Asheville sailors train with Chilean sub - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Asheville sailors train with Chilean sub

SAN DIEGO — The hours spent at sea on patrol in the ocean’s vast darkness can be monotonous for a submarine’s crew, even boring.

Until contact, that is.

Sailors aboard the fast-attack submarine Asheville experienced that rush during October training in anti-submarine warfare exercises off Southern California with one of the world’s stealthiest submarines. Thomson is a Chilean diesel-electric Type 209 boat with propulsion technology that makes it one of the world’s quietest subs.

Over several weeks, the nuclear-powered Asheville plied the ocean as it operated with surface ships, submarine-hunting helicopters and patrol craft. The training exercises during Thomson’s 156-day deployment to San Diego challenged sub crews to hunt down and avoid the stealthy boat.

In their final week of training with Thomson, Asheville’s sonar technicians and fire-control techs got what they were looking for: a close undersea encounter.

The normally quiet control room bubbled with activity.

“We had contact and found them,” said Lt. Thomas Luna, the sub’s weapons officer.

However, Thomson quickly turned course and disappeared into the sea — but not before Asheville made note of a successful hunt. Luna, officer of the deck at the time, said he got his “screen shot” of the contact, proof that his crew located the small submarine. Of course, Luna noted, with their proximity to Thomson, “we knew they had us also.”

Aboard Thomson, the crew of nine officers and 35 sailors appreciated the “gotcha” moment, too, but didn’t seem to mind much that the high-tech Asheville found them. Nor were they ones to brag, although Cmdr. Juan Pablo Zuniga Alvayay, the sub’s commanding officer, proudly showed a visitor on Nov. 5 a chart depicting a tracking of Asheville. “Both sides learned a lot,” said Zuniga, smiling.

So it goes in the cat-and-mouse game, just as intended by Navy officials who are training the fleet to detect, track and attack diesel-electrics — cheap, stealthy boats popular with more than a dozen foreign navies and potential rogue states. Thomson, along with Asheville and the attack sub Topeka, swapped roles as friendly and aggressor forces, giving each the chance to run and stay undetected, and also to hunt down — and hold contact on — the super-quiet boat that can challenge the most skilled sonar tech.

On Nov. 11, Thomson wrapped up its four-month visit — the latest iteration of the Navy’s Diesel Electric Submarine Initiative — and began the monthlong trek south to its home port in Talcahuano, Chile.

While sailors enjoyed some time off seeing local sights, playing soccer and visiting with relatives who traveled here in September, Zuniga’s priority was training with the U.S. fleet. Sailors operated alongside their U.S. counterparts in shore-side submarine trainers and fire-fighting simulators.

Cmdr. Gerald Miranda, Ashville’s commanding officer, said training with Thomson gave his crew the chance to practice hunting and tracking a diesel-electric boat.

“It’s very important for us to understand how these quiet modern warships operate,” he said.