The Unfaced Challenge, Submarine Versus Free World

 

of

where ocean meets land. From our point

id

facto, its nature is actually far from clear to many segments of the American community. That this is so should not be considered un­usual. Understanding of the realities of sea power is not possessed by many outside of the armed services and is, unfortunately, lacking even within the ranks of the Navy itself. While the press and arm chair analysts, accustomed to a sport scoreboard or statistical type of com­parison, may see things in a “one for you, one for me” relationship in which the team with fewer points is obviously behind, international power struggles are not won or lost by such methods of accounting, nor are points so easily assigned to the teams. Two world wars have demonstrated repeatedly that front runners in the betting can be ignominiously chopped down like Goliath by little David, or forced to sprint to catch up with some sur­prising long shots. Team-scoring methods of the baseball world do not take account of many of the basic rules of war. Before we can start adding up the points, we must settle some basic questions: what is the nature of the real submarine threat against the United States; what constitutes control of the seas; why is such control of fundamental strategic importance to the Free World?

Nowadays, it is commonly accepted that our destiny is conjoined with that of a rather nebulous and controversial grouping of na­tions (which for purposes of this analysis fortunately need not be more specifically de­fined) known as the “Free World.” These free, non-Soviet countries, recognize even more so that their future is inextricably bound to ours. Any retreat to a “Fortress America” or static defense posture would be universally recognized as a major, probably decisive, defeat for our side. A Free World strategy demands that we be ready, willing, and able to render material aid and support to our allies, and they to us. Our failure or inability to do this would properly be viewed by our friends as abandonment. Whatever game these countries may be playing, it is not one in which they are going to accept the role of an expendable pawn or an obvious sacrifice to a hopeless cause. But mutual support within the Free World requires as its prime condition unbroken seaborne commerce, and this in turn requires control of the sea—the endless wastes of its surface, the air over it, the black depths below, and the ports and beach^eS view, a Free World and control of the sea a^re simply two sides of the same coin. But, eve® from the most reactionary “Amcrica-firs¹ viewpoint, we would still need control of th® seas simply to keep an enemy at bay an< maintain essential Western Hemisphere cotf¹'

" . . . seaborne transport of bulk raw mate rials and

manufactured products is not about to be replaced

by air lifts or nuclecu^v propelled rockets. ” merce. Let there be no mistake, seaborne transport of bulk raw materials and man^ factured products is not about to be repla^ce by air lifts or nuclear-propelled rockets. Th^ere is no aircraft today whose lift is sufficient ^t0 carry its own continuing fuel and logistic r^e quirements in addition to an effective P³^ load. Operation “Big Lift” could not ha'^e been carried through without the tanke®* which shuttled in the millions of gallons ⁰ aviation gas required by the thirsty airplan^eS' By national strategy, then, we are com mitted to maintain control of the seas. Sin^ce this amounts to maintenance of the status p⁰’ our over-all naval aims are strategically ^a fensive vis-a-vis any present potential opP° nent. Chairman Khrushchev’s aims are cn tirely different. Territorially speaking, only immediate threat is against adjac^e land masses which contain the natural an ^ man-made resources (including populate needed by both sides. Two general paths world domination are open to the U.S.S- It can take the “strike to kill” app^ro3C j aiming its blows to knock out the U^nl*f States directly and letting the rest of ¹ world fall naturally; but this, of course, c° mits it to total war at the start, with al risks that there might be no victory for any⁰ ^ at the end. Or it can “divide ^an4o^C°j_cl quer,” nibbling away at the Free **

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^across the entire spectrum from political subversion and economic penetration to con­ventional or limited nuclear war, perhaps ^even chivying us into such a corner that we '^v°uld be goaded into initiating a thermonu­^clear holocaust. The Soviet Union has the ^CaPability of exploiting either approach as the ⁽'Pportunites of the moment might dictate.

either case, a major source of strength is ^lts submarine force.

First, consider the strategic missile subula­te threat, since this is the one most in the ^eyes of press and public. The specter of these ^Craft lying undetected off our coasts and rising °Ue night to wipe our great cities off the map '''File their inhabitants sleep can easily be Gasped as a direct and personal threat to pillions of Americans. A Soviet submarine ^0rce armed with either ballistic or cruise- type missiles may be loosely likened to our °'^vn Polaris system, with this profound differ- ^Uce: Polaris is a deterrent or second-strike ^0rce. It exists solely to demonstrate that any jtt strike against us can and will be answered A a retaliation so destructive that aggression ^ould not be worth the cost. For reasons 'Uherent in our open society, we are effec- ^tlvely barred from striking first. The Com­munists are under no such restriction. If they ^choose to adopt a first-strike strategy, they can ^Select from a wide variety of delivery vehicles submarines, aircraft, and long-range land­ed missiles. In fact, given the high degree of purity in their closed society, they could ^lne up missiles on open pads in some remote, ^Screened-off area of their vast lands and wait Until the moment for firing arrived.

Oddly enough, our studies would appear to mow that a hardened land-based (Minute­st) system can be produced at a lower cost uan the submarine-based Polaris. If such is dually the case, one might well ask why the Russians have developed missile submarines

all. Among possible reasons are the desire ^to have several alternates in their bag of '^veapons, the psychological advantages of an °Fvious “scare” weapon, or simply a hedging °^hets in the development stage before making ^a final commitment. Then, too, the Russians may have settled on a simpler and less costly ^Vstem than our own. The price of a several- jUndred-mile missile ought to be substan- ^lally less than one whose range is several times greater—smaller size, less-complex guidance and control systems, and other such factors. Finally, if this type of missile were mounted in a conventionally designed subma­rine whose other weapon capabilities were not substantially reduced thereby, such a system might actually be comparatively cheap. But whatever the reasoning behind the Soviet mis­sile submarines, the fact remains that their missile capability is not the main threat against us. This may be inferred from at least four considerations: first, in point of numbers, the threat is not large; second, short-range missiles can cover only limited target areas; third, the Soviets, in mounting a missile threat, have a number of equally good or better methods of warhead delivery at their disposal; and fourth, the system could be em­ployed under only one of the two grand strategies open to the Soviet Union, i.e., a direct strike against the mainland of the United States. The other and greater threat posed by their submarine force is applicable over a much wider strategic and tactical spectrum of warfare.

What is this second threat which is strong enough to outweigh the obvious menace of a submarine-launched guided missile attack? It is, of course, the challenge to our control of the seas, which is presented by a large and aggressive submarine force. The fact that this is a traditional, even a conventional, type of threat does not lessen its danger. We are be­coming so enamored of ultra-new weapons and concepts that we are in danger of ignoring the older and greater menaces, with which familiarity tends to breed apathy or contempt. A publicly acknowledged example of this tendency was our neglect of conventional fighting forces in favor of a strategic air force. Almost too late, we awoke to the realization that brushfire war in Laos or insurrection in Lebanon could not be controlled by massive retaliation any more than a swarm of mos­quitoes can be dispersed by rifle fire. There are no strategic targets in Vietnam. Do we there­fore let such lands slip away without a struggle? Or do we retaliate on Moscow and make a world war out of each incident? The situation had become patently absurd, and we can be thankful that a more proper per­spective has been restored. But would we not make the same mistake in ASW by concen­trating on a strategic war threat while neg­lecting the vital “conventional” area of pro­tecting our sea lanes against straightforward attack? The situation which existed against Japan in World War II, where our subma­rines ripped Japanese commerce to shreds, now faces us. The potential enemy is no longer a traditional sea power, but we are and are committed to remain so.

If it is accepted that there is a “traditional” submarine threat against our sea commerce and that this threat has been greatly intensi­fied, though not basically altered in char­acter, by the advent of the true nuclear- powered submarine, then it is clear that the problem is not receiving the effort and atten­tion that it deserves. There are well-known qualitative and quantitative deficiencies in our ASW arsenal, most of which are matters of public record. Tactically, we are still thrash­ing around in search of a system which is effective against the nuclear submarine. The problem is fundamentally what it has always been—detection, classification, localization, and kill. We have systems and techniques which will accomplish some of these functions under most conditions, or most of them under some conditions. Diesel-powered submarines with their limited underwater speed and en­durance could probably be controlled simply by harrying them until they were forced to surface—if we had large enough numbers of ASW ships and aircraft. Other systems might be effective against nuclear submarines if we could pinpoint them and deliver the weapons in time. But we cannot know for sure until we provide enough ships, enough sonobuoys, enough practice torpedoes, enough submarine targets, and enough trained ASW crews to really find out. Submarine killing is a matter of probabilities, and probabilities cannot be determined without statistics. The effective­ness of various methods can be measured only by the results of hundreds of tests, not by mere handfuls of artificial exercises which are so infrequent that even when the same ships participate repeatedly, their crews have often turned over in the interim. Remember, a ship cannot acquire ASW experience; only her crew can. Our situation today is such that the ASW effort is split among a goodly number of weapons and support systems—carriers, de­stroyers, escorts, killer subs, and shore-based networks of various kinds. None are capable alone of doing the whole job, and none are really funded adequately to do their portion of the job with full effectiveness. Fully >n^te' grated or co-ordinated operational procedures have not been developed far enough to make any real headway against an all-out subma­rine assault. When measured against an °P' posing force of 300 or so undersea craft—even conventional ones—our antisubmarine forces show up as little more than prototype organ!" zations, qualitatively unproven and quan­titatively inadequate. ASW has always re­quired a ganging up of surface and air forces against each individual submarine, while the use of submarine against submarine has not really advanced much beyond the game of blind man’s buff in which World War II sub­marines blundered unwittingly into each other. As long as we are limited to such tactics, how can our defensive forces be ex­pected to counter an attacking fleet many times as numerous?

Current doctrine recognizes that war will demand several rather different ASW missions’ The tactics of convoy protection differ fr°^nl those of a hunter-killer group free to pursue subs wherever they may be found. The prob­lem of guarding an amphibious landing perimeter against coastal or midget-type sub­marines has little in common with the hunting down of silent missile-launchers hovering deep in unfrequented waters. Maintaining an anti­submarine air barrier across critical ocean passages differs markedly from all these, ^e¹ if a showdown comes, which will be the key task? Will it not be the unglamorous shep herding of large bodies of cargo, transportor amphibious ships to their destinations? In th^e last analysis, we are again forced to recogm^z(’ that ASW is important only as a means ⁰ assuring our ability to accomplish the primary purpose of our control of the seas, namely’ maintaining our logistic pipelines across tb^e oceans. If this could be done without killing ^a single enemy submarine, we would still ha'^e accomplished our strategic objective. In other words, sinking submarines per se is no mor^e than a secondary mission. Yet by all standards of measurement, too much of our effort is ^stl being concentrated outside the main arena- While spectacular battles between our kiH^er forces and individual enemy submarines nuN

h;

°tn now? Will existing carriers be able to

de

draw the crowds in the sideshow, the war can lost in the big ring, as so nearly happened *ⁿ both World Wars I and II.

This brings us to a consideration of our ^ClJrrent ASW effort and its effectiveness. The Proficiency of our select prototype units is un­doubtedly high. There are excellent men, ^sbips, and task groups engaged in the ASW business today, but their numbers are inade­quate to hold the line against the forces we know would be deployed against them. Con­^Sequently, many criticisms have been leveled ^a&ainst our ASW capability from within as well ^as without the services. But what has the re­sponse been? Instead of pressing for an ade­quate number of adequately equipped ships, ^ have charged off on two tangential tracks, ^ne is a scattergun research and development ^effort involving a great variety of projects. ^°rne of these represent a mere grasping at straws, while others are leading to proto­types which will require completely new ships ^to carry them. The latest sonars have to have 'heir ships’ hulls built around them. How 'Uany such ships will be in service five years ^audle a new generation of ASW aircraft, or fisting destroyers a new generation of mis- ^s'les? We have seen several hundred “jeep” ^Carriers—the backbone of our World War II

"Remember, a ship cannot ^Qcquire ASW experience;

only her crew can ”

*S\y forces—thrown on the scrap pile in the ^ast 17 years because of technological obso- cscence. One wonders whether the small dumber of new ASW carriers, with their im­proved aircraft, will be an effective substitute. S recent magazine column noted that 41 ^;stroyers converted to handle drone heli- '°Pters (DASH) would be unable to accom­modate the currently projected version when Reaches the Fleet in quantity. Fortunately, bu other ASW improvements built into these . 'Ps far outweigh this one miscalculation, but think there is a significant lesson to be ^earned from such an instance. What does it profit us to develop beautifully sophisticated weapon systems when the vehicles to carry them will not be available in the necessary quantities for a decade or longer? Ships stay with us for 20 years or more. If we can neither fit our new weapon systems on board them, nor afford to build enough new ships to re­place them, it appears that something is wrong in our planning. Our Fleet today is made up of a collection of ships whose arma­ment is actually spread over three or four generations of development. Would it not be more reasonable to settle on one system long enough to produce it in effective numbers, by a mass building or conversion program, than to continue our present constant-funding trickle of a few ships a year?

In addition to this sidetracking of effort (which might be characterized as a violation of the principle of concentration of force), there is another which is little better than self-deception. In reaction to outside criticism of inadequate ASW emphasis, we have piled a miscellaneous lot of junk onto the scales under the label of ASW. A look at the contents of the so-called “ASW package” in recent years will illustrate the point. One common practice is to credit any ship with a hull number starting with D as being per se an ASW ship. To be sure, destroyers (DD), escorts (DE), and frig­ates (DL) all have ASW capabilities. So do all other types of ships. The bow of an ocean liner, if it rammed a submarine, would be a mighty ASW weapon. This does not make merchant ships into an ASW force. Is a guided missile destroyer (DDG), or a radar escort picket (DER), any more an ASW craft? The point is that an ASW capability is a peculiar thing, not directly comparable to the single-purpose functions of inter-continental ballistic missiles or indeed of most of the vehicles and weapon platforms used by either the Air Force or the Army. An army tank is not worth a rap as a truck, nor is a jet interceptor much good as a bomber. But ships are different. They are inherently multi-purpose, even when efforts are made to specialize their functions. The versatile destroyer, our traditional ASW sur­face craft, can and does serve as anti-air screen, advance radar picket, torpedo boat, weather beacon, and even as an emergency power plant for a good-sized city. It even makes an effective transport and cargo ship,

directions. The hoses run back to a 8

real

as the Japanese demonstrated when they kept Guadalcanal supplied with troops and muni­tions brought in largely on the decks of de­stroyers. The peculiarities of the ASW capa­bility can be summed up in two rules: first, almost any weapon becomes an ASW weapon when it is directed at a submarine; second, a ship which is not assigned to an ASW mission is not an effective ASW ship. In the effort to prove that ASW is not being slighted, these two rules have gone by the board. Into the “ASW package” (lately broadened into something called undersea warfare, or USW) have gone a hodge-podge of ships, without regard as to how much of their time and capability is actually devoted to other missions. And a potpourri of projects have been labelled ASW, including such things as mines and mine de­tectors, noisemakers and deception devices, submarine machinery, test barges and calibra­tion ranges, hydrographic and oceanographic surveys, long-range basic programs which may pay off somehow 15 to 20 years in the future, bathyscaphs, freak midget craft, and studies of the vocabulary of porpoises. I do not question the intrinsic worth of most of these projects, but I think charging them off 100 per cent to ASW is highly debatable.

The big publicity drive on ASW has pro­duced another side effect. Even as the scales are being loaded with every fringe project which can possibly be stretched to show an ASW application, more outsiders attempt to crowd in for a slice of the ASW pie. Every basic research program tries to stress its value to the ASW effort. Strategic bombers become ASW vehicles by planning to drop their bombs on submarine construction yards, inflatable rubber airplanes are touted as a cure-all, and every new electronic device is peddled for purported ASW applications. Top level managers, dazzled by the size of the ASW gold pile created by their own self-deceptive efforts, tend to commit increasing amounts of money to fringe or crackpot projects. We must support industry in these ingenious long shots which just might pay off, they reason. Re­member how people couldn’t see the value of radar, or the atomic bomb? And so the merry- go-round spins—the bigger we make the ASW pie look, the more pressure we come under to serve slices of it, for surely in such a great pie, there is bound to be plenty for everyone.

Why do we allow our ASW effort to be dis­sipated in this way? The answer is a compl^eX one and should not be ascribed to incomp^e' tence or evil intentions. As in so many of oU^r institutions, the efforts of good men are sorn^e' times hopelessly snarled in the taffy of ad­ministrative procedures or expended in fight­ing their own organizations instead of solving the problems.

"Protection against submarines is as basic to

the mission oj every ship as the preservation of

watertight integrity . • •

First—and I think the point worth repeat­ing—is the fundamental difficulty of treating ASW as a clear-cut, single purpose type of war fare. Where Polaris clearly stood outside of th^e Navy’s pre-existing mission and structure! ASW is woven inextricably into the fabric of a the Navy’s forces and operations. Protection against submarines is as basic to the mission o every ship as the preservation of watertign integrity, or the need for a propulsion plan¹- This does not mean that the organization can not and should not be improved, but it d°^ej mean that we should not waste time an effort trying to cram ASW into too neat pigeon hole. Recent efforts to strengthen t ASW organization have tended to take form of creating additional advisory comm tees or new layers of program review. Seats the ASW councils have now been given every axe grinder in the country, and the suits are what might be expected. The P^otjJ^ tial situation resembles that of a zany ¹ department. In the center of the picture a raging fire, the submarine threat, wn burns at the very underpinnings of our ^f World structure. Surrounding the fi^re ^ many crews of firemen, each with its ⁰ hose, seeking to put out the fire from dm^e

budgetary reservoir whose capacity and P^re sure are more than adequate. But bety ^ each nozzle and the reservoir are a series

stop valves and manifolds. Each stop valve is teanned by an individual known as a “pro­gram manager,” “co-ordinator,” or “review authority.” Some are concerned only with technical considerations, others only with budgetary matters, a few with both. At the teanifolds are stationed review boards and committees. Their responsibilities are some- hmes peculiar—to encourage small business, tesuscitate depressed areas of the economy, Maintain balanced workloads between gov­ernment and private institutions, enforce con­^tract and procurement regulations, and elimi­nate waste no matter what the cost. Some cannot even see the fire.

None of these people are held accountable ^^0r putting out the fire, yet all have authority ^to shut off or divert the water. While some hoses aimed at the center of the fire trickle or ^are dry, others blast away at flying embers, ^fle hose crews do not even seem to be par- Acularly concerned, because their orders are to hold the nozzles, not to put out the fire. But '''here is the fire chief? He is trying to soothe a |cw thoroughly alarmed citizens. In his cata­^log of wonderful new fire equipment, he points ^to a shiny custom-built engine complete with hvo-way radio and closed-circuit television. * his engine is on order. When it comes, it will ^sUrely p_Ut out the fire.

. This picture is, of course, exaggerated. But ts not without applicability within our de- ense establishment. The proliferation of Managers” is a matter of organizational ^record. The preoccupation with equipment '^vhich is only on order is a little more subtle. ^^et us look at the causes of what can be called the “R&D Syndrome.”

As everyone knows, people in high places Pride themselves on keeping abreast of new tengs, and people who make new achieve­ments like to keep their bosses aware of them.

^ut also in Washington, there exist complex P^r°cedures and strong safeguards to insure Pat the public funds are not committed to Unwise or half-baked programs. Before any >r development can be started, it must go •trough a full technical and cost analysis and ^e defended at innumerable levels of program Pud budgetary review.

Thus, each new program is presented as a 'Uitably code-named entity complete with ^ar charts and clever functional diagrams be­fore it ever really starts. Furthermore, it must be based on certain assumptions regarding funding, manpower, progress, and the like. Let us suppose someone comes up with a pro­gram we will call GRASP (for GReat Antisub­marine Panacea). The higher echelons will have been briefed on this program for a year or more before budgetary approval has been obtained. At this point, prototype completion may still be five years in the future. Each year at budget time, new presentations must be given to justify continuing GRASP. To keep up interest, progress films and “hot sheet” reports are kept flowing up the line. Each dummy fir­ing is recorded as a “milestone” in the prog­ress of the new system. But after a few years, newer programs begin to occupy the spot­light, and people begin to think of GRASP as rather old hat. By the time its first prototype goes into evaluation, GRASP, in the minds of the budgeteers, is finished business. These people, actually hurt, simply cannot under­stand when Fleet commanders complain of their unsatisfactory material capabilities. Don’t they have GRASP now? Doesn’t that do the job? And there is the new WASP-C (Wonderful Antisubmarine Predictor-Com­puter) now under development which will do ten times as much. Why should we spend millions on obsolete torpedoes, or on modifica­tions to obsolescent sonars, or repairs to worn- out ships? One budgetary watchdog is actually quoted in the January 1962 issue of Armed Forces Management, as having “taken it upon myself to protect the taxpayers against the unwarranted spending of funds for hardware which will eventually be superseded by a great technological breakthrough.” In similar vein, rumor has it that, at one time, all new escort ship (DE) construction was in jeopardy because of the belief in Defense Department budgetary circles that the PCH, an experi­mental hydrofoil patrol craft of about 100 tons displacement, would make larger escorts unnecessary! These are some of the people who have authority to shut off the hose lines.

While I certainly would not accuse our operational leaders of being ignorant of or unresponsive to current Fleet needs, I think a substantial case can be documented proving that Washington is more strongly oriented toward the developments of the future than to the deficiencies of the present. Emphasis on

R&D is not undesirable, but if key people in control of plans, programs, and budgets are deceived even slightly into believing that the antisubmarine war can be won with develop­mental prototypes or one-of-a-kind vehicles, it could be a nefarious influence indeed. As to whether or not such a bias actually exists, I can only point out that our Fleet is approach­ing mass obsolescence, that alteration and re­pair funds are chronically inadequate, and that plans for the construction of adequate numbers of ASW forces and weapons do not appear to exist. I should also like to give an example of how seemingly innocent decisions can load the scales on one side or the other. A few years ago in one of those budgetary or accounting changes which are made annually in the interests of “economy and good man­agement,” the appropriations for research and development (R&D) were joined with those for test and evaluation (T&E) in what appeared to be a logical combination of related functions. The new RDT&E “line item” was placed un­der the managers of the old R&D funds, and as an economy measure, the new total was re­stricted essentially to the ceiling formerly allocated to R&D. What was the practical effect of this minor paper work change? It resulted in the withering of the effort which formerly went into the unglamorous “product improvement” area encompassed by the old T&E function. Funds which used to be avail­able for thorough evaluation programs and the “fixes” resulting from them, for field changes and modifications, and for upgrading equipment, were opposed by their own pro­gram managers who were still operating un­der the original R&D orientation. Such proj­ects as are authorized find themselves per­petually on the defensive or cut back to make up the deficit or over-runs of the big research and development programs. Proto­type equipment are brought to the evalua­tion stage and then dropped for lack of budget­ary support to “de-bug” them, or left to be supported in catch-as-catch-can fashion by the operating forces as single ship installations inadequately backed by logistic or training facilities.

So far, this analysis has emphasized what is wrong, not what is right; what is not being done, not what can be done. Let me make it clear, I do not presume to have the answers to all of our ASW problems, but I think I can distinguish between programs which are aimed at obtaining solutions and those which disperse most of their energy on peripheral matters.

To begin with, the nature of the ocean, its underwater characteristics even more than its surface behavior, precludes the possibility of ^a simple, single weapon solution. No singl^e mode of detection—sonar, electromagnetic or exotic; no lone weapon—torpedo, rocket or atomic depth charge; no one vehicle—hell' copter, submarine or hydrofoil; no single magic fence or barrier; can guarantee the detection, classification, localization and de­struction of a submarine, considering all the combinations of speed, depth, sea state, g^e°" graphic location, oceanographic conditions and enemy counter-action in which subma­rines can be expected to operate. Therefore) we must dismiss resolutely the temptation to commit all our efforts to single-system solu­tions. Zealots will be carried away by the imagined merits of inflatable aircraft, hydro­foils, huge passive detection systems °^r swarms of midget submersibles. These ideas may indeed have some merit, and it is neces sary that they be investigated dispassionately but no one of them can be allowed to pre-empt so large a share of the Navy effort that the success or failure of ASW will hinge on the out

^rr . . . the equipment 1⁷¹ the hulk of our ships, even

quite new ones, is three or four generations behind our foremost R&D systems-

come of a gamble on a single solution. Yet not a few of the proposals put forth by industry or by individuals within the services wou require the commitment of more men, slup^s and dollars than can possibly be allocated t° the entire Navy, let alone its ASW mission- Secondly, and on the other hand, we m concentrate on systems and techniques ^w |_ie offer a realistic chance of pay-off against real threat. For instance, in the field of classi

^cation or target identification, the real prob- Jc^m is to distinguish enemy submarines. Therefore, the effort should not be excessively diverted to schemes which will only identify "Tales, wrecks, tide rips, or marine life. A catalog of all the ocean’s noises would be of Sceat scientific interest and might help, by the process of elimination, to separate real targets from false ones. But basically, we ^are interested in finding a way to identify submarines, not non-submarines. Consider ^another example. Would we be justified in spending several millions to develop a tele- yision device to detect motionless submarines ^ln a calm sea, but incapable of locating one Under the conditions which could be expected t° prevail all the rest of the time? Should we champion systems which will work only as °ⁿg as the opponent co-operates by following specified transit routes or operating proce­dures, or fixed barriers which, like the Maginot T'ne, can be avoided simply by not going '''here they are?

Thirdly, having put the one-shot panaceas ^and the peripheral boondoggles into their Proper perspective, we should face up to the Necessity of deploying adequate forces and ^rcsources into developments which offer a Practical chance of success. Here we need ^ore effort on methods which utilize here- ^and-now capabilities. Aircraft enthusiasts on °ue hand and submariners on the other are Convinced that their kind of forces could do he job. Perhaps other combinations would ^e better. The important point is that none ^ave ever been given the scope necessary to Trove their claims. The time of our nuclear ^Submarines is still devoted as much to glamor- °us public relations cruises as to developing effective antisubmarine tactics. For lack of sufficient quantities of ASW weapons and °^rces, our exercises are characterized by so Utany artificial assumptions that everyone is ^aole to interpret the results as proving his °^Vvn preconceived notions. Let us subject our ^ASW tactics to the test of several hundred ^rcalistic exercises in which each side can really get the feel of the other, instead of Charging off like zealots on the basis of a few bolated encounters.

Fourthly, we must accept the fact that, when ?ud if the need for ASW comes, it will be 'Uimediate. In two world wars, this country

A graduate of Cornell University and M.I.T., Com­mander Alden served in the USS Lamprey (SS-372) and the USS Sea Cat (SS-399) from 1944 to 1950. Sub­sequent assignments include various duties as Plan­ning & Estimating Officer, Supervisor of Shipbuild­ing, Groton, Conn., Production Analysis Superintend­ent, Ship Superintendent, and Assistant Repair Superintendent, San Francisco Naval Shipyard. Prior to reporting to his present duty station, Ports­mouth Naval Shipyard, he was Head, Non-Acoustic Techniques and Classification Branch, ASW and Surveillance Division, Bureau of Ships.

and its allies have had their backs pushed to the wall by submarine forces of lesser menace than those existing today. Other factors gave us the time to build entire fleets of ASW ships practically from scratch. Is there any likeli­hood that such time will ever be granted to us again? Most of us are only dimly aware that the equipment in the bulk of our ships, even quite new ones, is three or four genera­tions behind our foremost R&D systems. While R&D leap-frogs ahead, many ships with half their useful lives yet before them will go to the boneyard with equipment of World War II design still aboard. In the missile race, there was full realization that we had to build a functioning system in effective numbers. We should have done this even more in the ASW race. Instead, we do not even have plans to start such a system short of actual war.

But most of all, we must provide the fifth and foremost factor—organizational responsi­bility for the accomplishment of results. To­day in ASW, we have only people responsible for performing functions. Different people are responsible for across-the-board aspects which split every Navy program except Polaris. We have Navy-wide managers for research and development, equipment procurement, ship­building, alterations, maintenance, training, facilities, communications and many other functions. How does this affect the attainment of a specifically stated operational require­ment? Let us consider, as a specific example, providing our own submarines with the capa­bility of evading enemy ASW contact, and let us suppose that we make a single project officer solely responsible for meeting this re­quirement.

As the Navy Department is organized to­day, this officer would not have the authority

capability as its end product. In the case

of

or the wherewithal to make even a dent in the problem. If he should conclude that the most pressing immediate need was research, he would have to go to the managers of the re­search budget and convince them of the validity of his requirements in competi­tion with all the other research requirements of the Navy. If he wanted to procure several thousand devices to fill the exercise allow­ances of the Fleet, he would have to vie for funds against the lumped requirements—for completely unrelated equipments—of many other programs. Perhaps he might recognize an immediate need for a personnel training program. He could obtain it from the per­sonnel managers only by competing with the training requirements of all the rest of the Navy. So it goes for a dozen other functional aspects of his program. He might have a temporary excess of research and development money, but this could not be used to train operators. There is no way in which he could cancel an alteration on one ship and use the money to correct deficiencies in equipment coming off the production line. Even his ability to travel, or make long distance tele­phone calls, is hindered by arbitrary restric­tions placed on the funds for these functions.

In every case, the needs of a specific pro­gram are forced to compete against the needs of all the rest of the Navy. And the arbiter is always a functional manager or co-ordinator who cannot possibly know enough about all programs to make an effective judgment as to their relative priority. In desperation, our program manager can choose between two alternatives: he can fight a constant series of crises with appeals to higher authority for support against the functional demands of the rest of the Navy, or he can submit his routine budget requirements for fiscal 1966 or 1967, shrug his shoulders, relax, and enjoy a quiet tour of duty. And so, just a dribble comes out of the end of the hose line.

The reaction to this distressing situation is constant agitation to appoint an ASW czar with Polaris-type authority. A Special Proj­ects organization is able to achieve results primarily because it is allowed to control its funds without major interference from the functional budget managers. It can put its effort where the immediate need exists, and it is responsible for delivering an operational

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ASW, however, with its multi-purpose imph' cations, too powerful a project organization could easily disrupt a great number of other vital Navy programs. It would certainly run into head-on conflict with many major com­mands. Suppose the ASW czar decided to subordinate all other destroyer missions to his own, or to eliminate all submarine capabiliti^eS which did not directly contribute to ASW? There ought to be some alternative method ot organization, and there is. Sorely needed throughout the management echelons of the entire Navy, it is a reduction in the functional stratification which is smothering the opera­tional needs of the Navy under layers inertia created solely for the imagined con­venience of accountants and review staffs- N military analyst Hanson W. Baldwin edi­torialized a few years ago, we need more people who can “approve and expedite” ana fewer who can “negate and delay.” The irony of it is that we are asking for nothing more than an implementation of the Navy’s traditions principles that responsibility and commen­surate authority must go hand in hand, that planning and logistics cannot be divorce from operations, and that effectiveness ^lS measured in terms of results.

“Program packaging” appears to off^er hopes of daylight ahead, but the promise is fa¹ from fulfillment. The ASW package is sti little more than a loose bundle of projects which have been hastily stenciled with a com mon label. Too many essential functions are still packaged under the purview of other managers. RDT&E is now defined as a package self-sufficient unto its own ends, in denial ⁰ the fact that development, test and evalu^a tion are by definition applied to the attain ment of specific end objectives. The basic checks and balances written into law have been so reinforced by restrictive procedures and unresponsive organizational chantie that most of our energies are expended ¹¹¹ struggling against our self-imposed strait

jacket.                           _                                 . • is

An effective antisubmarine capability too vital to the interests of the United Sta ^ and the Free World to permit any further aiij¹^ less drifting. The destination may not be sight, but the course is clear. For the sake our very future, we must get on with it- &