We have known about the AIP's before you even started posting here Joel... Those are not new to the USN... the admiral is gonna tell you just what he wants you to know which isn't much Joel, and there's "stuff" we're doing that's not to be discussed here either but I'll give you a hint... It's SECRET!
AIP's = modified and souped up versions of Stirling engines... and that technology has been around since the early 1800's invented by Robert Stirling of Scotland... the main difference is that they mated the engine with a set of sophisticated fuel cells and controlled by a computer and other do-hickies to give it some automation...
Westinghouse was working on a project similar in scope but, I lost track of it and don't currently know what became of it... Do you remember the Segway fellow Dean Kamen or something like that? He has a couple of working prototypes of a machine he calls the Beacon 10 which is a Stirling engine mated to a natural gas line @ one of his friend's mansion and he's able to
generate 10 kilowatts of continuous electrical power and it's about the size of a washing machine... Most people need only 2kw for their houses and with natural gas being the fuel, the efficiency rate ow dung to olive oil as a fuel source which makes it so much more appealing as a way of getting off the grid... The smaller ones will be less expensive than the 10kw models f power output will be way much higher than any of the green alternatives currently in use like solar but solar can only generate power when there's sun light... Stirling's can run off of co and may become a replacement for your furnace and water heater in the near future...
Btw, the P8 ASW birds are locating them just fine ... The stuff you heard about happened 2 or more years ago which gave the "hound dogs" enough to adjust already so that info's old Joel... You see when these incidents happened we were still building and testing the P8's, and now that they're deployed - well, let's just say that there's no place to hide anymore for both the Germans and the Swedes... Also, just think about our allies like the British and wait now... Are you ready for this? JAPAN!!! That's right and they're now back in the sub business big time, so watch out AIP's because leave it to the Japanese and the The Royal Navy to figure this so-called new stealth out and turn it on them big time!!! And I'm not going to go near what South Korea has been cooking up lately... I'll leave it up to your imagination...
Shoot! Do you even know about our "sniffers?" I didn't think so... Unless you're a "Brother of the Fin" and fully "qualified" you can't know some of the stuff we have that can make those AIP's Noisier than a rush hour subway express train... So just because whomever this Admiral is, told you that we're not able to figure the acoustics out to track the AIP's doesn't mean that it's true dude... Don't ever underestimate the USN! Every time any body has, they end up saying to themselves: "I should have known better than to dismiss the capabilities of the USN!"
Let me ask you a question Joel... Do you think both the German and Swedish AIP's are designed for blue water operations? I was told that they're designed for primarily littoral waters but, can do some limited blue water ops also, and the key word is
limited here which should help you answer my 1st question... Oh yeah, have you ever submerged into the ocean down into the deep blue sea inside a nuclear powered submarine Joel? I have many times and have heard the Russian singing in their POS loud mouth trailer trash submarines if you want to call them that which I personally don't think they even deserve to be called submarines in the same category as our boats... Them suckers are loud without even using SONAR to track them!
You're right about probably not seeing any substantial increase in both surface or submersibles as long as sequestration is still alive... However, I have a feeling that the Republicans are going to sweep that dung under the proverbial rug just as soon as they take over because that's just the way the are when there's potential new threats looming...
Do you actually think that we have totally ignored the capabilities of having an AIP power plant aboard a sub? We were studying and doing more research on that technology all the way back in the early seventies and had everybody scratching their heads trying to find us back then only to have practically the whole store of our own stealth secrets sold to the Soviets by John Walker and his son along with his wife and a few other compadres which gave the Soviets a leap up to be @ parity with state of the art acoustic technology we invented and developed along with the RN also...
A whole lot of DARPA money goes into the black programs that most of the Admirals aren't even privvy to know anything about them... There's a whole lot more going on than what you and others may be lead to believe with regards to what extent are our overall capabilities... and I'll just leave it at that because "LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS!!!"
Respectfully,
Henry