I publish on subs, other military/naval, nuclear weapons & political issues. Aussie sub changes are slow: talk since 2009 rather than actual new subs. The Collins LOTE 2028-2040 might help Australia's sub availability temporarily. UUVs help. POTUS 2031 may cancel AUKUS Virginia offer due to USN advice it needs all its SSNs through to the 2040s to face China & Russia. US has sacrificed Virginia production pace in favour of Columbia SSBN production. Shawn C is an excellent contributor.
September 2, 2014
James Holmes - A Strategy for Submarines
A Virginia class SSN looking dark and dangerous.
The Virginia class SSN, at up to 8,000 tons, is slightly longer than the Los Angeles and Seawolf SSNs but much smaller than the four SSBNs in the diagram.
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James Holmes, the world's premier academic expert on submarines and Professor of Strategy at the US Naval War College has written an excellent 6 page article full of interesting insights on submarines in the September-October edition of National Interest-
[just one insight of many] "Surface vessels navigate across what amounts to a featureless plain, whereas submarines roam within a vast, three-dimensional column of water. This flexibility opens up tactical and operational vistas for submarine skippers that are unavailable to their surface brethren, whose ships lumber around in (mostly) plain sight. On the other hand, sub crews have to contend with terrain when operating in shallow water. Undersea warfare resembles land warfare in that sense. Soldiers work around mountains, valleys and defiles. Submariners must take account of the sea floor’s uneven if not shifting topography—in the near-shore environment in particular."
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