RAN's Collins class replacement

[Officer of Engineers]

Modern subs are much much quieter at speed too. The Virginias are as quiet at 20 knots as a 688 at 5. Subs have become so quiet that active may be making a comeback. The Astute class already shows signs of stealthing against surfaced active sonar and Lockheed Martin has a history of a skunkworks active sonar stealthed sub. So a high transit speed is still a viable way to get from its home port to its deployment area quickly.

SSN-774 Virginia-class NSSN New Attack Submarine (globalsecurity.org)

Lockheed Skunk Works Active Sonar Stealth Submarine - YouTube

Why are you assuming that ASW sonars are still in the 1960s/70s? I have news for you. They were always good at picking any kind of sub noises. It's just that we could not distinquish the noises from the background. That has significantly changed with advent of CPU power. The Chinese can hear a VIRGINIA. It's just that they don't know what a VIRGINIA sounds like.

[Albany Rifles]

Just a quickie: Canada said "no more tanks"; Canada went to Afganistan; Canada screamed "gimme tanks!"

Yahtzee!

[zraver]

Why are you assuming that ASW sonars are still in the 1960s/70s? I have news for you. They were always good at picking any kind of sub noises. It's just that we could not distinquish the noises from the background. That has significantly changed with advent of CPU power. The Chinese can hear a VIRGINIA. It's just that they don't know what a VIRGINIA sounds like.

Russia recently sailed one possibly two subs past the GIUK line and down the US East Coast without being detected. Modern nuclear subs have very little radiated noise due to intensive noise reduction efforts. Combine that with background normal ambient noise in the ocean plus the effects of thermoclines and subs are very quiet.

The Chinese cannot hear a Virginia. We can't hear our own subs. We keep adding more and more flank arrays to increase sensitivity and allow better beam forming and the Chinese boats are a couple of generations behind us in sonar just from the torpedo layout and use of propellers vs pumpjets on their new Shang class boats.

[Gun Grape]

Russia recently sailed one possibly two subs past the GIUK line and down the US East Coast without being detected. Modern nuclear subs have very little radiated noise due to intensive noise reduction efforts. Combine that with background normal ambient noise in the ocean plus the effects of thermoclines and subs are very quiet.

Combine that with the fact that we no longer constantly monitor the GUIK line like we did during the cold war.

What's left of the old SOSUS line is used by civilian agencies to study marine life.

We don't keep SURTASS LFA ships on station and P-8 patrols from the UK and Iceland don't happen like they use to.

We have the War on Terror, hunting for Russian subs isn't sexy, funding dwindles.

I would say the only place we look for them with any effort is near US Navy bases. I'll bet a sand flea cant fart around Kings Bay or Norfolk without a sensor picking it up. Anywhere else, only if training is going on.

The Chinese cannot hear a Virginia. We can't hear our own subs

Never assume the enemy doesn't know where you are

[zraver]

The Russians still put a 7th generation sub (or two) off our coast and the navy claimed they could not find them despite looking for them.

Externally the Shang class is using 1960's design cues that limit the space available for acoustic sensors.

Russia's Newest Subs Are 'on Par With Ours' US, Top US Commanders Say (businessinsider.com)

[Officer of Engineers]

Russia recently sailed one possibly two subs past the GIUK line and down the US East Coast without being detected. Modern nuclear subs have very little radiated noise due to intensive noise reduction efforts. Combine that with background normal ambient noise in the ocean plus the effects of thermoclines and subs are very quiet.

Oh for Pete sakes, we were not actively hunting for them. I don't care what kind of subs you're in. You cannot avoid active pings. Subs evading the USN ain't new. The Canadians did it with the old OBERON class and the most recently, the Swedish GOTLAND. The whole idea is don't be where the pings are.

The Chinese cannot hear a Virginia. We can't hear our own subs. We keep adding more and more flank arrays to increase sensitivity and allow better beam forming and the Chinese boats are a couple of generations behind us in sonar just from the torpedo layout and use of propellers vs pumpjets on their new Shang class boats.

Again, yes they can. Just ping the hell out of the ocean floor.

[zraver]

Info post about probable RAN patrol region and environment.
https://www.globalsecurity.org/milit...a/plan-asw.htm

[Monash]

Info post about probable RAN patrol region and environment.
https://www.globalsecurity.org/milit...a/plan-asw.htm

Seems to be mostly about where China could and could not readily operate SSBNs effectively i.e. a breakdown of the depths etc of the seas off its immediate coastline and how easy it is for them to hide/deploy there. Not sure we'd want to go in after them if we had a choice. Contain their subs & surface units inside - yes. Go in after them no. (At least not immediately and not without a coherent, well thought out 'plan' laying out what we were expecting to achieve by doing so.)

[Officer of Engineers]

Seems to be mostly about where China could and could not readily operate SSBNs effectively i.e. a breakdown of the depths etc of the seas off its immediate coastline and how easy it is for them to hide/deploy there. Not sure we'd want to go in after them if we had a choice. Contain their subs & surface units inside - yes. Go in after them no. (At least not immediately and not without a coherent, well thought out 'plan' laying out what we were expecting to achieve by doing so.)

Whomever wrote this knows shit all about Chinese SSBN practicses. Chinese SSBNs do not go on patrol with nukes on board (Call it CMC's paranoia that a rogue Captain could start WWIII). They're only given nukes during the times of crisis.

Then, they are escourted out of port by a destroyer screen that would ping the hell out of the nearby waters, driving any enemy subs away. The SSBN would not reach their launch station alone. It will be sitting behind every warship the China Navy could muster. They know their SSBNs are noisy and they know we could find them real fast. The hope is that by the time we punch their air and naval surface and submarine screens, they would have time to launch their nukes. The Chinese ain't looking for waters to hide in. They're looking for waters that could be protected.

[Monash]

Whomever wrote this knows shit all about Chinese SSBN practicses. Chinese SSBNs do not go on patrol with nukes on board (Call it CMC's paranoia that a rogue Captain could start WWIII). They're only given nukes during the times of crisis.

Then, they are escourted out of port by a destroyer screen that would ping the hell out of the nearby waters, driving any enemy subs away. The SSBN would not reach their launch station alone. It will be sitting behind every warship the China Navy could muster. They know their SSBNs are noisy and they know we could find them real fast. The hope is that by the time we punch their air and naval surface and submarine screens, they would have time to launch their nukes. The Chinese ain't looking for waters to hide in. They're looking for waters that could be protected.

If so you'd have to question why they think an SSBN fleet is a good investment to start with given how many of their naval and air assets would be tied up just defending them long enough to do their job. Far easier to go with mobile land based ICBMS as back-ups for your siloed warheads. After all its not as if they don't have the strategic depth to play with. Then just build up your expertise with SSNs until you've reached the point where you think your tech base can produce viable SSBNs that don't need all that extra protection.

[Officer of Engineers]

Simple. They don't want to use their nukes. For every bomb dropped on a nuke or a nuke asset is one bomb that can't be dropped elsewhere, elsewhere the Chinese really want to win.

[zraver]

Seems to be mostly about where China could and could not readily operate SSBNs effectively i.e. a breakdown of the depths etc of the seas off its immediate coastline and how easy it is for them to hide/deploy there. Not sure we'd want to go in after them if we had a choice. Contain their subs & surface units inside - yes. Go in after them no. (At least not immediately and not without a coherent, well thought out 'plan' laying out what we were expecting to achieve by doing so.)

In a conventional war in or around that area though....

[Bigfella]

Strongly disagree with this assessement. Like it or not, Australia depends on Coalition warfare for its defence. Given the size of the China Navy, there is zero ways for Australia to prevent a Chinese landing on at least Australian spheres of influence.

As such, Australia must be able to insert itself into Coalition, translation American, battle plans. It does the Americans zero good if the Australians cannot support an armoured thrust and worst, requiging American protection against enemy armour during that thrust. Your engineers must learn how to dig anti-tank trenches and your zipperheads got to show your latrine diggers what tanks can and cannot do, ie is your minefield or AT defences are good enough.

Even if you restrict yourselves to the light infantry role, you need to know how to call in artillery/air support .... and how to do anti-tank. And most importantly, how to support tanks.

We, in Canada, had this debate, at one time opting for a LAV-105 as a replacement for our tank squadrons. The result? We bought LEOPARD II tanks from Germany. The LAV-105 simply cannot do the job of a tank, cannot even act as a tank for training purposes. Quite simply put - the best tank killer in the world is another tank.

We aren't Canada. We aren't part of an alliance essentially founded to fight a land & air war against an equally or better armed adversary and we shouldn't be shaping our land forces to that end. Especially if it costs us billions and saddles us with expensive, overweight equipment that essentially requires the US to provide logistics if we ever want to deploy it overseas. We have just spent 20 years fighting in 2 US wars and the tanks didn't leave our shores. We sent men, choppers soft skinned vehicles, lightly armoured vehicles and LAVs, but no tanks. That should tell you something. We are about to spend $2.5 billion to upgrade our fleet to 75 modernish M1 tanks. That means it is unlikely any more than 50ish will ever be deployed outside Australia at one time. America has thousands of these. If it can't deploy that number all by itself then it either didn't need them or has problems bigger than we are going to solve.

We need to focus on air & sea warfare. That is the key contribution we can make to any alliance and that is the key to defending our territory. I can see value in having armour, but a 70 ton behemoth with gas turbines ain't it. We need something we can transport, supply & deploy ourselves at home & abroad. The tanks we have now are not that. They never were & never will be. If someone is landing significant amounts of heavy armour on our shores and keeping it supplied it means our allies have been defeated or aren't showing up and our air & naval forces have been neutralized. Those M1s aren't going to save us.

I do take your point on training, but I refuse to believe that we have to drop $2.5 million on M1s to obtain that. It was and is the wrong purchase for the wrong reasons. I said when we purchased them that we will never deploy them overseas and I see no reason to change that assessment. If we were in NATO and close enough to somewhere that might need us to use armour then M1s might make more sense, but none of that is true.

[jlvfr]

Simple. They don't want to use their nukes. For every bomb dropped on a nuke or a nuke asset is one bomb that can't be dropped elsewhere, elsewhere the Chinese really want to win.

The day someone uses a nuke is the day everyone starts using them...

[JRT]

The day someone uses a nuke is the day everyone starts using them...

Opinions vary on that notion, and some seem to have advanced a very different viewpoint.

https://www.google.com/search?q=escalate+to+de-escalate