Undersea Sensors—a U.S. Trump Card China Knows It Must Eliminate
There are too few ships that can repair undersea cables
Unseen, largely unknown and, until recently, highly classified, the U.S. Navy’s vast network of underwater sonars is one of its greatest advantages over rival fleets. The United States can detect many, if not most, enemy submarines through much of the world’s oceans.
A sub that can be detected can also be killed. It’s a profound problem for the Chinese navy as it eyes a possible amphibious assault across the Taiwan Strait. Its growing fleet of quiet attack submarines could protect the landing force—but only if they themselves can avoid detection.
The problem for the U.S. is that the Chinese fully appreciate how vulnerable they are underwater—and they’re actively thinking about ways to end that vulnerability. The U.S. fleet needs new and better ways of defending its underwater sensors during a seabed battle that could get very nasty, very quickly in the months and weeks leading up to a possible Chinese move against Taiwan.
In particular, the U.S. needs more ships that can repair the sensor network at sea. “There are only a small handful of vessels capable of such at-sea repairs, fewer than 10 globally, and they are easy targets when on station,” warned Chris O’Flaherty, a retired Royal Navy captain with deep experience in undersea warfare.
" They are easy targets when on station?" So in other words after active hostilities have broken out and the Chinese are sinking our repair ships? I think if active hostilities are underway the Chinese Subs will already be destroyed and the sensors will be irrelevant.
Back in my uniformed Navy days, I had the opportunity to oversee the construction and trials of the T-AGOS-19 class and complete the construction and trials of T-AGOS-23. Two duty stations prior to that, I was part of a Naval War College board exercise that postulated a naval engagement ten years in the future. In that make-believe war, the way we knew the Soviet Union had declared war was when Spetsnaz troops parachuted onto all of our T-AGOS-1 class ships and killed their crews. Unarmed and going in harm's way is not the way to prepare for war.