Exploitation of new technologies and operational techniques will be essential for the U.S. Navy’s undersea warfare forces to maintain the superiority that the Navy has maintained in the decades since World War II.
Speaking to reporters Jan. 22, Bryan Clark, a senior fellow and naval analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) , a Washington think tank, said that the Navy’s undersea warfare strategy needs a family of systems to keep pace with increasing capabilities of potential adversaries and leverage the shrinking U.S. force of attack submarines (SSNs).
While the Navy’s SSN force shrinks from 58 boats today to 41 in 2030, the increasing interest in undersea technology for military and civilian use is presenting new opportunities for leveraging that technology as a survivable force multiplier and as a netted capability.
In his new CSBA report, “The Emerging Era in Undersea Warfare,” Clark wrote that the U.S. submarine force superiority was built over “decades of research and development, a sophisticated defense industrial base, operational experience, and high-fidelity training.
“New detection techniques are emerging that do not rely on the noise a submarine makes, and that may render traditional manned submarine operations far riskier in the future,” he wrote. “America’s competitors are likely pursuing these technologies while also expanding their own undersea forces. To sustain its undersea advantage well into this century, the U.S. Navy must accelerate innovation in undersea warfare by reconsidering the role of manned submarines and exploiting emerging technologies to field a ‘new family of systems.’”
Clark pointed out that the Allied anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capabilities that defeated the German U-boats in World War II were on the verge of being outpaced by the enemy’s new capabilities when the war ended. He cited a similar situation with the Cold War ending just as the long-standing U.S. advantages in submarine quieting and in passive acoustic detection were about to be diminished by quieter Soviet submarines.
Clark predicts that the effectiveness of passive acoustic detection will continue to diminish as submarines become quieter, superseded by methods such as low-frequency active sonar and non-acoustic methods such as wake detection. He also said that advances in data processing will allow more onboard computing power previously only available ashore.
Undersea networks of sensors and weapons also could be developed to create increased standoff ASW capabilities and strip submarines of some of their stealth advantages and exploit their limited speed and situational awareness.
Clark also sees advances in electrical power generation and storage that will increase the endurance and other capabilities of unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) and moored or seabed sensors.
In terms of operations, Clark said that U.S. forces likely will have to adopt operational concepts that neutralize enemy submarines rather than sinking them. Because of force structure limitations, submarines “likely will need to shift from becoming front-line tactical platforms” and become launch platforms for UUVs, sensors, decoys, and jammers. He predicts that large UUVs will take over some of the roles previously performed directly by SSNs.
The expanding undersea infrastructure, such as petroleum and mineral extraction rigs, pipelines, cables, and military and civilian oceanographic sensors will pose challenges to conducting undersea warfare. He lists such challenges problems as inadvertent detection of submarines by civilian sensors, protection of infrastructure and attack on an enemy’s infrastructure.