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.
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at the Frontlines.]
By Joe Buff and Bob Ondek, ET1(SS)(Ret.)
[A different version of this letter, on official Albany-Saratoga Base U.S. Submarine Veterans, Inc. stationery, was express mailed on 13 August to Mr. Principi and to Congressman Simmons of CT, and was e-mailed on 15 August to Vice Admiral Konetzni, USN (Ret.)]
22 August 2005
Dear Members of Congress:
As submariners and submarine supporters, we are extremely concerned about the potential closing of the Naval Submarine Base New London and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. We have followed the discussions and presentations by various groups for the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission and for the media, and believe that we have points for you to consider which have not yet been elucidated clearly enough, or else demand repeating for the strongest possible emphasis. Much of the technical information herein is a result of the labors of one of our Associate Life Members, Joe Buff. The attachments contain several articles he has written regarding the closing of the Groton base and the deleterious effects it would have on our entire national security posture.
For perspective, Joe is a seasoned risk analyst and knowledgeable commentator on issues of undersea science, strategy, and operations. He has had non-fiction articles about submarine technology and tactics in nine issues of The Submarine Review; two won literary awards from the Naval Submarine League. He is a noted columnist/journalist on Military.com, with four million registered members. He has been to sea submerged on USS Miami, constantly attends naval conferences and events and visits subs at their piers, and maintains a large network of contacts with U.S. Navy and foreign submariners, active duty and retired. He has a masters in math from MIT, and worked as a paid intern at the Argonne National Laboratory. Joe was a partner in a Top-10 global management consulting firm, with an emphasis on process enhancement and risk communications and control -- skills particularly relevant to the current BRAC debate. (He is also the author of several bestselling novels of near-future naval suspense, which highlight the diverse, essential mission roles of modern nuclear submarines.) In short, we at Albany-Saratoga SubVets think Joe knows what he's talking about, and so do a lot of other submariners:
1. The proposed Groton Base closing was postulated on two suppositions: a) there is too much ship berthing space on the East Coast because of a shrinking fast-attack sub fleet (from 54 SSNs now to 41 or even fewer); and b) two sub bases on the Atlantic provides adequate dispersal.
We believe both of these suppositions to be flawed unto themselves, and also inconsistent with current realities of the threats that America faces. In an era when China has been identified by many experts, including the Pentagon, as an emerging rival for U.S. Navy control of the seas in the Pacific (if not globally), it seems folly to be drawing down our SSN fleet through an inadequate Virginia-class built rate while China aggressively grows their own submarine force's strength. Were China to start acquiring Russian Akula-IIs, with their good quieting and big torpedo rooms with ten tubes, our Los Angeles-class vessels -- the bulk of our sub fleet for years to come -- would face a daunting opponent indeed. Were terrorists to use weapons of mass destruction against one of our East Coast naval bases, after Groton were closed, we would be reduced to only a single useable base for supporting SSN ops in the Atlantic, and many unique and essential infrastructure facilities would be entirely lost. Arguably, the Norfolk base with constant, heavy merchant ship traffic into the mouth of Chesapeake Bay is much more wide open to WMD attack than Groton. Terrorism aside, China is stated in a recent DOD report to be developing the DF-31A type of road-mobile (hence highly survivable) ICBM, with range adequate to hit the U.S. East Coast with nuclear warheads launched from China's interior. Assertions by some authorities, quoted in newspapers as recently as this morning, to the effect that America's SSNs are merely inflexible relics of the Cold War, reveal a dangerous lack of comprehension of 21 st century undersea warfare: USS Jimmy Carter 's massive “garage space,” the littoral-optimized USS Virginia and her sister ships, the four Ohio -class SSBNs being converted to carry hordes of commandos and cruise missiles -- plus a myriad of transformational sensors and manned or unmanned off-board vehicles -- together comprise stealthy and adaptable naval power of a scope and versatility barely dreamed of when the Berlin Wall came down.
2. DOD justifications for reducing SSN fleet size include a) boats can use the under-ice route from Atlantic to Pacific -- this route is the shortest and most covert; and b) introducing two crews per ship, as is SSBN practice, would substantially improve overall SSN availability.
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An issue which appears to have perhaps not been considered is the extremely high cost of strengthening the sails (conning towers) and rudders of over two-dozen older LA-class boats for them to be rated fully “Arctic capable,” i.e., able to break through the ice in an emergency. An additional fact is that the trip under the ice, in one direction, from Norfolk adds about 500 nautical miles and from King's Bay about 1000 nautical miles compared to Groton. A round trip to WESTPAC would thus take about two or four extra days at sea from Norfolk or Kings Bay, respectively. Another key advantage of the Groton Base location is its proximity to the northern Atlantic where cold weather operations can be evaluated realistically. Thus, closing Groton would cause expensive added wear and tear to both the ships and their crews. Over time, morale might suffer to the degree that retention problems increase -- causing even greater hidden costs than those that Team Connecticut, the Groton Coalition, and the Government Accountability Office keep unearthing, it seems, more and more by the week. Further, we want to particularly stress that when DOD is putting such increasing focus on “nimbleness,” it makes little sense to add a day or two to how long it would take surging SSNs, in a national emergency, to get to the Pacific -- think Taiwan Strait or North Korea -- from the U.S. East Coast. Also, regrettably, introducing Gold and Blue crews to SSN operations bears scant relevance to adequate fleet size. Doing so would simply increase personnel training and payroll costs, while not enhancing SSN platform availability to any significant extent. This is because our 54 existing SSNs are already working near their maximum physical capacity, given the need for proper maintenance to assure warfighting preparedness and to avoid another catastrophic accident such as the loss of Thresher, Scorpion, or Kursk.
On balance, it seems that there is little, if anything, to be gained by closing Groton Base and the supporting Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, but there is much indeed to be lost forever.
(signed)
Robert J. Ondek, CDR
Albany-Saratoga Base President
U.S. Submarine Veterans
(signed)
Joe Buff, MS
President, Joe Buff Inc.
Life Associate, Albany-Saratoga SubVets
Attachments to Principi/Simmons letters included these Military.com Opinion essays as hard copy:
“Big War No More?”
“Why Subs Matter Now”
“ASW Silly Season”
“Save the Sub Base!”
“Cracks in BRAC?”
“Littoral Sub Ops”
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