>>6106649More concerningly, though- “I fear we’ve been made,” you say at length.
“Pardon?”
“I’ve been talking to Prinz Eugen in the clear. No way around that for the moment. Any ELINT platform anywhere nearby - ah, that’s electronic intelligence, listening for radio waves - knows where she is, and that there is an American Carrier Strike Group somewhere in the Marshalls. Let’s hope whoever’s out there takes that as a sign to leave and not to hunt. And that they don’t have any nuclear boats.”
Nagato’s face suggests she shares the sentiment. “Do ships truly fire nuclear torpedoes in modern wars? Or do they use these 'guided missiles’ you describe?”
“Uh, both, but actually neither. I mean, they can. It’s not their weapons that are the issue, but their propulsion. A ship powered by a nuclear reactor only needs to refuel every couple of decades. I served for fifty years and only needed to be once, during my mid-life refit. A nuclear submarine has the energy to stay submerged for as long as the coffee supply lasts, during which time the submarine might not surface at all. And they’re *fast* too, faster underwater than a lot of ships are on the surface, while running almost as quiet as the grave. Every development in naval technology in the last century has only made them more and more dangerous. They’re the main weapons of modern navies, in truth; we carriers might get all the attention, but that’s just how the silent service likes it.”
She looks at you with horror as she processes everything you just said. “You say you are powered by one of these ‘nuclear reactors’ as well?”
You wince. “I am. Eight, actually, two for each steam generator. I think you might understand why I didn’t broadcast that fact before.”
“Are all modern warships powered by nuclear reactors?”
“No. Just long-endurance subs and the largest supercarriers, like me. And also Long Beach and Bainbridge here, and a few others, but those are all special cases. For surface combatants under about 45,000 tons the costs of reactors aren’t worth it. It didn’t make us popular at foreign ports, either.”
“I see. I am still curious, then, how are such weapons actually used?”
You give Nagato a hard look. A focused woman, this one. Yet there was nothing but honest, if morbid, curiosity in her expression. “The answer is, they aren’t, not really. As tactical weapons they’re an expensive white elephant. Instead major powers put their warheads on the tips of ballistic missiles and point them at everyone else as a warning. Not once have they been used in war since 1945.”
“Not once?” she repeats, taken aback.
