New York Council Briefing:
Submerged from View
Undersea Warfare Is Heating Up
•
Russia has demonstrated the ability to launch long-range precision cruise missile strikes
from the sea.
•
Russian submarines are closing the qualitative advantage held by the U.S.
•
Submerged telecommunications cables, which carry 99% of the world’s international
data, are vulnerable.
•
China's submarine force s deploying farther beyond its regional waters.
•
U.S. Navy research & development for undersea warfare is leveraging the potential of
unmanned aerial, surface and sub-surface vehicles.
These were but some of the points made by CAPT Sean R. Liedman, USN, in his "Global
Undersea Warfare Update" briefing given to Navy League New York Council members and
guests at the Cornell Club in midtown Manhattan on April 12. His talk was part of the Council's
series of briefings on the New Ways of Warfare.
CAPT Liedman currently serves as the U.S. Navy Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Previously, he commanded the “Fighting Tigers” of Patrol Squadron EIGHT (VP-8) and Patrol
and Reconnaissance Wing ELEVEN, where he led the Wing through its transition to the P-8A
“Poseidon” and MQ-4C “Triton” maritime patrol aircraft. He has also served in senior positions
in the Air Warfare Division on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations. He noted that his
briefing comments were his own personal views and not those of the U.S. Government.
In 45-minutes, CAPT Liedman reviewed these Undersea Warfare topics:
•
•
•
Strategic Significance Of USW;
Recent Russian Developments;
Recent Chinese Developments;
•
•
ASW Concepts Primer; and
Emerging USW Technologies
A Damaging Reality
Shipping losses inflicted by enemy submarines on merchant and military ships during World
Wars I and II underscore the significance of undersea warfare, he noted. During World War II,
annual Allied merchant ship losses to submarines peaked at nearly 1,200 ships lost in the
Atlantic in 1942. In the Pacific, USS Wasp was so critically damaged by a Japanese torpedo
during the Battle of Guadalcanal that it had to be
abandoned and sunk by the U.S. Navy. Such
strategic losses "underpin the significance of
maintaining a robust anti-submarine warfare
capability to this day," he said.
Undersea warfare includes not only submarine
warfare but "other forms of military activity
taking place under the surface of the sea," CAPT
Liedman said. These other forms include mine
warfare. He showed a photo of a Navy ship USS
Tripoli (LPH 10), an amphibious assault ship,
SS Maplewood being torpedoed by German U-boat WWI
damaged by mines in the Arabian Gulf in 1991
during Operation Desert Storm. "Look at the damage inflicted in that
ship," he said, "by World War II mine technology. Fortunately we
have not faced a significant mine warfare threat since then," he said,
adding, "But we can't just hand wave it away, either."
USS Tripoli-- Inspecting mine
damage - 1991
Information warfare in the undersea domain is increasingly
significant, CAPT Liedman indicated. He cited a Newsweek report
that stated that “99% of all international data is transmitted on
undersea cables.” A sizeable amount of banking data is carried by
these cables; for example, “as much as $7 trillion dollars in
international transactions a day clears JP Morgan Chase's wires
alone,” he noted. "Think of the destruction to the global financial
system if you were to sever key nodes of that undersea
communications network," he said.
Changing Environment
Congressional testimony
Focusing on anti-submarine warfare (ASW), CAPT
Liedman observed that ADM Harry Harris,
Commander, U.S. Pacific Command, testified before
Congress earlier this year that the U.S. Navy needs a
strong ASW capability due to increasing adversary
capabilities. CAPT Liedman described Russia and
China's expanding under water military capabilities.
Russia's technological advances include the use of
Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) to enable diesel
submarines to extend their submerged endurance
time, he said.
End of a Monopoly
Although America has consistently
maintained a qualitative advantage over
Russia submarines, the Russians have closed
the advantage through acoustic quieting
technologies, he also said. He added that
Russia demonstrated during operations in
Syria that it can launch land-attack cruise
missiles from the sea. These missiles are
have been said to have a range of
approximately 1,000 miles. Russia can
launch them not only from surface vessels
but also from diesel submarines. "The U.S.
has had a complete monopoly on long-range
precision strike, first demonstrated in 1991 in
Operation Desert Storm with a Tomahawk missile. That monopoly is over."
From Russia: A new submarine
He added, "There is no place in Europe farther than 900 miles
from the sea. I think President Putin has demonstrated he can
hold Europe at risk from the sanctuary of the undersea domain."
According to news reports, Russia has plans for a nuclearpowered, nuclear armed torpedo designed to damage coastal
cities. CAPT Liedman noted that a torpedo going that fast
should be noisy and easy to detect. "However, you need to find
some way to interdict it," he said.
He also examined China's submarine
capability. The People's Liberation Army
Navy (PLAN) "is getting better qualitatively
as well," he said. China is continually
increasing its operational range beyond its
regional waters.
Technology in Context
So in the face of that environment, what are
some of America's emerging ASW
technological initiatives? To understand the
potential of America's current ASW
research, one needs to understand how it fits
into enduring ASW concepts, CAPT Liedman said. "It's easy to become wowed by the
technology, but you have got to think about how that technology fits into these concepts. You
can have the most awesome stealthy vessel in the world, but if you can't communicate with it, if
you can't exercise proper command and control over it, its military utility diminishes
significantly."
He proceeded to outline concepts of range, speed and endurance/persistence and how they relate
to America's need to project power globally. Other concepts include search volume--the size of
the area in which a search can be conducted. “In general, the larger the aperture you have for the
sensor, the longer the range within which you are likely to detect an adversary, giving you a
larger search volume," he noted, adding “but if your platform can move fast - for example an
airplane at 300 knots through the air domain instead of 30 knots for a ship or submarine in the
water, that can also increase your search volume significantly. The sonobuoys that we drop from
airplanes have a relatively small hydrophone on the bottom of them; therefore, each individual
sonobuoy cannot search a large volume; but if I can deploy a field of sonobuoys over a large area
relatively rapidly, that gives that platform a large search volume."
ASW's "Bread and Butter"
Command and control is another operational concept and "is where the bread and butter of
antisubmarine warfare lies today, particularly as we go to unmanned technologies," CAPT
Liedman said. Command and control "through the air using radio frequency waves is pretty
easy; we've mastered that technology over the last 100 years," he said. Not so when it comes to
underwater warfare, he indicated. "The problem is that when your platform goes underneath the
water, it is difficult to penetrate the air-water boundary," he said. "So you need to look at other
means of command and control."
Tethers, especially for unmanned undersea vehicles, "have a tremendous amount of military
utility - not only for reliable, covert communication but also for power supply.” Autonomy,
especially lethal autonomy, is another command/control consideration, he said. Although it is
possible to give an unmanned vehicle the ability to decide whether to utilize lethal force, he said,
"today, we're just not there."
Aggregating these ASW concepts into a holistic force enables planners to deal with larger
strategic considerations, such as whether to adopt an offensive or defensive posture, CAPT
Liedman said. "Do we want to be an offensive or defensive ASW force?" he asked. "The U.S.
Navy really had a monopoly on passive ASW warfare starting in the 1950s," he noted. These
days, however, increased use of quieting technologies by America's adversaries is forcing the
Navy to think increasingly about expanding its use of active technology. However, with active
search, "one of the things you immediately give up," he noted, is "you are no longer covert.
Your adversary instantly knows where you are searching to find him."
Technology Advances
To stay ahead of the enemy under water, America is "investing a lot in unmanned technology
below, on and above the sea," CAPT Liedman said. He described several examples that are no
longer "artist conceptions" and are "now in the water."
The first example, an unmanned undersea vehicle named the Scarlet Knight, was developed by
the Rutgers Engineering Department. Instead of using a propeller at one end to push it through
the water, it uses a small pump to adjust its ballast, he said. The change in ballast, in conjunction
with its body design, causes it to glide forward as it rises and sinks. The Scarlet Knight crossed
the Atlantic in seven months, changing its ballast 22,000 times to do so.
Another technology, this time on top of the water,
is the ASW Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel
(ACTUV), developed by the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA). About 130
feet long, it uses sonar to search for enemy
submarines which, when found, it then "birddogs."
"Wherever the submarine goes, this thing goes," he
said. It is "obviously overt," he said, adding: "if
you are an adversary and every one of your
submarines is being bird dogged by one of these things, that could be rather disconcerting."
In the air, the Navy is developing unmanned
aerial vehicles (UAVs), including unmanned
helicopters, he said. One unmanned aerial
vehicle, the Sea Robin, can extend the sensing
horizon of a submarine, even over a beach, he
said. Another, launched from a P-8, uses
magnetic anomaly detection to track
submarines. Still another, developed by the
Office of Naval Research, is FLIMMER, so
called because it both flies and swims and then
dives under the water. Finally, he described
the CRACUNS (Corrosion Resistant Aerial
Covert Unmanned Nautical System), a UAV
developed by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics
Laboratory. Hidden under the water until
needed, it launches into the air to perform its mission.
###