ARTICLE

October 2002

‘Network-Centric’ Submarines Expand Commander’s Options

by Sandra I. Erwin

The Navy’s plan to boost the combat clout of attack submarines in the decades ahead would have these boats launch multiple types of unmanned vehicles and fire tactical ballistic missiles on a moment’s notice.

The submarine of 2020, according to the Navy’s long-term blueprint for undersea warfare, will interact with unmanned underwater, surface and air vehicles. Further, it will be equipped to launch non-Navy weapons, such as Army tactical missiles.

One scenario, for example, would have the submarine lay sensors on the ocean floor, creating an “information grid” that would feed the naval battle group commander valuable intelligence. The sensors would be linked to unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs) and pilot-less drones (UAVs) that would fly over the battle zone. The information grid would help the commander, who may not even be anywhere near the submarine, gain control of the situation.

Making the submarine a centerpiece of the “network-centric” approach to fighting wars and elevating its role in the naval battle group has been the gospel preached by Adm. Frank L. “Skip” Bowman, the director of Navy reactors. He has been pushing the submarine technology developers to stop studying futuristic concepts on Powerpoint briefings and start building real hardware.

Some real hardware is in the works, in the form of “technology demonstrations” that will test the submarine’s capabilities for “time-critical strike,” said Rear Adm. John D. Butler, deputy chief of the Naval Sea Systems Command and head of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, at the Washington, D.C., Navy Yard.

The first of such demonstrations is planned for January. It will involve the USS Florida, an Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarine that soon will be refurbished to carry special-operations troops and to fire conventional Tomahawk cruise missiles. The Florida and three other Ohio-class boats will become the SSGN class.

Butler sees the SSGN as a “stepping stone, a bridge to the future SSN force.” The SSN, or attack submarines, of the future will be the nuclear-powered Virginia class. The Navy so far has ordered four new SSNs, to replace the Los Angeles-class boats.

The SSGN experiments with new technologies will help the Navy decide how it should equip the next batch of Virginia class submarines, Butler said in an interview. “Those technologies we want to test for SSN will be on SSGN.”

In the January demo, off the Atlantic coast, the Florida will serve as the operations center for Navy SEAL commandos conducting a mission ashore. In addition to serving as the means of transportation for the SEALs, the Florida will launch, from its missile tubes, a UUV that will be part of a network connecting the SEALs and the submarine via a small UAV, equipped with a communications node. The UAV will be the Scan Eagle, made by Boeing. A team led by Raytheon and General Dynamics are responsible for managing the overall demonstration.

After the demonstration, the Florida will undergo a four-year overhaul for SSGN conversion and refueling. It will join the fleet in 2007.

Even though the UAV will not be launched from the SSGN this time, it’s conceivable that it could be done in future demonstrations, said Butler.

The expectation, he said, is that the experiment will prove that a submarine can support SEALs directly—with a UAV overhead and a submarine in the area, “uncontested, controlling the events,” Butler added.

These experiments are being funded with money from existing programs, he noted. “We hope to do annual demos to show that we are serious about transformation, without having to create new acquisition programs.”

This month, Butler’s office was slated to award a contract for a 2004 demo.

Depending on how these technologies progress in SSGN tests, they would be incorporated into the Virginia class. As part of a naval battle group, the SSN would help not only secure portions of the ocean from enemy attack but also pinpoint targets on land. “Eventually, I want to have some kind of an ocean grid in place so the submarine can operate uncontested in littoral areas,” said Butler. “We can link it, we can image, we can put weapons on target.”

In a contested area, he said, the submarine would stand off and monitor the grid. “The submarine can position itself to intercept the enemy, pass the information for someone else to intercept or let them go.”

In situations when targets are moving and have to be struck quickly, the Tomahawk is not the answer, because it takes too long to program and to fly to its destination, he explained. That is why Butler supports the “encapsulation” of Army tactical missiles, so they can be fired from the SSGNs and later from the Virginia-class SSNs.

“The real answer for time-critical targeting is to use an ATACMS ballistic missile,” he said. “The Tomahawk is valuable, but if you have a mobile target, you really want something that is on a ballistic trajectory. It gets there faster.

“If you need wide area control, you need a sensor grid. If you want local control, you need a submarine with the surveillance reconnaissance module and a weapon that will fly ballistically.”

Besides the ATACMS, Butler’s office also is interested in a so-called “low-cost missile” in early development by the Office of Naval Research. “That may be an answer down the road,” he said. The ONR missile is a ballistic weapon that could be fired from a submarine canister.

Whatever weapon ends up being used on SSGNs and SSNs, they should be existing weapons from Navy or other services’ inventories, said Butler. “I never want to develop a submarine-unique weapon again, with the exception of a torpedo.”

The Navy plans to fund a program to develop a “universal canister” that would be adaptable for any weapon. It goes to the surface, “so you never worry about the water interface anymore,” said Butler. “We can take Army and Air Force weapons, as long as it’s propelled flight, you can launch them from a submarine.”

That may be easier said than done, however. An industry source noted that the “universal canister is a great sounding concept but fails the reality check given the ranges of weapons considered.” That is because the launcher has to be tailored based on the weapon and ship interfaces with the fire control system, for example, the source said. “A universal canister would fail from an economic standpoint as well. ... Differences in weapon sizes, launch requirements and concept of operations preclude a ‘one size fits all’ approach.”

Northrop Grumman received a $16 million contract to develop a so-called “multiple, all-up round canister” (MAC) that would be used to fire up to seven Tomahawks. The canister will be part of the January SSGN demonstration. The MAC architecture is adaptable to other weapons, said company officials.

In the future, the company will be working on technologies to launch both UAVs and UUVs, said David J. Beck, a program director at Northrop Grumman. One of the plans is to develop a “super MAC” launcher for weapons other than Tomahawk. The TACMS and the Tomahawk could not use the same launcher, Beck said, because the TACMS has a much larger diameter. Only six would fit in a MAC canister.

A competing system, being developed by Raytheon and General Dynamics, is called the broaching universal buoyant launcher. It encapsulates the weapon and launches it from the canister. It then floats to the surface. When it hits the surface, it can either launch immediately or loiter. The buoyant capsule concept is similar to the so-called “stealthy affordable capsule,” currently in development by Northrop Grumman.

Butler wants to see UUVs and UAVs that can operate in submarines like an old torpedo room. “Instead of the torpedo you have UUVs and UAVs,” he said. “This shouldn’t be hard. If it’s hard, then we probably implemented it wrong.”

Looking ahead, Butler said the Navy should focus more research efforts into the design of a new batch of Virginia-class boats, with a modular makeup that would be more adaptable to multiple missions. The current design of the Virginia class is a conventional cylindrical boat, so if the Navy wants a new mission added, the submarine has to go into the shipyard for structural overhaul work that can take many months.

Upgrade for Virginia Class
“Right now, if I want to change payloads, I have to go into overhaul—cut wires, restructure the submarine,” said Butler. In the future, “I want to go to plug-and-play payloads, grab modules and be able to change payloads within 24 hours, as opposed to one-year or six-month overhauls.”

Under the modular concept, there would be pre-fabricated submarine sections equipped for strike, surveillance or special-warfare missions, for example. A module would be inserted as needed. “We wouldn’t have to go to a shipyard,” said Butler. “We could do the swapping alongside a pier. Modules would be pre-existing.”

A group of Navy and contractor engineers have been sketching proposed concepts for the modular submarine. The challenge, said Butler, is in making modules that can be removed and inserted without disrupting the integrity of the boat’s functions. For that, he said, the key technology is wireless power transfer. “Today, you have to do hardwiring for the data transfer.” High data-rate wireless capabilities are needed, “so when the module slips out, the power and the data connections are not broken—without hardwiring or re-cabling.”

Other improvements to the SSN could flow from the SSGN experiments, he said. “You should envision the SSGN as the transition platform to the batch two of SSN. ... A lot of things we want to have in submarines in the future, we’ll be able to install on SSGN, put them to sea, test them, before we start building batch two SSN.”

Butler predicted that the current design is likely to be used in at least the first eight to 10 boats of the Virginia class. The modular design would come after that.

The modularity is not easy to achieve, he said. “I have to overcome how I’m going to design that hull section, where the modules fit and figure out how to design modules so they are easily changeable.”

Asked how much all this new technology will cost, Butler said it is hard to say. But he warned contractors to not get too wild with new ideas, if they are not affordable. “I don’t have a lot of money. I am carving this out of my existing budget. ... My intent is to figure out how to do this through demonstrations, to minimize the cost impact.”

It is unlikely that current Navy budgets for submarine procurement and upgrades will go up in the foreseeable future, particularly in light of the high cost of submarines. Each Virginia class boat will cost about $2 billion. Vice Adm. Michael G. Mullen, the deputy chief of naval operations for resource, requirements and assessments, told reporters this summer that the submarine community will not get any special treatment in the budget allocations.

“We cannot answer every request across the board,” he said. The submariners, he added, have to “be able to balance their requirements for war fighting with the ability to support that.”

But even if more money were available for research, there are still technologies that are not up to speed, such as unmanned undersea vehicles. The UUVs still are limited in their ability to operate autonomously, said Butler.

Between 2000 and 2007, the Navy will have spent $1.3 billion on UUV research, development and procurement. The Navy officer responsible for the procurement of UUVs agreed that much work remains to be done to make these vehicles useful in combat operations.

During a conference of the Society of Naval Engineers, Rear Adm. Michael Sharp, program executive officer for mine and undersea warfare, said that current UUVs can pass very little information in real time. “Computer-aided detection, target recognition is the holy grail,” he said. Autonomy is not just navigating and avoiding obstacles. “We want it to be smarter than that, to respond to what it sees.”

A UUV expert from the Boeing Co., Margaret Calomino, noted that UUVs are five to 10 years in front of unmanned aircraft as far as design goes. However, she said, “The UAVs have done better in defining their utility. We need to define what we want our UUVs to do for us.”

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