Vanguard Magazine

In 2019, Pentagon officials told the news program "60 Minutes" that the Severodvinsk, with its advanced quieting technology, had sailed into the Atlantic Ocean in 2018 and remained undetected for weeks at a time. SUBMARINE www.vanguardcanada.com OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2022 13 The submarine force which Canada needs must be based on, and evaluated by, the three core submarine capabilities: stealth, persistence, and lethality. After safety, nothing is more important to a sub- marine than stealth. Given the relatively slow and limited duration of diesel sub- marine sprint ability, not being detected – stealth – is survivability. Stealth not only includes quiet propulsion systems, but also quiet ancillary machinery, effective control systems and autopilots to keep depth in all types of weather to minimize control surface transients. More important is the ability to do this at periscope depth. To avoid broaching or exposing 'too much' mast and providing a non-acoustic de- tection opportunity to waiting radars or watching eyes. World leading sensors and prediction tools are critical to understand the acoustic and electro-magnetic envi- ronments, minimal radar cross sections for all masts, periscopes that can make sense of the surrounding environment quickly, by day and night, and electrical generation, distribution and storage capabilities that minimize the requirement to run genera- tors and risk all types of counter-detection. Stealth starts on the drawing board but is only fully realized when a well-designed, well-built, and well-maintained subma- rine is in the hands of a well-trained crew. Canada's next submarine must have the stealth characteristics that provide acous- tic advantage against the world's quietest submarines. This includes the sustained in- vestment needed for through-life acoustic husbandry and an increasingly operational mindset of submarine maintainers. Persistence is equally vital. Submarines must surveil large areas of ocean and ob- serve visually, electronically, or acoustically while remaining undetected. Where air- craft can loiter for hours, a ship for days, submarines can loiter and observe – alone and undetected – for weeks on end. When no one knows you are there, they don't mask their behaviour – you see truth. Sub- marines carry the fuel, rations, spare parts, and technical competencies needed for ex- tended, unsupported missions. Projecting this capability forward cre- ates its own considerations. For Canadian submarines, almost everywhere is far, even domestic areas of operation. As an exam- ple: Halifax to Faslane is about 2,400 nm. Honolulu is about the same distance from Victoria. Halifax to Resolute Bay is 300 nm further than both of these far more hospi- table destinations. What used to be con- sidered lengthy foreign deployments will be, for Arctic capable submarines, routine domestic operations. Any future subma- rine program with Arctic aspirations must build submarines with the range to get to the Arctic, operate for a reasonable period of time, and return home. To put that in perspective, at a 'not-very-covert' transit speed of 7.5 knots it would take 30 days just in transit time for a trip from Halifax to Resolute Bay and back. Alternatively, any RCN Arctic facility could – perhaps should – have the ability to support submarines – an approach that would open the doors to a wider range of design options and likely lower overall program cost. A submarine's lethal capability is un- matched by anything else at sea. A single heavyweight torpedo can destroy a ship or enemy submarine. In an age of small navies, small fleets and tight defence bud- gets, the risk presented by a single subma- rine's absence from imagery can change how governments choose to employ mari- time force. One need only consider the re- treat of the Argentinian navy to its territo- rial waters after HMS Conqueror sunk the cruiser Belgrano during the Falklands War. As Admiral Sandy Woodward, a former submariner, noted in his book 100 Days: What no one knew then was that Chris- topher Wreford-Brown's [CO of HMS Conqueror) old Mark-8 torpedoes, ap- propriately as old in design as the Bel- grano herself, had sent the navy of Argen- tina home for good. Unwittingly we had achieved at least half of what we had set out to do from those days at Ascension: we had made the Argentinians send out their fleet and a single sinking by a British SSN had then defeated it. We would never see any of their big warships again. The combination of stealth, persistence, and lethality are just as attractive – if not more so – to our competitors. Submarines were a persistent focus of the Soviet Navy. Former Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union and Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Navy, Admiral Sergey Gorshkov noted in his book The Sea Power of The State that submarine construction "made possible in a very short time to increase sharply the strike possibilities of our fleet, to form a considerable counter-balance to the main forces of the fleet of our enemy." Today, like 40 years ago, submarines carry an incredible anti-surface and anti- submarine punch. What has changed in the intervening years is the pairing of cruise missile technology with submarine persistence and stealth, creating a new di- mension to submarine lethality. No longer are a submarine's conventional weapons limited to destroying ships and other sub- marines – critical infrastructure, economic centers, transportation nodes, and a host of other targets ashore are all potential tar- gets for a cruise missile armed submarine. The most modern Russian cruise missile armed submarines are the Severodvinsk- class. In 2019, Pentagon officials told the news program "60 Minutes" that the Severodvinsk, with its advanced quiet- ing technology, had sailed into the At- lantic Ocean in 2018 and remained un- detected for weeks at a time. A modified Severodvinsk entered service last year and is even quieter. A Business Insider article from 2021 interviewed both the Com- mander of the 2nd Fleet and the Com- mander of US Naval Submarine Forces on the threat posed by today's Russian submarines. Commander Second Fleet, VAdm Andrew Lewis commented, "our RussiansubmarineSeverodvinsk (Image: Wikicommons)

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