Polmar on Submarine Numbers

Norman Polmar is asking questions whether two submarines per year is worth it. The key word is "worth" as his point drives to the question whether the Virginia class represents value for the enormous costs involved.

While I support an all nuclear submarine force, I think the Navy would be on a stronger footing with the submarine issue if they traded something like 4 Virginia's for ten conventional submarines. I don't think anyone believes conventional submarines can replace our nuclear force, but to suggest there is no role at all for conventional submarines doesn't really pass the smell test.

I understand why the Navy is scared to build competing systems though, or why they see a conventional submarine as a competing system to a nuclear submarine. The Navy doesn't communicate to the American people the value of their fleet, much less specific types of systems in the fleet. That lack of communication is why Norman Polmar is raising this issue to begin with.

I want to raise a suggestion though, if the US ever looks into building conventionally powered submarines, the biggest mistake the US Navy could make is to look at what the rest of the world is doing and attempt to mimic their ideas. A US Navy conventional submarine need not be large, or manned, or necessarily deployable from a forward base. In fact, I would suggest starting a conventional program with the premise that the conventional submarine will only be around 300 tons, will be unmanned, and will deploy from ships or other submarines.

Now you can take the 4x$2.5B (or 10B) and make ten very useful conventional submarines, and with that kind of money probably the supporting network necessary to put them to effective use. If I was looking for a place to begin for the supporting network, I would start with a LSD-41 and go from there.