I periodically write about various military systems from the layman's perspective. Given the recent mystery missile launch off Los Angeles now might be a good time to pull out the U.S. Navy Submarines diary.
We have 72 boats, four different classes, and one very sneaky modified Seawolf class. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess the culprit on this launch was one of fourteen Ohio class SSBN ballistic missile subs, firing a disarmed Trident SLBM.
It may have been a sounding rocket. These are scientific shots that happen in the area, they can be this large.
Got a friend who owns a small defense contractor that launches solid fuel stuff. He says this is a real head scratcher - nobody is owning up to this launch. He says and I quote "My take is that it's a Chinese boomer." Boomer is slang for a nuclear armed ballistic missile sub.
The most common and oldest of boats in our inventory are the forty five surviving Los Angeles class attack boats. Seventeen of the original sixty two have been retired. The final twenty three of the remaining boats have extensive improvements over their sister ships including diving planes mounted at the waterline rather than on the sail. This permits them to surface through arctic ice if their mission requires such activities. The final thirty one boats in this production run have vertical launch tubes for conventional cruise missles.
U.S.S Key West SSN-722 – older boat, diving planes on sail
U.S.S. Santa Fe SSN-763 with vertical launch tubes open
I write about this sort of thing more than anyone else on DailyKos, but I'm just a competent lay person. It was news to me that there was an external pod for carrying navy SEAL teams. I'll do some digging and maybe produce a diary on special forces operations ...
U.S.S. Greenville SSN-772 bearing an Advanced SEAL Delivery System
The second most common boats are the Ohio class. The eighteen bluewater ballistic missile boats are split into two duties – the fourteen labeled SSBN bear strategic nuclear weapons, while the four labeled SSGN carry conventional weapons. The SSGN boats are retreads, repurposed at the end of the cold war due to limits on the number of nuclear weapons we are allowed by treaty. This doctrinal change is a very good move – the converted Ohio class, twice the displacement of our most potent surface ship, the Ticonderoga class guided missile cruise, packs 154 cruise missiles. The cruiser only holds 122. And unlike the cruiser nobody knows where an SSGN might be lurking.
U.S.S. Michigan SSBN-727
Here's a submarine interest tidbit. Propeller designs are kept very secret because knowing their shape would permit an opponent to make educated guesses about how to detect the boat. It's all well and good until an open source intel person finds a satellite photo of an uncovered Ohio class boat's stern. This cat is already well out of the bag and I imagine there are now rules about 24x7 coverage of boats brought into dry dock.
Military acquisition is a glacial process, but the navy turned rather quickly at the end of the cold war. The Seawolf class was envisioned as the replacement to the aging Los Angeles class. Twenty nine total were planned but only three were actually built before the realities of the collapse of the Soviet union reduced concerns over the Typhoon class boats these were planned to hunt.
The most interesting of these three is the Jimmy Carter SSN-23. This boat was lengthened by a hundred feet to make room for navy SEAL teams and other special cargo. Special positioning thrusters permit the boat to precisely position – which is needed for tapping undersea fiber cables.
Like the later Los Angeles class boats, the Seawolf is built to penetrate Arctic ice.
The newest boats of the fleet are the six active (thirty planned) Virginia class submarines. This has to be the most useless Wikipedia entry I've ever seen – I'll paraphrase from other sources. This boat bears the same dozen vertical cruise missile launch tubes found in the later Los Angeles class and four tubes for the Mark 48 torpedo.
U.S.S. Virginia SSN-774
Modern smart torpedoes do things differently than the way Hollywood represents them. Instead of impacting the target they dive under it, explode, and the resulting steam bubble first lifts the ship and the middle, then it falls back into the void left behind, but the ends are still supported. This breaks the keel of the vessel, often tearing smaller ships in half. This short non-English video is the best representation I've found as to the particulars of such an attack.
That concludes the backgrounder. If I come up with something more substantial than a guess as to the type based on the missile's trajectory I will post additional information here.
UDPATE:
Someone familiar with such things says the contrail indicates a solid fuel engine - that's a ballistic missile. Definitely not a Tomahawk cruise missle - too big, exhaust much too bright, and they climb up a little bit then cruise, they don't climb out vertically like that.
Three possible scenarios:
1. saber rattling test staged by U.S. Navy with empty missile
2. really bad accident, lost U.S. Tident /w nuke aboard
3. Cuban missile crisis grade provocation from nation X.
L.A. Times video /w multiple perspectives & analysis. The object crossing from right to left around 1:35 is a helicopter - watch those few seconds carefully and you can see sunlight flashing off the front rotor in a frame or two.