OT: Seven US aircraft carriers have been sunk in the past 30 years.

[RN7]

In 2006 the Chinese Navy Song Class diesel-electric submarine famously reached within striking distance of the USS Kitty Hawk undetected. However in naval exercises a total of seven US Navy aircraft carriers have reportedly been sunk by non-nuclear submarines.

1981: USS Eisenhower was sunk in NATO exercises in the Atlantic Ocean by Royal Canadian Navy Porpoise Class diesel-electric submarine built in Britain in the 1960's, and wasn't even detected by US Navy ASW assets.

1981: During the same exercise the USS Forrestal was also sunk by an unidentified diesel-electric submarine, probably a British Royal Navy submarine.

1989: USS America sunk in the Atlantic Ocean by Dutch Navy Zwaardvis Class diesel-electric submarine.

1996: USS Independence sunk by the Chilean Navy German built Type-209 Class diesel-electric class submarine in the Pacific Ocean.

1999: USS Theodore Roosevelt sunk by the Dutch Navy Walrus Class diesel-electric submarine in the Atlantic Ocean.

2003: Unidentified US Navy aircraft carrier sunk by two Royal Australian Navy Collins Class diesel-electric submarines in the Pacific Ocean.

2005: USS Ronald Reagan sank by Swedish Navy Gotland Class AIP submarine in the Pacific Ocean.

Many other US Navy ships have also been sunk in exercises by non-nuclear submarines. In 1999 the Dutch submarine that sank the USS Theodore Roosevelt also sank the exercise command ship USS Mount Whitney, a cruiser, several destroyers and the Los Angeles Class nuclear attack submarine USS Boise. In 2000 a Royal Australian Navy Collins Class diesel-electric submarine almost sank the USS Abraham Lincoln, and sank two US Navy nuclear attack submarines in the Pacific Ocean. In 2001 another Australian Collins Class HMAS Waller sank two US Navy assault ships in the Pacific, and during the same exercise a Chilean Navy submarine sank the Los Angeles Class nuclear attack submarine USS Montpelier twice. In 2002 another Australian Collins Class HMAS Sheehan hunted down and sank the Los Angeles Class USS Olympia, while in 2003 two Australian Collins Class sank two US Navy nuclear attack submarines and an unidentified aircraft carrier.

Although such losses were only in exercises and its possible that operational restraints were put on US naval forces during such exercises it highlights the fact that US Navy carrier battlegroups could be vulnerable to submarine attack. During the Cold War the principle objective of the Soviet Navy was to eliminate US naval air superiority. The principle means of doing that was through Soviet nuclear submarines which were the Soviet Union's primary naval asset, and followed/shadowed US aircraft carriers and trained to destroy them through conventional or nuclear means in wartime. In the Twilight 2000 timeline this could have led to huge American naval losses.

[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.

[Targan]

No person or war machine is invulnerable.

[headquarters]

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.

Excercises - has a starting time and and an endex. Within that time the players act according to orders and scenario. If someone neglected to "stand to"and got hit - thats the way it goes...

[RN7]

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.

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.

[RN7]

Also in 1983 the Canadian submarine HMCS Okanagan reached within a kilometre of the USS Kitty Hawk and prepped itself for torpedo launch before sneaking away unnoticed through the carriers destroyer escort screen.

In 1996 the Canadian submarine HMCS Onandaga also beat the USS Hartford, a nuclear submarine 30 years younger largely according to its commander because his crew had been together for two years and was well trained while US submarines had a 25% annual crew turnover and 50% over two years. The HMCS Onandaga beat the USS Hartford 6 out of 7 times in exercises according to the Canadian submarine commander, and lost once because he started to get complacent about the American not picking him up during a snorkling procedure.

Closer to current times during NATO exercise 99FEX the Dutch submarine Walrus launched two successful simulated attacks on the USS Theodore Roosevelt, as well sinking its escorts and a nuclear submarine and sneaked away undamaged. The crew of the Walrus even had T-shirts printed with a walrus impaling the Roosevelt.

[Canadian Army]

Royal Canadian Navy Porpoise Class diesel-electric submarine

Got this from Wikipedia:

The Oberon class was a 27-boat class of British-built diesel-electric submarines based on the successful British Porpoise-class submarine.

Thirteen were constructed for the Royal Navy, while another fourteen were built and exported to other countries' navies: six to the Royal Australian Navy, three to the Royal Canadian Navy with an additional two British submarines later transferred, three to the Brazilian Navy, and two to the Chilean Navy.

The Oberon class was arguably the best conventional submarine class of its time, with an astonishing reputation for quietness that allowed it to exist into the 21st century until replaced by newer classes such as the Collins and Victoria classes in Australia and Canada respectively.

The Oberon class was briefly succeeded in RN service by the Upholder-class submarine. The Upholder-class submarines were later upgraded and sold to the Canadian Forces after refit as the Victoria class, again replacing Oberons.

The Australian Oberons were replaced by the six Collins-class submarines.

The two Chilean Oberons were replaced by the Scorpène-class submarines O'Higgins and Carrera.

The Brazilian Oberons were replaced by Type 209 submarines.

[Cdnwolf]

http://www.projectojibwa.ca/

And one of the Canadian ones will be only 50 miles away from me as museum.

[RN7]

Originally Posted by Canadian Army

Got this from Wikipedia:
The Oberon class was arguably the best conventional submarine class of its time, with an astonishing reputation for quietness that allowed it to exist into the 21st century until replaced by newer classes such as the Collins and Victoria classes in Australia and Canada respectively.

They were excellent submarines and based on a German design of WW2, and only surpassed in quietness by current generation diesel-electric/AIP submarines.

The Canadian submarine service is like its Australian and British cousins a very professional and well trained service, and the Australian and Canadian submarines have caused the US Navy huge problems in exercises. But other navies have also frequently got the better of the US Navy ASW forces and nuclear submarines; Chileans, Dutch, Japanese and Swedish. Even a Pakistani Navy submarine approached a US Navy amphibious group in the Arabian Sea in 2001. It was detected by one of the amphibious groups escorts; a Canadian frigate, and escorted away from the area.

There seems to be a bit of a hubris problem within the US Navy that stems from the fact that the US Navy is the most powerful and the most advanced and that no one else can challenge it, when in fact the reality is that they can and frequently do. In naval aviation, the strategic use of nuclear submarines and possibly anti-air warfare the US Navy is the unquestioned leader, but in ASW and mine detection capabilities the Americans are by no means the leader of the pack, and this fact has frequently been commentated on by US naval commanders since the First Gulf War.

The all nuclear submarine fleet has many advantages in range, speed and firepower, but its superiority can be countered in shallow waters or even in the open ocean by a willy diesel submarine commander with a well trained crew. During NATO exercises European submarine commanders were frequently more worried about colliding under water with big US Navy nuclear submarines than being detected, because the US submarines seemed to be blind to their presence until they hit one of them.

Even the notion that US Navy nuclear submarines are the quietest nuclear submarines in the world would be seriously questioned by current generation Russian nuclear submarines, who have enjoyed at least a parity in noise levels with American submarines since the Victor III Class was introduced in the mid-1980's. Russian under-water detection technology is also very advanced.

Part of the problem with the American's is that their navy is so big and covers so many roles that a smaller professional navy can specialise more. Even the US Navy submarine service is huge by any standard. However US submarines have got the better of quieter diesel submarines when a commander operates outside the box.

[Nexus]

In 1974 a Soviet submarine was tasked to track a USN carrier and its escorts. “Three days we followed the carrier,” navigator Pavel Borodulkin described.
Borodulkin said that the sub spent much of the time at a depth of 120 feet. He also stated that soon after the photo (below) was taken, the US Navy Destroyers escorting the carriers raced at him and they crash-dived.



That wasn’t the only USN carrier the Soviets tailed however. In 1984 a Victor-class Soviet attack submarine K-314 shadowed the task group of USS Kitty Hawk off the Korean Peninsula in the Sea of Japan in an exercise called "Team Spirit".
The Americans lost track of the Victor and, in the dead of night, the 80,000-ton carrier actually collided with the 5,000-ton sub.
K-314 surfaced directly in front of Kitty Hawk, at the time of 22:05, too dark and too close for Kitty Hawk to see and avoid the resulting collision.

In November the same year, Illustrious, then a young vessel, was targeted by Soviet Tango-class submarine some 500 yards away, during a Royal Navy exercise off the Scottish coast.


In 2001 during an exercise in the Caribbean Sea, USS Enterprise CVN-65 had also been "sunk" by the German U-24 (Type 206 class) submarine. She fired a spread of four simulated torpedoes at the carrier...
In real circumstances, this would have resulted in a total loss.

And again the Enterprise's escort screen was successfully penetrated by U-28, also a Type 206 class submarine.




And in 2007, the Canadian submarine HMCS Corner Brook, a diesel-electric submarine of the Canadian navy, sneaked up on Illustrious during an exercise in the Atlantic. The submarine got close enough to "kill" the HMS Illustrious aircraft carrier.




And on March 2015, USS Theodore Roosevelt CVN-71 of Carrier Strike Group 12, was also "sunk" by French Submarine SNA Saphir, in a training exercise off Florida.



It was initially reported in a blogspot of the French Navy and Defense Ministry. However, the blogspot was soon removed. Censoring evidence that US carriers are not unsinkable and almighty?

https://www.rt.com/usa/238257-french...ne-us-carrier/

[Cdnwolf]

I found my copy of 2nd Fleet....

I am trying to update it to year 2000 units and changes using some old Harpoon info I still have laying around.

[TrailerParkJawa]

I still have 6th Fleet in the original box somewhere in the garage. Never did play it with any of my friends. I think the old hex and counter games are probably ancient history to today's youngins'

[Cdnwolf]

Originally Posted by TrailerParkJawa

I still have 6th Fleet in the original box somewhere in the garage. Never did play it with any of my friends. I think the old hex and counter games are probably ancient history to today's youngins'

Well with the Vassal system they put converted all the old boardgames to an online format so you can play them with people around the world. All you need is the original rules but you can find most of them in a pdf format online.