Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. December 15th, 2020 – The landlocked country of Mongolia has signed a deal with the United States to acquire six Ohio-class nuclear submarines. In a strategic move that is either a stroke of genius or sign that military planners have indeed suffered from a stroke, Mongolia intends on deploying the submarines on the large, but not terribly deep, Lake Buir, that sits on the border between Mongolia and China.
Unfortunately several oversights have seen Mongolia’s submarine program quite literally run aground. The head of Mongolia’s armed forces, General Nuisance, explained:
“Lake Buir is 40km (25 miles) and up to 20km (13 miles) wide, so logically we thought the lake is big enough for an entire fleet of submarines, but apparently not. The problem is not the area of the lake, but it’s depth, specifically it’s come to light that the submarines are higher than lake Buir is deep. If it wasn’t for the lack of water, we’d really be in over our heads.”
“Upon discovering the miscalculation, I summoned for the head of the Navy to explain, only to find we don’t have one, a Navy that is. We have a head of Navy, but what we’ve been paying him to do for the past 30 years, I’m not quite sure. I mean, I thought we’d have at least some kind of patrol boat or even a canoe, but apparently not.”
When asked what plans the country has to address the oversights, the General said:
“We’ve started advertising for new recruits for the Navy, but apparently nobody knows how to swim, however we’ve dropped that requirements as were anyone to actually fall overboard into Lake Buir could just stand up and they’ll only be up to their waist in water.”
“The deeper, or perhaps shallower, problem of or largest lake, Lake Buir, being essentially a puddle does have a long term solution. We’re pinning our hopes on global warming and rising sea levels. If sea levels can rise by just one thousand meters, then we’ll no longer be a landlocked country, and at which point we can simply refloat the submarines, problem solved! The problem is that scientists are only predicting only 10 meter sea level rise at most, which leaves us 990 meters short, but it’s a start.”
