Submarine Numbers at Issue

The U.S. Navy plans to begin constructing two nuclear-propelled attack submarines (SSN) per year beginning next year -- Fiscal Year 2010. For the past decade the Congress has authorized SSNs at an average of one a year. However, in response to the Newport News/Northrop Grumman and Electric Boat/General Dynamics shipyards reducing construction costs for submarines of the Virginia (SSN 774) class to $2 billion per submarine in then-year (FY 2005) dollars, the Department of Defense and Congress have approved the doubled construction rate.

Now some in DoD and Congress are having second thoughts about the increased submarine building rate. The reason is primarily money. The cost in today's dollars for a Virginia-class SSN is closer to $2.5 billion per unit.

The Navy's annual shipbuilding budget from FY 2002 through 2009 averaged about $10 billion. The FY 2010 budget is about $12 billion. The Navy -- which currently has 283 active ships -- has a goal of 313 ships. Navy estimates of the shipbuilding funds needed to reach that goal have been steadily increasing over the past few years and is now about $16 billion per annum. However, the Congressional Research Service, General Accountability Office, and other, non-government institutions and individuals, estimate the cost at more than $20 billion per year and possibly as high as $24 billion. And, these numbers do not include the "mission packages" for littoral combat ships (LCS), the planned new class of strategic missile submarines (SSBN), and the proposed ballistic missile defense cruisers (CG(X)).

This analyst believes that with the current financial situation in the United States, the costs of the Iraqi and Afghan conflicts, the Navy and Air Force shortfalls in aircraft, and other factors will make shipbuilding budgets of more than $12 billion highly unlikely; probably less money will be available for that purpose. Will DoD and the Congress -- and even the non-nuclear segments of the Navy -- permit almost $5 billion per year, i.e., some 40 to possibly 50 percent of the annual shipbuilding budget, to be spent on two attack submarines?

Today the Navy has 53 attack submarines; a building rate of two per year would increase the number to about 60 "boats." A rate of 1-1/2 annually would mean 45 submarines, while one per year would lead to a 30-submarine force.

The situation is exacerbated as some observers are questioning the role of the attack submarine on the "war on terror" -- a component of what DoD calls "irregular warfare." While SSNs are useful for clandestine surveillance in forward areas, and possibly for tracking North Korean merchant ships, their role in irregular warfare is not clear. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has called for a military force structure that is 50 percent focused on conventional warfare, 10 percent focused on irregular warfare, and 40 percent focused on dual-use capabilities. The category -- or categories -- for attack submarines is not completely clear.

Thus, with the current fleet of 283 or even the planned 313 ships, how many attack submarines are needed is not completely clear.

Also, increasingly the U.S. Navy is operating in relatively shallow, coastal or littoral waters. While nuclear submarines can operate there, some believe that their efficiency is limited for several reasons, and their vulnerability is increased. There have been three collisions of U.S. nuclear submarines with surface ships in the Gulf of Oman/Strait of Hormuz area in the past couple of years. Are those submarines there to support irregular warfare -- U.S. participation in combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan?  Or are they to deter or fight Iranian aggression? If the latter, what is their contribution when significant U.S. surface and air forces are also in the area? What is their contribution to the new U.S. Africa Command?

The larger SSN building rate and force level may well be justified. But questions of future SSN roles as well as the fiscal implications should be addressed before the United States begins a two-per-year SSN program.

-- Norman Polmar

US-China Sub Encounter Raises Questions

CNN reports that on Thursday, 11 June near Subic Bay in the Philippines, a Chinese Navy (PLAN) submarine hit the sonar towed array of USS John S. McCain, an Arleigh Burke destroyer. McCain, commissioned in 1994, displaces 8,850 tons fully loaded and has provision for an SQR-19B(V)1 passive (listening only) towed array. Neither the ship nor the sub were harmed, but the towed array, a cable fitted with hydrophones, did suffer damage. Unnamed U.S. officials are calling the event an “inadvertent encounter,” saying they don’t think it was a deliberate act of Chinese harrassment.

To me, it sounds more like a close trailing that went bad, something which fits a parsing of the words used by these officials, although there are other plausible explanations that fit equally well. Was the Chinese sub diesel or nuclear powered? This would be important to evaluating deployment ranges and operational abilities of different PLAN sub classes. Were McCain’s sonarmen aware of the Chinese sub before the collision? This could shed light on the current relative level of Chinese submarine stealth and American surface ship ASW capabilities.

The SQR-19’s cable is 1,700 meters (5,600 feet) long, so the sub had to at one point be within one nautical mile of the destroyer. Was the sub intentionally trailing McCain by using the latter’s propulsion noise as a passive sonar target, but she got too close, and hit the array by accident? (Such an event would be “inadvertent,” and wouldn’t qualify as “harrassment” because it was unintentional.) Or did the sub approach McCain without realizing she was there, barely miss colliding with her or even sail right under her, and then hit the cable? An Arleigh Burke can be rather quiet if her propulsion noise is being masked by the bulk of her hull. Do Chinese submarine passive sonars have very poor figures of merit?

How did both vessels react right after the event? Did they communicate by radio, perhaps with the submarine surfacing? Or is the only evidence of the Chinese sub a sonar recording and the damaged array?

Given the secrecy of submarine and ASW ops, and the U.S. Navy’s desire to not “sensationalize” the late-2006 close encounter beween a Chinese sub and the carrier USS Kitty Hawk near Guam, the public might not hear much more now. But such encounters can’t occur unless Chinese submarines and American surface ships are operating in the same waters. The PLAN is certainly beginning to make its undersea presence felt in the strategic First and Second Island Chains separating China from the vast and deep Pacific. Will this trend continue, or even intensify?

-- Joe Buff

Who Won the First Naval Battle of Yulin?

The People's Liberation Army Navy and the United States Navy just fought a running non-lethal battle off the coast of China, and the PLAN scored a tactical victory. Much of American media coverage focused on a single case of maritime harrassment, when some Chinese boats came way too close to USNS Impeccable, an unarmed Military Sealift Command sonar surveillance vessel. In reality, U.S. and Chinese ships and planes engaged in an escalating jousting match that stretched over nearly a week, involving almost every conceivable means of close-quarters physical engagement short of actually shelling or trying to board one another. Part of the action occurred 70 miles off China's new underground nuclear submarine base at Yulin, at the southern tip of Hainan Island facing deep water in the South China Sea.

On the night of March 4, Impeccable's near-sister ship USNS Victorious was closed on by a Chinese Bureau of Fisheries patrol boat that blinded members of her crew by shining a powerful searchlight in their eyes, then cut Victorious off aggressively by veering across her bow in the dark with no warning. That same night a Chinese Harbin Y-12 maritime surveillance aircraft conducted a dozen low flybys over Victorious. On March 5, a heavily armed PLAN frigate crossed Impeccable's bow at barely one ship-length's distance; minutes later a Y-12 did 11 flybys of her, too. On March 7, a Chinese intelligence collection ship radioed Impeccable to leave the area, or else -- but she stayed. On March 9, in broad daylight, Impeccable was approached by a 5-vessel swarm.

They mobbed her, used poles and a grappling hook to try to sever and steal her expensive, classified towed array, threw chunks of wood in her path to try to damage her hull, then stood in her way to physically bar her egress -- all while failing to respond to repeated calls on her radio. Impeccable's use of fire hoses to dissuade one of the swarm only led to it closing the range even more in a reckless and threatening manner, coming within 25 feet. U.S. 7th Fleet sent the Arleigh Burke destroyer USS Chung-Hoon to the neighborhood "as a precaution." Finally, Impeccable was grudgingly allowed to depart from her floating detention by the PLAN.

These events were concentrated and coordinated in time and space. Each side had clear-cut objectives. China's goal was to exclude U.S. Navy ASW assets from a strategically critical theater of PLAN sub operations that lies within her 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone. America's goal was to gather vital intelligence on those burgeoning sub ops occurring well outside China's 12-mile territorial limit. Because Impeccable did withdraw from the area, China scored an important tactical victory which might also create legal precedent.

The eventual strategic implications remain to be seen. The two sides have made accusations and counter-accusations; domestic Chinese media coverage is whipping up patriotic pride. The Obama Administration seems eager to tone things down, but there are deeper implications that mustn't be overlooked. Super-stealthy U.S. Navy fast-attack subs are ideally suited to snoop around Chinese undersea ops off Yulin. Congress needs to maintain funding for the two-per-year build rate of the littoral-optimized Virginia class SSN. Otherwise, our tactical loss in this non-lethal naval Battle of Yulin might lead to an eventual, irrecoverable strategic setback for America.

-- Joe Buff

Why Hartford Hit New Orleans

Very recently there were two collisions at sea involving submerged nuclear submarines. Strategic missile "boomer" SSBN subs from the UK and France collided while both were submerged out on patrol, and just the other day a submerged U.S. Navy fast attack SSN, USS HARTFORD, collided with a big U.S. Navy amphibious transport dock ship, USS NEW ORLEANS, in the Strait of Hormuz. Injuries were light-to-none, and all ships continued into port under their own power for damage assessment and repair. As naval spokespeople hastened to assure world media and the public, the nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons were never endangered.

Which is good, but even so, what gives?

While submarine operations are top secret by necessity, it's possible to offer educated conjecture based on public information as to possible explanations for both incidents. Submarines are notorious enough as being, and as facing, collision hazards when running on the surface; in late 2005, near the same Hormuz Strait, the fast-attack USS PHILADELPHIA while surfaced was run down and moderately damaged by a Turkish cargo ship. When submerged and shallow, submariners do, or at least ought to, take excruciating precautions against hitting something or being hit themselves -- the tragic surfacing of USS GREENVILLE right through the hull of a Japanese fishing ship off Hawaii in 2001 served as a terrible reminder of that.

But what brought two naval vessels, with at least one of them a submerged sub, close enough together to begin with -- to have such major nautical fenderbenders -- could have been the realistic training exercises that submariners must constantly undergo to be thoroughly prepared for their dangerous and demanding jobs.

Scenario for the UK/France collision: The two boomers may have been practicing sub-on-sub combat maneuvers, including the classic close-trail so well dramatized in "Hunt for Red October." Would two boomers ever fight in a real life war situation? Oh yes! It's public info that SSBN crews train hard so that, if they ever do have to launch their missiles, they and their sub can then stay immediately useful and relevant by switching over to the attack as an ersatz SSN, to go on the hunt for enemy SSBNs. (Their extreme quiet, powerful passive sonars, and heavyweight anti-sub torpedoes make them decent platforms in that role.)

In addition, it's public info that to save money and maximize utility of all navy assets, SSBNs while transiting to and from their patrol areas will sometimes serve as "training targets" for anti-submarine forces. Either of these situations could account for why the Royal Navy and French SSBNs were so close together to begin with that they collided while submerged. Statistically speaking this seems more likely to explain it, rather than a totally random encounter against astronomical odds under the high seas.

Scenario for the Hartford collision: The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow and crowded waterway of vital strategic and geopolitical importance, because it's a crucial choke point in the shipping of petroleum products from the Middle East. It's possible that the Hartford was operating in concert with other U.S. Navy forces to get realistic practice in how to protect and dominate the Strait -- what the Pentagon calls Sea Access and Sea Denial, two essential parts of maritime security operations.

So, think back to old WWII movies such as "Destination Tokyo." Another classic submarine tactical maneuver is to sneak through a strait by hiding under a big surface ship, and this tactic needn't be confined to diesel subs. It could be that Hartford and the amphib were practicing just such an evolution when the collision occurred. It could be that part of the exercise was for Hartford to do this undetected, with the amphib unawares. (A very similar collision in the same place in early 2007, between the L.A.-class USS NEWPORT NEWS and a Japanese oil tanker, was blamed in part on the treacherous suction forces that are caused during such a maneuver.)

Hartford might even have been tasked with sanitizing New Orleans against an actual or hypothetical Iranian diesel boat. Though such truths may never be revealed, something like this, and not a crash between two mutually sonar-blind-sided warships, might explain why Hartford while running submerged and shallow was so close to a big and noisy surface vessel to begin with, as to collide with her.

-- Joe Buff

The End of the Underwater Exploding Goat

From Military.com's headlines this morning:

The British military said Feb. 6 it will no longer use goats in experiments to gauge the risks of evacuating a submerged submarine.

The tests, conducted for years by the Ministry of Defense, involved herding the animals into a special chamber and then drastically changing the air pressure.

Defense minister Derek Twigg said the tests, which were suspended in March 2007, had provided valuable safety information to submarine crews. But a review concluded that no more experiments were needed, though the military said in a statement it could revisit the issue.

The tests were meant to simulate what sailors would experience should they need to evacuate a submerged submarine. The difference in pressure between the deep sea and the surface can cause fatal decompression sickness, often referred to as the bends.

Goats were chosen because of their physiological similarities to human beings.

Six goats died in the experiments between 2000 and November 2006, and 122 others were slaughtered afterward.

Animal rights groups complained about the tests for years, saying they were cruel and unnecessary.

QinetiQ Group PLC, which ran the tests on the government's behalf, said the tests were conducted in a facility on Britain's south coast, but declined to elaborate.

No statement from the Naval Academy mascot, but we can assume that, in spite of his support of submarine safety, Bill is good with this decision.

-- Ward

China's Subs Go to Sea . . . Sort of

While American press reports continually headline China's buildup of naval forces, in reality there is only one warship category in which the Chinese Navy is superior to the U.S. fleet -- diesel-electric submarines. In no other category is the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy even close to U.S. Navy force levels or capabilities.

The Chinese have an estimated 55 diesel-electric submarines in service, including several modern, Russian-built Kilo-class units. In addition, China is building advanced conventional as well as nuclear-propelled torpedo attack submarines. (The U.S. Navy now operates only nuclear-propelled attack submarines -- 55 SSNs are in commission.)

Non-nuclear submarines are difficult to locate -- if operated by competent crews -- especially in coastal or littoral waters. In those areas the advanced submarine detection systems developed by the U.S. and other NATO navies during the Cold War have limited effectiveness because of shallow depths and the massive noise put into the water by coastal shipping, fishing craft, offshore oil drilling rigs, and other sources.

However, China's conventional submarines, like their nuclear-propelled units, spend little time at sea. Researcher Hans M. Kristensen, writing for the Federation of American Scientists, reports that China's "55 general-purpose submarines conducted a total of six patrols during 2007, slightly better than the two patrols conducted in 2006 and zero in 2005."

The patrol information was obtained from the U.S. Navy. Kristensen continued, "Just what constitutes a Chinese 'patrol' is secret, according to the U.S. Navy…."

This writer has learned that such patrols have a maximum of about 30 days with the boats averaging a speed of four or five knots while on patrol. Still, these patrols have demonstrated that the submarines can locate U.S. ships, as evidenced by the surprise of U.S. officials when the carrier Kitty Hawk (CV 63) encountered a Song-class diesel submarine. Obviously, diesel boats cannot effectively track U.S. warships, but could probably be guided to such intercepts by reconnaissance aircraft or satellites.

Little is known about the operations of China's nuclear torpedo-attack submarines (SSN). However, according to reliable sources, neither the first Chinese ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) of the Xia design, launched 25 years ago, nor the new Jin-class SSBNs launched since 2004 have undertaken a patrol. Indeed, reportedly the Chinese still do not have an operational submarine-launched ballistic missile for those craft.

Rather, it is the non-nuclear submarines that should be of major concern to U.S. and allied naval planners who wish to operate in Far Eastern waters.

-- Norman Polmar

Who's Cutting the Cables?

Uh oh, folks! Maybe it is time to be more concerned about terrorists cutting those undersea cables in the Middle East.

CNN and the International Herald Tribune both report that, early today (Friday) local time, another cable was cut, this time in the Persian Gulf, about 35 miles off Dubai.

The abiguity in previous news reporting about whether one or two fiber optic cables were cut in the Med on Tuesday, and whether they were cut in the same place 8 miles off Alexandria or at opposite ends of the Med at the same time, has been replaced by a much worse conundrum. It’s not at all ambiguous now that at least two distinct cables were cut about 250 miles apart, on opposite sides of the huge Arabian Peninsula landmass.

What could possibly account for such sudden and nearly crippling impairment of Internet access, e-mail, and phone lines? Granted it’s still early hours as of this writing, but a Dubai telecom executive told AP that the cause hadn’t yet been identified, and this latest service outage was “very unusual.” Congestion in the Middle East and parts of India has gotten severe, following so quickly after the break(s) on Tuesday. (If you think the U.S. is immune to these problems, remember how dependent American businesses and consumers are on support outsourced to India.)

I’d rule out seismic activity for sure: Any tectonic event so widespread would have turned up on scientific instruments.

A sheer coincidence is at this point pretty hard to swallow: Major trunk cables seldom go out individually, let alone in widely dispersed pairs or triplets like this. (The last such serious problem, in 2006 off Taiwan, was indeed caused by an earthquake –- but the cause was understood immediately, exactly because of seismograph readings.) OK, dragged anchors by ships near Alexandria may well be what happened there. But dragged anchors within the same week in totally different bodies of water? For “storms plus stupidity” to strike twice in three days seems pretty odd, even if the same weather system was involved.

So once again, we need to ponder the possibility that these cable cuts were intentional malicious acts. And even if the first incident was just an innocent but damaging accident, the second, off Dubai, could well be a terrorist “copy cat” event.

Regardless of specific causes, international Internet service already impaired by the cable break earlier in the week is now even more disrupted in the volatile Middle East, with effects being felt on continents far from the site of the cable breaks. Which is scary.

-- Joe Buff

South Africa Has Subs, Needs Submariners

The South African Navy's submarine force is unable to operate all of its new Manthatisi-class submarines because of funding and people problems. The Navy has taken delivery of two submarines of this class with a third scheduled for delivery in May 2008.

The Navy is, reportedly, able to keep only one of the Manthatisis-class boats in service at this time. Because of this, some government officials have called for cancellation of the third submarine. However, at this stage of the program the refusal to accept the third unit could lead to very high cancellation costs.

The Navy has launched a recruitment drive to replenish its ranks, according to senior naval officers.

The South African problem is similar to that being faced by the Australian Navy, which in 2007 reportedly had only two of its six Collins-class submarines ready for sea. The lack of available crews for the other submarines is part of a hemorrhage of trained personnel from the Australian Navy, which has a nominal strength of just under 13,000 men and women. The loss of highly trained submariners has been especially difficult for the Navy, which is losing trained personnel to high-paying civilian jobs.

(The Australian Navy procured six diesel-electric submarines of the Collins class between 1996 and 2003, although their entry into service was delayed several years because of software integration and systems problems. Those submarines are armed with U.S. Mark 48 torpedoes and Harpoon anti-ship missiles.)

The Manthatisis-class submarines are German designed and built Type 209/1400 undersea craft with a submerged displacement of about 1,600 tons. Each submarine is armed with 8 21-inch bow torpedo tubes and can carry 14 torpedoes. At this time there are no provisions for the submarines to launch anti-ship missiles, which are being provided to numerous Third World submarines.

Last fall the Manthatisis participated in a NATO exercise. Reportedly, she escaped a task group of six ships hunting the submarine while (theoretically) sinking all of the "hunters."

The new South African submarines are intended to replace the Navy's French-built Daphne-class submarines. Three of these 1,040-ton submarines -- the first South African undersea craft -- were delivered in 1970-1971. One of the trio has been laid up in reserve to compensate for the first deliveries of the Manthatisis-class submarines.

South Africa, with some 4,700 active naval personnel, also has four modern, German-built missile/anti-submarine frigates, seven Israeli-built missile craft, and a large number of mine, patrol, and auxiliary units.

-- Norman Polmar

Subs in the GWOT

The Global War on Terror has gelled as a bloody slugfest in which information is power and perceptions are everything. Many terrorist activities take place in or near coastal population centers, span littorals, and transit oceans and seas. This new type of fighting –- assymetric and amorphous –- has required the constant updating of traditional submarine missions and the definition of whole new missions. Many of these taskings were virtually unheard of in their present guise as recently as 2000, but now are increasingly commonplace. And beneath a cloak of deep secrecy, the Silent Service “brings home the bacon” time after time.

The proliferation of modern diesel boats, some equipped with air-independent propulsion, has shifted the emphasis of anti-submarine warfare in the early 21st century. The strenuous perfecting of the difficult shallow-water and blue-water ASW tasks continues apace, not only to protect our military and commercial shipping assets underway, but also to prevent terrorists and rogues from traveling “from their littorals to our littorals.” Cooperative multi-national exercises demonstrate that the best weapon against an enemy diesel sub continues to be an American nuclear sub.

Because the opposition in the war against terror consists of sub-state and trans-state bad actors, aided sometimes by regimes or factions within pariah states, the mapping of hostile command and control infrastructures –- which redesign themselves constantly and relocate frequently -- is particularly important. For the same reason, unconventional weapons of mass destruction indications and warnings need high priority. These intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions are roles for which U.S. Navy subs proved decisive against the USSR, a legacy of skills and achievements directly relevant to combating global Islamofascism.

The anti-surface warfare mission has taken on new dimensions, too, from brown water through green water to blue water. Piracy is a significant detriment to worldwide good order and thriving commerce. Modern pirates operate in littoral areas that are frequently hotbeds for terrorism; their activities and personnel overlap. Suppressing piracy yields dividends against terror. One means of unconventional WMD delivery is a cargo ship. Al Qaeda reportedly controls as many as two dozen vessels worldwide. Constantly monitoring, tracking, and taking down terrorist “Q-ships” is vital. Terrorism gets funds from illicit traffic in drugs, conventional weapons, and human beings. Interdiction of contraband trade provides an immediate, powerful way to sever enemy logistics, disrupt enemy attacks, and produce indispensable intelligence to plan more counter-terror efforts. Subs are ideal for quietly staking out and policing the nautical communications arteries used by evildoers, helping efficiently vector in surface and airborne forces as required.

Especially when equipped with next generation undersea and aerial mini-vehicles, nuclear subs possess unique capabilities to clandestinely identify, eavesdrop on, trail, and even interdict a broad spectrum of threats. Their crews provide our nation with sustained covert access into very shallow waters seamless with all-weather presence out to far past any international limits. The Silent Service perfected indispensable skills in the Cold War, and beneath a cloak of deep secrecy is plying them urgently, daily, during the Global War on Terror.

(Photo: One of three Russian-built Kilo Class submarines in service with the Iranian Navy.)

-- Joe Buff

Sub Snoops for the Future

This month’s issue of the Navy League’s Seapower Magazine has a special report on an autonomous web of underwater robots that the Navy hopes will be operational by 2015. The Office of Naval Research-led project will imbue “underwater vehicles with the ability to sense and independently adapt to everything from ocean currents to hostile enemy subs.”

ONR chief Rear Admiral William Landay said, “If we can sense that, get the vehicles to understand that, get the vehicles to adapt to that, then they are in the position where they really are starting to dominate the battlespace.”

This net has been labeled “PLUSNet” and, the article explains, is comprised of a “variety of autonomous underwater vehicles and sensor technologies":

Seahorse: A platform that can easily drift while maintaining a sensing mode. Will be equipped with a high-frequency billboard sensor array on its port and starboard {left and right to you landlubbers} sides for maximum coverage.

Bluefin-21: Uses a buoyancy engine to allow drifting and bottoming modes of operation. Combines acoustic sensing capability with mobility to allow adaptive search behaviors under autonomous and supervised control.

Seaglider: An energy-efficient glider for environmental sampling while functioning as PLUSNet’s communications backbone. When a glider receives an urgent acoustic message, Seaglider will alter its flight profile to rapidly surface and transmit ashore.

Slocum Glider: A long-range deep ocean glider designed to cruise in a vertical saw tooth plane, the Slocum Glider will employ an acoustic towed array, enhance adaptive environmental sampling and sensing, and will support network communications.

X-Ray Glider: The world’s largest underwater glider, it will offer a higher speed and greater load-carrying capacity than existing gliders, boasting acoustics and electric filed sensors, along with acoustic and satellite communications capabilities.

Check out more stuff at the Navy League’s site. (And join even . . .)

-- Ward