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Cost or capability? Another anti-submarine argument is being made on the grounds that nuclear subs are so expensive. But for the U.S. Navy to start buying diesel subs just to save money, to me at least, isn't wise. Beginning to operate SSNs and SSKs at the same time would call for two separate but concurrent crew training programs, maintenance infrastructures, and logistical support pipelines. This alone has got to be a humongous "hidden expense." That Russia and China both still have mixed SSN/SSK fleets doesn't by itself validate the same idea for us. They do what they do in part because of asymmetric nautical geography with differing statesmanship goals, in part because they still lack the industrial strength to build large purely SSN fleets, and in part because their acquisition systems are plagued -- much like Nazi Germany's was -- by excessive internecine competition, absurd duplication, and staggering waste. (In comparison, they make the U.S. military-industrial complex look hyper-efficient!)
One defense expert was quoted as saying that, ton for ton, a supercarrier costs less than an SSN. Well, duh. It's a fundamental aspect of naval architecture that the price per ton of a ship as a whole declines as the size of the ship increases. Considering that, roundly speaking, a carrier weighs ten-plus times as much as one of our biggest fast-attack subs, this per-ton comparison shouldn't be news. In the whole defense budget contest, it's a red herring.
Another thing carped on by the anti-SSN "party" is that the Virginia-class subs -- the latest design, now gradually in production -- ran badly overbudget compared to original cost estimates. To that, I ask what major and revolutionary weapon system ever introduced in modern times didn't run badly overbudget? Again, it's just a red herring, i.e., not in and of itself a valid rationale to diss or ditch the Silent Service.
Which high/low mix? Some knowledgeable people have made the case that the U.S. Navy -- and the country -- needs a high/low mix of submarines, rather than the exclusive concentration we now have on the high end. With this, I humbly and enthusiastically agree. However, I disagree that the proper high/low mix is to field a blend of SSNs and diesel boats.
We already have a superb high/low mix in existence or in the development and acquisition process: an SSN parent host sub, deploying different types of smaller "adjuvant vehicles." These run from manned SEAL minisubs to unmanned or autonomous undersea probes and airborne drones, some for reconn only and some armed. My advice here is to stick with what we already have planned. A nuclear submarine, with its reactor, turbogenerators, and seawater electrolysis plant, can stealthily, while forward-deployed, recharge or refuel its adjuvant vehicles ad infinitum. Diesel/AIP subs can't make that crucial claim.
Supercavitating weapons: The Russians have a series of underwater rockets, the Shkvals, fired from submerged submarines. These weapons, as they accelerate, create a vacuum bubble around their bodies (supercavitation), which cuts down water resistance to the point that their rocket engines can propel Shkvals at 200 or 300 knots. In comparison, American torpedoes have a maximum speed somewhere around 70 knots. Certain persons have used this to claim that our SSNs are obsolete because we have no defense against the Shkvals. Ho hum. Once again it's a case of getting different things mixed up.
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The older, and most common, variants of the Shkval are "straight runners." Like most World War II torpedo designs, they lack any homing sensors. The sub launching such a Shkval needs a perfect firing solution, or it only wastes ammo. (Granted, the tremendous speed of the Shkval does make this aiming problem easier to solve.) That is, unless -- and here's a vital point indeed -- the Shkval is equipped with a nuclear warhead, which given the large kill radius of an underwater nuclear bomb (10 miles for a 1 megaton warhead) means it doesn't need huge accuracy. And that was precisely how early Shkvals worked -- as delivery platforms for H-bombs or A-bombs. Thus, while this isn't exactly a "defense" against them, the fact that using such weapons crosses the nuclear threshold would presumably give a state-level adversary (like China or Russia) considerable pause. Were that barrier ever actually crossed, American subs could retaliate with nuclear-tipped torpedoes, smashing inbound Shkvals at what (one hopes) would be a safe stand-off distance. An even better answer to this threat, in extremis, might be to reintroduce the SUBROC -- a missile launched from a torpedo tube that flies very fast through the air but then drops a small torpedo or depth change, which could be tactical nuclear.
Now, there is a newer version, the Shkval-E, which has on-board target homing sensors and a high-explosive warhead. It's even available for export (think China again). There are just two problems with this. One is that the Shkval-E is a huge device, much too big to fit through the torpedo or missile tubes of any sub other than Russian nuclear classes that aren't sold on the world arms market. The other is that the Shkval-E, to pursue an evading target (think American SSN), needs to repeatedly slow down to reacquire its intended victim's signature -- the reason is that the rocket motors are utterly deafening to the rocket. When that Shkval reduces speed to listen for its prey with the usual passive and active sonars, it in turn becomes vulnerable to spoofing and decoying by conventional SSN countermeasures.
Commentators have said that a Shkval moves so fast that it doesn't even need a warhead -- the weapon body alone can punch right through a carrier's hull. This problem doesn't apply to our SSNs, though, because a weakness of the Shkval is that it advertises its presence to the whole neighborhood the moment it's fired, and an SSN can maneuver in three dimensions quickly enough to avoid direct impact. (It's also another reason why American submariners like to call aircraft carriers targets.)
And in case you're wondering, yes, the U.S. Navy has for some time investigated supercavitating weapons. So far, a preferred approach is to keep improving the Improved Mark 48 ADCAP heavyweight long-range torpedo. The latest mod, I'm told, has such good on-board sonars and software, and such a wide-angle sensor search cone, that the old bugaboo about having the guidance wire broken isn't tactically important anymore.
Confusing today and tomorrow: A more insidious element of the anti-submarine rhetoric afoot is to make comparisons that muddle timeframes. An example is any discussion of why U.S. nuclear subs are or should be on the endangered-species list, which pits a hypothetical adversary's capabilities not due to be operational for ten or twenty-five years against American capabilities of today. I've heard such illogic used to argue that an affordable (read small) sub force is a loser, hence worthless, so we're better off having none -- a peculiar take on unilateral disarmament. This barely holds water even if the most radical ASW Party member's wildest fantasy came true: that U.S. Navy submarine technology development were immediately and forever frozen, with all pending acquisitions canceled at once.
But even the most miserly and skeptical senior leadership inside U.S. borders supports building further nuclear subs, plus adding more and increasingly potent adjuvant vehicles, working out ever-smarter battlefield tactics for all sorts of wars, and planning a superb next-generation SSN for beyond the Virginias. So don't compare China or Russia in 2025 with our own Silent Service in 2005 and think this tells you something meaningful -- other than that we can't afford not to spend more money on subs.
Conclusion: A large and capable nuclear submarine fleet, with adequately sized and strategically dispersed supporting base/yard infrastructure, will in the future remain as vital as it ever was to preserving freedom and America's way of life.
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© 2005 Joe Buff. All opinions expressed
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