By Robert A. Hamilton
Day Staff Writer
Groton - As Electric Boat celebrates its centennial, it is also participating in two teams that will help determine the role of U.S. Navy submarines in the next century: Team 2020, led by Lockheed Martin, and Forward Pass, led by Raytheon Corp.
Both teams have received $5 million from the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency to study potential submarine operations in the 21st century and develop the weapons and sensors that will keep submarines at the technological forefront.
“To maintain relevance in the future, the submarine is going to have to change its focus - specifically, to shallow water, and support for land attack,” said John Pesaturo, project manager for the study at Lockheed Martin. “We’re really blue-skying it, looking at every aspect of submarines, and what the future will be.”
He said the study will seek to identify the nature and location of potential threats to submarine operations, and the roles and missions of submarines in the future, going out 20 years and more - a not inconsiderable task given the pace of change today.
“Just look at what we’ve gone through in the last 10 years,” Pesaturo said. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the threat of a deep-water confrontation has diminished, but small-country conflicts have taken up an increasing amount of time, and bring Navy ships into near-shore waters where they are threatened by widely available commercial satellite imagery and anti-ship cruise missiles.
Smaller contractors
Besides Lockheed and EB, the team will include Northrop Grumman and a number of smaller contractors. He said the company is excited about the opportunity to be creative about how the Navy can meet those threats.
“We truly believe, in the future, submarines will be the only truly stealthy platform,” which will give them a major advantage in the new operating environment, Pesaturo said.
The second team will consist of Raytheon, EB, the BBN division of GTE, and other smaller companies.
“Electric Boat is pleased to be represented on both teams that were selected,” said EB spokesman Neil D. Ruenzel. “This provides an opportunity to look at future capabilities, and open the aperture in thinking beyond the traditional.”
Newport News (Va.) Shipbuilding had expressed an interest in participating in the study, and said early this year that it was part of a team that had submitted a proposal, but there was no mention of that team in the DARPA announcement, which listed only the winning teams.
DARPA and the Navy signed an agreement last year to study submarine design concepts, with an emphasis on advanced payloads and sensor systems.
The study started in response to a recent Defense Science Board Task Force Report, “Submarine of the Future,” which highlighted the anticipated need for larger, more diverse, and more flexible payloads to maintain submarine warfighting effectiveness in the 21st century.
Teams were chosen for their expertise in command, control, computers, communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems and technologies; weapons development; and ship design.
Navy sources have said that modifications being made to the third submarine of the Seawolf class, the USS Jimmy Carter, could accommodate tests on some of the weapons and sensors that will come out of the DARPA study.
One of the features on the Carter will be a free-flooding compartment amidships, comparable to a bomb bay on an aircraft, that will allow the submarine to deploy larger and odd-shaped weapons and sensors than can currently be delivered, overcoming what is jokingly referred to as the “tyranny of the torpedo tube.”
EB is also promoting the possibility of electric drive on submarines, which would allow the energy that would normally be going to the propulsion system to be diverted momentarily to weapons systems without affecting the speed of the ship. That could make possible some weapons that planners say are like something right out of “Star Wars,” such as high-energy lasers; supercavitating weapons that could become supersonic underwater; high-energy microwave weapons; and lethal pressure-pulse weapons.
Lockheed Martin has a number of divisions that will be providing expertise to the study, including Undersea Systems and Navy Systems. Lockheed has at various times provided the Navy with sonar, weapons, communications, and signal processing systems, including the command and control system for the next-generation Virginia-class submarine being jointly constructed by EB and Newport News.
Rhode Island firm
Lexington, Mass.-based Raytheon also has a number of divisions that could be tapped, including Naval and Maritime Systems based in Rhode Island, which provides surface ship antisubmarine warfare sonars, undersea and ground sensors, heavyweight and lightweight torpedoes, minehunting and clearance systems; Defense Systems, which provides a variety of naval and maritime systems; and Sensors and Electronic Systems, which provides surveillance systems, reconnaissance sensors, and electronic warfare systems.
The DARPA announcement said the two teams will investigate covert local sensor networks that will allow for battle space preparation, as well as precision strike capabilities. Systems that will allow the penetration of harbors and rivers using unmanned aerial and underwater vehicles, as well as unnamed “alternative approaches” to communications limitations, will also be examined.
“Initial submarine platform concepts stress improvements in payload capacity, modular payload storage, and ease of payload and adjunct vehicle deployment and recovery,” the announcement said.
At a conference in December for potential team members, DARPA officials urged contractors to be creative when thinking about future roles and missions for submarines. For instance, it was suggested that one way to increase the volume of weapons, sensors or other equipment that a submarine could carry to a trouble spot would be to carry it outside the submarine, sort of like “U-Haul trailers” for submarines.
John Schuster, chairman of the study group and head of the science and technology branch of the Navy’s Submarine Warfare Division, said at the time a trailer containing a dozen cruise missiles could be brought in close to an enemy coast, then dropped off. The missiles could pop to the surface and launch months later, when the battle group commander sends a signal.
Among some of the other systems suggested were: robotic vehicles that could be deployed offshore and infiltrate an enemy’s sewer systems, gathering intelligence from right under their feet; “micro-ballistic missiles” powered by microscopically constructed rocket engines that could deliver one-pound payloads to sites thousands of miles away; 60- or 70-ton submarines - the Navy’s newest nuclear submarine is more than 9,000 tons, by comparison - that could sail into harbors or up rivers undetected.
EB President John K. Welch has said that at least one area being investigated is weapons bays that are external to the pressure hull, similar to the vertical launch systems on an improved Los Angeles-class submarine, which fires Tomahawk cruise missiles.
Welch noted that the torpedo room is the second most costly component on a submarine, after the propulsion spaces, and there are only limited means of launching weapons now - several speakers at the symposium spoke of the “tyranny of the 21-inch torpedo tube.”
Welch also made mention of the need to be able to deploy more adjunct vehicles, such as unmanned underwater vehicles and aerial vehicles for reconnaissance.
An interim report from both teams is
due next February, with a final report due in September 2000, and the DARPA
announcement of the team says that the study could be “the initial phase
of a potentially longer development effort.”