Quote:
Originally Posted by cj95
Just my 2 cents....but if you are trying to launch missiles with a HK on your tail, you have already lost.
I'm pretty sure most Boomers would be nowhere near an active shooting war zone. ie the GIUK gap.
The Soviets are going to be sitting quietly under the ice packs, and US boats are in some deep dark hole of silence well away from the shooting.
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Yup, and I'm sure its not talked about very much but I think that in that case, if the Boomer has a launch order, his job is to get as many missiles off as he can while he's still alive.
As far as boomer patrol locations, well it depends on when you are talking about. By 1968 the vast majority of the fleet (including all the early GW and Ethan Allen class boats) would have been running Polaris A3 (2500 mile range) which would put them a healthy distance away from the GIUK gap. At that point a few of the newer Lafayettes (which hadn't yet gone through their first refit) were likely still carrying A2 Polaris (which as far as I know was put out to pasture in 74) which at 1500 miles would necessitate patrols inside the Norwegian Sea. This is just a guess on my part but, I would think that they would have probably put those boats in the Med which would probably be safer vs trying to keep a boomer on station in a war-zone, but that could make for a nice hide-and-seek mission. By 84 though, you'd just have Tridents brings them even further away from the fighting.
As for the Soviet boats, you'd have the crazy North American patrols taken by the Yankees and Hotels (also Golf class SSBs) off the eastern seaboard. If accounts are to be believed, they'd be very well known due to SOSUS and probably be intercepted before even reaching station but that doesn't mean they wouldn't try. After 1970 you have the Delta Is come on line, which is a game-changer because they hardly have to leave the Barents Sea to be in range to launch. I've always thought that the Ice made for good hiding but I have my doubts whether they'd go for the polynya launch as it would make them a lot easier to localize (only X number of places they could get to the surfaced and launch from vs. anywhere on the open sea.)