Paris (France) (AFP) – A US submarine this week torpedoed an Iranian warship during the Middle East conflict, raising the crucial question of who controls the seas during wartime. The sinking of the IRIS Dena on Wednesday in international waters off the coast of Sri Lanka killed at least 86 crew members, in what Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi labelled an “atrocity.” It came after US-Israeli strikes on Iran on Saturday triggered war in the Middle East, with the Islamic Republic launching retaliatory attacks across the region and beyond. The US Navy had not torpedoed a ship since 1945.
Washington subsequently released what it claimed was periscope footage of the submarine firing on the ship, along with an image of its hull almost vertical as it slipped below the surface. The IRIS Dena “sank in less than 20 minutes,” said Alessio Patalano, a professor at King’s College London. “It didn’t stand a chance. The incident confirms the sophistication of the means of American undersea warfare.” Patalano remarked that “submarine warfare has never gone away,” adding that it was merely in the background due to the lack of fleet confrontations since the 1980s.
The most recent confirmed wartime torpedo attack dates back to 1982 when the British submarine HMS Conqueror sank the Argentine cruiser Belgrano during the Falklands War. In 2010, South Korea’s Cheonan corvette was torpedoed—an attack Seoul attributed to North Korea, which Pyongyang denied. A European military source specializing in submarines and speaking on condition of anonymity explained that a torpedo explodes beneath a ship rather than upon contact with it. “It detonates a few metres below, creating a huge air bubble that lifts the vessel and breaks its main beam in two when it comes back down,” the source said. They added that the IRIS Dena’s sonar range was probably too limited to detect the impending threat.
The stealthy, invisible maneuvers of a submarine, coupled with its ability to fire torpedoes from dozens of kilometers away, make it “the ultimate wartime weapon,” according to the source. These capabilities can significantly affect naval engagements, particularly when surface combat involves navies of similar standing, with radars and missiles of roughly equivalent range. Patalano noted that countries with a sophisticated underwater force enjoy an “objective advantage” in the event of a naval confrontation.
Another European military source, also speaking anonymously, stated that conducting the attack far from the conflict’s epicenter was a “show of force aimed at major rivals” such as China and Russia. “Attacking this ship in international waters…means: ‘We, the Americans, dominate the air, the sea and the undersea. We are everywhere, able to find you and destroy you’.” Experts suggest that while Russia has neglected the modernization of its surface fleet—evidenced by its setbacks in the Black Sea during its war with Ukraine—it has made a concerted effort to invest in its submarine fleet. Meanwhile, China has been developing its navy and submarines for years.
US submarine forces commander Vice Admiral Richard Seif told an American congressional committee this week that China’s “formidable” next-generation submarines “challenge the US Navy’s longstanding undersea dominance.”
© 2024 AFP
