January 10, 2018, The National Interest
Will the Navy's New Missile Submarine Become the Next
'F-35'? (In a Bad Way)
Kris Osborn
The navy pushes back on a report that states “It is
unknown at this point whether they will work as expected, be delayed, or cost
more than planned.”
The Navy is defending the technological maturity of its
now-in-development Columbia-Class submarine in response to a recent Government
Accountability Office report claiming that many of the boat’s technologies
might not meet necessary standards of technical progress.
“The Columbia Class Submarine Program is well positioned
to provide needed capability at an affordable price on the timeline needed to
meet national strategic deterrent requirements,” William Couch, spokesman for
Naval Sea Systems Command, told Warrior Maven in a written statement.
Citing the submarines Integrated Power System, nuclear
reactor, common missile compartment and propulsor, the GAO report says
additional testing and development are required to assess technical progress.
“It is unknown at this point whether they will work as
expected, be delayed, or cost more than planned,” the report states.
While quick to emphasize that the service welcomes input
and critical assessments, Navy officials responded to the GAO’s central claims
by explaining that the technological systems in question are engineering and
integration efforts, as opposed to technology maturation efforts.
Also, Navy developers told Warrior Maven that the
Columbia-Class acquisition program has met all of its requisite DoD metrics,
therefore reinforcing and validating the program's progress. In particular,
Couch said the Columbia program complied with all Navy, DoD and statutory
requirements for conducting a 2015 Technology Readiness Assessment. He added
that while some of the systems have not yet been tested in an operational
environment, they are showing substantial promise and reliability in various
developmental assessments.
Responding to a claim in the GAO’s report that Navy
developers underestimated some of the risks associated with the technology,
Couch added that “the Navy continues to actively manage all Columbia program
costs, schedule and performance goals, including engineering and integration
risks.”
The Navy response also emphasizes, according to Couch,
that Columbia-Class submarine developers regularly brief DoD leadership and
Congress to “ensure all risks are transparent and fully understood.”
The GAO report does praise the Navy for its thorough
effort to explore and complete design specifications early in the acquisition
process – so as to set proper requirements and pave the way toward successful
construction.
Overall, the issue raised in the GAO report is of
critical concern to many throughout Congress and DoD for both budget and
strategic reasons. Many regard the Columbia-Class submarines, slated to enter service
in the early 2030s, as the number one DoD priority. Added to this equation is
the fact that there has long been concern that there were not sufficient budget
dollars available for the effort.
Perhaps of equal or greater significance is the fast-evolving
current global threat environment which, among other things, brings the
realistic prospect of a North Korean nuclear weapons attack. Undersea strategic
deterrence therefore, as described by Navy leaders, brings a critical element
of the nuclear triad by ensuring a second strike ability in the event of
attack. Quietly patrolling in often unknown portions of the global undersea
domain, Navy nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines are intended to perform
a somewhat contradictory, yet essential mission. By ensuring the prospect of
massive devastation to an enemy through counterattack, weapons of total
destruction can – by design – succeed in keeping the peace.
Columbia-Class Technology
Although complete construction is slated to ramp up fully
in the next decade, Navy and General Dynamics Electric Boat developers have
already been prototyping key components, advancing science and technology
efforts and working to mature a handful of next generation technologies.
With this in mind, the development strategy for the
Columbia-Class could well be described in terms of a two-pronged approach; in
key respects, the new boats will introduce a number of substantial leaps
forward or technical innovations - while simultaneously leveraging currently
available cutting-edge technologies from the Virginia-Class attack submarines,
Navy program managers have told Warrior in interviews over the years.
Designed to be 560-feet– long and house 16 Trident II D5
missiles fired from 44-foot-long missile tubes, Columbia-Class submarines will
be engineered as a stealthy, high-tech nuclear deterrent able to quietly patrol
the global undersea domain.
While Navy developers explain that many elements of the
new submarines are not available for discussion for security reasons, some of
its key innovations include a more efficient electric drive propulsion system
driving the shafts and a next-generation nuclear reactor. A new reactor will
enable extended deployment possibilities and also prolong the service life of
submarines, without needing to perform the currently practiced mid-life
refueling.
By engineering a "life-of-ship" reactor core,
the service is able to build 12 Columbia-Class boats able to have the same at
sea presence as the current fleet of 14 ballistic missile submarines. The plan
is intended to save the program $40 billion savings in acquisition and
life-cycle cost, Navy developers said.
Ultimately, the Navy hopes to build and operate as many
as 12 new nuclear-armed submarines, to be in service by the early 2040s and
serve well into the 2080s.
Construction on the first submarine in this new class is
slated to be finished up by 2028, with initial combat patrols beginning in
2031, service officials said.
The US plans to build 12 new Columbia-Class Submarines,
each with 16 missile tubes, and the UK plans to build four nuclear-armed
ballistic submarines, each with 12 missile tubes.
Regarding development of the US-UK Common Missile
Compartment specified by the GAO report, early “tube and hull” forging have
been underway for several years already.
The Columbia-Class will also use Virginia-class’s
next-generation communications system, antennas and mast. For instance, what
used to be a periscope is now a camera mast connected to fiber-optic cable,
enabling crew members in the submarine to see images without needing to stand
beneath the periscope. This allows designers to move command and control areas
to larger parts of the ship and still have access to images from the camera
mast, Electric Boat and Navy officials said.
The Columbia-Class will utilize Virginia-class’s
fly-by-wire joystick control system and large-aperture bow array sonar. The
automated control fly-by-wire navigation system is also a technology that is on
the Virginia-Class attack submarines. A computer built-into the ship's control
system uses algorithms to maintain course and depth by sending a signal to the
rudder and the stern.
Sonar technology works by sending out an acoustic ping
and then analyzing the return signal in order to discern shape, location or
dimensions of an undersea threat.
Navy experts explained that the large aperture bow array
is water backed with no dome and very small hydrophones able to last for the
life of the ship; the new submarines do not have an air-backed array,
preventing the need to replace transducers every 10-years.
In January of last year, development of the new
submarines have passed what's termed "Milestone B," clearing the way
beyond early development toward ultimate production.
Last Fall, the Navy awarded General Dynamics Electric
Boat a $5 billion contract award is for design, completion, component and
technology development and prototyping efforts.
This first appeared in Warrior Maven.
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