Finally, the submarine war I've been waiting on

MAGAZINE: "Drug-Sub Culture: The latest way to get cocaine out of Colombia? Underwater," by David Kushner, New York Times, 26 April 2009.

Way cool.

The only problem is that the best defense here might be to get us a slew of tiny subs to battle them back, otherwise it's like the Bainbridge versus three kids with guns in a lifeboat.

Comments

[H. S. Normal]

It seems to me, based on my service in four submarines over the years, that a slew of tiny subs is not the way to go in battling these semisubmersibles. What sensor would a small sub have? periscope with 4 kyd range? Maybe sonar, but what component of the acoustic signature distinguishes the semi-sub from any other smaill craft? Probably none. What weapon? Boarding parties probably not a feature of very small subs. Or of large subs, for that matter.

But a slew of helicopters with appropriate radars (optimized for periscope detection) and eyeballs - now there's some search cabability.