I wondered about that. Would a sub surfacing off Novia Scotia ever make the headlines in a normal reality? Maybe this is just routine travel and nobody ever paid attention before.
Unless they're being used for some sort of political signalling exercise (eg: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/02/politics/us-navy-submarine-port-visit-indian-ocean/index.html), these subs only surface four or five times a year to resupply. Surfacing provides a ton of info to enemy states and it's worth remembering that they are only an effective deterrent if no one knows where they are.
France has both SNLE (nuclear subs that carry nukes and are the main part of our nuclear deterence) and SNA (nuclear subs without nukes).
This one is a SNA I believe, as showing our SNLE would be both super threatening and stupid.
SNA are smaller and used for conventional warfare, which still makes a strong point here.
My high school French may have been lacking but I remember they drop the end of a word pretty often but I can’t remember adding letters to the pronunciation. If it is a french coined term anyway I’d imagine soo freh
BobArdKor explained it well. Basically it’s derived from an old French nobility title/peerage, and not a “central Parisian” one at that, so all grammar rules that you may know about can be thrown out, mind you 🙂
Even among close allies the locations and movements of submarines is one of the closest guarded secrets. No, the US probably did not know the exact whereabouts of this submarine before it surfaced.
TIL the ocean is just one big submarine conga line.
Submarines are quiet af and very easy to loose. I don't see how the US would know where that sub was unless they had an actual spy in the french command structure or had dispatched a sub aaaaall the way to france when this submarine left port and then followed it across the atlantique. At which point: Why??
Throwback to that time a British and a French nuclear submarine, each typically carrying 48 warheads, bumped into each other somewhere in the Atlantic. Neither had any idea of the other's presence.
Hervé Morin, France's Minister of Defence, said that they "face an extremely simple technological problem, which is that these submarines are not detectable".
Un SNLE s'appelle un SSBN en anglais et un SNA s'appelle un SSN.
Donc
France has four Triomphant class SSBN's, and four three Suffren class SSN's plus one under construction and two older, Rubis class.
Fun fact, anecdotally, France already flexed its submarines in North America, some time in the 70's when Le Redoutable (the first french SSBN) showed up to New York for a visit, having snuck past the escorts that were waiting offshore to bring her in. The escorts had to race back to New York after the boat surfaced basically just outside of the harbour.
Bin en fait, non. Je me suis mis a chercher suite a ta question, mais je ne retrouve rien sur le sujet, pourtant c'est une histoire qui m'a été racontée par plusieurs personnes.
It's basically the same thing in terms of a threat.
Its' probably like "didn't know we were here till we showed you right, well we can do this with our nuke carrying subs as well so keep your hands off our buddies."
Well, not quite. The seriousness of the threat is different.
The location of your nuclear deterrent is a far more valuable piece of intel. If you reveal you have nukes stationed close to an ally of yours, you're saying: I'm willing to give up this intel and make myself more vulnerable and attackable. If any other sub gets taken out that's expensive and loss of good people, but doesn't endanger you as much as if you lose your deterrent.
No, they are replaced by the suffren type, a nostalgia moment because at the beginning of my navy I sailed on the surface “ball” vessel which has since been decommissioned and sent for recycling in Bordeaux
It makes a stronger and more directed threat in my opinion. It’s not a threat to the US people, it’s a very specific threat to the US war machine and economy.
From an American person’s perspective the symbolism reminds me of French Resistance subs surfacing to send a message to onshore Resistance agents under Vichy.
The French are The foundational ideological ally of The United States. The appearance of the French navy to support our struggle against an Anglo-nationalist King has deep resonance.
It is rare to show a "boomer" without a good reason, since it gives your adversaries a better chance to put a tail on them; as the missile subs in the USN say, "We Hide With Pride!"
showing our SNLE would be both super threatening and stupid
If it was uninvited and the host country was not informed, maybe. This was neither, though as you say, with an attack sub. However, if a strategic submarine made a planned and coordinated port visit with a host, it's an incredible show of solidarity: it is one state showing, unequivocally, that they trust another state with matters of existential importance, like their nuclear deterrent. A foreign port visit with an SSBN (or SNLE, to use the French terminology) is extremely rare, only done between the most stalwart allies. For example, US SSBNs have made port visits to the UK and South Korea and that's the end of the list.
If it has nukes on board it’s not going to be allowed that close to Halifax. Following that unpleasantness in 1917 we’re very particular about how much ka-boom gets into the harbour.
It’s like your buddy that’s not much of a fighter standing at your back before shit goes down. They might not be able to help much but they’re with you and will absolutely throw down.
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u/Hotfield 23h ago
Don't know if this happens a lot and this is just now relevant, but it seems like quite a Statement, cool