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As Underwater Threat Re-emerges, Navy Renews Emphasis on ASW
Page 2
Sea
Power
October 2004
But more than just improving antisubmarine operations, Clark’s goal is to “fundamentally change” ASW operations away from individual platforms — ship, submarine or aircraft — to a system with the attributes of “pervasive awareness, persistence and speed, all enabled by technological agility.”
To meet this goal, “we think we’re going to have to go offboard of our platforms,” using unmanned aerial, surface and underwater vehicles, and a network of distributed sensors to provide the identification and localization that would allow quick transition to the attack, Kenny said. “That’s what we’re focused on: (finding) a high number of quiet contacts in a demanding environment with a timeline that requires us to gain access quickly.”
The task force has tested those concepts in at-sea experiments focused on distributive systems, which could be an array of easily deployed underwater sensors, passive and active, networked together and linked to manned platforms, he explained.
Among them is the Advanced Deployable System, which the Program Executive Office for Integrated Warfare Systems currently is studying, along with such other ASW-related concepts as a multisensor Torpedo Recognition and Alertment Function Segment (previously known as Torpedo Recognition and Alertment Function Processor) and the Multifunction Towed Array to improve detection and tracking capability.
The new concepts and tactics will be tested in the largest ASW exercise in years, slated for the Western Pacific in late October and early November. Called Undersea Dominance ’04, the exercise “would include state-of-the-art current systems, some systems we’re about to field and some systems that reach out in technology,” Kenny said.
Because the fleet and theater commanders face a threat today, the task force is working to give surface warships a significant improvement in ASW signals processing through the rapid insertion of commercial-off-the-shelf systems, he said. The task force also is rushing to complete the first new ASW Master Plan since 1991 and a new ASW concept of operations. The master plan, which should be completed this fall, will chart the way ahead, with emphasis on how to “accelerate technology to the warfighter” and employ it in new ways, Kenny said.
The aim of the master plan is to achieve a state of “undersea superiority” that would ensure rapid access to a threat area, he said.
Much of what the task force does will be handed off to Waickwicz’s command to integrate into the fleet. One of the command’s other priorities is to improve the system for evaluating fleet ASW exercises and operations. Tactical air exercises are recorded to allow rapid replay and study, but collecting the data on an ASW exercise can take weeks, he said.
“We want to have a replay within two to three hours after the event was finished, so people can see what was done and can make corrections,” he said
To provide that speed, the command is developing the Antisubmarine Tactical Assessment System, which is to be a web-based means to quickly collect, replay and evaluate ASW exercise data based on common performance metrics, Waickwicz said.
Restoring ASW competency after a decade of neglect might be seen as difficult, he said, but when the CNO and the fleet commanders make it their top priority, “it’s a lot easier task for me to get people interested.”
Sheila M. McNeill, national president of the Navy League, said in a March commentary that, “the very worst course ahead would be to increase our end-strength now only to cut it four or five years hence” if U.S. commitments decline. The volatility within the force would damage readiness, she said.
Resisting the call for increased end-strength has placed the service at odds with high-ranking congressional members such as Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., the ranking Democrat on the committee. In January, Hagee told committee members the Corps could maintain its current operations tempo for at least a year and didn’t need an increase in end-strength.
That message was repeated in March by Lt. Gen. Jan Huly, deputy commandant for Plans, Policies and Operations, and Lt. Gen. Garry Parks, deputy commandant for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, and backed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. But in April, Hunter announced that the House version of the 2005 Defense Authorization Act temporarily would increase the Corps’ end-strength by 9,000 Marines over the next three years.
“The committee has carefully listened to the concerns expressed by the Secretary of Defense … and proposes an approach that fully addresses the stated concerns over forcing additional end-strength on the services without the additional resources to pay for it,” Hunter said in announcing the House bill.
If the authorization act were to pass as written by the House, the Corps would be required to boost end-strength within one-half to 1 percent of the legislated range. For now, however, the Corps is operating on plans that don’t include the additional personnel.
