Will Submarines Soon Become As Obsolete As the Battleship?

An anonymous reader writes: The United States spends $1.8 billion to build a brand new, state of the art, Virginia-class nuclear powered attack submarine. They are the backbone of the U.S. Navy and the ultimate threat to those nations who are building massive amounts of missiles to keep U.S. naval forces like aircraft carriers away from their shores — think China, Russia, Iran and various others. Sadly, the era of the submarine could be coming to an end. New types of detection technology could make the stealth capabilities of subs obsolete, just like the age of flight made the battleship into a floating museum:

"The ability of submarines to hide through quieting alone will decrease as each successive decibel of noise reduction becomes more expensive and as new detection methods mature that rely on phenomena other than sounds emanating from a submarine. These techniques include lower frequency active sonar and non-acoustic methods that detect submarine wakes or (at short ranges) bounce laser or light-emitting diode (LED) light off a submarine hull. The physics behind most of these alternative techniques has been known for decades, but was not exploited because computer processors were too slow to run the detailed models needed to see small changes in the environment caused by a quiet submarine. Today, "big data" processing enables advanced navies to run sophisticated oceanographic models in real time to exploit these detection techniques. As they become more prevalent, they could make some coastal areas too hazardous for manned submarines."

This could force submarines to stay far away from areas where they could be found. Alternately, they could evolve into something different: underwater aircraft carriers hosting drones that could strike below the surface.

Comments

Big Data

[ketomax]

How much credibility does this article lose once you put "Big Data" in there?

Re:Big Data

[Pharmboy]

Everyone knows that the military airplane became obsolete once radar was invented. Same thing here. Must be true....

Cat and mouse, as always. Stealth subs aren't a new idea (go watch Red October, one of my all time favs) and we have only scratched the surface in that area. Even in the 80s when I was in the air force, the Navy was considered the strongest leg of the Triad. That isn't likely to change soon, although the technology they use certainly will.

Re:Big Data

[circletimessquare]

None.

Like "cloud computing" is a new buzzword for an old concept, that doesn't mean the concept loses value. In fact the old concept is quite reinvigorated, the buzzword is just along for the ride.

People have an aversion to trendy buzzwords for good reason, but it's interesting how this means a little bit of smarmy style can turn your mind off from analyzing the genuine substance here. "Big data" is being used to reinvigorate a powerful tactic. Oh you don't like that buzzword? Well, the tactic is still reinvigorated.

Why have you tuned out just because you don't like a word? It makes you and your analysis shallow. Just ignore the word and move onto the substance.

Re:You sunk my battleship

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the hate on battleships? Why are they out of favor?

Effective range of a battleship cannon: 25-45 km

Effective range of a anti-ship missile: 270+ km
Effective range of an aircraft carrying an anti-ship missile: ~2000km

You do the math. Battleships are as dead as the cavalry charge.

Re:You sunk my battleship

[Dahamma]

Effective range of a Trident II nuclear missile: 6000+ miles.

Nuclear subs are not stealthy to get close their target. Nuclear subs are stealthy to be by FAR the most difficult nuclear platform to hit in a first strike, while still being able to hit targets VERY FAR AWAY.