If anybody lives near Providence RI, They have in one of the parks there and actual JULIET class diesel boat. I did some voluntold work on it, replacing some rotten wiring. Walking around the thing, I noticed that for the era it had served... It's tech level was either equal to or behind our WWII Gato classes. Of which I have also done some voluntold work on (USS Lionfish, Fall River, MA). Now...I ask if anyone has ever seen the inside one of their so called "modern boats"? Are they still about that far behind??? If so, it begs the question, did we ever really have to fear them in a conventional war? Do we have to fear these crappy little countries that buy their surplus boats? I do know tht everyone of them I came across when I was in, was detected at the max range of our sonar suites... Does anyone else have a contradicting story?

I know the Akulas were a major pain to keep track on....never got to deal with any of the other platforms....not that I can talk about, anyways....(g)

Remember the recent Chinese surprise given to a carrier and escorts . Never said if they had a boat riding shotgun or not , regardles , not enough boats to escourt everyone and strategy is important also . Swedes have an AI diesel that is giving everyone fits so seems concern would be good .

Never under estimate the opposition is a good rule to live by. We always end up in trouble when we sit on what we had and not what we should have. That has proven out to many times.

Subwarrior, I think it's a matter of perception. When I was in in the late 60's, the the Soviets were supposed to have had somewhere around 600 subs. Back then we were pretty much tuned into sub on sub conflict or our combined asw efforts with the Brits. What I didn't realize until much later in life was that the majority of those boats would have been commerce raiders and they would have disrupted a lot of our economy had anything broken out, especially our supply of foreign oil. Sure we were trailing their boomers and could have taken all those out but but that left a lot of others to have to account for. Now days there's is a whole new generation of new high tech diesel and AIP boats comming on line that are being sold to whoever has the bucks. Certainly, I think we have cause for concern and a whole new concept of asw tactics to develop. Take a lok at some of these;
http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/type_212/index.html#type_2125
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amur_class_submarine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Gotland_%28Gtd%29
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/china/song-pics.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/japan/harushio.htm

To find a "November or Echo" we found the
AN/PDR-27 worked real well LOL

Sludge

quote:

Originally posted by Sludgecat:
To find a "November or Echo" we found the
AN/PDR-27 worked real well LOL

Sludge

Did you have to wear your rad suites when you were in trail?

It's not the tech comparison but the sailor to sailor comparison that concerns me.

You could put Mack and some of us on an old GUPPY boat and we would kick the pants off of most of what floats. We have the time in track and the time on the pond.

My great fear is that we have too few boats and too few sailors that are qualified to man them. Doesn't matter how great your tech is, if you don't have the souls, you can't get the job done. China is a big threat, and they are committed to putting souls in hulls, and getting out there and meeting us someday. The best thing that could happen to the Nav right now is for some little pissant upstart to give us a really good wedgie and wake our stupid perfumed princes in the flag ranks up out of their "war on terrah" stupor and focus on the real mission of the Nav. Without enough boats in the water, tech, which is rapidly being outclassed by those who are using less stupidity in their production, is not going to save us.

I have been on a Foxtrot class boat twice. Once when it was moored in Burnaby, BC and later in Seattle, WA. YIKES!!! I was not impressed to say the least. By the data it was commissioned in 1974. On year after I left my Boomer and active duty. And over the years I have been on several Gato and Baleo class fleetboats and I concur, the technology of our WWII boats was/were on par with that Foxtrot, or better!!!… I mean all the piping looked like someone on a budget went to Home Depot and bought plumbing dept. sale items. Then hired some plumbing school dropouts to put it together. The poor soul who drove & dove the boat had only a bicycle type control to do everything!!!… And (As I remember) he was stuck as an after thought near a high traffic area in the control room. I’d felt unsafe even on a maneuvering watch evolution on it. I have experience on Russian vehicles after I switch service branches too. Simple, poor fire control optics, and wonderful SABOT magnets as was proved in Gulf I and II. Pretty much only manned “Hard Targets” for U.S. Army Tankers, AH-64s and A-10s.