Et tu, Representative Forbes, et tu? Earlier this week, asked whether the U.S. Navy is “over-investing in submarines,” the redoubtable Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee chairman maintained that the “U.S. advantage in the undersea domain, which did so much to secure victory in the Pacific in World War II and provide strategic stability during the Cold War, will remain an essential American competitive advantage for years to come.”
Not much objectionable here. Except the premise of the question is that I predicted an end to the age of underwater stealth, and the competitive advantage it has long bestowed on U.S. Navy mariners. Rep. Forbes responded based on that premise. His answer is reasonable, if a mite overconfident, but the premise of the question is false. I predict nothing; I ask what if?
Indeed, you’ll look in vain for strong predictions in any of my writings. Maybe it’s growing up in the Deep South of the 1970s, where some sidewalk preacher or huckster was always prophesying that the end of the world was nigh unless we mended our sinful ways. (It ended during my honeymoon in 1988, as I recall. Or maybe it was 2012.) My reflexive assumption, then, is that anyone who claims to know the future — whether it’s a Bible thumper, or a scientist, or a scholar — is peddling snake oil.
Any soothsaying I hazard belongs to the Clubber Lang variety: vague, squishy, provisional.
To prepare yourself intellectually for uncertain times, though, it’s imperative to explore alternative futures. Sure, what Forbes says about undersea combat may hold. I hope it will. The laws of physics may mask quiet subs’ whereabouts into the indefinite future. The competition will remain in the realm of acoustics. Shipwrights will keep doing their utmost to eliminate noise, while anti-submarine forces construct sensors able to detect ever more minute sound signatures.
In short, passive defenses against detection, tracking, and targeting may suffice — as they have for decades. But what if not? Human ingenuity could expand the competition beyond the acoustic arena, making the depths a far more contested battleground than in the past. In this case I was riffing on someone else’s informed guesswork about that possibility, namely Bryan Clark’s. The thesis of my article boils down to: if Bryan is right, what then?
Bottom line, if foretelling some radical break with past trends has its perils, so does concluding that past performance guarantees future results. Submariners — and friends of the silent service — must not fall prey to the oldest false syllogism in the book. Namely, it could be the case that the U.S. submarine force will retain its advantage of stealth; I want it to be the case that the U.S. submarine force will retain its advantage of stealth; therefore it is the case that the U.S. submarine force will retain its advantage of stealth.
No. Nothing is fact because it could be and we want it to be. Nevertheless, it’s pretty safe to postulate, Clubber-style, that the underwater realm will grow increasingly contested in the coming years and decades. That’s the nature of competitive military interaction. Ergo, some questions to ask ourselves are:
- Will new technology render the seas partially or wholly transparent to sub hunters?
- To what technologies will the oceans become transparent? What are the new battlefields where high-tech thrust-and-parry will play out?
- Where will the tactical setting change: in the open oceans, near-shore waters, or both?
- How quickly will the setting change? How much leisure does the silent service have to adapt?
- How do submarine designs need to mutate to let subs protect themselves while harnessing new technology to extend their striking reach?
As the strategist Mr. Spock counsels, military advantages are the most fleeting of all. Tacticians and hardware designers, that is, must break new ground continually to stay ahead of their competitors. Indeed, it may be that Congress and the U.S. Navy are under-investing in preserving and expanding the sub force’s competitive advantage. To win we have to compete.
You wouldn’t argue with an eminent Vulcan, would you, congressman?
James Holmes is professor of strategy at the Naval War College.
Photo credit: Official U.S. Navy Imagery
Green Eyed Jinn 
Pete K 
CharleyA 
LAGrant 
CBCalif 
Acoustics will still be the main game – both passive and active.
Stealth hull coatings are pretty effective against active echo rangers. And active sources automatically have given away their position. Some work has gone on with bi-static, low frequency stuff, but the results are marginal and the systems are expensive. And it’s a BIG ocean(s) out there: go where the active rangers aren’t and you’ll likely still be able to complete the mission.
Lots of work has gone into blue-green lasers, hydrogen detection, wake detection, magnetic anomaly detection…and we see just how many incredibly effective breakthroughs…where?
Heck, just getting a good radar return on a periscope or communications mast is pretty darn tough if you’re a warship, say uncomfortably within torpedo range…
So. I see stealth and acoustic silencing to be THE game for the foreseeable future in submarines.
Our adversaries are getting better, but if the balloon pops, I’d still want to be on a US sub (SSN or SSBN) over anything else.
Cheers.
I pretty much agree with GEJ’s analysis of the continuing importance of acoustics and the lack of pretty much any other detection phenomenon. BUT, there is a trend here that is not getting sufficient notice (hardly any notice, as far as I can tell). The question going forward is not “what if the oceans become transparent?” The main question is becoming, “what if the oceans become opaque?” As we get quieter, the other guys will have an even harder time finding us, but as Russians get quieter, and eventually even the Chinese get quieter, we won’t be able to find them either.
To my knowledge, no one has thought through the implications of this trend. How does that change our strategy, our ops and tactics, our sub and ASW designs? If there’s a trend in undersea warfare, that’s it. And you heard it here first.
And the cat and mouse game of weaponry continues, as it has, for centuries.
“Nothing is fact because it could be and we want it to be.”
James, meet Caitlyn. Caitlyn, meet James.
An interesting paper by the retired Captain, but one with a valuable warning for the Sub Service, at least those the US may compete against. Arrogance is the kiss of death, so they should learn a lesson from the German U-Boat service of WWII and their lack of operational success as the Allies developed the needed platforms and technology (search, detection, and wepons systems) and deployed them in the numbers needed to turn the tide.
Attack subs are useless absent closing with the enemy an being able to sink their ships. Everybody knows where they are headed.
This isn’t the 1960’s and 1970’s when could travel fast and effectively undetected approaching ships looking for them — because they were to deep and under the Thermal Barrier, and too fast for S-2’s to maneuver into firing position –on the occasion when one could actually see them in clear water.
Thus the pre-Walker SOSUS information based operational procedures. Every time we employed them, along with our knowledge of Soviet Sub transiting habits, along with VP placed Jez barriers we (actually the VP crews) eventually detected them. We adopted our technplogy and operational procedures to the times — we had no other choice.
As the Captain’s paper implies technology has advanced in leaps and bounds since the 60’s and 70’s. The ASW world, as in my time, is still cloaked in secrecy, but reading the available paper, etc indicates they are substantially advancing their capabilities. Now ships and helos can simultaneously searc above and below the Thermal Barrier, and along with ever improving underwater drones will be able to so in a tight defensive pattern far out fro a convoy. As time advances, if not already, computer processing speeds and with the necessary software will use active and oassive obtained data and display the results in a manner similar to radar of old. Further, from what I have been told, they are becomming increasingly closer to being able to use passive search input for targeting. And, agai, they are making progress using other search / detection methods thanks to advances in Computer orocessing speeds, we never dreamed possible.
The game is changing. Remember, the Germans invested a lot in Subs, but technology and the number of Allied aircraft and ships totally nullified that investment. We certainly lack the number of ships and P-8’s, but who knows.