Sub Hunt off Faslane

From Tony Osborne at Aviation Week this past Tuesday:

“The U.K. called in assistance to help hunt for a foreign submarine off the west coast of Scotland starting in late November.

Maritime patrol aircraft (MPAs) from France, Canada and the U.S. conducted patrols in conjunction with British surface warships in the search for the submarine in late November and the first week of December, operating out of RAF Lossiemouth in northern Scotland.

The incident began when a periscope was sighted in waters where U.K. and other submarines would normally surface as they head into or out of the Royal Navy’s submarine base at Faslane, home of the U.K.’s ballistic missile submarines.

At the height of the operation, aircraft involved in the hunt included two U.S. Navy P-3 Orions, a single CP-140 Aurora from the Royal Canadian Air Force and a Dassault Atlantique 2 of the French navy. Also involved was one of the U.K.’s Raytheon Sentinel radar-reconnaissance aircraft.”

Osborne goes on to note the fact that a Russian SAG transited the English Channel during roughly the same period. Certainly seems like a bit of ‘back to the future.’

I’m actually rather amazed that this sub hunt hasn’t garnered more attention in the U.S. A quick Google search reveals several short articles by the BBC and some British papers, a short article in Newsweek, and a short article by Reuters that all essentially copy the original Aviation Week report. In comparison, the major U.S. media outlets reliably carry reports whenever NATO members scramble fighters to intercept Russian ‘out of area’ aircraft sorties…which appear to be occurring at least once a week of late.

Given that what just occurred off Faslane is an order of magnitude more strategically significant (and provocative) in nature than fighter intercepts, and considering the ‘plausible deniability’ it affords all the involved parties, it is understandable that neither the British government nor any of the supporting allies would want to talk much about it. The possibility that a ‘foreign submarine’ stalked the waters just outside the home of Britain’s nuclear deterrent force, though, is a pretty big deal. I get that visuals of sleek NATO fighters flying alongside large Russian bombers make for glossier news stories than visuals of frigates, helicopters, and MPA burning holes in the ocean searching for something that can’t be seen. Nevertheless, Sweden’s sub hunt off Stockholm in October got a lot of notice in the American press, so reporting on real-world ASW operations in a major ally’s most sensitive waters is hardly unprecedented this fall.

Given that the British presently lack their own MPA capability, perhaps they might be interested in providing ‘places’ for U.S. Navy MPA aircraft to rotationally deploy over the near-term? If ‘foreign submarine visits’ in or near British waters are going to be more frequent (and there’s every reason to think this will be the case), then there ought to be an emerging British demand for quick-response wide-area MPA. The gain for the U.S. would be twofold: a high-visibility demonstration of allied solidarity, and potential opportunities for aircrews to get real-world search experience (and ideally some contact time to boot). Probably wouldn’t be a bad idea for the U.S. and Royal Navies to conduct a few combined arms ASW exercises in the North Atlantic or North Sea during 2015, either.