04 June 2012

How Will New Submarine Sensors and Payloads Influence Naval Warfare in the 21st Century?

Another great primer by Owen Coté on the latest trends in undersea warfare and the physics behind them.

Owen R. Cote Jr., MIT Security Studies Program, How Will New Submarine Sensors and Payloads Influence Naval Warfare in the 21st Century?Information Dissemination, 4 June 2012.

Since the beginning of the 20st century, a series of new submarine sensors and payloads have changed naval warfare, sometimes in revolutionary fashion. To a large extent these changes have been cumulative. Changes that first occurred in the First World War are still in place, such as the idea that merchant shipping is inherently vulnerable to attack by torpedo-armed diesel submarines. But increasingly over this period, other new submarine sensors and payloads have not been adopted universally, such as the great strides in passive acoustic sensing that remain a near monopoly of the U.S. Navy, and particularly its submarine force. It is therefore useful to review the history of innovation in submarine sensors and payloads during the 20th century to determine what changes occurred in what navies and where they may still apply. I will discuss four such changes, the last three of which are today largely or completely unique to the U.S. Navy: the torpedo-armed diesel submarine; the quiet, passive acoustic-equipped, nuclear attack submarine; the nuclear ballistic missile submarine; and the conventional land attack cruise missile submarine. After summarizing these four developments I will shift to a discussion of future submarine sensors and payloads and their potential impact. …