SUBMARINE SUBMERGE HOW TO
Too expensive a boat is a bad boat.įactoring in all of this, here's how to rate history's worst submarines. Here again, the credibility of a nation's bareknuckles diplomacy could turn on innate features of submarines. SSBN programs could crowd out other shipbuilding priorities, leaving behind boutique navies comprising too few assets for commanders or statesmen to risk in battle. and Royal navies are struggling with the cost of fielding replacements to their Trident SSBNs. Overall fleet numbers may suffer for the sake of undersea warfare.Īnd indeed, at present the U.S. Money spent on nuclear-powered attack or ballistic-missile subs (SSNs and SSBNs, respectively) is money that can't be spent on surface combatants, amphibious-assault ships, and other workhorse platforms. No one does an antagonist's bidding at gunpoint if the gunman's sidearm appears rusty or his hand quavers.Ī sad-sack boat's performance, then, can detract from a navy's renown for prowess beneath the waves-undermining national leaders' efforts to deter or compel rivals.Īnd lastly, building submarines, of the nuclear-powered variety in particular, imposes heavy opportunity costs on a navy. In all likelihood, that is, an adversary who doubts another's physical capacity or resolve to follow through on a threat will not be deterred. Henry Kissinger observes that deterrence is a product not just of Clausewitzian strength but of an adversary's belief in that strength. Worse still, an ineffective submarine can actually subtract from its navy's strategic efficacy.
Its combat power misapplied, it degenerates into a wasting asset.Įither inert materiel or inert people, it seems, reduce a boat's real-life combat power-regardless of how impressive its technical specifications look in Jane's Fighting Ships. If top leaders embrace methods that defy tactical reality, they can negate much of a submarine's potential. Officialdom rewards officers who comply with established practices while punishing those who flout routine. Navies are bureaucracies, and they shape minds. ( You Might Also Like: Five Chinese Weapons of War India Should Fear)ĭespite submariners' penchant for independence, though, higher-ups can handicap their performance indirectly. A sub not so blessed is apt to run afoul of hard luck-or worse. A boat blessed with a skilled, aggressive commander like Mush Morton or Eugene Fluckey is an effective boat. In effect a boat takes on the personality of its skipper.
SUBMARINE SUBMERGE FREE
Subs operate largely independently, free of micromanagement from on high. Senior leadership is crucial to the silent service, even more than in surface fleets. The hull provides a home and sustains life, while the mariners manning the hull provide seamanship and upkeep and fight the ship when need be. The relationship between man and materiel is symbiotic. There's a good reason a ship, its crew, and its commander are all known by the ship's name.
Or, conversely, a submarine boasting the latest in technological wizardry accomplishes little if handled by an incompetent or apathetic crew.
Skill and élan go only so far toward overcoming a material deficit.
0 kommentar(er)
