If so - then why not let it get at least one deployment? We could use the ASW training.
A 100-foot (33-meter), twin-screw diesel submarine seized at a jungle shipyard in Ecuador marks a quantum, if anticipated, leap in drug-smuggling evasion technology, the top U.S. counter-drug official for the region said Sunday.
"It is the first fully functional, completely submersible submarine for transoceanic voyages that we have ever found," Jay Bergman, Andean regional director for the Drug Enforcement Administration, told The Associated Press.
...
Equipped with air intake and engine exhaust pipes, none of those craft were capable of fully submerging so they could evade radar and heat-seeking technology of drug-interdiction aircraft.
The camouflage-painted vessel seized by Ecuadorean police Friday appears by contrast to be capable of long-range underwater operation — a development U.S. analysts have long expected, Bergman said.
Acting on a DEA tip, the Ecuadoreans found it at a sophisticated shipyard with living quarters for at least 50 people on a jungle estuary several miles from the Colombian border, he said. It had yet to make a voyage.
Built of fiberglass and other composites, it has a conning tower, periscope and air conditioning system and measures about 9 feet (2.7 meters) high from the deck plates to the ceiling, the DEA said. Ecuadorean police told the DEA the vessel has the capacity for about 10 metric tons of cargo, a crew of five or six people and the ability to fully submerge, Bergman said.
The big worry is that these boats are cheap enough to build, and, obviously, can be built just about anywhere and aren't limited to drug trafficing.
ReplyDeleteThey could just as easily be used to deliver human cargo with all sorts of befarious gear and intentions. It's large enough to hold a substantial charge. Cab you imagine if one of these things were to be pulled alongside a cruise ship full of passengers and detonated?
How about Norfolk, or King's Bay?
Then, of course, although this one was found. what else is on the ways and undetected?
Tim,
ReplyDeleteI am sure we can solve that with an amnesty/open borders policy regarding illegals. I am sure those crew of 5-6 were in that submarine so they could come to the US and earn a better living working in the fields in Imperial Valley or someplace else.
Remember, no human beings are illegal!
It does pose an interesting question. Now that SF is a "sanctuary city", are they gonna buy an old sub tender from MARAD so they can help these poor people with their submarines?
Sigh.......
ReplyDeleteDon't give 'em any more ideas =-O .
So I'm assuming that it still needs a snorkel? Otherwise they will have to surface to charge batts and exchange air.
ReplyDelete<span>"a sophisticated shipyard with living quarters for at least 50 people on a jungle estuary" </span>
ReplyDeleteuhm...yeah right.
Never ever underestimate the human mind... expecially an evil genius one...
ReplyDeleteAs long as the pay north of the Rio Grande is 10 or more times better, we will see people flooding in. Send the unions down south! (Hey, worked with Solidarity vs the communists). But big companies exporting factories there won't like it - after all why export factories where workforce costs the same?
ReplyDeleteAs for the sub itself it is another milestone of non-government entities getting high tech equipment many failing states cant afford at all...
Satdf by for Hezbollach subs and narco cartels using stolen/smuggled ATGMS vs Coast Guard (or, shudder, LCS...)
I dunno. Would you trust your life to a submarine built by drug dealers?
ReplyDeleteMaybe this old Tacco can come out of retirement and get a job with the DEA :-D
ReplyDeletehahah. Yeah. Because they want to decorate the interiors of their house like this and so it's in their interest that the subs actually do the job. Which would mean they might actually have more at stake personally than the people who came up with the Little Crappy Ship.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what I was expecting when I followed that link but it definitelyl wasn't what I got. Too funny.
ReplyDeleteThis could mess a lot in China too... but US govt is too busy making sure Chinese buy bonds to care about Chinese labor, isnt it?
ReplyDeleteI still have a vision of China sending an army of lawyers to confiscate US carriers as debt payment. "All of your base belongs to us!"
I was always amazed that the drug dealers have not purchased D/E boats from the former Soviet States. They have enough money to justify the purchase.
ReplyDeleteDon't give them any ideas, Ewok.
ReplyDelete"<span>I still have a vision of China sending an army of lawyers to confiscate US carriers as debt payment."</span>
ReplyDeleteThey better hurry the hell up or they will only get pennies on the dollar!
All the sub tenders I've known about in the fleet are floating whore houses! Fits in w/ San Fran pretty well, I'd say.
ReplyDeleteThat's the point everyone seems to be ignoring. That boat may have been "fully submersible," but how far can it travel that way?
ReplyDeleteI have a sneaking suspicion the DEA was gilding the lily here; if they scare the bejesus out of enough voters, they get more funding.
It was probably meant to be towed by freighter into position off the US coast then make its smuggling run into territorial waters. Think RN X-craft being towed into action vs Tirpitz.
ReplyDeleteWorse thing is: what if LCS on a drug patrol gets ambushed by yacht armed with Kornets? (the little ATGMs that did somuch damage to Israeli tanks last time they tried to pacify Lebanon)
An SPS-49, depressed to its lowest elevation along with some freq twiddling, would have no trouble spotting that puppy in the generally low sea state waters where it will be used...
ReplyDeleteJust sayin'
An SPS-49, depressed to its lowest elevation along with some freq twiddling, would have no trouble spotting that puppy in the generally low sea state waters where it will be used...
ReplyDeleteJust sayin'
Over at Lex's place, I advocated digging Stoofs out of Davis Montham, Turbo Stoofing them, like the Argintinian and Brazilian Navies, and the California Department of Forestry did, and give them to Columbia and Ecuador, along with lots of droppable ordnance.
ReplyDeleteAh, a man who understands the motivation of free enterprise.
ReplyDeleteThat assumes the SPS-49 works and has spares and the techs know how to maintain it using CBT!
ReplyDeleteThe sad part is that the DEA is doing more ASW than the USN it seems...
ReplyDeleteMeans they have a two hole outhouse...
ReplyDelete