GWOT IV - Goddess
Jan. 6th, 2020 09:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyGWOT IV - Goddess
TS/SCI NOFORN
PROJECT ZEUS
SECURE COMPARTMENTALIZED INTELLIGENCE
(The disclosure of this document may tend to disclose sources and methods.)
PHYSICAL HARDCOPY ONLY
COPY ONE OF FOUR
The control agency for this document is the United States Navy, Atlantic Command.
The surprise emergence of the California Republic naval forces (styled "California Republic Naval Militia", ships named "Republic of California Ship" or "RCS") was a deep shock to the US Navy and the world shipping community.
As the world knows, much of California Republic's military capability consists of forces in mutiny from the United States. It was believed that it would be a relatively simple matter to close California's sea lanes as she did not have a pre-War ship yard, nor was she capable of manufacturing advanced munitions for surface and undersea warfare.
This belief was grossly mistaken.
We have new HUMINT that planning for the Naval Militia started early in the Resistance campaign against Homeland. In particular, the remaining high technology manufacturing capability of Northern California was successfully 'married' with the R&D and industrial base of the Southern California aerospace and ports, particularly in what is now the closed military harbor of Long Beach, California.
The crowning achievement of the California Naval Militia is the creation of a new class and type of attack submarine. The class name is Goddess. The type is Lithium Ion Diesel Electric or LIDES.
There are at least fifty (50) discrete individual hulls in the Goddess class. They are named for female mythological gods. Two are publicly known to have been destroyed: RCS Hera was lost with all hands in a lithium battery fire off Ventura, and RCS Athena was sunk by SUBROC while operating to blockade Hawaii (!). We suspect at least three more have been destroyed, however California Republic has repeatedly repaired hulls and we suspect renamed vessels to disguise losses. Much of this information is TECHINT involving the use of the surviving remnants of the Pacific underwater hydrophone network, SOSUS.
The hull is a single cast 'tube' of intensely strong carbon fiber. This has resulted in the epithet 'pipe ship' or 'pipe bomb' being applied to the class. A surfaced LIDES has a distinct hammerhead bow and stern with no 'sail' or central riser.
The forward hammerhead contains a periscope, a single upward ejection tube / hatch, and three forward torpedo tube hatches in a triangle.
The aft hammerhead contains a single propulsion "tunnel", two conventional screws paired below, another periscope, and another upward ejection tube / hatch.
There are no hatches and as best we can determine without a capture, no through-hull fittings or protrusions in the central hull section.
"Damn thing looks like someone cut a minisub in half and stuck the ends on a long pipe." This comment is attributed to a Russian admiral who was briefed by the California Republic on the vessel's capabilities.
This 'pipe' design gives the hull enormous strength. However, the lack of a central sail is believed to cause stability issues, and the presence of only two hatches forward and aft means that in the event of fire or other emergency, the crew cannot easily abandon ship.
The base crew of a Goddess-class LIDES is between 24 and 30, with a typical crew of 27. It is believed that the limit is not space but life support, for a variety of reasons outlined below.
A conventional diesel-electric submarine charges her batteries from a Diesel engine while surfaced. Then she dives, using lead acid (older) or iron phosphate (more modern) batteries to operate slowly and with great stealth for a limited time until her batteries are exhausted and she must surface.
The LIDES has at least two radical innovations over a conventional Diesel electric submarine. The first is that the LIDES is literally a "plug in hybrid." The LIDES is capable of recharging her batteries from dockside ("shore") power outlets, specialized underwater power connection ports (!), and even other vessels (!!!). The specifics of the LIDES shore charging system are as yet unknown, as are the length of cables required and whether they can be carried aboard or must be provided by a support vessel.
The logistics implications are interesting. One is that a 'wolf pack' of LIDES can in theory use all their excess power, with some losses in charging inefficiencies, to fully charge a single pack member, extending the effective strike range at the cost of the others needing to retreat to recharge safely. Another is that multiple LIDES in a coastal defense role are nearly invulnerable, if multiple redundant charging portals are available in the coast defense operating area. One can stay in continuous silent menace while the other charges, rotating as needed.
The second radical innovation is the use of notoriously dangerous lithium ion battery packs, literally repurposed from pre-War hybrid electric automobiles such as the Toyota Prius. Computer controlled recharging is required and the results of even minor damage can be catastrophic. A lithium ion battery fire aboard a submarine guarantees the death of the crew and the loss of the submarine.
Like a Diesel electric submarine, the LIDES also carries a Diesel generator, and that Diesel generator is also dependent on either on-board stored air or external (ocean) air that requires the submarine to snorkel (draw air through her periscope[s]) or surface. A LIDES with exhausted battery packs is therefore nearly helpless.
Any submarine has been called "an egg shell armed with a sledge hammer," and the Goddess-class LIDES is no exception. Her hull is stronger but her internals are weaker. The three torpedo tubes carry a mix of standard ordinance, mines, CAPTOR mines (a torpedo with mine like characteristics), and at least three unique weapons systems as follows:
-- 'Top Attack' antishipping missile - otherwise a conventional torpedo-tube launched anti-shipping missile, this 'top attack' weapon has an incredible amount of expert system intelligence based on the nature of its potential target(s) and programming. For example, when targeted on a freighter, it can swerve mid-air and attack the rudder, the wheelhouse, or a particular level of ship's superstructure. When targeted say on a frigate, it can attack _a specific weapons system_ such as a 5" gun or a Harpoon box launcher. It has even been credibly observed making a 'blind spot' approach at angles where the target's CIWS / Phalanx could not engage due to the target ship's own superstructure.
-- anti-aircraft torpedo - a package of three infrared guided anti aircraft missiles in a single torpedo that can be programmed to surface and separate, and fire at delays of up to four (4) hours, based on acoustic (sound) signatures) and/or in response to hearing a certain size of underwater explosion. US Coast Guard has lost at least five (5) ASW aircraft to this capability.
-- commando sled - an expanded concept derived from the US Navy Swimmer Delivery Vehicles, and also a derivation of the World War II Japanese 'kamikaze torpedo', this torpedo carries two commandos in pressurized dive suits, the outer shells of which are discarded when the torpedo engine's fuel is exhausted. The commandos have 'cargo packs' of weapons and equipment including hull breaching charges, two two-person inflatable small boats, machine guns, automatic grenade launchers, and navalized variants of heavy anti-tank rockets
The 'commando sled' will be fired at a target with the expectation that the commandos thus delivered will, using various mission profiles, then engage 'soft' maritime targets or establish themselves on a hostile coast as a 'coastwatcher' outpost, possibly for a month or more, with the weapons loadout replaced with food, radios and targeting equipment.
Little is yet known about the California Republic's secretive Bear Force. However, it is suspected that Goddess submarines are extensively used for delivery and recovery of Bear Force naval commandos.
Any life support system in a closed environment (underwater, space, etc.) requires providing for the needs of the crew: notably breathable air, potable water, handling of human waste, and food US Naval submarines are nuclear powered because this allows the submarine's other systems (desalination, oxygen generators, CO2 scrubbers, etc.) to meet the crew's needs, making the only effective limit on a USN submarine deployment the cubic volume of food that can be packed aboard.
A LIDES has very limited power compared to a nuclear powered vessel. Therefore, 'crew comforts' such as desalination, scrubbers, etc. draw a disproportionate amount of power, in turn limiting the life support capability of the vessel. From ship's freezers to sick bay, there is also the power draw to make the living spaces of the vessel habitable.
A LIDES may well have the physical volume to carry over a hundred persons, especially in the place of munitions. However, a LIDES would not have the life support to do so underwater for any period of time.
The limited crew size has secondary implications. Any modern warship has a variety of technological systems, from ancient (plumbing!) to ultra modern, and the simple need to maintain and know how to use the equipment creates a staffing and skillage load that overwhelms any modern navy's sailors. The US Navy overcomes this through extensive training and scheduling, both of sailors aboard ship and of maintenance and drydock cycles. The Russian Navy overguns its vessels and simply accepts that some proportion of the ship's weapons will not be working at the same time due to lack of maintenance. Even the US Navy has had vessels unable to put to sea for lack of maintenance; this is more common than not with the rest of the world's navies.
The California Naval Militia's approach is as yet unknown, but the apparent functionality of all systems aboard a LIDES at all times is either a well kept secret (concealing the typical failures) or a radically new approach to the management of naval warships. Additional HUMINT attention to this point is urgently recommended.
The crew 'mix' of a LIDES is also unknown. Speculation is that out of a crew of 24, a total of 4-8 are 'officers' and the remainder 'sailors', divided between Engineering (power), Weapons (torpedoes) and Deck (maintaining and steering the ship).
However, both captured documents and HUMINT suggests that the bulk of the LIDES crew carries the title of "analyst," as in "sonar analyst" "radar analyst" "ELINT analyst" and "battle analyst." Whether this is deliberate misinformation is a question; a typical small US Navy warship may have an intelligence cell aboard, but more often not, and the CIC functionality processes information necessary to fight the ship. These roles in the USN are on much larger combatants, either fleet flagships or carriers.
There also appears to be a disproportionate emphasis on personal combat skills among the California Republic Naval Militia. US Navy sailors are trained in secondary duties to defend their vessels, but the primary small arms combatants are sailors trained in ship boardings and Marines. LIDES apparently do not carry Marines at all. However, all LIDES crew carry handguns on their persons while submerged (!) and on at least one occasion, the crew of a damaged LIDES at least temporarily abandoned their vessel and conducted an armed hostile boarding of a US Navy warship, successfully seizing it in the first such event since either the Tonkin Gulf Incident or the 1st Civil War. US Navy POWs since repatriated report that the _entire_ (emphasis added) LIDES crew fought expertly and viciously in the close quarters of the USN ship, making extensive use of grenades and having an apparently intricate knowledge of an unfamiliar vessel.
The Goddess class LIDES apparently also has some capability to detect, avoid, disarm and emplace mines - making each a formidable minesweeper and at the expense of torpedoes and tube-launched missies, mine _layer_.
Further information is desperately needed.
TS/SCI NOFORN
PROJECT ZEUS
SECURE COMPARTMENTALIZED INTELLIGENCE
(The disclosure of this document may tend to disclose sources and methods.)
PHYSICAL HARDCOPY ONLY
COPY ONE OF FOUR
The control agency for this document is the United States Navy, Atlantic Command.
The surprise emergence of the California Republic naval forces (styled "California Republic Naval Militia", ships named "Republic of California Ship" or "RCS") was a deep shock to the US Navy and the world shipping community.
As the world knows, much of California Republic's military capability consists of forces in mutiny from the United States. It was believed that it would be a relatively simple matter to close California's sea lanes as she did not have a pre-War ship yard, nor was she capable of manufacturing advanced munitions for surface and undersea warfare.
This belief was grossly mistaken.
We have new HUMINT that planning for the Naval Militia started early in the Resistance campaign against Homeland. In particular, the remaining high technology manufacturing capability of Northern California was successfully 'married' with the R&D and industrial base of the Southern California aerospace and ports, particularly in what is now the closed military harbor of Long Beach, California.
The crowning achievement of the California Naval Militia is the creation of a new class and type of attack submarine. The class name is Goddess. The type is Lithium Ion Diesel Electric or LIDES.
There are at least fifty (50) discrete individual hulls in the Goddess class. They are named for female mythological gods. Two are publicly known to have been destroyed: RCS Hera was lost with all hands in a lithium battery fire off Ventura, and RCS Athena was sunk by SUBROC while operating to blockade Hawaii (!). We suspect at least three more have been destroyed, however California Republic has repeatedly repaired hulls and we suspect renamed vessels to disguise losses. Much of this information is TECHINT involving the use of the surviving remnants of the Pacific underwater hydrophone network, SOSUS.
The hull is a single cast 'tube' of intensely strong carbon fiber. This has resulted in the epithet 'pipe ship' or 'pipe bomb' being applied to the class. A surfaced LIDES has a distinct hammerhead bow and stern with no 'sail' or central riser.
The forward hammerhead contains a periscope, a single upward ejection tube / hatch, and three forward torpedo tube hatches in a triangle.
The aft hammerhead contains a single propulsion "tunnel", two conventional screws paired below, another periscope, and another upward ejection tube / hatch.
There are no hatches and as best we can determine without a capture, no through-hull fittings or protrusions in the central hull section.
"Damn thing looks like someone cut a minisub in half and stuck the ends on a long pipe." This comment is attributed to a Russian admiral who was briefed by the California Republic on the vessel's capabilities.
This 'pipe' design gives the hull enormous strength. However, the lack of a central sail is believed to cause stability issues, and the presence of only two hatches forward and aft means that in the event of fire or other emergency, the crew cannot easily abandon ship.
The base crew of a Goddess-class LIDES is between 24 and 30, with a typical crew of 27. It is believed that the limit is not space but life support, for a variety of reasons outlined below.
A conventional diesel-electric submarine charges her batteries from a Diesel engine while surfaced. Then she dives, using lead acid (older) or iron phosphate (more modern) batteries to operate slowly and with great stealth for a limited time until her batteries are exhausted and she must surface.
The LIDES has at least two radical innovations over a conventional Diesel electric submarine. The first is that the LIDES is literally a "plug in hybrid." The LIDES is capable of recharging her batteries from dockside ("shore") power outlets, specialized underwater power connection ports (!), and even other vessels (!!!). The specifics of the LIDES shore charging system are as yet unknown, as are the length of cables required and whether they can be carried aboard or must be provided by a support vessel.
The logistics implications are interesting. One is that a 'wolf pack' of LIDES can in theory use all their excess power, with some losses in charging inefficiencies, to fully charge a single pack member, extending the effective strike range at the cost of the others needing to retreat to recharge safely. Another is that multiple LIDES in a coastal defense role are nearly invulnerable, if multiple redundant charging portals are available in the coast defense operating area. One can stay in continuous silent menace while the other charges, rotating as needed.
The second radical innovation is the use of notoriously dangerous lithium ion battery packs, literally repurposed from pre-War hybrid electric automobiles such as the Toyota Prius. Computer controlled recharging is required and the results of even minor damage can be catastrophic. A lithium ion battery fire aboard a submarine guarantees the death of the crew and the loss of the submarine.
Like a Diesel electric submarine, the LIDES also carries a Diesel generator, and that Diesel generator is also dependent on either on-board stored air or external (ocean) air that requires the submarine to snorkel (draw air through her periscope[s]) or surface. A LIDES with exhausted battery packs is therefore nearly helpless.
Any submarine has been called "an egg shell armed with a sledge hammer," and the Goddess-class LIDES is no exception. Her hull is stronger but her internals are weaker. The three torpedo tubes carry a mix of standard ordinance, mines, CAPTOR mines (a torpedo with mine like characteristics), and at least three unique weapons systems as follows:
-- 'Top Attack' antishipping missile - otherwise a conventional torpedo-tube launched anti-shipping missile, this 'top attack' weapon has an incredible amount of expert system intelligence based on the nature of its potential target(s) and programming. For example, when targeted on a freighter, it can swerve mid-air and attack the rudder, the wheelhouse, or a particular level of ship's superstructure. When targeted say on a frigate, it can attack _a specific weapons system_ such as a 5" gun or a Harpoon box launcher. It has even been credibly observed making a 'blind spot' approach at angles where the target's CIWS / Phalanx could not engage due to the target ship's own superstructure.
-- anti-aircraft torpedo - a package of three infrared guided anti aircraft missiles in a single torpedo that can be programmed to surface and separate, and fire at delays of up to four (4) hours, based on acoustic (sound) signatures) and/or in response to hearing a certain size of underwater explosion. US Coast Guard has lost at least five (5) ASW aircraft to this capability.
-- commando sled - an expanded concept derived from the US Navy Swimmer Delivery Vehicles, and also a derivation of the World War II Japanese 'kamikaze torpedo', this torpedo carries two commandos in pressurized dive suits, the outer shells of which are discarded when the torpedo engine's fuel is exhausted. The commandos have 'cargo packs' of weapons and equipment including hull breaching charges, two two-person inflatable small boats, machine guns, automatic grenade launchers, and navalized variants of heavy anti-tank rockets
The 'commando sled' will be fired at a target with the expectation that the commandos thus delivered will, using various mission profiles, then engage 'soft' maritime targets or establish themselves on a hostile coast as a 'coastwatcher' outpost, possibly for a month or more, with the weapons loadout replaced with food, radios and targeting equipment.
Little is yet known about the California Republic's secretive Bear Force. However, it is suspected that Goddess submarines are extensively used for delivery and recovery of Bear Force naval commandos.
Any life support system in a closed environment (underwater, space, etc.) requires providing for the needs of the crew: notably breathable air, potable water, handling of human waste, and food US Naval submarines are nuclear powered because this allows the submarine's other systems (desalination, oxygen generators, CO2 scrubbers, etc.) to meet the crew's needs, making the only effective limit on a USN submarine deployment the cubic volume of food that can be packed aboard.
A LIDES has very limited power compared to a nuclear powered vessel. Therefore, 'crew comforts' such as desalination, scrubbers, etc. draw a disproportionate amount of power, in turn limiting the life support capability of the vessel. From ship's freezers to sick bay, there is also the power draw to make the living spaces of the vessel habitable.
A LIDES may well have the physical volume to carry over a hundred persons, especially in the place of munitions. However, a LIDES would not have the life support to do so underwater for any period of time.
The limited crew size has secondary implications. Any modern warship has a variety of technological systems, from ancient (plumbing!) to ultra modern, and the simple need to maintain and know how to use the equipment creates a staffing and skillage load that overwhelms any modern navy's sailors. The US Navy overcomes this through extensive training and scheduling, both of sailors aboard ship and of maintenance and drydock cycles. The Russian Navy overguns its vessels and simply accepts that some proportion of the ship's weapons will not be working at the same time due to lack of maintenance. Even the US Navy has had vessels unable to put to sea for lack of maintenance; this is more common than not with the rest of the world's navies.
The California Naval Militia's approach is as yet unknown, but the apparent functionality of all systems aboard a LIDES at all times is either a well kept secret (concealing the typical failures) or a radically new approach to the management of naval warships. Additional HUMINT attention to this point is urgently recommended.
The crew 'mix' of a LIDES is also unknown. Speculation is that out of a crew of 24, a total of 4-8 are 'officers' and the remainder 'sailors', divided between Engineering (power), Weapons (torpedoes) and Deck (maintaining and steering the ship).
However, both captured documents and HUMINT suggests that the bulk of the LIDES crew carries the title of "analyst," as in "sonar analyst" "radar analyst" "ELINT analyst" and "battle analyst." Whether this is deliberate misinformation is a question; a typical small US Navy warship may have an intelligence cell aboard, but more often not, and the CIC functionality processes information necessary to fight the ship. These roles in the USN are on much larger combatants, either fleet flagships or carriers.
There also appears to be a disproportionate emphasis on personal combat skills among the California Republic Naval Militia. US Navy sailors are trained in secondary duties to defend their vessels, but the primary small arms combatants are sailors trained in ship boardings and Marines. LIDES apparently do not carry Marines at all. However, all LIDES crew carry handguns on their persons while submerged (!) and on at least one occasion, the crew of a damaged LIDES at least temporarily abandoned their vessel and conducted an armed hostile boarding of a US Navy warship, successfully seizing it in the first such event since either the Tonkin Gulf Incident or the 1st Civil War. US Navy POWs since repatriated report that the _entire_ (emphasis added) LIDES crew fought expertly and viciously in the close quarters of the USN ship, making extensive use of grenades and having an apparently intricate knowledge of an unfamiliar vessel.
The Goddess class LIDES apparently also has some capability to detect, avoid, disarm and emplace mines - making each a formidable minesweeper and at the expense of torpedoes and tube-launched missies, mine _layer_.
Further information is desperately needed.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-16 07:50 am (UTC)