Back in the olden days, the USN used to carry out extensive antisubmarine patrols on both coasts, just in case Soviet boats were trying to do exactly this.
P-3 Orion, the USN’s Cold War land-based ASW workhorse
These days they still do, but not to the same degree. However, there’s a good reason for that. The reason is you can count the number of potentially hostile guided missile boats on your hands.
First, there’s four active Yasen (NATO ‘Severodvinsk’) SSGNs. One recently paid a visit to the East Coast, where it was shadowed by US warships.
Then there’s a half dozen older Antey (Oscar II) class SSGNs.
And… that’s about it. All the rest are ballistic missile boats which wouldn’t have to get close to launch. There’s a few smaller diesel-electric boats that can technically fire cruise missiles, but they don’t have enough of a payload to do anything serious. Those also tend to be kept closer to home as there’s no convenient bases for them to refuel at.
The Chinese may have something in a few years, but as of now they don’t have a credible threat in this department.
It doesn’t take a lot of resources to keep tabs on ten cruise missile boats. If any of them tried anything funny, I don’t think they’d be in business for very long.
Source: Eugene Chia (Quora)
