Interesting Notion. Aircraft Carriers under the Sea.

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  • gp100man
    Junior Member
    • Jan 2012
    • 374

    #1

    Interesting Notion. Aircraft Carriers under the Sea.

    Interesting idea, but don't submarines loose their stealth, and become highly vulnerable to attack once they have made the loud noise of launching anything(aircraft, missiles, drones)?

    http://nationalinterest.org/feature/nuc ... iers-12560
  • tom dougherty
    Senior Member
    • Jul 2005
    • 1361

    #2
    Re: Interesting Notion. Aircraft Carriers under the Sea.

    Actually, this is just an expansion of the idea to employ more cruise missiles for attack. There was a recent proposal to outfit future Block V Virginia class SSNs with more cruise missile tubes to make up for the retirement of the Ohio SSGNs early in the 2020's:


    Here the spin is to build two different Ohio Replacement boats, one with ballistic missiles (SSBN) and one with cruise missiles (SSGN). Frankly the Block V Virginia payload expansion sounds more plausible to me.

    An SSGN is not the operational equivalent of an aircraft carrier, and in no way can be described as an "Aircraft Carrier under the Sea". That is a fundamental lack of understanding of their roles. The US employs aircraft carriers to project power in a visible way. THis is partly a politically based policy method. It is a visible threat to an enemy. Also, aircraft carriers can carry out prolonged and repeated attack operations. Submarines (as you note) are designed for stealth, and you only know there is one in the area when it launches an attack. Then they need to move away smartly from the launch datum and fade into the background, having given up stealth at the time of missile launch.

    BTW, a poorly edited article, as on page 2 it says (and I quote) " The vessels could alser, if needed, the mao carry various unmanned aircraft and unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) onboard. Furthssive boats could carry pre-packaged satellites that could be launched into low Earth orbit to replenish U.S. space capabilities ".

    To which I would retort, in the words of Mel Brooks (Blazing Saddles) : "I'm particulary glad that these lovely children were here today to hear that speech. Not only was it authentic frontier gibberish, it expressed a courage little seen in this day and age."

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