The Russian Military: Declining or Better?

[Fuchs]

deficiencies in U.S. anti-submarine warfare capabilities

Ooooold story.

Stories about ASW deficiencies are available in abundance and it affects all classic forces.

Aerial ASW is a near-impotent museum piece from WW2 that does no more than to force the hostile subs to be cautious.

Classic surface ASW with passive sonar (towed or hull mounted doesn't matter) are in peril against old SSNs and at the same time totally useless targets in face of a modern hostile SSK.

Surface ASW is potent with low frequency active sonars, but the emitters should be detached from major surface units if not even dispersed. Survival of surface units still depends on being silent, that is "slow" unless they sail; cavitation begins with the relatively small surface ship screws already at speeds well below what classic tea clippers were able to achieve.
Most if not all "modern"(-time) navies insist on the classic impressive warship basis instead of accepting the need for many small units. It's a bit reminiscent of 10+ battleship WW2 navies being forced to build 500+ sub hunters during wartime.

SSNs are fine at defeating obsolete loud other SSNs, but fail regularly even at the detection of modern hostile SSKs.

Modern SSKs are less prone to be found by other modern SSKs, but this works both ways. They're also often too slow to intercept a 15 kts cruising convoy and certainly too slow to escort it.

[carl]

The Akula is a very good sub which we already knew but this further confirms that.

If we didn't know the boat sailed from Russia, crossed the Atlantic and cruised around the Caribbean for a month, how did we know that it left and how did we know it was there for a month?

[Fuchs]

Afaik some other source suggested that the Russians were on sightseeing tour, taking enough periscope photos as souvenirs.

Periscope shot souvenirs are apparently popular among sub drivers.

[carl]

I have another question for people who know about these things. Does this mean SOSUS isn't very useful anymore?

[slapout9]

I have another question for people who know about these things. Does this mean SOSUS isn't very useful anymore?

Col. MacGregor (the Army Colonel Tank Commander) has been hired by the US Navy to basically re-do the whole underwater detection sensor network. So I think SOSUS is going to get a big upgrade so UUAV (Underwater Unmanned Attack Vehicles) can be used.

I had an article I had saved about a Soviet Missile launching sub crusing the Gulf Of Mexico undetectedI was going to post but I am not sure what I did with it but it is out there in cyber-space somewhere.

Don't never trust them Ruskies!

[AdamG]

One of the distinguishing characteristics of Vladimir Putin’s presidency has been his commitment to revitalizing Russia’s military. Putin, who has noted that Russia’s perceived weakness makes it vulnerable to external pressure and internal disruption, is pushing for increased funding to transform the Russian armed forces from the debilitated remnants inherited from the old Soviet superpower military machine into a smaller, but more modern, mobile, technologically advanced and capable twenty-first century force.

http://www.mynews13.com/content/news...cing_in_f.html

[carl]

What Putin wants may not be what Putin gets. In order to get where he says they want to go they would have to, a. overcome a demographic problem of historic magnitude, b. transform the gov into something other than a kleptocracy, c. develop an economy that can do something other than mine and sell the product and d. actually exert full control over their nation, right now they don't dare draft men from Chechnya.

None of this is to say they can't make trouble over the years. And none of it is to say we should ignore them, but Putin's dream of returning to the days of the Russian colossus will remain a dream unless things at home get fixed. My opinion anyway.