01 Submarine by Tom Clancy

Author:Tom Clancy [Clancy, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Tactical Example—Stalking a Russian SSBN

They’re still out there. They’re called boomers in the U.S. Navy, bombers in the Royal Navy. They are the fleet ballistic missile submarines, really creatures of the past Cold War era, but they still sail, and their missiles must be aimed at something—what that something might be, their owners do not say. The Russian ones are probably aimed at the United States, and the American ones at Russia, rather in the manner of a “default” setting on a computer or washing machine. One Russian boomer captain was recently quoted as saying that the target packages on his boat’s missiles had not changed, and in fact they might be aimed at some of the nations currently supplying aid to the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States). Until such time as these dinosaurs are relegated to the past, it is only prudent to keep an eye on them, and that is one mission of the SSN. When a Russian/CIS (formerly Soviet) SSBN departs its home port on the Kola Peninsula, waiting out at sea (possibly in a depression in the sea floor called a “tongue of the ocean”) will be a NATO SSN. Probably. Almost certainly, in fact. The mission of the SSN and her crew will be to shadow the Russian SSBN.

The mission is not exactly a friendly one. Should a sudden crisis arise, the SSN’s job is to close and destroy the missile boat before she can launch her birds. Short of that exigency, the SSN remains in trail, listening. There is much to learn. Probably the SSN’s CO knows the name (or hull number) of the boat he’s watching, and he observes the other CO’s habits to add to what we already know. He’ll listen to the boat, determining her unique mechanical characteristics so that other SSNs can identify her by her acoustic signature. Other observations will tell us much of the quality of the crew, changes in Russian operational doctrine, and from the boat’s day-to-day routine, drills and readiness.

It’s not quite that easy, of course. Soviet SSBNs are frequently accompanied by their own SSN guardians. Thus the Western submarine must track—and evade detection by—two adversaries who themselves have carefully thought-out routines for dealing with a potential shadower. This can be as simple as running the boomer at high speed toward her protecting SSN, forcing the trailing boat to move quickly herself and so make more noise than the U.S. skipper might wish. Noise is death in this business, and as important as the mechanical characteristics of the platform are, the commander with the most brains has the ultimate advantage.

The mission may be something from the past, but its immediacy hasn’t changed. The warheads on those missile submarines are still real. Their aiming points are unknown, but so long as they exist, and so long as men can change their minds, they represent a danger to America and her allies. The smart move is to eliminate the warheads through diplomatic means. Until that happens, eliminating them in other ways will continue to be an option that our leaders will wish to have at their disposal.

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