Some paper ran with this earlier in the week. Slowly, the "mainstream media" has been regurgitating it several times per day since. Here is the *real* story:
Officials Reject Possibility Of Major Sub Cuts
By ROBERT A. HAMILTON
Day Staff Writer, Navy/Defense/Electric Boat
Published on 5/13/2004
A Navy study that proposes an attack submarine force as small as 37 ships, almost one-third fewer than the current 53, is based on outlandish assumptions that make the cuts unrealistic, according to submariners who have seen the report.
The report posits shifting some submarine duties to ships that have not even been designed yet, suggests a shifting of submarine homeports that would be prohibitively expensive, and relies on overly optimistic war planning estimates, Navy sources say.
The submariners and members of the Connecticut congressional delegation said they are sure that two higher-level studies that are due some time this summer, one by the Department of Defense and the other by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, will support a larger undersea fleet.
But the release of the classified internal Navy report angered lawmakers, including U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., who has demanded a personal briefing from the Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Vern Clark.
I find it unacceptable that Navy officials would ... comment on the details of a classified report without first providing the report to Congress, Dodd said in a letter to Clark that was sent Wednesday.
Dodd noted that a 1999 study by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff called for a peacetime submarine force of at least 55 submarines by 2015 and 62 by 2025.
It seems to me that the need for more submarines has only increased as the United States wages its war on terrorism, Dodd wrote. A reduction in the size of the attack submarine force could directly lessen our ability to defend America's vital interests.
U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, R-2nd District, noted that the Constitution gives Congress the power to provide and maintain a Navy.
We in Congress take this responsibility very seriously, Simmons said. And rest assured we will not stand idly by while unnamed bean-counters in the Pentagon propose cost-saving measures. As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, I will fight to ensure that submarines continue to be an integral part of our nation's security.
Fred Downey, an aide to U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., cautioned that the 37-boat force is based on the premature release of selected parts of the Navy study.
This is only one of several assessments of future submarine requirements, and the official assessments won't be completed for some time, Downey said. When they are, we're confident that the final result will represent the critical contributions that submarines make to our national security.
A Navy spokeswoman said the study is all very preliminary.
The Navy continually assesses force structure to ensure we are best tailored to meet joint mission requirements, said Lt. Amy Gilliland. Several studies are currently underway to comprehensively assess our force structure as we work toward the 2006 budget submission.
The classified Navy report, in the works for several months and still incomplete, suggests the fleet could be reduced to 37 by not refueling some Los Angeles-class submarines and not building as many Virginia-class submarines.
But critics said its findings should be considered in light of the fact that it was done by a group that is worried more about budget issues than military requirements. Rear Adm. Joseph A. Sestak Jr., director of the Navy's assessment division, a Naval Academy graduate and surface warfare officer who holds a master's degree in public administration and a Ph.D. in political economy and government from Harvard, supervised the study.
It's the kind of analysis where you give the group the conclusion and tell them to go justify it, said one retired submarine captain. There were a couple of studies that looked at the need, that looked at the force level needed to meet the requirements, and those were the ones that came up with the 65- to 75-ish sort of numbers.
Submariners who have seen the study said one of its assumptions is that an important submarine mission known as ISR, for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, could be handled by the Littoral Combat Ship, or LCS, which is currently in preliminary design. But the sources said ISR is only effective when the opponent is unaware of the presence of the ship. If an LCS is parked off the shore with its listening antennas pointed toward an important area, all suspicious activity will cease.
You affect some actions if it's an overt observation, said retired Capt. James H. Patton Jr., president of Submarine Tactics and Technology in North Stonington. We never saw the Pakistanis drilling a hole in the ground to test their nuclear weapons a few years ago because they knew when the satellites were overhead.
Patton and others noted that the LCS is not even a paper ship yet two design teams are working on preliminary concepts. The Virginia-class submarine that was designed at EB and is under construction there now, is ideally suited to ISR, they said.
You could make the argument that submarines have never done what they were designed to do, because the mission is always changing, Patton said. If you really want a platform that is going to be able to respond to threats a decade from now, you're talking about a submarine.
Another assumption in the report, sources said, is that by homeporting nine to 12 submarines in Guam, which is closer to the Pacific operating areas, the Navy could devote to missions all the time submarines currently spend in transit from Hawaii or San Diego.
But submarine sources said the Navy has only two submarines there now, with a third scheduled to join them this year, and that is about the capacity of the submarine base there. It would cost billions of dollars to construct piers, housing, submarine maintenance shops and other requirements for a larger submarine presence, the sources said.
The study also seriously underestimates the number of submarines that are needed for routine business in the Pacific Fleet operating area, and the number of submarines that might be needed in wartime, Navy sources say.
Between the growing naval presence of China and the trouble in North Korea and other hot spots in the region, Adm. Walter F. Doran, commander of the Pacific Fleet, has said he needs at least 37 submarines in the Pacific alone to meet his warfighting requirements, one source said.
Though some think the study's recommendations will never be implemented, it is still causing some anxiety locally.
John C. Markowicz, chairman of the Subase Realignment Coalition, which is working to save the Naval Submarine Base in Groton from being eliminated in a round of base closures next year, has said even the specter of a markedly smaller undersea fleet is unnerving.
The possibility that there will be a rapid decline in the size of the force because 688s will be decommissioned faster than the Virginia class are commissioned is a major concern, Markowicz said.
You could be talking 15 to 20 fast attack submarines in the Atlantic 10 years from now, and that suggests one submarine homeport, Markowicz said. We would like to argue that that should be Groton. But I'm sure arguments will be made that Norfolk is a candidate, and you could even suggest a split between Norfolk and King's Bay.
Markowicz said the region still has a strong argument in the fact that the Naval Submarine School is located here, and there are some synergies with Electric Boat. But the Navy was ordered by the base-closure panel in 1993 to close its nuclear power school in Orlando and move it to Groton; in 1995, the panel overturned that decision and sent the school to Charleston, S.C.
If the nuclear power school was here I would be a lot less nervous about the future of the sub base, Markowicz said.
In addition, if the Navy is going to build just one submarine a year, it makes sense to build them at Electric Boat, and do aircraft carriers at Newport News (Va.), Markowicz says. Shipbuilding. EB and Newport News share construction of submarines now.
But Senator John Warner is the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and he's not from Groton, Markowicz said. Warner is a Republican from Virginia whose constituents work at Newport News.
William Murray, a research analyst at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., and a retired submarine officer, said the study that concluded a force of 37 could be achieved is probably just reflecting budgetary pressures.
There have also been discussions recently about cutting the planned large-deck amphibious assault ship fleet by one-third, and the aircraft carrier force by an undisclosed amount, he noted.
It seems to me that a smaller Navy is just about inevitable given the fiscal realities, and given the pressures on the budget it's not going to be easy to reverse, Murray said. What it means is we redefine the job of submarines so it can be done by fewer submarines.
He said the Navy is likely to look to new platforms, such as surface, subsurface and aerial drones, to do some of the things that submarines have done in the past. And, he said, some submarine missions might have to be shared.
You have to ask: What type of ISR needs to be done, and where? Murray said. I would think there are some capabilities that LCS might have that could lighten the load on submarines.
But he said the debate should recognize that submarines are still a truly stealthy platform, and deadly as a result.
If you need to sink a ship, you need a submarine there's nothing else that will do the job as well, Murray said. So a certain level of investment is warranted. The question is, how much?
r.hamilton@theday.com