[rant]
Been in court with a damn juvenile case today all day, thats why I havent replied yet. Stupid damn 17 yr old kid jumped on the head of a kid who'd been kicked to the ground already. The damn trial took 7 bloody hours.
[/rant]
Well, I would really like to avoid the battle of sources that so often evolves in debates on this BB. How about this. You claim that the Russians have better equipment now than they did back in the 80s/90s sure I'll buy that. I'm still going to maintain however that the best Russian state of the art equipment right now is on par with US mid 80s equipment when it comes to stealth (propulsion, hull design, quietness) and on par with US mid/late 70s when it comes to sonar (both software and hardware). I honestly did not think that the US technological edge was in doubt. Sure the Soviets managed to excell in some very specialized areas, like the speed of the Alfa...but generally those special abilities came with horrible side effects..the Alfa was about as quiet as an exploding freight train when going at speed.
So they have a new torpedo now, first I remain unconvinced about the abilities of that torpedo, second any torpedo is useless if you cant locate and track the intended targets.
When you say the Russians are only a few percentages behind USN...what exactly do you mean by that? Because you simply cannot mean that when it comes to sonar capacity, or stealth for that matter. Even the dirt old Ohios are like a wall of compact silence compared to the latest Russian SSN's...but granted, the Ohios are special.
As for the US ability to track enemy SSBNs and/or SSNs... now you are wandering into detailed tactical encounters and tactics. I mean sure we can go there, but it becomes rather odd because I could just modify the example by saying "Oh but the USN decided it was so important to keep a track on these SSBNs, so they decided to put two i688s on each one, that way if one is driven off the other one can continue." I am noth convinced about the "crazy ivan" tactic you described either for a number of reasons.
But anyway...any 688 captain that chose to go flank speed to keep up with a rushing boomer and got caught by her escort would not be a 688 captain long after that. Much easier to stay hidden, follow the escort instead and/or just wait to detect the boomer again. Rule #1 of sub warfare is never to give up your stealth advantage, or in other words, never compromise your position. That is why your crazy ivan variant sounds rather odd, since doing one of those rushes would broadcast your position to everyone within miles.