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Sonar technicians, and all on-board users of their interpreted data (which means most everybody in the control room and torpedo room), continually detect, classify, track, and target contacts of all sorts: surface, airborne, or submerged. This process is vital not just for accomplishing combat missions. It's indispensable in peacetime on a daily basis to know “who's where, out there” and thus avoid potentially fatal collisions. (Several recent tragedies have reminded every submariner how much a matter of life and death accurate, real-time, three-dimensional situational awareness truly is.) Electronic support measures (ESM) signals intercepts, for self-defense and for intelligence gathering, are other tasks practiced in earnest constantly by SSN crews. The correct analysis of where all these overheard signals are coming from, and what they might mean as targets or threats, is an endless chore for submarine crews and embarked CIA or NSA experts. The SSN's command team and supporting enlisted technicians must be sharply attuned to the distinguishing signatures, including sonar mechanical transients, during all possible behaviors and evolutions of different friendly, neutral, and hostile platforms. The sub's people need a keen grasp of the unique characteristics of each such platform: hull shape and depth at the keel, weaponry including embarked aircraft (fixed wing and helos), anti-submarine sensors (including dipping sonars and towed arrays), maximum speed, on-scene endurance, degree of low-observability or ease of detection, handling and habitability in severe sea states, aggregate skipper-and-crew competence of individual vessels, and beyond. If anything, submariners know a lot more about the rest of the Navy than the other way around -- because of the unique environment within which submariners operate, their stealth, their mission flexibility, their instinctive tendency to constantly spy on anything within range, the unusual regimens needed to establish adequate connectivity, and their vulnerability to collisions if people get careless. They also comprehend more about our own Navy, because of their ability to get amazingly close to vessels and harbors of other navies.
I'm not done yet. Joint and/or combined assignments, plus commingling with other U.S. Navy unions' members during periodic shore duty including continuing education -- as required to move up toward master chief, or be promoted to flag rank -- assure that senior decision-makers in the Submarine Force have an excellent view of the world around them. (Some submariner officers, once they make O-6, go on to “major command” of a deep-draft surface vessel, and in effect become part of the surface Navy themselves –- achieving further enlightenment on how the other half lives.) And certainly, they are the leading authorities on the current and future capabilities of their own subs, and other countries' subs. So when submariner admirals, both active-duty and retired, say publicly that 41 or fewer SSNs aren't nearly enough to assure America's superpower status and national security in coming decades, and the proper number is more like 54, we ought to give great weight to their concerns. As to the parting shot sometimes heard nowadays, “Well, come on, military commanders of every ilk are always demanding more resources than they need,” allow me to rebut by paraphrasing one admiral who spoke for the record at the Naval War College's June 2005 Current Strategy Forum: “Actual experience in major wars has shown repeatedly that resources of every type, ranging from bombs to landing craft to subs to planes, have always suffered from painfully inadequate supplies, not surpluses, during prolonged and bloody engagements against determined foes.”
Mahan, Not Interrupted
Alfred Thayer Mahan, a naval officer affiliated with the Naval War College in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, is considered by many to be America's greatest thinker and writer on the subject of sea power, its purposes, and its applications in the real world. (See “Rear Adm. Mahan & Iraq” Part 1 and Part 2.) In recent years, he's often been misunderstood or misquoted, and then his basic theses are blithely dismissed –- to our country's detriment. I've even heard talks or read things claiming that the existence of submarines renders Mahan irrelevant, or, a sort of obverse, that Mahan's teachings in a modern context make submarines irrelevant. I was unable to follow such logic, assuming there actually was any logic. Despite frequent misinterpretations to the contrary, Mahan's central tenet never was to advocate some sort of abstract “main battle-fleet fight to the death,” where at the start of a war two enemy navies would steam toward each other in blue water and blast away until one side or the other got wiped out. What Mahan really did say was this:
1. The paramount purpose of sea power is to influence events on land.
2. A navy that will not risk casualties, i.e. won't actively seek combat in order to destroy the enemy's naval forces, is a war-loser, not a winner.
3. The best place to destroy an enemy's navy is not on the high seas, nor near your homeland's coast, but rather while the enemy fleet is still in or near its own ports and bases.
So, what Mahan was really getting at, 100 years ago, was that the way to win a war was through aggressive, proactive littoral-focused combat. A. T. Mahan was a pretty smart guy. His theories are as applicable as ever, and nuclear submarines are indeed rather relevant platforms to practice what he preached.
Subs in the Littorals -– Taiwan Strait Case Study
The above discussion hopefully creates context, dispels misnomers, and leads into the broad and fascinating topic of modern submarine operations in the littorals. The specific types of missions an SSN might be tasked with were overviewed in “Why Subs Matter Now.” What I will do next, here, for the first time in one of my Military.com essays, is provide an edited version of my e-mail response to the Veteran (non-submariner) who asked me if U.S. Navy submariners could operate in the Taiwan Strait. As I told him, I was cautious when formulating my response to avoid personal knowledge or inference that might touch upon classified matters. With that preamble, here's what I said. Note the emphasis re ongoing Silent Service culture and training:
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Firstly, 100 to 200 feet while relatively shallow is definitely within the operating envelope of U.S. Navy SSNs and has been for a long time. So-called "littoral" operations such as Indications and Warnings, SEAL deployment and recovery, minefield surveys, and Intelligence, Surveillance, & Reconnaissance (ISR) go back a long way and have occurred in some very shallow places. Submariners practice this all the time, it does require very tricky navigation, skilled ship-control handling (ballast and trim), and judicious use of active mine-avoidance sonars mounted under the chin of the Los Angeles class and more modern SSNs. Constant rehearsals while in pre-deployment work-up training in American waters, and a long tradition of aggressive risk-taking and a warrior mentality while penetrating "enemy" waters, are key elements of the Silent Service culture. The Naval Submarine Base New London's Submarine School and related facilities utilize impressively detailed trainers for each SSN class ship-control station, in which missions to hostile littorals can be simulated so that relevant watchstanders get it right before the SSN even leaves her pier. These trainers resemble the cockpit simulators used to teach and test aircraft flight crews, including the ability to pose multiple emergencies during full 3-D motion of the "ship" with an up or down angle as extreme as 45 degrees! The dangers of broaching, or hitting the bottom, can be replicated realistically. I've been strapped into the helmsman's seat on the Seawolf trainer and let me tell you it was one wild ride!!!
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