SS Gabrielle Giffords Christened As Navy’s First Gun-Free Warship

[ScottDLS]

All US Navy ships begin with the initials USS, not SS. This is is an old one that's been circulating for several years now...

[VoiceofReason]

If there are no guns, it's not a war ship.

It's a target...

When I was in the Navy, submarines were the targets for our ASW squadron.

[anygunanywhere]

If there are no guns, it's not a war ship.

It's a target...

When I was in the Navy, submarines were the targets for our ASW squadron.

Nice try skimmer.

[VMI77]

If there are no guns, it's not a war ship.

It's a target...

When I was in the Navy, submarines were the targets for our ASW squadron.

Nice try skimmer.

He's right though...thing is, you have to find a target before you can shoot at it. I admit, they sometimes found us rather easily once we popped up to periscope depth and radioed them a bearing.

These days the surface fleet is a bunch of floating coffins if there are ever any naval battles against the kind of enemies who have both subs and lots of cruise missiles. And a littoral is literally the worst floating death trap.

[VMI77]

All US Navy ships begin with the initials USS, not SS. This is is an old one that's been circulating for several years now...

It's on the Duffleblog so it should be obvious satire. Mabus has been SecNav and destroying the navy since 2009 so it had to be written since then.

[ScottDLS]

Weren't the P-3 squadrons pretty good at finding Soviet subs? And the Helos with the dipping sonar? When I was in the Navy the sub guys told us the only ones that ever had a chance of finding our SSBN's were our own attack boats and even that was rare. My first ship was a guided missile destroyer. Only thing our active sonar was good for was messing with whales!

[VMI77]

Weren't the P-3 squadrons pretty good at finding Soviet subs? And the Helos with the dipping sonar? When I was in the Navy the sub guys told us the only ones that ever had a chance of finding our SSBN's were our own attack boats and even that was rare. My first ship was a guided missile destroyer. Only thing our active sonar was good for was messing with whales!

Soviet nukes in the old days were notoriously noisy....I don't know about the new ones. That said, if true about the P-3s (and I have reason for skepticism), there may have been other reasons for that success that may still be classified, so I'm reluctant to mention them. Diesel boats are another story. But your active sonar wasn't just good for messing with whales, it would be a big help to any sub wanting a good fire control solution before releasing torpedoes.

All that said, the first problem is determining a sub is in the general area as opposed to somewhere in the ocean. This probably isn't the place to get into anti-sub warfare ops and I'm probably not current anyway. But I think everyone can agree that it's going to be a lot easier to detect a big ship on the surface than a submarine, since you can actually see ships on the surface. And once detected they're also going to be easier to hit. A surface battle against the Ruskies or Chicoms isn't going to be like the gun duels of WW2. The British experience in the Falklands should have been instructive but so far as I can tell seeing the "Littoral" ships being produced these days, it wasn't.

[anygunanywhere]

Weren't the P-3 squadrons pretty good at finding Soviet subs? And the Helos with the dipping sonar? When I was in the Navy the sub guys told us the only ones that ever had a chance of finding our SSBN's were our own attack boats and even that was rare. My first ship was a guided missile destroyer. Only thing our active sonar was good for was messing with whales!

My boat was one of the 640 class SSBNs. You had to get within 1000 yards of us before you could detect us with passive sonar. Attack boats were much quieter. We did an operation with the USS Los Angeles when she was on her maiden tour. She was assigned to de-louse us right after we went on alert status covering target packages. Attack boats HATED delousing boomers. During the operation we never heard her even though she started the op by coming at us bow on and going right under us down our track. At the end of the operation we detected her opening steam to her other main engine. She then hammered the throttles and cavitated going to a flank bell. She once again went user us bow on. By the time we turned around to track her she was gone. The current boomers are so quiet it is like looking for a quiet spot in the ocean. The current attack boats (USS Texas is in this class) are quieter at a full bell submerged than a Los Angeless class tied up next to a tender on shore power.

The P-3s were pretty good at finding boomers. The MAD gear easily picked up our mass. We always knew when one found us because we could hear their sonobouys hitting the water and our sonar analysis picked up distinct signatures from their turbines when they flew over us. Doppler shift in their signature. They left us alone once they saw our signature. They knew to forget what and where we were.

[anygunanywhere]

Weren't the P-3 squadrons pretty good at finding Soviet subs? And the Helos with the dipping sonar? When I was in the Navy the sub guys told us the only ones that ever had a chance of finding our SSBN's were our own attack boats and even that was rare. My first ship was a guided missile destroyer. Only thing our active sonar was good for was messing with whales!

Soviet nukes in the old days were notoriously noisy....I don't know about the new ones. That said, if true about the P-3s (and I have reason for skepticism), there may have been other reasons for that success that may still be classified, so I'm reluctant to mention them. Diesel boats are another story. But your active sonar wasn't just good for messing with whales, it would be a big help to any sub wanting a good fire control solution before releasing torpedoes.

On my first patrol we detected a soviet nuke headed home. She was doing a flank bell. She slowed down and did a crazy Ivan baffle clear and came within 1000 yards of us (fire control solution). We were rigged for ultra quiet and she never heard us. After she cleared baffles she cranked it back up and continued her way.

On another patrol there was another soviet nuke attack boat operating in our area. There was one of our attack boats tailing the soviet boat. The US attack boat exited the area and transmitted their intelligence to SUBLANT. When she went back down from periscope depth and went to a flank bell to find the soviet she ran into an unmarked undersea mountain. She had to limp to Sardinia for temporary repairs and then back to the US on the surface. Years later I found out that a coworker was on that boat when she hit the mountain. Small world.

[oohrah]

This discussion is fascinating for me. As an aero engineer in my company, I managed several ASW P-3 modification programs, including Block Mod Upgrade (BMUP). I enjoyed talking to the crews and learning about some of their ops. "Hunt for Red October" has always been one of my favorite movies (I also got to meet Tom Clancy once). Carry on.

[sawdust]

Weren't the P-3 squadrons pretty good at finding Soviet subs? And the Helos with the dipping sonar? When I was in the Navy the sub guys told us the only ones that ever had a chance of finding our SSBN's were our own attack boats and even that was rare. My first ship was a guided missile destroyer. Only thing our active sonar was good for was messing with whales!

Old DASH guy here. If we could'a found 'em, we could'a nuked 'em. Big IF. Our operating range was 30+ miles out from the ship (destroyer). Our effective sonar range was maybe 5 miles. I spent my time exclusively in the Gulf of Tonkin (except for transiting), and I would think that the limited depths in that area would preclude us having to worry about the boomers to any great degree. I never had any interactions with sub guys to get their side of the story.

p.s DASH = Drone Anti Submarine Helicopter

[RetNavy]

My first ship was a guided missile destroyer. Only thing our active sonar was good for was messing with whales!

My first ship was also a DDG (Adams Class) sonar was real good at illuminating the biolumines in the Caribbean Sea.. nothing like seeing the beam sweep across the water..

[ScottDLS]

My first ship was a guided missile destroyer. Only thing our active sonar was good for was messing with whales!

My first ship was also a DDG (Adams Class) sonar was real good at illuminating the biolumines in the Caribbean Sea.. nothing like seeing the beam sweep across the water..

I was on DDG-3 USS John King. Those Adams (DDG-2) class really had cool lines...and two 5" guns were nice too.

We all wondered what happened to DDG-1

[VoiceofReason]

We messed with the Russians and they messed with us. Some dangerous games. People still believe the Cuban missile crises was as close as we came. Nuff said.

[fickman]

It would be funnier if it didn't take until the end of the article for me to realize this is a satire site. It was a little too believable.

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http://www.duffelblog.com/about?fromt=yes