by Joe Buff
Ekranoplan: Originally, the name of a very large Soviet military “wing in ground effect” aircraft. More generally, ekranoplans, also known as wiggies, are a hybrid sea-skimmer airplane. They fly just above the sea surface or level ground while obtaining significant extra aerodynamic lift by riding on a cushion of air trapped between the ground and the underside of the wings. Their speed can reach several hundred knots, and their huge cargo capacity can exceed five hundred tons. Smaller civilian wiggies are built in the U.S. for use as water taxis. Military versions can serve as powerful amphibious landing craft because of their excellent mobility and payload, and their ability to fly through marshes or up onto beaches.
ELF: Extremely low frequency. A form of radio that is capable of penetrating seawater; used to communicate (one way only) from a huge shore transmitter installation to submerged submarines. A disadvantage of ELF is that its data rate is extremely slow, only a few bits per minute.
EMCON: Emissions control. Radio silence, except it also applies to radar, sonar, laser, or other emissions that could give away a vessel’s presence.
Frequency agile: A means of avoiding enemy interception and jamming, by very rapidly varying the frequency used by a transmitter and receiver. May apply to radio, or to underwater acoustic communications (see Gertrude, below).
Frigate: A type of oceangoing warship smaller than a destroyer.
Gertrude: Underwater telephone. Original systems simply transmitted the voice directly, with the aid of transducers (active sonar emitters, i.e., underwater loudspeakers), and were notorious for their short range and poor intelligibility. Modern undersea acoustic-communication systems translate the message into digital high-frequency active sonar pulses, which can be frequency agile for security (see above). Data rates well over one thousand bits per second, over ranges up to thirty nautical miles, can be achieved routinely.
Hole-in-ocean sonar: A form of passive (listening only) sonar that detects a target by how it blocks ambient ocean sounds from farther off. In effect, hole-in-ocean sonar uses an enemy submarine’s own quieting against it.
Instant ranging: A capability of the new wide-aperture-array sonar systems (see below). Because each wide-aperture array is mounted rigidly along one side of the submarine’s hull, sophisticated signal processing can be performed to “focus” the hydrophones at different ranges from the ship. The target needs to lie somewhere on the beam of the ship (i.e., to either side) for this to work well.
Kampfschwimmer: German Navy “frogmen” combat swimmers. The equivalent of U.S. Navy SEALs and the Royal Navy’s Special Boat Squadron commandos. (In the German language, the word “Kampfschwimmer” is both singular and plural.)
LASH: Littoral Airborne Sensor Hyperspectral. A new antisubmarine warfare search-and-detection technique, usually deployed from aircraft. LASH utilizes the backscatter of underwater illumination from sunlight, caught via special optical sensors and processed by classified computer software, to locate anomalous color gradations and shapes, even through deep seawater that is murky or dirty.
LIDAR: Light Direction and Ranging. Like radar but uses laser beams instead of radio waves. Undersea LIDAR uses blue-green lasers, because that color penetrates seawater to the greatest distance.
METOC: Meteorology and Oceanography Command. The part of the U.S. Navy that is responsible for providing weather and oceanographic data, and accompanying tactical assessments and recommendations, to the navy’s operating fleets. METOC maintains a network of centers around the world to gather, analyze, interpret, and distribute this information.
Naval Submarine League (NSL): A professional association for submariners and submarine supporters. See their Web site, www.navalsubleague.com.
Network-centric warfare: A new approach to war fighting in which all formations and commanders share a common tactical and strategic picture through real-time digital data links. Every platform or node, such as a ship, aircraft, submarine, Marine Corps or army squad, or SEAL team, gathers and shares information on friendly and enemy locations and movements. Weapons, such as a cruise missile, might be fired by one platform, and be redirected in flight toward a fleeting target of opportunity by another platform, using information relayed by yet other platforms — including unmanned reconnaissance drones. Network-centric warfare promises to revolutionize command, control, communications, and intelligence, and greatly leverage the combat power of all friendly units while minimizing collateral damage.
Ocean interface hull module: Part of a submarine’s hull that includes large internal “hangar space” for weapons and off-board vehicles, to avoid size limits forced by torpedo-tube diameter. (To carry large objects such as an ASDS minisub externally creates serious hydrodynamic drag, reducing a submarine’s speed and increasing its flow noise.) The first ocean interface has been installed as part of the design of USS Jimmy Carter, the last of the three Seawolf-class SSNs to be constructed.
Ocean rover: Any one of a number of designs, either civilian or military, of a small, semiautonomous unmanned submersible vehicle that roves through the ocean collecting data on natural and man-made phenomena. This data is periodically downloaded via radio when the ocean rover comes shallow enough to raise an antenna above the sea surface. Powered by batteries or fuel cells, ocean rovers move slowly but can have an endurance of days or weeks before needing to be recovered for maintenance, reprogramming, refueling, etc. One U.S. Navy ocean rover is called the Seahorse, and is shaped like a very long, very wide torpedo.
Photon decoherence: The tendency for quantum entanglement (see below) to deteriorate with time and distance as the entangled photons interact with matter and energy in their environment.
Photonics mast: The modern replacement for the traditional optical periscope. One of the first was installed in USS Virginia. The photonics mast uses electronic imaging sensors, sends the data via thin electrical or fiber-optic cables, and displays the output on large high-definition TV screens in the control room. The photonics mast is “non-hull-penetrating,” an important advantage over older ’scopes with their long, straight, thick tubes that must be able to move up and down and rotate.
Pump jet: A main propulsor for nuclear submarines that replaces the traditional screw propeller. A pump jet is a system of stator and rotor turbine blades within a cowling. (The rotors are turned by the main propulsion shaft, the same way the screw propeller’s shaft would be turned.) Good pump-jet designs are quieter and more efficient than screw propellers, producing less cavitation noise and less wake turbulence.
Quantum entanglement: An aspect of quantum theory, a fundamental property of the universe first discussed by Albert Einstein. Under the proper conditions, two photons can become entangled, sharing similar properties — such as polarization or “spin”—that remain in lockstep no matter how far apart the two photons become. A change to the properties of one photon causes an instant identical change in the other photon, so long as they remain entangled. Since this instant change at any distance violates Einstein’s limit on moving measurable information any faster than the speed of light, special steps are needed to harness photon entanglement practically. Electrons, or atoms, can also become entangled; entangled photons can imprint themselves (and their information) onto electrons.
Quantum teleportation: A complex, emerging method for transmitting information (data) using quantum entanglement (see above). Once referred to by Einstein as “spooky action at a distance,” quantum teleportation is real, and has been demonstrated in laboratories.
Seabees: U.S. Navy combat-zone construction personnel, whose motto is “We Build, We Fight.” Organized into naval mobile-construction battalions, the “CB” in the acronym NMCB led to their nickname as Seabees when created during World War II. Seabees continue to serve actively during wartime, including in Iraq and Afghanistan, and also provide humanitarian aid worldwide because of their skills at rapidly constructing and repairing roadways, schools, hospitals, housing, etc. after natural disasters. Seabees are armed troops who regularly
carry weapons and conduct tactical training exercises. They often work under enemy fire. Commissioned officers in Seabee units are members of the navy’s Civil Engineer Corps.
Sonobuoy: A small, active (“pinging”) or passive (listening only) sonar detector, usually dropped in patterns (clusters) from a fixed-wing aircraft or a helicopter. The sonobuoys transmit their data to the aircraft by a radio link. The aircraft might have onboard equipment to analyze this data, or it might relay the data to a surface warship for detailed analysis. (The aircraft will also carry torpedoes or depth charges, to be able to attack any enemy submarines that its sonobuoys detect.) Some types of sonobuoy are able to operate down to a depth of sixteen thousand feet.
SSGN: A type of nuclear submarine designed or adapted for the primary purpose of launching cruise missiles, which tend to follow a level flight path through the air to their target. An SSGN is distinct from an SSBN, which launches strategic (hydrogen bomb) ballistic missiles, following a very high “lobbing” trajectory that leaves and then reenters the earth’s atmosphere. Because cruise missiles tend to be smaller than ballistic missiles, an SSGN is able to carry a larger number of separate missiles than an SSBN of the same overall size. Note, however, that since ballistic missiles are typically “MIRVed”, i.e., equipped with multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles, the total number of warheads on an SSBN and SSGN may be comparable; also, an SSBN’s ballistic missiles can be equipped with high-explosive warheads instead of nuclear warheads. (A fast-attack submarine, or SSN, can be thought of as serving as a part-time SSGN, to the extent that some SSN classes have vertical launching systems for cruise missiles, and/or are able to fire cruise missiles through their torpedo tubes.)
Virginia class: The latest class of nuclear-propelled fast-attack submarines (SSNs) being constructed for the United States Navy, to follow the Seawolf class. The first, USS Virginia, was commissioned in 2004. (Post — Cold War, some SSNs have been named for states since the construction of Ohio-class Trident missile “boomers” has been halted.)
Wide-aperture array: A sonar system introduced, in the U.S. Navy, with USS Seawolf in the mid-1990s. Distinct from and in addition to the bow sphere, towed arrays, and forward hull array of the Cold War’s Los Angeles—class SSNs. Each submarine so equipped actually has two wide-aperture arrays, one along each side of the hull. Each array consists of three separate rectangular hydrophone complexes. Powerful signal-processing algorithms allow sophisticated analysis of incoming passive sonar data. This includes instant ranging (see above).
Acknowledgments
To begin, I want to thank my formal manuscript readers: Captain Melville Lyman, U.S. Navy (retired), commanding officer of several SSBN strategic missile submarines, and now director of Special Weapons Safety and Surety at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory; Commander Jonathan Powis, Royal Navy, who was navigator on the fast-attack submarine HMS Conqueror during the Falklands crisis, and who subsequently commanded three different British submarines; retired senior chief Bill Begin, veteran of many “boomer” deterrent patrols; and Peter Petersen, who served in the German Navy’s U-518 in World War II. Thanks also go to two navy SEALs, Warrant Officer Bill Pozzi and Commander Jim Ostach, and to Lieutenant Commander Jules Steinhauer, USNR (retired), diesel boat veteran and naval aviation submarine liaison in the early Cold War, for their feedback, support, and friendship.
A number of other navy people gave valuable guidance: George Graveson, Jim Hay, and Ray Woolrich, all retired U.S. Navy captains, former submarine skippers, and active in the Naval Submarine League; Ralph Slane, vice president of the New York Council of the Navy League of the United States, and docent of the Intrepid Museum; Ann Hassinger, research librarian at the U.S. Naval Institute; Richard Rosenblatt, M.D., formerly a medical consultant to the U.S. Navy; Commander Rick Dau, USN (retired), former operations director of the Naval Submarine League; Bill Kreher, current operations director; and retired reserve U.S. Navy Seabee chief “Stormin’ Normand” Dupuis.
Additional submariners and military contractors deserve acknowledgment. They are too many to name here, but continuing to stand out vividly in my mind are pivotal conversations with Commander (now Captain) Mike Connor, at the time CO of USS Seawolf, and with the late Captain Ned Beach, USN (retired), brilliant writer and great submariner. I also want to thank, for the guided tours of their fine submarines, the officers and men of USS Alexandria, USS Connecticut, USS Dallas, USS Hartford, USS Memphis, USS Salt Lake City, USS Seawolf, USS Springfield, USS Topeka, and the modern German diesel submarine U-15. I owe “deep” appreciation to everyone aboard USS Miami, SSN 755, for four wonderful days on and under the sea.
Similar thanks go to the instructors and students of the New London Submarine School, and the Coronado BUD/SEAL training facilities, and to all the people who demonstrated their weapons, equipment, attack vessels, and aircraft at the amphibious warfare bases in Coronado and Norfolk. Appreciation also goes to the men and women of the aircraft carrier USS Constellation, the Aegis guided missile cruiser USS Vella Gulf, the fleet-replenishment oiler USNS Pecos, the deep-submergence rescue vehicle Avalon, and its chartered tender R/V Kellie Chouest.
The Current Strategy Forum and publications of the Naval War College were invaluable. The opportunity to fly out to the amphibious warfare helicopter carrier USS Iwo Jima during New York City’s Fleet Week 2002, and then join her sailors and marines in rendering honors as the ship passed ground zero, the former site of the World Trade Center, was one of the most powerfully emotional experiences of my life.
First among the publishing people deserving acknowledgment is my wife, Sheila Buff, a nonfiction author and coauthor of more than two dozen books on health and wellness, hiking, and nature loving. Then comes my agent, John Talbot, touchstone of seasoned wisdom on the craft and business sides of the writing profession. Equally crucial is my editor at William Morrow, Mike Shohl, always enthusiastic, accessible, and inspiring through his keen insights on how to improve my manuscript drafts.
About the Author
JOE BUFF is a life member of the U.s. naval Institute, the naval submarine league, the navy league of the United states, the cec/seabees historical Foundation, and the Fellows of the naval War college. respected for his technical knowledge, he is considered an expert in submarines and national defense. two of his nonfiction articles about future submarine technology have won annual literary awards from the naval submarine league. he is the author of four previous highly regarded novels of submarine warfare—Tidal Rip, Crush Depth, Thunder in the Deep, and Deep Sound Channel— and lives with his wife in dutchess county, new York. You can visit his website at www.joebuff.com.
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