Technological Developments
By Dan Conley
Sir, – I have read Tom Layhe’s article ‘Technological Developments Affecting the Royal Navy’s Continuous At- Sea Deterrent’ (111/1 p. 38) with interest. However, I must admit I found it difficult to understand his arguments and cannot agree with his conclusions.
Unfortunately, the article contains too many flawed assumptions or exaggerations which debilitate its credibility, for example – a nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan could cause “one billion fatalities globally from the ensuring agricultural collapse.” This flies against the tangible evidence arising from hundreds of atomic/ nuclear bomb tests conducted in the atmosphere between 1945 and 1963 when the atmospheric nuclear test ban came into effect. Has the author considered the limited fallout arising from the USSR’s massive 50 megaton bomb detonation over Nova Zemlya in 1961?
I consider that it is highly unlikely, in the foreseeable future, that deployment of hordes of Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) or Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) will pose any degree of risk of detection to the SSBN operating in the deep ocean. The scale of the size of the oceans, weather and thermal structures, all dictate against such detection platforms being effective. The Holy Grail of making detection upon the West’s highly stealthy SSBNs patrolling in the oceans has been elusive over many decades.
As for the author’s perceived threat of strategic chokepoints, such as Clyde Estuary SSBN egress routes, being seeded with numerous UUVs or USVs, the UK could counter such a threat by one or more of the following options:
a. Constructing a SSBN depot ship which in times of tension could be deployed to any one of many sheltered, deep anchorages around the UK
b. Developing decoys or noise/ magnetic saturation systems which could be deployed in SSBN egress choke-points.
c. Constructing and operating two additional SSBNs, to ensure two boats continuously on patrol.
Therefore, in context of the UK’s CASD, despite the future threat of small, smart autonomous detection systems, the strategic nuclear balance is most unlikely to be affected.
