At least for the US why not keep one or more nuclear missile subs in the Great Lakes?
Lake Superior alone covers 31,700 square miles to an average depth of 483 feet. It’s far to large an area to target with a first strike and well protected from non US/Canadian forces.
The idea is subs deliver missiles halfway around the world, the rockets do the rest. It’s a matter of an hour for a rocket to transit from the Great Lakes to the other side of the planet, but half that for rockets fired from most of the way there already.
Shortening the time to target is one of the benefits (well, is that really the right term here?) of submarines, yes, but another is survivability for a retaliatory strike as a deterrent. Trident missiles have at least a 7,500 mile range. A couple in the Great Lakes would provide that with complete safety against Russian hunter-killer subs.
Passing through Montreal and Quebec City at 27' of depth in the dead of night (challenging for a Yasen at 32' draft but possibly some freak condition might make it possible) a few drunks watching in awe as it slides silently under bridges. River patrol craft carefully edging out of the way (a tearful salute offered to brave comrades, perhaps a lifted glass of Vodka or a gentle pat on the wallet to acknowledge regular payment). Other patrol craft can be seen lying idle by the side of the water due to their crew celebrating "arranged" events, or being "taken out" by the KGB (or whatever they've taken to calling themselves now).
Now it runs through Lake Ontario and spends a day lolling in the deep cold waters there before night falls once more and enters the Nigara river (oh shit, you see where this is going) and starts the run through Nigara City.
At full speed the most daring Naval maneuver of all time is about to be attempted. Now, finally, the true value of the Yansen class will be revealed as two vast titanium wings snap out from under the hull and the super-cavitating bubble generator is deployed. The hidden rocket engines on the rear of the boat ignite. The submarine fills with the stench of human excrement as the whole crew void their bowels in unison and the Russian sub leaps from the water in front of Nigara falls and..
oh I give up.
Just when HN seemed to have settled into semi-intelligent tech talk we get this.
It does seem silly, but not out or the realm of possibility. The Great Lakes stretch further north and closer to the Russian heartland than almost any land in America. Any international waters further north and closer by great circle distance to Moscow, besides the north Atlantic, are covered in ice part of the year. Someone said it's cheaper to dig holes in the ground. The problem is those holes are on a first strike list. There's a case for second strike capabilities based in the Great Lakes.
Great lakes commercial fisherman and also crew on container ships have said for years that they see weird stuff dozens of miles offshore in the Great lakes.
Fish stories and all that. But there is precedent for submarines and even aircraft carriers in the Great lakes. Lake Michigan is filled with crashed trainer aircraft from WWII.
You're skipping over the concept of "survivability" of submarines which enable a second-strike capability. It's not about getting the missiles closer to the enemy, but ensuring that there are nukes that can be launched in the case of the US falling to a surprise attack.
In theory this would deter a first-strike against the US because the subs could still retaliate with massive damage. Thus, cutting second-strike capability could make first-strike more likely in the eyes of US strategic (eg nuclear) planning.
Yes, the fact that nobody really knew where the subs were was a key factor in that first strike survivability. Even ComSubPacFlt only knew of very large sectors of ocean that a boat was to patrol, the rest was up to the captain and circumstances.
Hmm…maybe I don’t quite understand what you’re saying. But I think you’re implying is that subs drive pretty far away with their nuclear missiles and shoot closer to the target?
Those will be among the targets in the first strike. Unless they can fire before the nukes hit they're not useful. Subs are pretty much the only option.
I suspect foreign agents try to bribe people in submarine crews to sabotage their sub in the event of a strike. If someone onboard could stop the American second strike missiles being fired they'd give Russia a huge advantage. I imagine the Navy have considerer this.
>Unless they can fire before the nukes hit they're not useful.
Au contraire! An important aspect of them as land based is the "nuclear sponge" concept: every single nuke spent on a silo is a nuke not aimed at a population center or vital infrastructure. They're out in the middle of nowhere for a reason (well, multiple reasons, but that's one of them). Even if they're all lost they've constrained the opponent's tactical choices merely by their existence, pushing towards the logic of a counter force strike instead of counter value.
Any nuclear exchange would be very bad, but unlike Europe the US does indeed have a lot of near completely uninhabited non-arable land for strategic depth. Makes sense to use it.
In the event of a full nuclear war, whoever is on board the sub has probably just had their family, friends, and home vaporized.
Further, they are trapped in a small metal tube with 100 other people in similar condition, and who will probably be....not pleased if any sabotage is discovered.
I suspect it would be very hard to successfully bribe said crew members. (And have them actually follow through with their end of the deal, rather than just taking the money and...not doing it if the war ever happened)
You may be joking, but do keep in mind that the Canadians (well, the British, but if memory serves, a significant fraction of the force were from Canada) sacked Washington D.C. in 1814.
Not that it matters, but I am Canadian and we were taught in school Canada was created in 1867 via the BNA (British North American Act).
Therefor, those who "sacked" Washington must be British, the same way that George Washington must British as well be given he was born prior to the formation of the USA. He became "American" later, much as "Canada" was created later..
I think we could but why build a whole base complete with nuclear weapons handling and reactor maintenance facilities on the Great Lakes? Just use the ones in Georgia/Washington.
Wikipedia lists the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seawaymax size as allowing at most 26.5’ of draft, while the Ohio-class submarines require 35.5’. So treaty aside, it seems probably not physically possible, even though the locks are bigger in other dimensions.
The idea is that ones based in the Great Lakes would be immune to interception by enemy submarines discovering and shadowing them; you're not gonna get an Akula up the St. Lawrence Seaway.
However, it would leave them is a small, well-known area and would allow for easier signature profiling via sensors mounted on any number of craft, that could then be used on other subs of the same class elsewhere in the world. That was the reason why when some idiot in the White House revealed where our subs were near China and HK, it was a big deal.
Wouldn't the pressure wave from a underwater burst make the submarine hull collapse, given the lake has limited depth to disperse the energy of the blast, when compared to open oceans.
Not something I know that much about, though nuclear depth charges where apparently replaced with torpedoes because they aren’t that great a weapon.
Best case 500 ft vs 12,000 feet means the blast might have a range roughly square root of 24 or 5x as far. But a more variable topology might work like the walls of an anechoic chamber and disparate the blast much faster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anechoic_chamber#/media/File:C...
The Trident II Submarine Ballistic Missile has a range of more than 7500 miles (12000km). The exact capability is still classified, but you could easily hit places like Moscow or Beijing from a submarine in the great lakes.
What could a dozen 1MT warheads, sunk to a depth of 100ft, do to submarines anywhere in the Great Lakes? Shockwaves travel through water much better than through air. Water explodes into steam in a way that air doesn't.
My intuition is that you actually could pretty reliably paste a sub inside the Great Lakes using some nukes launches from Russia. The lakes may just not be deep or big enough to hide in.
This is leaving aside the treaty, the lack of freshwater sub technology, the long time to retaliation due to long range, the lack of a sub facility on the lakes, and the unnecessary nature of the whole enterprise (if the US lost 1 boomer sub to an enemy they could bring the others into a defensive posture making them practically impossible to hunt down, to preserve 2nd strike capability).
They aren’t that much better than depth charges in part because energy is spread in 3D space. 1,000,000 times the energy means ~100x the range, but depth charges are very short range weapons. In WWII with a sub on radar and using 12 depth charges in a grid they only had a 5-10% kill chance. Which is one reason why nuclear depth charges where replaced by target seeking torpedoes.
Carpet bombing the Great Lakes with thousands of nukes could work but that’s a great nuclear sponge. Directing a huge quantity of munitions away from other targets.
PS: 100ft is likely shallow with much of the blast being sent into the air but that’s not very important to your suggestion.
The US uses ballistic missile submarines to provide counterstrike capability that can't be destroyed by a nuclear first strike. This deters adversaries from attacking us because they'll know that no matter what they do, we'll still be able to annihilate them in response.
If, as this article claims, it will be impossible for submarines to hide in open waters in the future, hiding submarines in large, protected bodies of water such as the Great Lakes becomes a compelling option.
Can nuke subs do that much damage to a ship? I thought they were equipped to hide from everything and deliver massive damage to large land-based targets.
A few Virginia class escorts could probably sink almost any non-NATO navy task force on their own. Add a carrier group on top/to the rear of them, and you can scratch "almost".
The Ohio subs do not go unprotected. However, they are designed to be able to carry not only nukes but also cruise missiles (up to 154 Tomahawks for instance), which would make the a huge threat to any naval force.
Also, let's say that these subs were used to deliver a few hundred anti-surface Tomahawks against for instance a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Not only would the missiles themselves be able to sink a lot of surface assets, the use of these subs would also signal their presence, indicating that the USN was meaning business.
Different classes of subs are specialized to do different things. Some specialize as missile platforms, some specialize in hunting other submarines. Many can do both at least to some extent.
No it doesn't. Ballistic missile submarines are exclusively useful as second strike weapons: they don't carry enough warheads, nor are they accurate enough to first strike weapons (which have to reliably hit military targets and threaten an opponent's retaliation ability).
Those would be Virginia class attacks subs, not ballistic missile subs, I think. An Ohio class could be added temporarily, though, to add even more cruise missile capability to the task force. (Since they, or at least some of them, are now dual purpose platforms.)
A treaty limited them to 20 ICMB’s on each of 14 subs down from 24. Each ICMB can hold 12 independently targeting 100kt warheads or 8 larger 0.45 MT nukes.
However, it might be that less than 20 missiles are loaded and or teach ICBM is not carrying the maximum capacity of nukes, but we just don’t know.
Again: no they aren't, except in a narrow and strategically irrelevant "well it's still a missile you can launch".
If you're executing a first strike, then your goal has to be to take out your opponents ability to retaliate...or you're trying to pull off a limited first strike.
In both cases, submarines add no strategic value if used: in the limited strike scenario you give away a submarines location, and in the first-strike scenario you are not going to have enough missiles, with up to date enough targeting data, in order to hit targets any quicker then land-launched ICBMs are.
The time you waste trying to maneuver your submarines close enough to your target to launch, the fact that it's entirely possible they get taken out before they launch their entire payload (US and Russian subs shadow each other as a matter of course to track their movements), and the inherent communications problems coordinating with submarines all make them irrelevant as first-strike weapons.
The point of a nuclear ballistic missile submarine is a guaranteed second-strike capability. Your opponent might surprise you take out your bombers. They might surprise you can take out your land-based ICBMs. But there's no way they can ever be sure they got every boomer sub, and boomer subs don't target military targets: they target cities, capitals and command bunkers. They exist to ensure no useful advantage is ever gained from first-strike.
Lake Superior alone covers 31,700 square miles to an average depth of 483 feet. It’s far to large an area to target with a first strike and well protected from non US/Canadian forces.
Edit: A US/Canadian treaty demilitarized the Great Lakes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush–Bagot_Treaty