I recently listened to Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy on Audible.com. I tried reading it when I was younger (like in high school) and just couldn't make it through the first chapter. It is a large book, about 650 pages, but that isn't what did it. It was just how technical it was. Clancy is well known for this and I found a similar difficulty in reading The Hunt for Red October, although I made it about half way through that one. I am only really able to enjoy the books if I listen to them. I don't want to get into why it's easier to listen then read these books but it's true. As a student of Russian and military history it is a great story about how a situation that causes the Cold War to become a very, very hot one. Despite the land war being fought in West Germany, the USSR needs to close the Atlantic so that the NATO troops can't be supported by American equipment. The troops can get across by air but the material to fight the war (ordnance, munitions, tanks, etc.) have to be shipped. So, just as the German's tried unsuccessfully to do in WWII, the USSR is attempting to block US ship access to Europe. Only this time, the Americans are at a disadvantage...As a large part of the book that hinges on the navy, particularly submarine and anti-submarine warfare, I thought that I would dive (yes, pun intended) into a topic that I was thinking about a little while ago - submarines. You may remember my mention of Dr. Tim Wolters, my former professor who taught aviation and aeronautics. Last I E-mailed him, he included one of his publications, "Early Experiments in Submarine Wireless" (The Submarine Review, July 2011, 119-129). That got me thinking about the dynamics of submarines. Particularly how they interact with the world around them.
My first interactions with submarines was actually the Red Storm Rising video game. that my father owed and played. Years later I would play, Jane's Fleet Command and it drove me crazy that when I would give orders to my subs, they would run deep and I couldn't change their orders for a period of time. This is simply because salt water blocks, scrambles, or otherwise causes problems for most communication systems. Dr. Wolters' article was on experiments using wireless telegraph to try to communicate, but in the end the antenna would need to be out of the water (Wolters, 2011, p. 123). Wolters points out that during the Cold War, the US developed a towed buoy that contained communications antenna, but that the idea was originally tried in 1915 (ibid). According to The Naval Institute guide to World Naval Weapon Systems by Norman Friedman (5th edition, 2006, Naval Institute Press), towed buoys and antenna are still used, some with great success, but they are still limited by depth and speed (p. 53). This means that a submarine has to want to talk to you for you to talk to it.
The Navy is continuing to search for ways to better communicate with submarines. The better they can communicate the better they can be used. For instance, in Red Storm Rising the USS Chicago a US nuclear attach submarine, is approaching a Russian surface ship task force. They are in an ideal position to eliminate the Russian flagship and deal a sever blow when the fleet wigs out. In the confusion, Chicago is able to launch three missiles, but is unable to even record the results before they are driven off by anti-submarine tactics. They figure that another sub had slunk in for a shot and had spoiled theirs. Had the subs been able to communicate they could have coordinated their attacks and dealt a heavy blow to the surface fleet. As it was, Chicago was unable to exploit their position or even ascertain the damage done. Communication is very important for successful operations. I won't tell you what happens when the captain of the Chicago does when he meets the man who spoiled his shot.
The latest innovation that is underway is the submarine laser communication (SLC) project. Back in January of 2010 the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) put out a challenge to develop a "blue-spectrum submarine laser communications system able to link submerged submarines with nearby aircraft." In October of that same year, the contract was awarded to QinetiQ set to be tested in "naval exercise in mid 2012." DARPA has very little to say about project from what I found. But I can't blame them for being quiet about this kind of project. I was unable to find much information on how the device worked during the Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC) last year, but it appears that it was tested during the exercise. The fact that nothing else has come out can mean a number of things. Many would assume that it means the device was a success and therefore now top secret. Or, just as likely, that they are still reviewing the results. Either way, it may take awhile more before we hear anything. Granted, if you serve on a sub, you may hear about it a lot sooner and hopefully, you won't have to come to periscope depth to do so.One last submarine story. I got this one from The Reader's Digest, the "Humor in Uniform" section. The writer had two friends in the navy, one served on a destroyer, the other on a submarine. The surface man commonly referred to the submariner as a "Bubble-head," a commonly used term for crewmen of a sub. When the writer asked his submariner friend if he minded, the friend replied that he did not. The writer asked what submariners called surface men. The answer came: "Targets."
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