Thread 64216033

Why do they decommission SSNs instead of just hanging them up in mothball?

Ohios are going to start being decommissioned in 3 years despite being wildly superior to just about anything any other nation has ever fielded and it seems such a shameful waste. They're very expensive, very difficult to build, highly capable even still. Why not just drain the fluids, remove the missiles and fuel rods, dry them out and stick them in hangars or bunkers for future use instead of destroy them? It costs nothing to let it sit for 30 years.

>>64216033 (OP)
Material fatigue, the super structure is made of metal that's been constantly expanding and contracting for decades. At a certain point it's just unsafe to keep refurbishing. It might be okay for a couple more decades or it could fail tomorrow dilute to micro fractures in the support structures.

metal gets old and they're expensive as fuck to maintain and I can only imagine that gets even more prohibitively expensive with age.

only so much life you can squeeze out of them, the ones slated for decommissioning are over 40 years old

ships that sit dormant for years get fucked up, you would basically have to overhaul everything. not to mention refueling and incorporating new technologies. and you gotta keep the cash flowing through the MIC

>leave a boat dormant in corrosive sea water for years, even decades
what could possibly go wrong?

>>64216092
Nah, he's suggesting you take it out of the water, still retarded though

>Why not just drain the fluids, remove the missiles and fuel rods, dry them out and stick them in hangars or bunkers for future use instead of destroy them?

>>64216033 (OP)
>Why not just drain the fluids, remove the missiles and fuel rods, dry them out and stick them in hangars or bunkers for future use
>costs nothing
lol

>>64216104
Costs nothing to sit, not to process. Learn to read.

>>64216096
Still, they wouldn't transport it far enough away that the salt air and sea spray isn't a factor

>>64216107
It costs whatever yard is hosting the boat a space that could be used for repair or refit

>>64216119
Which is fuck all compared to the $6,000,000,000 it costs to build a new sub.

>>64216125
sure, the boat sitting there doesnt cost a lot. its getting it back in service that makes it not worth it

Well, for a start there's fucking nuclear reactor in there which through a combination of thermal fluctuations, vibrations, corrosion, radiation embrittlement, etc, is no longer really safe to keep going. So that's something like a third of the sub (and not the cheap third) you'd have to carve out and re-build from scratch. And then you're left with a badly worn-out submarine with a brand new reactor, that's you're shoving right into mothball. And doing it will not just cost a not inconsiderable chunk of the price for an entirely new sub, it's also going to tie up dockyard and manufacturing capacity that could be making an entirely new sub or maintain less worn out ones for a large chunk of the time it'd take to make an entirely new submarine. With such facilities being in short supply, this means that unless you take the savings (compared to just getting a new submarine) and blow them on upgrading such infrastructure then the end result of it all will be that your active submarine fleet will end up older and less well maintained.
Etc.
Also, putting shit into mothball suggests you plan to take them out again if shit hits the fan. Which would require a bunch of extra crews, that you have to somehow keep trained and ready despite not having a bunch of extra in-service submarines for them to man. You'll also have to keep paying them so they don't just fuck off to gainful employment elsewhere where their submarines skills will deteriorate.

>>64216139
>Which would require a bunch of extra crews
We have gold crews and blue crews already for every boat, and a boat can run with 2/3 of a crew. There are more than enough men in active service to spread thinner in that event.

>>64216150
>We have gold crews and blue crews already for every boat
you sure about that?

>>64216125
The new sub which will be substantially more capable than the 30+ year old one you have to spend money reactivating and rearming, assuming it's still even compatible with your new weapon stocks

>>64216033 (OP)
>Why not just drain the fluids, remove the missiles and fuel rods, dry them out and stick them in hangars or bunkers for future use instead of destroy them?
Sounds like a very Soviet solution. Has you checked up on the Buran lately? Yeah.

>Let some fillipino pirate "capture" one/Sell it to some other asian
>Have them deal with china shadow fleet

>>64216159
For SSNs and SSBNs yes.

>>64216179
>substantially more capable
India and China can't even stay at sea for 2 weeks. They are more than 30 years out of date already. Yes, an Ohio 30 years from now will still be more than a match for anyone except maybe future France or UK.

>>64216182
US military sites don't let in 50 years worth of drunken hooligans throwing rocks at expensive things.

>>64216225
>Yes, an Ohio 30 years from now will still be more than a match for anyone except maybe future France or UK.
Ohios aren't SSNs, you retard

>>64216228
All the more reason they would not be irrelevant in 30 years. Their job is to hide and launch.

Because they want to increase and maintain their submarine building capabilities.
If you stop scrapping and building them then the next government says we have enough for 8 years, kills the talent, and thus kills all manufacturing of the type reducing readiness

>>64216033 (OP)
The piping of the reactor plant, which is a grade of stainless steel, would rust. This would not only make it structurally unsound, it would interfere with coolant flow and increase shutdown radiation levels from the rust particles becoming activated by fission.

>>64216033 (OP)
>Why do they decommission SSNs instead of just hanging them up in mothball?
>Ohios are going to start being decommissioned in 3 years despite being wildly superior to just about anything any other nation has ever fielded and it seems such a shameful waste. They're very expensive, very difficult to build, highly capable even still. Why not just drain the fluids, remove the missiles and fuel rods, dry them out and stick them in hangars or bunkers for future use instead of destroy them?

>>64216315
Submarines arent ships, they are boats.

I don't know if they're small enough to make it up the Saint Lawrence sea way to the great lakes, but if they are they could be mothballed in fresh water instead of salt water, which does reduce how quickly they would go bad. Museum ships in fresh water have longer times between drydocking for a reason.

>>64216150
While the realities of war can mean that ships are left with a lot less than an ideal crew complement, and crews may be left with badly insufficient opportunities for R&R, having such a situation be an intentional part of your plan A is... quite something.

There's also the issue of commonality. If you've got multiple different generations of ships then not only do you have to keep an entire supply chain of specialized equipment on hand, but also entire crews that know how to operate those vessels and work on them.

>>64216233
>All the more reason they would not be irrelevant in 30 years. Their job is to hide and launch.
With age subs get noisier, and with time enemy sonar tech gets better. If the enemy you imagine 30 years from now can't find a by then sixty or seventy year old sub... then the entire idea of keeping old submarine sin reserve will be nothing but a monumental waste of money (your plan ain't gonna be cheap, even the way the navy counts it), because such an inept enemy shouldn't require the quick bolster of numbers that is the point of taking things out of mothball.

>>64216338
That'll slow the ageing of some parts. It'll do fuck all for, for example, the reactor.

>>64216033 (OP)
SUBSAFE
We haven't lost a sub since the 60s, I imagine the navy would like to keep it that way

>>64216033 (OP)
What about just giving them to a friendly but poor nation as a "take them if you want some and are willing to deal with their BS"?
I vote for Philippines, just so we can see them fuck with the Chinese over their territorial waters nonsense

>>64216880
Flips don't have experience with reactors nor the money to keep them running and armed, as well as the previously mentioned fatigue issues

>>64216228
Where did I say they were?

Do you somehow think being invisible is "attacking?"

>>64216897
Is there really a problem with the "they're your problem now, have fun" attitude? Sure, it's a bit of a white elephant, but doing their due diligence on whether they can afford it is their responsibility

>>64216033 (OP)
You sort of can but only with really small coastal subs.

Those tiny little Nork subs Iran uses are small enough that they could be berthed inside what amounts to a little sub pen with a lift when not in use and the waters they operate in are so shallow that stress isn't a major issue. Something like that could probably be refurbished indefinitely.

The problem is those subs are almost useless outside their very narrow role and are so simple and cheap to make (Vietnam and Cuba have made them in kit form) that the facilities to keep them 'drydocked' when not in use would cost more to maintain than just building a new one.

If you wanted to go full retard and have a hundred of them then maybe there would some justifiable economy of scale in making dozens of mini drydocks/uboat pens but otherwise it isn't logical economically/industrially.

>>64217723
>(Vietnam and Cuba have made them in kit form)

Thank you /k/, you just taught me how cargo subs and littoral subs work. This thread has really opened my eyes.

>>64216119
>It costs whatever yard is hosting the boat a space that could be used for repair or refit

You would ofc use a dedicated storage site.

>>64216033 (OP)
Wouldn't SUBSAFE effectively kill this idea even if it wasn't bad? I'm guessing that program imposes lifetimes on structural components.

>>64216113
Just sail it up the Mississippi and hanger those things in Missouri.

>>64216033 (OP)
Skibbidi Ohio class

>>64220682
Uss Rizzlerwolf

>>64219848
And those are free?

>>64216033 (OP)
they should rip out the reactors and replace with German power plant and limit diving to fairly shallow and do basically picrel for another 30yrs.https://www.popsci.com/futuristic-chinese-warship-concept-is-making-waves/

>>64220775
the chinks have figured out 2005 tech, damn

>>64220775
The Leviathan and Kraken from Aerofighters Assault?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRezmV5msjQ

>>64220775
This, the US military needs to embrace nigger rigging older "outdated" equipment. Not everything needs to be the latest and greatest 6 gorrilion dollar toy

>>64220879
There's no point keeping outdated equipment around to fire multi-million dollar missiles when you barely have enough missiles to keep the modern hulls that you have supplied.

Nor is there a point building a whole bunch of new missiles designed to be really cheap to fill your trashy ancient hulls with when you could instead design air launched missiles (or glide bombs) that would do the same job better for cheaper from a more survivable and capable platform.

>>64220975
Then don't spend money on them. Just keep them in boneyards instead of scrapping them. Why don't we have a big ass mothball fleet anymore?

>>64220879
Eh, sometimes nigger-rigging stuff turns out more expensive that doing it properly. I could easily imagine such retrofitting program ending up as, or more, expensive than an outright replacement

>>64216033 (OP)
The Iowas were mothballed for 26 years before being reactivated in 1984, and the cost to reactivate them, repair the damage caused by corrosion and material fatigue, as well as bring their systems up to date technologically, was about $435 million per ship. It's definitely not free.

>>64216033 (OP)
>It costs nothing to let it sit for 30 years.
Well....
-Security to make sure nobody steals the wiring, tech, or even takes a good look at the propellers
-Structural checks to make sure the mechanical strain of sitting on the stands instead of the water isn't warping the hull
-Reapply anti-rust measures
-Regular checks to make sure the reactor vessel isn't heating up from residual radiation
-Managing the sonar absorbing tiles as they fall off due to being in a dry environment
-Climate control so the air isn't too humid and doesn't experience significant temperature shifts that'll warp the metal
-Maintaining the stockpiles of parts and supplies that are hopelessly outdated but essential to the function of that particular model submarine.
-Maintaining lists of things that need to be upgraded in order to keep pace with technological advances.

So no, it's not going to be free once you get it into mothballs.

The subs themselves are obviously unsafe to try and keep running past their lifespan, but I do think that if the reactors are still in good working order they should put them to work ie; using them to power whatever dockyard they get scrapped at or plugged into a naval base somewhere since those things ain't cheap.
Of course this is assuming that the reactors themselves are still safe to operate long term, I don't know shit about nuclear reactors but I would expect that just because it CAN run for another 75 years doesn't mean that it would be safe to do so, at least not without so much money in refurbishment you could just build a whole new reactor instead.

>>64220693
USS Shortking

What's the best way to hang my SSNs?

Vertically like a normal person or horizontaly like a psychopath?

>>64222069
Horizontally even if they are SSNs or diesels.

Technically Yonos or even Sangos can be hung vertically however a brief reading of my OSHA Handbook tells me that it isn't good practice.

>>64222069
You have to turn them periodically, like whiskey.

>>64223105
While Yonos do just fine in the water they can benefit greatly from an occasional drydocking and airing out.

>>64216150
That hasn't been true for decades now. We've been running on a service-wide crew deficit since the GWoT.

>>64221360
>It's definitely not free.
It's definitely not $6,000,000,000 either.

Seems like a massive fucking bargain to me, especially if mothballed out of water.

>>64216225
>US military sites don't let in 50 years worth of drunken hooligans throwing rocks at expensive things.

Its a Navy facility so they might let some Marines in.

>>64221494
Buddy we still use 5.25" floppy disks in nuclear silos. If you stood up a functional, complete Saturn IV right now it would still make it to the moon (something the third world navies these old boats outperform still can't do).

Technology doesnt "age out," it just gets replaced with shittier, shorter life, cheaper things. There's no need to replace anything but logistically incompatible communication equipment and/or missiles when you pull them out of mothball.

>>64221494
Buddy we still use 5.25" floppy disks in nuclear silos. If you stood up a functional, complete Saturn V right now it would still make it to the moon (something the third world navies these old boats outperform still can't do).

Technology doesn't "age out," it just gets replaced with shittier, shorter life, cheaper things. There's no need to replace anything but logistically incompatible communication equipment and/or missiles when you pull them out of mothball.

>>64223443
Floppy disks, known for their longevity

>>64223443
>cheaper things

Exactly, one of the reasons to spend fucktons on R&D is in order to be able to make something cheaper. When you make a few of them you don't see a return on this. Only when the SHTF and you ramp up production being a generation ahead the efficiency kicks in.

>>64223268
>>64223408
>>64223414
Serious question, i'm not trolling about this: Why is it hard to get submarine crews?

I know that there is a huge divide between something like the Sangos the DPRK uses and US nuke subs but they should all be competent at their jobs and it is a high prestige posting yes/no? The Norks have no shortage of volunteers for what they freely admit is a death sentence assignment in a real war, from what i've seen US subs are downright comfortable.

Why is getting crews a issue? You should have an abundance of volunteers.

>>64223496
>Why is it hard to get submarine crews?
Because it's extremely hard to find people who are willing to spend months incommunicado locked in a phone booth underwater with 80 of their best frenemies breathing canned air and smelling each other's taints 24/7. The security and psych requirements weed out a lot of people. Dolphins don't get to make port calls in the fun cities. While American subs may be relatively nice, they also do incredibly long tours compared to pretty much everyone else's subs, the facilities suck next to a surface combatant's, and the food situation is even worse. No-one with a family likes to have to go "sorry, honey, I'm gonna disappear for.. a while, sometime in the next week, GLHF".

There are some pretty hefty incentives for going bubblehead, and Dolphins command a lot of respect from other sailors, but at the end of the day most of us don't want to actively spend all our time under the psychotic salty bitch that's trying to kill us every time we get up in her.

Goddamn, this thread got retarded in a hurry, even by /k/ standards. I'm impressed.
>>64216033 (OP)
To keep things very simple, I'm going to use the car analogy because it fits here. Imagine that you bought a Ford Fuckyamudda as your first car and decided that you would never own another vehicle. Everything goes fine for the first 100,000 miles or so, but you drove the everloving shit out of it and now it has problems. It needs a new engine, new transmission, new suspension, new bearings, the upholstery is fucked, windows are cracked, paint's peeling, and the road salt is rusting holes in the body. What's it cost to fix all that? How's that compare to buying a new Fuckyamudda, which also goes faster, gets better fuel economy, and won't need any serious repairs for another 100,000 miles?

The less obvious factor not discussed here is that if everyone bought a Fuckyamudda and never replaced it, Ford would be unable to maintain the capacity to build the Fuckyamudda and would likely go out of business, meaning that 50 years later, you're stuck with the same car - buying new is no longer an option because there is no new.

>just mothball them for potential future use
The USN currently does that with a portion of its ships, although not with submarines. The joke in the industry is that if the Navy wanted to reactivate a ship that had been mothballed for 10 or 20 years after a 30 year life, if we threw enough manpower at it and everything went right, we could almost do it for less money and in less time than a new construction would take. The part of the joke that's not funny is that the new construction would be significantly more capable. To go back to car terms, I could make your 1995 race car like new if we spent enough money on it, but it's going to be competing against race cars from 2025. Is that money well spent?

>>64216033 (OP)
it takes insane amount of work to restore complex systems to a working condition especially after all the little grandpa shops that provided parts got closed down
>superior to just about anything any other nation has ever fielded
lol

>>64223496
>>64224082
>volunteer to join the navy
>then volunteer again within the navy for sub service
>even though you are desperate for people you depend on volunteers who will meet the higher standards for ASVAB and psych screening
>people from the sub service quit all the time, called "going sad" because they can't handle it anymore
subs is just hard and difficult for most people, they get a little extra pay monthly that's tax free but it doesn't make up for the bs, also there is no place to hide on the sub, if you're lazy or want to skate free it's very difficult

>>64216225
>UGH amelica stop being so far ahead of everyone else!

>>64224082
I was a ddg on sailor deployed when covid first hit, we ended up staying out for like 80 days at one point. I would still rather do that than spend 5 minutes on a sub lol.

>>64225322
I'm the AYRT. On the Stennis during Enduring Boredom we had TWO beer days for staying out more than three months, and another on the next det I went out on. In one three-year timeframe my CAG spent over a year on the water. I'd still take it all over one hitch on a sub.

>>64225808
>we had TWO beer days for staying out more than three months
damn really? i think we had one after 50 or maybe 60 days underway, never had two in the same period. but they were usually capped off by pier beers at gitmo, which is somehow worse than underway. ill be honest, i didnt miss any of that stuff then, but i kind of miss it now.

>>64220879
yep, during defeat of USN in Red Sea by Houthies I can guarantee you most of WTF was going on was Russian, Chinese and WTF knows WTF else treating themselves to nice intel gathering about how top tier USN unit's radar, targeting, etc all works, to engage cheap ass DIY drones and rockets.

USA has no 2nd rate force to send against 4th rate enemy.

Its like how in USA they have to send fully juiced up full blown cops to babysit every Wetback border jumper and take him to top tier hospital for coughs and sniffles. The dusty Mexican shit hole one horse town will defeat a large upscale American McMansions suburbs soon enough.

@64225958
pretty good bait, the redditspacing is a nice touch