The Trident: Our Pre-Sunk Supercarrier
Packard, Frank
The Trident: Our Pre-Sunk Supercarrier by Frank Packard When Jimmy Carter, the former Navy man, vetoed the defense authorization bill last August, he said it was because the bill contained...
...Their location...
...That ship is still being built and is now not expected to be ready until early 1980, b a r r i n g a n y more unforeseen problems at General Dynamics...
...The current fleet, built between 1959 and 1967, had a life expectancy of 20 years, and although it has turned out to be more durable than expected, the Trident delays almost certainly mean that much of the Polaris/ Poseidon fleet will have been retired before a full complement of Trident submarines is ready to replace it...
...Admirals don’t want to command “ l i t t l e ” submarines, compacts that might be a more intelligent choice than the Trident...
...At 560 feet long, it is five feet longer than the Washington Monument and 178 feet longer than any submarine to come before it...
...It displaces 18,700 tons, compared to the Polaris’ displacement of 8,000 tons...
...It had been built at a reasonable cost (the 41 ships cost a total of just under $20 billion) and was flexible enough so that the ships could be retrofitted as better, more powerful missiles were developed...
...To get from the base to the ocean, it would have to travel a 100-mile-long corridor that never widens more than nine navigable miles...
...But this, as it turns out, is no advantage at all...
...we all want the biggest and the best, and we all to some extent fall into the trap of believing that biggest is best...
...The Trident: Our Pre-Sunk Supercarrier by Frank Packard When Jimmy Carter, the former Navy man, vetoed the defense authorization bill last August, he said it was because the bill contained $2 billion for a nuclear-powered supercarrier the Navy didn’t need...
...A Lemon of a Submarine The Trident program, in a word, has been a blunder, a disastrous effort by the Navy on just about any countcost, strategic effectiveness, timing...
...The fear that we are always capable of striking back under any circumstances, say nuclear strategists, is what makes for good deterrence...
...Although the Trident will carry 24 missiles, and although each missile will have eight separate nuclear warheads, the Trident fleet will still fall far short of the combined firepower of the current fleet by about 200 missiles...
...Where the Trident is different from the aircraft carrier is in America’s indisputable need for -submarines...
...The theory is that fewer eggs in a very large number of baskets is the best defense strategy...
...Doesn’t the sheer insanity of spending all these billions for bargaining chips trouble you a bit...
...that capability-and it is interesting to note that that is precisely the direction in which the Russian submarine fleet has headed...
...It is an attitude endemic to the Navy and some of the more gung-ho members of the armed services committees, and it says a lot about why we are now stuck with the Trident...
...Ross could just as well have been talking about the Trident...
...and by 1971, he was in controlthe new submarine was taking on a “Rickover shape,” says Zumwalt...
...Remember Pearl Harbor...
...It is generally considered desirable to have as many nuclear missiles in as many different locations as possible, because it lessens the chances that an enemy, even one as rich in nuclear weapons as the Soviets, could knock out all our retaliatory force in a firststrike attack...
...To help ensure the Trident would go forward, the Navy linked the Trident submarine program with the missile program, calling them both Tridents, a wholly unnecessary move as far as the missile was concerned, since the Trident missiles could be used on smaller submarines-including the Poseidon...
...Writing in The Washington Post shortly after the aircraft carrier veto, Daniel S. Greenberg said that ships like the supercarrier and the Trident were “plush recreational vehicles” that serve little function other than as “incomparable stage[s] for the ego lifting” of admirals...
...In Congress, that same kind of attitude can be found from the likes of Rep...
...Why, then, aren't we spreading those 710 launch tubes around, why aren't we making it impossible for an enemy to cripple all of our submarine missiles...
...Rickover’s fixation on power and size-of a huge reactor and a massive submarine, defied all logic, but by the early 1970s, the rest of the Navy was enthusiastically backing him...
...In fact, what was happening-and this may be the most absurd irony of all-was that the Trident program was being developed not for its strategic effectiveness, or for the missiles it would deploy, but to fit around the grotesquely large reactor Rickover wanted to build...
...It is a common enough desire...
...got a bargaining chip instead of a submarine...
...And that is just for the hull, the shell...
...Indeed, when the two proposals were first brought to Deputy Defense Secretary David Packard in 1971, he approved the missile but vetoed the submarine...
...In 1972, after Defense Secretary Melvin Laird had made his “bargaining chip” plea, this ship that no one knew anything about was funded to the tune of $1 billion...
...It is not very close to the open sea...
...That is $30 billion we would not have to spend if we had a large submarine fleet of small ships, a fleet scattered enough and big enough to make the shell game strategy unnecessary...
...On the basis of its potential value to America’s defense strategy, then, the Trident, for all its expense, might still make sense in ways the supercarrier clearly cannot...
...Their speed...
...This kind of naval planning is enough to give one visions of disaster should the Trident fleet ever be under attack-visions of an enemy blocking off the Sound, crippling the base and the trapped ships...
...At this point, the submarine still had no engineering blueprints, nor did anyone have any clear idea what it would cost, but the administration and the Navy insisted it was necessary for SALT...
...Combined with land-based nuclear missiles and the Air Force’s bomber force, submarines help form the so-called “Triad” defense-our primary nuclear deterrent strategy since the late 1950s...
...But Rickover was a power in the Navy and had considerable clout on Capitol Hill...
...The result was to slow development on the missile (in order not to get too far ahead of the submarine development) and to allow the Navy to divert money from the missiles to the submarine, since they were part of the same program...
...The ship was too big, said Carter, too expensive, too vulnerable...
...They would carry 24 missiles with improved range and firepower...
...The Trident fleet is planned at about 14 submarines-no one in the Navy dares propose more because they cost so much-yet the ships will be replacing a current fleet of 41 Polaris/ Poseidon submarines...
...The larger a submarine, the easier it is to detect...
...The Trident, with its 14 ships, obviously does not...
...But the submarines’ life was limited, so the Strat X project came up with a proposal to replace the fleet, centered around the concept of reasonably sized submarines-a little smaller than the Polaris/ Poseidon fleet, in fact...
...There are at least five good reasons why the Trident submarines shouldn’t be built...
...There are, of course, as the people working on the Strat X project realized in 1966...
...Instead of building the engine to fit the ship, the ship would be built to fit the engine...
...The Trident is not just a big ship-it is huge, massive, a “whale of a weapons system,” says Fortune magazine...
...In this era of nuclear deterrent and nuclear strategy, aircraft carriers are no longer an important component of the national defense, he added...
...About t h a t time, t h e Nixon administration decided it wanted to use an accelerated Trident program as a “bargaining chip” for the first SALT negotiations...
...much as the supercarrier...
...The point is, you don't need a Trident to carry the Trident's missiles...
...As envisioned by the Navy, a minimum of 14 Tridents will be built to replace the current Polaris/ Poseidon nuclearpowered fleet...
...Yet throughout the 1970s the Navy has pushed ahead with it, lobbying for it in Congress, ignoring its detractors on Capitol Hill and even in the Defense Department...
...Fast submarines, in fact, are easier to detect than slower ones...
...With the first ship still at least a year and a half away from completion, the Navy has committed itself to spending $30 billion on Trident submarines...
...a monstrous, expensive, poorly planned, and often delayed $2-billian mistake instead of a replacement for an efficient, workable submarine fleet...
...Evading sonar (a submarine can hear sonar before the sonar detects the submarihe) is complicated by the fact that the faster a submarine travels the more noise it makes, and hence, the more vulnerable it becomes to detection...
...While justifying the selection of Bangor, one admiral ,conceded, “No one is saying that we have an answer to all things with mines, or all things with ships and torpedoes...
...But they also agreed there would be no limit on the number of submarines...
...In 1971 Congress had appropriated $105 million for the Trident...
...Their numbers...
...The base planned for the Trident submarines is in Bangor, Washington at Puget Sound...
...A large fleet of smaller submarines like the Polaris/ Poseidon would give the U.S...
...Submarines are the Navy’s most important ship...
...the Defense Science Board and the President’s Science Advisory Committee both called it too large, and it was opposed by the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt...
...Out of this project came several specific assignments, one to Admiral Levering Smith to develop the new missiles, and one to Admiral Hyman Rickover to develop the nuclear reactor...
...Rather than being an advance over the Polaris/ Poseidon nuclear fleet, the Trident program is a step backwards...
...But it is now 12 years later, the Polaris/ Poseidon fleet is going to wear down soon, the Trident isn’t ready to take o v e r , no new a l t e r n a t i v e submarines have been thought about, and the question now becomes: is 1978 too late to reverse the Trident mistake...
...Now the Defense Department is going to add to the cost of the Trident mistake by spending $30 billion for its “shell game” strategy...
...Equipped with nuclear missiles, they give the United States the equivalent of small, roving nuclear missile bases at sea-underwater, movable, difficult to detect...
...and Russia agreed in the interim to limit the number of missile launch tubes in submarines to 710 per side...
...Current American submarine tracking methods include following the paths of missile subs from the moment they leave port...
...The Trident makes even less sense in the light of current SALT negotiations...
...Our present fleet, the Polaris/ Poseidon submarines of the 1960s and 1970s are considered invulnerable to detection-indeed it is not too much to say they have been the most important component of the Triad...
...The idea is to build empty holes that look like missile silos, to make it more difficult for the Russians to target all of our land-based missiles...
...While the original cost estimates in the early 1970s were $800 million for each ship, today, with cost overruns by its shipbuilder, General Dynamics, inflation, and construction delays, the Navy estimates the Trident will cost taxpayers $1.2 billion...
...0 Their size...
...When you add the 24 nuclear missiles-at $10 million apiece-the Tridents will carry, as well as sophisticated components and weaponry which will be added, each Trident is going to cost about as Frank Packard is an intern on the staff of The Washington Monthly...
...the decision tb put it there appeats to have been a political one, designed to reward Sk‘nator Henry Jackson for a vote that was critical to the program’s survival...
...Their delays...
...Trident proponents argue that its missiles will have a much longer range-4,000 compared to the present 2,500 miles-which is true, but what they fail to add is that that same kind of missile range could be installed in the smaller submarines as well...
...It is clearly easier to find and track 14 ships than it is to get at 41...
...In defending the President’s carrier decision, Thomas B. Ross, an official at the Defense Department, wrote in a letter to 77ze Wall Street Journal, “No matter how capable a ship may be and no matter how expensive, it can only be in one place at a time...
...So large is this ship that when fully equipped, there are doubts as to whether it will be able to maneuver from the shipyard in Connecticut where it is being built through the river it must travel to get out to sea...
...Besides its enormous cost, the Trident is similar to the supercarrier in another way: its size...
...But unchallenged by the administration were funds in the same bill for another Navy program that deserves the same kind of scrutiny and debate the aircraft carrier is receiving...
...That is the Trident submarine program...
...That means, at its simplest, that America is going to have 27 fewer nuclear missile submarines in the water at the point at which the current fleet is retired...
...The problems have been caused mostly by the Navy-it gave the contract to General Dynamics before any engineering blueprints existed, and it grossly underestimated the cost and difficulty of building the submarine...
...It is expected that SALT I1 will continue that arrangement...
...Smith’s missile concept was the model of efficiency-its range was 1,500 miles greater than the present capability and it could be retrofitted into the Polaris/ Poseidon fleet if it was ready in time...
...The Trident’s 90,000horsepower nuclear reactor makes it the fastest missile-equipped submarine ever built-capable of traveling at up to 25 knots...
...our enemies, we can surmise, do the same-and sending our submarines through this narrow channel, we are making it much easier to find and track the Trident fleet...
...It takes up more space in the water, and, more importantly, its large reflecting surface makes it more susceptible to detection by sonar...
...But this, sadly, is not the case, for the Trident is far from the ideal submarine we ought to be building for the future...
...Despite its awesome gadgetry, its sophistication, its powerful nuclear clout, the Trident submarine will be more vulnerable to detection or attack from potential enemies than the Polaris/ Poseidon fleet ever was...
...But Bangor is far from an ideal location for a submarine base...
...They decided on a new generation of submarines...
...It has put us in a bind...
...But Rickover’s reactorthe 90,000-horsepower reactor around which the Trident has been built-was a monster...
...The first Trident submarine had an original due date of 1978...
...How did we get saddled with this lemon of a submarine, a ship we don’t need and shouldn’t build...
...And these are not visions quickly allayed by the Navy...
...It began in 1966, with the Strat X project, formed to decide on the next strategic weapon...
...And it is the kind of attitude that put us into the defense mess we’re now in...
...Unlike the supercarrier, the Trident is not a one-ship proposition...
...an admiral’s delight instead of a strategic weapon...
...Through it all was the feeling from the Navy and its congressional boosters that the right way to proceed was to push forward with the biggest submarine we could build...
...It is ironic that so many in Congress, particularly those on the armed services committees are so willing to back large ships on the theory that the bigger a ship is, the better it is...
...Those submarines, nuclear powered and considerably smaller than a Trident, go at least 10 knots faster than the Trident...
...Charles Bennett, chairman of the House seapower subcommittee, who sums up his feelings about the Navy budget this way: “I’m inclined to give the Navy everything it asks for this year and just add something to it...
...It has an immense 90,000-horsepower nuclear reactor as its engine...
...The numbers game is an important factor in nuclear deterrence strategy...
...His design was widely criticized...
...The Navy, which got us into this mess, is finally realizing that it ought to be thinking of a way to get us out of it...
...Nor is the added speed any benefit if the purpose is to avoid Russian attack submarines...
...The combined troubles, however, have put our submarine capacity in some jeopardy...
...The Polaris/ Poseidon fleet had turned out to be extraordinarily good...
...With the Trident program, the Navy is led further into the direction of fewer and larger ships...
...After the first SALT agreement expired, the U.S...
...In the case of the Trident, precisely the opposite is true...
...With the Trident costs still escalating and with Congress starting to get worried, the Navy recently announced the formation of a panel to review the Trident program to see if there are better, and cheaper, alternatives...
...The Polaris/ Poseidon fleet, with 41 ships, gave us that kind of approach...
...Because both projects were named “Trident,” the Navy could-and did-legally direct missile funds to the submarines and has resisted or ignored efforts to separate the two ever since...
Vol. 10 • October 1978 • No. 7
