Analysis: Trident submarine issue surfaces again in the U.K.

Stuart Nathan, The Engineer
2 September 2015

One might ask why a publication concerned with engineering matters might concern itself with such an obviously political question as whether the UK ought to renew the Trident submarine-launched nuclear missile system. The answer ought to be equally obvious: although the issue of retaining Trident is indeed a political one, virtually all of the practical ramifications of the decision are engineering-related, and most of those directly affecting UK industry. Renewing Trident will take an enormous chunk out of the British economy (the amount is uncertain and rises every time anyone looks at it, but the Ministry of Defence’s estimate at 2013-2014 prices was between £17.5bn and £23.4bn — a range which we could point out would give enough change if it came in at the cheaper end to build several hospitals or a big section of HS2. Other estimates of cost run as high as £100bn, including maintenance costs), and the bulk of the budget would go on building four nuclear-powered submarines. That’s a considerable number of direct jobs, not to mention keeping the supply chain of the marine-oriented end of the defence supply chain in business for decades. But we don’t build weapons systems with the capability of wiping out half of the cities on the planet in order to keep people in jobs.
The issue has bubbled to the surface again because of George Osborne’s visit to the Faslane submarine base in Scotland, where the Vanguard-class subs that carry Trident are based; it will also house their successors if Trident is renewed. Osborne announced £500m of investment to upgrade the base over the next ten years. Political analysts have been poring over the announcement, and most have interpreted it as a jab at the Labour Party to unsettle it if, as expected, it elects long-term nuclear weapons opponent Jeremy Corbyn as its leader. If this is the case, it seems a bit petty to bring an issue of such import into the Punch-and-Judy slapstick end of politics. The decision on whether to renew Trident does not need to be taken until next March, and while both Conservatives and Labour were in favour at the last election, policies are likely to change under new leadership (the Scottish National Party is firmly opposed, but defence matters are not devolved, so it can’t block the decision).
The Engineer has been sceptical about Trident precisely because it’s such a complex issue. It isn’t one question, but several. As stated above, renewal is an enormously expensive proposition: but if the country needs it to keep the population safe, that shouldn’t be an issue. The world has changed in many ways since the UK first signed up to Trident in 1980, when the Cold War was still in progress and NATO and Soviet nuclear arsenals were ranged against each other. It’s arguable now that we don’t need the sort of system designed to counter another power bloc’s capability, because that sort of power bloc doesn’t exist anymore and the main threat to UK security is now
quite different; but Trident is a long-term system and the future is unreadable.
It does seem sensible, when every other aspect of government expenditure is subject to such tight control, that this one should escape scrutiny. If Britain does have to remain a nuclear power, is there not a cheaper way of retaining the capability? Submarines, obviously, are expensive, but there are good reasons for using them: they are stealthy, they can hide, and if an enemy doesn’t know where the operational weaponry is and can’t find it, then they also can’t attack it.
Then there’s the question of why we need to be a nuclear power. It’s not just about defence: deterrent theory, which is why we keep nuclear weapons (the point is to not use them but to point them at people so they don’t attack us) is as much about diplomacy as it is about war. The UK’s status as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council might be at stake if we relinquish nuclear weapons, but it’s also a matter of debate how important membership is: economic clout is just as important as a measure of international influence and several other nuclear states do not sit on the Council. British prestige does not depend upon nuclear weaponry, and many argue that shoring up conventional defence capabilities would have a greater effect as it would allow us to actually do more rather than just threaten with weapons which, as the brilliant political sitcom Yes, Prime Minister pointed out almost 30 years ago (when the projected cost was £15bn), we not only wouldn’t use but everyone knows we wouldn’t use it (though as Sir Humphrey Appleby said, “even though they probably certainly know that you probably wouldn’t [use it], they don’t certainly know that, although you probably wouldn’t, there is no probability that you certainly would!”).
One commenter on our poll has pointed out that Trident as it stands is two decades old, and you wouldn’t rust a 20-year-old car to start in the morning, let alone get you where you wanted to go. This is true, but a car that’s used several times a week can’t be compared with a missile system that’s been lovingly tended by dedicated staff, maintained in a state of readiness and never used. Just replacing the Vanguards would still not be as expensive as renewing the whole system.
Other more outlandish proposals (courtesy of our editor) include that we just pretend to have renewed Trident. If the whole thing is just a pose anyway, why does it matter if we actually have Trident, as long as our enemies believe we have it? Absurd, maybe. But when it comes to the possibility of nuclear war, absurdity is the name of the game.

'Pressure hull complete" construction milestone achieved on USS Washington

Here is an image of the USS California (SSN 781), a Virginia-class attack submarine similar to the USS Washington. The new boat won't have a carbon-fiber composite hull but it does use "fly by wire" controls. The sub also uses digital imaging systems with two "photonics masts" instead of a traditional periscope. Other Virginia-class subs have been operating since 2004.

Staff, Seapower
1 September 2015

Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) announced in Sept. 1 release that the Virginia-class submarine Washington (SSN 787) is “pressure hull complete,” signifying that all of the submarine’s hull sections have been joined to form a single, watertight unit.
Washington will be the U.S. Navy’s 14th Virginia-class submarine and the seventh to be delivered by HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding division.
“Pressure hull complete is an exciting step toward the boat’s completion because it’s the point when the submarine really starts to take its final shape and is the last major construction milestone before christening and delivery next year,” said Jim Hughes, Newport News’ vice president of submarines and fleet support. “As with all of our Virginia-class submarines, Washington represents a true team effort that involves our partners at General Dynamics Electric Boat, the Navy, our suppliers and the Washington crew.”
Washington’s construction, which began in September 2011 under a teaming arrangement between Newport News and Electric Boat, marked the beginning of the Virginia-class program’s two-submarines-per-year build plan. The ship is currently 83 percent complete.
“Over the last year and a half, I have enjoyed watching the many parts that make up a submarine come together,” said CDR Jason Schneider, Washington’s commanding officer. “I can truly say Washington now looks like a submarine on the outside. I look forward to seeing the systems that make up the internals of the submarine continue to come together as we approach launch and delivery.”

Australia, India to hold first ever naval exercise amid China concerns

AUSINDEX will be a boost for the growing bilateral defense relationship.

Prashanth Parameswaran, The Diplomat
1 September 2015
Next month, the Indian Navy and Royal Australian Navy will hold their first-ever joint maritime exercise.
The exercise, called AUSINDEX, will he held off India’s Visakhapatnam Port in the Bay of Bengal in mid-September. According to defense sources, Australia is sending Lockheed Martin’s P-3 anti-submarine reconnaissance aircraft, a Collins-class submarine, a tanker, and frigates, while India will deploy assets including Boeing’s P-8 long-range anti-submarine aircraft and a locally manufactured corvette. The exercise will have both sea and shore phases and include table-top exercises, scenario planning, and at sea, surface and anti-submarine warfare.
Unsurprisingly, the media attention has focused on the exercise narrowly as a response to rising concerns about China. For instance, the anti-submarine warfare focus of the exercise – which includes exercises to protect a tanker from a hostile attack submarine – is said to serve as a counter to China’s deployment of a nuclear-powered submarines in the Indian Ocean.
The potential for increased maritime tensions amid rising competition in the Indian Ocean is real. Commenting
on this, Captain Sheldon Williams, a defense adviser at the Australian High Commission in New Delhi, admitted that there is “potential for increased security tensions in the Indian Ocean.”
“We sit right in the confluence of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. We have a significant responsibility for its security. That’s how we’re looking at it now,” Williams added.
But AUSINDEX should also be seen more broadly as one sign of growing defense ties between Australia and India. While Canberra and New Delhi have participated in multilateral exercises before, including Malabar exercises in 2007 and Milan exercises in 2012, AUSINDEX is the first bilateral maritime exercise between the two nations.
Australia’s defense minister, Kevin Andrews, is also in India for a series of high-level meetings this week in a boost for the relationship. This is the first meeting between the two countries’ defense ministers since the release of a new framework for security cooperation inked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Australian counterpart following the former’s visit to Australia in November 2014. Regarding his visit to India, Andrews said that he looked forward to “identifying a range of new ideas to increase our existing defense cooperation.”
Speaking more specifically about AUSINDEX, Andrews described it as “a strong signal of both countries’ commitment to building defense relations.”
AUSINDEX will be followed by Exercise MALABAR in October, which originally began as a U.S.-India bilateral exercise back in 1992. As I have written before, Malabar has been at the center of an ongoing conversation about expanding arrangements in the Asia-Pacific, amid growing trilateral cooperation of various sorts including between India, Australia, and Japan. Japan is expected to join the Malabar exercises later this year, in line with the occasional broadening of the drills to include other nations. Some have also been pushing for a permanent expansion of the exercises to include Australia and Japan.

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Japan seeks biggest-ever defense budget amid China concerns

Mari Yamaguchi, Associated Press
31 August 2015

TOKYO – Japan's Defense Ministry wants to buy an advanced Aegis radar-equipped destroyer and more F-35 fighters under its largest-ever budget to bolster the defense of southern islands amid a territorial dispute with China.
The ministry endorsed a 5.1 trillion yen ($42 billion) budget request Monday for the year beginning next April, up 2.2 percent from this year. It would be the fourth annual increase under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who took office in December 2012 and ended 10 years of defense budget cuts.
Monday was the deadline for all ministries to submit budget requests to the Finance Ministry. The total budget requests for fiscal 2016 exceeded 102 trillion yen ($840 billion), also a record high, according to public broadcaster NHK. The defense budget was the third largest after those from the health and welfare ministry and the transportation ministry, it said.
Abe's government says Japan needs to bolster its military role amid China's growing territorial assertiveness and the rising risk of terrorist attacks. Parliament is expected to approve a set of contentious bills to expand Japan's military role by late September.
The budget increase results largely from proposed purchases of new equipment, including 17 surveillance helicopters, six F-35 fighters and three advanced "Global Hawk" drones. The construction of a Soryu-class submarine is also planned to bolster island defense and surveillance.
Soryu submarines are among the world's largest, and Japan hopes to sell some to Australia to replace the country's fleet of aging Collins-class submarines.
The budget request also includes the cost of planned new troop deployments on two southern islands, Amami Oshima and Miyako.
The ministry also requested funds to enhance information gathering by posting intelligence officials in three new locations, Jordan, United Arab Emirates and Mongolia.
The requests are based on new defense guidelines allowing Japan's military a larger role amid tensions over China's growing military might.
To step up the safety of Japanese citizens overseas, the Foreign Ministry requested 470.5 billion yen ($3.9 billion) as part of the country's official development assistance, Kyodo News reported. The money also goes to government publicity.
The budget is to be formally drafted into a bill in December that will be submitted to parliament for approval.

Analysis: U.S. gets frozen out of the Arctic

James M. Loy, Bloomberg View
31 August 2015

President Barack Obama should be applauded for gathering world leaders in Anchorage, Alaska, this week for a U.S.-led conference on “Global Leadership in the Arctic." Yet the summit’s limited focus on climate change, though undoubtedly important, belies the significance of the broader U.S. interests and responsibilities in the Arctic region.
As ice turns to navigable ocean, the Arctic is becoming the U.S.'s third great ocean border, creating vexing strategic challenges and unprecedented opportunities. These include not only climate change, but threats to national sovereignty and security, revolutions in international commerce and a “Klondike”-like rush to control vast undersea resources.
The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil and 30 percent of its undiscovered natural gas lie in the Arctic. The U.S. has the potential to be the leader in responsible Arctic oil exploration, as our major oil companies maintain the technology and know-how to responsibly tap deep-sea Arctic oil, and could set a new global standard for responsible development and emergency response.
Yet the U.S. is barely in the game, potentially allowing other nations to move in and develop these resources less safely.
The opening of Arctic sea routes will cut transit times between Asian, U.S. and European markets, reducing fuel costs and carbon emissions. A trip via the Northern Route above Russia from Shanghai to Hamburg takes 30 percent less time than a similar trip through the Suez Canal, and a Northwest Passage trip shaves off days from a trip through the Panama Canal.
But growing traffic along these routes raises new questions of regulation and sovereignty. President Vladimir Putin of Russia has stated that he wants the Bering Strait to become the next Suez Canal, and that any ships passing over large swaths of the Arctic – even the North Pole – may be forced to pay transit fees to Russia.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that Russia is investing aggressively in the Arctic: 95 percent of its gas reserves and 60 percent of its oil reserves are located in the region. It leads the world with 22 icebreakers and has restored Soviet-era airfields and ports.
China, which isn't even an Arctic country, will have built two icebreakers by next year. The U.S. Coast Guard, however, has two functioning icebreakers (the same number as tiny Estonia), and one of these vessels is already a decade past its intended 30-year life span.
The U.S. needs to play catch up after decades of disengagement. This lack of leadership on a range of Arctic issues – from maritime border disputes to seabed claims – is amplified by the U.S. Senate’s bizarre refusal to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. More than 165 nations have signed onto the convention, which effectively governs territorial and commercial claims on the high seas, and has become the primary regime for arbitrating Arctic territorial claims. The U.S., however, is among the last holdouts refusing ratification, along with North Korea, Iran, Syria and Libya.
This failure to join the convention diminishes U.S. credibility on issues in the Arctic that have tremendous strategic and economic implications. That is why every U.S. president, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, chief of naval operations and Coast Guard commandant since 1994 has called for accession to the treaty. So have the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as well as countless U.S. oil, shipping, fishing, and telecommunications companies that are eager to invest billions in the Arctic, but now must sit on the sidelines without the clear legal rights that the Law of the Sea convention guarantees to other Arctic nations.
In 2012, the last time the treaty was put to a vote, 34 Senate Republicans voted against it, depriving the treaty of the necessary two-thirds majority for ratification.
Ratifying the treaty could allow the U.S. to gain new ocean territory twice the size of California, but we don't even have a seat at the negotiating table because a few senators believe the accord would undermine our sovereignty.
But this refusal has done far more to undermine U.S. sovereignty and territorial claims than any treaty ever could, as our Arctic neighbors assiduously build internationally recognized claims in the area.
This is all the more striking as the U.S. long was dominant in the Arctic. Before 1960, it operated a fleet of eight polar icebreakers. In 1957, the first surface ships to navigate the Northwest Passage were Coast Guard cutters,
and a year later a Navy submarine became the first to reach the North Pole. The U.S. once invested in more than 600 radar and weather stations extending from the Aleutian islands to Greenland. And it invested in strategic energy infrastructure such as the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, recognizing that responsible Arctic development was central to the nation's energy security.
Restoring the U.S. to its historic role as an Arctic power will require a recognition of the complex and strategic issues at stake, long-term investment to improve Arctic infrastructure and capabilities, the adoption of the Law of the Sea convention to have an equal voice in the discussion, and a fresh sense of urgency.

Another chance for historic sub

Charleston Post and Courier
31 August 2015

The historic submarine Clamagore, once slated to be towed from Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum and sunk off the coast of Florida, has been given a reprieve. Those who support keeping the Cold War-era submarine at the museum should seize the unexpected opportunity to rescue the vessel.
The Clamagore, one of three large vessels on display at the state museum in Mount Pleasant, was to have been taken off Florida’s shore and sunk as a diving attraction. But funding for the proposal fell through in Florida, and the Clamagore remains at its berth near the aircraft carrier Yorktown.
While the aircraft carrier Yorktown is the central exhibit of Patriots Point, the Clamagore ranks second in popularity, according to a 2011 review of the museum by the Legislative Audit Council.
The World War II destroyer Laffey ranks third. The Laffey almost sank at its mooring seven years ago, and was saved only by an emergency $11 million loan from the state Bond Review Committee. That was fortuitous for the Laffey, known as the “Ship that Wouldn’t Die.” But it eliminated similar consideration for the Clamagore, which needs $6 million in repairs, according to the latest estimate from Patriots Point.
There has been a turnaround at the museum, both in an improved bottom line and in plans to use a portion of the museum property for resort development, and another nearby site as the Medal of Honor Museum.
But the Patriots Point board hasn’t changed its mind about getting rid of the Clamagore. Patriots Point director Mac Burdette says the options include donating the ship to another museum, sinking it offshore as a reef and scrapping it.
“We’re not going to be able to keep the submarine,” he said. Patriots Point officials are concerned that the sub could be swamped during a hurricane and sink at its berth.
Meanwhile, museum officials have added to the attractions by bolstering its Vietnam War exhibit, which now includes one of the few surviving river patrol boats from that conflict.
Certainly, the Vietnam War deserves to be recognized at the museum, as a defining historical period affecting many veterans and their families. Meanwhile,
World War II is becoming more and more a memory as the number of veterans declines daily.
The Clamagore’s years of service span three wars — WWII, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. It was built during World War II and was decommissioned in 1975. It serves as a fitting memorial to the Navy’s submarine service during the Cold War between Western democracies and the Soviet Union and its satellite states.
The Cold War was a defining period of international tension and nuclear peril, and the Clamagore offers a unique example of the rugged conditions under which some submariners served.
Turning it into a reef would cost Patriots Point an estimated $2 million. That could serve as a down payment for its restoration.
The Clamagore deserves any consideration it can get from the Patriots Point board, veterans groups and the state, for a plan that will restore the vessel and keep it at the naval museum.
Don’t give up the ship.

Is this the warship of the future?

Laser-armed battleships that print their own drones will have to survive anti-ship missiles plummeting from space.

Patrick Tucker, Defense One
31 August 2015
If you thought the battleship era faded after World War II, just wait a few decades. A group of British designers with the Startpoint group have revealed concept art for a future warship called Dreadnought 2050, the product of an open-thought experiment at the informal request of the U.K. Ministry of Defense.
Named for the 1905 British man-of-war that rendered its predecessors obsolete, Dreadnought 2050 has all the futuristic accessories that a mid-21st-century warship shouldn’t be without. The ship is powered by hydrogen fusion – or if that proves unworkable, then at least by “highly efficient turbines driving silent electric motors to waterjets.” The hull is composed of “ultra-strong” composites of the finest acrylic. Out back, there’s a floodable dock for launching Royal Marines and swimming drones, a deck for launching armed aerial drones, and 3D printers to make more as needed. The designers don’t specify the size of their new dreadnought, but they imagine it would replace a ship with a crew of about 200 – perhaps making it comparable to the U.S. Navy’s 15,000-ton Zumwalt-class destroyer.
The captain and crew steer and fight the ship by interacting with elaborate holograms, which, of course, looks cool. But Startpoint says the futuristic interface will allow the ship to operate with a total complement of about 100 sailors or less, including just five in the ops room.
The ship is armed with an electromagnetic railgun, not so different from the one that the Office of Naval Research is building, but with 200-kilometer range, plus microwave guns to keep small enemy boats at bay. Its supercavitating torpedoes can reach speeds of 300 knots. The proverbial cherry on top is a drone that launches from where the mast should be, connected to the hull via a cryogenically cooled, carbon-nanotube tether. It’s an extension cord to power the drone’s advanced sensors and, of course, its menacing laser.
“While some of these technologies push today’s boundaries in science and engineering, there is no reason why elements could not be incorporated into future designs. The Royal Navy needs visionary, innovative thinking and these concepts point the way to cutting edge technology which can be acquired at less cost and operated with less manpower than anything at sea today in the world’s leading navies,” said Muir Macdonald, a Startpoint senior executive, said in a press release.
Of course, what’s really on display here is the cutting-edge technology of the present, not the future, and all on a platform borrowed from the past. And how realistic is this vision, anyhow?
In a recent piece for The National Interest, historian Robert Farley looked back at the age of the battleship, when ships faced predictable threats – namely, other ships. In a gentlemanly one-on-one match, the question of how much armor vs. armaments to put on a hull was a straightforward cost-benefit analysis.
“The process of ensuring survivability was simplified, in these early battleships, by the predictability of the threat,” Farley wrote. “The most likely vector of attack in the late 1890s came from large naval artillery carried by other ships, and consequently protective schemes could concentrate on that threat.”
Then came submarines, aircraft, aircraft carriers, the goal of projecting power from blue water onto land, and now the prospect of anti-ship ballistic missiles that might hold at risk any surface vessel of sufficient size. Does a return to large warships make any sense?
China, which is reportedly working on an anti-ship ballistic missile, nevertheless seems to think so. Once completed, the Chinese Type 055 cruiser would stretch 160 to 180 meters and displace 12,000 to 14,000 tons of water. It will be slightly smaller than a U.S. Zumwalt-class destroyer, but will be the largest “Asian surface warship
since World War II’s Japanese Tone-class heavy cruisers,” Peter Singer and Jeffrey Lin write in Popular Science.
And that’s hardly the biggest warship in the sea. Russia recently announced plans to overhaul its Pyotr Veliky nuclear-powered Kirov-class battlecruiser, which displaces some 24,000 tons. That’s about as close to a World War I battleship as you get these days.
In an era of hypersonic missiles and aircraft, what possible advantage could this type of platform still have? Farley said the simple answer is power – as in electricity: “The most interesting innovations in naval technology involve sensors, unmanned technology, lasers, and railguns, most of which are power intensive. Larger ships can generate more power, increasing not only their lethality (rail guns, sensors) but also their survivability (anti-missile lasers, defensive sensor technologies, close-defense systems).”
In other words, warships have a future because we will keep inventing things to put on them.
If laser weapons can evolve fast enough to fight off hypersonic ballistic and cruise missiles, large ships may still be relevant in 2050. Then there’s just diesel-electric stealth submarines and thousand-dollar naval mines to worry about.