Certainly, such non-nuclear boats are at a severe disadvantage compared to nuclear boats if you are talking about sailing from US bases in the continental United States or even Hawaii to patrol stations. But if you base the subs in distant regions and fly in the crews like the navy does with its smaller ships, you get around the transit problem for routine deployments.
Well, my Jane's email alerts gave me this tidbit:
Taiwan (Republic of China) has accused the US Navy of intentionally sabotaging the sale of eight diesel-electric submarines that the Bush administration promised it in April 2001.
So I head over to the Sub Report and sure enough, they link to a bigger portion of the Jane's report:
A US source close to the programme has confirmed Taiwanese claims and argues that the US Navy feared a revival of a domestic diesel-electric submarine programme that would challenge its traditional use of nuclear-powered submarines.
"The bottom line is that the initiation of a Taiwan submarine programme has tremendous implications for the US Navy - once it gets going, they will not be able to resist the already existing pressure to integrate diesels with AIP [air-independent propulsion] into the navy inventory for littoral warfare. So they have been artful in making it seem like they have supported the president's policy; yet purposely making it such a bitter pill to swallow - what I call 'death by bureaucracy'," stated the source.
That is unacceptable. I'm fine with a debate on the merits of submarines for Taiwan, but when the US Navy is undermining administration efforts to get Taiwan diesel-electrics because they don't want pressure down the road to adopt them, that is ridiculous. Especially when I think that some diesel-electrics for our Navy would be a good idea.
And this related article expands on how the Navy is blocking the proposal--jacking up the price so that sticker shock will motivate the Taiwanese themselves to kill the sub program. Certainly, opponents of the subs seem to focus on that. If we can get the price down, perhaps the debate can properly focus on the merits of what subs can do for Taiwanese defense needs.
Of course, this article answers my puzzled question of why we aren't building diesel-electrics.
Rumsfeld needs to knock some heads together in the Navy and get them in line.
