NSL Update 12-04-01
Women still kept off subs
Commander rules against one going on long sea trials
By Robert A. Hamilton - More Articles
Published on 12/01/2001
Vice Adm. John Grossenbacher, the Commander of Naval Submarine Forces, has
rejected a request that a woman be allowed on a technical team that will
go to sea on a submarine to evaluate a new sonar system, which some saw as an
attempt to ease open the door for women in the undersea service.
The Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport, R.I., had requested that a female
engineer be allowed to take part in trials of the TB-29 thin line towed sonar
array system, which is being delivered to submarines starting in the fiscal year
that began Oct. 1.
Grossenbacher told NUWC that rides of three to four days maximum would be
allowed, which is consistent with past practice.
"This particular test was going to be of a larger duration, so a request was
made, but I guess it's not going to happen," said NUWC spokesman Gary
Steigerwald.
NUWC had requested the woman be allowed to stay on the submarine for up to two
weeks.
"There was a particular female engineer who had some technical expertise
specifically related to the test, but there are other people who can do it,"
Steigerwald said. He shrugged off speculation there might have been any other
reason for the request.
"It was only a matter of who was the best qualified person for the job,"
Steigerwald said.
But Navy sources said some viewed the request as an attempt to ease open the
door for women on submarines, which has been a controversial topic in the U.S.
Navy. The NUWC engineer was a Navy lieutenant commander who has been trained in
submarine operations.
Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness, which has opposed putting
women on submarines, said during the Clinton administration the NUWC request
might have been approved as a social experiment.
"I don't think this administration is going to tolerate that," Donnelly said.
She said she was encouraged that the request was rejected without delay.
"The political situation is, they are much more confident, they're not as jumpy
as they used to be about confronting this situation," Donnelly said.
There have been women who have made overnight trips on submarines, including
midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy and female journalists, but those rides
typically are restricted to a day or two.
University of Hawaii Geologist Margo H. Edwards set a record for women on
submarines, making two trips totaling 11 days during a scientific expedition to
the Arctic on the USS Hawkbill in the winter of 1999-2000.
But the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, or DACOWITS, has
pushed for much more. Four months after then-Navy Secretary Richard
Danzig raised the prospect of women on submarines at a symposium in June 1999,
DACOWITS recommended the Navy plan to integrate women into Virginia-class
submarines, which will enter the service in 2004.
The agency, which advises the Defense Secretary on issues relating to women in
the service, also recommended the Navy begin assigning women officers to
Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines.
The Navy has resisted the move, saying that the cramped, no-privacy conditions
on a submarine are not suitable for gender-integrated crews. Typically, crewmen
have to "hot rack" - use a bed that someone else has just vacated - because
there are not enough bunks to go around, and there are 50 people per shower on a
submarine, versus 25 people to a shower on surface ships.
The Navy estimates it would cost $5 million per submarine to modify them to
accommodate women, not counting design costs and required changes to other
systems changes. That works out to about $313,000 per crew member, almost 80
times the cost for modifying an aircraft carrier to accommodate women.