Wednesday, March 05, 2008

US Subs Equipped to Launch SEALs

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Out with ICBM's, in with the toughest special forces SOB's in the world:

The Ohio is the first of a new class of submarine created in a conversion of 1970s vessels by trading nuclear-tipped ICBMs for conventional cruise missiles and a contingent of commandos ready to be launched onto virtually any shore through rejiggered missile tubes - against conventional forces or terrorists.

...While near Guam, the SEALs conducted operations simulating an undersea launch in their submersible and a landing to assess a fictitious terrorist threat. Guam was dubbed "Backwateria" and the terrorists called the "Al-Shakur." The names of the terrorist leaders were taken from a popular TV cartoon.

The island could just as well have been Taiwan, or the shores of North Korea.
Read the whole thing as it's a good assessment of the emerging Chinese (and re-emergent Russian) naval threat and the importance of subs in the overall mission of projecting strength across the worlds oceans.

While SEALs can't take out as many people as an ICBM, they can sure create a ton of havoc in a command and control structure.

1 comment:

Zoooma said...

Good to hear that nuclear missiles have been swapped for conventional missiles. Last thing this world needs is a nuclear weapon being used. I'm actually kinda surprised Al Gore's not working for their eradication. Talk about an environmental nightmare - when it comes to Earthly devastation, just one nuke being used will make global warming seem like a paper cut... and it'll all happen in the blink of an eye, not decades from now.

Interesting about the sub tubes being used for SEAL launching. Reminds me of that WWII movie with James Garner, forget the name, where a sub is used for him to carry out an operation against the Japanese.

Anyway, this could be the last that we, the general public, will ever hear about Seals launching from sub tubes ... probably something that won't be talked about too much. Cool to know stuff like this about our military... but probably best that some things are kept quiet. Loose lips sink ships, I believe?