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Do submarines actually "do" anything? AFAICT they just swim about, dropping steel cans of garbage on the ocean floor.
by khazhoux 5y ago
Do submarines actually "do" anything? AFAICT they just swim about, dropping steel cans of garbage on the ocean floor.
- lisper 5y agoThey wait for the day when they are the last remaining means of launching nuclear weapons.
- pclmulqdq 5y agoThe presence of nuclear submarines is strategically important in case a war breaks out. They are there to make sure that anyone who fires a nuke knows that they can't get every silo that will launch a nuke back. Attack submarines join the metagame because their job is to find/attack and defend the missile submarines.
- gjhan 5y agoThey tap communications cables, among other things.
- kens 5y agoThe General Belgrano was sunk by a nuclear-powered submarine during the Falklands War (1982). Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched from submarines against Iraq in the Gulf War (1991) and against Yugoslavia in the Kosovo War (1999).
- ranger207 5y agoThey're a fleet-in-being: their mere existence limits what an adversary can plan to do. In the case of boomers, they limit the ability of the adversary to plan a successful nuclear war