Tech TV August 23, 2002
Navy's Sea Superiority
By Peter Barnes
Navy warships are becoming smaller, faster, and more computerized, with fewer crew members -- and sometimes no crew at all -- to fight new, focused missions in the 21st century. Tonight's "Tech Live" reports.
It's part of the Bush administration's plans for transforming the Navy and other military branches after the end of the Cold War in order to fight short wars and terrorism in global hotspots.
John Pike, a military analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, said tracking terrorists, catching drug smugglers, and protecting coastlines are just some of the Navy's emerging responsibilities "and to do that, you don't need a small number of big ships capable of sinking other warships. What you need is a large number of small ships."
Rolling out the smaller guns?
"The 20th century Navy was basically an open ocean Navy designed to defeat somebody else's similar navy," he said.
"The Navy is now focused on projecting power ashore -- there aren't any other big fleets roaming around for the Navy to sink in the middle of the ocean. But the United States has a lot of security interests that require it to quickly project power ashore, to control the shoreline, to control small ships going out of a particular area."
At a speech at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, last year, President Bush confirmed that focus, saying, "I am committed to building a future force that is defined less by size and more by mobility and swiftness, one that is easier to deploy and sustain, one that relies more heavily on stealth, precision weaponry, and information technologies."
The proposed DD(X) -- a new, sleek, submarine-like fighting ship intended to someday replace big steel destroyers -- fits that vision like a torpedo in a firing tube.
Under development at Northrop Grumman under a $2.9 billion contract, the craft will be stealthy and highly computerized, with a third of the crew of Destroyer, and guns with a 100-mile range.
High tech fire power
"This is an R&D effort aimed toward a family of high technology ships applying new hull designs, electric propulsion, new gun systems, new radar and stealth technology," said Edward "Pete" Aldridge, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, logistics, and technology, at a briefing earlier this year. At another briefing, he said of the DD(X): "This program is evolutionary in its final development approach; it will be a model for Navy acquisition in the years to come. It will bring transformational capability to the fleet, as well as the acquisition process."
Also under development at the Navy: high-speed catamarans for coastal patrol or moving troops; a high-speed troop landing transport; various unmanned vessels, and unmanned submarines.
One challenge for Navy planners is the heavy reliance on technology, Pike said.
"The US Navy has historically liked to have a lot of sailors on the ship, and simple mechanical systems on the ship, because that makes it less likely that things will break. And when they do break, it means you're going to have more hands to repair them quickly," Pike said.
"The risk that you have in moving toward a more automated ship with a smaller crew is that there are going to be more things that can break and fewer [people] that can fix them. That may be OK in peacetime, when you can just move in to the nearest port. But in wartime, you're not going to be able to call in 'time out' because something's broken and there's no one to fix it."
Military planners have said they plan for computer breakdowns and system crashes by making their networks highly redundant, with lots of backup computing power.
Suspicious of new technologies and worried about the susceptibility of new ships to enemy attack, some military brass have privately resisted the changes, however, which has made "transformation" a slow process, and analysts expect smaller, faster ships will only supplement -- not replace -- larger cruisers, battleships, and aircraft carriers.
© Copyright 2002, Lycos, Inc.
