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Originally Posted by raketenjagdpanzer
Were they on a war footing? Were they heavily prosecuting enemy contacts? Were they dropping Mk46's on every possible contact? Were they using countermeasures and screening forces? Were ASW birds constantly dropping sonobuoys?
It's easy to cry wolf at scenarios like these but to suggest we don't know what's out there or how to deal with it is...spurious.
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Unfortunately during these exercises the US Navy was on a war footing, or as close as they could get to one during an exercise.
In the case of the USS Eisenhower and USS Forrestal in 1981, they were participating in the NATO exercises Ocean Venture/Magic Sword North, the largest exercises in the US Navy's Atlantic Fleet history along with British, Canadian and US Coast Guard ships. The objective was for two carrier battle groups to transit the North Atlantic and enter the Norwegian Sea and simulate air attacks on enemy positions in waves of coordinated air attacks. An old Canadian submarine slipped through the escort screen undetected and conducted a successful simulated torpedo attack on the USS Eisenhower. Another submarine did the same to the USS Forrestal later in the exercise.
The most significant part of the exercise was the transit by the carriers of the GIUK gap. In five previous NATO exercises American carriers had always been attacked trying to transit the gaps, and US tactics were exposed as seriously flawed. In wartime it is believed that neither American carrier would have made it through the GIUK gap unharmed, and that US tactics and levels of training were inferior to their British and Canadian allies.
A US Navy officer who tried to report it to highlight aircraft carrier vulnerability to diesel-electric submarine attacks was censored by navy officials and in fact the officer was ridiculed for reporting it and it harmed his career. In Ocean venture 81 90% of first strikes were by submarines against carriers, a fact that did not sit well with US Navy aviators.