It helps to be invisible. That means you can get in close, and when you do that, you can learn things. The prime intelligence-gathering mission for a submarine is electronic surveillance. A simple-looking reedlike mast can gather all manner of electronic signals. You might want to learn about the other guy's radar systems, and he'll be careful with these so as not to let you know exactly what your aircraft will be up against. Therefore he won't use them much when unknown aircraft are about-but he has to use them some of the time in order that his own people can practice using them. And so what you do is sneak a boat into his coastal operations zone, run up your ESM mast, and wait. You can also listen in to short-range radio traffic, the FM stuff that stops at the horizon. Such radios are normally not encrypted, and it's amazing what people will say when they don't think anyone is listening.
In short order, you can monitor the other fellow's whole electronic spectrum, and over a period of time, to boot. This allows operating patterns and procedures to be explored. And you can learn a lot from that. You can do combined operations, with submarines and aircraft working together to see what is really on the other fellow's mind, and you can get away with it because he can see only one element of the operation. Or you can try something really crazy-take a close look for yourself. What is he up to inside his main naval bases? If the water's deep enough, if the sub is quiet enough, you might be able to go in and snap a few pictures through the periscope. Maybe even a few hull shots. Do SSNs ever really do this kind of thing? It's much too dangerous, isn't it?
Mission #6 — Mine Warfare
Question: How many mines does it take to make a minefield? Answer: None; you only need a press release. General Norman Schwarzkopf said it all during Desert Storm with one question to an obtuse reporter: 'Have you ever been in a minefield?' Imagine what it's like. Every step you take might place you on the trigger of an explosive device. Every single step. You have to get where you want to go. But the simple act of going there may kill you. You don't know when you're entering the minefield, and you probably won't know when you're finally out of it. Sound like fun?
And so it is for ships. A ship, remember, is a steel bubble designed to keep air in and water out. And any ship can be a minesweeper. Once. Mines can be large or small, but in either case they blast holes in ships. Improving technology has made them more deadly. No longer the spherical steel containers with acid-filled horns (though these still exist and still work), modern mines can lie on the bottom, be activated weeks after being laid, and can include special triggering devices so that one might go off when the first ship passes over, and its neighbor when the eleventh does. Mines, therefore, have a severe psychological impact, and in the natural dread of such things comes panic, concern, and an inordinate degree of effort to get rid of the damned things, a task both time- consuming and very, very iffy. How do you know when you have swept them all? You don't. You can't.
Tactical Example — Quarantining (Mining) an Enemy Port
It only takes a press release, but a single explosion will put a little emphasis on it. Mines are relatively small and compact, and a submarine can carry a goodly number of them, trading off roughly one torpedo for every two mines. And the submarine can deliver a wide variety of them: Mark 57 moored mines with sophisticated sensor and triggering systems. Then there are the Mk 67 mobile mines. These are obsolete Mk 37 torpedoes that have been rebuilt into bottom mines. A submarine can fire them into a shallow channel (which itself might be mined) up to a distance of 5 to 7 miles. The Mk 67 then lies on the bottom, waiting for a ship to pass over it before detonating. Finally, for real impact, there are the Mk 6 °Captor mines. These are encapsulated Mark 46 torpedoes programmed to wait for the right kind of noise (in this case enemy submarines), at which point the torpedo swims clear and attacks. For example, you could program them to listen for a certain type of submarine (like a Kilo), which isn't exactly cricket. Mines that shoot first? Just the things for closing a port down.
Let us say that there is a country, North Korea for example, with a nasty habit of exporting military hardware, which offends the sensibilities of the rest of the world. Let's say their nuclear weapons program has finally yielded results. Being strapped for capital, perhaps they might choose to sell off a few to the highest bidder. Somehow (perhaps through some of their contacts in the Swiss banking industry), the American intelligence services get word of the transaction. This starts the ball rolling on a confrontation between the United States with her allies, and the North Koreans. It's the kind of confrontation that the United States could go to the UN with, and make a point to the world about arms proliferation, or suffer a major foreign policy debacle. Not so long ago, the United States expended huge resources tracking a ship loaded with a cargo of North Korean-manufactured missiles on its way to Iran. At the last minute the CENTCOM maritime surveillance forces lost track of the ship, and the cargo was delivered despite the protests of the rest of the world. Would it not have been more effective to just bottle up the port in North Korea with mines and never let the ship out in the first place? That way, wouldn't the UN have a chance to inspect the cargo and make sure it did not contain the offending weapons? You bet! It is a 'must win' kind of situation that requires a delicate and discreet touch.
So how does one deploy the mines to close the port in question? The problem here is that the North Koreans have a proven track record of hostility toward U.S. surface vessels and aircraft operating anywhere near their borders. (Remember the capture of the USS
The mines are quietly delivered to a 688I at a tender at Guam or some other forward base. The 688I probably off-loads all her missiles (except perhaps for Tomahawk antiship missiles in the VLS tubes), and most of her Mk 48 torpedoes. Other than the mines, her only weapons are likely for self-defense. In addition, a SEAL team might be embarked to assist in any on-the-spot surveys required to support the mission. The mining plan has probably been carefully worked out, with appropriate consideration given to such things as the activation times, tidal and seabed conditions, types of mines, and appropriate warnings to the other interested parties involved. Of critical importance is knowledge of the exact placement of each mine, as we would probably have to sweep them (as we did in North Vietnam in 1973) after the incident is closed.
The operation begins with the 688I reconnoitering the areas surrounding the port. Part of this is to establish the operating patterns of North Korean patrols, but also to check for irregularities in the charts and seabed surveys that might affect the mining plan. Here, the Navstar GPS system is critical, as it allows for precise navigation of the boat in the confines of the North Korean coastal waters, and placement of the mines. Once the survey is finished, the job of mine deployment begins.
First out of the tubes probably are the Mk 57 moored mines, to be placed in the outer mouth of the port. The 688I goes in slowly using every sensor of the BSY-1 system to look for trouble. Every few minutes, another mine package is ejected from her torpedo tubes, their activation clocks ticking away to a prearranged time (probably one to two days later). As each mine is released, its position is carefully noted for future sweeping. It will not take many of these, as ship captains are creatures of habit who follow their charts and rarely deviate into less traveled channels. Once this is done, the submarine's commander may fire some of the Mk 67 mobile mines up into the shallow channel leading to the inner harbor, say six to eight of these for each side of the channel, to sit on the bottom. Now the 688I carefully moves out of the area. Just to keep things fair in the coming crisis, the boat might move to one of the nearby naval bases that handles their fleet of diesel submarines and patrol boats. Here it could lay a few more Mk 67s in the channel, and possibly a belt of Mk 6 °Captors to keep the North Korean Navy, particularly their force of diesel submarines, bottled up during the coming confrontation. You don't even have to do it to all of their bases. Just do it to one, and say that you have done it to all of them. Who is to know, right?
You now have a foreign policy fait accompli. And don't forget the press release…
