Nice links, Joe

The US has tried to maintain its advantage in submarines since the end of the Cold War despite the draw-down in production of big hunter-killers like the Seawolf. And as silly as this sounds, controlling submarine proliferation may be as big a concern for the US in the future as controlling the proliferation of WMDs, especially as states come to see the submarine as a viable defense against our aircraft carriers.

"Their stealthiness and ability to work undetected in coastal areas has moved their role beyond just anti-shipping and ballistic missile launch. Covert land attack, intelligence gathering, and special operations are being added to their repetoire"

Added? They've been doing all that since at least the 60's.

ive been thinking a lot about north korea this morning. something about the threat of an american city, or any city in the world, being destroyed in a terrorist denotated nuclear blast has just been sticking in my mind. this was all triggered by watching stephanopoulous this morning.

ive been mulling over all the options ive come across for dealing with the north korean crisis. im not going to go over them again here and now, but rather im wondering if anyone has more insight into one option that i dont know enough about...

ive been thinking about low yield nukes in relation to the north korean artillery problem. this connects to the post above because i would assume these weapons would be launched from submarines right up close to the north korean coast. the sticking point for any successful military operation against the north koreans is that this is a hostage situation. south korea is the hostage. more specifically seoul. the massed artillery right near the dmz is the gun to the head of the south korean capitol.

so what ive been wanting to know more about is whether the use of low yield nukes, in whatever the required numbers would be, would significantly slant the outcome of a war against north korea as it relates to the survival of seoul.

id also like to know what the environmental impact of low yield nuke use is. its hard to find objective information on such a charged subject when searching online. so if anyone knows more about this itd be great to hear about it.

Part of the question for fallout is the ground burst vs. air-burst question. Assuming really well dug-in artillery, it has to be a ground shot. Which means all kinds of fallout headed into the air, and over Seoul (remember, it's within artillery range).

Which kind of defeats the purpose. Probably not a viable first-strike option.

Sarge,

Yes, subs have been doing that for a while, occasionally, at a low level. What they haven't been is a primary platform for large-scale capabilities in these areas. It's one thing to snoop around underwater, another to launch swarms of stealthy air and sea-based remote-control vehicles and serve as the hub for their transmissions back. It's one thing to pick up the occasional spy or SEAL team, quite another to insert a force of 5-8 full A-teams and serve as their primary source of precision strike support. Etc.

So no, it's not unprecedented. But it is a significant set of changes that adds a new set of Tier-1 roles. I've modified the wording slightly to reflect this distinction.

thanx joe.

any thoughts on viable solutions to the artillery problem?

the fate of seoul is the only piece of the crisis which im still stuck on in my thoughts about nk.

i still like the "not-quite-war" war planning approach insta was blogging about recently, but it feels like its lacking a few somethings.

The answer to the NK artillery problem is simple but difficult.

Keep squeezing the Norks economically with pressure short of that for which the Norks might go to war. Now the Norks do not want to go to war. They very much do not want to go to war. It would be the end of their system. Yet their system depends on the threats of war for internal stability and external power.

So it is a delicate game. As long as their economy declines at a slow rate - they have time to adjust to their pain - we can probably keep up the pressure until their whole system falls apart. Once the trains stop running military adventure of any significant kind is out of the question for them.

The sad thing about this strategy is the suffering of the people.

the problem with this strategy is that it may not work on its own. i do think it is one common sense component of a broader approach, but i was asking specifically whether there are any direct options or ideas for defending seoul and taking out the artillery pointed at it.

The one thing I'm interested in seeing, if and when the North ever does get around to invading, is how well those tunnels work out. They've got hundreds of tunnels running under the DMZ into the south, big enough to drive trucks through, and I'd like to see how they're employed and to what extent.

But I doubt the North will ever invade nor will it drop a nuke somewhere. They're more interested in scaring concessions out of people than doing anything drastic. In fact, I think everyone oughtta just call their bluff and tell them to piss off.

We're building the wrong subs! The Los Angeles class was superceded (whatever) by the improved LA class, then Seawolf, and about to be produced, the NSSN (New ssn?) But these are all really big boats. Then navy is insisting on these huge weapons loadouts so the can do land attack and its just rediculous. Our attack subs are aproaching 10,000 tons! Seawolf carries 50 weapons (torpedos and surface attack missiles both lauched from torpedo tubes)!!
My point is that this is rediculous. Face it, are submarines really needed for land attack? Doesnt a b-52 do this just as effectively??
I think we need a new attack submarines that carry a minimal weapons loadout of maybe 8 torpedoes in a hull thats as fast and quiet but under 3000 tons. Tonnage does cost money, and a smaller sub will undoubtedly be much cheaper then a larger one. also smaller subs are harder to detect. And they are more maneuverable in the litoral (coastal) waters that we might expect to fight in. Consider also the falklands war. British submarine arrives, fires two torpedoes sinking the belgrano, argintinean navy spends the rest of the war in port.
When you consider the need to have at least 2 attack submarines with each carrier group and more patroling the entire worlds oceans its clear we need new subs that are as mission capable but cheaper to construct then its clear that we must make choices about submarine capabililty more carefully.