USS Connecticut Will Make History

Since 03-21-04

From NSL Update 02-06-04

Groton-based Sub Will Be Part Of New Navy Strike Group

By Robert A. Hamilton, New London Day, 05 Feb 04

Groton - When the USS Connecticut embarks on its second deployment in the coming days, it will sail into the history books as the first Atlantic fleet submarine to participate in a new concept in naval warfare.

The Connecticut will operate with the USS Wasp Expeditionary Strike Group, or ESG, which over the next several months will be poised to conduct amphibious operations as needed in the Mediterranean Sea and Persian Gulf.

It's part of a Navy experiment to change the way ships are deployed. Until now, large battle groups were built around aircraft carriers or amphibious groups that could put down large numbers of troops but had limited strike capabilities. Now, more battle groups with fewer ships, but with a broader range of capabilities, will be sent out.

Amphibious groups, for instance, will include submarines, destroyers and cruisers for the first time. Carrier battle groups will be trimmed from 12 or more major ships to perhaps half that many. The goal is to create smaller and more nimble strike groups than operated during the Cold War but that still, alone, could rival the forces of small countries.

"A smaller group is probably more typical of what we do these days," said Capt. David Eyler, commodore of Submarine Squadron 4 at the Naval Submarine Base, which includes the Connecticut. "Most of what we're dealing with are not high-intensity conflicts. They're really more mid- to low-level, and these guys will be able to deal with them."

"This obviously is a big change in the way things are done," said Capt. Steve C. Joachim, the commodore of the ESG. He said the Navy realized after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that the old Cold War concept of large battle groups designed to go out to battle another major force in deep water is outdated. With the demise of the former Soviet Union, there are no big forces left to challenge the United States on the open ocean, and the battlefield has shifted to near-shore hotspots.

"Old habits die hard, and military people can be pretty fixed in the way we think," Joachim said. "It took a kick to change us, and that's what 9-11 did. It caused the military to really look at how it does business."

It will be a major change to the kind of operations submarines have done in the recent past, though the Connecticut's skipper, Cmdr. Philip G. McLaughlin, noted that what it really means is a new use for some of its current skills.

For instance, submarines have long done surveillance and reconnaissance for aircraft carrier battle groups and on independent operations. Now, the Connecticut will be doing reconnaissance for more than 2,000 Marines in the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit.

"The procedures, and how we do things together, have been in place for a long time," McLaughlin said. "It's a question of who's picking up the phone when we call - is it on a carrier, or is it on the Wasp?"

But even that analogy underscores how much Navy operations have changed. The Wasp, a helicopter landing ship, had to install new communications gear so it can talk to the Connecticut at all.

McLaughlin noted that during World War II submarines worked with Carlson's Raiders, a Marine Special Forces unit that deployed off the submarines Nautilus and Argonaut to raid Japanese strongholds in the Philippines.

"Our focus may have shifted during the Cold War to different things, but this is something the submarine force has always been able to bring to the table," McLaughlin said.

In fact, he said, the same characteristics that made submarines valuable then make them valuable today - being able to get in close to shore unnoticed, control the water space, stay for long periods of time, and provide gunfire support and resupply the Special Forces.

The Wasp has also had to bolster its staff with experts like Lt. Steve R. Vonheeder, who did a tour as a junior officer aboard the Groton-based submarine USS Augusta and the Bremerton, Wash.-based USS Nevada; and Cmdr. Bernie Carter, who previously commanded an Aegis destroyer.

Carter agreed that the days when a Navy officer might spend all his or her time focused on a specific class of ship - submarine, surface combatant, carrier or amphibious ship - are giving way to an era when officers have to be fluent in the language of all the communities.

"I've learned a lot the last few months about putting 'little green men' (Marines) ashore," Carter said. "It definitely diversifies my background."

***Throughout the Cold War and into the 1990s, two major battle groups dominated the Navy: the carrier battle group, typically a carrier, two cruisers, four destroyers, a pair of attack submarines and a supply ship; and the amphibious ready group, usually two big-deck amphibious ships, two large ships that carried tanks, trucks and other gear, and a troop transport.

The Wasp ESG will include the Wasp and Connecticut, as well as a tank and truck transport, a troop transport, two cruisers and a destroyer

By using smaller groupings of ships the Navy will be able to field almost twice as many operational groups.

The Navy plans 12 carrier strike groups, 12 ESGs, and as many as 14 surface strike groups, which will be sized to any particular threat and consist mainly of cruisers, destroyers, frigates and support ships.

The first ESG to deploy was in the Pacific last August. It centered around the helicopter landing ship USS Peleliu, which included the Pearl Harbor-based submarine USS Greenville.

The new way of deploying provides a better balance of capabilities, advocates say. The old amphibious group had limited self-defense capability, for instance. Now it will have three surface combatants that will provide it with a robust anti-aircraft and anti-ship defense, and a submarine that can provide anti-ship, anti-submarine and anti-mine defense.

"We in the amphibious community used to jokingly say we go forward alone and unafraid," Joachim said. "Well, we don't have to be alone anymore."

In addition, he said, submarines do intelligence gathering that is going to be particularly important for a landing force of Marines, scoping out not just ship traffic and minefields, but even weather conditions and whether the enemy has mounted beach defenses.

"Land forces have always said, 'There's no substitute for eyes on target.' That's something the submarine gives for us that the amphibious community has never had," Joachim said.

McLaughlin said through a series of meetings, war games, exercises and other interaction the different segments of the ESG have quickly come up to speed on what they can do for each other.

And it has not just been teaching the Wasp what kind of things a submarine can do for the group. McLaughlin said he got to ride on the Wasp as part of his familiarization process and learned for the first time about the air combat element that it deploys, and its landing craft.

"Their capabilities are just tremendous," McLaughlin said. "I'm ready to go to war with these guys anytime."