Benefits of SSNs

[Zen9]

Posted elsewhere (in pieces), but I think it needs more development. So I'll ask here as we have people here who might assist.

Good title needed in lew I'll use "benefits of SSNs"
It's a first stab at trying to define what the SSN delivers for a state.
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Like all naval ships, the submarine possess a quality of both tactical utility and strategic effect.

At the tactical level, the ability to remain submerged and not reveal itself, coupled with the ability to deliver ship killing 'effectors' (torpedoes and, land attack and Anti-Ship Missiles, mines and special forces), makes this a potent means to dominate the seas and threaten coastal infrastructure.

It's strategic quality is in part the familier 'in being' readiness for action, and the retention of ambiguity in where it may be.
This ambiguity used to be a quality possessed by all ships beyond the sight of land. Essentially their location becomes conjecture and assumption, since it is not verifiable.
With the increasing passage of time the uncertainty of the ships location increases, until it is sighted again or another ship sees it and brings that information back to land.

Modern sensors render the ship's location much more acquire-able in real time. Removing ambiguity.
But the submarine retains this quality. Sonar is much more limited in range than radar or vision. Where an aircraft can be detected hundreds of miles away, a submarine can slip past the mere tens of miles and sometimes a lot closer.

Infamously, the more daring submarine commander has risked detection to take pictures of an opponents ship's propellers. A feat requiring the submarine to risk actual collision.

'In being' is the state of readiness to move, and act. A standing Army possesses this quality as does in it's readiness, a fortress manned and provisioned. As such these forces exert an immediate and continuing pressure to be answered either by manoeuvre or by counter force.

As such the nuclear powered submarine delivers an effect far greater than it's actual capacity. It's stocks of torpedoes and missiles are limited, there is little extra accommodation for passengers.

But the possibility is that these effectors will be applied at key assets an opponent possesses.
Ship(s) so vital to the fleet, or transport laden with crucial asset(s).
The port you cannot afford to have blocked. Infrastructure you cannot have have damaged or destroyed.
Worse that unguarded part of your coast through which agents delivered by submarine might slip unnoticed into your country.

Because the submarine might be anywhere, your only defence is to be strong everywhere and this drains resources away from other tasks.

It certainly is the case that nuclear power provides effectively limitless range and endurance only constrained by consumables and human factors.

An SSN for example could continuously power along at 25kts for days, weeks, even months.
25kts is 25 nautical miles per hour.
In one day that equates to 600nm
In one week 4,200nm
In one month 16,800nm.
In six months 100,800nm

And at no point does it need to surface.

Deployment of them is a clear indication of intent.
Deployment from Home, is ambiguous as to it's destination and consequently ambiguous as to where and why it is deployed.

So again ambiguity is another benefit. It signals something, but this is as much in the mind of one's enemies as any intent one has.

For a distant state with multiple areas of operations and concerns around the world. Sending an SSN out, reveals no real clue as to where it is going.
Every state in an area of operations will take note. But they cannot be sure it is heading towards them or someone else.
Worse, once submerged, unless it's located by some happy accident, you don't know, even after it could have reached you if it's here or somewhere completely different.

Maybe it is out there, ready to sink your ships, strike inland or deposit agents into your territory.....
But maybe it is actually on the other side of the world.
And you may only know which, after it has already done it's dirty deeds.

Or worse, decades after when files are declassified and you realise, they (users of SSNs) never felt the need to bother with you and your various schemes.....and you were jumping at imaginary shadows for nothing.

[rtoldman]

Is it possible for ssns to resupply food and rotate people at sea undetected? I think the Chinese have a sub base in Hainan that has an underwater entrance. Are there other such places? The idea being that an ssn remains undetected for years.

[MikeKozlowski]

Is it possible for ssns to resupply food and rotate people at sea undetected? I think the Chinese have a sub base in Hainan that has an underwater entrance. Are there other such places? The idea being that an ssn remains undetected for years.

I would think that it should be relatively easy for a nuclear sub-capable navy to use one boat as a milch kuh and a small DSRV-type vessel to transport gear and consumables (up to a point) from Boat A to Boat B and back. Admittedly, that takes a boat kinda/sorta out of the line, but if it means you can keep another boat on the line for an extra couple weeks, it could work out.

Mike

[jemhouston]

Is it possible for ssns to resupply food and rotate people at sea undetected? I think the Chinese have a sub base in Hainan that has an underwater entrance. Are there other such places? The idea being that an ssn remains undetected for years.

I would think that it should be relatively easy for a nuclear sub-capable navy to use one boat as a milch kuh and a small DSRV-type vessel to transport gear and consumables (up to a point) from Boat A to Boat B and back. Admittedly, that takes a boat kinda/sorta out of the line, but if it means you can keep another boat on the line for an extra couple weeks, it could work out.

Mike

How America's Nuclear Submarines Get Resupplied at Sea

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH-_ERjNRIE

[Craiglxviii]

Is it possible for ssns to resupply food and rotate people at sea undetected? I think the Chinese have a sub base in Hainan that has an underwater entrance. Are there other such places? The idea being that an ssn remains undetected for years.

We could call it… Marineville!

(Anything could happen in the next half-hour…)

[kdahm]

Is it possible for ssns to resupply food and rotate people at sea undetected? I think the Chinese have a sub base in Hainan that has an underwater entrance. Are there other such places? The idea being that an ssn remains undetected for years.

If you want to get fancy, then grab a ULCC and build a well deck into it. Sub comes up from underneath when both are just making steerage and is docked there. It would probably cost too much and any sort of traffic analysis would pop it out of the background pretty quickly.

At-sea replenishment, while a good tool to have, would not be able to extend at-sea times to more than about 12 months to 18 months I think, even if there were a total crew switch and full supplies loaded. There's too much stuff that is best fixed dockside and there's a lot of stuff on the outside that should need periodic maintenance. It would only maybe be useful on the SSBNs anyway, since there are enough SSNs to rotate them through.

Does it really matter if an SSN or SSBN is noticed for a few weeks to a month that it spends in port? If the patrol area is not known and the sub can slip any trailers within a day or two of leaving port, then they could be anywhere within a week or two. Particularly if the subs are showing up as different bases than expected, like a Bremerton sub in Faslane. Neither Russia nor China operate long SOSUS like lines, so they're reliant on surface fleets or subs stumbling over NATO subs.

The main beneficiary of such a system may be Australia, when they finally get nuke boats, because of the long distance from their ports to likely patrol zones.

[Zen9]

If you have enough submarines, having one turn up at home for repair is obviously countered by another deploying.

Ideally you send out the next submarine before the first returns just to give the enemy's spies that little extra heartburn. Knowing two submarines be somewhere out there.

[rtoldman]

If you want to get fancy, then grab a ULCC and build a well deck into it. Sub comes up from underneath when both are just making steerage and is docked there. It would probably cost too much and any sort of traffic analysis would pop it out of the background pretty quickly.

At-sea replenishment, while a good tool to have, would not be able to extend at-sea times to more than about 12 months to 18 months I think, even if there were a total crew switch and full supplies loaded. There's too much stuff that is best fixed dockside and there's a lot of stuff on the outside that should need periodic maintenance. It would only maybe be useful on the SSBNs anyway, since there are enough SSNs to rotate them through.

Does it really matter if an SSN or SSBN is noticed for a few weeks to a month that it spends in port? If the patrol area is not known and the sub can slip any trailers within a day or two of leaving port, then they could be anywhere within a week or two. Particularly if the subs are showing up as different bases than expected, like a Bremerton sub in Faslane. Neither Russia nor China operate long SOSUS like lines, so they're reliant on surface fleets or subs stumbling over NATO subs.

The main beneficiary of such a system may be Australia, when they finally get nuke boats, because of the long distance from their ports to likely patrol zones.

HMAS outback because everything in the outback tries to kill you

[James1978]

Is it possible for ssns to resupply food and rotate people at sea undetected? I think the Chinese have a sub base in Hainan that has an underwater entrance. Are there other such places? The idea being that an ssn remains undetected for years.

The Swedes have Muskö Naval Base. As I understand it, the base was never 100% shut down and the Swedish military retained ownership of the site. They started to fully reactivate the base in 2020.

There is Olavsvern in Norway. The Norwegians closed it in 2009 and sold the site off. The base was then rented by Russian companies linked to Gazprom. A Norwegian government contractor bought a majority interest in the site in 2019, apparently at the request of the Norwegian military.

Yugoslavia built some coastal tunnels on the Adriatic, and Turkey built at least one on the Black Sea. And the Albanians built some too. But as far as I know they were more bases for torpedo boats / FAC(M)s.

The Soviets built one in Crimea in the late 1950s, and started but never finished one for their Pacific Fleet and one for their Northern Fleet near the end of the Cold War.

[pengolod_sc]

Just yesterday (Tuesday), in the throne speech debate in Norwegian parliament Stortinget, the leader of one of the opposition parties put forward a proposal to buy back Olavsvern for the Norwegian armed forces. The proposal failed at 38 vs 63 votes, but he indicated that the matter would be raised again in the New Year.