Run Silent, Run Shallow
By Captain James H. Patton Jr., U.S. Navy
(Retired)
Offensive submarine operations against highly capable modern diesel boats in the littorals require new tactics.
A great deal has changed since World War II submarine offensive combat operations and Cold War intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR). Many coastal nations have realized that a few capable nonnuclear submarines—preferably air-independent propulsion (AIP) types (sometimes referred to as “SSPsâ€) armed with antiship cruise missiles (ASCMs)—offer one of the best options to provide credible, economical defense of their territorial waters.
For countries that can afford them, modern nuclear attack submarines can operate offensively in littoral waters extremely quietly without being threatened by the majority of anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) defensive measures. They can penetrate such barriers essentially at will. A modern SSP can hunker down at very slow speeds and become nearly impossible to find in a classic broad-area, passive sonar antisubmarine warfare (ASW) search conducted by an SSN.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2018-10/run-silent-run-shallow
