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SEAWOLF
at SEA
Skipper Reviews First Deployment of the Navy’s Newest Submarine Class
by JOC Michael Foutch,
USN
The skipper of the
Navy's most advanced undersea warfighting platform, USS Seawolf
(SSN-21), told an audience of submarine community supporters how
his ship's performance on her inaugural deployment set a
"solid demonstration for any class of submarine for years
to come."
CDR Butch Howard, the Commanding Officer of Seawolf, spoke at the spring luncheon meeting of the Naval Submarine League's Washington DC Capitol Chapter on 17 April at Fort Myer, Virginia. The 20-year Navy veteran and graduate of Auburn University led Seawolf on a six-month, 33,200-mile deployment that concluded with the ship's return in December to her homeport of New London, Connecticut.
Designed to be the world's quietest submarine, Seawolf is reportedly less detectable at high speed than a Los Angeles-class submarine at the pier. Advanced weaponry and new tactical capabilities and communications, combined with an increased weapons load of Mk 48 ADCAP torpedoes, and Tomahawk cruise missiles, allow Seawolf to operate from under arctic ice to shallow water close to shore. A special addition, CDR Howard noted, was the computer-driven autopilot helm, which keeps the ship maintained at a level depth "in some cases better than the helmsman can. This thing is a Ferrari."
After a period of post-construction testing, additional modifications, and depot level repairs, Seawolf departed in June on her first deployment. She sailed with a relatively inexperienced crew - 11 of her 14 officers and 65 percent of the enlisted Sailors would deploy for the first time in their careers on what would prove to be a multi-theater and multi-mission assignment.
Pre-deployment workups for Seawolf prepared the ship for independent operations in the North Atlantic to test the crew's ability to use multiple sensors and to train on the tasks of undersea and surface warfare and intelligence gathering. The plan for the second half of the deployment, although unknown at the time of departure, was to support carrier battle group operations in the Mediterranean Sea. This turned out to be a unique and exciting opportunity. The ship would need to adjust to a tactical and philosophical approach quite different from that of independent operations, and even the skipper confessed his own lack of battle group experience. But events across the Atlantic Ocean scuttled those plans.
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The terrorist attacks of 11 September forced an early underway from a planned upkeep in Faslane, Scotland and accelerated the submarine's passage through the Straits of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea. Because of the nature of submarine operations, "we had extremely limited access to events in real time and actually wouldn't hear much of the details until days later - and we would not see any news coverage for weeks," CDR Howard said. Crew emotions, he added, "were all over the map. Our country had been attacked, yet we were in a great position to do something about it. We were able to get word quickly that our families and friends, many of them New Yorkers and many of them working in the Pentagon, had avoided the terrible attack. Trust me, it did not take much to get the crew excited about going back to sea again."
The ship sortied from Scotland, moved halfway back to the East Coast to await the arrival of the USS Theodore Roosevelt battle group, and earned a certification to conduct strike operations. Soon after, urgent orders sent the submarine directly to the Mediterranean to increase the number of Tomahawks and launch platforms in the theater of operations.
"There is no other submarine in the Navy, and few surface ships, for that matter, that can cover as many miles as we did in the limited time it took," CDR Howard said. "We went halfway across the Atlantic in about 48 hours," even as Seawolf maintained robust battle group communications and ran propulsion-limiting casualty drills.
As Seawolf waited for potential orders for Operation Enduring Freedom, while additionally providing support to the Theodore Roosevelt Battle Group, she played a role in her first NATO exercise, Destined Glory 2001. The ship enjoyed a chance to test its stealth abilities against a NATO force diesel submarine, closing to extremely close range before Seawolf "lit her up with active sonar to make the most of the training period." The submarine also got valuable contact-management team training at Gibraltar, with at least 30 additional warships adding to the tight traffic in the busy doorway to the Mediterranean.
Seawolf later met up for the first time with the submarine tender USS Emory S. Land (AS-39) in La Maddalena, Italy, to trade some of the submarine's torpedo payload for cruise missiles, take on another 60 days' worth of food, and conduct minor voyage repairs. Then she set off to use her exceptional stealth and agility in support of the war on terrorism.
CDR Howard was proud of the fact that despite her new design, Seawolf sent out fewer casualty reports for material failures during 2001 than "the average boat on the waterfront." The skipper explained that the ship makes maximum use of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) equipment, a key principle of the Submarine Force's modernization plan, and that the few material problems discovered during this deployment would help determine maintenance and spare-part requirements for future operations of his ship and the other two Seawolf-class submarines. The true impact of the cruise, the Seawolf CO said, is how the ship "delivered on the Submarine Force's new message of plug-and-fight, multi-mission capability," including independent and battle group operations in two global theaters.
Seawolf's skipper told the audience that one side effect of having a small class of submarines was insufficient pre-deployment logistical support; Seawolf's crew and the New London repair activities spent thousands of man-hours in planning for the potential need of critical parts to meet the deployment schedule. CDR Howard said he was told if he could simply keep the ship away from its Groton homeport for six months without returning for more repairs, the deployment would be considered a success, "no matter what we did tactically," he said. "We did that and more, and the outstanding material condition of the ship throughout the deployment was largely due to the supreme efforts of the New London waterfront."
Hosting this event is one way the Naval Submarine League promotes the importance of submarines to national security and serves as an independent authority on undersea warfare for the public and influential opinion leaders. NSL invited CDR Howard to speak at their spring luncheon on the details of Seawolf's first deployment.
JOC Foutch is a Military Editor for UNDERSEA WARFARE Magazine.