Power Play

CHAPTER 9 NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND

Founded in 1639 on Aquidneck Island, Newport is known for the “Summer White Houses” used by Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy. By the turn of the twentieth century, the seaside resort had become the summer playground of American’s wealthiest families, including the Vanderbilts, Astors, and Morgans, who resided for the brief summer social season in grand, gilded mansions. Newport is also the site of one of America’s two Naval Undersea Warfare Centers. NUWC Division Newport is the Navy’s premier research, development, and test center for warfare systems associated with the undersea battlespace. With an uninterrupted lineage dating back to the establishment of the Naval Torpedo Station on Goat Island in 1869, Newport was where Russia’s newest heavyweight torpedo arrived late last night.

Tony DelGreco entered the secure bay in building 1319, passing through the security checkpoints. It was only 7 a.m., but the bay was full of technicians taking photographs and disassembling the Russian torpedo. The nose array at the front of the weapon was almost a complete loss, having been crushed when the torpedo ran into the Russian submarine. However, the transducer elements, which generated the sonar ping and received the returns, could be salvaged and analyzed to determine if a breakthrough had been achieved either in signal strength or fidelity. The rest of the torpedo, aside from the guidance and control section aft of the nose array, which had flooded with seawater, was in excellent condition.

Technicians were busy inspecting engine and warhead parts while electrical engineers were reconditioning the microprocessor circuit cards, rinsing the saltwater deposits away with deionized water, after which the cards would be thoroughly dried prior to energizing them. Hopefully, the torpedo’s power system had shut down quickly enough after impact so that the electrical circuits hadn’t been damaged when the guidance and control section flooded.

DelGreco stopped by the lead mechanical engineer, who was supervising engine disassembly.

“What have you got?”

John Hinves shrugged his shoulders. “Looks no different than the last Type 53 torpedo we examined. There’s been no discernible modification to the engine or fuel system. It’ll have the same top speed as previous Type 53 torpedoes.”

That wasn’t a surprise. Russian and American torpedoes used proven engines designed in the late twentieth century. Torpedoes needed fuel that didn’t require oxygen, while generating sufficient power for the high-performance engine — the equivalent of a Formula F1 race car engine packed into a twenty-one-inch-diameter shell.

DelGreco moved on to the electrical engineers, who were placing the circuit cards in drying ovens after cleaning. Torpedo advances over the last few decades had occurred primarily in the guidance and control section, as the introduction of faster microprocessors and advanced algorithms led to enormous improvements in torpedo capabilities.

DelGreco asked Dave Reynolds, overseeing the circuit card effort. “Got anything?”

“Not yet. The design looks similar, but there’s no telling what algorithms are loaded on the cards. We should be able to reassemble and power up the guidance and control section tomorrow, then slave it to the WAF and run it through attack simulations,” Reynolds said, referring to the Weapons Analysis Facility used to test new U.S. torpedo algorithms in various simulated attack scenarios.

Finally, DelGreco stopped by Gino Cerbarano, overseeing disassembly of the torpedo warhead, which was a rare find in an exercise torpedo, since the warhead was usually replaced with an exercise section containing safety settings and data recorders. This set-to-hit torpedo contained a dummy warhead, which, contrary to its name, was the third section instead of being located at the head of the torpedo. It contained no explosive, but all of the required electronics. Cerbarano’s team was removing the exploder and arming device, which would then be inspected along with the sensors in the warhead shell, looking for design improvements. The response from Cerbarano was similar.

“They’re the same components. No change to the sensors. We’ll know more after we disassemble the exploder and arming device, but it’s unlikely there are any notable improvements. They’re pretty simple devices. Detonate when they’re instructed to, and prevent detonation otherwise.”

DelGreco surveyed the men and women working diligently in the secure bay, his eyes shifting back to the circuit cards. The improvements were undoubtedly new software algorithms, enabling the torpedo to see farther or better discern the target from sonar reflections off the surface and bottom. As he awaited the test results from the WAF, DelGreco wondered what the intelligence agencies had determined regarding Russia’s newest torpedo.