July 27, 2007:
The American
National Resources Defense Council has declared war on the U.S. Navy's request
for a new permit that will give it five more years to test the SURTASS-LFA
sonar system. This lawfare has been going on for over five years, since the
NRDC got a court order forcing the Navy to accept restrictions on the use of
the system. While the lawfare and public-relations effort on behalf of the
detainees at Guantanamo Bay generates the bulk of the headlines and even
episodes of TV shows, this sonar related lawfare has gone on longer and without
the fancy press coverage. At risk is the ability of the United States to
survive in war time, and could render the U.S. Navy more vulnerable to enemy
submarines.
The NRDC has also been waging
a public-relations war as well, including a five-minute web video narrated by
Pierce Brosnan (most famous for playing Remington Steele and James Bond). It
has also expanded its lawfare offensive to include attacks on medium-frequency
active sonar like the SQS-53 used on
cruisers and destroyers and the SQS-56 used on frigates. The Navy, in the five years of
tests, has done research on the effects of SURTASS LFA.
Locating hostile submarines
sooner is more important now because of how deadly modern torpedoes have
become. These torpedoes (like the Mk 48 ADCAP) use magnetic fuses, which are
designed to have the torpedo detonate underneath the ship, causing the ship to break in half, and
sink. Older torpedoes, used in World War I and World War II, often used impact
fuses since the magnetic fuses were unreliable. The impact detonations were
much more survivable since they only punched holes into the side of a ship.
Anti-ship missiles like the C-802 (with a range of 120 kilometers), Harpoon (140
kilometers), Yakhont (120 kilometers), or Exocet (the missile made famous in
the Falklands, with a range of 65 kilometers) could also be launched before
they are detected. Those missiles could ruin any surface ship's day.
Thus, the stakes are high for
sailors and marines on U.S. naval vessels. New non-nuclear submarines like the
Amur from Russia, the French Scorpene, and the German Type 212 are entering
service. Unlike past non-nuclear submarines, which used diesel-electric plants,
these submarines also come in variants that use fuel cells or other forms of
air-independent propulsion. While diesel engines can be loud enough to permit
passive sonar to detect them soon enough to deal with a hostile submarine
before it can fire its torpedoes, fuel cells are much quieter, and that makes
active sonar a necessity. The quieter a submarine is, the closer it can get to
a ship using passive sonar. An active system negates this by bouncing sound
waves off of the hull of a submarine. How quiet a submarine is does not matter
when an active sonar has located it.
But the capabilities do not
matter if the training is not there. Just having the tools in time of war is
not enough. Sailors need to train with these tools. American training tends to
be very extensive and intense. Often it is intended to be tougher than the
actual combat. While the Navy makes every effort to keep whales and other
marine mammals from being caught up in the exercises, it is impossible to avoid
that sometimes. A lack of sufficient training can be deadly. In essence, the
NRDC is playing Russian roulette with the lives of sailors and Marines - in the
name of saving the whales. - Harold C. Hutchison ([email protected])