asulaima@udenva.cair.du.edu (SULAIMAN) (05/22/89)
From: asulaima@udenva.cair.du.edu (SULAIMAN) There was a discussion going on earlier this month abouth the last sub attack and sub warfare since WWII. While talking to an acquaintance I recalled that in the 1971 Indo-Pak war the Pakistani submarine PNS Ghazi was sunk by an Indian Frigate. As I recall Ghazi was trying to torpedo what appeared to be INS Vikrant the Indian carrier. I don't recall the full details but it brings out the point that in a lot of little wars the little navies of the world might have seen some action. Israel and Egypt both have a small conventional sub force. I wonder if they have seen action. There was some flaming of the Argentinian Navy decision to keep their carrier in port. However it seems that the sea state around Falklands would make a throughdeck carrier operation practically impossible. The Brits using their jump jets(Harriers) don't face the same landing problems as on more conventional carriers in bad weather. Something for the CVN fans to think about. I think during the war some RN official pointed that out to their US counterparts who were using the Brit success with their "little" carriers to push their "super" carriers. Comments. Back to subs. How good is ASW warfare? There was a report about 2 years ago that said that in a naval exercise a Los Angeles class put 6 torps into the Nimitz! Incidently the ref's said that Nimitz efficiency was reduced only by 20% and let the CV run. Also a while back there was a story in Newsweek(sorry about my specificness :-) which dealt with the topic of Supercarriers and their need. It mentioned a sub commander who keeps snapshots of CV's in his periscope fire sights. Apparently he has an impressive collection. The Swedes are not slouches as far as ASW but they keep on having such problems with Sov subs that they cannot raise. I'm sure there intention is not to sink one but still I would think that they would have had more success at finding Sov subs in their waters. These bring me to my point. Are attack subs really that good now? Are surface vessels just targets to the modern sub threat. There has been some extensive discussion of sub defenses and modern protection for subs but it appaears that sub detection technology has remained basically the same since WWII with only minor improvements. A discussion regarding the detection and follow up techniques might be interesting. Also how are these naval exercises evaluated in terms of mock combat? Does anyone know recent or past score? Ameer Z. Sulaiman.
jrll@Portia.stanford.edu (john ralls) (05/23/89)
From: john ralls <jrll@Portia.stanford.edu> >asulaima@udenva.cair.du.edu (SULAIMAN) writes: >Back to subs. How good is ASW warfare? There was a report about 2 years ago >that said that in a naval exercise a Los Angeles class put 6 torps into the >Nimitz! Surface ASW is an oxymoron. When on a med deployment on USS Snook (SSN-592), since decommissioned, we got two green flares over Nimitz's bow, then went less shallow (Snook *couldn't* go deep!) and ran at flank to a couple miles outside the screen. We popped up the UHF mast just in time to hear the CVBG commander screaming "FIND THAT F***ing SUBMARINE" over pri-tac. Most entertaining for the watch section. John
allen%codon1.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Edward Allen;345 Mulford;x2-9025) (06/01/89)
From: allen%codon1.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Edward Allen;345 Mulford;x2-9025)
Regarding the report from a practice wargame in which the Nimitz took six
torps and was claimed by the refs to only be impeded 20%, I don't know if
the particular incident is true, but it fits with what I've read on Navy
wargames. Specifically there was a recent article in one of the civilian
wargame magazines about how people who design entertainment wargames have
fared when going to work for the government on official "training"
wargames. The impression they got was that whenever apparent realism
conflicted with standard military dogma, oops, I should say doctrine,
realism got short shrift. For example, it was a rule in any game designed
for the Navy that U.S. CVNs are unsinkable, period. This rule is
patently ridiculous, but the powers that be want it that way because
they'd look bad if our carriers tended to get lost in their games. I
expect such reasoning was at work in the case of the Nimitz ruling you
cite. Another example was the Firefight game designed by SPI for the Army
and public release. Many of the unrealistic features in that game are
there specifically because the Army wants its planned responses to be
simulated even when they conflict with reality. For one example, the
designer did a terrain analysis of the area of Europe in which a lot of
our Army would potentially be fighting and as a result put in a lot of
brushy terrain on the map, which had the effect of cutting the length of
lines of sight to typically 500 to 1000 meters over much of the area. The
Army guys involved with development made him remove the brush because it
would make ATGMs less useful, and part of the Army's intent was to show
their doctrinal point of ATGMs dominating the battlefield when opposed by
large columns of Soviet tanks.
If this is how the military runs its exercises and simulations in
general, its pretty scary. You're going to teach a lot of wrong and
dangerous things if the whole point of the exercise becomes to reinforce
preconceived ideas, and not work towards the truth wherever possible.
Ed Allen (allen@enzyme.berkeley.edu)ljw@cbnewsl.ATT.COM (les.j.wu) (06/03/89)
From: ljw@cbnewsl.ATT.COM (les.j.wu) In article <7017@cbnews.ATT.COM>, allen%codon1.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Edward Allen;345 Mulford;x2-9025) writes: > > > From: allen%codon1.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Edward Allen;345 Mulford;x2-9025) > > The impression they got was that whenever apparent realism > conflicted with standard military dogma, oops, I should say doctrine, > realism got short shrift. For example, it was a rule in any game designed > for the Navy that U.S. CVNs are unsinkable, period. This rule is > patently ridiculous, but the powers that be want it that way because > they'd look bad if our carriers tended to get lost in their games. If I recall, the Japanese did something like this in their table top maneuvers for the Midway operation. I'm sure _Miracle at Midway_ has more info on this. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Les J. Wu AT&T Bell Laboratories (UUCP) att!whuxr!ljw One Whippany Road (arpa) ljw%whuxr@research.att.com WH 14A-260 Whippany, NJ 07981 *** STANDARD DISCLAIMERS APPLY *** Tel: (201)386-3495 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
styer%pyr@gatech.edu (Eugene Styer) (06/06/89)
From: styer%pyr@gatech.edu (Eugene Styer) In article <7098@cbnews.ATT.COM> ljw@cbnewsl.ATT.COM (les.j.wu) writes: >If I recall, the Japanese did something like this in their table top >maneuvers for the Midway operation. I'm sure _Miracle at Midway_ >has more info on this. I have a copy of the book on Midway by Fuchida, who wrote up the Japanese report on the battle. Apparently the first ruling was that they lost several carriers, the second ruling was they lost one carrier, then that was downgraded to `damaged'. Overall a very interesting book (when I get it back from a friend). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Eugene Styer Ga. Tech Box 32036 Georgia Insitute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332 (404)-872-9185 styer@gitpyr.gatech.edu