Submarine: A Guided Tour Inside a Nuclear Warship

Introduction

Submarine. The very word implies stealth and deadliness. Of all the conventional weapons used by the world's armed forces these days, none is more effective or dangerous than the nuclear attack submarine (SSN). Since its creation in the United States some forty years ago, the SSN has become the most feared weapon in the oceans of the world. The modern SSN is a stealth platform with 70 percent of the world's surface under which to hide, its endurance determined not by fuel but by the amount of food that may be crammed into the hull, and its operational limitations determined more by the skill of the commander and crew than by external factors.

Understanding the capabilities of the modern nuclear-powered attack submarine requires a certain sophistication on the part of both a potential adversary and a visitor. Visually, a submarine is the least impressive of physical artifacts. Its hull does not bristle with weapons and sensors as do surface warships, and for one to see its imposing bulk, it must be in drydock. On those rare moments when a submarine is visible, this most lethal of ships appears no more threatening than a huge sea turtle. Yet despite that, the true capabilities of the modern SSN are most easily understood in terms of myth or the modern equivalent, a science fiction movie. Here is a creature that, like Ridley Scott's "Alien," appears when it wishes, destroys what it wishes, and disappears immediately to strike again when it wishes. Defense against such a threat requires constant vigilance, and even then, this will be ineffective much of the time. Thus the real impact of the nuclear submarine is as much psychological as physical.

In April 1982, the Monday after Argentina's seizure of the Falkland Islands, I happened to have lunch with a submarine officer and so got my first hint of what an SSN could do. The Royal Navy, my friend told me, would very soon declare that one of its boats was in the area of the disputed rocks. No one would be able to dispute the claim, which, my friend went on, would probably be false. "But the only way you know for sure that a sub is out there is when ships start disappearing, and that's an expensive way to find out." This is precisely what happened, of course. The mere possibility that the Royal Navy had one or more of its superbly commanded SSNs in the area immediately forced Argentina to reevaluate its position, and the Argentinean Navy, a lead player in the decision to seize the islands, was soon rendered impotent by its inability to confirm, deny, or deal with the mere possibility that an SSN might be lurking in the area.

As a practical matter, the Falkland Islands War was determined at that point. Ownership of any island is determined by control of the seas around it, and Argentina could not control the sea. The Royal Navy's SSNs prevented that, the first step in the RN's campaign to establish its own sea-control posture, making a successful invasion possible. The sinking of the cruiser General Belgrano was the unnecessary confirmation of what should have been obvious. While the nuclear-powered attack submarine may not be the most useful warship in the world since it cannot perform every traditional navy mission, it can deny an adversary the ability to execute any mission at sea.

"Here be monsters," the charts of ancient mariners used to say. They weren't right then, but current charts, especially those on surface warships, might profitably be marked to show that outside the thirty-fathom curve, yes, there be monsters. Nuclear-powered monsters.