct communities within a boat itself and the lowest of the low are the new guys. And much like your story one of the common causes for reprimand is whenever a new guy drops something onboard, thus making a loud racket. You can imagine the creative punishment the other men onboard come up for such an infraction, which joking aside does make for a concern due to the manner in which sound easily propagates underwater.

[locusjag]

Originally Posted by ads11

I can't remember where exactly I read this but there's actually (predictably) some level of gentle hazing or shall we say initiation for new recruits to the submarine service. Now the article I read was concerning the USN but it seems there's distinct communities within a boat itself and the lowest of the low are the new guys. And much like your story one of the common causes for reprimand is whenever a new guy drops something onboard, thus making a loud racket. You can imagine the creative punishment the other men onboard come up for such an infraction, which joking aside does make for a concern due to the manner in which sound easily propagates underwater.

Oh I read an e-book on Kindle about the learning curve of a fresh officer on-board the ill-fated SSN USS San Francisco. He described the hazing that applied equally to him, no matter that he was an officer; he was expected to learn the ropes (knowing the valves to be closed/opened, which hatches needed to be battened etc.) by working with the rank-and-file. They would haze him when he missed routine stuff because his mistakes endangered the entire boat and its crew. This was surprising because you don't normally think that an Officer would get treated this way, but that's what I learnt from the book.

The writer ultimately went on to learn how to command the boat in night shifts (or whatever you call them, when the red lights come on within the Con) and if I remember right, he wasn't in command when the boat rammed the undersea hill.

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Originally Posted by Rahul Bhalgat

[*]Even the torpedo design will change with the design depth of the submarine. Not only for the ability to withstand the pressure but also for the capability to home in through the jungle of thermoclines, heloclines and pycnoclines. Is it so?

I knew I'd read an article along these lines. Once more it's the aforementioned JiveTurkey or Aaron Amick who has a great article on TWZ. This should clear a lot of misconceptions about torpedo warfare in actuality:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...-in-the-movies
Hopefully in addition to V.Narayan's comments on torpedoes, the above article should cover most of your questions Rahul.

Originally Posted by locusjag

Oh I read an e-book on Kindle about the learning curve of a fresh officer on-board the ill-fated SSN USS San Francisco.

Sticking with Aaron again, I managed to find the article that describes the clans on board a US nuclear sub. Enjoy!
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...lear-submarine
Excerpts below covering the three main sub groups

Living in a machine with over 100 sailors requires a person to be flexible socially and sometimes physically. I spent two decades on United States Navy submarines performing sonar duties among eccentric personalities in incredibly stressful situations. When sailors report to their first submarine, they are joining a work culture unlike any other. Surrounded by crew members busily moving about tight spaces and narrow walkways, announcements over the circuit boxes, roving watchstanders, equipment humming to 400hz fans, it can be anxiety-inducing to any sailor.

That is why every new crewmember starts as a NUB. But, if they work hard and learn the systems, they will earn their dolphins and become a member of another entirely unique subculture within the grander social hierarchy that exists within the confines of the submerged tube they call home for months on end.
..
A new crewmember is a Non-Useful Body, or NUB. He or she uses our limited supply of space, water, food, and oxygen. They are not welcome, but BUPERS (Bureau of Personnel) keeps sending them. The NUB is easily identifiable as he will be the only crewman wearing a command ball cap with the ship's name and no Dolphins symbol on the front.
..
Crewmen who work in the engine room are called Nukes. They are made up of high school graduates who loved Star Trek so much they decided to role-play their science fiction fantasy in real life. Incredibly smart and able to digest volumes of information in a short time, these mystical figures often whisper of powerband constraints and millirems amongst themselves. They use math so much in their daily routine they ran out of numbers and added some Latin letters to their measurement logs.
..
Coners live in the Cone. That’s any space forward of the engine room. They make up the rest of the crew. A grab bag of cultures and backgrounds, from small-town USA to big city living, the Cone represents a microcosm of the United States’ young men and women.

And finally in closing, the last of Aaron's articles I'll link for now - one on the very cat and mouse hunting we've been discussing at length the past few days:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...-cant-even-see
I won't replicate what's been said here because it's best left described by the actual submariner. I have no doubt that the contents of the article hold true for the profession as a whole, regardless of nationality.

Edit: Noticed the image of the ocean conveyor belt system didn't properly attach in my previous post (#220). Hopefully it works this time.

[Rahul Bhalgat]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

From your questions I get the impression (maybe unfairly) that you are viewing war and tactics as a set piece game where things are in neat clearly defined boxes. Nothing can be further from the truth. Hope this helps.

I have no ideas about war; never had any interactions with military persons involved in the operations or tactics. I am not thinking war as a set piece game, at least at cautious level. Also, I never played any video games on war.

I am just trying to understand the things, out of curiosity. My queries and doubts are those of a common man (I am not even a student, in this field. So no need to assess me). I am glad and thankful to you for your explanation and I presented my interpretation of the same so that it can be corrected or refined as needed, for which I thank you again.

I wrote about boat and torpedo variety because I thought that, like industry, versatile machine is not always the best solution in every situation. Thanks for your views on this.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by Rahul Bhalgat

I have no ideas about war; never had any interactions with military persons involved in the operations or tactics. I am not thinking war as a set piece game, at least at cautious level. Also, I never played any video games on war.

I am just trying to understand the things, out of curiosity. My queries and doubts are those of a common man (I am not even a student, in this field. So no need to assess me). I am glad and thankful to you for your explanation and I presented my interpretation of the same so that it can be corrected or refined as needed, for which I thank you again.

I wrote about boat and torpedo variety because I thought that, like industry, versatile machine is not always the best solution in every situation. Thanks for your views on this.

Thank you for clarifying. I am relieved. Apologies for that homing torpedo zeroing in on you i.e. my slightly nasty active sonar pinging. Happy to attempt answering your other questions as and when they arise. A good thing about your questions is that it stirs up a discussion and so many members with such rich knowledge jump in for the benefit of all of us.

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Some good discussions on this thread here lately. Seems a timely moment to share a new piece about the Arihant. Granted there's not much here that hasn't been said already and it's clear that there isn't much out there in the public domain (Sutton admits as much) but who doesn't love a good cut away diagram!


Before anyone gets irked I'm spilling state secrets, note that the schematic too cautions this is simply an artists impression.

Excerpts below of the bits that caught my eye (emphasis mine):

The Arihant is a unique design which can be characterized as a ‘pocket boomer’. It is much smaller than other ballistic missile submarines (North Koreas’ conventionally powered boats excepted). Its hull is shorter and thinner than its contemporaries and it only carries four missile silos.
But this does not take away from the industrial achievement of an indigenous nuclear-powered submarine. And in many respects its modest size seems pragmatic. Other countries now taking the nuclear submarine path, such as Brazil, are also going for smaller types.
..
Analysis of the few photograph available confirm that some aspects of Arihant bear a strong resemblance to the Kilo Class. The upper sonar dome on top of the bow and many aspects of the sail are visually identical. And the hull diameter appears to match. In essence, the forward hull and sail are essentially similar to the Kilo Class. This makes some sense as India purchased 10 Kilos which are known as the Sindhughosh Class in service.
..
Overall the arrangement of the [sonar] system is the same as the Russian systems originally fitted to the Kilo.
..
One visible difference between the bow on Arihant and the Kilo Class is the torpedo tube arrangement. Arihant’s are set lower. This indicates some internal differences and confirms that it is not literally a Kilo hull.

I wasn't aware the Brazilians had any plans of building a nuclear boat themselves so that was certainly a surprise. I also hadn't really considered the actual size of the Arihant till now, but it all makes sense. The relatively paltry missile load out now makes sense in a smaller boat, and like the author says, it's a pragmatic choice. With MIRVs, does anyone really need more than 4 SLBMs onboard to satisfy the second strike objective? It all fits in rather nicely then with a story of taking a hull form that's well understood in the Kilo class and iterating off this. As V.Narayan pointed out in the IN Shipbuilding thread, India naval builders have a long history of taking a hull form they understand and building/iterating off that. I wouldn't then be the least bit surprised if the upcoming indigenous SSN also bears resemblance to the Kilo class.
Another interesting point is the double hull construction of the Arihant, a Russian trend that the Russians themselves seem to have abandoned for their latest Yasen class SSGN

Like the Severodvinsk, the new design also utilizes a single-hull construction, akin to Western designs, and a break from the Soviet/Russian tradition of double-hull construction.