John McCain to search suspected North Korean arms ship

[Razgovory]

I guess the Chinese discovered the achilles heel in our sonar defenses.  Raming them with submarines.

"Defenses?"  What was the sonar "defending" against?  Ramming?  It isn't nearly maneuverable enough to stop a ramming attempt.

Having said that, this was clearly an accident.  No sub skipper has the 'nads to deliberately risk getting tangled in a tow cable and achieving that magic Pk of -1.

Submarines, clearly.  That's why the Chinese Sub had to ram it.  It was the only way to be sure.

[grumbler]

Submarines, clearly.  That's why the Chinese Sub had to ram it.  It was the only way to be sure.

No submarine currently poses any threat to any US ship, and so US ships don't defend themselves against submarines any more than submarines defend themselves against US ships.

[grumbler]

Or the McCain, knowing it couldn't dump torpedos on the sub deliberately tried to tangle the sub in a towed array. I presume it's cheaper to replace than a sub propeller?

I don't think the McCain's CO would consider deliberately sinking an enemy submarine like that (and entangling the prop might do such a thing, as the submarine might well need propulsion to surface, depending on the conditions under which it was operating).

A towed array cable wouldn't actually damage the propeller, though.  What it would do was smash and then freeze up the shaft bearings as the prop was entangled and stopped, and all that propulsion power is translated into lateral movement of the shaft.  Shaft bearings are not hard to replace (they are replaced fairly frequently, in fact).