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Two more comments: For some reason, the enemy boat has no name. Not sure what that is about. Maybe so we don’t sympathize with the Russian crew who didn’t really do much wrong and who just get killed in the end Also, the trip of the British submarine through the Turkish straits: That couldn’t have happened. And i mean the trip into the Black Sea. I read the Montreux Convention, something that the author probably didn’t do. (Maybe he just hoped that the readers wouldn’t.) Submarines are only allowed to cross the straits in two cases: Newly bought boats by Black Sea countries going there, or boats of Black Sea countries going to and from a repair shipyard outside the Black Sea. British submarines are simply not allowed through the straits at all, in any direction and state of submersion.

Yeah, no. Now it is getting silly. Sure, Odesa was part of the Russian Empire, but never part of Russia as such. It has always been Ukrainian.

Nope, the author really has never seen the US president deliver a televised address to the nation. The first one was outside, in front of the press. The second one is from inside the White House, but still not the president sitting at his desk in the Oval Office. I thought that was iconic. Apparently not.

Oh, look. I did an image search for submarine on blocks. Looks like you typically use two rows of blocks. With them, and the curved lower hull of your typical submarine, it is quite stable like that. So stable that in none of the pictures they felt the need to shore them, that is, use beams to keep it from falling over. Sure, that is assuming no list of the floating dock, but i doubt a few degrees would be a problem.

O god. ⅔ in in a book where Israeli politics play a role, and finally we get our first and only mentions of Palestine. In the worst possible way.

Where are the Palestinians ultimately going to live? How is this a question? In the state of Palestine. Asking the question is a threat of ethnic cleansing.

edit: I first wrote »first of two«. Turns out, the second hit was in the sneak preview for another book by this author.

What’s going on here? Of the 38 Sturgeon class submarines 35 got fish names, as is tradition in the US Navy. Four¹ after politicians. Of the four two were full-on Southern Democrats who voted against all civil rights laws that came there way, and one voted against some of them. I hope that was some sort of compromise where some racist was bought of by having ships named after other racist for not being too racist in more harmful ways. Then again, i doubt it.

1 one was named after a fish first and got renamed after a politician

Ugh. Uh. Oh dear, oh dear. I guess i can see why a military would want to honor this guy. Partially. But that is, ugh, that is exactly for reasons people become pacifists.

So. L. Mendel Rivers. US politician. Southern Democrat. That is, Democrat when the Democratic Party was the racist one. He voted against all civil rights legislation that came his way. But that was only part of it. »Rivers developed a reputation for his unwavering support of American involvement in the Vietnam War. His reputation suffered as the American public at large turned against further escalation in the Vietnam War. In 1968, Rivers condemned American servicemen who attempted to stop the My Lai massacre, labeling them as "traitors".« All the yikeses in the world!

Now, OK. That submarine was one of only a few that could carry the this dry deck shelter thing for this motorized un-sealed SEAL-schlepper. OK, maybe the author didn’t bother to look the guy this submarine he picked out was named after. But that was his job. And he blew up a fictional aircraft carrier. There is none called Thomas Jefferson. So he could have taken either one of the real fish submarines (the real USS Batfish doesn’t work with this DDS thingy, but, fiction), or just inventing a name. How about USS Snail Darter. I know it’s a fresh water fish, and the submarines get sea water fish names, but that would have been funny.

Oh, f–k, i spent too much time reading weapons porn. That the author has the ASDS, then in planning as just an SDV with two more seats is mostly fine. This is fiction. But the SEAL Delivery Vehicle, he has it as a dry submarine, and has misunderstood the problem. Cold air is not the problem. What limited the practical endurance of the SDV, especially in cold waters, but in, say, the Strait of Hormuz, too, is that the SEALs were in the water. That SDV is open at the ends. It has a motor, an air supply, steering and not much moor. Especially not a water and pressure tight hull.

That was what was the advancement of the Advanced SEAL Delivery System. It was to have a sealed hull, which, afaics, meant you could get rid of the box, the DDS the SDV was put in. And that the guys were not cooled down by the water. But apparetly the plans for the ASDS were just too advanced. They just couldn’t do it. So it got cancelled, and other models eventually replaced the SDV.