The Gun Counter

Got this in the email today. Companion pieces for the USS Guncounter?

Frankly, I'm offended that they think I'd settle for a Victor III.

Hell, I'd tow THREE (buy 2, get 1 free) over for the salvage rates on all that titanium and steel!!!

They'd make nice luxury houseboats. Own power source, hook the drive shafts up to generators and sell excess power. Put in some extra shielding to keep the kids from glowing in the dark. Limited access would make for easier security.

What would we do with the missile hatches?

Dub_James wrote:What would we do with the missile hatches?

Launch missiles at pirates and pirate hide outs. Well we could turn one of them into the world's largest beer cooler, but the rest stay on active duty.

Hmmm, the line drawing is an Oscar class SSGN, and the picture is a Victor III class. I smell a bait a switch coming on. I want my Typhoon!

I'm surprised some Colombians haven't already snapped them up for running drugs. You could put a LOT of pot and weed on one of those things. HOWEVER, they'd stand a VERY good chance of being taken out by a US sub once detected and the Russians said they sold it to someone down in Colombia, who is not responding to anything the anti-sub US forces are doing to try and drive them to the surface. You know, like dropping sonobuoys right on top of them, which would be active-pinging them, lighting them up like spotlights in the night.

Something like that would make some GREAT live-training for the lucky crews who get to fire a live ADCAP against a real submerged target. Staying on the surface the whole time (what I'd do until I was SURE all the bilge pumps and other mechanics worked 100% of the time) would be the smart thing to do, but you KNOW once detected, they'd be catching MUCH MORE scrutiny than any other item in those waters at that time. And as they got closer to US shores, you can GUARANTEE a MUCH MORE aggressive US Navy response as they continued to not respond or surface (*IF* they remained underwater). The most dangerous posture they could take would be to remain submerged and silent - and it's a given they don't have a GERTRUDE for close range underwater discussions.

Besides, running on the surface would be the ONLY way they'd get anywhere 'cause anyone qualified to be on a sub of that type KNOWS how foolish/dangerous/suicidal it would be to approach the US coast in something like that submerged. At least on the surface, they (SOME) might have the opportunity to abandon ship and survive (or perhaps surrender rather than submerge and DIE), unlike if they were submerged.

Unfortunately, we don't have the early detection ability in the Gulf of Mexico that we have in other parts of the world. And if the drug smugglers got ahold of one of the later class of soviet subs, they are extremely hard to locate using passive sonar. Secondly, the US Navy isn't quite as good as it used to be at prosecuting subs since they switched more towards maritime patrol and interdiction missions after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

So, unless the sub skipper was doing stupid things like coming up to periscope depth and sticking things out of the water that could be detected by FLIR/IRDS or Radar, they could very well make a trip or two all the way to coastal waters without detection. Then they would be very vulnerable as there are few channels deep enough to let a sub slip close enough to shore to unload so they would have to transfer the drugs to smaller boats. That would be the most likely time of detection. Once detected, they could submerge again and disappear before any type of anti-sub forces could get to the area with a live weapon.

Is there room for a sub under a shipping lane? (or is that already monitored?)