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RUSI-DEM SubTech 08 Underwater Warfare Conference

PLACES AVAILABLE: Open to all

About the event:

Click for Conference Papers

The underwater battlespace provides unique options for delivering military effect in support of defence policy. This conference examined, in an international context, the operational importance of the underwater battlespace, future capability requirements, and technologies and industry infrastructures which will meet these requirements.

It assessed how these factors come together to enhance the delivery of military effect in and from the underwater environment in support of policy. It provided, also, an opportunity for the international submarine community and associates to come together to debate pertinent issues and to promote new thinking in a large-scale public forum.

Senior government & military speakers included:

• Rear Admiral Andrew Mathews, Director General Submarines, Defence Equipment & Support, UK Ministry of Defence
• Paul Taylor, Director General Equipment, UK Ministry of Defence
• Rear Admiral David Cooke MBE, Commander Operations, Commander Allied Submarines North, and Rear Admiral Submarines
• Rear Admiral Mark W. Kenny USN, Center for Expeditionary Counter-Terrorism Operations, United States Navy
• Commodore John Gower OBE Royal Navy, Director Equipment Capability (Under Water Effect), UK Ministry of Defence
• Captain Andre de Wet, Senior Officer Submarines, Fleet Command, South African Navy
• Captain Siegfried Schneider, German Navy
• Commander Marc Delorme FN, Submarine Policy, Naval Staff, French Navy
• Commander Jonas Haggren, Commanding Officer, 1st Submarine Flotilla, Royal Swedish Navy

Themes

The conference took a thematic approach, looking at future issues which will shape the importance of the underwater battlespace and its contribution to defence and security policies, rather than focussing necessarily on current programmes. The conference addressed three main themes.

First, it assessed the likely policy and geo-strategic nature of the future defence and security environment, to provide the context for assessing the strategic importance of the underwater battlespace in providing military options to support policy. This section of the conference also examined future operational requirements for underwater platforms, operating in both blue- and brown-water environments, and the enduring importance of core underwater tasks such as sea control, intelligence gathering, and delivering effect ashore. It also examined future technology threats, such as from conventional submarines.

Second, it examined future capability requirements and the technology opportunities which industry anticipates will be available to meet perceived requirements whilst also generating new capability opportunities. It assessed which particular technologies are going to be critical for changing the utility of the underwater battlespace in the next few decades. Particular areas of focus in the section were:

• Strike;
• Information, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR);
• Mine Counter Measures (MCM);
• Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs);
• and the growing importance of Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) and open architecture technology approaches.

Third, it provided opportunities for industry to assess:

• emerging technologies;
• options for improving abilities in critical areas like incremental acquisition and force readiness;
• challenges in maintaining the specialist skills unique to the Submarine Industrial Base (SIB)
• how to improve collaboration and coherence in its relations with its customer;
• its own ability to develop design, build and costing techniques which will be remain relevant from today until well into the future;
• and – for the short- and medium-terms – how industrial capacity can best be harnessed to improve capability, cost of ownership, platform availability, Through-Life Capability Management (TLCM) and sustainability of the SIB to improve the MoD and SIB’s combined ability to meet the Defence Industrial Strategy’s requirements to enable the design, build, support, operation and decommissioning of submarines.

In sum, this section examined industry’s ability to deliver, within available resources, a submarine programme – made up of the Astute-class and the future deterrent submarine (or SSBN[F]) - which is both affordable and sustainable. Particular issues here included: the adequacy and efficiency of the SIB for supporting operational and capability requirements; the impact of acquisition change programmes, for example in the UK’s case the Defence and Maritime industrial strategies (DIS and MIS); and improving affordability.