WEBVTT 1 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:33.799 Welcome to mid Rats with sal from Commander Salamander and the Eagle One from Eagle 2 00:00:33.840 --> 00:00:38.600 Speak at sea or shore your home for a discussion of national security issues in 3 00:00:38.640 --> 00:00:47.079 all things maritime. And good afternoon, morning, or even depending on when 4 00:00:47.119 --> 00:00:51.479 you're listening to everybody, Welcome to a board for another edition a mid Rats. 5 00:00:51.759 --> 00:00:56.159 We really appreciate you taking time today to join us for another edition of 6 00:00:56.280 --> 00:01:02.000 the podcast, and I'd like to extend an invitation for the who have planned 7 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:04.799 their day enough that they can join us live. If you scroll down to 8 00:01:04.879 --> 00:01:08.239 the bottom of the show page, that's where you will find the chat room. 9 00:01:08.680 --> 00:01:12.920 And if you have some observations you would like to share during the course 10 00:01:12.920 --> 00:01:17.840 of the program or a question you would like for us to address to our 11 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:21.519 guest over the course of the next hour, that's a perfect place to do 12 00:01:21.560 --> 00:01:25.319 it. Will be monitoring and sitting there with you during the course of the 13 00:01:25.359 --> 00:01:29.879 show. And if you don't already, go ahead and head and over to 14 00:01:30.200 --> 00:01:37.079 iTunes or Spotify, Spreaker, wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to Midrats. 15 00:01:37.120 --> 00:01:40.959 That way, as you get your podcast during the day or during the 16 00:01:41.000 --> 00:01:44.400 week to listen, we'll be right there available for you if you don't have 17 00:01:44.439 --> 00:01:48.599 the luxury of joining us live on Sundays, and let's go ahead and dive 18 00:01:48.680 --> 00:01:57.480 into the show. And here we are for generations. A great comparative advantage 19 00:01:57.760 --> 00:02:01.840 the United States is enjoyed at SEE is a superiority of its submarine force, 20 00:02:02.400 --> 00:02:08.439 especially after the end of the Cold War. We had a close challenge and 21 00:02:08.479 --> 00:02:14.759 then nobody was even close. But nothing stands still. Time and technology move 22 00:02:15.080 --> 00:02:20.919 forward, and any attempt to blunt to that advantage that potential adversaries may have, 23 00:02:21.280 --> 00:02:23.639 we need to make sure and stay ahead of that with new ideas and 24 00:02:23.719 --> 00:02:28.280 new technology, and as a challenge it SEE grows. What we want to 25 00:02:28.280 --> 00:02:34.240 do today, specifically focus in the Western Pacific and the capabilities that the People's 26 00:02:34.280 --> 00:02:39.800 Republic of China is developing is how we can maintain our comparative advantage and undersea 27 00:02:39.840 --> 00:02:45.919 warfare. And our guest for the full hour is returning to mid Rats Brian 28 00:02:46.039 --> 00:02:50.879 Clark, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, and we're going to start our 29 00:02:51.000 --> 00:02:57.719 conversation today based upon a work that he did with Timothy Walton in this month 30 00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:02.560 at the Hudson's Center for Defense, Concept and Technology titled Fighting into the bastions 31 00:03:02.800 --> 00:03:08.000 getting noisier to sustain the US undersea advantage. You'll find links to that on 32 00:03:08.319 --> 00:03:13.039 the show page. Brian, welcome back to mid Rats. We're glad to 33 00:03:13.039 --> 00:03:16.960 have you on board. Thanks a lots and great to be on with you 34 00:03:17.039 --> 00:03:21.439 and Ego on Thanks a lot for having me on. I'm looking forward to 35 00:03:21.479 --> 00:03:28.280 the discussion and just to kick things off here, really simple question for me 36 00:03:28.360 --> 00:03:31.240 to ask, because he turns it all over to you, but take for 37 00:03:31.240 --> 00:03:38.000 a moment and talk about the impetus for you and Timothy Walton to put together 38 00:03:38.159 --> 00:03:46.080 this effort and what does the article cover. Yes, al So what led 39 00:03:46.159 --> 00:03:49.639 us to this is about three or four years ago, there's a lot of 40 00:03:49.639 --> 00:03:55.280 reporting in the media, mostly of the military national security press, about the 41 00:03:55.400 --> 00:04:01.400 undersea great Wall that China was developing, where they were building their own version 42 00:04:01.439 --> 00:04:05.639 of socists. They were putting in some active sonars, so they're starting to 43 00:04:05.639 --> 00:04:11.919 try to build out some capability to be able to detect submarines and maybe respond 44 00:04:11.960 --> 00:04:15.519 with antisubmarine warfare capabilities. And that sort of passed and there hasn't been much 45 00:04:15.519 --> 00:04:19.439 talk about it in the last few years, at least publicly. Yeah, 46 00:04:19.439 --> 00:04:25.120 but in the meantime, the Chinese have done a lot of efforts above the 47 00:04:25.160 --> 00:04:30.639 water to make it even harder for our forces ashore, our forces on the 48 00:04:30.680 --> 00:04:35.040 surface to be able to break in and be able to affect any situation that 49 00:04:35.199 --> 00:04:40.639 might arise in the South China see East China, see Taiwan Straight So the 50 00:04:40.800 --> 00:04:46.519 anti access challenges people talk about it just is becoming more more difficult. There's 51 00:04:46.720 --> 00:04:51.959 increasing numbers of longer range missiles, both for anti air, anti ship and 52 00:04:53.000 --> 00:04:57.800 a ship, ballistic n and shap cruise missiles, and the Chinese have begun 53 00:04:58.000 --> 00:05:02.000 building a larger blue water fleet that you know, could theoretically some sea lines 54 00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:06.800 of communication beyond the first island chain. But but they've really emphasized, you 55 00:05:06.839 --> 00:05:13.560 know, this ability to use their reconnaissance strike complex of shore based missiles and 56 00:05:13.680 --> 00:05:19.160 air based missiles to threaten naval forces and surface forces out to the second dial 57 00:05:19.199 --> 00:05:23.519 and chain and beyond. So that has all been happening in the last few 58 00:05:23.600 --> 00:05:27.399 years. It's been accelerating, um you know, and meanwhile, you know, 59 00:05:27.439 --> 00:05:30.160 we had this discussion about the undersea great Wall that's sort of faded from 60 00:05:30.240 --> 00:05:35.079 the conversation. But the but the increased effort that Chinese. Chinese are making 61 00:05:35.079 --> 00:05:39.519 above the water has made it so that we've been even more dependent on sub 62 00:05:39.600 --> 00:05:44.720 rings to be the key capability for us to be able to stop a Taiwan 63 00:05:44.800 --> 00:05:47.040 invasion. You know, it's the very above, the largets more contested. 64 00:05:47.399 --> 00:05:51.240 We got to keep you focusing more and more of our attention and our relying 65 00:05:51.319 --> 00:05:56.480 more on undersea capabilities to be able to do torpedo attacks, missile attacks, 66 00:05:57.160 --> 00:06:00.800 or targeting to support other people's attacks again after via ships that might be crossed 67 00:06:00.839 --> 00:06:06.079 in the Taiwan Strait. So the dependence on submarines has only grown, and 68 00:06:08.079 --> 00:06:12.000 we haven't been talking that much about the undersea capabilities that China might be building. 69 00:06:12.519 --> 00:06:14.759 And so you know, kind of cutting to today. You know, 70 00:06:14.839 --> 00:06:17.560 China has continued to build out this understand great wall, building out this sensor 71 00:06:17.639 --> 00:06:25.519 network. There's been a conference up at Newport at the Naval War College a 72 00:06:25.560 --> 00:06:29.560 few weeks ago where some of this was discussed. We are going to an 73 00:06:29.600 --> 00:06:32.040 open source on classified level. I had already written their port by then, 74 00:06:32.120 --> 00:06:36.639 but a lot of this information will come out in their their public proceedings that 75 00:06:36.639 --> 00:06:41.480 would come out of that conference. So that the Chinese have not been sitting 76 00:06:41.519 --> 00:06:46.360 still. They've been investing in continued capabilities undersea to do the sensing and the 77 00:06:46.399 --> 00:06:51.800 targeting of submarines, and the key aspect of this. But I think people 78 00:06:51.839 --> 00:06:57.360 don't necessarily think about is our submarines are still the quietest, They're still gonna 79 00:06:57.360 --> 00:07:00.560 be very hard to find um. But the problem is, you know, 80 00:07:00.600 --> 00:07:05.279 if we rely on them as our exclusive day one, hour one capability against 81 00:07:05.279 --> 00:07:09.800 the Chinese, that means as soon as they start shooting, they're going to 82 00:07:09.839 --> 00:07:15.240 be beset upon by all China's antisubmarine warfare forces because they'll be detected by these 83 00:07:15.279 --> 00:07:19.240 underseated sensor networks. So the fact that we're depending more on the undersea is 84 00:07:19.240 --> 00:07:23.720 going to make us more vulnerable to the fact that China will detect us as 85 00:07:23.720 --> 00:07:29.000 soon as we start shooting. Put those submarines under threat and force those commanders 86 00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:32.480 to now run around trying to avoid getting shot as opposed to carrying out the 87 00:07:32.480 --> 00:07:35.480 missions we're depending on them to do. And you could see how this could 88 00:07:35.519 --> 00:07:41.319 cause our whole war plans to sort of crash to a halt because we lose 89 00:07:41.360 --> 00:07:45.160 that hour one capability until you know, those guys can get back in and 90 00:07:45.199 --> 00:07:48.959 regain their stealth, so that this conundrum, this challenge of well, how 91 00:07:48.959 --> 00:07:54.480 do we still use the undersea is that day one hour one capability against the 92 00:07:54.560 --> 00:07:59.160 Chinese in an environment where they're going to likely detect our submarines as soon as 93 00:07:59.199 --> 00:08:01.759 they start doing a thing useful. And that's what led us to come up 94 00:08:01.800 --> 00:08:03.920 with, you know, this idea for the report to say, well, 95 00:08:05.120 --> 00:08:07.800 this seems like the same challenge that bombers had, you know, back in 96 00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:11.879 World War Two and into the Cold War of strike aircraft had to deal with 97 00:08:11.920 --> 00:08:15.839 air defenses, and they got better and better over time, and we started 98 00:08:15.839 --> 00:08:20.839 to field new and new and more sophisticated capabilities to defeat those and suppress those 99 00:08:20.879 --> 00:08:22.519 air defenses. So we had to do the same thing undersee. Now we 100 00:08:22.560 --> 00:08:26.079 got to think about how do we suppress and defeat undersee defenses in the same 101 00:08:26.120 --> 00:08:30.519 way that we did that I did against air defenses, and then what does 102 00:08:30.560 --> 00:08:33.240 that look like? And so the study is intended to sort of explore how 103 00:08:33.240 --> 00:08:39.360 do we create the team of capabilities that a submarine is going to depend on 104 00:08:39.679 --> 00:08:41.519 to be able to get into the bastions get into these areas where they have 105 00:08:41.600 --> 00:08:48.200 to be able to execute attacks to support US war plans and allow them to 106 00:08:48.240 --> 00:08:50.159 survive and be effective, you know. So it's it's not just a matter 107 00:08:50.200 --> 00:08:52.960 of staying alive. It's also got to be able to do your job. 108 00:08:54.000 --> 00:08:56.759 And I think it's hard to do your job of getting shot at all the 109 00:08:56.799 --> 00:09:03.159 time. So the study is intended to explain how the Navy could flush out 110 00:09:03.200 --> 00:09:05.919 this team, build a team fro under see warfare. That's you know, 111 00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:09.200 very different than the kind of loan will you know, conops we have today, 112 00:09:09.879 --> 00:09:13.600 and in a lot of ways, by borrowing these tactics from air warfare, 113 00:09:15.039 --> 00:09:16.799 it's going to force us to think, you know less about the silent 114 00:09:16.879 --> 00:09:22.080 service being you know, alone underfraid and quiet and more like, you know, 115 00:09:22.120 --> 00:09:26.360 a team of platforms and unmanned systems that are really actually being a lot 116 00:09:26.399 --> 00:09:30.320 noisier than they used to be. Because that's how you hide in the twenty 117 00:09:30.320 --> 00:09:33.720 first century is not by being quiet, but actually by having a lot more 118 00:09:33.759 --> 00:09:37.159 noise in the water, a lot more things to worry about. That's what's 119 00:09:37.159 --> 00:09:39.360 happening above the water. We're just going to see that. I think that 120 00:09:39.480 --> 00:09:46.120 same trend playing out below the water. I must confess that when I first 121 00:09:46.200 --> 00:09:50.759 read the title getting noisier. I went to my experience in the in the 122 00:09:50.759 --> 00:09:54.360 world of limited experience rule of ASW, and all we could hear was a 123 00:09:54.360 --> 00:09:56.879 lot of shrimp clicking and stuff. And I thought, you know, maybe 124 00:09:56.879 --> 00:10:01.879 they're just going to take pistol shrimp and drop them into the sensor networks to 125 00:10:01.919 --> 00:10:05.720 distract the Chinese system. But let's talk a little bit about about the the 126 00:10:05.759 --> 00:10:13.799 tools that could possibly be used to defeat the China's blue what they called blue 127 00:10:13.799 --> 00:10:18.080 Ocean information. Yeah, yeah, talk about the I mean you've got you've 128 00:10:18.080 --> 00:10:24.879 got u uvs on Mann undersea vessels. You've got large ones, small ones, 129 00:10:24.399 --> 00:10:28.080 all kinds of good stuff. So you can kind of talk about how 130 00:10:28.120 --> 00:10:33.240 you're looking at that. Yeah. So, um, so the you know, 131 00:10:33.320 --> 00:10:35.600 the basic approach if you think about a lot of the ways that we 132 00:10:35.039 --> 00:10:39.960 do suppression and defeat of enemy air defenses that they're gonna they're gonna apply here. 133 00:10:41.039 --> 00:10:45.960 So um to be able to um, you'll get into an area. 134 00:10:46.039 --> 00:10:50.200 You know, submarines can still usually you get into an area without being detected. 135 00:10:50.200 --> 00:10:52.159 I mean, that's not an issue. But what you're seeing is so 136 00:10:52.240 --> 00:10:58.039 one challenge will be active sonars. So China is starting to field active sonars, 137 00:10:58.039 --> 00:11:01.240 and I talk about some of those publicly discussed ones in the report, 138 00:11:01.240 --> 00:11:03.799 but there's other ones that are obviously probably not publicly discussed, but they've got 139 00:11:03.840 --> 00:11:09.039 a variety of active sonars on the sea floor in places like the Philippines Sea 140 00:11:09.240 --> 00:11:15.320 South China seem well. Our submarines are designed to deal mostly with passive sonars, 141 00:11:15.320 --> 00:11:18.240 and so we reduce the amount of noise we generate, and we try 142 00:11:18.279 --> 00:11:20.879 to do some things to reduce our active target signature, but not as much 143 00:11:20.919 --> 00:11:26.159 as you know we would if we were facing only active sonars. So ther 144 00:11:26.200 --> 00:11:28.559 summaries could be detected by these active sonars, some of which are operating a 145 00:11:28.879 --> 00:11:33.759 low frequencies that run for that. Because they're low frequency, they can detect 146 00:11:33.840 --> 00:11:37.919 things out you know, one hundred miles away potentially, So that's a pretty 147 00:11:37.960 --> 00:11:41.519 big cone that you'll have to avoid. So either you avoid those areas and 148 00:11:41.639 --> 00:11:43.960 hope for the best, or you could do somethings like air warfare or like 149 00:11:45.039 --> 00:11:48.039 you know, air power people do, which is you can put decoys out 150 00:11:48.039 --> 00:11:54.200 there or jammers. So if you're up and against air defense radar, you're 151 00:11:54.559 --> 00:11:58.120 to try to do standoff jamming so you can maybe do you know jamming to 152 00:11:58.200 --> 00:12:01.720 try to reduce, you know, the the return that the radar will get 153 00:12:01.759 --> 00:12:05.600 from the thing it's trying to detect, in this case the submarine. So 154 00:12:05.639 --> 00:12:09.559 you could do acoustic jamming to send you noise back down the pipe of the 155 00:12:09.919 --> 00:12:15.759 active sonar and overwhelm it and course and reduce the signature or the return it's 156 00:12:15.759 --> 00:12:18.480 getting from the submarine. Or you could do you know, DIRPHAM jamming, 157 00:12:18.519 --> 00:12:24.919 you know digital radio frequency memory, but in this case acoustic um where you're 158 00:12:24.919 --> 00:12:28.360 going to send a signal back that's going to emulate a target, but at 159 00:12:28.360 --> 00:12:33.279 a different location, doing a different speed and course than your actual submarine. 160 00:12:33.679 --> 00:12:37.120 There's things you can do against those active sonars using jamming and decoy operations. 161 00:12:37.600 --> 00:12:41.159 They're very similar in the signal processing to what we do in the air. 162 00:12:43.039 --> 00:12:46.519 And then once the submarines get in, you know, they avoid the active 163 00:12:46.559 --> 00:12:50.759 sonars and they generally will will not be detected by passive sonars. UM then 164 00:12:50.799 --> 00:12:52.240 the question is, well, how are you positioning yours, how you present 165 00:12:52.279 --> 00:12:56.720 yourself, or how to prepare yourself to be able to do operations where I 166 00:12:56.720 --> 00:13:00.080 guys start launching torpedoes or I guys start launching missiles which are going to be 167 00:13:00.159 --> 00:13:03.080 detectable at some point. UM. So then you get into the idea of 168 00:13:03.120 --> 00:13:07.360 why I need to know probably start to confuse the Chinese as to where I 169 00:13:07.399 --> 00:13:13.960 actually am when leading and leading up to those operations. So, UM, 170 00:13:13.080 --> 00:13:18.440 the idea of putting decoys out in the water relatively you know, large numbers 171 00:13:18.480 --> 00:13:20.360 of them. You know, it may not need to be thousands, but 172 00:13:20.440 --> 00:13:22.320 certainly if you could put dozens or hundreds out there, that would be helpful. 173 00:13:22.799 --> 00:13:26.440 Um. Those acoustic decoys could be built more or less like the ones 174 00:13:26.480 --> 00:13:31.559 that would use for target practice today the ematum, and those can be on 175 00:13:31.120 --> 00:13:35.480 small UUVs. UM. Small uvs can also do the active so in our 176 00:13:35.559 --> 00:13:39.960 jamming that I talked about earlier. Um. And then you could also have 177 00:13:41.080 --> 00:13:43.519 periscope decoys you know, that will emulate a master or a periscope at the 178 00:13:43.559 --> 00:13:46.720 top of the water, and those could be small uvs as well. UM. 179 00:13:48.200 --> 00:13:52.200 And if you're China, you're you're don't. They don't have a robust 180 00:13:52.440 --> 00:13:58.240 ASW search capability in their ships and submarines. So basically, if they get 181 00:13:58.240 --> 00:14:01.480 a submarine detection and they're going to have to jump on it, right so 182 00:14:01.519 --> 00:14:03.159 every submarine detection they're going to have to respond to. Well, if you 183 00:14:03.240 --> 00:14:05.720 put them up decoys of the water, now they're responding to a lot of 184 00:14:05.919 --> 00:14:11.720 pop sub detections. They're going to have to either pair back, you know 185 00:14:11.039 --> 00:14:16.600 and triage their their responses or they're going to burn out their forces just trying 186 00:14:16.600 --> 00:14:18.840 to respond to every potential submarine detection. Um. And if you do that 187 00:14:18.919 --> 00:14:22.159 as you're preparing to start your operation, you know, that's a way to 188 00:14:22.240 --> 00:14:26.320 start, you know, print praying, then we'll be able to rapidly attack 189 00:14:26.360 --> 00:14:31.000 you once you start actually conducting engagements with missiles or torpedoes. Um. So 190 00:14:31.240 --> 00:14:33.200 getting to that point of being able to launch them one of the challenges. 191 00:14:33.279 --> 00:14:37.039 Okay, where are these small uvs coming from? Because you bite eat a 192 00:14:37.039 --> 00:14:39.480 lot of them. There could be one hundreds of them that are needed the 193 00:14:39.480 --> 00:14:45.039 water to support you know this this you know offensive movement into the bastions. 194 00:14:45.799 --> 00:14:48.039 So the submarine can carry them, um, you know, in theory you 195 00:14:48.039 --> 00:14:52.200 can. They can carry um, you know, quite a few on board, 196 00:14:52.279 --> 00:14:54.360 you know, especially if they're in the foreign factor. The size of 197 00:14:54.399 --> 00:14:58.240 a countermeasure, so the internal counter measures on the submarine are three inches in 198 00:14:58.240 --> 00:15:03.679 diameter you carry, you know, pretty large inventory of those. You could 199 00:15:03.720 --> 00:15:07.200 launch those as uvs um They might need to be a little bit larger though, 200 00:15:07.200 --> 00:15:11.320 to get the power and the endurance you need for these decoy operations, 201 00:15:11.919 --> 00:15:16.720 in which case they might actually taken too much room on the submarine and so 202 00:15:16.960 --> 00:15:18.440 they gif affect your weapons, could facitly because you have to stick them in 203 00:15:18.480 --> 00:15:24.279 the Torpeter room. So just like in the air warfare case, you're gonna 204 00:15:24.279 --> 00:15:28.879 have to have altern other platforms you do this deployment. So airplanes, aircraft 205 00:15:28.919 --> 00:15:33.720 you're like unmanned aircraft or or you know, pas et cetera. Could drop 206 00:15:33.159 --> 00:15:39.600 these small euvs in the water. You could also have surface vessels drop these 207 00:15:39.600 --> 00:15:41.919 small euvs in the water and they can drive out to where they need to 208 00:15:41.919 --> 00:15:46.279 go. Or you could have larger euvs do it. So the extra large 209 00:15:46.320 --> 00:15:50.679 EUV that the Navy is developing, the ORCA its first job is going to 210 00:15:50.759 --> 00:15:54.440 be mine lane, which is probably the best thing to start with. It's 211 00:15:54.440 --> 00:15:56.840 pretty simple. You go out and drop the mind did you come home? 212 00:15:56.080 --> 00:16:00.279 It's not as sophisticated as some of the other ideas, but it could also 213 00:16:00.320 --> 00:16:03.720 drop these small uvs in the water. You know, because that's just as 214 00:16:03.720 --> 00:16:07.759 simple an operation, and then small uvs to off and have to do their 215 00:16:07.799 --> 00:16:12.840 their operation. And then once the submarine gets into close to where it needs 216 00:16:12.840 --> 00:16:15.759 to go, I think the other big challenge that they're going to run into 217 00:16:17.759 --> 00:16:19.840 and that the Navy is concerned about his minds. You know, if your 218 00:16:19.919 --> 00:16:25.919 China minds are a great way to keep US submarines from going into places you 219 00:16:25.919 --> 00:16:30.320 don't want them to go, because our submarines generally don't have very strong mind 220 00:16:30.360 --> 00:16:34.879 clearing capabilities. Obviously they can't clear minds, but they have minimal mind search 221 00:16:34.960 --> 00:16:38.720 capabilities, and those mind search capabilities are active, so they require the submarine 222 00:16:38.759 --> 00:16:44.440 to reveal itself in the course of looking for minds, which is obviously counterproductive. 223 00:16:45.600 --> 00:16:51.200 So the idea would be submarines would need to use an onboard UV to 224 00:16:51.240 --> 00:16:53.200 go out and look for minds and basically map out a Q route, a 225 00:16:53.240 --> 00:16:57.159 clear route so it can get from where it is to where it needs to 226 00:16:57.159 --> 00:17:03.759 be through a potential mind field. And I guess the Navy's new medium UUV 227 00:17:03.000 --> 00:17:08.200 the Razorback they're developing, which is torpedoes who've launched and torpedo who recover that 228 00:17:08.559 --> 00:17:12.720 vehicle could be used for this mine worker mine search mission. SOUP can map 229 00:17:12.720 --> 00:17:17.680 out a Q route and get the submarine where it needs to be despite you 230 00:17:17.720 --> 00:17:22.039 know, Chinese efforts put in mind, and then you know, one other 231 00:17:23.240 --> 00:17:26.240 class of vehicles that the Navy is in developing, but it is sort of 232 00:17:26.799 --> 00:17:32.000 on the shelf right now, is a large diameter UUV which got canceled last 233 00:17:32.079 --> 00:17:38.440 year or truncated or stopped or whatever paused the Snakehead. And the reason most 234 00:17:38.799 --> 00:17:45.160 you know mainly is that the snakehead was to be deployed by submarines from their 235 00:17:45.200 --> 00:17:49.720 dried X shelters, So Virginia class submarines or Ohio class submarines just gns would 236 00:17:49.720 --> 00:17:53.559 deploy this out of the dried X shelter that seals normally use, and that 237 00:17:55.039 --> 00:17:57.759 it was problematic because seals obviously need to use those dried X shelters and we 238 00:17:57.799 --> 00:18:03.400 can't have them all taken up doing a large diameter EUV deployment. And also 239 00:18:03.440 --> 00:18:07.839 it's a cumbersome operation for the submarine to do, and it really hinders its 240 00:18:07.839 --> 00:18:11.359 ability to do any other missions while it's deployed or while it's carrying that thing 241 00:18:11.400 --> 00:18:15.559 around. So the LDEV really kind of faltered on that on the deployment scheme, 242 00:18:17.319 --> 00:18:19.079 but I would argue, and we found the report in our analysis is 243 00:18:19.079 --> 00:18:23.799 shown that the LDEV is sort of the one vehicle the Navy has that has 244 00:18:25.119 --> 00:18:29.160 the depth capability so it can go deep enough, it can go for a 245 00:18:29.160 --> 00:18:33.880 long enough mission to make it useful in the IPOE or the intelligence preparation of 246 00:18:33.960 --> 00:18:38.240 the environment mission. Because one thing we found is we went through and did 247 00:18:38.240 --> 00:18:41.680 some map on this is if we're going to do these e coy operations and 248 00:18:41.759 --> 00:18:48.480 we're going to try to and you avoid where submarines might be more easily detected, 249 00:18:48.720 --> 00:18:51.839 we got to map that out in advance. The same way that we 250 00:18:51.960 --> 00:18:56.279 use VP threes or RIPT joint aircraft to map out air defenses before we do 251 00:18:56.319 --> 00:19:00.839 a strike operation. Ripped the same thing understee to be able to understand where 252 00:19:00.880 --> 00:19:03.720 the sensors are and where the networks are and where we might be able to 253 00:19:04.200 --> 00:19:08.000 either decoy or jam them, or we may have to go in and physically 254 00:19:08.359 --> 00:19:11.480 interrupt them damage them. But you got to map that all out. And 255 00:19:11.480 --> 00:19:15.000 the only vehicle that we have it's really got that capability would be this large 256 00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:19.559 time a RUB and the deploy that would then be something you probably have to 257 00:19:19.599 --> 00:19:23.759 do from an amphibious shift or something with a well deck, which is perfectly 258 00:19:23.839 --> 00:19:26.559 viable in peace time, you know, and more time you would probably not 259 00:19:26.559 --> 00:19:32.559 be mapping anything out because you've already either learned what's happening or don't know what's 260 00:19:32.559 --> 00:19:33.839 happening. But that's kind of what we say, is that you know the 261 00:19:33.960 --> 00:19:37.440 kind of the main thread. So one thing that led us to do is 262 00:19:37.480 --> 00:19:44.160 to identify for offensive undersea warfare, you know, what the reference missions would 263 00:19:44.160 --> 00:19:47.119 be for each of these classes of uvs, because one of the challenges the 264 00:19:47.200 --> 00:19:51.279 Navy has had in unmanned vehicles is really steadling on you know, what's the 265 00:19:51.319 --> 00:19:56.079 base case need for each of these classes of vehicles to let them to drive 266 00:19:56.119 --> 00:20:00.079 the requirements and drive the development and so the you know, the small UV 267 00:20:00.200 --> 00:20:04.079 it ends up being this decoy and jamming mission, and then for the medium 268 00:20:04.119 --> 00:20:07.880 it ends up being this mine warfare mission, and then for the large ends 269 00:20:07.920 --> 00:20:12.680 up being this intelligence preparation of the environment mission, and then for the extra 270 00:20:12.759 --> 00:20:17.880 large it ends up being mining on our burrow minds, offensive mining from the 271 00:20:17.960 --> 00:20:22.000 US or deployment of these small univings which is about the same mission in a 272 00:20:22.039 --> 00:20:26.799 lot of ways. So that's kind of the general scheme that we came up 273 00:20:26.799 --> 00:20:30.440 with to address the fact that submarines are going to be challenged just getting into 274 00:20:30.480 --> 00:20:34.119 this area, and then they're certainly going to be challenged to stay in it. 275 00:20:34.519 --> 00:20:37.160 And I can talk a little bit more about, you know, how 276 00:20:37.160 --> 00:20:40.440 I would expect the Chinese to respond and why we have to do some of 277 00:20:40.440 --> 00:20:45.880 these things. Yeah, I'll probably mention a couple of things I'll loop back 278 00:20:45.880 --> 00:20:51.759 to later. But for those that haven't read it yet, again, everybody 279 00:20:51.799 --> 00:20:52.799 here, we have a link on the show page if you want to go 280 00:20:52.839 --> 00:20:56.759 ahead and pull it up. But there's you. You've already touched on a 281 00:20:56.799 --> 00:21:00.599 lot of it, but a lot of the discussion here I really like, 282 00:21:02.319 --> 00:21:04.759 y'all, first of all, addressed a big issue is there's a lot of 283 00:21:04.759 --> 00:21:11.200 things that we want our submarines to be able to do, but we only 284 00:21:11.240 --> 00:21:15.480 have so many to do them. So what are those important but lesser included 285 00:21:15.559 --> 00:21:23.039 missions that we might be able to instead have unmanned systems do that. And 286 00:21:25.240 --> 00:21:30.480 I was it figure number seventeen on page forty three of the document when I 287 00:21:30.519 --> 00:21:33.960 saw that it pulled together a few things, because I think y'all made a 288 00:21:33.000 --> 00:21:40.240 really good argument on these achievable things. But I read it right after I 289 00:21:40.359 --> 00:21:45.359 talked to an old friend of mine who is really focused on the twenty twenty 290 00:21:45.359 --> 00:21:49.279 seven twenty thirty part of the decade of concern people like to euphemistically call it. 291 00:21:49.920 --> 00:21:55.680 And the the hard fact is, if if whatever we're going to go 292 00:21:55.720 --> 00:22:00.079 to war with in twenty thirty, it's what's in our present palm right now. 293 00:22:00.960 --> 00:22:06.119 Anything else becomes later this decade. You know, twenty thirty five, 294 00:22:06.240 --> 00:22:15.319 twenty forty in any operationally useful numbers, and you outlined well, starting in 295 00:22:15.519 --> 00:22:19.680 twenty twenty and really going to twenty five twenty six, there is this procurement 296 00:22:19.880 --> 00:22:23.440 troth, and so you know, you show me what you value by what 297 00:22:23.480 --> 00:22:30.160 you spend your money on. So we have elected in some decisions. You 298 00:22:30.240 --> 00:22:36.480 allude to some decisions made in twenty twenty two that that extended that troth down 299 00:22:36.599 --> 00:22:41.960 the timeline a year or two, exacerbating a procurement issue when it comes to 300 00:22:42.079 --> 00:22:45.799 unmanned systems. And I know on the aviation side of the house, my 301 00:22:45.839 --> 00:22:51.119 friend Jerry Hendricks and I you know, we we still lament it was over 302 00:22:51.160 --> 00:22:56.680 a decade ago that we had the capability to really do some lessons on unmanned 303 00:22:56.720 --> 00:23:02.039 systems, but now very decided to do You're a decade plus, so we 304 00:23:02.119 --> 00:23:07.519 lost an opportunity. So if you could for a while talk about that procurement 305 00:23:07.640 --> 00:23:14.599 craw and what the opportunity cost is for us being able to learn how to 306 00:23:14.839 --> 00:23:19.480 be able to do some of these additional missions with unmanned systems as opposed to 307 00:23:19.759 --> 00:23:25.799 asking a three billion dollars Virginia class to go do it right? Yeah, 308 00:23:25.920 --> 00:23:29.000 good points south, So the yes. So to start with on the idea 309 00:23:29.000 --> 00:23:32.039 of taking pressure off of subs, you know, so you're right now, 310 00:23:32.359 --> 00:23:37.200 Um, you know we have about what fifty just sort of fifty submarines in 311 00:23:37.319 --> 00:23:42.400 theory as as you've noted in your blog. You know a third of those 312 00:23:42.559 --> 00:23:47.720 are in deep maintenance of some kind. You know, some of them are 313 00:23:47.839 --> 00:23:52.160 parked permanently while they're waiting for a long overhaul like Voici. Um, you 314 00:23:52.200 --> 00:23:57.200 know, others are broken because of our own mistakes, like the Connecticut. 315 00:23:57.519 --> 00:24:00.880 But you know we've got you know, eighteen or those submarines that are in 316 00:24:00.920 --> 00:24:04.839 some kind of overhaul or waiting for an overhaul. Uh. And so you've 317 00:24:04.839 --> 00:24:08.359 got a limited capacity. So we're you know, if um, if we're 318 00:24:08.359 --> 00:24:12.880 depending upon having you know whatever a half dozen or more submarines available to support 319 00:24:14.279 --> 00:24:18.279 a Western Pacific contingency. M we can't have them off doing a bunch of 320 00:24:18.279 --> 00:24:23.079 other missions that either consume their service life or are going to take them away 321 00:24:23.079 --> 00:24:26.480 from being ready to respond or training to be ready to respond. Um. 322 00:24:26.519 --> 00:24:30.880 So some missions that they do today that I would probably be ones that you'd 323 00:24:30.880 --> 00:24:36.200 want to shift to another platform, are um just survey missions or you know, 324 00:24:36.240 --> 00:24:40.839 ISR missions where some of these uvs that are in the certainly within the 325 00:24:41.559 --> 00:24:45.720 wheelhouse or technological wheelhouse today could do some of those missions. I mean, 326 00:24:45.720 --> 00:24:51.400 we do bottom surveys with uvs, we do um uh, some of these 327 00:24:51.400 --> 00:24:55.680 ISR missions could be done with uvs. UM and we just not haven't haven't 328 00:24:55.680 --> 00:24:57.319 availed ourselves to that. Now. Part of this will involve a little bit 329 00:24:57.319 --> 00:25:00.519 of just maturing these platform a little bit to get to where they can do 330 00:25:00.559 --> 00:25:06.599 these relatively simple missions. But but medimmuvs already do you know some of these 331 00:25:06.640 --> 00:25:08.920 missions today, It's just they don't do them in place of submarines. The 332 00:25:08.960 --> 00:25:14.599 other big thing is in ASW you know, so we tend to, you 333 00:25:14.640 --> 00:25:18.480 know, think of submarines as being the best tool to use against other submarines. 334 00:25:18.480 --> 00:25:21.880 And that's sort of a holdover from the Cold War when the Soviets had 335 00:25:21.920 --> 00:25:25.599 really quiet submarines and the and we often had to search for them in places 336 00:25:25.599 --> 00:25:30.960 where it wasn't practical to send our own frigates and maritime patrol aircraft to get 337 00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:33.240 to Um. Yeah, but you know, times of change, um. 338 00:25:33.519 --> 00:25:38.480 And obviously the submarines that we're looking for, some of them are still very 339 00:25:38.519 --> 00:25:41.960 quiet, like the Russians still have some very quiet submarines, and the Chinese 340 00:25:41.960 --> 00:25:47.039 have some new Yuan class aap of submarines that are pretty quiet. Um. 341 00:25:47.400 --> 00:25:51.960 But there's new sensors out there. So we have much improved active son of 342 00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:53.880 movies. The max son of Bullies are fantastic. They do a really good 343 00:25:53.960 --> 00:26:00.240 job. We now have you know, low frequency active sonars, so very 344 00:26:00.400 --> 00:26:03.480 depth sonars that can be deployed that the putting on the frigate that the Constellation 345 00:26:03.519 --> 00:26:10.200 class frigate will carry it. M European navies have these most almost ubiquitous to 346 00:26:10.400 --> 00:26:14.960 use. Every frigate in the European NATO's fleet in Europe has a variable depth 347 00:26:15.319 --> 00:26:21.160 sonar that's well frequency active um and those systems could be put onto unmanned vehicles 348 00:26:21.279 --> 00:26:25.680 so we could see, um you know, transition of a lot of those 349 00:26:25.720 --> 00:26:29.759 ASW emissions away from submarines and really bear down on the idea that we should 350 00:26:29.759 --> 00:26:34.519 be doing the first part of any ASW kill chain should be almost exclusively done 351 00:26:34.559 --> 00:26:38.920 with unmanned systems, whether it's a deployed system like a sonarar system that sits 352 00:26:38.920 --> 00:26:42.640 on the seafloor and looks up or its SOCIST that's already installed. UM for, 353 00:26:42.839 --> 00:26:47.839 it's a sonabloy that gets deployed by OPA, or even an M two 354 00:26:47.920 --> 00:26:51.880 nine. You know that sonabulis an unmanned system UM for, you could have 355 00:26:52.119 --> 00:26:56.200 you unmanned surface vehicles toeing toe to raise or variable depth sonars and these are 356 00:26:56.240 --> 00:26:59.160 all available today. I mean, these are all systems that could be integrated 357 00:26:59.200 --> 00:27:03.480 today and then have been intested in a lot of cases. So I can 358 00:27:03.519 --> 00:27:08.279 really relieve allow the pressure off the submarine fleet because the challenges you noted is 359 00:27:08.799 --> 00:27:12.920 even yes we can the fastest way to get more submarine capacity for the US 360 00:27:12.960 --> 00:27:17.200 would be to get more of these boats out of overhaul. So that's job 361 00:27:17.240 --> 00:27:18.920 one. Let's figure out how to get these overhauls done and get these boats 362 00:27:18.960 --> 00:27:25.759 back into into service because accelerating construction we've you know, is something we've done 363 00:27:25.759 --> 00:27:29.279 and continue to try to do. But you're probably not squeezing any more blood 364 00:27:29.279 --> 00:27:32.359 out of that turn up. I mean, at this point, we're getting 365 00:27:32.759 --> 00:27:37.319 one in one point three submarines per year because we've transitioned to the Block five 366 00:27:37.720 --> 00:27:41.720 larger Virginia class and we're also trying to build Columbia. We've really you know, 367 00:27:41.759 --> 00:27:44.880 stressed the system as much as we can stress it. So we may 368 00:27:44.880 --> 00:27:48.720 get back to two submarines per year at the most, and that's not going 369 00:27:48.759 --> 00:27:52.880 to really change things until the twenty thirties. Those submarines are not arriving and 370 00:27:52.960 --> 00:27:56.160 being useful until then. So we really need to do is focus on the 371 00:27:56.160 --> 00:28:00.000 fleet of today. Well, let's free up submarines from these other missions surveys 372 00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:03.880 in sw Let's get the ones out of overhaul that are already in overhaul, 373 00:28:03.640 --> 00:28:07.640 and then the way to you know, kind of free up the submaries is 374 00:28:07.640 --> 00:28:10.000 going to be the let's get more of these unmanned systems out there. Because 375 00:28:10.480 --> 00:28:12.400 in the next five years, you can get a lot of unmanned systems out 376 00:28:12.440 --> 00:28:15.880 there. You know, that technology is pretty mature, The systems are relatively 377 00:28:15.920 --> 00:28:18.920 easy to build. You can scale that. That's one thing you can scale 378 00:28:18.920 --> 00:28:22.240 pretty quickly is unmanned systems. And as we see in the see in the 379 00:28:22.279 --> 00:28:26.160 report, when you go up and actually do the research and figure out, 380 00:28:26.160 --> 00:28:29.440 well, how many of these are we buying? We had this huge trough 381 00:28:29.519 --> 00:28:33.880 that started a couple of years ago in terms of procurement, and it's mostly 382 00:28:33.920 --> 00:28:38.000 because you know, the Navy's got these you know whatever four classes of UUVs 383 00:28:37.720 --> 00:28:41.839 UM and they sort of dawdled on all of them in terms of coming up 384 00:28:41.839 --> 00:28:45.880 with what submission it's supposed to do, what's the problem it's supposed to solve, 385 00:28:45.200 --> 00:28:48.559 and then what does that mean in terms of requirements, and let's go 386 00:28:48.599 --> 00:28:49.839 build them and even if it's not the right answer, you know, the 387 00:28:49.880 --> 00:28:53.480 first one you build is not the final answer. Go build the first one 388 00:28:53.599 --> 00:28:59.000 and deploy it and begin using it. But because they know it took you 389 00:28:59.039 --> 00:29:02.079 know, they couldn't settle on a referenceiation, they couldn't set on the requirements. 390 00:29:02.599 --> 00:29:04.880 Um. You know, they tended to go for a very ambitious set 391 00:29:04.880 --> 00:29:10.440 of requirements, particularly with like orca UM, that forces you into along R 392 00:29:10.480 --> 00:29:14.039 and D cycle and you're sort of dawdling in the R and D and requirements 393 00:29:14.079 --> 00:29:18.359 cycle. Meanwhile, you know, you've got you know, manufacturers that are 394 00:29:18.400 --> 00:29:22.119 looking for orders because they're ready to build UM and you're you've got submarines that 395 00:29:22.160 --> 00:29:26.799 are sitting you know, on the on the block somewhere UM. So we've 396 00:29:26.839 --> 00:29:32.599 we've missed this opportunity take advantage of you know, UV production capacity to build 397 00:29:32.599 --> 00:29:37.119 out the UV fleet to make up for shortfalls that we're just going to experience 398 00:29:37.160 --> 00:29:41.279 because of other issues in the submarine force. But yeah, this this block 399 00:29:41.319 --> 00:29:44.480 as it currently looks, it's going to progress all the ways through twenty four 400 00:29:44.680 --> 00:29:48.160 and it's inticipated then we're going to get our act together and start buying MUUV 401 00:29:48.319 --> 00:29:52.640 and small UUV in quantity um. But you know the thing, you know, 402 00:29:52.680 --> 00:29:56.920 we've by canceling LUUV, we slowed that process down and there's a bunch 403 00:29:56.920 --> 00:30:00.559 of you know, subsystem manufacturers that are sitting on their hands now. By 404 00:30:00.599 --> 00:30:07.680 going down to one manufacturer for the medium UB, we've eliminated some capacity we 405 00:30:07.680 --> 00:30:11.440 could have had there. And then small UB is being developed based on an 406 00:30:11.440 --> 00:30:15.119 existing commercial vehicle, but the Navy is still going to dawdle coming up with 407 00:30:15.160 --> 00:30:19.119 the requirements for it instead of simply taking the commercial vehicle and then making that 408 00:30:19.200 --> 00:30:25.119 a military system. So this, you know, kind of gilly dalling while 409 00:30:25.160 --> 00:30:30.400 we try to polish the cannonball in terms of requirements, is really holding this 410 00:30:30.559 --> 00:30:33.440 up in terms of fielding a viable unmanned fleet because the technology is there, 411 00:30:33.519 --> 00:30:37.759 it's it's you know, the procurement process, it's not serving as well. 412 00:30:41.400 --> 00:30:44.880 One of the other issues that I think you're touched on in the paper is 413 00:30:44.920 --> 00:30:51.240 the communications problem. And since we're consistent on having man in the loop on 414 00:30:51.279 --> 00:30:56.880 most of these systems, can you kind of talk about the possibilities the capabilities 415 00:30:57.039 --> 00:31:00.240 we might have to develop in order to make sure or whatever we're doing, 416 00:31:00.319 --> 00:31:04.319 we're able to talk to the units that or doing it. Yeah, yeah, 417 00:31:04.359 --> 00:31:07.680 great, pointing one. So the U so we talk, we go 418 00:31:07.759 --> 00:31:11.799 through, you know, in detail, the kind of C three architecture you 419 00:31:11.880 --> 00:31:15.400 might use or the C three capabilities you might use to support operations with these 420 00:31:15.400 --> 00:31:18.839 systems. Um. So the first thing we try to do is develop connopts 421 00:31:18.920 --> 00:31:23.720 that we're not dependent upon continuous communications with the uvs, you know, so 422 00:31:25.200 --> 00:31:29.839 UM, we envisioned that the submarine would still be UM, the thing that 423 00:31:29.960 --> 00:31:34.720 is launching weapons unless it's a mind being deployed by a UV where the mine 424 00:31:34.799 --> 00:31:40.640 has already had built into it, you know, the automated targeting that that 425 00:31:40.680 --> 00:31:42.799 we're comfortable with. But otherwise it's the submarine, you know, leading to 426 00:31:42.880 --> 00:31:47.000 kill Chain or somebody else. So of the external UM, but a banned 427 00:31:47.000 --> 00:31:49.799 platform UM. And that gets around this problem that how are you going to 428 00:31:49.839 --> 00:31:52.920 maintain real time comms with the thing that's got a weapon audit so that you 429 00:31:52.960 --> 00:31:56.759 can have a person be responsible for the weapons launch. And you know, 430 00:31:56.759 --> 00:32:00.480 it's all about accountability. I think, you know, sometimes we lose not 431 00:32:00.640 --> 00:32:04.839 we don't, but some people in the in the like the public discussion about 432 00:32:04.839 --> 00:32:07.720 this UM. You talk about the capabilities of on man systems to make decisions 433 00:32:07.720 --> 00:32:13.079 and do automated target recognition and all that UM and how capable they are. 434 00:32:13.079 --> 00:32:15.960 But the problem is it's accountability. So who's accountable for that decision? And 435 00:32:16.079 --> 00:32:20.960 I know talking to our current four star commanders, they want a person to 436 00:32:20.960 --> 00:32:24.200 be accountable for that decision, even if they're doing it. Based on information 437 00:32:24.240 --> 00:32:31.319 provided completely by some automated program program or computer aided program. UM. So 438 00:32:31.640 --> 00:32:35.079 that's what we felt. It was important to the submarine to still be the 439 00:32:35.079 --> 00:32:39.400 thing that's launching weapons and these kill chains. UM. The uh that these 440 00:32:39.440 --> 00:32:44.359 the young man systems that are doing support functions where you don't need to maintain 441 00:32:44.400 --> 00:32:46.920 continuous comms with them, so they can be out there doing this decoy mission, 442 00:32:47.039 --> 00:32:51.200 you know, which could be preprogrammed. It could have been done you 443 00:32:51.240 --> 00:32:53.240 know, based on a certain time delay or more likely, UM, you've 444 00:32:53.279 --> 00:32:59.160 command got you command initiate and then you command stop when they need to stop 445 00:32:59.200 --> 00:33:01.720 the decoy operation, or you can direct them in terms of you know, 446 00:33:01.759 --> 00:33:06.440 making some changes to their mission plan. UM. So decoys and jamming you 447 00:33:06.480 --> 00:33:08.000 know, would large to be able to happen like that. UM. The 448 00:33:08.039 --> 00:33:13.559 mind search UM kind of the mind warfare mission. When you're doing it with 449 00:33:13.599 --> 00:33:17.160 a torpedo tube launch and recovery UV, you're going to be tethered back to 450 00:33:17.200 --> 00:33:21.039 the submarine with a five rout to cable. So you've got comms there, 451 00:33:21.279 --> 00:33:23.599 which is how the submarine will know where the minds are, the potential minds 452 00:33:23.640 --> 00:33:28.440 are, so that that command of control is relatively straightforward. And then when 453 00:33:28.440 --> 00:33:34.359 it comes to UM like LDUV doing IPOE type missions where it's surveying to find 454 00:33:34.359 --> 00:33:37.640 where the sensors and networks are. UM, that's going to be one of 455 00:33:37.640 --> 00:33:38.960 those things where it goes out and does it and then comes back and gives 456 00:33:38.960 --> 00:33:45.720 you, you know, feedback either in during the during the operations, it 457 00:33:45.759 --> 00:33:49.200 will come up periodically and do that, or it'll hold that all and give 458 00:33:49.240 --> 00:33:52.000 it back to you when it when it returns to Calm's depth. And then 459 00:33:52.079 --> 00:33:57.079 the XLUV doing mind workfare is largely kind of a pre program things. You're 460 00:33:57.079 --> 00:33:59.200 going to tell it where to go and where to deploy the minds, and 461 00:33:59.720 --> 00:34:02.880 that's going to be done without having to further communicate with it. Now, 462 00:34:04.240 --> 00:34:06.880 these vehicles we'll all need to have the way to give way to kind of 463 00:34:06.880 --> 00:34:09.440 get back in touch with you to say something bad happened, or I ran 464 00:34:09.480 --> 00:34:14.039 into something, or so I detected something that I didn't expect out here. 465 00:34:14.519 --> 00:34:16.800 UM, And we talked about some comm schemes, uh, you know in 466 00:34:16.840 --> 00:34:20.719 there for being able to do that, but go ahead to get a question 467 00:34:25.960 --> 00:34:30.000 so to so to finish that thought, you know, in terms of the 468 00:34:30.039 --> 00:34:31.000 submarine. Then the key is will Okay, well, how do we How 469 00:34:31.039 --> 00:34:35.599 does the submarine you know, communicate back with everybody, because if it's the 470 00:34:36.280 --> 00:34:38.679 if it's the kill chain, if it's the guy with the weapon, they're 471 00:34:38.679 --> 00:34:45.119 going to depend on sensor information from either their um uvs or from some external 472 00:34:45.159 --> 00:34:47.800 queuing. So how do you get that information to the submarine. How does 473 00:34:47.800 --> 00:34:52.360 the submarine communicate back whether it's ready to launch or if it has problems with 474 00:34:52.480 --> 00:34:58.000 its you know engagements um as we talked about how three big ways to do 475 00:34:58.039 --> 00:35:00.599 that, So you'll want your two or the kind of the tried and true 476 00:35:00.599 --> 00:35:04.280 methods. So you've got you know, floating buoys of various kinds. Um. 477 00:35:04.559 --> 00:35:07.960 You know that allowed received comms and if you you know, some buoys 478 00:35:08.000 --> 00:35:12.599 can allow you to send comms because it's a data bubble, so it goes 479 00:35:12.639 --> 00:35:16.079 to the surface, transmits and then it scuttled itself. UM. Or you 480 00:35:16.079 --> 00:35:21.000 can use a toad buoy to be able to do that. It's just yellow 481 00:35:21.039 --> 00:35:23.239 more vulnerable because you're doing it from something that's clear, that's still attached to 482 00:35:23.239 --> 00:35:27.880 you, so you're still in the location where the transmissions happening. UM. 483 00:35:27.960 --> 00:35:31.079 And then we also talk about you know, laser COMSUM, you're being an 484 00:35:31.079 --> 00:35:36.320 option that's sort of now reaching maturity. UM. There's been back in the 485 00:35:36.400 --> 00:35:38.840 day, we talked a lot about using lasers to be able to pass through 486 00:35:38.880 --> 00:35:43.639 the air water interface UM, and that technology is reaching the point where it's 487 00:35:43.679 --> 00:35:46.119 actually viable to do that now. So so there's been you know, there's 488 00:35:46.159 --> 00:35:50.880 the obviously there's been decades of experiments on this so UM, so we're kind 489 00:35:50.880 --> 00:35:52.920 of at the point where those systems should be reaching maturity and we might be 490 00:35:52.920 --> 00:35:58.239 able to actually use a laser to be able to communicate between a submarine and 491 00:35:58.320 --> 00:36:01.280 things above the water UM or on the surface of the water. And then 492 00:36:01.280 --> 00:36:06.079 the last thing is acoustic comms. Obviously we use that in the past. 493 00:36:06.320 --> 00:36:09.159 The challenge here is so normally what we would do is a submarine communicate with 494 00:36:09.199 --> 00:36:15.239 a ship that's got a receiver on the hull of the ship, so you're 495 00:36:15.320 --> 00:36:20.880 able to transmit acoustic communications to the surface ship. The surface ship can then 496 00:36:20.960 --> 00:36:24.840 relay them or just hold them and that works great. But in these situations 497 00:36:24.840 --> 00:36:29.599 are unlikely to have a friendly surface ship around, so we didn't talk about 498 00:36:29.679 --> 00:36:32.440 that being one of our main communication schemes. But in areas that are not 499 00:36:32.519 --> 00:36:37.559 nearly as contested. Opposite that's befed to be one of our standbys is this 500 00:36:37.639 --> 00:36:45.880 acoustic to our f interface you get from a surface ship. Yeah, I'm 501 00:36:45.880 --> 00:36:49.760 glad you'll spend time talking about that, because one of the great, the 502 00:36:49.840 --> 00:36:54.639 great overlaps of both a critical capability and a critical vulnerability is the electromatic magnetic 503 00:36:54.679 --> 00:37:00.440 spectrum. Whether you're trying to use it or you're trying to stop some else 504 00:37:00.519 --> 00:37:04.440 from using it, it's, you know, one of those things that you 505 00:37:04.599 --> 00:37:08.079 just kind of whether it's communication or navigation, that there's a whole spectrum of 506 00:37:08.119 --> 00:37:14.159 how much it can interfere with either a specific operation or even over an entire 507 00:37:14.239 --> 00:37:17.239 operational era. And technology can help you a lot with that. But there's 508 00:37:17.639 --> 00:37:24.039 there's one area challenge, and it's it's a it's a graphic I've seen before, 509 00:37:24.239 --> 00:37:28.800 but I was so excited to see it in your in your report that 510 00:37:28.840 --> 00:37:34.000 I'm actually using it as a foundation for my u for a little article I'm 511 00:37:34.000 --> 00:37:43.079 posting tomorrow, and that has to do with the topographical map between Taiwan and 512 00:37:43.159 --> 00:37:47.199 the mainland into the north into the southwest of Taiwan. Because there's a lot 513 00:37:47.239 --> 00:37:52.880 of really important people and decision making who when they look at an ocean, 514 00:37:53.000 --> 00:37:58.599 they see water. They don't look at the fact that they're what underneath. 515 00:37:58.840 --> 00:38:06.760 When you're talking about using a again incredibly huge three billion dollars Virginia class submarine 516 00:38:06.840 --> 00:38:12.119 or or god forbid, one of our ssgns based on the Ohio in certain 517 00:38:12.199 --> 00:38:17.480 waters, or trying to have an acoustic homing torpedo in certain water shapes, 518 00:38:17.840 --> 00:38:24.960 it's a huge issue for operations and planning and talk a little bit about how 519 00:38:25.039 --> 00:38:32.239 you can see addressing that you're not going to do anything about geography that potential 520 00:38:32.360 --> 00:38:38.000 barrier, which also can be an opportunity using on manned systems. Yeah, 521 00:38:38.480 --> 00:38:44.800 that's that's a good point. So we included that because obviously it's not all 522 00:38:44.840 --> 00:38:47.960 waters equal, you know. So if you look at the Taiwan Strait um, 523 00:38:49.599 --> 00:38:52.079 lots of many parts of it are too shallow to really operate a submarine 524 00:38:52.079 --> 00:38:57.199 in without they're risking getting detected by the on the surface. Right. So, 525 00:38:57.760 --> 00:39:00.559 um, there's chunks of it that are just so shallow you'd have to 526 00:39:00.599 --> 00:39:04.079 be if you're going to be safe, uh, you know, broach to 527 00:39:04.199 --> 00:39:07.079 drive through. You know. Obviously, in more time you'd try to do 528 00:39:07.119 --> 00:39:09.719 it under water, but you'd be hard pressed to do that without risking getting 529 00:39:09.800 --> 00:39:14.559 your running up against something. So there's some pretty narrow channels. If you're 530 00:39:14.599 --> 00:39:16.159 coming in from the south, you can see on the map there's a there's 531 00:39:16.159 --> 00:39:20.239 a kind of a narrow channel next to Taiwan where you can sneak through. 532 00:39:20.760 --> 00:39:22.440 Um in that from the top, you know there's a wider area. You 533 00:39:22.519 --> 00:39:25.679 know that you can maybe get into the Taiwan straight through, but um, 534 00:39:25.760 --> 00:39:30.239 it's not that deep. And so by operating me at these shallower depths, 535 00:39:30.239 --> 00:39:34.440 you expose yourself to obviously if you broach or um. You know, if 536 00:39:34.440 --> 00:39:37.760 you are depending on the water conditions, you could sometimes even be seen. 537 00:39:37.280 --> 00:39:40.679 UM. But what it does do it makes it easier from the Chinese perspective, 538 00:39:40.719 --> 00:39:45.280 you know, where they could put minds to block off these entry points. 539 00:39:45.719 --> 00:39:50.000 UM. It also means they can concentrate their sensors and their sw forces 540 00:39:50.119 --> 00:39:52.760 that they do have against those areas. So if you want to get into 541 00:39:52.800 --> 00:39:57.639 the Taiwan strait, um you're going to have to you know, probably fight 542 00:39:57.719 --> 00:40:00.239 through you know, a pretty consumed effort on the part Chinese to prevention from 543 00:40:00.239 --> 00:40:05.239 getting in there. Um now, uh, you know, it does provide 544 00:40:05.880 --> 00:40:09.960 opportunities in terms of unmanned systems because um, you know, they you know, 545 00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:13.840 our submarines may want to stay out the outside of these areas. You 546 00:40:13.880 --> 00:40:17.159 know, we get as close as you can using the mind clearing uvs to 547 00:40:17.199 --> 00:40:21.840 be able to stand by and maybe launch some long range torpedoes and hit some 548 00:40:21.960 --> 00:40:25.440 things. Um. But um, you know, these constrained waters also give 549 00:40:25.440 --> 00:40:30.000 you a lot of opportunities for unmanned systems to go in and and be able 550 00:40:30.039 --> 00:40:35.800 to um, be able to identify target you know, ships that are crossing 551 00:40:36.480 --> 00:40:39.159 and provide that information back to the submarine. You know, so the submarine 552 00:40:39.199 --> 00:40:45.440 could even launch some you know, medium uvs out there to do sensing and 553 00:40:45.519 --> 00:40:47.599 identify where these ships are. Kind because you get they're also in a lot 554 00:40:47.639 --> 00:40:52.320 of ways constrained by these channels because some of them are so so shallow that 555 00:40:52.400 --> 00:40:55.840 you wouldn't want to take amphibious forces across it because they might run around before 556 00:40:55.840 --> 00:41:00.639 they get to the to the beach. Um. So there there are some 557 00:41:00.800 --> 00:41:04.239 you know that constraints their their freedom of movement as well, and that's something 558 00:41:04.239 --> 00:41:07.360 we could take advantage of. Putting sensors out there. Uvs or unmanned systems 559 00:41:07.360 --> 00:41:12.239 could send that information back to the submarine, and then the submarine could engage 560 00:41:12.239 --> 00:41:15.440 them with missiles if the range you know, this is longer than what a 561 00:41:15.480 --> 00:41:19.039 torpedo can hit. UM. So those are opportunities that you know, the 562 00:41:19.119 --> 00:41:22.000 US could take advantage of UM and the questions why do you get the unmanned 563 00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:24.559 systems in there? You know, some of them might come from the submarine, 564 00:41:25.159 --> 00:41:29.800 others might have to get dropped by airplanes. You could use this is 565 00:41:29.800 --> 00:41:32.239 where you could see unmanned aircraft you know, that are more expendable. I 566 00:41:32.239 --> 00:41:35.880 can m Q nine, you know, being used in this context. You 567 00:41:35.880 --> 00:41:37.199 know, even if it gets shot down, it's still you know, it 568 00:41:37.199 --> 00:41:40.920 can get its job done and come home or not come home, UM and 569 00:41:42.320 --> 00:41:45.519 serve the country. So there's UM. So there's opportunities there that you know, 570 00:41:45.559 --> 00:41:51.679 we we shouldn't consider this geography to be strictly a liability. There's ways 571 00:41:51.719 --> 00:41:54.320 that we could exploit it. Might take advantage of the fact that China is 572 00:41:54.320 --> 00:42:00.559 going to have to face the same constraints we do. The other thing I 573 00:42:00.599 --> 00:42:04.039 would say is on defense. You know, another thing is on defense. 574 00:42:04.199 --> 00:42:07.519 You know, the first island chain also presents the series of constraints to China's 575 00:42:07.559 --> 00:42:10.039 ability to get its own submarines out, so we can we can use our 576 00:42:10.119 --> 00:42:15.079 unmanned systems to monitor those areas as well. So sorry, the one that's 577 00:42:15.119 --> 00:42:19.840 all right, I was looking at I was looking at the use of lpds 578 00:42:19.960 --> 00:42:25.360 as motherships for um both UUVs and us vs. Can you kind of talk 579 00:42:25.400 --> 00:42:30.599 about that? Why? Why that platform? And have we ever tried that 580 00:42:30.760 --> 00:42:37.559 using any of these unmanned assets? Yeah? Yeah, so, UM, 581 00:42:37.880 --> 00:42:42.920 with the the LDUV in particular, you know, the deployment mechanism was the 582 00:42:42.960 --> 00:42:45.159 thing that kept the Navy from being able to really continue the testing program that 583 00:42:45.199 --> 00:42:47.960 would have allowed the program to continue. That was that was one of the 584 00:42:47.960 --> 00:42:52.960 big hindrances. UM. So coming up with a different deployment scheme was essential 585 00:42:52.000 --> 00:42:55.639 to being able to have that platform out there, which we saw as being 586 00:42:55.679 --> 00:43:01.199 kind of the key capability for doing the intelligence operation part of the connops. 587 00:43:01.760 --> 00:43:05.639 UM. So we looked around, So, okay, well who's actually looked 588 00:43:05.639 --> 00:43:07.840 at how to do this? And it turns out that, you know, 589 00:43:07.880 --> 00:43:13.480 the amphibious community has already done some of these tests where they've deployed ubs out 590 00:43:13.519 --> 00:43:17.400 of the back in USBs out the back of lpds or lsds. So both 591 00:43:17.400 --> 00:43:22.719 the venues UM and the idea there is you know they obviously you've got a 592 00:43:22.719 --> 00:43:24.039 lot of capacity, UM, so you can carry a lot of them. 593 00:43:24.039 --> 00:43:27.880 And so when you get to not so much the LDUV, which is probably 594 00:43:28.000 --> 00:43:30.679 expensive and you don't have a huge number of them, but if you want 595 00:43:30.679 --> 00:43:34.320 to launch a large number of medium or small ubs that are going to go 596 00:43:34.360 --> 00:43:37.320 out and do you know a decoy mission or stand by to do a decoymission 597 00:43:37.960 --> 00:43:43.320 or a jamming mission. UM. You know that's that's probably the platform you'd 598 00:43:43.320 --> 00:43:46.480 want to use to most most efficiently get them out there. UM. And 599 00:43:46.719 --> 00:43:51.039 uh, you know, depending on obviously where we are in the conflict. 600 00:43:51.119 --> 00:43:53.519 If if it's early, um, the LPD could drive in and just drive 601 00:43:53.559 --> 00:43:59.000 out UM. And it's you know, more defendable than you're you know that 602 00:43:59.119 --> 00:44:04.039 a civilianship would clearly UM. And if you need to get something in faster 603 00:44:04.360 --> 00:44:07.400 or deeper, then you might go with an unmanned aircraft you know that'll that'll 604 00:44:07.440 --> 00:44:13.559 deploy these uvs UM and then you know risk you're getting shot down along the 605 00:44:13.599 --> 00:44:17.239 way. But the LPD was really attractive because um, you want to give 606 00:44:17.320 --> 00:44:22.960 you this capacity, UM. You know in two it's it's available. They 607 00:44:22.039 --> 00:44:25.840 operate out there pretty routinely UM. And if you want to do it clandestinely, 608 00:44:25.960 --> 00:44:31.000 they could do it without raising attention because they're out there operating, doing 609 00:44:31.039 --> 00:44:35.559 exercises on a routine basis already, so it's not like it would draw any 610 00:44:35.760 --> 00:44:38.960 and do attention to itself. UM. And then you know the other thing 611 00:44:39.039 --> 00:44:40.840 is, you know, in the you know, if we are in a 612 00:44:40.920 --> 00:44:45.480 situation where we're kind of in the you lead up to some kind of confrontation 613 00:44:45.559 --> 00:44:50.920 over Taiwan, UM, you'd have marine latorre regiments moving around inside the first 614 00:44:50.920 --> 00:44:53.320 style and chain. UM. Most of their gear would already be ashore though, 615 00:44:53.440 --> 00:44:58.079 so you know, they'll be spaced on the LPD to to carry additional 616 00:44:58.159 --> 00:45:00.960 unmanned systems um so and it would be operating this area, so it'd be 617 00:45:01.000 --> 00:45:05.480 able to deploy some new systems into choke points along the FIR style and chains. 618 00:45:05.519 --> 00:45:12.119 Those uvs could begin start positioning themselves in preparation for future operations where they 619 00:45:12.119 --> 00:45:15.159 get passed to begin decoin or jamming. UM. And then last thing is 620 00:45:15.320 --> 00:45:21.559 we did a naval aviation study last year that we talked about UM and in 621 00:45:21.599 --> 00:45:23.679 that Naval Aviation study we identified that, you know, we thought the LPD 622 00:45:23.800 --> 00:45:30.239 was actually a good platform to deploy some of these runway independent UAVs like them 623 00:45:30.639 --> 00:45:36.280 like the Valkyrie, like the u TAP up twenty two. So some of 624 00:45:36.280 --> 00:45:39.039 these platforms that the Skyboard program and that the Air Force has been looking at 625 00:45:39.079 --> 00:45:44.079 that that don't require a runway, that use rocket assisted launch or just you 626 00:45:44.119 --> 00:45:50.000 know, launched themselves off of a deck. UM those LPs are very useful 627 00:45:50.039 --> 00:45:52.880 for that because it takes that pressure off of the aircraft carrier and gets those 628 00:45:52.960 --> 00:45:57.199 vehicles that are pretty long range you go into the fight. So we saw 629 00:45:57.239 --> 00:46:00.159 the LPD as being really useful in terms of it being able to unmanned system 630 00:46:00.239 --> 00:46:07.599 deployment platform or a dog friendly program. So it's good to see that we 631 00:46:07.639 --> 00:46:15.199 have the Park family in the conversation. Exactly right. I'm really glad we've 632 00:46:15.239 --> 00:46:21.280 bounced into that because that's a again, I think it's bigger eighteen or so. 633 00:46:21.639 --> 00:46:27.199 In the document, it's a great diagram of the LPD seventeens class and 634 00:46:27.360 --> 00:46:34.559 really all quote amphibious unquote ships, their flexibility whether we're talking about and we've 635 00:46:34.599 --> 00:46:38.880 talked about this before on mid rats Is. I think that the Navy and 636 00:46:39.280 --> 00:46:46.119 it's Marine Corps friends would kind of have a marketing issue with our again amphibious 637 00:46:46.159 --> 00:46:54.519 unquote ship. They're really multi used vehicles from humanitarian assistants to disaster response all 638 00:46:54.559 --> 00:47:00.840 the way up to major combat and they are a you know here is space 639 00:47:01.000 --> 00:47:06.519 insert which you know, one of the reasons of the two LCS variants the 640 00:47:06.679 --> 00:47:10.880 independence the two class. There's a lot of square footage there that you can 641 00:47:10.920 --> 00:47:15.239 put things in and do things with that whatever the future decides you need, 642 00:47:15.599 --> 00:47:22.360 you have some capability there. But you also mentioned in the article about other 643 00:47:22.440 --> 00:47:30.719 ways that we cannot just deploy but maintain, refuel and rearm unmanned systems at 644 00:47:30.760 --> 00:47:36.639 C included the Navajo class tugs, the Salvage ships that we have coming up, 645 00:47:36.639 --> 00:47:43.079 and also some of the next generation logistics ships and all of those in 646 00:47:43.119 --> 00:47:49.480 twenty twenty three our USNS ships, whereas especially the your fleet tugs used to 647 00:47:49.519 --> 00:47:53.079 be USS. Our Stalavash ships were USS. And I know we have Lee 648 00:47:53.159 --> 00:47:59.360 and our couple of our buddies there who really know this well chat room that 649 00:48:00.320 --> 00:48:07.559 USNS does have lots of advantages at peace but in a transition to war in 650 00:48:07.599 --> 00:48:13.599 the immediate period after the war, is you transition or ramp up that also 651 00:48:13.679 --> 00:48:17.280 brings with us some wartime limitations. I wonder if you'll had a chance to 652 00:48:17.320 --> 00:48:23.599 talk to anybody about if we're going to find utility and having these ships having 653 00:48:23.639 --> 00:48:30.239 this additional mission set, that we need to perhaps look back at the decision 654 00:48:30.760 --> 00:48:36.280 that had to scope from USS to USNS to maybe moving a few back to 655 00:48:36.800 --> 00:48:42.159 USS and the advantages that will bring with it. Yeah, I'm glad you 656 00:48:42.199 --> 00:48:45.679 brought that up. So so Tim and I talked about that, and we 657 00:48:45.960 --> 00:48:47.800 u agreed that, you know, one of the things we'll have to look 658 00:48:47.840 --> 00:48:52.719 at is transitioning some of these ships then, but mainly because they're going to 659 00:48:52.800 --> 00:48:54.760 have other jobs to do. Right so, in peacetime you could see them 660 00:48:54.800 --> 00:48:59.639 being used, you know, you could see lpds and these UM it was 661 00:48:59.880 --> 00:49:07.119 a support ships being employed to be launching unmanned vehicles to support UM survey operations. 662 00:49:07.159 --> 00:49:12.119 You know, even some kind of information information operations type actions where I'd 663 00:49:12.159 --> 00:49:15.159 want to put decoys and jammers out there in peacetime to sort of start habituating 664 00:49:15.199 --> 00:49:19.400 the Chinese. Is to certain con opts that we may or may not use 665 00:49:19.440 --> 00:49:22.119 in wartime. So you could see these vessels being used in peacetime to you 666 00:49:22.159 --> 00:49:28.119 know, kind of keep the unmanned fleet UM you know at sea and as 667 00:49:28.159 --> 00:49:31.800 well as supporting it and refueling and repairing UM. But then when you get 668 00:49:31.840 --> 00:49:36.320 into wartime, we are Our thought was, well, most of these vehicles, 669 00:49:36.840 --> 00:49:40.119 these bussels are going to need to be supporting actual salvage and repair operations 670 00:49:40.119 --> 00:49:45.159 and towing operations, so they probably wouldn't be available to support UM uvs once 671 00:49:45.280 --> 00:49:49.519 that picked up. But we would see like the EPFs, you know, 672 00:49:49.559 --> 00:49:52.719 maybe get pulled into service to help support uvs, and certainly the lpds might 673 00:49:52.719 --> 00:49:59.000 get pulled into support you know, either u refueling, recharging, repair UM. 674 00:49:59.320 --> 00:50:00.440 And I think you know that gets into the same problem though, is 675 00:50:00.519 --> 00:50:04.840 you know, our our EPFs are US and as ships, you know, 676 00:50:04.880 --> 00:50:07.480 they're likely to you know, be put into some kind of wartime service and 677 00:50:07.559 --> 00:50:10.639 the Navy is going to have to think about for all these classes of ships, 678 00:50:10.679 --> 00:50:15.440 what are the puts the contingency that allows us to continue using them in 679 00:50:15.480 --> 00:50:19.960 a contested environment, you know, because even outside the first island chain, 680 00:50:20.039 --> 00:50:22.360 you know that we're talking about here that's going to be a very contested area 681 00:50:22.559 --> 00:50:27.239 in a war with China. Um. Yeah, you may not be getting 682 00:50:27.360 --> 00:50:29.920 you know, shot at nearly as much as inside the first island chain, 683 00:50:29.960 --> 00:50:32.079 but it's still going to be very difficult. And so I think, you 684 00:50:32.119 --> 00:50:35.280 know, we got to start thinking about how do we what's our plan? 685 00:50:35.480 --> 00:50:37.440 You know, either we need to transition them now or we need to have 686 00:50:37.480 --> 00:50:43.599 a mechanism by which we're going to transition these ships over to USSUM and the 687 00:50:43.639 --> 00:50:46.920 time to do it is probably not in the breach UM. And then, 688 00:50:47.119 --> 00:50:52.960 um, you know, the last thing I would say is this is a 689 00:50:52.360 --> 00:50:55.559 part of our the argument that we are going to make it and that we 690 00:50:55.679 --> 00:51:00.719 sort of implied with this report is Um, these ships are relatively inexpensive, 691 00:51:00.840 --> 00:51:02.239 you know, and they can get they get bought on the edges of the 692 00:51:02.239 --> 00:51:07.280 ship building plan. So as we saw Congress just or with the Navy added 693 00:51:07.320 --> 00:51:10.800 a subtender or a celebrated a subtender this last year in the budget, um, 694 00:51:10.880 --> 00:51:15.119 a lot of times Congress will add these ships in additional anthem givesion give 695 00:51:15.159 --> 00:51:19.400 the Navy an extra one. Um, because they're sort of there's they're cheap 696 00:51:19.480 --> 00:51:22.039 enough to where you can sort of plug them, you know, where there's 697 00:51:22.039 --> 00:51:24.360 some additional money for ship building available. And this would be an argument for 698 00:51:24.400 --> 00:51:28.480 why you'd want to do that is because I need the capacity to be able 699 00:51:28.519 --> 00:51:32.519 to sustain an unmanned fleet that I might find is you know essential you know, 700 00:51:32.519 --> 00:51:36.960 to keep our submarines you know, in the fight. Um. And 701 00:51:36.960 --> 00:51:39.440 then also you know, take over some emissions the submarines can't be expected to 702 00:51:39.480 --> 00:51:43.840 do because it's got a limited number of them. They got to focus on 703 00:51:43.880 --> 00:51:49.000 those higher you know, the higher purpose that they have in these wartime environments. 704 00:51:49.000 --> 00:51:51.519 So so to me, it has another argument for why we need to 705 00:51:51.519 --> 00:51:54.199 be buying these ships in volume and why you know, you'd never won necessarily 706 00:51:54.480 --> 00:52:00.360 stop buying a logistics ship or a support ship until you absolutely, you know, 707 00:52:00.440 --> 00:52:05.159 feel like you maxed out your capacity, because you can always use them. 708 00:52:05.599 --> 00:52:12.559 Um. And this is one of the applications. Let's let's talk a 709 00:52:12.559 --> 00:52:21.119 little bit about the the proposed sn ss n X and uh what you see 710 00:52:21.119 --> 00:52:27.199 the need for its design to be. You've got some interesting proposals on horizontally 711 00:52:27.239 --> 00:52:30.719 launch stuff and things like that. Yeah, so, um, you know, 712 00:52:30.760 --> 00:52:34.840 the Virginia Class Block five, which is the current block and then the 713 00:52:34.840 --> 00:52:37.360 Block six which will come after it, are going to carry the Virginia payload 714 00:52:37.400 --> 00:52:42.199 module most of them will UM, which gives you a lot of vertical launch 715 00:52:42.239 --> 00:52:45.840 capacity UM, which I think you know, the Navy is realizing, is 716 00:52:46.119 --> 00:52:51.000 you know, limited or decreasing utility, right because one of the problems we're 717 00:52:51.000 --> 00:52:52.880 going to have in wartime is if I'm going to do a bunch of missile 718 00:52:52.920 --> 00:52:58.920 launches from submarines, it's going to make them detectable. Um. And do 719 00:52:58.960 --> 00:53:05.119 we want to optimize the ship for that vertical capacity when its utility in wartime 720 00:53:05.320 --> 00:53:09.400 is going to be decreasing as our opponents get better and I submaring warfare capabilities, 721 00:53:09.920 --> 00:53:13.079 um. You know. And the Navy is already having to think about 722 00:53:13.119 --> 00:53:17.000 where we actually deploy Block five ss ns in the conflict with China because I 723 00:53:17.000 --> 00:53:22.280 don't necessarily want them that close because they're going to be more easily counterattacked with 724 00:53:22.400 --> 00:53:25.599 your counter battery fire essentially, you know, so I could put them farther 725 00:53:25.679 --> 00:53:30.400 out and take advantage of the range of these weapons. UM. So the 726 00:53:30.679 --> 00:53:34.159 question is, well, this is more of a standoff you know, weapons 727 00:53:34.199 --> 00:53:37.159 capacity, you know, that kind of like I do with the SSGNS. 728 00:53:37.239 --> 00:53:40.400 I don't necessarily want my entire fleet to be focused on my submarine fleet to 729 00:53:40.400 --> 00:53:44.960 be focused on vertical capacity. UM and we found, as just as we 730 00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:49.599 see in the study, that horizonic capacity to deploy uvs is much more valuable 731 00:53:49.599 --> 00:53:52.800 because those ubs are going to be what helps the submarine to be able to 732 00:53:52.800 --> 00:53:54.960 get into the places where it's effective. UM and it's going to need the 733 00:53:55.000 --> 00:54:00.239 horizonic capacity for torpedoes because that's about the one capable ality that we've got that's 734 00:54:00.280 --> 00:54:05.000 really very hard to defend against. Right we know from having to do torpedo 735 00:54:05.039 --> 00:54:07.599 defense, that's extremely difficult to counter a torpedo once it's you've got a hold 736 00:54:07.639 --> 00:54:13.199 on you. So so torpedoes are still a very effective weapon, but you've 737 00:54:13.199 --> 00:54:15.280 got to be able to getting close enough to use them, which means you 738 00:54:15.280 --> 00:54:21.079 need UUVs to be able to start creating the um the deception and the and 739 00:54:21.159 --> 00:54:27.079 the countermeasure campaign that prevents you from being detected even after you've launched. UM. 740 00:54:27.360 --> 00:54:30.320 So, so that horizontal capacity ends being essential for both weapons and for 741 00:54:30.360 --> 00:54:34.760 these countermeasures. UM And then you know, the last thing I'd say is 742 00:54:34.880 --> 00:54:37.960 one thing we found to say we should talk about in there is the one 743 00:54:37.000 --> 00:54:42.159 way to mitigating the vulnerability of submarines to being detected when they launch weapons is 744 00:54:42.199 --> 00:54:45.440 to do essentially delayed launches. So you deploy a weapon, it's in a 745 00:54:45.480 --> 00:54:50.599 capsule, it hangs around, and you leave, and then then at some 746 00:54:50.679 --> 00:54:54.079 time delay or on an acoustic signal, the canister launches the weapon, whether 747 00:54:54.079 --> 00:54:58.159 it's a missile it's floating on the surface, or it's a torpedo that's being 748 00:54:58.199 --> 00:55:00.280 launched out of the canister that was floating, you know, mutually blind in 749 00:55:00.360 --> 00:55:05.719 the water column. So that you're we're gonna have to That's something the Navy 750 00:55:05.760 --> 00:55:07.000 is going to have to do is think more and more about how to use 751 00:55:07.000 --> 00:55:13.119 these encapsulated weapons. And if you're gonna use an encapsulated weapon, well then 752 00:55:13.280 --> 00:55:16.239 horizontal capacity is as good as vertical capacity because all you need to do is 753 00:55:16.239 --> 00:55:20.119 get the weapon out or either it's close to the surface if it's a missile, 754 00:55:20.280 --> 00:55:22.360 or it stays in the water if it's a torpedo, so the vertical 755 00:55:22.440 --> 00:55:27.239 capacity is less essential. You know, if you're looking at using encapsulated weapons, 756 00:55:29.960 --> 00:55:31.559 well, hopefully if they design it, they'll do a better job than 757 00:55:31.599 --> 00:55:37.400 they did with the torpedo launched he lambs from a d lam days. We 758 00:55:37.920 --> 00:55:42.360 Yeah, you make sure and have your back up and ready spare if the 759 00:55:42.440 --> 00:55:45.519 primary mission is coming out of the tube. Right. In a lot of 760 00:55:45.519 --> 00:55:51.880 different conversations, when when it comes to trying to figure out what China is 761 00:55:51.960 --> 00:55:55.800 doing and why they're doing it, it quickly becomes apparent to Chinese they're good 762 00:55:55.840 --> 00:56:01.079 at it's studying military history. They get there, they get their lessons well, 763 00:56:01.119 --> 00:56:05.880 and you can see, Okay, they've obviously studied X, that's why 764 00:56:05.920 --> 00:56:12.599 they're doing why And y'all did a nice job in bringing out something I haven't 765 00:56:12.599 --> 00:56:19.400 seen shown well before like y'all did here, is there are some significant lessons 766 00:56:19.440 --> 00:56:25.400 that the People's Republic that China can take from the US and LLI battle the 767 00:56:25.440 --> 00:56:30.559 Atlantic against U boats, but switching the sides, we're now we're the submarine 768 00:56:30.559 --> 00:56:36.599 force and they're the defending force. Outline some of those bold faced items you 769 00:56:36.679 --> 00:56:39.639 think definitely applied to today that we're learned in the Battle of the Atlantic. 770 00:56:42.440 --> 00:56:45.920 Yeah. So the one thing we found we did we did a study a 771 00:56:45.920 --> 00:56:50.000 couple of years ago for DARPA where they wanted us to look at historical battle 772 00:56:50.000 --> 00:56:53.639 network competitions and use real data to kind of draw some insights as opposed to 773 00:56:54.000 --> 00:56:58.440 historical anecdote. So in this study we found, you know, the data 774 00:56:58.480 --> 00:57:01.960 shows that in the Battle of the Atlantic, you know that the shipping losses 775 00:57:02.000 --> 00:57:07.280 went down even though submarines were still out there so late in the war or 776 00:57:07.679 --> 00:57:10.199 in the middle of the war on so forty three and on, shipping losses 777 00:57:10.199 --> 00:57:14.960 went down to practically zero in the Battle of the Atlantic, but there were 778 00:57:15.000 --> 00:57:19.760 still more submarines out there, twenty thirty forty submarines on patrol. Then there's 779 00:57:19.800 --> 00:57:22.199 more. There were more submarines than early in the war when shipping losses were 780 00:57:22.280 --> 00:57:27.679 huge. And the questions, well, why is that we are what's what's 781 00:57:27.679 --> 00:57:30.119 happened that's happening here? Well, the problem, the problem for the U 782 00:57:30.199 --> 00:57:35.079 boats was our ASW capacity had grown, and so what our asw forces were 783 00:57:35.079 --> 00:57:38.960 doing were just forcing the submarines to move away because they wanted to avoid getting 784 00:57:39.000 --> 00:57:44.239 shot. And because the ASW forces could range a little bit farther away from 785 00:57:44.239 --> 00:57:46.119 the convoys, the submarines had to stay far enough the way where they really 786 00:57:46.119 --> 00:57:50.360 couldn't get a good shot in the convoy, and the convoy made made its 787 00:57:50.360 --> 00:57:53.320 way by before the submarine was able to catch back up. So submarines were 788 00:57:53.360 --> 00:57:59.039 being suppressed but not actually getting killed. And we even though lots of submarines 789 00:57:59.079 --> 00:58:01.440 were lost during the Battle of the Atlantic, what you found is, you 790 00:58:01.480 --> 00:58:06.280 know, late in the war they were just sort of marginalized as opposed to 791 00:58:06.280 --> 00:58:10.360 being an effective contributor to the German access part of the fight. That the 792 00:58:10.639 --> 00:58:14.960 Chinese could take a similar approach and say, all I need to do is 793 00:58:15.000 --> 00:58:17.239 suppressed and marginalize the submarine. I don't actually need to kill it. So 794 00:58:17.280 --> 00:58:22.719 once you if you're a submariner, if you're a submarine and you've been counterdetected, 795 00:58:22.039 --> 00:58:25.760 normally you'd want to leave and try to regain yourself. But let's say 796 00:58:25.760 --> 00:58:30.519 you want to stay because you've got a mission to do. Well, once 797 00:58:30.559 --> 00:58:35.719 you start getting shot at, you can't necessarily stand and fight like a surface 798 00:58:35.760 --> 00:58:38.159 ship. Might you know where you've got air defenses and stuff that you could 799 00:58:38.239 --> 00:58:40.480 use to shoot back and weapons that are coming at you. You don't have 800 00:58:40.519 --> 00:58:45.199 a lot of counter torpedo torpedo defenses, if any, on a submarine, 801 00:58:45.239 --> 00:58:47.559 So you start getting shot at with torpedoes, you have to leave. In 802 00:58:47.639 --> 00:58:52.599 evade or hope for the best and hope that nobody hits you. So it 803 00:58:52.599 --> 00:58:58.400 wouldn't be hard for the Chinese to simply start dropping weapons on every potential submarine 804 00:58:58.400 --> 00:59:01.039 contact in an effort to force the submarines to abate, and either they get 805 00:59:01.039 --> 00:59:06.559 detected because they're now running around at high speed, or they've been taken out 806 00:59:06.599 --> 00:59:08.199 of the fight because you're not able to do your job if you're running around 807 00:59:08.199 --> 00:59:12.920 debating torpedoes all day, and so you've been suppressed, you know, so 808 00:59:12.960 --> 00:59:16.159 the submarines are effectively out of the fight, and the Chinese didn't have to 809 00:59:16.280 --> 00:59:21.440 mount a bike asw campaign. Now. One of the ways you avoid that 810 00:59:21.840 --> 00:59:22.880 is you put a lot of decoys in the water, You put a lot 811 00:59:22.880 --> 00:59:27.159 of alternative contacts in the water, and eventually the Chinese get to the point 812 00:59:27.199 --> 00:59:30.800 where they can't launch weapons at every potential submarine they're they're forced to pick and 813 00:59:30.920 --> 00:59:34.400 choose, and you try to make it as hard as possible for them to 814 00:59:34.480 --> 00:59:37.280 choose right the right target. And that's kind of the scheme that you know, 815 00:59:37.320 --> 00:59:42.519 we're trying to set up, is create that confusion on the sensing and 816 00:59:42.599 --> 00:59:45.599 sense making side so that we can allow the submarines to get in there and 817 00:59:45.639 --> 00:59:49.079 be able to do their job. The other thing, though, is when 818 00:59:49.079 --> 00:59:52.760 you look at you know SSNX design or even modifications in the Prsuinia class, 819 00:59:53.159 --> 00:59:57.840 you'd want to put more sulf defenses on them, so submarines could in theory 820 00:59:58.000 --> 01:00:00.880 stand in fight they start getting shot at, maybe you can take out the 821 01:00:00.880 --> 01:00:05.280 first couple of torpedoes or at least the commander feels competent remaining in the area 822 01:00:05.440 --> 01:00:10.599 even after they've been counterdetected and minimizes that suppression that the Chinese might be able 823 01:00:10.639 --> 01:00:20.199 to be able to execute. Well, I'm going back to my pistol shrimp 824 01:00:21.760 --> 01:00:25.639 noisemakers to help solve the problem. You've been a great You've been a great 825 01:00:25.920 --> 01:00:30.639 as we've we've taken up an hour of your time. And before we let 826 01:00:30.639 --> 01:00:32.519 you go, what's you're working on and what we look forward to seeing from 827 01:00:32.559 --> 01:00:37.719 you? And where can people find it? Yeah, they can find all 828 01:00:37.760 --> 01:00:39.519 of our stuff on the Hudson website, so at Hudson dot org. Oh 829 01:00:39.559 --> 01:00:44.920 and they set up a Twitter account for me. So there's a Twitter account 830 01:00:44.920 --> 01:00:46.679 at CARC Defense that you can look at that. I think all of our 831 01:00:46.719 --> 01:00:52.119 stuff's posted on and then working on right now is we are finishing up a 832 01:00:52.159 --> 01:00:57.639 study for the Navy on unmanned system development that we're getting ready to release next 833 01:00:57.679 --> 01:01:02.559 month, so it'll be out in July. Perfect. As always, you'll 834 01:01:02.599 --> 01:01:07.840 produce quality content and we look forward to seeing it. And I really do 835 01:01:07.920 --> 01:01:10.960 appreciate you join us today, Brian, that was great beer. Sound great 836 01:01:10.960 --> 01:01:14.360 to be your evil one. Thanks for taking the time and have me on 837 01:01:15.960 --> 01:01:20.440 again. Thanks a lot for being here, and thank you everybody for joining 838 01:01:20.480 --> 01:01:22.840 us for another edition in the rats until next time. I hope you have 839 01:01:22.960 --> 01:01:42.400 a great Navy day. Cheers to marry me. I'm a belief all your 840 01:01:42.480 --> 01:01:52.199 being to blame, love me city, holding you all the same. It's 841 01:01:52.239 --> 01:02:04.480 a long way, it's a long way. It's a long way to differany 842 01:02:05.400 --> 01:02:17.000 to the greed that I know, don't b Becodilly Well left Atwell. It's 843 01:02:17.039 --> 01:02:22.159 a long long way to differ it. But my mind