Submarine Secrets There are and will always be, secrets kept by the military. These secrets could be about anything. I myself have always been fascinated by submarines. I always wondered why we never had a huge submarine that could carry aircraft. Heaven knows they have been proposing one for many years. What makes this even more curious is the fact that the Japanese had submarines in World War II that could store and launch up to three planes. But let’s get on with the secrets. There was a secret US program called "Advanced SEAL Delivery System" or ASDS. The purpose of this program was to develop a delivery system for SEAL commandoes using a small submarine type vehicle. Small being a relative term here. I do not know the actual size of the vehicle, but it is said to be the size of a house trailer, so I believe this would be somewhere in the 60 foot long area. It has to be very quiet, as it the term used to define submarine noise. The program fell behind target by over 6 years. How many times do we see this when the program is given to large military contractors? This in itself is bad enough, but it was supposed to cost about 525 million dollars for six units, but the government states the cost is now over 2.3 billion dollars, but in fairness the contractor says when all the bills are in, it will be a lot less. Yeah sure, but a lot more than the original price as usual. It always seems that anything that is estimated in the mid hundred millions lands up using the "B" word. Problems don't end here, the batteries that power the vehicle were not powerful enough, forcing the vehicle to surface too early. The contractor was Northrop Grumman Corporation. Many blame the government for the cost overruns and delays. They say these were caused by the Navy changing requirements and just plain expecting too much. These units can be carried by certain of our existing submarine fleet. The specs on the system were released by the Navy and are as follows: The Kursk was a Russian Nuclear submarine. It sunk under mysterious circumstances. There are many different stories about the sinking of this boat. At first, there were claims a foreign sub had somehow sunk the Kursk. It was thought the two boats collided. The first Russian warship on the scene was the Peter the Great. Several stories persisted Peter the Great had launched a cruise missile in a test and it had hit the Kursk, sinking it. But there was a problem with this. The Kursk was not on the surface and the missile cited, cannot hit submerged targets. Then there was a takeoff on the cruise missile story which claimed Peter the Great was doing missile tests. The story states the ship launched missiles three times. The first two launches went fine, but the third launch sent a missile into the water with a resulting explosion and mushroom cloud. This story was given out by an unknown source and the full story can be read in the English edition of The Moscow Times. The last story might be the true one, but who knows? It states the Kursk was testing a new type of torpedo. Supposedly two civilians were aboard to conduct tests. The story goes on further to state an explosion took place aboard the Kursk, it was a torpedo, and the hull was ripped open. Western sources think the torpedo was an antisubmarine device. A lot has been said about this submarine over the years. Money was requested to update the Seawolf class of US submarines. A new acoustic system was installed on several of the subs. This required the subs to be lengthened. In 1999 the navy received funds to modify one Seawolf. This was the Jimmy Carter. The system detects noise in four areas: The Chinese navy acquired Russian submarines as a stop gap measure before building their own nuclear submarine the Type 093. The 093 is based on Russian technology and western sources compare it to the Russian Victor III. The Victor III is a deadly submarine indeed. It is very fast and very capable and has 21 inch torpedo tubes. Along with the subs, rocket powered torpedoes are said to have been purchased. These have a velocity of 200 knots, which is about five times faster than a conventional torpedo. The Chinese have gone on to build their own nuclear powered submarines. They have both the Type 093 and Type 091 nuclear subs. It took them 20 years to develop their first one, the Type 091 which was completed in 1974. Two Type 093s are in service with four more being added any day. Nuclear subs are not as far ahead of the newer conventional subs anymore and the Gotland class submarine built in Sweden proves this. It is so silent as to be almost undetectable. In war games they went up to a U.S. carrier undetected and sank it. They can stay submerged for weeks and only need a relatively small crew. They are not nearly as well armed as a nuclear submarine but do have 6 torpedo tubes and 48 mines. They are a defensive vehicle. They are far cheaper than any of our submarines and it has been suggested conventional submarines have advanced to the point we should use some of them in our navy to save money. I say if we start to build them the price will go way up and eventually if the contractors have their way we will pay as much as we do for a nuclear powered submarine.
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