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A Passion For Submarines Part Two
Washington (UPI) Nov 12, 2007 China has been pouring resources into its armed forces including its navy. But its main thrust is to build a very large fleet of diesel subs that can effectively project power for a thousand miles or more out from its own coastline or from friendly bases it develops in the Indian Ocean or in African or Latin American countries. The Chinese, unlike U.S. policymakers and admirals, are not fixated on nuclear-only naval power, either above or below the waves. China is not the only nation to bet big on advancing diesel-electric submarine propulsion technology. Germany and France have both scored big overseas sales successes with their own excellent smaller diesel subs. And some of them have been successfully adapted for strategic roles. Israel, which cannot afford a single nuclear-powered submarine, let alone a fleet of them, now has three German-built Dolphin class subs, or U-boats to carry its nuclear-capable cruise missiles with the range to reach Iran as a sustainable second strike deterrent to guard against some sudden devastating nuclear attack. India has followed the Israeli example and is investing in French-built Scorpion submarines to carry its survivable second strike deterrent of nuclear capable cruise missiles to deter an increasingly unstable and unpredictable nuclear-armed Pakistan. Even Russia, America's traditional rival and challenger for blue ocean dominance over the past half century, is now betting big on the new diesel-electric propulsion technology available. The Moscow newspaper Kommersant on Sept. 12 reported that Russia was developing a new so-called Project 20120 submarine that may have followed German and Swedish designs and further developed them in creating a new diesel-electric drive with hydrogen fuel cells that would allow diesel-powered subs to stay submerged while recharging their batteries. The Russian Navy promptly denied the story, but Stratfor Forecasting gave it serious credence and assessment in a published analysis. That move may have different implications. It could signify a further willingness to boost conventional naval capabilities against the United States -- or even a desire in the future to sell the technology profitably to China, which has invested heavily in diesel submarine technology In the long run, it makes great sense for Congress and future U.S. administrations to rebuild America's domestic industrial capacity to construct non-nuclear submarines powered by the new diesel-electric technology with hydrogen fuel cells. After all, the Bush administration is already energetically promoting hydrogen propulsion for automobiles as the eventual successor to gasoline-powered cars. But every serious expert warns any major conversion is still decades away. Boosting domestic work on hydrogen cell batteries for submarines would also boost the number of experts and industrial base to work on similar problems for civilian land transportation as well. In the meantime, with the U.S. annual federal deficit running at record levels and the dollar plunging on world markets, the U.S. Navy faces a crucial need to boost its numbers of submarines as the Chinese and the Russians are already doing in cost effective ways. Buying German Dolphins and French Scorpions off the shelf would boost relations with both countries while guaranteeing subs of excellent proven reliability for U.S. war fighters. And such a policy wouldn't damage the U.S domestic military-industrial base at all as no such capability as yet exists in American shipyards. On the contrary, the purchases would act as a spur to develop such a capacity as quickly a possible. All the arguments that the Navy has used to make the case for converting its four giant nuclear-powered Ohio strategic missile subs into Tomahawk platforms, carrying SEAL commandos, apply not just equally well but better, to putting those weapons, and smaller squads of those men, on far more numerous diesel subs like the Scorpions or the Dolphins. In an age when neither U.S. defense budgetary resources nor the U.S. industrial base are as infinite in capacity as they once appeared to be -- choosing that solution may soon become imperative. Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links Naval Warfare in the 21st Century
A Passion For Nuclear Submarines Part One
Washington (UPI) Nov 9, 2007 Still fixated on expensive nuclear strategic submarines, unable to gets its crucial Littoral Combat Mission ships built, the U.S. Navy and its procurement practices are still stuck half a century ago in the dream days of the Cold War. And nowhere is the disconnect between past and present more striking than in procurement policies towards submarines. |
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