Cutaway of German Type 212 class
Posted on 08/31/2007 11:21:11 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Defense Focus: Diesel sub wonder weapons
Published: Aug. 31, 2007 at 11:10 AM By MARTIN SIEFF UPI Senior News Analyst
WASHINGTON, Aug. 31 (UPI) -- The diesel submarine may be the leading "Cinderella weapon" of the 21st century. It gets no respect in the United States or Russia. But China, India, France, Germany and Israel are all betting on it big time.
The diesel submarine is certainly not a sexy new technology like anti-ballistic missiles, global positioning satellites or lasers. It has been around as long as the submarine itself (British Adm. Lord John "Jackie" Fisher's bizarre experiment in giant steam-powered submarines, the notorious "K" boats of World War I, never got very far).
Diesel submarine technology was perfected more than 60 years ago in the great ocean-worthy U.S. Navy fleet of subs in World War II and in the German Type XXII and XXIII U-boats that became operational towards the end of the war.
However, the development of nuclear submarines, first by the U.S. Navy in the 1950s and then by the Soviet Union, appeared to make the diesel sub as obsolete as the bow and arrow became after the mass production of firearms. Adm. Hyman Rickover, the feisty father of America's nuclear navy, hated them like poison. So did his successor admirals.
Thanks to their procurement policies, there is not a single shipyard left in the entire United States that makes them anymore. But in other major nations, the old diesel sub is making a remarkable comeback.
Israel has already deployed three German-built Dolphin diesel submarines to carry nuclear-armed cruise missiles to provide it with a survivable second-strike capability to deter Iran or other nations from the temptation of carrying out a pre-emptive first strike with nuclear weapons, and it has ordered at least two more -- both also from Germany.
France is doing good business building its Scorpion submarines for export too, and India is planning to deploy Scorpions with cruise missiles as a deterrent against Pakistan similar to the Israeli concept.
But the biggest enthusiast for diesel subs is China, which is building its own: In 2006 it built 14 of them to one U.S. -- nuclear-powered -- new submarine.
China is building a mixed, or balanced, submarine fleet. It has also invested in bigger nuclear-powered strategic submarines to carry a survivable second-strike ballistic missile deterrent primarily aimed at the United States. But it is pouring major resources into its conventional submarine fleet as well. Why?
Diesel subs certainly do not have the limitless range and endurance for long-term operational deployment that nuclear subs do. But in conventional war, they have a lot of advantages as well.
They can operate far more easily in littoral or offshore, shallow waters, and being much smaller than nuclear submarines gives them a potentially huge operational advantage in key enclosed potential combat regions like the eastern Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.
Also, China's procurement policies and its overwhelming concentration of force in its southeast coastal region leaves no doubt that Chinese operational planners see their most likely conventional enemy as being the U.S. Navy and Air Force in any eventual conflict over the status of Taiwan.
In this context, having a very large conventional diesel submarine fleet makes a lot of sense. Conventional diesel subs can pose a formidable threat to nuclear aircraft carriers operating within operational range of their home ports, as the Chinese sub fleet in the western Pacific and the Taiwan Strait would be doing in such a conflict.
U.S. anti-submarine warfare, or ASW, capabilities are superb, the best in the world. But they were overwhelmingly developed to locate and destroy bigger Soviet or Russian strategic and attack subs that were nuclear powered. A lot of smaller, cheaper diesel subs operating as underwater wolf packs would stand a much better chance of overwhelming the ASW defenses of U.S. carrier battle groups than throwing just two or three nuclear attack subs against them at a time would.
For Israel and India, the calculus is a different one: Israel simply cannot afford to buy nuclear subs, and they would be too big and therefore easy to detect in the relatively shallow Mediterranean anyway.
Nor does it need big nuclear-powered platforms like the U.S. Ohio class strategic subs or the old Soviet-era Typhoons, or even the somewhat smaller new nuclear powered Russian Borei class to carry its second-strike weapons.
Israel can't afford and does not need long-range submarine-launched ICBMs anyway. Iran, Syria and its other potential enemies would all be within range of much smaller intermediate-range cruise missiles that could be launched from a conventional sub. So the Jewish state has sensibly invested in German U-boats as its main line of defense. One wonders what Grand Adm. Karl Doenitz would have thought about it all.
In 1982 the British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror proved the conventional operational potency of the nuclear attack submarine by sinking the Argentine heavy cruiser General Belgrano during the Falklands, or Malvinas, War. Future wars, however, may see that dynamic reversed with enormous nuclear surface ships hunted by fleets of a weapon employed in both world wars that was supposed to have been superseded half a century ago: the non-nuclear diesel submarine.
Cutaway of German Type 212 class
Never discount diesel boats
Interesting. But I think the authors own bias comes through with the repeated assertions that nuc subs can’t operate effectively in ‘shallow waters’.
We’ve been doing that very effectively for half a century in the Med, for just one glaring example of the author’s bias.
It only takes one torpedo to ruin your whole day....
Yeah - a modern nuclear attack submarine sinks a WWII cruiser that was being held together with chewing gum and bailing wire...
No it hasn't. The first submarines were in use prior to the Civil War and were use before the advent of the diesel engine.
You never know where or when.....
The author doesn’t talk much about the new AIP systems being added to subs.The German fuel cell based systems can go stay under for around 4 weeks at a speed of 5 knots.
And with some of the new fuel cell technologies, it is quite possible that diesel boats can be even quieter than Nukes.
![](http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:R8sR7daexSBGmM:www.ted-kyte.com/3D/Pictures/Spark%2520Plug.jpg";)
Rest In Peace, old friend, your work is finished.......If you want on or off the DIESEL ”KnOcK” LIST just FReepmail me........
This is a fairly HIGH VOLUME ping list on some days......
I believe it was Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising that started with the CIA knowing something was up with the Soviet Union because all of the sudden there was a shortage of car batteries in Russia. This led the CIA to believe that Russia was replacing the batteries in their diesel subs in preparation for something big.
>> Israel has already deployed three German-built Dolphin diesel submarines to carry nuclear-armed cruise missiles to provide it with a survivable second-strike capability to deter Iran or other nations from the temptation of carrying out a pre-emptive first strike with nuclear weapons
I was wondering about Israel’s second-strike capability just the other day. I’m glad to see that they have it.
Fact is diesel boat have steadily been improved, modernized and quieted.
New propulsion modes are quiet above and below the waterline. They are every bit, in some regards better, than a nuc powered vessel in terms of maneuver, stealth, and life cycle economy. We should build them, but for political and force priorities/bickering do not.
A CVBG would be nearly helpless to counter even a modern two boat threat provided with some initial targetting. Crusie missiles of several types can overwhelm any US defense—and torps are not yet obsolete.
Time to get in the pig boat business.
I WANT ONE
And they used World War II-era torpedoes to sink her!
Heard tell Belgrano went down after a hit with a wire-guided torpedo.
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