“How!?... How did this happen?!” screams a US Fleet Admiral as his minions back off,
barely able to make eye contact. He points to the Tactical Display System that,
to his and the USA’s utter embarrassment, shows how a relatively cheap, diesel-powered
Swedish submarine just took out a multi-billion dollar US aircraft carrier loaded with supremely
expensive next-generation aircraft. This should have been impossible.
The ramifications in terms of future warfare paint a bleak picture for the US,
or at least that’s how the admiral feels. Fleet Admiral Samuel J. Coontz has had a long and
illustrious career in the US Navy. He’s witnessed glorious triumphs, and he’s experienced crushing
disappointment. He’s old enough to remember the last time a US ship had a surface battle
since WWII, when in 1988, after the USS Samuel B. Roberts struck a mine in the Persian Gulf, in the
US’s retaliatory attack Operation Praying Mantis, the USS Simpson took out an Iranian frigate.
It was target practice for the US, which destroyed half the small Iranian navy in no time at all,
killing 56 of the enemy and losing only two of its own. It was two too many for Coontz,
men who didn’t die in battle but crashed in the dark while aboard a helicopter
gunship. God, that stayed in his mind for years. Immediately after, due to heightened tensions,
he had to deal with the guilt of the US Navy shooting down an Iranian civilian airliner.
He could live with that. He wasn’t in charge. He was just starting out. Since then,
he’s seen the US navy only grow in strength and character, now being the most powerful
navy in the world by a long shot. But Coontz also knows the Chinese and Russians are no pushovers.
He has watched as China has sunk billions into naval hardware, including submarines.
Coontz knows you should never sit on your laurels and let your guard down, and by God,
has he just been taught a lesson in this regard. A $6 billion-plus aircraft carrier taken out by
a small diesel sub, what kind of message does this send to China and Russia? They
must be grinning like Cheshire cats, he thinks, as he snaps a pencil by accident,
just contemplating that. There wasn’t much Coontz
didn’t know about this sub before it became a huge poop pie in the face of the US navy
after literally running rings around the US carrier. It should never have happened.
One thing about diesel subs compared to nuclear subs is just how vulnerable they
are. That’s’ because they have to come up for air quite often. They work through a process
of internal combustion, which means every so often, they need a blast of oxygen. That
doesn’t mean fully immersing themselves out of the water, but at least getting to a depth where
the periscope is sticking out. The average periscope is about 60 feet (18 meters), so
that’s still quite close to the surface. Imagine a diesel sub like a whale. They
need air. They actually have something called a snorkel, which lets the submarine breathe while
letting out waste gasses. It collects the oxygen, which is then used to recharge the batteries so it
can go down below again. This snorkeling business would generally have to happen every few days,
so unlike a nuclear sub that runs on a nuclear reactor and can stay down for months at a time,
diesel subs pose way more danger to the crew, who in times of war, aren’t big fans of snorkeling.
For Admiral Coontz, regular diesel subs pose no problem at all. The US Navy decommissioned its
last diesel sub back in 1990, so in 2005, when Coontz knew one was hot on the tail
of a high-tech American ship, you’d think it wouldn’t have been much of a problem.
A 100,000-ton ship that actually moves very fast against a 1,600-ton submarine running on
diesel. Something worth a measly $100 million against something worth about $6.2 billion.
Bear in mind that while $100 million might sound like a lot, it’s the cost of just one
F-35 stealth fighter that was on the aircraft carrier, or perhaps two F-18 Super Hornets,
and there were dozens of those onboard. Now you can see why getting sunk by a $100
million submarine would be eternally embarrassing. But to Coontz’s credit, the sub that ran circles
around the US ship wasn’t an ordinary diesel sub. It had Air Independent Propulsion (AIP)
technology, a brand-new type of submarine tech. Not only are these systems really quiet compared
to the old super noisy diesel subs, but they can stay submerged for weeks at a time like a
nuclear submarine. They use liquid oxygen instead of regular oxygen, so they don’t need to do that
sketchy snorkeling business all the time. Coontz and his men knew that they were up
against a very, very quiet Stirling engine, whose 75-kilowatt battery is the battery that
just keeps on giving. Coontz was also well aware that this particular enemy ship was fitted with
something called Magnetic Anomaly Detectors, 27 electromagnets that ensure the submarine
doesn’t give off its magnetic signature. On top of this, the hull is covered with a sonar-resistant
coating, and the tower is shielded from radar using radar-absorbent technology. The inner
workings are coated with special materials, mostly rubber, that make it hard for sonar to pick up.
In short, compared to the diesel subs that came before it, this sub was a ghost, capable of
anti-surface warfare and anti-submarine warfare. They’re also fitted with the latest computer tech,
making them just as good at intelligence collection, mine laying, and forward surveillance.
As for firepower, they’re no pushovers in that department, either, packing Bofors Underwater
Systems Type 613 torpedoes. These have a range of around 12 miles (19km). Their high-explosive
warheads weighing close to 650 pounds are mightily destructive, as are the multi-role heavy torpedoes
for surface and submarine targets. Moving at about 45 knots using a pump jet propulsion system,
these Saab-designed weapons can classify and track several targets at the same time.
So, yes, Coontz was under no illusion he was up against anything but a very advanced piece
of underwater machinery. He knew that there were possibly more weapons systems on the sub,
such as the Saab Bofors Underwater Systems Type 43X2 lightweight multi-role torpedos. He
knew that this little sub could severely damage a ship as large as an aircraft carrier by launching
multiple torpedoes at once using a highly advanced system to hit various parts of the enemy ship.
The phrase that springs to mind is silent but deadly, and with the defense systems
just mentioned, including the Atlas Elektronik sonar suite, Coontz also knew these subs are not
easy to detect. Even from a distance, the sub can launch several smart self-deployed mines
that will travel for miles autonomously and then activate from the seabed without humans
needing to press the trigger. Being so small, 200 feet long,
and 20 feet wide, you can only get about 24 men on them. Small has its advantages,
though. These subs have been designed so well that they have incredible autonomous maneuverability.
They are so sleek that someone once called them the “F-16 Viper of the undersea combat world.”
That said, traveling at only about six mph when submerged and 20 mph while surfaced,
they shouldn’t have been able to outrun Coontz’s aircraft carrier, which had a top speed of around
35 mph. And at six billion bucks, every bit of power and stealth on the Swedish
mayhem-maker should have been outmatched. When they went toe-to-toe, Mr. Coontz soon
discovered that the Swedes had more tricks up their sleeves than David Copperfield.
They were as tricky as Harry Houdini, so much so that one of the men on Coontz’s
ship walked away from the loss and told someone that the whole experience of being chased by an
almost-invisible beast was “vastly demoralizing.” Let’s remember that the Swedes did this for 100
million when the best nuclear subs out there cost billions, maybe 3 to 6 billion each.
Coontz and his crew just couldn’t see the thing. None of the systems on the aircraft carrier,
the best money could buy, were good enough. As one officer on the US ship later said,
the Swedish sub was “so silent it literally did not exist to our sensors.”
Now some of you might wonder how you never heard of one of the USA’s most expensive
military assets being sunk by a relatively cheap Swedish submarine. Sweden and the US
are not at war and certainly would never be firing shots at each other. On top of that,
you probably would have heard something about it if a ship carrying thousands of
men and close to 100 incredibly expensive aircraft had been shot to pieces and sunk.
We guess some of you already know that the aircraft carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan,
didn’t literally get blasted by the Swedes and sink. It’s still around, in one piece,
presently somewhere near Japan or South Korea.
But everything we’ve told you is based on the truth. It’s just that when the Swedish submarine,
the HSMS Gotland, did win that fight and really did run rings around the bigger ship, it was in
a training exercise. It all happened, but the shots fired were simulations.
What we told you about what people said about the experience is all true. The
demoralization thing is real; someone actually said that. It wasn’t our dear
old Fleet Admiral Coontz because we made him up. But if Coontz was real, you can be sure he would
have been distraught because the Gotland really did hunt down the US ship with ease. At the time,
the Gotland’s AIP diesel engine was new technology. The Swedes were rather proud
of it, and the Americans were rather astonished when it did what it did.
The submarine just could not be detected, and it could have used those weapons systems we told
you about to seriously damage and possibly sink the expensive vessel and everything
and everyone on it. In fact, the training exercise was replicated quite a few times,
and every time the Gotland ran rings around the Reagan. These exercises went
on for about two years after the US had leased the sub and its crew from Sweden.
Such a war game might sound like fun to you, but to the US military,
it was concerning. Sure, the US has its fair share of high tech submarines that are some
of the best in the world, if not the best, such as the Virginia class and Seawolf Class.
But these things cost around $3 billion a unit. The UK, France, Russia, and China also
have some very good and very expensive nuclear submarines. But Sweden really did upset the
apple cart when it introduced its Gotland subs for so much less money than those nuclear subs.
Sweden proved how useful they were and how deadly if need be, and you can build a crapload of them
for just the cost of one top-range nuclear sub. They might not have the endurance of
the bigger nuclear subs, but that stealthiness cannot be underestimated. If Coontz existed,
he'd have had every right to feel upset. Some pundits say that the US has a submarine
shortage and hasn’t invested enough in them, while countries such as China have been investing
heavily in new diesel submarines. The country has at least two using the Stirling engine. Russia
has also been working on its own fourth-generation diesel submarine, the Lada-class Sankt Peterburg.
All over Europe, countries have now produced AIP diesel submarines and are selling them as
far as Pakistan and South Korea. Some are now larger, including the German Dolphin
class and the French Scorpene class. Still, they will set you back about $450 million,
which it seems wasn’t too much for the buyers in India, Malaysia, and Chile.
You’d be in your rights to ask why the US isn’t going down the same path,
especially given the demoralizing time it had against the Gotland. Why is the US sticking
with submarines that cost billions and might not be that much more effective?
The main reason is the US is more focused on having subs that can stay at sea for months on
end and can traverse many thousands of miles. The US’s nuclear submarines are much better at
doing this than the new diesel subs, which are designed for shorter distances over less time,
plus they can’t keep their high speed up for as long as a nuclear
sub. They are ideal for close combat warfare around a country’s own waters,
which the US naturally says it doesn’t need. When it comes to ambushing and intelligence,
they are almost perfect. That works out better if you have enemies near home, which the US doesn’t.
If the US does invest heavily in new submarines, it will invest time and money into drone subs.
Still, with China now reportedly making improved underwater machines, including the experimental
and quite hefty diesel submarine, the Qing class, some people say it wouldn’t harm the US to catch
up in this department. After all, China, with the US, UK, France, India, and Russia,
also has nuclear subs. Now the US is the only country out of those that doesn’t have AIP subs.
Does it really need them? China may have these impressive
new stealth machines, but the US still has the upper hand if there was ever any battle at sea,
not just in machinery terms, but for the simple fact that China has pretty much
zero global maritime operations experience. Still, as China puts more bases in the South
China Sea and the Indo-Pacific region, there’s a good reason why the UK and US have just made an
agreement to share nuclear-powered submarine technology with Australia. China’s totally
behind in undersea warfare, it’s a literal newbie, but its Navy is no lame threat like
it was not even that long ago, and it plans to expand massively in the run-up to 2035.
But again, hardware is one thing; experience is another. The US should be glad to have lots
of the latter because no one can build ships as fast as China. The US Navy expects China’s naval
hardware to grow by 40 percent in the next 20 years, and according to President Xi Jinping,
China should be capable of “fighting and winning wars” before 2049.
This is why some experts are pushing the US to keep building subs, reminding politicians that
in naval warfare, the larger fleet almost always wins. If Admiral Coontz were around,
we know what he’d want, starting with some US-made diesel subs. We reckon he wouldn’t have believed
the Chinese military when it recently said, “China has no intention of policing the world,
unlike the United States.” A realist by nature and a pessimist at heart, Coontz would say everyone
wants to police the world, and if there’s one thing he’s learned in his long life,
it’s you should always be wary of cops. Now you need to watch “How Few Companies
Control the World With This Tiny Device.” Or, have a look at “China's Plan for World Domination.”