5th Fleet Focus: Submarine Strike on Somalia

We don't usually discuss submarine operations here, at least we usually avoid giving away any information not in the open source, and usually only discuss operations when correcting some silly reporter out of his depth, but we will explore this story just a bit. From the NY Times.

American naval forces fired missiles into southern Somalia on Monday, aiming at what the Defense Department called terrorist targets...

The missile strike was aimed at Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a Kenyan born in 1979 who is wanted by the F.B.I. for questioning in the nearly simultaneous attacks on a hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, and on an Israeli airliner taking off from there, in 2002, said three American officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the strike or its details.

One American military official said the naval attack on Monday was carried out with at least two Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from a submarine. The official said the missiles were believed to have hit their targets. Witnesses on the ground, though, described the attack differently.

“I did not know from where they were launched, but what I know is that they hit a house in this town,” said Muhammad Amin Abdullahi Osman, a resident of Dhobley, a small town in southern Somalia near the Kenyan border.

Mr. Muhammad said two missiles slammed into the house around 3:30 a.m.

There is no confirmation regarding strike success, the NY Times report is totally different than everyone else and claims the Navy killed some cows and a donkey, and somehow only partially destroyed a house. I think it is pretty clear to everyone but the NY Times editors that two Tomahawks will do more damage than to simply partially damage a house and slaughter a few farm animals, most likely in fact damaging several houses on a block in a town only 4 miles from the border of Kenya. I guess they don't get out of Manhattan much.

According to open source sources, there are two submarines in the region, the USS Montpelier (SSN 765), who is attached to the Harry S Truman Carrier Strike Group, and the USS Norfolk (SSN 714) who was reported to have crossed the Suez canal in late January.

Either submarine could have carried out the strike, and it is entirely possible there is more than 2 submarines in the region, but as we continue to say simply to highlight it for the Navy (whom we know are reading), the Navy operations folk continue to follow very predictable patterns, and we believe the USS Norfolk (SSN 714) let fly the pair of Tomahawk missiles, which is a reminder, submarines don't need VLS to give terrorists a kick in the ass.

Honestly, we hope we are wrong, we are tired of the predictability. It is something that should never happen with submarines.