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The Submarine Review is a quarterly publication
with an international audience: submariners,
other armed forces personnel, participants
in the wider governmental defense and intelligence
communities, military contractors, and people
who care about national security policy and
problems. It is a forum for the discussion
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The Submarine Review is published by the Naval
Submarine League.
Its Editorial Review Committee
consists of retired U.S. Navy submariner captains
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and submarine supporters. It is a non-profit
organization headquartered in Annandale, Virginia.
Membership is permitted to the general public,
and includes a subscription to the Review.
Every year, the Naval Submarine League conducts
separate classified-level and open Symposia,
both of which are well attended events important
to the undersea warfare community.
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A former partner in a top-10 global management consulting firm, Joe Buff is a seasoned risk analyst and professional writer on national security and defense preparedness. Two of his non-fiction articles received annual literary awards from the Naval Submarine League. He is also a national bestselling author of tales of near-future warfare featuring nuclear submariners and special operations forces in action at their bravest and best. Joe holds a master's degree in math from MIT, earned under a National Science Foundation Fellowship. He worked as an intern at the Argonne National Laboratory. Previously a qualified actuary for twenty years, with extensive experience at interpreting policy implications of dire "what if" scenarios, he is now a member of the Society for Risk Analysis, a non-partisan international scholarly body headquartered in McLean, VA.
Joe's father was an enlisted man in the Navy (Seabees in the Pacific Theater) from 1946 through 1951, and his uncle was a merchant mariner on the North Atlantic convoys late in World War II, before being drafted into the U.S. Army to serve in the Occupation of Nazi Germany. Joe is a Life Member of the following Navy-related organizations: U.S. Naval Institute, the Navy League of the United States, the Fellows of the Naval War College, CEC/Seabees Historical Foundation, and the Naval Submarine League. During 2004, after having been a guest luncheon speaker at their Annual National Convention, Joe became a sponsored Life Associate Member of the U.S. Submarine Veterans, Inc. He was recently made an Honorary Life Associate Member of the Navy Seabee Veterans of America, partly in recognition of his pro bono work for Operation Seabees Knowledge.
Joe
Buff Article & Column Archive
Joe Buff Contact Info:
readermail@joebuff.com
http://www.JoeBuff.com
Joe Buff Books:
Seas of Crisis (12/1/05)
Straits
of Power
Tidal
Rip
Crush
Depth
Thunder
in the Deep
Deep
Sound Channel
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June 16, 2005
[Have an opinion on this column? Sound off in Military.com
at the Frontlines.]
[Read Transparent Seas? (Part I)]
Preface for Military.com: Whole New Meaning to Submarine "Relevance"
Few Americans fully appreciate the continuing and emerging vital roles of U.S. Navy nuclear submarines, and that is most unfortunate because each one is so important to our national security. Because all subs depend for their stealth in part on the optical and infrared murkiness of the ocean, and its opacity to radar, a key question is sometimes posed as to their future survivability and relevance: What would happen if some breakthrough anti-submarine technology were to render all waters "transparent" for detecting subs even when they've dived to great depth? Joe Buff has looked carefully into this, and his thorough discussion makes an excellent case that these magnificent machines, crewed by the outstanding men who live inside them, would continue to be indispensable capital ships of the 21st century.
Joe's analysis was aided by his previous work in thinking about and writing of the world of submarining. His sources of information were in the public arena and it was his interest, ingenuity and common sense which has made him a knowledgeable commentator on issues of undersea science, strategy and operations. He has done that not only in his several novels but in the pages of THE SUBMARINE REVIEW, a professional magazine for the submarine community. As Editor of that magazine I have asked Joe to write about some subjects and his own initiative has led him to investigate and comment on other substantive issues. Our readership has responded positively to those efforts.
It is particularly appropriate that those interested in general military matters have the benefit of Joe Buff's insights.
Captain James C. Hay, USN (Ret.)
Editor, THE SUBMARINE REVIEW
Introduction and Purpose
Last week, "Transparent Seas? - Part I" began to consider solutions for the Undersea Warfare community if some hypothetical future technology somehow rendered the oceans genuinely "transparent" for purposes of antisubmarine warfare. For brevity, that unknown technological breakthrough was given the label MAGIC.
Part II will consider active means to neutralize MAGIC, should something that robs submarines of their stealth, in the conventional sense, ever in fact emerge. And since information on a submarine's exact whereabouts is not necessarily useful if that submarine possesses superior weaponry for attack and defense, we will show that existing trends and plans in naval submarine development are consistent with coping fully in a world where MAGIC exists.
Hull-Forms and Weapons -- Present and Future Directions
The discussion now leads to considering the actual field of battle at sea. Some general but relevant points will be made which apply as much in a future with MAGIC as they do apply today, or historically. Cumulatively, these points will demonstrate how to assure "water superiority," come what may.
1. Speed and precision are decisive: The detection of an enemy vessel, including a submarine, is never enough by itself to guarantee victory, either in the immediate tactical-combat sense or in the broader strategic sense of an entire war. To win a naval battle, destructive warheads must be delivered quickly and accurately onto high-value targets, which themselves will take strong measures in real time to defend themselves. One of the most effective forms of defense is to attack and destroy one's attacker.
2. The atmosphere versus the sea: War at sea in modern times occurs in three dimensions, each with their own physical characteristics: the atmosphere, the surface of the sea, and underwater within the sea. Crucial to future employment of submarines in a conjectural world with MAGIC are key differences in the properties of water and air, and also certain asymmetric properties of their interface.
3. Hull (or fuselage) forms: Because air provides less flow resistance than water, in general the fastest moving platforms are airborne ones. Submarines, faced with much greater flow resistance, cannot move as the same high speeds. However, by adopting a streamlined "teardrop" hull shape, the submarine can optimize its speed for a given amount of propulsion power. Furthermore, by diving deeper, increased water pressure can reduce or eliminate propulsor cavitation, enhancing efficient use of power to accelerate, i.e. gain speed more rapidly. Surface ships, floating on the air/ocean interface, are at a disadvantage compared both to aircraft and to submarines: They waste propulsion power through unavoidable wave-making, and their screws cavitate heavily because they turn at shallow depth. (Solutions such as hovercraft, hydrofoils, and water-jet propulsion cannot yet accommodate major warships weighing many thousands or tens of thousands of tons.) Thus, a nuclear powered fast-attack submarine might be by a significant margin the fastest type of "big hull" in any navy. This remains true completely apart from the question of stealth. Indeed, were acoustic stealth rendered irrelevant by MAGIC, submariners would be much more free to use flank speed.
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4. Modern blue-water and littoral "amphibians": As has been discussed extensively in the open submarine literature, great advances are being made or planned for bridging the communication "barrier" presented by the air/ocean interface. Gradually, communications -- including covert and high-baud-rate data links -- between submerged submarines and surface ships, aircraft, satellites, or land bases, will become greatly enhanced. This will aid the full participation of submarines in total network-centric warfare; in the language of cyberspace, submarines become virtual amphibians. This, in turn, will be crucial to defense against any MAGIC that might emerge.
5. The true all-weather warship: One factor that remains significant and yet uncontrollable during combat is weather. Weather at sea can affect a naval battle in several ways. Clouds, fog, mist, icebergs, and rain impair many sensors, including visual, radar, lidar (targer-search lasers), and infrared. In addition, surface storms create added background noise that degrades the performance of passive sonars -- wind, rain, grinding ice cap edges, and breaking waves all make underwater sound. Perhaps most importantly, major surface storms can impede both the routing and speed of advance of fleets and convoys, and can badly impair the performance of their aircraft (both fixed wing and rotary wing), their sensors, and their weapons systems. A severe sea-state, especially if wind and waves come from an unfavorable direction, can present major problems. Only a submarine is able to maneuver with complete freedom under the most extreme surface storm, with no reduction in speed or physical discomfort for the crew. (In contrast, even a supercarrier weighing 100,000 tons and over 1000 feet long can find flight operations impossible and the ship herself barely habitable.) In the future, therefore, surface weather and ice caps may become an even more significant factor in undersea warfare -- and undersea warfare more valuable in extreme-weather or under-ice operations -- if submarines do somehow become much more easily detectable.
(continued)
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