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Vice Admiral Bruce DeMars
Deputy Chief of Naval Operations
For Submarine Warfare
There is a great future for submarines and I try to put whatever energies I have left, after worrying about people and readiness, toward that.
Proceedings: There’s a general concern that in the future there will be fewer people of military age in the United States, because of the falling birth rate. Does that bother you? Do you expect to get a larger percentage of the Navy in the future, if it becomes a smaller Navy?
DeMars: No. Our number of submariners will always be so small that the problem of total numbers will not be that critical. Obviously, we do look for a certain cut of talent from the upper stratum. That’s not much different from some other parts of the Navy. I worry most about keeping quality up, and keeping the right number of quality people in for adequate length of service. You can’t buy experience, and after you train people so that they’re proficient at a certain level, you hope to make the business pleasurable enough for them to stay in. Generally, we’re doing quite well with accessions now, and we’re doing well with retention. But the people problem has always been a struggle from the day we had one nuclear submarine to today, when we have 136.
We’ve gone through some pretty tough times, where we’ve had to stretch out sea duty and things of that nature. But we’re pretty much out of that now. Up to lieutenant commander, we’re in pretty good shape. We are still outgrowing the older personnel problem in the grades of lieutenant commander through captain, where things are still a little tight. But things are much better than they were, say, ten years ago.
Proceedings: Are the prospects of having numbers of people at Naval Postgraduate School getting better?
DeMars: Right now, we put roughly 45 submariners per year into postgraduate education, both at the Postgraduate School and civilian colleges. A new Woods Hole- M. I. T. Oceanographic Fellowship Program was started two or three years ago. Two-thirds of the people in that program are submarine lieutenants. So we are getting more of our people out into other parts of the Navy and the defense establishment. For our more senior officers, the postgraduate study picture is not that bright, because that’s where our ranks are thinnest.
Proceedings: A followup to the question of our ability to shake out more officers for postgraduate study. Ten years ago, you couldn’t find a nuclear submariner any closer to the Naval War College in Newport than one stationed in, say, New London. In spite of the tightness in the ranks of lieutenant commander and up, are you still able to shake out some senior officers for top-level schools?
DeMars: We’re putting six officers through Newport in each class. Quite frankly, we are doing that by taking something out of the fleet’s hide. Instead of two deputy squadron commanders, for example, many squadrons get along with only one, because the top-level school students come from the same year groups. The force is still operating pretty well, and we have to give the senior officers that broadening school experience. But if we start to have more problems at sea, we may have to cut back on the school program. But right now, we’re comfortable. 1 think this reflects a high state of readiness throughout the force. We have good sailors, all the chiefs’ quarters are full, and the officers are experienced. They don’t need as much supervision from the squadron commanders, so we can train those senior officers in other things.
Proceedings: Recently, you’ve gone to a new policy of manning your submarines with all nuclear-trained officers. This would seem to increase the pressure on nuclear manning, and also suggests an idea of increasing the level of cooperation among the different warfare communities. Has anyone pushed around the idea of getting the surface warfare officers or aviators rotating into submarine duty, and submariners rotating into the other warfare communities? DeMars: Absolutely not! Today, the Navy is such a high-tech business that it is all we can do to cram in the requisite training and professional education within a reasonable career span. The idea of cross-pollination—or some such euphemism—has been tried in some halting attempts over the years. Some people think that everything’s going to get better if you do that. It generally doesn’t.
There are other ways to cooperate and coordinate, without transferring warm bodies and putting them in unfamiliar environments. We don’t have the luxury to do that, in any of the major combat branches of the Navy.
Proceedings: You have been making a strong case for the Navy’s next nuclear-powered attack submarine-—the SSN-21, or Seawolf. Will you review some of the major points you’ve made within the Navy and before Congress: Why it’s the submarine we need? And will you compare and contrast the Seawolf with the Los Angeles (SSN- 688)-class submarine?
DeMars: We are about halfway—six years into a 12-year program that turns the original idea into a submarine in the water. It’s not a new start or a new idea, by any means. The issue is submarine superiority—undersea superiority. Submarine warfare is high-tech warfare, consisting largely of singleship encounters. That makes it difficult to put together less-capable platforms to augment each other. We still haven't figured out how to do that very well— but neither has the opposition. So there’s a high premium placed on the technology embodied in each individual submarine, to hold the edge.
We have taken the SSN-688 class as far as we can go. That has cost a lot of money, but has greatly increased the capability of that submarine over the years. By the mid-1990s, however, the SSN-688 will no longer meet the threat that the Soviets will begin to field at that point. A design can only be improved so much and, at that point, all those improvements are incorporated into a new design which, in turn, becomes the foundation upon which we build—adding improvements which allow us to maintain our superiority.
We have to move on, then, to a new hull—which gives us a chance to start afresh. We can now incorporate into this new hull those state-of-the-art features that would not fit into the older platform. We were probably about five years behind, in making the case as eloquently as we have most recently. But now that we have made the case, we’re moving on. We’re very pleased with the new capability we’ve incorporated into the new submarine—better levels of quieting. Especially quieting at higher speeds, which is the most important aspect of quieting. Designing a submarine to be quiet at slow speeds is relatively easy nowadays. But designing one to be quiet over the entire speed range is a very tough technological challenge. Nevertheless, we think we can do that. We’ve designed significantly greater sensor capability into the SSN-21. And we’ve also designed an increased weapon-carrying capacity.
The Seawolf is really the super submarine of the next century.
Proceedings: With the prospect of a shrinking defense budget, can a force of 100 SSNs be maintained while we build the SSN-21s?
DeMars: Obviously, I think so, or wouldn't bring the program forwar aggressively.
One element of the argument son^a times overlooked is life-cycle cost weapon system. The procurement c are not the only critical ones. The 1 cycle costs are the ones that will gL you in the long run—the ones tha make us pay day after day lor t'1"1"n) incorporated into the design yettrs a Today, we have a fleet of 9? °uc attack submarines. The Navy Pa>s . something less than 10% of its bn to maintain that fleet of 97 nuclear ^ tack submarines. I mean “maintain its larger sense—building the new ones, overhauling and refueling 1 older ones, funding the crews, m0 izing and buying the weapons - everything imaginable that goes 1 the maintenance of that force. S|nC ^ our share of the 600-ship Navy lS^ submarines, we’re basically at tn maintenance cost level now.
The submarines we are building^ today are considerably more exp- ^ in same-year dollars than the ones built 15 years ago. But somehow-^ today we can run a force ol nuc attack submarines with less than ^ of the Navy’s budget. Even thoug costs of the SSN-21 will be greattej about 25% greater—we have wor hard to reduce the life-cycle cos s -.^ For instance, despite the vastly creased capability of the SSN-- • have demanded that the crew be ce same size as the SSN-688 crews- ,£ crew costs are a large part of 1 V,,jpof costs, we decided to design the ^ systems and the propulsion plant run by the same size crew.
Over its 30 years of service h e' |eSS SSN-21 will spend about two in the shipyard because of the rnanarjiy nance lessons we’ve learned—~P ^ from the Trident program. Shipy^ ^ work is expensive, so the more g{e keep the ship out of the yard, I e we save on life-cycle costs. ,uCed In a number of ways, we’ve re ^ the life-cycle costs as best we. kn°rgu- how. This casts the affordability ' - ment in a different light.
Proceedings: This might be Pren||l|)at but in the interest of continuity^ do you see beyond the SSN-21 • DeMars: I always love to hear t question, because that tells me 1 people are beginning to understu the SSN-21 is in the bag—that w have sold it. ,£ gjve
Unfortunately, however, 1 canu|J you as robust an answer as 1 w
CaPable nio.r uu uli;>
in ,,at orm■ We’re doing a lot of _n that area now, ' " ‘
'v°rk ~
and pro ttlat ^e® now’ tying our plans have “ ®rarils together, so we don’t ^ars f*USt another submarine” ten marine °m,now—'3ut we have a subthreat as p caPability to meet the time frame£St We Can ProJect ’’ ’°r that
at the s°^ler steP is* of course, to look heyonnT °I P'^orni we will want the iUX(Je ^SN-21. We haven’t had thoughtoP being able to give much eertajp] ? tllat so Par- But we will- 1 20 yea °Pe that we would not go text ge between the SSN-21 and^the hdent "eratlon of SSNs—and am con-
talk abo!^‘* ^ere used t0 be a l°t 01 Trident “
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’hink wp" ^°’ ‘l didn’t—and I don’t om neet* one' * think the Triden
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\ tuCapac'ty- And I think we’ll jus sttbma | ln8 the crank on the Triden
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most nf1'16 trank,y’ we have expended and fin °Ur resources- both personal the nr anciah *n the development and erthele 8rammin§ of the SSN‘21. Nev- sigk. r'S’ We are beginning to set our One k C^°nc* the SSN-21 in two ways, other u,3 re’atlvely practical way. The anyth;,,3 ,as not yet developed into nS that amounts to much, look ?,ractical way is to take a hard
and__ if ^N-21 in design now,
Denart , stron§ support from the Co! ^entof ^fense, Navy, and equip th t0 c*ec^e how we should of the submarine to take advantage fare q-, . an8m8 nature of naval war- has a i *S yery* very robust platform ing tj, °‘ capability for growth dur- ^eginni nCXt several decades. So we’re c°nnechv' l° *°°'C at **le sensors’ the that makVlt^’ 3nc^ weaPon systems 'able n £ most sense on l^'s highly
Won’t.
talk ab0s‘>’ 1 nere used to be a lot c ent Ut 3 srnaiier follow-on to the sile s„hnUc!ear'Powered ballistic mis- marine, or at least some n t° Trident. Did that ever ge
b an ont' . ” i iiiniK me inucii ’he ty '^ed platform, sort of like her. ip l'z (CVN-68)-class aircraft cat a'rcraft 3 re 8°ing to build another ln 8oinnCarr'er’ ’here’s not much sens Mother °Ut,ant’ saying, “Design me a Point °u6' have that platform "ith h Where the Navy’s very happy S°methj here’s no use reinventing Matfo n? e^se' We have a very quiet ’he qu- ln the Trident submarine; it i [°day i.6/’1 submarine in the world
011 of has a lot of mobility. It has
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^ngs: In the past, it has beei
very hard for submarines to communicate with other submarines—or with surface ships and aircraft. Are you hoping for some major change there? DeMars: Yes. I think the future for undersea warfare lies in something I call cueing, connectivity, and offboard sensors. That has a great ring. My staff’s scurrying around now to translate that into programs, and many of the industrial groups are now working hard at it. I’ve talked the National Security Industrial Association (NSIA) into making that the theme for their fall conference, to see what they come up with. But clearly, as the Soviet submarines get quieter, we’re going to have to do better in cueing. In other words, if we hear the faintest sound of a Soviet sub, we’ve got to know that it’s a Soviet—and we’ve got to know very quickly. In order to know very quickly, we’ve got to have connectivity. This gets us into the question of space research. We’re working in that field— with the satellite laser communication program. It also encompasses fiber optic material laid on the bottom of the ocean, to plug into. We need to look into that. Finally, off-board sensors include a lot of things—in space and on the bottom of the ocean. The concept also includes remotely operated vehicles and autonomous underwater vehicles—little submarines without submariners. There’s a lot of support for that type of research in certain areas here in Washington.
Taken all together, that is the wave of the future for the submarine force.
We are going to conduct antisubmarine warfare (ASW) in a different way, because we will have to. Equally important, we will have to stop regarding the submarine strictly as an ASW weapon. What do I mean by that? Well, we are probably the best antisurface ship platform today in the U. S. Navy. We can sink ships with our heavyweight torpedoes. We do a tremendous job of covertly launching land attack conventional missiles now, with the Tomahawk missile. We demonstrate that capability regularly. We’re great at landing special warfare people. We just did a great deployment in the Mediterranean, where the USS John Marshall (SSN- 611), a converted Polaris submarine, carried a dry deck shelter, two swimmer-delivery vehicles, and special warfare people through a full Mediterranean deployment, during which we had a number of successful exercises with our allies.
So on the one hand, we need to figure out how to do ASW differently; but on the other hand, we need to figure out how to get the submarine into a wider range of mission areas. We have the potential to perform antiair warfare (AAW) to a certain degree—and help
MARK WAKI (MORTON THIOKOL. INC.)
“The strategic submarine force provides about half of our country’s strategic nuclear warheads with 25% of the Department of defense’s strategic budget . . . We’re very proud of that.”
The Patrols of America’s Most Famous WWII Submarine
R. Adm. Richard H. O’Kane, USN (Ret.)
The performance of the USS Wahoo in sinking Japanese ships in the farthest reaches of the Empire is legendary in submarine circles. Richard O'Kane. Wahoo’s exec for many of its war patrols and a legend in his own right as skipper of Tang, has recreated the life of this famous submarine and its immortal crew as they run up the score against the enemy. All the drama, tension, and elation of wartime submarine service is captured as you sail with Wahoo “in harm’s way.”
the battle group with our ability to launch antiair missiles from covert positions. That can be a tremendous force multiplier for the battle group. We need to start getting into these things now, in the formative stages, so that when SSN-21 comes in, we have these missions available for it.
In some ways, building the SSN-21 is like building a truck. We already have the basic truck, and it’s the best truck we can build from the standpoint of the engine, the frame, and the loadcarrying capacity. Now we need to add the accessories—the gun rack, the rear view mirror, the fog lights, the foxtail, and so on. That’s the easier part, if you do it right. Once you add the accessories to your truck, it all comes together.
Proceedings: You left enough space in the SSN-21 design to hold all these accessories?
DeMars: You’re exactly right. We didn’t have a lot of these good ideas when SSN-21 was laid down, but we knew that we had to build a growth margin into the submarine. We didn’t want it to come out too cramped to hold new technology. For example, we designed it with larger torpedo tubes than needed for present-day torpedoes. People were saying, “What are you going to put in those?” Well, we didn’t know at the time. But we’re beginning to get an idea. That’s the concept of the SSN-21 program— building a submarine to respond to today’s threat, with the future capability to respond to tomorrow’s threat.
Proceedings: Does it look like there will be a new torpedo program to match?
DeMars: Eventually, there will be one, but I don’t have the money right now. You can’t have everything. You only get a certain share of the pie until you can demonstrate that your new system can do something better than some existing system, and then you get some more money. But in the SSN-21, we have tremendous growth—in torpedo tubes, in the number of weapons-stow positions, in the number of masts we can put in the sail and so on. We have a lot of extra space in the sail, so we can put other things up there.
Proceedings: Much has been made of Soviet advances in quieting their submarines. What role did the Walkers’ disclosures play in this area?
DeMars: I think the Walkers probably played a role—and I have no inside
scoop on any of this—but not as damental a role as some people mife ^ think. I think their disclosures ma . Soviets more aware of how far be they were, and consequently led t to shift their spending priorities in order to catch up. But the improve^ ^ ments in the Soviet submarine fore the result of long-term, evolutionary^ broad-based engineering and scien development efforts, not overnig breakthroughs. They’ve been wor on this for a long time. And we seen the results at sea for a long ^ time—ever since the late Sixties a early Seventies. We saw the getting quieter at sea. But we di aS quite get that message across as,Wsay.
we might have. Now everybodys
ing, “Why didn’t we know this- ^0. Well, we knew it; we just weren t quent enough in our ability to bn r this new threat forward and make widely understood.
Proceedings: Related to this is 1 ^
cent news coverage that has attri great advances in Soviet submarm propeller quieting to the Soviets chasing sophisticated milling at’S
ogy from Japan and Norway. -ne the meaning of this for the subm force? f 0uf
DeMars: I think it indicates one strengths. We have two advantages in
our submarine force—in our
Navy>
• We have that matter—over the Soviets. better people, and we have better nology. As a nation, we are mu more innovative. .i^t?
How do the Soviets overcome ^ Well, they try to steal our secre s^ this case, they have stolen a ”e -jp secret—the ability to run a latg^ ^ed ing machine. It’s part of a *,roa Soviet effort to capture U. S. es. ogy, and part of an especially arc ^ sive effort in the undersea war ^ submarine area. Now, no ot^er hfend" in the Pentagon is better about |0gy ing technology or protecting tec ^ are than the submariners. In genera reluctant to give away anything body—even to allies—i( it baS
,rity-
thing to do with submarine *uffeC|ge We recognize this technologic3 _ that we have, and we guard it J
ously. But every now and then^ ajjieS
thing like this happens. A
help us guard our technology
but
,ftef
a passage of time, people Set f°er tbe cent and something happens. a long term, the Soviets have mJ g much
dedicated effort to get as ^
technology as they can, because ^ they behind in the submarine area.
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^ahnl6tPfr0§,ahead by buying it,
in additm ’ 3nd reverse engineering it
Coin" veIoping 11 sole|y°n
submariIs the quieting of Soviet classes nS reslr'cted oniy to newer a,l suhm F are there applications to nUcleararines’ including their non- De\ta sP7ered boats?
There k ‘S a matter of degree. ting (0 „ a Ways a potential for backfit- largg g • leve quieting, but for really start with S’ °ne das to pretty much Can repla 3 n6W huI1' In other words, I Mth newCj a.'ot °f pumps and valves it’s ven, esi§ns that are quieter—but °f pumn«eXPenS'VC’ given the number and Sjnaad valves in a submarine; 'v°rk to? Whole system has to PumPs ana Cr’ sometimes the new ^hen voi VJdves don’t quite work out, things so try -t0 <lu‘et a whole lot of thany'^ng keeps poking up. In ^°u just eS’,something is there that duction pC3n 1 cluiet. It may be the refluids in*earS’ 0r 'be fl°w noise of 5°ng thePhP’,?8’°.[ the flow noise ’itrough U * as the submarine moves say, “j, e water. At that point, you need to m d°ne 'be best I can here. I bull f0r0Ve °n to a completely new ’ a new reactor plant, a new
equipment arrangement that integrates all the quieting efforts.”
So the answer is: both old and new submarines can be quieted. One good example is backfitted propellers. If you can come up with a quieter propeller, generally, you can backfit that to all your classes of submarines to some degree.
Proceedings: Will the Soviets’ quieting of their submarines prevent their being rapidly countered during the initial phase of the Maritime Strategy? If so, what does this mean for the planned forward operation of U. S. surface forces?
DeMars: If Soviet submarines—a lot of them, not just a few Akulas—get quieter, the engagement ranges will move in, and our “kill” productivity will get less, if nothing else changes. But the essence of naval warfare is that you don’t remain static—especially when you have fundamental technological changes going on. That’s why I spend a lot of time thinking about how we are going to do ASW differently— I’m talking about the entire Navy, not just the submarine force—with cueing, connectivity, and offboard sensors.
Here’s the other side of that coin: If their submarines are getting quieter, that means they’re harder to find; and if our submarines are better than theirs—from a quieting, stealth standpoint—then ours ought to be even harder to find than theirs. What do we do with our submarines, then, to use that stealth advantage to put tremendous pressure on the Soviet Union? What else can we do to really put pressure on them—besides just hunting their submarines?
That’s why I get into this role of mission expansion for this highly capable stealth platform. We are spending money in the Department of Defense, making other things stealthy—airplanes and tanks, for example. The submarine is inherently stealthy. We should think of positive ways to use that—not just think defensively about finding the other guy.
Proceedings: Along that line, the Soviets have been working very hard to improve their ability to detect us through means other than sonar. Are they getting anywhere?
DeMars: Part of our responsibility here in the Submarine Directorate is for the strategic submarine force, which is now the preeminent leg of the strategic deterrent triad. When strategic submarines were invented almost 30 years ago, we
were number three behind the bombers and the land-based missiles. Now we’re clearly number one because of our invulnerability. As a result, we must assess the vulnerability of the strategic submarine force routinely, looking at all aspects, including non-acoustic detection means. We look at all types of phenomenology, assuming the Soviets have to deal with the same laws of physics as we. We look at synthetic aperture radars in space, bioluminescence, infrared detection, and so on.
We do experiments at sea, and then build models that we can in turn take to the extremes of the anticipated advances in detectors and in future computer capacity, drawing some conclusions about what these advances will do to the vulnerability of the strategic submarine force.
We are finding that the oceans are becoming more opaque, rather than more transparent. In other words, submarine quieting and submarine signature reduction are progressing faster than any methods of detecting submarines. I run a very robust program in this area. It gets oversight from the Department of Defense and from the Congress. If there were any significant breakthroughs in the submarine detection area, we wouldn’t still be building one Trident submarine a year and developing the Trident II missile. That wouldn’t make much sense.
Proceedings: Going back to the Soviet submarine force for a minute, do you see any trends—qualitative or quantitative—in personnel or technology on the horizon for them? For example, do you see the Soviets building fewer submarines because they’re having to go into a more complex building program? DeMars: I don’t have any greater insights into this than most other people, but I think that their view of submarine warfare isn’t that much different from ours. Assuming that they recognize what their inadequacies have been, they have probably advanced on different research and development streams while still working on the basic problem, which, of course, is to make your submarine as covert and as stealthy as possible. When you start 20 years behind, as they have, you’ve got to say, “If the war starts next year, I’ve got to fight in it, so what am I going to do?” So you get into very high-speed, noisy excursions like the Alpha submarine, and you get into operating submarines together and talking under water, because you think that will confuse your opponent. So you do some more things like that, but you don’t ever take your eye off the fact that submarine warfare is stealth warfare, and you’ve got to keep working away at that. Now, we’re beginning to see the evolutionary advances which have resulted from the Soviets’ dedication of enormous resources into the technology and the engineering over the past several decades to make a stealthy platform.
Overall, I think their trends are much the same as ours. They lag behind, to a certain degree; but they don’t lag behind now as much as they did ten years ago. And ten years ago, they didn’t lag behind as much as they did 20 years ago. Based upon the programs we have in place now—in our nearterm, mid-term, and long-term modernization—I think we can stay ahead, from a technological standpoint. In terms of people, our people are better, and that’s a hard thing for the Soviets to turn around. I’m guardedly optimistic that we can stay ahead, but the nature of submarine warfare is changing. We just have to be astute enough to recognize and respond to those changes in a timely way.
Proceedings: On a strategic level, some recent Soviet exercises suggest that they may not adhere to the bastion strategy for their submarines that our Maritime Strategy assumes. Do you see them changing some of their deployment patterns, and bringing out more submarines early?
DeMars: It would be foolish for us not to think that through. One has to look at the capabilities, not the perceived intentions, of the opponents. Therefore—and we probably haven’t done enough of this—we need to study some of the excursions that lead from what is clearly their bastion concept at this time. And I think it is clearly their current concept because of implications of our Maritime Strategy. It’s their response to the Maritime Strategy. Now, as they continue to think about their strategy, will things change? I don’t know. But if we’re comfortable with our current approach, then we ought to think about what we would do if things did change. Do we have the flexibility to respond to their changes? I think we do. If more Soviet submarines came out during a war, it would subject them to a broader range of our ASW forces to prosecute them. The oceans are big, and if you want to use a submarine in a broad ocean to go after things, then you have to go at high speed. It’s not entirely clear they’ve figured out how to quiet submarines at high speed. But
we need to do more thinking and ni war gaming about the possibility 0 ^ them leaving their bastions, so we set our ideas lined up better.
Proceedings: There has been a gr deal of discussion about U. S. torp does. Given the Soviets’ siibmarin design philosophy—using doub e construction and extensive comp mentalization—can we count on torpedoes to defeat the threat? DeMars: Obviously, I think so, ° we’d be working hard to change nSj. heavyweight torpedoes. I am reSP ble in the Pentagon for both the pedo lethality aspects of the heav ^ weight torpedo business and a submarine shock aspects of su n __ ing. In other words, I pay t0 . head lethality studies and exercis ^ and I also pay to do experimen s research and development to see jnSt we can harden our submarines ag shock, harden the equipment, an
so on. , ich
There is a certain point at w ,( things fail under shock. One necessarily have to put a hole m hull to do that. There is a certain^ where people fail under shock. e£)o
have a very large heavyweight ^ warhead. If that goes off un“er|Tl6lido1)S near a submarine, it will do tr® jng, damage, regardless of double. ^ Based on those studies—and t that I do have a lot of insigWsaS
submarine shock program, as
the torpedo lethality program nt
convinced that our future inves ^ strategies should put our money ^ other things, rather than mal\inAtter. heavyweight torpedo warhead gdo We are making our lightweig better, and there’s technology a to do that. , ofl oHe
But if you have a race—an hand you have people who keep^ ^d. ing submarines, and on the o -Dg you have people who keep des ^ ^ torpedoes—the torpedo design® ^ jn going to win. They can stay ant of that race with a smaller inves ^ tbe resources and much less impaC . Q are submarine force than the guys. niafineS building armor belts around su and trying to shock-harden P®fP gub- things that are impossible
n°i a l°l
mariners have an insight tha jr0rn people don’t have, which conl|jveS spending a large part of their in the ocean, where even smaan can cause a lot of problems. leaks that stem from inadequa ^ nance or failure of a compone (rUjy shaft seal, or something else ar
Proceedings
;
subm!r*S that We learn t0 cope with in emero,, neS' ®ut ^ink of leaks and
blowfn £S in the context of thin§s
and ,2 Up’ and fittings coming loose, and elp fS comin8 °ff their mounts, ate getf nC^ p'res’ ar*d so on—and you lot of nlri“ ,lnt0 a new dimension that a
^ardeni'n013 6 wbo talk about shock-
8 submarines are not aware of.
clearllT' ^hat’s your view of nu- advani beads for torpedoes—
DaMars§ep disadvanta§^?
you ne ! rom a deterrent standpoint,
clear can u°,me sort op a tactical nu- haVe it Uy at sea' If lhe Soviets a tactica)n y°U don t’ tbat gives them you. r eapability advantage over pedo n'n. e,ss mterested in the tor- standoff *6 frank,y ’ tilan I am in a clear Wa ?eapon> because with a nu-
CaPabilitv 6w’ gives you much more
Warhead t We used to have a nuclear force anr|0rpedo *n fbe submarine the ran y°u bad to be careful about it, f0r ... at which you might employ
I belie Vl°US reasons- tKlequatgVC dle heavyweight torpedo is ASty st °n tbe torpedo side. For the vel°pjn„ n cdy weapon that we’re de- bave tf,en?W’ fbe first increment will 3s a Wart? y,anced lightweight torpedo 'till have 6ad' "Pde second increment W * nuclear depth bomb. We’ll just d0n, in the next decade; we ave the money right now.
^abruarj!fgSA‘ ^hat is the status of the u ■vanced Combat System S$lq_2i ■ |.e'n8 developed for the !arher nr'ui gbt °b its widely reported
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DeMars: I think we probably dwell too much on R & D and modernization, which are in the papers and magazines all the time around here—mostly bad information. It is the area that I put the least percentage of my money into, yet I spend most of my time answering questions about, because it’s a cottage industry around Washington, D. C. There are a lot of other areas where more of my money goes—such as maintenance and the readiness of the force. I would have liked to have talked more about that.
More importantly, we didn’t talk very much about the strategic submarine force, which happens quite often because it never seems quite as exciting as the tactical submarine force. But, of course, it is much more important to the defense of the country in the long term. When I go out to other places around town, like the Congress, or the White House, they always want to talk about the submarines that shoot the missiles straight up, not the ones that shoot the torpedoes. That is their prime focus, and understandably so. We’re very proud that the submarine force is in the forefront of the strategic modernization program that the President kicked off about six years ago. We’re building one new Trident submarine a year; the Trident II (D-5) missile is coming on line in 1989; and we’ve had five consecutive successful pad shots of the missile from Cape Canaveral. That comes on the heels of 55 consecutive Trident I (C-4) missile shots stretching back over the last three-and-a-half years.
That is a pretty amazing accomplishment, given the present public perception of this country’s strategic rocket programs. The strategic submarine force provides about half of our country’s strategic nuclear warheads with 25% of the Department of Defense’s strategic budget. In other words, the Navy provides about half the strategic warheads with about one- fourth of the money. We’re very proud of that.
In closing, I would say that the submarine force is doing a superb job at sea today and we have a well thought- out vision of our future. Our challenge is explaining our vision of the future in a manner that will gain the support necessary for the submarine force to continue to be key in the defense of our country.
Proceedings: We appreciate your taking the time.
DeMars: My pleasure.