Apart from the niche I-400s (?) with aircraft I genuinely see no reason to add JP Subs before anyone else.
popularity. More people probably play Japan than Britain naval at the moment.
To what end… Japanese naval popularity hinges on a certain series of comically oversized and badly considered Battleships (I’m saying this in a Universe where I fully believe we should get the essentially unarmoured 35,000t UK battlecruiser)
Japanese Submarines, which perhaps the distinct exceptions of maybe I-58 specifically and the aircraft carrying subs (how does that even work???) are not exactly well known. Everyone knows about the German Submarines (they did spend the better part of 5 years trying to starve off an entire nation). That doesn’t exactly apply to IJN subs in my (admittedly simple) mind.
this might be a little offtopic but i just want to brag a little xD
and now IMAGINE the absolute CINEMA when the engine buffs hit live
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I would say the Amphion had more of an opportunity to prove itself and lended itself better to the new revised hydrodynamic redesigns and more importantly significant acoustic reduction measures that Type XXI didn’t have and also wasn’t going to have (see Type XXVI).
But as a concept the Type XXI is rightly considered revolutionary long underwater endurance, high underwater speed, all forward torpedo battery, of which all are reloadable and advanced electric drives.
I hadn’t heard about that interesting.
Given the UK quite literally wrote the book on anti-submarine operations (including establishing the first school of ASW which trained other allied including American personnel), sank the most subs of WW2 and was the primary player in the Battle for the Atlantic both in time served, submarines sunk and technologies introduced and yet the Battle of the Atlantic event was American ASW vs German U-Boats…
Yeah i’d expect that result too.
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Frankly a big shame, although, would it have been especially unfair to have destroyers & frigates with properly functioning & aimable hedgehogs, squids, & limbos?
From the 1970’s onwards I will make the assertion that we have made the best Hunter-Killer SSN’s for a number of reasons. Prior to the 1970’s the US holds that distinction, firstly because their reactor was a generation ahead of ours or equal and secondly because our torpedo’s were god awful, to the point where the US practically begged us to adopt either the Mark 45 or Mark 48 torpedo’s because they were genuinely concerned that we had turned NATO’s best submarines into NATO’s worst purely because the options were a modernised torpedo from 1926 with no homing system or a torpedo so slow that anything that wasn’t a submarine could outrun it and a nuclear submarine could also outrun it whilst submerged.
From Churchill and then Swiftsure onwards (Trafalgar is a heavily upgraded repeat Swiftsure) it is undisputed we have the best Hunter-Killers.
Just on Churchill, you have a better generation reactor, a superior hull form, pumpjet propulsion (on Churchill, before that a better propeller), you’re quieter, you have more ready torpedo tubes, better sonar integration and a digital combat management system.
Swiftsure and Trafalgar only improve this disparity by adding pumpjets particularly and acoustic tiling.
For reference in the 1980s HMS Sceptre collided with a Soviet submarine she had been stalking that changed course rapidly after being given a new tasking. She sculked off at high speed. The Soviet submarine was a Delta-III class SSBN and reported to have collided with an American Sturgeon class submarine (the quietest US submarine at the time), but also noted that they believed their passive sonar had broken in the collision, because they didn’t detect the submarine move off at speed post-collision, but by the time they had switched to active sonar, the submarine was out of range. Turns out the sonar was fine, they just hadn’t heard the Sceptre.
The pumpjet on the Swiftsure class was that quiet that they could move off at top speed and remain undetected at ranges the Soviets had expected and tested that they should have heard a Sturgeon class submarine.
Spearfish itself is a revolutionary torpedo, longer range, heavier warhead, twice as fast better homing than the equivalent Mk.48 torpedo. I’m actually very surprised Australia is sticking with them for SSN-AUKUS, i’d honestly expected a switch however I suspect that’s because the Collins class uses them but the swap would not be that costly when compared to the price of the programme. But the RN will not switch to Mk.48 because Spearfish is that much better.
Astute is still the best Hunter-Killer out there, it just needs to leave port. Its a similar situation to how the Chieftain is regarded as the best tank of its era as long as it breaks down in the right spot.
The Astute’s are:
The quietest submarines out there, they have more ready torpedos, they have better torpedo’s, they have the best sonar system in service anywhere, they have the quietest propulsion system fitted to a submarine, they have large weapons stocks, they exceed 30 knots (35 is reported) submerged making them the fastest Hunter-Killer in service, they have a superior hull-form.
Their only issue is the maintenance, which isn’t inherent to the submarine, they’re the least maintenance intensive nuclear submarine the UK has ever constructed. However the last government let the company that manufactures the steel wires to hoist them out of the water for maintenance go bankrupt. A suitable alternative is yet to be contracted as a result, the 6 of them in service can’t go to sea as they can’t operate without maintenance, and the one that just rolled into sea trials will only be sea-worthy for maximum 18 months post-commission without maintenance.
The sub is great. The people managing them are the issue.
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I don’t view it as unfair at all, and they could have always added a more modern German submarine or torpedo’s
I mean your choices were between an unguided “dumb” torpedo or a torpedo so unreliable they decided it’d be more effective to use said dumb torpedo against a surface ship.
(In defence of the Tigerfish it was wire guided and it doesn’t really matter what hits you in a Submarine, if it goes bang you’re not in for a good day)
This is true for the entirety of UK Defence.
Tigerfish barely gets a pass, its still pretty slow, its still unreliable, but its better than the Mk.20 Bidder. But at least you can fix some of the unreliability via wire-guidance. Doesn’t help when the motor just doesn’t start though.
Mismanagement yes, but we have and have had some god-awful vehicles particularly recently.
This is just a great sub hampered by imbeciles in charge of its maintenance upkeep.
It genuinely infuriates me to see them defended like the best thing since sliced bread when they could just admit ‘yeah it’s not ideal, we wasted a bunch of money, we will learn lessons’.
brimstone only got sami active laser in the brimstone 2 upgrade, the brimstone was day one mmw
Guessing the Mk 23 Grog fits between these two.
Nah. There was an interim Dual Mode brimstone with a SAL seeker, before Brimstone 2. It was only in service on Tornado GR.4 however.
You can tell them apart because the DMB had a yellow HE band for the rocket motor from the original Brimstone, positioned about mid-way along the rear fins.
And Brimstone 2 has a brown Low Explosive band which is positioned towards the front of the fins, for the larger IM-compliant motor.
There’s also some construction differences around the front fins, where the main warhead is located - you can probably see the additional screws
What we have ingame for all aircraft using Brimstone, is the interim Dual Mode Brimstone with the smaller motor, even though IRL they were all expended on Tornado GR.4 operations and replaced by Brimstone 2 before Eurofighter integration or any exports of Brimstones with SAL seekers.
stares at the various Nimrod projects since 1990 something
It is pretty slow. It’s not a Bidder though (which is a tragic torpedo).
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Yes but that’s because its a Mk.20 Bidder with a dual mode. So you lose your range for speed in high speed mode, or you’re just a Bidder.
Its even slower than the Tigerfish, but not so slow that its functionally useless like the slow-mode Bidder. This hits 28 knots, SSN’s can go to 30 and new ones have speeds of ~35knots, but diesel electrics won’t exceed 20 and by the time you fire a torpedo a competent Commander should’ve set up an ambush well within the range of the torpedo so the SSN won’t have time to accelerate away.
It wasn’t a good torpedo, and equally, was one of the several torpedo’s the US saw the brief sheet for and begged us to just order one of theirs or even just license one resized to fit our 533mm tubes.
So dunno if i am even allowed to share this, since apparantly it just gets labeled as me attacking brits or frnech again.
But apparantly the hearing issues for the Ajax were not yet resolved
They are resolved
How small is small numbers
How many of them were faking for a pay out or transfer
How many were wearing the inner ear buds that you are meant to wear (So people don’t like to even though they are supposed to)
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I’d err on the side of caution with the reporting recently. pretty much everything on Ajax the past day or two has been extremely poor quality journalism (one of them had something along the lines of “we stood near tank and it was loud???”).
Ajax is plagued with sensationalism and false reporting because of the problems it’s had, so it’s really hard to decipher what is and isn’t true, but this recent wave is suspicious.
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Tbh, I’m still annoyed about what happened to the warrior CTAS.
Errr no, that’s just stating a fact that Ajax sucks (genuinely keen to see what substantiation there is and if anyone else picks up that article, Sky can sometimes overly embellish stuff)
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