Pages

Thursday, November 25, 2021

U.S. Navy May Scrap $3 Billion Submarine After South China Sea Accident - But please don't flog them off to the RAN as an AUKUS deal 😁😂😅😆😜

Military Watch:

U.S. Navy May Scrap $3 Billion Submarine After South China Sea Accident


Seawolf Class Attack Submarine

Following a reported undersea collisions in the South China Sea, the U.S. Navy’s Seawolf Class attack submarine USS Connecticut reportedly faces the possibility of being scrapped prematurely due to the extent of the damage suffered.

The Seawolf Class are the most expensive submarines ever produced outside France, with each costing $3-3.5 billion, and are some of the Navy’s most highly prized assets. Only three of a planned 29 were ever built due to their extreme costs. Each displaces 8,600 tons and carries 140 crew, 50 cruise missiles and a range of torpedoes.

The assets were designed for long range power projection to operate offensively near or in the waters of adversaries, and the ship’s presence near Chinese waters when the accident occurred made it a particularly serious embarrassment.

Following the accident the submarine limped back to Naval Base Guam where it has remained since, and despite an extended news blackout there have been multiple indications that the ship is very badly damaged.

As Forbes noted: “the USS Connecticut’s mishap is a big deal and no longer a cozy internal Navy matter.... the Navy’s continued silence is doing more harm than good.” It highlighted that the issue could be “a self-inflicted wound, stemming from longstanding but long-unfixed problems within the Navy,” highlighting that the turn of events was particularly unfavourable since the ship had long been “in effect, conserved for just the type of challenge China presents.”



Seawolf Class Attack Submarine

A Command Investigation is expected to be completed in December, but the USS Connecticut’s accident is likely to stress America’s submarine industry and defence budget.

Reports from the U.S. Naval Institute indicate that damage has been serious, raising questions regarding whether the ship will be repaired or whether it will be more cost effective to retire the damaged ship - much as the Wasp Class carrier, USS Bonhomme Richard, was slated for scrapping after a fire onboard in 2020 due to the high costs of repairs.

The fact that Seawolf Class submarines are no longer in production, and none are being retired meaning there are no available spare parts to be cannibalised, means repairs may not be viable as they would for a more widely used ship class. A thicker hull built with harder steel, which was seen as a cheaper alternative to titanium which Russian ships used, makes the exterior of the ship even more difficult to replace.

Questions have thus been raised regarding whether the ship, even if repaired and returned to service, would ever have capabilities comparable to a newly built Seawolf Class ship particularly pertaining to its stealth design. This will likely affect the decision on whether to scrap or restore the ship in favour of the former option.

The circumstances of the ship’s accident also remain highly uncertain, with the official report that the ship hit an uncharted undersea mountain being seen by some analysts as questionable while others have speculated that it either hit underground oil infrastructure or may have even been struck in a deniable attack by some class of undersea drones.

*********

kt comments:

What I am worried about is the unscrupulous US may flogged off these useless but extremely expensive subs to the gullible Aussies. Previously the US had sold some rusty buckets (supposed to be naval ships) to the Aussie Navy in what was a disgraceful work of trade.

4 comments:

  1. Stupid opinion from Blogger KT drunk on CCP Maotai.

    Submarines operate in the most unforgiving environment on earth - the immense pressure underwater.
    So, unlike a damaged car where you just patch it up, a damaged submarine may be impossible to be sure the repairs are up to the required strength. Sailors lives are more important than even the billion dollar price tag.

    Australia's past parsimonious defence budgets have occasioned some purchases of old warships reconditioned from US or British Navies, especially non-frontline support ships.
    A 30 or 40 year old LST transport ship is still perfectly usable if the engines are in good working condition.
    The Aussies knew exactly what they were buying.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Sailors lives are more important than even the billion dollar price tag" ??? I think not so to the US

      read my earlier posts:

      (1) US aircraft carrier or virus carrier? [https://ktemoc.blogspot.com/2020/04/us-aircraft-carrier-or-virus-carrier.html]

      (2) End of the road for Captain Brett Crozier USN
      [https://ktemoc.blogspot.com/2020/04/end-of-road-for-captain-brett-crozier.html]

      (3) Navy Secretary Thomas Modly fell on his sword
      [https://ktemoc.blogspot.com/2020/04/navy-secretary-thomas-modly-fell-on-his.html]

      “We are not at war,” Crozier wrote in the March 30 letter. “Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — our Sailors.”

      The Pentagon throws Navy Capt. Brett Crozier under the bus one last time
      [https://taskandpurpose.com/news/pentagon-blames-brett-crozier/]

      Delete
    2. Wakakakakaka…

      The Oz knows what they r buying!

      Blurred mfer, goes to check the history of the HMAS Melbourne (R21), a Majestic-class light aircraft carrier operated by the Royal Australian Navy from 1955 until 1982, and was the third and final conventional aircraft carrier to serve in the RAN.

      Sensible purchase or just pure blurry extravaganza showcasing by the RAN?

      BTW, Melbourne was the only Commonwealth naval vessel to sink two friendly warships in peacetime collisions.

      Delete
  2. A blurred old moneyed mfer, trying its know-nothing fart on nuclear sub operation!

    "Submarines operate in the most unforgiving environment on earth - the immense pressure underwater."

    Precisely bcoz of the physical demands of its operating environment, nuclear subs r designed to stand up to the highest stress criteria.

    Thus far NONE of the any nuclear subs roaming the ocean floors of the world have encountered subpar design failures.

    Wakakakaka…

    Thus, do u know how many nuclear sub accidents that r caused by human operators in modern time?

    The most cruelsome tragedy of the Russian nuclear-powered Project 949A Antey submarine Kursk sank in an accident on 12 August 2000 in the Barents Sea, during the first major Russian naval exercise in more than ten years, and all 118 personnel on board were killed.

    On 26 July 2002, almost two years later, the government commission and Russia's Prosecutor General, Vladimir Ustinov, announced that the hydrogen peroxide fuel in the dummy torpedo inside the fourth torpedo launcher set off the initial explosion that sank Kursk.

    Now finally the truth has come out. A retired Russian admiral has alleged that the 2000 Kursk submarine disaster was caused by a collision with a NATO sub which inadvertently bumped into the Kursk while shadowing it at close distance.

    ReplyDelete