In crisis situations around the globe, nuclear subs have unique all-weather and under-ice capabilities to accomplish forward deployment and then get engaged, from a standing start back in home port, very rapidly indeed. They boast extremely long on-station endurance, with unlimited electrical supplies to power sophisticated combat systems and futuristic off-board probes. Their swelling payload capacity, and relentlessly improving weapon and sensor versatility, have completely redefined what an underwater vessel can do for national security. Perhaps most revolutionary of all, breakthroughs in communications at speed and depth are allowing American nuclear submarines to participate actively in real-time, net-centric joint task force operations; they’ve even demonstrated the ability to embark the commander of the joint task force –- who can now exploit unfettered connectivity, low observability, and high mobility in ways seldom dreamed of before.

Yet some pundits, for whatever reasons, continue to label the latest U.S. nuclear subs as nothing more than extravagant Cold War relics, as obsolescent and hyper-expensive solutions in search of a problem they can’t really solve. Occasionally these domestic anti-submarine word warriors go so far as to insinuate that Silent Service leadership is inventing major contributions to the War on Terror that never took place, using a cloak of secrecy as a lame excuse to hide their budget-seeking deceit. Since nothing could be further from the truth, one has to wonder if those making these statements have been asleep for the past fifteen years, or if the only undersea warfare publication they’ve ever read is the classic but now historical novel, The Hunt For Red October -- which was first published in 1984. As a group they appear to fail to appreciate that events in Iraq and Afghanistan are heavily influenced by Syria, Iran, and Pakistan, all of which have long coastlines where nuclear subs with assistance from SEALs can conduct persistent electronic espionage, peering hundreds of miles into those nations’ interiors and deep into their rulers’ and rank-and-file Islamo-fascist minds. These same pundits also don’t seem to grasp how much of the wider War on Terror is an information and cyber war, and a line-of-communications surveillance and interdiction battle, in which coastal zones and maritime routes will probably be decisive to who wins and who loses.

One productive way to dispel the misguided besmerching of nuclear subs is to summarize the impressive dimensions along which submarine armaments, both offensive and defensive, are broadening fast. Since the critical core competency of any naval vessel and her crew is warfighting -- that is, the ability to maximize damage inflicted on an enemy while minimizing damage suffered oneself -- an overview of weaponry growth and diversification might be a potent way to prove that nuclear subs have more value and relevance today and tomorrow than they ever did before.

I plan to cover each of the new weapon systems mentioned below, plus others, in a set of stand-alone essays focusing hard on that individual system, later into 2007. Some of these systems are in their early feasibility study stages. Others exist so far only as successfully-tested prototypes, still to be integrated fully into the ships intended to utilize them. Several are already available in the field, or are scheduled to enter service very soon. Progress on all of them is subject to the vagaries of funding by allocation and appropriation committees and subcommittees of the Senate and the House. And as shown by the largely failed effort to perfect the Advanced SEAL Delivery System (ASDS) minisub, technology risk is an ever-present stumbling block with any innovative weapon.

Active defense for submerged submarines is a particularly important and intriguing subject, especially when working in shallow waters. At long last, subs, if and when detected and tracked by adversary surface or airborne forces, are becoming able to stand and fight, not just flee and pray. One such initiative is the Anti-Torpedo Torpedo (ATT), a small weapon carried in numbers whose job is to intercept and destroy incoming air-dropped or heavyweight torpedoes at a safe distance. Another is the adaptation of encapsulated AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles for launching from nuclear subs; the Sidewinder is a fearsome supersonic anti-aircraft weapon, which can also attack hostile surface ships and slow, low-altitude sub-hunting helicopters or maritime patrol planes. Knowing that a salvo of these Sidewinders might at any moment leap from the waves and close for the kill ought to give any potential enemy’s ASW personnel serious pause. If they do press an attack, they’ll be blown out of the air or out of the water.

A further aspect of our submarines taking the fight to an adversary is the category of undersea-launched and undersea-recovered unmanned or autonomous combat aerial vehicles (ACAVs). The reuseable, jet-powered, foldable Cormorant design is one such power projection tool whose development is coming along suprisingly nicely. Well informed sources indicate that some daunting technical challenges, such as seawater-proofing the engine and optimizing a vehicle recovery arm, are being solved neatly by the submarine defense industrial base –- an amazing pool of talent quite apart from our submariners themselves.

An additional arena holding both promise and controversy is the use of non-nuclear ballistic missiles. Smaller theater ballistic missiles (TBMs) launched in clutches from massive former Trident tubes of the four Ohio-class SSBNs converted to SSGNs -- instead of Tactical Tomahawk cruise missiles -- is one thing, for which strong arguments can be made. Using SSBNs, still in commission as thermonuclear deterrent vessels, to also carry a pair of fragmentation or bunker-buster Trident intercontinental-range ballistic missiles is another matter. While on paper meeting the Pentagon’s demand for Prompt Global Strike -- the ability to hit a crucial target of opportunity anywhere in the world on barely one hour’s notice –- there could be catastrophic pitfalls if such a missile launch were mistaken for a nuclear first strike. Ways to try to solve this problem have been amply discussed in the literature.

Payload capacity expansion goes beyond the SSGNs. Pressure-proof Dry Deck Shelters (DDSs), typically used to carry SEAL equipment outside an SSN’s hull, are being adapted as a different sort of hangar space. Even more significantly, the Advanced Sail planned for future Virginia-class ships will include an extra 4,400 cubic feet of storage capacity. The payloads can include unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), used for on-deployment reconnaissance or near-port force protection. These spaces can also be used to carry, send off, and recover “Slocum” autonomous oceanographic data gathering probes –- or counter-mine unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs) too large to fit through a Virginia’s already extra-wide torpedo tubes. These adjuvant vehicles add tremendously to a submarine crew’s tactical situational awareness –- and thus to the effectiveness of the entire networked joint force with which that submarine stays plugged in.

This discussion can’t wrap up without mentioning 200-knot supercavitating underwater weapons and similar ultrafast mini-vehicles. Suffice it to say, regarding rocket propelled torpedoes such as the Russian (ex-Soviet) Shkval, that the U.S. Submarine Force would already have similar but much better armaments if they genuinely wanted them –- but they don’t. The latest Mod 7 Improved Advanced Capability Mark 48 torpedo, with littoral-capable mode and open computer architecture, is the American submariner’s anti-submarine weapon of choice. An R&D project shared between the Navy and DARPA, called Underwater Express, on the other hand is looking at a passenger and cargo minisub that could move at 100 knots via supercavitation. Initial design, control, and stability analyses have already been funded. Underwater Express is being advocated as a huge step forward in theater logistics mobility. Certainly, at a minimum, investigations into its practicality will generate valuable science and engineering insights as spin-off benefits.

This glittering constellation of next-generation sensors and armaments, with accompanying operational know-how, ought to convince anyone who’s paying attention that nuclear subs these days are lightyears ahead of whatever the U.S. Navy commissioned during the Cold War. A difference in degree of this magnitude does make a difference in kind. With 70% of Planet Earth covered by water, and the rest of it accessible by electronic or kinetic means from submarines lurking down in the ocean, it ought to be evident to even the most contrarian skeptics that nuclear subs are very much 21st century undersea capital ships.

JoeBuff.Com / Joe Buff Inc. Joe Buff, President Dutchess County, New York E-Mail readermail@JoeBuff.Com