Seawolf's Operational Debut

  Defense Week
  April 22, 2002

  Commander: Seawolf's Operational Debut A Success By Nathan Hodge

  The commander of the Seawolf, the Navy's most advanced attack submarine, spoke publicly last week for the first time about the sub's first deployment last year: The sub performed well, he said, but the maiden
voyage highlighted the trouble the Navy has providing logistics support for a three-sub class.

  The Seawolf (SSN 21) set sail on its first mission in June and the deployment lasted until December, said Cdr. Butch Howard, the Seawolf's commanding officer, in a speech Wednesday to the Naval Submarine League.

  The Seawolf steamed 33,200 nautical miles in two operational  theaters, participated in a NATO exercise and lent support-Howard would not disclose specifics-to Operation Enduring Freedom.

  "In summary, Seawolf is an outstanding submarine," said Howard. "The inaugural deployment certainly showcased the crew's hard work, the enhanced stealth, speed and firepower resident in one of the world's most
lethal undersea warships."

  The Seawolf class was designed to face the threat from Soviet  ballistic missile subs. It features a strengthened sail, which allows it to operate under the polar ice cap where Soviet boats loitered. The subs are also
fast and quiet, incorporating the latest in stealth technology.

  However, the Seawolf class has had a troubled history. The Navy originally planned to procure as many as 29 of the subs, but the program was so plagued with cost overruns that, in 1992, the elder President
Bush and then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney rescinded funding for the second and third boats in the class. In 1995, Congress agreed to terminate the program after three boats; President Clinton subsequently approved the construction of the third Seawolf as a transition boat to the Navy's next-generation attack submarine, the Virginia-class (SSN-774). The Seawolf was also damaged in its early sea trials. And for several months prior to completing operational tests, she was unable to fire any of her weapons because of a glitch in the doors through which her weapons are fired. Those problems were later solved.

  To date, two SSN-21 boats-the Seawolf and the Connecticut  (SSN-22) have been built. The third and final Seawolf-class sub, the Jimmy Carter (SSN-23), is under construction at General Dynamics' Electric Boat shipyard in Groton, Conn. While Howard said that he could not discuss many of the operational details of the boat's first deployment, he made it clear that the Seawolf performed up to spec.

  "The ship's control system, bow to stern, is absolutely fantastic,"  he said.
 
  In questions following his speech, however, Howard acknowledged that Seawolf faces one logistical difficulty: it has relatively few parts in stock, and as a new boat, not all of the spares have reached the supply inventory.

  "We don't have the benefit of 50 Los Angeles-class [SSN-688] submarines" to furnish spare parts, he noted.

  The crew stocked about 100 parts considered to be critical spares for the mission. Howard said they used 22 of those specific parts over the course of the voyage.

  But despite having to overcome those logistical challenges, Howard said the Seawolf gave a "solid demonstration of ... the submarine's capabilities for many years to come."

  When the Seawolf left port, she was carrying a complement of 26 torpedoes and eight Tomahawk cruise missiles. According to Navy documents, the vessel is designed to carry as many as 50 Tomahawks or anti-ship missiles.

  That weapons complement was there to "demonstrate the payload," Howard explained.

  On Sept. 11, the boat was in port in Faslane, Scotland, for upkeep. The following day, the Seawolf left port early in response to the terrorist attacks and headed to the Atlantic to meet up with Theodore Roosevelt
(CVN-71) carrier battle group, which had departed its home port of Norfolk, Va.

  The sub subsequently headed east after receiving "urgent tasking" to go directly to the Mediterranean to help bolster the number of Tomahawks in theater.

  "There's no other submarine in the Navy-and few surface ships, for  that matter-that can cover as many miles as we did in a limited period of time," said Howard.

  The vessel then participated in additional exercises with the Theodore Roosevelt battle group, taking part in Destined Glory 2001, a NATO exercise in the Straits of Gibraltar.

  In the Mediterranean, Seawolf also prepared for operations in support of the so-called war on terror. Howard gave little information, saying that he could not discuss many details of the deployment in an unclassified forum.

  David Steigman, a naval analyst with the Teal Group, a Fairfax, Va.-based consultancy, speculated that the boat may have been performing an intelligence and surveillance mission.

  "I'm sure what they were doing there, since they haven't announced anything about her being a weapons shooter, was intel and surveillance," he said. "She is the pre-eminent intel and surveillance boat in the Navy today."

  The Seawolf is also capable of carrying special operations teams, but Howard said the boat was not designated to carry special ops during the deployment.

  Asked about the one thing he would like to see improved on the Seawolf, Howard said adding or enhancing crew accommodations "would go a long way."

  According to some who have been aboard the Seawolf during testing and evaluation, the boat may be one of the most cramped submarines in the force today.

  Steigman said: "When you take into account the weapons and the hull space, she's not a pleasant boat to ride."

  The Seawolf's debut mission was also "jam-packed with maintenance items," said Howard. The inaugural mission required thousands of man-hours in complex repairs.

  In addition to the battle group operations, the biggest challenge, said Howard, was focusing on the mission at hand.  The voyage, he concluded, showcased Seawolf's "plug-and-fight, multi-mission capability."