Vanguard Magazine

16 AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2020 www.vanguardcanada.com SUBMARINES nuclear-powered submarines. With the pos- sible exception of Australia and the Nether- lands, Canada would have to invest in the development of this technology on its own, which could prove to be cost prohibitive. 12 A Potential Solution In contemplating Canada's dilemma, it is clear the ideal solution is unlikely to be forthcoming without significant invest- ment by either government or industry. However, there are a number of areas that can significantly enhance submarine op- erations - these being power generation and storage plus unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs). All of these technologies have evolved considerably of late, but are not without their detractions and, as such, require further development. Specifically: • Power generation – of the AIP systems currently in use today, the fuel cell is the quietest system and offers the most prom- ise for future development by commercial industry. Like other AIP systems it requires liquid oxygen stored in tanks, as well as, hydrogen stored separately to "transform chemical energy directly to electrical ener- gy". 13 That said, the French Naval Group has recently trialed a new FC2G AIP Sys- tem, which eliminates the need to store hydrogen, as it uses a reformer to produce hydrogen from diesel fuel to combine with liquid oxygen to generate electricity. Re- gardless of type of system used, AIP en- durance remains limited by the amount of liquid oxygen the submarine can carry, which at this time would preclude it from long submerged transits. 14 • Power storage - In an attempt to maxi- mize the output of fitted power genera- tion devices, increased battery storage, while not a panacea, can offer some sig- nificant improvement to legacy lead acid batteries. A number of evolving battery systems, most notably Lithium Ion bat- teries (LIB), have significant drawbacks because they are not designed for sub- marine operations – in the case of LIB it is thermal runaway and the subsequent risk of a catastrophic fire that remains unresolved. As the main battery stor- age is a critical factor in the design of the submarine, continued incremental improvement in submarine battery tech- nology, such as nickel-zinc batteries, will see progress – but will it ever be enough to power an ocean-going submarine for sustained submerged operations? 15 So, if a non-nuclear-powered Canadian submarine is restricted to ice-edge opera- tions, does that mean it cannot patrol Can- ada's Arctic waters? Conventional thinking would have one believe this, however, the evolution of unmanned underwater ve- hicles (UUVs) has been quietly develop- ing over a number of decades and Canada has been a leader in its development from the onset. A patrolling submarine could launch and/or control a UUV from the ice edge and while this is proven technol- ogy, the challenges become: • What is the optimal physical size of the vehicle? • How to communicate with the vehicle and share the data? and • How to recover the vehicle? Modern UUVs can perform a multitude of missions which include rapid hydrographic survey, Mine Countermeasures (MCM) – including Route Survey, 16 Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW), oceanography, Intelli- gence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR), amongst others. Leveraging extant technology, UUVs can covertly and effec- tively help assert Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic and greatly expand the reach of a patrolling submarine - today. The size of UUVs vary greatly from small man-portable variants to Heavy Weight Vehicles (HWV) - designed to fit inside a standard 533 mm torpedo tube, such as General Dynamics Bluefin 17 - to large UUVs designed for long endurance and large payloads such as International Submarine Engineering's Theseus UUV. 18 In fact, Canada has set UUV under-ice records, with a vehicle spending 12 days under the ice, surveying close to 1,000 km, before being recovered. 19 So yes, UUVs are part of the future of undersea warfare and can be part of an under-ice patrol solution, however, they are not a panacea and loss or interruption of the mission must be expected. Moreover, there are some inherent factors that limit unrestricted UUV use in under ice opera- tions. Specifically: • Launch and recovery – while HWV can be launched from a standard torpedo tube (as the HMVs are the same size as in-service torpedoes), recovery is prob- lematic. An option is for a submarine to covertly launch the UUV and have it re- covered later by a surface support ship, such as a DeWolf-class Arctic Offshore Patrol Vessel. Otherwise, the UUV could egress to a safe point and the sub- marine then recovers it from the surface. Alternatively, bigger submarines can pig- gy-back large UUVs, however this can place limitations on the manoeuvrability of the parent submarine and may entail stability issues in most conventional sub- marine designs. • Mission control – once the UUV is de- ployed on a specific pre-defined mission it can collect and transmit information back to the controlling unit either acous- HMCS Windsor. Photo: DND

• Cover