"No More Catch Phrases, Please"
(See J. Murphy, pp. 30-31, February 2002 Proceedings)
Vice Admiral Robert E Dunn, U.S. Navy (Retired)—Only the Editorial Board knows just why Chief Murphy's essay was rated only second honorable mention in the Enlisted Essay Contest. But for my money, his article rates with the best of Proceedings articles, along with such classics as "Special Trust and Confidence" (May 1956) and "Get Off My Back, Sir" (August 1977). It should be required reading for new political appointees, admirals, prospective commanding officers, and initial officer training schools, and used in chief petty officer indoctrination.
To the Total Quality Leadership/Management, Appreciative Inquiry, and Covenant Leadership fads cited by Chief Murphy can be added Participative Leadership, Zero Defects, Value Engineering, and dozens of other such schemes concocted by personnel and management specialists over past years. Mostly, all those schemes produced was more paper and authorship opportunities for people who never had to lead or failed at leadership. The man-hours wasted, the people misled, and the morale compromised by pursuit of such academic ivory tower programs must be legion. The people who develop and support such efforts fail to realize that our sailors want to do well and will do well if only they know what's expected of them, have the requisite training and tools, and get a pat on the back once in a while. That's leadership. That's what Chief Murphy is talking about. That's the only gimmick program we ever need.
Well done, Chief Murphy!
"Science and Innovation in the Arctic"
(See J. Garrett, pp. 66-70 January 2002 Proceedings)
Commander Robert L. Desh, U.S. Coast Guard, Commander, U.S. Coast Guard International Ice Patrol—What a great article by Rear Admiral Garrett on the USCGC Healy (WAGB-20)! I was fortunate to have the opportunity to wander the decks of this marvelous ship during her brief stop in Baltimore in March 2000. The Healy is indeed an incredible technological leap forward for the U. S. Coast Guard's icebreaker fleet. The marvelous picture of the Healy conducting ice trials in the Labrador Sea with the large tabular iceberg in the background was personally fascinating because of my present assignment. Assuming this ominous giant follows normal drift patterns, I may well track this berg as it drifts south toward the trans-Atlantic shipping lanes after its two-year journey around the rim of Baffin Bay.
The International Ice Patrol traces its roots directly to the sinking of the RMS Titanic in April 1912. Established by the first Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) convention in 1914, the International Ice Patrol continues to operate under the regulations set forth by the International Maritime Organization and the federal statutes codified in Title 46, Section 738a. The International Ice Patrol is funded by the 17 nations signatory to the SOLAS agreement.
In short, the Ice Patrol's mission is to monitor the movement of icebergs and oceanographic conditions in the Grand Banks region of the North Atlantic Ocean and warn the trans-Atlantic mariner of iceberg dangers. While this charge may sound simple, it requires a litany of tasks, including the periodic searching of nearly 500,000 square miles of ocean; an in-depth understanding of the dynamic weather and ocean currents on the Grand Banks; monitoring and predicting the movements of thousands of icebergs; continuous operation of a sophisticated computer model known as the Berg Analysis and Prediction System; transmission of warnings and ice charts to ships at sea in a host of different formats; and nearly daily cooperation with more than 30 organizations and agencies in the United States, Canada, and Europe. A Coast Guard Atlantic Area command, the International Ice Patrol has a crew of 16 and is based at Groton, Connecticut.
Heading the Ice Patrol obviously fosters an interest and fascination with all manner of ice operations. Admiral Garret's brief references to the Coast Guard's long history of Arctic operations prompted me to recall a marvelous book I recently came across in an antique store in, of all places, Nebraska. Entitled Ice Is Where You Find It, this fascinating memoir of Coast Guard Captain Charles W. Thomas traces his service during World War II Greenland Patrol operations and his postwar service in command of the icebreaker Northwind (WAGB-282). None other than Navy Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd writes the foreword of this great collection of seas stories. Captain Thomas's remembrances of life on Greenland Patrol are captivating and provide great personal insights into the incredible rigors of this most difficult and often forgotten wartime operation.
As near as I can tell from my limited research, Ice Is Where You Find It was published only once by the Bobbs-Merrell Company in 1951. Since finding my original copy in the great seafaring state of Nebraska, I have tracked down two other copies at out-of-print books sites on the web to give as gifts. It is too bad that this wonderful book never found its way to a second or third edition. I think any icebreaker sailor or anyone interested in World War II or Coast Guard history will find it fascinating.
"We Neglect Religion at Our Peril"
(See D. Johnston, pp. 50,52, January 2002 Proceedings)
Lieutenant Youssef H. Aboul-Enein, Medical Service Corps, U.S. Navy, Middle East Foreign Area officer, served as Islamic lay-leader and advisor to Commander Naval Training Center Great Lakes, 1998-2001—I was moved by Dr. Johnston's article. If one looked purely at just the Quran (the Muslim book of divine revelation) and the Sunnah (the Prophet Muhammad's Sayings and Deeds that are agreed upon) one could make a good case to convict al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden of crimes under the Shariah (Islamic Law). At Qaeda may justify killing non-Muslims and even argue that Muslims who were caught in the World Trade Center and Pentagon were at the wrong place associating with disbelievers, but this defense is a poor one. The Prophet Muhammad said that the life of Muslims can be taken in three cases only, one of those cases is killing a human being (qutal nafsan). The victim is not delineated by race or religion. The Hanbali School of Islamic Thought, one of four major schools of Islamic jurisprudence, agrees on this ruling. The Maliki School, although it delineates according to religion, does impose the death penalty on a Muslim who kills a non-Muslim by way of deceit (ghila), because this is considered a form of piracy known as hiraba—murdering defenseless victims with the intent to cause social upheaval.
Indictments against bin Laden according to Islamic Law can include the violation of aman (safe passage), according to Dr. Khaled Abou el-Fadl, a professor of Islamic Law at the University of California. Under this legal concept, people have an expectation of immunity from harm while traveling. When the hijackers entered the plane with the intent to kill, they violated the Islamic concept of safe passage. These regulations, although Islamic, had a real purpose for those embarking on travel in the desert. The harshness of the climate made it necessary for compassion and hospitality among travelers.
On the issue of jihad (The Struggle), al Qaeda and bin Laden clearly have violated the etiquette of war. Islamic law is clear about what are permissible acts during warfare. What clearly is not permitted is the killing of women and children, the destruction of life-giving wells and streams, and the cutting down of trees that provide nourishment and shade. According to Ibn-Umar, "The Prophet Muhammad saw a killed woman in some of his expeditions and he disapproved the killing of women and children" (from AlAsqualani, Bulugh al-Maram, Classification of Islamic Law according to the Prophet's Ordnance). Bin Laden may seek to justify killing women and children by citing events in Israel against the Palestinians or the Iraqi sanctions. However, the Quran is explicit even in this regard, stating, "Let not the hatred of others steer you to wrong and depart from justice," according to scholars working on an Islamic indictment against bin Laden.
There is no shortage of charges that can be brought against al Qaeda, including their tactic of declaring certain Muslims heretics and apostates. The Prophet Muhammad's sayings are explicit about such accusations, and the Quran usually dictates that such judgments be reserved to God alone. It is curious to the educated Arab listener that bin Laden does not frequently refer to the Quran or the Prophet's sayings. Bin Laden also does not possess the religious credentials or education to impose fatwas (religious edicts). Instead, bin Laden's focus is on current events, couched in the flowery Arabic that is used by religious scholars. This pattern can be seen with bin Laden's top lieutenants. In December 2001, a book titled Knights Under the Prophet's Banner—regarded as the last will and testament of bin Laden's number two man and political ideologue, Ayman-Al-Zawahiri—was published in increments in the newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat. When analyzed, his manifesto contains hardly any religious quotations but focuses on the history of the jihadist movement and sanctions by other modern-day militant theologians such as Sayed Qutb, Abd-al-Salam Faraj, and Sheikh Omar Abd-al-Rahman. Nowhere does Al-Zawahiri cited the Quran or Prophet Muhammad's sayings in the justification of his declared jihad.
Dr. Johnston's article states that we need to be serious regarding the development of effective conflict-prevention measures through the understanding of religion. He argues that we should harness the diversity of our chaplains in addressing these issues. I would like to expand his call because we are blessed with a diverse military, and this new asymmetric war will require the talents, language, and experience of every man and woman in our armed forces.
"Regionalization—An Insider's View"
(See J. Bouchard, pp. 84-87, October 2001; J. Harris, p. 26, January 2002 Proceedings)
Lieutenant Joseph R. Schaaf U.S. Naval Reserve, Deputy Staff Judge Advocate for Commander, Navy Region Northeast—In his excellent article, Captain Bouchard rightly praises regionalization as a results-oriented initiative to reduce overhead, streamline services, and save the Navy money for readiness and procurement accounts. His use of the response to the USS Cole (DDG-67) bombing as an example of the advantages of regionalization could be echoed at Navy Region Northeast, in whose geographic area many of the next of kin reside. More recently, regionalization helped the Navy respond to the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center—regionalization of the emergency management function ensured that the mechanisms for supporting civil authority were in place before the attacks. Regionalization is good for the Navy, good for war fighting, and here to stay.
Unfortunately, one area not addressed adequately by the corporate model is military justice. Because the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) was not written with "program managers" and "storefronts" in mind, convening authorities may encounter real difficulties in ensuring that offenders are properly brought to justice.
This can be a real problem because good order and discipline form the bedrock of military efficacy. War fighters throughout the ages have understood that a well-disciplined crew is worth its weight in hot lead. A crew that expects justice to be swift and sure is also a crew that can concentrate on training and fighting, secure in the knowledge that the commanding officer won't allow a wrongdoer to steal their personal effects or endanger their lives using drugs.
But the failure of the UCMJ (updated just last year) to recognize the reality of regionalization has made it more difficult for the shoreside commanding officer to provide such an environment for his or her sailors. For instance, there is no provision in the UCMJ for program managers to perform nonjudicial punishment (NJP, or captain's mast). UCMJ Article 15 allows that "a commander may impose nonjudicial punishment upon any military personnel of that command (emphasis added)." In other words, the commander has organizational authority. Fortunately, as Captain Bouchard points out, program managers on the East Coast are also commanding officers. But when an offender belongs to a different functional area from the base commander—more likely than not on a regionalized facility—the offender must be transferred temporarily to the base for the base commanding officer to have punishment authority. In other words, the commanding officer and the offender must have the same unit identification code (UIC) for the commanding officer to have organizational control over the offender. The transfer process works, but it is cumbersome.
Justice would be swifter if the UCMJ were written to allow the base commanding officer to take an offender to mast not in his or her functional area. The way to do this would be to bestow on base commanders geographical, rather than organizational, jurisdiction. Geographical jurisdiction already is recognized at the General Court-Martial Convening Authority level; Commander, Navy Region Northeast, reviews all shoreside nonjudicial punishment appeals, regardless of which operational command "owns" the offender.
If base commanding officers were granted geographical jurisdiction, tenant commands no longer would need to act as special court-martial convening authorities (SPCMCAs) for their members. The base commanding officer would be SPCMCA for all offenses occurring on the base. Staff judge advocate and legal officer billets could be consolidated, furthering the intent of regionalization. Holding nonjudicial punishment and convening special courts-martial would be added to the "services" provided by the base commanding officer to the tenant command "customers."
More important, all members serving on the base—regardless of their functional area—would know who will take them to task if they violate the UCMJ. The importance of this realization cannot be underestimated. Sailors who think they can "game the system" by exploiting holes in the command structure can cause a tremendous amount of trouble, and some offenses may indeed slip through the cracks. But when the authority to punish is clear, good order and discipline are preserved.
As we prosecute this war against terrorism, the need to preserve good order and discipline will not diminish. Regionalization is a reality—and the framework of military justice must change to reflect that reality.
"Interview: John Lehman"
(See F. Schultz, pp. 70-73, December 2001; K. Kopets, p. 22, January 2002; W. Morgan, J. Pauly, pp. 14-16, February 2002 Proceedings)
Ms. Paula M. Neira Esq., former lieutenant, U.S. Navy/U.S. Naval Reserve—As a 1985 Naval Academy graduate and surface warfare officer who resigned my commission after coming home from the Gulf War in 1991, I find it ludicrous that former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman asserts that the possibility of having to serve alongside open homosexuals was the "straw that broke the camel's back" and led many naval officers to resign during the mid-1990s. Where is the evidence to support his claim? How many resignation letters to the Bureau of Personnel stated not wanting to serve with gays as a reason for leaving the Navy? My guess is not many.
If his assertion is correct, it would make the U.S. Navy the only military force in the world to have suffered such an exodus of talent over the issue of gays serving. Openly gay officers and sailors serve in the navies of every original NATO country except the United States and Turkey. Since the bans prohibiting gays from naval service fell in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia, there have been no mass resignations, despite dire predictions to the contrary. Serving alongside "active, avowed gays" has been a nonissue for these countries. Surely Mr. Lehman doesn't mean to imply that U.S. naval officers somehow lack the fortitude to face a similar personnel challenge and or lack the ability to provide the same leadership in effecting a smooth integration if ordered to do so in our own fleet.
Our allies, with openly gay members, are at sea with us every day. The Royal Navy's participation in Operation Enduring Freedom is exceeded only by our own. A Canadian frigate is serving as an integral part of one of our deployed battle groups. Certainly, the officers of these navies had to demonstrate professionalism and leadership to overcome institutionalized anti-gay prejudice, and in many cases their own personal feelings, and integrate gays into their forces. Make no mistake: allied military leaders did not champion accepting gays into their fleets. They made the same arguments against gays serving in the military as our military leaders made. So, when faced with the possibility of serving with openly gay individuals, why did their officers stay when ours "vote[d] with their feet" as Mr. Lehman asserts? Probably because there were a lot of other, more important, considerations involved and serving with gays was really not a major concern. Maybe the reason why so many naval officers left was a lack of confidence in our naval leaders—leaders who, by the way, were putting up a vociferous defense against allowing gay patriots to serve. More likely it was the looming potential of a smaller fleet with more sea time and less opportunity for command; or shockingly, a desire to spend more time with families or take part in the great prosperity that our nation was enjoying—when naval pay was falling farther behind civilian standards. I suspect that there were a lot of primary reasons for our officers' resignations, but the specter of serving alongside gays wasn't one of them.
Finally, Mr. Lehman's unsupported attempt to blame Navy retention problems on homosexuals smacks of pandering to anti-gay prejudices in the same way that Navy leaders once tried to explain away the explosion on board the USS Iowa (BB-61) by claiming, with no factual basis, that it was the act of a disgruntled gay sailor.
"Seawolves Roll In Across the Mekong Delta"
(See D. Tyler, pp. 45-49, January 2002; T. Glickman, P. Shay, p. 23, February 2002 Proceedings)
Charles R. Hall III—The author does a fine job in his representation of what the Seawolves did in the Delta. However, as the officer in charge of Detachment Nine in the spring and summer of 1971, I would like to add a couple of comments and take issue with his assessment of .50caliber machine guns. Det Nine operated first off a repair, berthing, and messing barge (YRBM) on the Mekong near the Cambodian border and later off a series of tank landing ships near the mouth of the Mekong.
Commander Tyler omitted the YRBMs as Seawolf bases; there were several during the course of the war. YRBMs are fairly large combination machine shop, barracks, mess hall, sick bay, and flight deck barges (non-self-propelled) that were located in the Mekong and Bassac Rivers to provide support for U.S., Vietnamese, and Cambodian riverine warfare forces. They were anchored by the bow and streamed by the current. For flight operations, they were cocked into the wind by small boats with powerful outboards. They fed and housed quite a few personnel as well as provided material and medical support to many others.
My detachment (and many others, depending on specifics of the local missions) equipped both the lead and trail ships with a .50-caliber machine gun on the right and both a copilot-operated M-21 Gatling gun and a doorgunner-operated M-60 on the left. There were pilot-fired rocket pods on both sides. The .50 calibers were groundpounder .50s as opposed to aviation .50s. Ground-pounder .50s have longer barrels and slower rates of fire.
When Commander Tyler wrote that .50 calibers were not as accurate as smaller guns, he must have been talking about bad gunners, bad barrels, or both. My doorgunners could regularly maintain a pattern about the size of your kitchen table or less from an altitude of 2,000 feet while we executed a circular maneuver known as a "Wagon Wheel," which we employed to mass fire on a target such as a bunker or a sampan. In fact, one day I suggested to my .50 caliber gunner that his unusually poor gunnery at that moment was because of his late-night activities. He replied that his barrel was worn out. I laughed. But when we rearmed and refueled, he got a new barrel and off we went to the same target area. Sure enough, he was then able to concentrate his fire to that kitchen table area.
Those of us flying off ships often launched with reduced fuel to get off the deck within safety limits and then went to a ground base to top off when time permuted. Then we might have to "bump" down the runway to get airborne. Bumping with a heavy ship on a hot, calm night was an operational necessity. Milking the collective to build up rotor RPM to climb out after launching from a YRBM or LST was as normal as zipping up your flight boots.
"A Warship with Real Innovation"
(See R. Fox, W. Richardson, pp. 42-46, October 2001 Proceedings)
Andrew J. Wagner—The authors make two points that echo other programs where technological advance is challenged by budget constraints. They rightly assert that revolutionary programs should follow a scientific isolation of variables. If it works, don't fix it. Rather than embracing every potential technology, planners need to focus their energies and program risk in one revolutionary area, and reuse existing technologies in others.
The F-117 stealth fighter program is a prime example. The low-observable airframe forever changed air combat, but was built around proven engines, landing gear, cockpit avionics, ejection seat, and other components borrowed from a catalog of proven parts.
Second, the authors refer indirectly to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's 10% rule, which is the idea that a 10% revolutionary modernization can have disproportionate impact on the force. As has been pointed out, the German Wehrmacht of 1940 defeated France and the Low Countries using forces only 10% "transformed." Similarly, one wing of F-117s revolutionized deep-precision attack through stealth technology during the Gulf War. By procuring small quantities, revolutionary programs reduce risk, their profile, and the attention of the cost cutters. They remain powerful force multipliers and pave the way to the next generation by proving their area of technology.
The recent past is filled with the wreckage of major programs that, failing to follow this model, were either too far-reaching to survive the cost constraints or too unambitious to sustain the revolution in military affairs.
With supercruise, stealth, thrust vectoring, sensor fusion, and internal weapons carriage, the $70 million F-22 will be lucky to see a production run of 300 aircraft. The Navy will spend $50 million on a Super Hornet that gives only token acknowledgment to the stealth revolution. The Army, failing to turn every soldier into "Robocop" with its Land Warrior program, will now procure a light armored vehicle designed during the early 1980s and call it a revolution.
"Are We Already Transformed?"
(See N. Friedman, p. 34. January 2002 Proceedings)
Captain John Byron, U.S. Navy (Retired)—Dr. Friedman is right—the automation and integration of naval combat data inside what we call net-centric warfare does amount to transformation. He notes that miniaturization was a needed step to get us to this point. To this I would add two others. One is the incredible gain in reliability of the processors involved with naval networks (and computers and their connections in general).
In 1967, in the Gulf of Tonkin on board the newest deployed cruiser with the very latest in Naval Tactical Data Systems (NTDS), we had a continual grudge match fought full time by a watchstanding team of repair technicians to keep the gear and all its peripherals on the line. We usually won the battle with technology at the one-ship level—NTDS was reliable enough to well support our duties on station. But the odds of having all the computers in the battle group reliably available were slight, so much so that the one brief time that we actually linked everything (six ships and the U.S. Marine Corps tactical data system atop Monkey Mountain) was signal for celebration and wonderment. Contrast that with today, when we can count on all the computers in our life to work and to connect without fail. This same reliability of processors and their connections in current naval forces is the sine qua non of Dr. Friedman's net-centric transformation.
The second necessary step enabling a net-centric transformation: we've gotten wired, becoming a society and a Navy of individuals who understand information technology and expect it to be there. Again, the contrast with my cruiser days of 30 years ago is pretty stark. We commissioned the most modern ship in the fleet and proved we could use its revolutionary processing system in our shakedown training, but the Fleet Training Group team and its crusty captain refused to even consider the new capabilities, instead demanding that we continue with the vertical plot and other World War II "technology" that NTDS replaced. Now that same team would come on board with laptops and use them to write us up if they saw as much as a single grease pencil. We reflexively look for technology and aggressively exploit it, which is a sea change in our thinking about battle information.
So I fully agree with Dr. Friedman that our net-centricity is transformation, but only within the context of naval force as we now define it. This is the spot where I think Dr. Friedman's thesis falls short. Though we have transformed the battle group's capacity to fight through networked processing of combat information, we have not transformed the battle group itself.
Naval strategy has two parts. The second is execution, in which net-centric concepts have improved naval warfare immensely. But the first part of naval strategy is deciding how much and what kind of navy to have—the force-structure question. On this, there has been zero transformation. We are still buying the piece-parts for a sea-control navy, designing ever more capable and costly warships fully ready to conduct antisubmarine, antisurface, and antiair warfare against who—the Taliban?
Until we look hard at the nation's navy needs now and the right configuration of ship types and weapons to meet these needs, true transformation has not happened. Our Navy and its warships are even better for war outside sight of land than in the Cold War, when we actually had someone to engage in naval battle, but the continual pursuit of a war-at-sea navy brings a large and unacceptable opportunity cost in focus, strategy, and force design for its role in support of land war against current and future enemies. We're sleepwalking, continually optimizing old force types in answer to the Navy's unions and their allies in Congress and industry. And the fat defense budget only masks the symptoms—buying even more of the wrong things means you end up with even less utility.
We are not transforming our force into what we need for the future, no matter how well we talk to each other, exchange combat information, and solve the tactical problem of ordnance on target. We've managed to delude ourselves that we need what we want. True transformation arrives when we want what we need.
"The Navy Isn't Serious about Using UAVs"
(See J. Fenimore, p. 94, January 2002 Proceedings)
Byron Audler—The author's argument against pilots being in control of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) seems based entirely on the premise that it does not take a trained military aircraft pilot to operate a UAV. This surely is true. A trained radio control user probably can fly a UAV, given time and practice. The same might hold true for a seasoned player of personal computer simulations.
The author states that only intelligence officers should be allowed to fill this role, but I contend that she misses the point of why military pilots are used in this role. Experienced pilots understand much more than anyone the effects of weather on flight operations. I suspect the losses of UAVs in Afghanistan were in some part because of working around the updrafts and downdrafts that are often found in mountainous regions. I agree that operational fighter jocks detached from their parent squadrons would not fill this role well, and I also agree that this does not require highly fit individuals to withstand the rigors of high G maneuvers. I suggest that the services look for trained pilots who are nearing the ends of their active service, train them as needed in intelligence gathering, and put them in front of the monitor.
It also would be useful if these pilots were trained in combat air patrol or battlefield area interdiction, giving them the ability to look for important objects on the ground. The UAV units could even use retired military in a civilian role. It is the experience of flying low and slow over contested ground that would make them more effective than model plane flyers or teenagers used to killing MiGs on their family computers.
Finally, the control consoles should be positioned much lower than the one pictured, so that the operator's arms are perpendicular to the body, and the wrists are parallel to the forearm. This position would be much better ergonomically.
"All-Electric Ship: Sirloin or Just Sizzle?"
(See P. Vining, pp. 78-81, January 2002 Proceedings)
William A. Henrickson, General Manager Kaman Aerospace Corporation—The title of Captain Vining's article fits well for those advocating superconducting motors and generators for naval ships. Sizzle, indeed.
We must make a clear distinction between ship electric-drive systems and the Integrated Power System (IPS) planned for DD(X) and its follow ons. Designing an electric drive by itself leaves plenty of room to choose the kind of power generated to match the power needed by the propulsion motor. The primary argument for an IPS, however, is the increasing power needed for nonpropulsion loads such as radars and advanced weapons and launchers, and the advantages to be gained by using a common set of machinery to generate and distribute power for both propulsion and nonpropulsion loads. For an IPS to work, multiple power generating sources and loads must be able to feed into and draw from a common distribution system. This puts a premium on the ability of the distribution system to interface with a wide range of load and source types and to do so with a high degree of reliability, fault tolerance, and flexibility.
Captain Vining recommends superconductor homopolar generators and propulsion motors, but fails to note that these are inherently low-voltage DC machines. Given its high interrupt currents, electronic signature issues, and bulky cabling, low-voltage DC is arguably the worst choice for integrated power distribution. It also should be noted that few, if any, current or future nonpropulsion loads will operate with low-voltage DC input. Therefore, solid-state power converters, similar in type and construction to those criticized by the author as part of AC systems, will inevitably be required throughout the ship, both for power conversion and for galvanic isolation.
The author's comments on superconducting homopolar machines also miss several key points. Navy lab experience with homopolar machines goes back many years, and points to significant issues with the reliability of high-current brushes, EMI signature from high fringing fields, and thermal management of high-current bus-work. Noesis, the author's employer, has made significant advances in brush technology in recent years. But despite the author's claim that the proposed designs are based on "commercially proven technology," no superconducting DC homopolar machines are in commercial use, and many technical and cost challenges must be addressed before they are.
Superconducting machines clearly have a place in the Navy's science and technology program and should be pursued for their future potential. But basing key system architecture decisions on yet-to-be-proven technology and unsubstantiated promises puts the cart well ahead of the horse.
Werner L. Stunkel, Groundwork Associates—As I read this article, I kept turning to the cover to make certain I was not reading Scientific American.
The author listed many unproven technologies. Until recently, superconductors were difficult to maintain in the laboratory over the brief interval of an experiment. To consider this technology as a vital component of a warship at this juncture is folly.
Homopolar motor? News to me. Will a 33-ton homopolar motor function properly for a 30- or 40-year life cycle? Are there any such powerplants at sea today? As a direct drive attached to the shaft (indeed, it appears to have to be sleeved and splined to the shaft) it seems an overhaul would require bisecting the ship, or at least removing a number of built-in softpoints in the hull so the shaft can drop and the motor can be lifted. Perhaps Captain Vining intends this 33-ton motor to be part of a pod hung below the ship and providing 30,000 horsepower at a ninety degree angle to the axis of attachment to the hull. The motor would be serviceable in a drydock of sufficient depth, but what of battle damage repair at sea?
Can the electromagnetic potential generated by such a large system be detected in the water over an appreciable interval? Has this been tested?
I'm not hidebound to steam engineering or gas turbine; it's just that when we designed the first nuclear plants 50 years ago, we based the technology on conservative shore-based machinery, scaled to a ships needs.
What I want is a plant that can run with an out of balance, damaged shaft and a partially flooded compartment. Captain Vining calls attention to the dangerous trend toward undermanning and overconfidence in systems while ignoring the possible immediate, catastrophic failure of his novel propulsion plant when subjected to battle damage or collision. He speaks of ruptured flanges and broken piping while ignoring the fact that his cryogenic plant would likely make such failures more, not less, likely. Unless it employs some new exotic alloy in its design, the materials in the plant are probably more fragile at operating temperature than the same materials at room temperature. Has the Navy's prototype cryogenic plant been shock tested? I think not. If damage to key fittings occurs, the system will have to be shut down, drained, and allowed to warm for many hours before an effective battle-damage repair can be completed. Then there will be more time to refill the cryogenic plant with coolant (if, indeed, a source is available) and run the plant to operating temperatures. I think this would take significantly longer then the USS Salt Lake City's (CA-25) accidental shut down in the battle off the Komondorski Islands, and with much more tragic results.
On one point Captain Vining and I can agree: the unrealistic expectations of low manning levels and automation are a mistake, and if followed can only lead to heartbreaking tragedy at sea.
"Interview: Joe Galloway"
(See F. Schultz, pp. 50-52, February 2002 Proceedings)
Colonel John Votaw, U.S. Army (Retired), Executive Director, Cantigny First Division Foundation—I enjoyed the interview with Joe Galloway. The caption under the picture on p. 51 refers to "Fort HunterLiggitt." The fort, named for General Hunter Liggett, is misspelled. Hunter Liggett was one of the Army's true 11 smart guys" in World War I. He was a bit overweight and older than his peers; it is probably an apocryphal story that he was fond of telling his critics that it is only fat between the ears that is an impediment. General John Pershing valued him highly as a corps and army commander in France. It was his plan to throw his 82d Infantry Division against the east flank of the Argonne Forest to relieve pressure on his 77th Division (the so-called lost battalion was part of that unit) and break the German defensive position in the MeuseArgonne campaign in 1918. After retirement as a major general in 1921, he was advanced to lieutenant general in 1930. He died in 1935.