Re: Wet Navy in the future was

Ryan Gill wrote:

> At 3:10 PM +1100 11/30/01, Beth.Fulton@csiro.au wrote:
> >G'day,
> >
> > > Another thought - what presence will there be on planets of
> > > 'traditional wet' Navy forces?
> >
> >Depending on the planet I'd say a fair bit, but I'm kinda biased when
it
> >comes to things marine ;)
>
> I'd expect to see lots of smaller vessels and brown water navy stuff
> on the edge of controlled spheres of influence. Smaller vessels up to
> frigate size would be useful on some worlds for Coast Guard type
> duties. I'd expect that anything larger could be handled by orbital
> installations firing down or sending down Aero space fighters to
> support the small stuff. Most roles would be coast guard type S&R or
> Police work.
>
> I base this on the assumption that most of the worlds that have
> enough population to warrant spreading out amongst multiple
> continents would be well protected by space borne naval assets. You
> figure those would have some bulk transport across water ways.
>

There is always room for some wet naval ops.  While I can see space
travel
becoming as inexpensive as air travel, sub-orbital transport will never
compete with rail networks and merchant sea lanes for the transport of
bulk
goods; unless, energy costs go to practically zero.  As long as ships
transport goods, and the oceans remain mostly opaque to long rang
sensors,
there will be subs.  People have been saying that the ASW breakthrough
was
going to happen that would render the oceans transparent to satellite
sensors, but over the years, it has become increasingly unlikely that
any of
these pie-in-the-sky methods will ever pan out.

    The most promising of these technologies, ocean penetrating lasers,
may
be great for tracking, but are abysmally bad for searching.  Neutrino
detectors will render all forms of nuclear propulsion for subs obsolete
from
a stealth perspective [these are science fiction detectors that do not
require many tonnes of heavy water and can block neutrinos from
directions
other than where it is pointing, more sensitive too].

    Depending on sensor psb, sea denial is accomplished by steathily
dropping
off subs on the enemy's watery worlds, and watch the fun as he tries to
use
interstellar transports to sub-orbitally deliver bulk goods (the humor
can
only be appreciated by imagining FedEx attempting to deliver all the
japanese
cars sold in the US).

    SOSUS style sonar networks are far too expensive; unless, you can
reasonably expect opposing subs are always going to be around.	It is
much
cheaper to maintain an ASW force of subhunters with suborbital transport
to
get them to stricken ships.  Sonar works best when it stays in the
water, so
the subhunters are either ships or subs.  Once shipping is convoyed,
there
will need to be escorts that travel with the convoys, and these will
either
be merchantmen refitted with ASW gear, subs, or surface combatants.

    There will be no amphibious landings, aircraft carriers, or air
defense
ships, but while commerce floats over blue water, there will be
submarines
and ASW.