Does USS Virginia still hold the most advanced submarine so far?

What about those fairly new Bong ones?

>>28659538

So there's a submarine inside there, huh?

> Yo dawg, we heard you liked submarines

>>28659538
So if I take the USS Virginia off, will I find the most advanced submarine under it?

>>28659574
I don't know, what do you suggest?

>>28659538
Astute class bong subs totally wreck them.

Nope. AIP diesel electric subs are way sneakiness. Nukes got range but they'll never be as quiet (or numbers)

I heard the China has successfully implanted DF-21 Carrier Killer missiles into an old Golf class.

>>28659659
They can turn off reactor cooling below certain speeds, so nuclear subs are just as quiet now. The big advantage diesel-electric subs still have is that they're able to operate in shallow waters

>>28659538

Submarines are very very secretive.

Exact nature we'll never know for sure. All we do know is it's very likely that Virginia and Astute are on top of the pile by a notable margin before anything else comes up beneath them.

Frankly, it's just bait if anyone tries to harp out between them. The few things we DO know point to them having very similar abilities, but with each having slight advantages over the other in certain areas.

So really, debate is pointless. Both are clearly the world's top subs, and will continue to be for a long time as there's no other nuclear subs out there in the water or even in planning that come close to them.

>>28659886
>The big advantage diesel-electric subs still have is that they're able to operate in shallow waters
Nuclear can too. They just can't lie on the ground because the will suck mud in the cooling pipes.

>>28659909
Isn't the russian Borei class even younger? I wonder if the USN can still trail them like they did with the old soviet subs.

>>28659615
We peel the Virginia off very carefully
As so it won't die

>>28660028
They don't need to trail it, they know where it hides

>>28660028

Borei is an SSBN, completely different class of boat.

Age isn't an immediate tell of capability. "Younger" doesn't necessarily mean better, and Russia's yet to demonstrate many of the systems that the US and UK have to the level they have them.

Hell, even France's yet to even be launched nuclear subs they've got coming are not going to be on the level of Astute and Virginia. (They've stated openly from the project director that they're aiming for similar tech to the older Triomphant Class, rather than anything revolutionary) and having a small sub for it.

>>28659538
No actually, it's got some cool newer stuff, but in terms of being the best operating potential, Seawolf is still better. Virginias were built with low cost being a priority; Seawolf be built during the Cold War didn't have that problem (until it was cancelled.
>>28659632
It's more or less very close to a Virginia but Virginia still has build characteristics that make it superior.
>>28660028
Russians still lag behind Western nations in both sophistication and numbers. They don't have the budget or capability to build something as advanced.

>>28660506

Virginia ended up better than Seawolf. Seawolf may have a few "wikipedia numbers" higher, but the actual systems on board Virginia ended up being more advanced from a modern build manner.

Seawolf is very rapidly becoming the F-14 of subs, with massive following believing it eternally is better than its replacements. It pays to kill that thinking off quick.

>>28660579
sea wolf is specialized for intel gathering and spy ops now virgina is a h/k

>>28660579
I have seen the actual numbers and operating statistics. I can assure you Seawolf is better. Yes, Virginias are advanced in the way they are assembled and built, but Seawolfs were built with robustness in mind. There's very little a Virginia can do better than a Seawolf.
>>28660618
The Carter was more specialized in those areas than the other two, but the rest of the class were originally built as h/ks.

>>28660579

>virginia better than seawolf

Not a thing.

Seawolf class is the goddamn ferrari of the ocean.

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>>28662834

So overpriced turd?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGBhVKhwV1I

>>28662866

Super capable invisible death machine that doesnt justify the cost since Russian fleets are busy being destroyed by crew incompetance and rust.

The seawolf is what lockmart shills think the F35 should be.

>>28662994

I like the seawolf, Ferrari is just a bad analogy, they are a historically weaselly and shit company that makes not only unreliable cars, but sometimes dangerous cars (Eg spontaneous combustion), their legendary unreliability and shitness are the reason Lamborghini exists in the first place (famously)

They often try to impose strict restrictions on any would be competition instead of simply building a better car (As they did against the ford GT and Corvette)

Hell sometimes they will simply refuse to allow races to happen (EG top gear's 918, P1, and laferrari comparison)

They will sue you for doing things to your own car, or blacklist you from ever owning a Ferrari again if you do something they dont like

The real shit of it all is they are held as the pinnacle of car performance, especially exotics when that hasn't been the case for a long time, even if you are only talking about Italian cars (pagani is better)

Ferrari stinks

Enough about American submarines, they are vboring

Let us talk about Chinese submarines, now those are innovators.

>>28659659
> AIP diesel electric subs are way sneakiness
Nope. VAs, like Seawolves, Ohios and Los Angeles class boats, can operate on natural circulation at low load levels. This threshold gets better with each generation, meaning a Virginia class boat doesn't have to kick on its reactor pumps until 12+ knots (18, according to some sources). This gives it top end sprint or transit far faster than any DE or AIP, unlimited range and the ability to be just as quiet at DE/AIP speeds.

>(or numbers)
The USN fields more SSNs than the number of modern DE or AIP boats fielded by the rest of the world combined.

>>28659975
Depends on what the seafloor is composed of, and which boat. Virginias, for instance, have arranged coolant intake and exhaust vents to obviate this issue.

>>28663243
This is lazy bait.

>>28663061
Please take this autism back to /o/

Ausfag here, how does the Collins class match up? I heard that the deisels are really quiet which gives them a good advantage. And also, apparently we have performed well at RIMPAC's

Thoughts?

>>28663391

What did you expect to happen from your post anon

I had no intention of making another post in this thread, do you think I'm gonna delete my post? Why antagonize?

Sounds like you want it, what a slut.

>>28663400
The range and resolution of modern USN and RN sonars makes being a DE extremely tough. It's very hard to maneuver yourself well enough in theatre that your periodic snorkeling for recharge does not give a listening enemy a good, actionable datum. The frequency required and the range of the modern sonar systems means you've got to get and stay lucky.

>>28663439
>The frequency required
That's unclear. Should read:
>The snorkeling frequency required
My bad.

>>28663439
Thank you sir, from my understanding ever exercise at RIMPAC our subs just camp in a nice cosy spot and wait for the bigger, louder subs to stroll past.

Cant see that working in a conventional war, unless, like you said, we get lucky and stay lucky.

What about that Russian AIP where it doesn't need Hydrogen or something? Something like Kalina? Or was that Amur?

>>28663400

They made a documentary about this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8Kv4rqR6RQ

>>28663298
Not all of them can run on natty circ. Some can, some can't....I'll leave which is which to the imagination.

>>28663298
It's not really fair to throw Ohios in the lot. If your job is just to park somewhere and launch ICBMs in the Arctic Circle, then you're not going to be detected unless someone is looking for you with active sonar.

>>28663532
Anon, every single USN SSN since the start of the 688I run is capable of natural circulation, as were most of the Flight II 688s. There might be a handful left in commission which cannot.

>>28663588
Natural circulation at low load is pretty damned important for boomers running racetrack patrol. Of course you want your boomers as quiet as possible at 5 knots. I don't know about the Borei, but all the previous Russian Boomers lacked this feature and we far, far easier to find on passive consequently.

>>28663599
I'm not sure about the Borei, but the USN found out after the Cold War that our carrier fleets were quite frequently tailed without us knowing.

>>28663618
I'd love to see a source for this, considering how many prime Russian SSNs were bottled up with Bastion protection duty in the last decade of the Cold War.

>>28663618
What with the OCD approach to ASW picketing and sweep that the USN and RN displayed in the 70's and 80's, I find this hard to believe. Source?

Impressive

Americans and Russians circlejerkins each other while not paying attention to superior Asian tech. Oh and some Australians too.

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>>28663630
I'm referring to the infamous "USS Nimitz" photoshoot.

Pic related.

>>28663649 (You)
I mean the South Koreans

>>28663658
Ah. In 1974, a Victor I got lucky and caught a snapshot of the Nimitz during builders trials. Hardly what I would call "quite frequent". It's a well known incident, and why full ASW escort was provided for future major surface combatant builder's trials for the rest of the 70's and 80's.

The only other incident I'm aware of is Kitty Hawk roadkilling that Victor off Korea in the early 80's, and it was detected and being tracked. Briefly lost on track during high sea state at night, it was found again when the Shitty Kitty herself actually ran it over. It was later seen wallowing away at three knots with extensive damage.

>>28663649
Russian technology is incredible. They've killed a nuclear attack submarine with a supercalavaiting torpedo. That's nothing that the Americans or Asians have accomplished.

>>28663658
>>28663689
Just as a point of comparison, it was very rare for the USN to NOT have a full sound radiation profile for most of a given ship's speed envelope within a year of commission for new build Russian ships throughout the Cold War. There were squadrons based in the UK for certain periods that did almost nothing but this sort of work. From the Thresher/Permit class onward, the USN could not only identify class but individual hull number for almost every Russian surface ship and sub with the proper sonar resolution threshold. The Russians never achieved that level of detail and data collection.

>>28663716
Kek. Are we talking about the Thresher or Scorpion while dancing in our tin foil hats, or is this a Kursk joke?

>>28660028

>American SSNs trail Russian SSBNs
>Russian SSNs trail those American SSNs
>American SSNs trail those SSNs

And flip the script for American SSBNs.

Is this what submarine service during the cold war was like?

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>>28663724
>Kursk

It never gets old.

>>28663739
>It never gets old
Much like the 118 people on board.

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>>28663689
Also this. 1/2

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>>28663751
2/2

The Soviets loved griefing the American navy.

>>28663725
Not really. Once it became abundantly clear how loud and easy to find their boomers were for USN SSNs, and they gained the SLBM tech to push the range far enough out, Russian boomers went to what is called a "bastion" strategy for sub deterrence leg in the mid 70's. This means that instead of patrolling in the mid to west Atlantic or east Pacific, they patrolled in protected bays in Northern Russia or the west Pacific coast or under thinner areas of Arctic ice just into the ice cap.

They then tasked surface ASW frigates and their own SSNs to protect these pockets of SSBNs while USN SSNs would occasionally sneak inside the protection for a peak but mostly sit outside and watch closely.

USN SSBNs, on the other hand, were and still are the quietest boats in the ocean. While their patrol routes are ever changing and obviously super classified, it has been noted that several of them at any given time are patrolling close enough to Russian and Chinese territory to execute depressed trajectory launches, which are far, far faster on target than a country-to-country ICBM launch. After the Franklin class was commissioned, Russians found it almost impossible to find much less keep a continuous track on USN SSBNs. USN boomers almost always patrol alone, without SSN escort (as SSNs have plenty of other duties and are unnecessary).

>>28663739
>>28663750
Shit got dark in here.

>>28663751
>>28663755
What source?

Also, thinking that this was a constant occurrence and not an oh-shit, somebody really fucked up FUBAR is a mistake.

>>28663767
https://books.google.com/books?id=Hr-uaYXoyIQC&lpg=PT72&ots=rbgAdZq6gO&dq=soviet%20subs%20tailed%20us%20carriers&pg=PT73#v=onepage&q&f=false

>>28663755
>>28663751

Sounds pretty fun to stalk and pretend to kill the USN, only to take a picture and laugh about it later and embarass the americans. And little risk of dying under the bottom of the sea.

>>28663751
>>28663755
You note that nothing in those sources suggest that the USN was unaware of their presence, with the exception of not maintaining a constant track on that Oscar II.

>>28663775
I was wrong.

It's important to note that subs have to book it to keep up with a surface fleet. This especially applies for of the older nuclear subs.

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>>28663775
Another incident. This was probably the one I was remembering.

>>28663481
Not only that, but they know roughly the area the CSG is working in. Just about any sub can sit still in the water and be silent as death. These exercises are set up in such a way that submarines CAN do that, when in reality we'd be working with far larger areas.

>>28663770
>https://books.google.com/books?id=Hr-uaYXoyIQC&lpg=PT72&ots=rbgAdZq6gO&dq=soviet%20subs%20tailed%20us%20carriers&pg=PT73#v=onepage&q&f=false
Kek. Ah, yes, Thompson. Everyone's favorite Naval theory Cassandra. Were you aware of the fact that nearly every one of his articles and his one book (Lessons Not Learned) are constantly derided for drawing excessively alarmist conclusions for what are usually proved to be outlier events? He's famous for making mountains out of molehills and then claiming the sky is falling.

He makes some good points, and his message that the USN needs to periodically break out of its institutional inertia, but his delivery is often so over the top or misconstrued from historical context that it can be difficult to take him seriously.

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>>28663400
I remember constantly hearing and reading about them being complete fucking garbage, F-35 Turkey tier shit.

True or False?

>>28663798
Again, who detected the boat, who is speaking in this tale, etc.

Claiming they were not detected for 8 days is not the same thing as not being detected when a Russian skipper is telling the tale. If they are to be believed, every whale strike, civie ship collision and reactor accident (of which there were dozens) aboard a Russian boat was perpetrated by USN SSNs in some fashion or another.

I'd want to see corroborating USN sources on that in a document not written by Thompson before I swallowed it whole.

I'm not saying Russian subs never managed to track USN surface assets during the Cold War. They did, and it happened several times, both public and still private. But to suggest that they did it with any kind of regularity or frequency on the systematic level with which the USN pursued the tactic is folly.

>>28663809
I'm goes tly trying avoid anything that's uncited and stated as an opinion, but there is or ably more than just books that substantiates some of these incidents.

It's not that the Soviet submarines were great, it's just that USN ASE is haas been historically inadequate. And shit, the Navy did the same things to the Soviets- just that they had a lot less surface ships to play with.

>>28663834
>USN ASE is haas been historically inadequate
USN ASW during the Cold War was surpassed only by RN ASW in training and focus. In equipment its arguable which was superior. Russian ASW wasn't even in the same league.

So I ask, inadequate in comparison with what? The USN was well aware that, outside of a regiment of Backfires, Russian SSNs were by far the biggest threat to USN surface assets. Are you suggesting that the Navy was unaware that over half of the Russian naval budget went into boat procurement, or that they just ignored this?

Any love for Stirling AIP?

>>28663825
Fires and floods have happened, also parts breaking. The sub needs to go back into dry dock to fix the part, even though they have a spare (as it's protocol to always have a spare)

That is probably where they have got their bad rep from, that you are describing

>>28663871
AIP in general is great tech for coastal patrol and regional power. Not so great for the USN, when patrol routes are at a minimum a thousand miles from port, but great for European and SEA powers looking to protect relatively close by assets and sea lanes. As far as the Sterling specifically, my knowledge of it extends to early 20th century examples. I honestly have no clue what a modern Sterling looks like or how it operates in a sub. Must be decent if they're pursuing it, and the concept is sound. I'd be interested to see what exactly they're doing with it. It's kind of like rediscovered industrial revolution age tech, like putting a super efficient steam boiler in a passenger ship with modern upgrades. Kind of a steam punk idea, at least to me.

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>>28663298
>Nope. VAs, like Seawolves, Ohios and Los Angeles class boats, can operate on natural circulation at low load levels
>>28663599
>Natural circulation at low load is pretty damned important for boomers running racetrack patrol. Of course you want your boomers as quiet as possible at 5 knots. I don't know about the Borei, but all the previous Russian Boomers lacked this feature and we far, far easier to find on passive consequently.
bros I remember reading somewhere that the Russians had some form of natural cooling incorporated in their nuke reactors since the pr. 941 Akula (thats Typhoon for you HATOfags) boats. whoop its on first page also:
>Development on the third generation nuclear reactors began in the early 1970s, and it is these reactors that power submarines in the Project 941 - Typhoon class, 949 - Oscar class, 945 Sierra class and 971 Akula class.[...]this system permitted a natural circulation of coolant within the primary circuit, even at high power.
>http://spb.org.ru/bellona/ehome/russia/nfl/nfl2-1.htm#146a
quote came from here:
>Atomnaya Energiya, No.4 -1993 and No. 6 1994.
so if some based Russkybro could scan us a copy he could have this motorola seal of respect:

>>28663899
AFAIK Sweden is the only contry to produce subs with Stirling AIP.

Of course its impractical for long range subs but Its indeed a cool and very silent technology.

>>28664060
>Typhoons could operate with cooling pumps off

No, the largest submarines ever built did not have any provisos for cooling the reactor without running pumps. They were to put it mildly loud as fuck, and for that reason, among others, they are being scrapped now.

>>28664327
>No, the largest submarines ever built did not have any provisos for cooling the reactor without running pumps. They were to put it mildly loud as fuck, and for that reason, among others,
Sauce?
>they are being scrapped now.
AFAIK the main reasons for scrapping them is because they are expensive to operate as well as that the US is coughing up the dough for the expensive scrapping process.

>>28664111
Japan and Autralia rely on Swedish technology. The Chi-Coms have an indigenous Stirling engine.

>>28663599
Yes, all boats can run on natty circ for cooling of the core, only some can run shaft power with natty circ.

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>>28659538
How are the new French subs?

>>28659562

kek

>>28659574
It would be extremely painful

>>28664060
>>28664407
That's the same reactor as in the Mike, Akula, Sierra and Oscar boats, anon. The main focus on the design priority list for the OK-650 and derivatives was safety, to try and alleviate the almost yearly reactor accidents Soviet boats were suffering. As such, it did indeed have a very limited natural circulation capability built in as an emergency coolant option if the reactor is in SCRAM and for some reason backup power is not running the pump system.

Remember that a nuke reactor never completely stops producing thermal energy, and even in full SCRAM can continue building up heat. Coolant flow always needs to be available, though cutting circulation for a short time in SCRAM is not disastrous with most designs for maintenance work.

Back to the OK-650, it did not have enough flow rate and convection built into the reactor to actually operate without pumps while running critical under weigh. It was merely an OH SHIT option if everything else was going to shit, but nowhere near the flow rate to deal with the load while powering propulsion.

I can believe I may have missed a Soviet boat or even small class which boasted natural circulation, as the Soviets experimented with exotic reactor design almost as much as the US - liquid sodium or lead bismuth cooled, natural circulation, fast criticality, etc. Just like the USN, which built boats like the Narwhal (almost complete natural circulation at all loads with only tiny auxiliary pumps, seawater scoop injection, quietest boat in the world until the Seawolf and basis for a lot of the tech that went into 688, Ohio and Seawolf boats), Lipscomb, Tullabee or Albacore, the USSR built one-off or small batch experimental boats (like the Papa or Mike boats). It is very possible there are one or two natural circulation boats somewhere in the Soviet boat build history.

However, there's no way they got operational partial propulsion natural circulation installed on all Akulas, Sierras, Oscars and Typhoons.

>>28666555
Ever since the Narwhal fully explored the limits of shaft power natural circulation, it was completely available without much design cost in further USN classes. While it wasn't incorporated in the Flight I 688s, it was included in most Flight II 688s and everything thereafter.

I looked about for sources about the boats I'm not 100% positive about, but found nothing suggesting otherwise. Do you have a source?

>>28666653
4 yu

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>>28659538

Is the Virginia project still ongoing? Are they still pumping out more? I saw a documentary on the National Geographic channel about it like 8 years ago and I haven't heard shit about it since. Then again, I wasn't really looking.

>>28668404
Yes, we've been really pumping them out. There's gonna be 48 of them eventually, only 12 now and several more being built and/or fitted out.

>>28667798
I work on them.

>>28668404
>>28668449
Yep. And they've also been doing work on the Block V/VI (I think those are going to be the first ones) with the Virginia Payload Module.

>>28659975
Thought it was because of the heat the reactor gives off.

>>28668558
Ah, the VPM. What a lovely thing.

>>28668404
At a rate of two per year, anon. The project is the poster child for well managed and cost effective ship building. Every boat comes in further and further under cost and schedule.

It's like the procurement Christmas miracle no one can be fucked to notice.

>>28668533
And my dad works at Nintendo. Seriously, Natural circulation shaft horsepower capability has not been super secret squirrel shit since before 1998. It was up front advertised with both the Seawolf and Virginia class procurement, and they even mentioned the Ohio class in that materiel. If you're right, there's a source.

>>28668663

Maybe they should just go ahead and order more then if it is going so well, instead of trying to develop all these weird surface ships.

>>28668558
Block VI boats are the VPM boats. There's also still talk about where VPM tech will integrate with the Ohio replacement.

>>28668712
Different roles, different missions. You can't do everything with a sub, just like you can't do everything with a carrier or Burke. Each has it's place in the order of battle and mission capability overview.

>>28668712
There's probably going to be at least 50 Virginias. However, submarines, while great, do not do the same thing a surface ship does.

>>28668741
http://mragheb.com/NPRE%20402%20ME%20405%20Nuclear%20Power%20Engineering/Nuclear%20Marine%20Propulsion.pdf

This source only lists two specific cores as being able to actually operate with natural circulation with the implication of shaft horsepower. I would like to see what sources you have that suggest otherwise.

>>28668886
>http://mragheb.com/NPRE%20402%20ME%20405%20Nuclear%20Power%20Engineering/Nuclear%20Marine%20Propulsion.pdf
That source only mentions natural circulation as it relates to the pioneering S5G in the Narwhal and subsequent S8G in the Ohios, the two earliest shaft power natural circulation plants in the world. He notes neither the presence nor absence of the feature in further designs. Or are you seriously suggesting the Virginia class does not have the capability? Before you answer, you should know that the S8G (precursor to the S9G in the VAs) is publicly acknowledged to be natural circulation, as is the S6W in the Seawolf boats.

That paper was also written by Magdi Ragheb, a University of Illinois nuclear power engineering professor with little or no access or input in naval reactor design with the USN.

>>28669057
This is what I'm saying. Post something that shows that S9G and S6W are natural circulation with shaft power. You have done nothing of the sort except to parrot that they are.

>>28669201
>>28669057
And you haven't, because you can't prove that they can move on natural circulation.

>>28669229
Not even that anon, but this is too funny

>dad works at nintendo
>posts BS academic paper by a civil nuke engineer not even connected with the USN
>now claims interwebs victory because other anon didn't respond immediately

The hilarious part about all this is the fact that the anon you're trying to interwebs teabag is absofuckinglutely correct. Ohio, Seawolf and Virginia are all convection circulation capable under way. Why do you pretend to be billy badass online?

t. USN sailor with a fine set of fish

>>28670287
>dad works at Nintendo
>USN sailor with a fine set of fish

I hope you appreciate the irony. Im willing to bet that you work front end since you're such a plum fuckin' dipshit.

And he's had almost a whole two goddamn hours for something that should taken five seconds to google if it's such prolific information as he says it is (pro-tip, it's not). And the reason I post academic papers is because it's publicly available and not UNNPI.

>>28659659
There's a lot more to being advanced than propulsion dipshit.

>>28670395
Look out, folks. Billy Badass is mad.