... loves to pat itself on the back, but it has to be understood that bragging often divorces people from the reality completely. The US Navy certainly has a magnificent combat history, and its submarine force remains if not the best then at least one of the two best submarine forces in the world. But statements like these:
PERTH (Reuters) - In the control room of the American Virginia class attack submarine USS Minnesota, off the Western Australian coast, sonar operators adjust to the chatter of dolphins in new waters where the U.S. submarine presence will soon grow significantly. On a training exercise from its home port in Guam, USS Minnesota is a forerunner to four Virginia class submarines that will be hosted at a Western Australian naval base from 2027, under the AUKUS partnership to transfer nuclear submarine capability to Australia. Crew use video game joysticks to interrogate screen images from a photonic mast that has replaced a periscope. Life aboard can mean up to 100 days without seeing sunlight, and intermittent communication with families via email to maintain stealth. Commanding officer Jeffrey Corneille says the Virginia class submarine is "the most advanced warship in the world". "If someone wakes up and they say 'Is today the day?', we make sure that they say 'Maybe not'," he says, describing its deterrent role.
Well, it is all fine and dandy, and Virginias are, indeed, excellent platforms, but Commanding Officer of USS Minnesota should be reminded that other submarine forces also have all those wonderful gizmos such as cameras with NV/IR channels and joysticks of all kinds, including some damn advanced signal processing, data fusion and minimal acoustic signatures. Here is a reminder from 13 years ago.
No, really, let's be realistic--no US submarine has anything even remotely comparable to P-800 Oniks or hypersonic 3M22 Zircon all of which, including 3M14 Kalibr, are carried by Yasen-class subs. So, any talk about "most advanced" is nothing more than chest-thumping about what amounts to the main reason why Russians create state-of-the-art subs, both nuclear and SSKs, which pack an immense punch which simply cannot be countered. The rest of it is just a moot point--both subs are state-of-the-art, but these are weapons which make all the difference in the times of ASW becoming increasingly complex and ranges at which weapons are used growing dramatically and that makes all the difference. Such hubris is precisely the reason why the US was exposed as a paper tiger during SMO.
