Posted: 7/18/2007 10:05:50 PM EDT
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More shit to piss you off. http://www.military.com/forums/0,15240,142817,00.html?wh=wh Russian Subs for Venezuela Norman Polmar | July 18, 2007 Venezuela has placed a preliminary order for five advanced diesel-electric submarines with Rosoboronexport, Russia's arms export company. The submarines will be of the Project 877EKM or Varshavyanka series, known in the West as the Kilo class. The announcement came during the visit of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez -- known for his strong anti-U.S. views -- to Moscow earlier this month to discuss additional weapons purchases and wider economic ties with Russia. Upon his arrival in the Russian capital he declared, “If the United States attacks Venezuela, we are ready to die defending our sacred land." Chavez continued, "We support Russia, we need Russia, which is becoming stronger day by day." He added that Venezuela intended to continue cooperating closely with Moscow, including in the military sphere. After visiting Russia and meeting with President Vladimir Putin, Chavez planned to go on to Belarus and then to Iran, where both governments are portrayed by the U.S. government as outlaw regimes. Chavez had previously visited Iran. (He has also made several highly publicized trips to Cuba.) In conjunction with Chavez’s trip to Russia, Konstantin Makiyenko, Deputy Director of the Center for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, said: "Most likely, [Venezuela] will buy five. . . submarines with missile systems... but they could end up buying nine." The Project 636/877 submarines are advanced diesel-electric submarines, which first entered service with the Russian Navy in 1981. Similar submarines are in service with the Algerian, Chinese, Indian, Indonesian, Iranian, Polish, and Romanian navies. (The Venezuelan Navy now operates two German-built Type 209/1300 diesel-electric submarines.) Reportedly, Chavez is also negotiating with Russia for the purchase of an advanced air-defense system. Last year Chavez signed agreements for the purchase of Russian-made helicopter gunships, fighter aircraft, and small arms for a total of $3 billion. |
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So the Russians are exporting/supporting Communists, dictators and socialist crackpots all over the world. Now, where I have I seen that happen before?  Putin just needs to rename the place CCCP 2.0 and drop the last pretense of being a "democratic" nation. I lived through Cold War 1.0. I guess I'm gonna live long enough to see the sequel. |
I hear ya man. I argue that the first Cold War never ended. We just let them regroup a bit. |
Four or five could cause a LOT of problems in the Gulf. The only positive is I don't think the Venezualans could operate them to their best potential. |
He'll buy 5 but I'd wager within a year only one will be running and that will only be for PR purposes so he can get CNN to film it and show 'he iz da bomb' in the Carribean |
Good weapons to intimidate other Banana Republics though. |
No biggy… the Carribean is not a good place for a sub to be operating, it's shallow, full of shoal water and reefs and the water is so clear you can see a sub down to 100 ft with the Mk1 eyeball from a plane |
We had patrol planes all over the area during WWII and the Germans still sunk quite a few tankers. I think we would finally get them but I also think it would cause quite a bit of disruption in the Gulf. Especially when you include the panic that is inevitable. |
You had relatively few planes in the area during WWII and the Germans sunk relatively few tankers in the Caribbean, most of the sinkings were off the US coast. And why would Chavez want to sink tankers in teh Carribean? They are tankers sailing from his country predominantly. ASW planes have come on a very long way since WWII |
And Kilos are not WWII subs either. You said they were easy to see with the eyes which we had in WWII.  There is a lot more tanker traffic other than Venezualan.I really don't know how effective they would be. I just don't want to totally discount the threat like the OP. I don't think it would be easy target practice only with zero threat, but I don't think they pose a huge threat either. Somewhere in between. I do know Kilos are not shitty boats. They are quiet and our Nuke boats don't work as well in the shallows. ASW planes need to be right over them to use MAD and as you said they could probably see them already anyway. They could however, with the medias help, cause quite a panic and drive up gas prices higher than Katrina did. |
Kilos are not that special, better than a WWII boat but not the be all and end all, an SSN can run them to ground fairly smartly. MAD? Sono Bouys, they always forget the Sono Bouys… |
They are quite quiet, that is one thing the Kilos are. Bouys would have to be close. If they placed them properly we wouldn't know they were there until a tanker sank. Remember they have surprise. Of course the Kilo would probably be dead soon after, but then the panic sets in if they have more sitting out there. |
They can be and are routinely tracked… |
Fixed it. Things are only going to get worse. I'm just surprised the evening news isn't all over all of these developments. |
Why so surpised? According to the media, bad things happen, esp War only exists because America causes it or lets it happen. Don't let things like an aggressive and resurgent Russia arming nations hostile to the West get in the way of an editorial stance 
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See my post… ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=598948 |
WWII subs ran mostly on the surface, not need to see down to 100ft. The fact is that early in the war we did not have a large number of patrol boats or planes either in the Gulf of Mexico or off the East Coast. Once we employed those measures German U-boats were forced to operate in the "gap." That's the area of the Atlantic that didn't have air coverage. Once we had longer range patrol craft and "jeep carriers" there wasn't very many good U-boat hunting grounds.
Another application of the 1% doctrine...
They're not shitty boats; they're not Romeos. They aren't that good either. They can be quiet, but then they aren't moving. Nuke boats don't work in the shallows? I guess those boats we used to sent in to the shallows to perform ISR missions were all conventional, right? And of course we wouldn't build an entire nuke boat class to operate in the littorals, like the Virginia class or anything.Also buying five subs does not mean your navy is capable of operating them effectively. Your point about oil prices is well-taken; however, that just shows the folly of overestimating your potential adversaries. It can be just as dangerous as underestimating them. |
