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Sub-launched AAM in the Works
Prance’s Aerospatiale and West Germany’s MBB are privately devel- °P>ng a submarine-launched, fiber-guided antiaircraft missile, the ”olypheme-SM. An operational system will be offered within five years should the French Navy or German Navy fund full-scale development. The Polypheme-SM uses fiber-optic guidance technology to achieve a
useful degree of guidance in a package small enough to be carried by a submarine. The missile is to be ejected in a capsule, which would emerge r°m the water about a kilometer from the launching submarine. It would 'hen fly a search pattern, transmitting a television picture back to the operator on board the firing submarine.
. The capsule-firing technique avoids disclosing the location of the fir- lng submarine. Moreover, since both submarine and missile can pay out the very thin fiber-optic guidance cable as they move, the submarine can eave the firing area even as it directs the missile. Several past proposals 0r submarine-launched air-defense missiles have suffered from the drawback that the missile emerges directly from the submarine, so that 'he submarine’s location is automatically disclosed. The one previous uttempt to overcome this problem, embodied in the U. S. self-initiated untiaircraft missile (SIAM), was relatively complex. It was rejected however. more because the prospective submarine operators felt that a mis- s|le emerging from the sea would automatically confirm to a helicopter or aircraft crew that a submarine was indeed present.
The SIAM was launched in a buoy. It incorporated a strip-array radar antenna, by means of which it was expected to search the nearby sky. When a target was detected, the missile would be fired automatically, and then it would home by infrared light. This technique was demonstrated in 1981, but it was inherently complex, and the missile would have been very expensive.
Fiber optics greatly simplify matters, as very little of the intelligence (,f the system has to be in the missile itself. Instead, a simple television in the missile transmits back a picture, and a human operator on board the ^ubmarine decides to lock the missile onto a promising target. The U. S. Army has already adopted this type of operation in its FOG-M an- •'helicopter missile.
Submarine-launched antiaircraft missiles have been discussed for years. Helicopters were initially introduced into antisubmarine warfare argely because unlike surface ships they could not be attacked on the oasis of their active sonar emissions. In fact many helicopters can be oeard by a submarine, and even tracked as they approach. Much the Same can be said of a low-flying ASW aircraft. In theory, the widespread aPplication of submarine-fired antihelicopter weapons should greatly feduce the value of helicopter-borne dipping sonars, at least those that otust operate at fairly short ranges (i.e., at ranges comparable to those of ,he missiles, say 10,000-15,000 yards).
In addition, current rotary and fixed-wing ASW aircraft tend to make a ast low, slow pass to drop their torpedoes almost directly over their
submarine targets. That is necessary because torpedo homing range is inherently very limited. However, such a low, slow pass comes directly into the lethal zone of a small antiaircraft missile. The effect of the widespread use of submarine defensive missiles, then, would be to force ASW aircraft to deliver their weapons from greater altitudes, with reduced accuracy, i.e., to expend more weapons per target. At least in the West, the number of lightweight torpedoes available is limited, and any gross reduction in effectiveness would be unwelcome.
No navy in the world is known to deploy a submarine-launched antiaircraft missile. However, some years ago the U. S. Defense Department stated that the Soviets were known to be working on such a weapon. One might speculate that it would be a development of the existing family of hand-held infrared missiles, probably capable of homing on the glinting forward aspect of an approaching target.
Aerospatiale and MBB estimate the maximum range of the Polyl- pheme-SM (measured from the surface of the sea) to be ten kilometers (about 11,000 yards) against a typical ASW helicopter. Warhead weight is given as three kilograms (total weight is 43 kilograms). The capsule could be fired at a depth as great as 300 meters (about 1,000 feet); it would follow a preprogrammed underwater trajectory, at a speed of 15 meters per second, emerging from the water about one kilometer from the launch position.
New CIWS Introduced
At the Mostra Navale naval exhibition in Genoa, Breda displayed a new close-in weapons system (CIWS), the Myriad, which consists of a pair of seven-barrel 25-mm. Gatling guns. Because each seven-barrel unit can fire 5,000 rounds per minute, the Myriad can fire at the rate of 10,000 rounds per minute (albeit for only a fraction of a minute, since the mount carries 2,000 rounds). This gun is a joint venture by Breda, Con- traves Italiana, Elsag, and Selenia. Contraves manufactures the Seaguard ship air-defense system installed on board the new Turkish frigates, and Myriad appears to be a potential replacement for the four-barrel 25-mm. gun being offered with the overall Seaguard system. A new dual-band (Ku/W-band) radar director was shown with the new weapon, and presumably it too will be offered as an option in the Seaguard system.
The Myriad represents one of several current approaches to close-in ship defense. At one extreme are guns such as the Myriad and the U. S. Phalanx, which fire large numbers of small, high-velocity penetrators (“hittiles”). The expectation is that one or more hittile will penetrate the incoming missile warhead and set it off, destroying the missile completely. However, Bofors has argued for some years that such detonation is unlikely, and that a missile damaged at the sort of range the hittile gun can reach will generally keep coming, seriously damaging the target ship. It therefore prefers a smaller number of proximity-fuzed shells, each of which can reach a greater range and (in theory) destroy the incoming missile. Bofors argues further that by hitting the missile at greater range its shells can destroy control surfaces and thus force the missile into the water. A missile hit in the same way at short range continues on a ballistic path into the ship.
In either case, much will depend on fire control, which must predict the paths of both incoming missile and outgoing bullets or shells. The Myriad consortium argues that future antiship missiles will be faster and much more maneuverable—in fact that their jinking flight paths will be virtually impossible to predict. Thus it will be pointless even to try to achieve interception at substantial ranges (such as about 3,000 yards).
However, the group argues, it is possible to predict the "window” through which an incoming missile must pass if it is to hit a target ship, based on the aerodynamics and typical flight profile of the missile. The window will be Finite, and it can be saturated with hittiles. That in turn requires a very high rate of fire; hence the choice of a dual-Gatling gun for the Myriad.
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Proceedings / August 1989
An underwater accident off Norway on 26 June forced a Soviet Echo II nuclear-powered guided- missile submarine to shut down its reactors and return to port on diesel power. The Echo II reportedly suffered a failure of a primary reactor coolant loop, putting the plant out of action and creating clouds of smoke and steam. There were no casualties reported and the boat’s nuclear weapons were reported safe. The Echo was one of the first generation of Soviet nuclear submarines. No accident of this type has been reported by any navy that operates nuclear-powered submarines.
Soviet Nuke Diesels Home
Soviets Up Defense Budget Figure
In yet another application of glasnost, the Soviet government has increased considerably the announced size of its defense budget. The new Soviet Congress was told that the annual 1989 budget was 77.3 billion mbles, or about $128 million, amounting to 15% of government expend- 'tures and to 9% of the Soviet gross national product (GNP). (The mili- 'ary budget figure is only the budget of the Ministry of Defense.) The Soviet Congress was also told that the war in Afghanistan had cost 45 ■•lion rubles, a figure that shocked many members.
1 he 77.3 billion ruble budget was described as the result of a spending reeze ordered in 1987, which had saved ten billion rubles; the Soviet government hopes to cut defense spending by 14% during the next two years (1990-91).
These budget figures illuminate the difference between Soviet and western economies. Western estimates of the true Soviet defense budget are invariably much higher than the Soviet figure cited; typical estimates range between 16% and 25% of Soviet GNP, and some have gone as high as 33%. One reason the official Soviet figure (which, incidentally, was about four times the previously released figure) is so low is that Soviet draftee troops are paid very little. There is no need for the Soviet govern- ■Hent to compete with a private sector for their labor. For that matter, ■duch of the compensation for a Soviet officer is probably non-monetary (and hence not really budgeted): housing, servants (for senior officers), access to special shops. The old Soviet defense budget figure was probably limited to personnel costs.
F°r example, if the Soviets maintain about four million men under arms, at an average cost per man of, say, $4,000, then that is a burden of ^ •6 billion, approximately the size of the old stated Soviet budget. If, on ■he other hand, each man is counted in Western terms, as costing (with overhead), say, $30,000, then the burden rises to $120 billion, and it is easier to see why Western analysts say that the Soviets are spending the equivalent of $300 or $350 billion annually on defense.
Even as stated, the Soviet defense burden is much higher than that common in the West in terms of the proportion of national resources it entails. The U. S. budget is 6.1% of GNP, the British 4.3%, and the NATO average 3.99%.
Eroctedings / August 1989
The rest of the budget buys military construction and hardware such as ships, missiles, and aircraft. Here, too, Soviet accounting does not quite match practices common in the West. The figure for, say, a cruiser is the price the Defense Ministry pays the Shipbuilding Ministry. The latter must show what the Soviets call a profit, i.e., an increase in the book value of the product as compared to the invested labor and material. For its part, the Shipbuilding Ministry manufactures civilian products, such as freighters and barges, as well. In fact, the Defense Ministry is uniquely able to press the shipbuilders to cut the prices of what it buys, because it is relatively easy for the ministry to raise the prices of civilian products. After all, there is nowhere else for the civilians to go for their ships. Thus the book price of the cruiser is by no means equivalent to the cost of that cruiser in economic terms.
It is also extremely difficult to extract research and development costs from the budgets of the civilian ministries, particularly since the Defense Ministry probably does not pay for much of the research. For example, surely it is the ministry responsible for aircraft-building that underwrites the overhead costs of, say, the MiG fighter design bureau. In the West, this overhead would be factored into the cost of each new fighter. In the Soviet Union, however, the design bureau is separate from the factory, and its overhead is almost certainly separately funded. Such separate funding is not intended for deception; rather, it mirrors radically different economic practices.
Indeed, it is probably impossible for the Soviet government to determine the actual level of defense costs, since all of the prices on which budgeting is based have been rigged in various ways. It seems likely that attempts have been made to estimate realistic costs, but only on a very limited basis.
This in turn explains the complexity of Western attempts to estimate Soviet defense spending. Western intelligence agencies can measure, more or less accurately, the output of Soviet plants and of Soviet research institutes; they can also measure the manpower sopped up by the Soviet military. Thus they have two options. One is to estimate the opportunity cost of that spending, in Soviet terms. This is a “ruble budget.” For example, it presumably measures manpower costs in terms of the wages those men would have to be paid in the civilian economy. That is an indirect way of measuring the benefits they receive in the military, which benefits go some of the way toward making up for meager pay.
Even then it is difficult to make valid comparisons. Soviet pay scales are very low (the Soviet Congress was told that only 37% of the Soviet GNP goes into salaries, compared with at least twice that in the West), but many necessities of life are heavily subsidized. One reason low salaries are acceptable is that the average worker has very little to buy. Incentives are provided on a non-salary basis, e.g., by allowing a Party member access to a special shop carrying scarce goods. This type of distortion makes economic comparisons extremely difficult.
The other analytic option is the “dollar budget,” which measures what it would cost the United States to duplicate the Soviet military machine. The value of the dollar budget is that it permits a direct comparison between U. S. and Soviet spending in terms of the results achieved. The ruble budget, on the other hand, measures the defense burden that' the Soviets have accepted. Both figures are, of course, controversial.
Given the high rate of defense spending, both on- and off-budget, as well as high civilian subsidies for items such as food and shelter, the Soviet Union is running a very large budget deficit. Again, because the economy is so different from any Western one, it is difficult to compare figures. However, early in June the Soviet Congress was told that the deficit was 120 billion rubles (i.e., about equivalent to the stated defense budget), 20 billion more rubles than previously estimated. Several economists in the Soviet Congress argued that unless the budget deficit was drastically cut, the Soviet economy would begin to collapse, with the ruble losing all of its value. That their arguments were carried live on Soviet television seems remarkable.
If the stated Ministry of Defense budget is 9% of the Soviets’ estimate of their GNP, then their overall national product is $1.4 trillion (using the official conversion rate, itself a matter of some controversy). The U. S. GNP is $5.1 trillion. It has been assumed that the Soviet economy is about half as large as the U. S. economy, so that, for comparable defense spending, the burden on the Soviets was about twice that on the Americans, or about 16% (as typically stated by the Central Intelligence Agency). If the Soviet economy is less than a third the size of the U. S. economy, then the relative burden is more likely to be about 30%, which explains the Soviets’ desperate need for drastic cuts.
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