Overuse Of Nuclear Submarines Risks Burning Up Reactor Cores

Naval Submarine League Update
July 05, 2002

From: Bill Decker bdecker@shentel.net
Sent: Saturday, July 06, 2002 9:00 AM

DEFENSE DAILY

Overuse Of Nuclear Submarines Risks Burning Up Reactor Cores By Greg Jaffe, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal NORFOLK, Va. –

The commander of the U.S. Navy's submarines recently warned his bosses that the fleet, which has played a critical role in gathering intelligence about the al Qaeda terrorist network, should slow its pace of operations.

The vessels' nuclear-reactor cores are burning up faster than planned due to added missions since Sept. 11, shortening the submarines' life spans, Vice Adm. John Grossenbacher told his superiors.

"I've told them this next year we need to see a  reduction in the tempo of operations," he said.

"They are working on it." The 380-foot-long submarines' missions, which include secretly delivering  teams of Navy commandos to hot spots around the globe and intercepting telephone conversations, have risen more than 30%  since the terrorist attacks, Navy officials said. To accomplish the missions, submarines are skipping port calls, traveling more quickly between hot spots and forgoing some maintenance and training missions.

The warning comes at a time when the Navy's top submarine officers are  battling their own service and the defense secretary's office in seeking to add more attack submarines to the arsenal of 54. Navy  plans call for the number to drop to about 51 during the next decade.  

Submarines are extremely effective platforms for gathering intelligence, but at $2.2 billion for a new attack sub they are also very  expensive.

"The capabilities that the subs provide, such as gathering  intelligence, are capabilities that are in much demand," a senior Navy official said. "The question is whether submarines are the most cost-efficient way to perform these tasks."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld hasn't included buying more attack subs on  his list of military priorities. Since Sept. 11, the service's attack subs have spent about 80% of their deployed time performing missions, most of which have been associated with gathering intelligence.

"They are really going to destroy the force if they continue at this current pace," said Loren Thompson, chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, a defense think tank in Arlington, Va. "Eventually you could have a serious accident."

Adm. Grossenbacher has told his senior leadership that during the next year,  the Navy needs to reduce the percentage of time its subs spend on missions while deployed to about 72%. To put that into practice, the submarine force likely will have to begin turning down more assignments, which are given to it by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon.

This wouldn't be the first time it refused assignments -- it did so during the Kosovo war in 1999. But with the push to gather intelligence that could head off another deadly terrorist attack, declining missions isn't done lightly.

Submarines are particularly adept at gathering intelligence because they "cannot be tracked like satellites and are more stealthy than unmanned aerial vehicles," said Michael Vickers of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

He said a combination of super-stealthy unmanned aerial vehicles or unmanned minisubmarines might provide a cost-effective substitute on some missions shouldered by the submarine force.