James Holmes, National Interest: Is the Age of the Submarine Over?
How can the silent service stay in tune with the times? First and foremost, by acknowledging the danger posed by foreign navies toting gee-whiz gadgetry. Clark hints at how hard adapting to more transparent seas could prove: “unless U.S. forces adapt to and lead the new competition, the era of unrivaled U.S. undersea dominance could draw to a surprisingly abrupt close.” That’s a grim prognosis in itself. Abrupt change begets major traumas in big institutions like navies. It’s hard to get ahead of the process.
S’pose Bryan Clark has it right. The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) analyst and retired U.S. Navy commander postulates that a technological revolution is about to overtake undersea warfare, rendering the wine-dark sea transparent to hostile antisubmarine (ASW) forces for the first time. This would be a bad thing from the standpoint of U.S. naval mastery. It would place in jeopardy America’s capacity to execute an ambitious foreign policy in distant waters, preside over the liberal maritime order, or accomplish all manner of worthy goals.
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WNU Editor: Technology has always been a game-changer in past wars .... and I am sure that submarine warfare will not be immune to these developments.
2 comments:
The weapon systems that are being developed are truly amazing and will require many changes in how things are done going forward.Considering how stuck in the past most of us are, change probably won't occur until we waste a lot of people and equipment that is not suited for the modern battlefield. Blitzkrieg in 1940 in the west and 1941 in the east sorta gives a glimpse of what may occur, also the Egyptians using Wire Guided Anti Tank weapons in the 1973 War 900 pieces of Armor destroyed or damaged, Desert Storm 1991 and Hezbollah hitting the Israeli Armor in 2005, all give a taste how new weapon systems or tactics can change the game.Glade I'm old.
In the early 80's I was the chief for R-9 division on Canopus, in Charleston, SC. I was called down to the 640 boat to help open a stuck watertight hatch. They had a huge fire hose type nozzle mounted the the forward part of the sail. They had large bags in the supper structure full of dye. When they operated in the tongue of the ocean, they would come to periscope depth at certain times and eject dye in the ocean. They were operating with a satellite. Never heard any more. Maybe the sea isn't as dark as we thought.
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