An Operational Perspective of Submarine Evasion Operations

CDR Dale Sykora, USN,
former Commanding Officer, USS DALLAS (SSN 700)

Commander Sykora began by stating how nice it is to talk to an audience who are not submariners, but who can appreciate the presentation unlike the general public, who would just relate to the “Hunt for the Red October”.

After stating the circumstances of his crutches, Cdr. Sykora tied in his skiing accident to success and failure in submarine combat:

“Operational factors contribute to success or failure in the hider/search conundrum that we contend with. We are inclined to overestimate our ability and underestimate our vulnerability.”

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Because of classification, Dale apologized for not being able to talk about the real world experience, but shared lessons from his training and exercise experiences and how they relate to hider/search theory. He related an exercise involving the SEALs and their submarine approaching an EPA site on a moonless night in the Virgin Islands. The SEALs were swimming and secured the target. The EPA didn't realize what had happened until the light signaled that the SEALs were heading back to the sub. The EPA had set up “seal bait” (beer cans hung on strings over the ship) that the SEALs didn't touch. The SEALs had changed their operating profile and became essentially invisible to the EPA.

On another night of exercises, the SEALs were to go into a well-lit weapons testing facility on another moonless, dark night. Their game was to get into the compound and plant explosive charges, and get out without detection. Combat cameras were used to film the action unbeknownst to the SEALs. However, the SEALs spotted the crew and took an alternative, further away route. They were successful in penetrating the compound but didn't return to the sub in the time anticipated for plan A. There were equipment malfunctions and the transponder didn't relay the return. As it was getting close to sunrise it was surmised that there was mission failure, but in fact the mission was successful.

War Games

In the first case of submarine operations, Blue had to escort an oil drilling platform. Blue recognized hostilities were going to erupt and split into two forces: one group stayed with the platform and the other escorted a decoy. The OPFOR group was sucked in by the decoy and lost the exercise.

Among the failures cited for OPFOR was they didn't know the target because they didn't do recognition training. The majority of OPFOR weren't trained on what the ship would look like which proves the point that “ It doesn't matter how good your algorithms are or how capable your equipment is if operators don't use it or believe what they see”.

The GEORGE WASHINGTON battle group COMPUTEX is another example from Dale's tour on the USS TOLEDO (SSN-769). Dale played Orange in a shallow submarine in the blue submarine's water. The search force took a position where they knew where Orange was located and believed Orange would approach at periscope depth through an artificially constrained area. Orange however knew where Blue was, sprinted around and came through an area that Blue was not paying attention to. Blue failed by not using their procedures and equipment as well as having overestimated their capability of strategy. These exercises don't reflect real-time since the end results aren't evaluated until the exercise control group computes everything.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT Battle group JTFEX Part I illustrated the USS DALLAS as the opposition force against the USNS PATUXENT. DALLAS with periscope up (Orange) was positioned near a choke point anticipating the arrival of the Blue force USS ROSS. The ROSS didn't see the periscope and didn't hear DALLAS on sonar so DALLAS was able to come along side and taunt Blue. Again failure came about because of the lack of using procedures and equipment. There was no thought that DALLAS would be where she needed to be. Questions arise as to why Blue didn't detect the enemy with their capabilities and why they didn't see the periscope.

A few days later, Part II of the exercise ensued further down the coast. Shallow operations are not done lightly, especially in high traffic waters. DALLAS knew of amphibious landing that it planned to disrupt the next morning and knew the location of surface ships. Blue had a search going on but Orange had already decided to surface and took the latitude to use deceptive lighting. The Ross detected the DALLAS and approached them by radio but was not aware that it was Orange. Orange managed to shoot the ROSS, announced that to them and then retreated. Here again Blue did not look for the right observables. They were searching and being aggressive but not paying attention.

As an example of the Monte Carlo in another exercise, Dale was in non-hostile waters and had Orange in sight, knowing they would be gone in the morning. He had to wait for the signal that hostility had started and by that time Orange was gone. He had everyone record times and depths and by averaging the information, put on speed and managed to catch up. He was able to do the kill when the signal came.

In summary Dale stressed two points:

1. A unit will go where it needs to go in order to achieve its task.
2. A warrior frequently overestimates his capability and underestimate his vulnerability.

He reminds us to not be enamored of the “perfect” strategy and to remember that the hunter rapidly becomes the hunted. Cdr. Sykora also cited the lack of not looking for the right observables, as well as the lack of using procedures and equipment, as major failures in the war exercises.