advantage. Knowing where and when an SSGN would have to approach, the U.S. sub has the ability to stay quiet and wait for the Oscar to come to it. Because of its need to obtain targeting data from the Russian RORSAT, the Oscar has to come shallow periodically to raise its satellite data link masts. This causes hull popping and mast flow noises. Thus it is entirely likely that the 688I can be guided by targeting updates via the ELF/VLF radio circuits to a point where it will be able to obtain a direct path passive sonar contact to the Oscar. This will probably occur at a distance of 10,000 to 16,000 yards.
As in the hunt for the Typhoon, the 688I must go to an extremely quiet operating routine, to remain undetected by the towed array of the Oscar. But unlike the hunt for the boomer, here time is of the essence. Potentially, the Oscar can fire its missiles once it is within range of the CVBG. This means it must be eliminated quickly and effectively. The U.S. skipper is likely to try maneuvering to a position behind the Oscar, so that any torpedo hit will strike near the propeller shafts. This is likely to pop the shaft seals, flooding the engine room of the Russian boat and hopefully sinking it. All the while the fire control technicians operating the BSY-1 system will be 'polishing the cannonball' on the firing solution to the Oscar. At 6,000 to 8,000 yards, assuming the Oscar has not yet heard them, the U.S. skipper may launch a pair of wire-guided Mk 48 ADCAPs. These are fired initially in the slow-speed setting, using the wires to guide the weapons and provide data back to the U.S. boats. The fire control technicians may even try to 'swim' the weapons under a thermal layer to mask their noise signature from the sensors of the Oscar.
Inevitably though, the Oscar hears the two Mk 48s and begins to react. It counterfires torpedoes down the bearing of the attacking Mk 48s, forcing the 688I skipper to cut the guidance wires and run for cover. Its distance lead over the Russian fish, as well as efficient maneuvering of decoys, should allow the American boat to survive. The same may not be true of the Oscar. The captain of the Russian boat tries the same evasion tactics as his American opponent, but they are probably not as effective.
As in the Typhoon example, at least one and possibly both ADCAPs are likely to hit their target. And if the desired shaft hits have occurred, then the Oscar is dead in the water. Even if only a single hit has been made, the 688I has accomplished its mission. The Oscar is badly hurt, and likely suffering from severe shock damage. It may even have to surface. In any case, it will be making horrendous amounts of flow noise and mechanical transients. The U.S. skipper may reattack and finish off the Oscar, or he may also call the carrier to give it the coordinates of the damaged missile boat. Within a very short time the carrier group could have a flock of S-3B Viking ASW aircraft and SH-60 ASW helos over the damaged Russian boat to finish it off. Much like a wounded bear being stung to death by a swarm of bees, it would die. And the American boat can now head out on another mission.
Mission #2 — Antisurface Warfare
The nineteenth-century Frenchman Jeune Ecole first codified the idea that a navy isn't the real target of maritime warfare-the real target is what navies were designed to safeguard, merchant shipping. The sea is, before all things, a highway over which nations trade. And navies were invented to protect that, first from pirates who were little more than thieves at sea, and then from foreign navies whose thievery was on a somewhat grander scale. One might say that the real role for the submarine grew from this doctrine. The first submarines were too slow to be really effective at hunting other warships but quite fast enough to seek out and kill the slower and more fragile merchant tubs that carried the things nations need: food, raw materials, manufactured goods. Since the global economy has made all countries into island nations surrounded by water, the vulnerability of international maritime trade is made greater still by the fewer, slower, larger, and massively expensive merchant vessels of today. The environmental consequences from even minor damage to a single large crude oil carrier represent yet another way in which the world as a whole can be at risk. Navies exist to protect the trade and the traders, and a threat to either is a threat to both.
Tactical Example — Holding a Choke Point (Interdiction of a Surface Action Group)
The simplest example of a choke point is a highway intersection, a relatively small area through which people from distant places must pass on their separate journeys. Just as the intersection is a convenience for merchants who build shopping centers and people who establish maritime trading centers, so it creates highly rewarding hunting grounds. In World War II, the first Japanese task group to be detected was preparing for the invasion of the Kra Peninsula and the subsequent descent on Singapore, which guards the Strait of Malacca. England spent a great deal of its history seizing and building upon such places as these, even before Alfred Thayer Mahan published his thoughts on their importance. The Falkland Islands became British property because they are conveniently close to the Straits of Magellan. Ascension Island is in the middle of the Atlantic Narrows. Malta lies close to the Straits of Sicily. Gibraltar sits on the entrance to the Mediterranean. Such was the vision of the English in the days of sail.
Ships move faster now, but the choke points remain. In these places that people must pass through, arrival time and engagement range are predictable quantities.
A lucky submarine will hug a shallow bottom. Shallow water, not uncommon in straits, generally makes life easier for a submarine, though SSNs usually like at least 600 feet/200 meters of water to operate. Given time, the submarine will sniff around, learning currents and environmental factors. The mouth of the Mediterranean is known for the treacherous mixture of warm currents and cold, making for confused sonar conditions. In other places such conditions might mitigate against a sub, but long-range detection is of less importance when you are already astride the place where others must pass.
The other side knows this, too, of course. The mere possibility that someone might be there to threaten your battle group or your crude carrier forces you to take this threat seriously. Willie Sutton robbed banks because, he said, 'That's where the money is.' Choke points are where the targets are. You can bank on it.
Let us consider the most famous submarine action in recent history: the sinking of the Argentine cruiser
In the last few days of April 1982 the Argentinean surface fleet was split into three task groups. Their plan appears to have been based on a three-pronged pincers movement against the British task force from the north, south, and west. The northern group was composed of their aircraft carrier
It is likely that national intelligence sources of the United Kingdom and their allies noticed the planned movement even before the ships raised anchor and left their harbors. And once they had sortied, it must have been fairly straightforward for the Royal Navy operations center (known as HMS
