Attack of the Midget Subs! 05/31/2010
Yes, submarines that weigh less than 150 tons are called “midgets.” It was a North Korean midget sub that sank South Korea’s Cheonan warship.
These submarines are tricky, because they act in shallow water where sonar is unreliable. The Cheonan’s sonar, for instance, missed the North Korean sub.
Guess who else operates midget subs? Iran, including some bought from North Korea.
As Popular Mechanics explains, the US Navy is worried about America's vulnerability to midget submarine attacks and other forms of guerilla-style naval warfare:
Two things heighten the risk of a similar ambush by midget submarines against U.S. ships: the complex sonar picture of shallow water where these small subs can operate, and a post–Cold War decrease in anti-submarine training. "Instead of a large number of Soviet nuclear-powered submarines on the open ocean, advanced conventional submarines operating in the littorals have emerged as the most serious threat to U.S. forwardly deployed forces, military sealift and merchant shipping," Milan Vego, professor of operations at the Joint Military Operations Department at the Naval War College, wrote in a recent piece for Armed Forces Journal. "The emerging threats ... are minisubmarines, swimmer-delivery vehicles, remotely operated vehicles and autonomous underwater vehicles."
These submarines are tricky, because they act in shallow water where sonar is unreliable. The Cheonan’s sonar, for instance, missed the North Korean sub.
Guess who else operates midget subs? Iran, including some bought from North Korea.
As Popular Mechanics explains, the US Navy is worried about America's vulnerability to midget submarine attacks and other forms of guerilla-style naval warfare:
Two things heighten the risk of a similar ambush by midget submarines against U.S. ships: the complex sonar picture of shallow water where these small subs can operate, and a post–Cold War decrease in anti-submarine training. "Instead of a large number of Soviet nuclear-powered submarines on the open ocean, advanced conventional submarines operating in the littorals have emerged as the most serious threat to U.S. forwardly deployed forces, military sealift and merchant shipping," Milan Vego, professor of operations at the Joint Military Operations Department at the Naval War College, wrote in a recent piece for Armed Forces Journal. "The emerging threats ... are minisubmarines, swimmer-delivery vehicles, remotely operated vehicles and autonomous underwater vehicles."
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