Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by AnimalMuppet 2680 days ago
Sensors don't attack. Sensors don't even defend themselves. They are one piece of the "kill chain", but they aren't the "kinetic" piece.
1 comments

Do you necessarily need a sub to kill another sub once it's detected?

Surface navy and aviation could do the job.

We don't have adequate wartime data to know for sure one way or the other. Historically, there has only been one underwater combat engagement between submarines [1] openly acknowledged (there might be classified engagements). However, even generously accounting for all submarine lost at sea accident reports as hostile engagements doesn't yield sufficient numbers of engagements to know what would happen with today's subs between each other in open warfare.

Let's hope it stays that way indefinitely.

[1] https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-true-story-th...

The target doesn't have to be a sub. The sensors could detect a surface vessel, and the sub could be the way of attacking it.
A bomber can do it cheaper and faster.