Israel's Submarines Can Launch Nuclear-Tipped Missiles

choi

Israel's Deployment of Nuclear Missiles on Subs From Germany; Operation Samson. Der Spiegel, June 4, 2012.
http://www.spiegel.de/internatio ... rines-a-836784.html

Quote:

(a) web page 3:

"Strategic depth. In other words, nuclear second-strike capability.

"The two men who finally catapulted Israel into the circle of modern submarine powers were Helmut Kohl and Yitzhak Rabin.

(b) web page 4:

"One of the special features is the equipment used in the Dolphin class, which is named after the first ship. Unlike conventional submarines, the Dolphins don't just have torpedo tubes with a 533-millimeter diameter in the steel bow. In response to a special Israeli request, the HDW engineers designed four additional tubes that are 650 millimeters in diameter -- a special design not found in any other submarine in the Western world.

"What is the purpose of the large tubes? In a classified 2006 memo, the German government argued that the tubes are an 'option for the transfer of special forces and the pressure-free stowage of their equipment' -- combat swimmers, for example --, who can be released through the narrow shaft for secret operations. The same explanation is given by the Israelis.

"In the United States, however, it has long been speculated that the wider shafts could be intended for ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads. This suspicion was fueled by an Israeli request for US Tomahawk cruise missiles in 2000. The missiles have a range of over 600 kilometers, while nuclear versions can even fly about 2,500 kilometers. But Washington rejected the request twice. This is why the Israelis still rely on ballistic missiles of their own design today, such as Popeye Turbo.

"Their use as nuclear carrier missiles is readily possible in the Dolphins. Contrary to official assumptions, HDW equipped the Israeli submarines with a newly developed hydraulic ejection system instead of a compressed air ejection system. In this process, water is compressed with the help of a hydraulic ram. The resulting pressure is then used to catapult the weapon out of the shaft.

"The resulting momentum is limited, however, and it isn't enough to eject a three to five-ton midrange missile out of the ship, at least according to insiders. This is not the case with lighter-weight missiles weighing up to 1.5 tons -- like the Popeye Turbo or the American Tomahawk, which weighs just that, nuclear warhead included.

"There are indications that, with the expanded tubes, the Israelis wanted to keep open the option of future, more voluminous developments.

(c) web page 6: "These latest submarines are especially important for Israel, because they come equipped with a technological revolution: fuel cell propulsion that allows the ships to work even more quietly and for longer periods of time. Earlier Dolphin class submarines had to surface every couple days to start up the diesel engine and power their batteries for continued underwater travel. The new propulsion system, which doesn't require these surface breaks, vastly improves the submarines' possible applications. They will be able to travel underwater at least four times as long as the previous Dolphins, their fuel cells allowing them to stay below the surface at least 18 days at a time. The Persian Gulf off the coast of Iran is no longer out of the operating range of the Israeli fleet, all thanks to quality engineering from Germany.


My comment:
(a) Perhaps due to Israel's secrecy, Spiegel does not really come out saying Israel does have submarine-launched nuclear capability. What I wanted to know, before reading the report, was how Israel solved the problem of launching a missile from a submarine. China has not been able to, having failed JL-1 and -2 so far. Taiwan recently is capable of launching Harpoon missiles from its two submarines, but Harpoon was imported from US (and thus what Taiwan has to do is push a button). Still, a Harpoon missile weighs just 691 kg with booster.

In this respect, Spiegel fails to deliver.
(i) Submarine-launched cruise missile
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine-launched_cruise_missile
(with conventional or nuclear payloads; such as Tomahawk)
(ii) Submarine-launched ballistic missile
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine-launched_ballistic_missile
(nuclear warheads; such as UGM-133 Trident II (D5) which weighs 58.5 tonnes.

(b) Besides quotation (c), the first graphic of the Spiegel report includes the following statements about fuel cell.
(i) "Dolphin II Class * * * It includes an additional section to house a fuel cell propulsion system that allows the vessel to stay under water for several weeks at a time."  
(ii) (with a pointer to the fuel cell in the submarine) "Fuel cells for direct gemneration of electricity from hydrogen and oxygen"

(c) There are many methods to achieve

Air-independent propulsion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air-independent_propulsion
(section 2 Fuel cells)

(d) Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howaldtswerke-Deutsche_Werft
(often abbreviated HDW; headquartered in Kiel; the largest shipyard in Germany; founded in 1838 by the engineer August Howaldt to build boilers; merged in 1968 with Hamburg-based Deutsche Werft)

The "werk" in Howaldtswerke is German noun for "work." And "werft"--for shipyard.
(e) For Popeye Turbo, see Popeye (missile)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popeye_(missile)
(section 7 Variants: It is believed that the SLCM version of the Popeye was developed by Israel after the US Clinton administration refused an Israeli request in 2000 to purchase Tomahawk long range SLCM's because of international MTCR proliferation rules)

Spiegel in quotation (b) above fails to specify the tomahawk missiles Israel requested from US--but was rebuffed--was the submarine-launched version (of Tomahawk).

(f) In quotation (b) is this description: "HDW equipped the Israeli submarines with a newly developed hydraulic ejection system instead of a compressed air ejection system. In this process, water is compressed with the help of a hydraulic ram. The resulting pressure is then used to catapult the weapon out of the shaft."

I am no expert on submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), but the description is not what I understand to be modern launch mechanisms for SLBM (whcih is extremely heavy).

Consult
torpedo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpedo
("Modern submarines use either swim out systems or a pulse of water to discharge the torpedo from the tube, both of which have the advantage of being significantly quieter than previous systems, helping avoid detection of the firing from passive sonar. Earlier designs used a pulse of compressed air or a hydraulic ram")

choi

Correction:

At the bottom of the original posting, when I wrote, "I am no expert on submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), but the description is not what I understand to be modern launch mechanisms for SLBM (whcih is extremely heavy)."

What I meant is "hydraulic ram" is not modern mechanism--but compressed air or steam is.