Publication: Cape Times Issued: Date: 2007-09-05 Reporter: Louis Oelofse

SA Submarine 'Sinks' Nato Fleet

 

Publication 

Cape Times
Date

2007-09-05

Reporter

 Louis Oelofse

Web Link

 www.capetimes.co.za

 

A lone South African submarine left some North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) commanders with red faces yesterday as it "sank" all the ships *1 of the Nato Maritime Group engaged in exercises with the SA Navy off the Cape coast.

The S101 - or the SAS Manthatisi - not only evaded detection by a joint Nato and SA Navy search party, consisting of several ships combing the search area with radar and sonar; it also "sank" all the ships taking part in the exercise.

Several times during the exercise, that lasted throughout Monday night and yesterday morning, a red square lit up the screens where the surface ships thought the submarine was, but it remained elusive.

This gave Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota something to brag about when he landed on the SAS Amatola yesterday to speak to the media.

"To be able to frustrate detection by Nato nations is no mean achievement, it speaks of the excellence of the equipment we acquired for this purpose," Lekota said.

And while this left one of the world's strongest military alliances frustrated, it was also a sign that the group had a capable partner in Africa, Lekota said.

"With sustained interoperatability with foreign forces such as Nato we are well positioned to respond to any unforeseen circumstances that may confront either ourselves or other regions," he said.

Lekota was quite clear that a working relationship with Nato was desired. "They have a partner of reliable capability because we are forging working relations here," he said.

These sentiments were echoed by the commander of the Nato maritime group, Rear Admiral Michael Mahon.

"I can't speak for what the future will hold but certainly this was valuable. Africa is a strategic continent. The freedom of the seas, energy, security, they are all critical issue to Nato countries," he said.

With acknowledgements to Louis Oelofse and Cape Times.


*1       This is a claim regularly made by SA Navy submarine commanders whenever a foreign naval task group sails around the Cape Peninsula.

While it is possible that a SAN submarine remained undetected in the shallow and noisy waters of the Cape long enough to get a periscope fix or formulate a firing solution, it is doubtful that all six vessels of the NATO task group could have been sunk in one foul fell swoop with the submarine's ancient, albeit wire-guided, torpedoes.

Me thinks the Type 209 can possibly theoretically fire and control four torpedoes simultaneously, theoretically allowing for four simultaneous hits, but experience has shown that even two are very hard to control.

So maybe one hit and then the rest of the task group comes after you with a vengeance and invariably blows you away with its sub-harpoons missile torpedoes, heavyweight torpedoes, air-launched lightweight torpedoes and depth charges.

While it might be a bit embarrassing for the NATO task group commander to have it claimed that a foreign "enemy" submarine managed to formulate a firing solution against his charges, in this particular case NATO could not afford for various reasons to supply the task group with maritime helicopters which are the mainstay of anti-submarine screening around any naval task group on patrol. So this particular situation is not a normal one.

While cudos are due to the submarine commander if his claim is true, even partially true, me thinks it is probably better policy to shut up about it and not splash the extended version in the next day's morning newspaper.