Sinking the Lincoln

Too much is made of that kind of thing. People forget that exercises are not the same thing as actual combat; exercises are staged and managed in specific ways, in order to test and practice specific things.

An example, I read a book about submarines once where during an exercise the 'enemy' subs were routinely sunk by the 'home' team ships. But any time a sub was sunk it just carried on with the mission, so that the home team ships could keep practicing against it. Subs were often sunk eight or ten times in a day, but they'd just keep right on going every time. Eventually one scored a hit and suddenly the media go nuts. "OMG ship sunk by subs! Surface ships now obsolete!" Never mind that in a real war the sub would have been dead in the first few hours.

Similarly, attacking aircraft that are 'shot down' by long range missiles keep coming, so that the ships can exercise with their short range missiles. If those shoot them down they keep coming so the ships can test their decoys and EW capabilities, then their last-ditch gun defences. Then the ship will register as having been hit, so that it can do damage control exercises and casualty drills. The point is not to see if the ship can shoot down the plane or the plane can kill the ship, the point is to test and practice every possible aspect of an engagement by both sides. To get the most use out of doing the exercise.


Now I'm not saying this happened with the Reagan. Maybe the Reagan actually was caught with their pants down. My point is merely the general one that military exercises are not combat, in many ways they are not intended to be similar to combat, and success in an exercise in no way can be taken to indicate success is likely in combat. Not without a great deal of additional detail, which the military don't generally like to reveal.



Oh, and those air-independent subs? They're typically very limited in speed whilst operating on the AIP system. Like, limited to around 4-5 knots. If a boat that can do 5 knots wants to intercept a ship that cruises at 15 and can do 28-30+ in a pinch, the sub has to be practically in front of the ship at the start of the engagement to do it. In other words, you need a great deal of luck.

Such boats are not useless; they are great defensive weapons. Ambush predators; position them at choke points where they can wait for enemy ships to come to them. And they are excellent platforms for sneaking slowly in to an enemy area to do surveillance, deliver special forces ashore, etc. But as offensive weapons, as weapons that can actually take the fight to the enemy, they pale in comparison to any nuclear powered submarine. There is a reason the major navies keep building SSNs and SSBNs.