How chat rooms were used in the Iraq war
Run silent, run chat
By Doug Mohney: Monday 28 July 2003, 06:56
DURING IRAQI Freedom, twelve U.S. submarines lurked beneath the seas within Tomahawk cruise missile range of the unfortunate misbegotten country. Over the course of active hostilities, the sub fleet (plus two Brit subs) fired almost a third of the estimated 800 missiles used during the campaign. More remarkably, the US boats communicated with each other and higher command in real-time via four different chat rooms on a 24 x 7 basis, according to Rear Adm. Paul F. Sullivan, director of the Navy's Submarine Warfare Division in an interview for the July issue of Sea Power magazine. In one incident, a sub encountered a firing problem and another sub crew was able to help via chat with troubleshooting knowledge and getting the missile ready to launch. No doubt vendor reps will be required to monitor the chat during future wars and provide technical support, likely at $9.95/minute.
It's a scenario that Tom Clancy would have been hard-pressed to imagine even five years ago. Submariners, the "Silent Service" and one of three major power blocks in the Navy, have had to rapidly readjust their world-view from the Cold War era days of hunting Ivan and sneaking into Soviet waters undetected to tap undersea cables. Avoiding detection meant avoiding unnecessary contact, so the idea of an antenna sticking out of the water (physical data point) along with broadcasting (RF) data point on a 24 hour basis (much less even 24 minutes), would have been considered insane.
When the cruise missile became the "big stick" of preference during the Clinton administration, submarines became the classic stealth platform to deliver them, with a couple of subs parked off the Pakistani coast ready to give a thumping to Bin Laden if the CIA ever pinned him down. However, accurate targeting data typically required some minutes of transmission per missile, not a good thing if you wanted to have a dozen of them winging the way towards a party location before everyone left for the evening.
Eleven of the twelve US subs participating in Iraqi Freedom had been upgraded with a wide-band antenna and equipment capable of supporting data rates up to 256 Kbps, a quantum leap in capacity from traditional snail-like data rates of 4.8 Kbps. Such bandwidth enables rapid, real-time retargeting of missiles as well as being able link into the wider Navy battle network. It also allows isolated sub crews to get e-mail from home, a far cry from the once-a-week short 50 word "family grams" allowed to sailors. (Text only, and still read by a senior officer before being passed along to the crew; erotic love letters not recommended).
More bandwidth will be a major issue for the Navy's converted ballistic missile "boomers" SSGNs. The four Trident subs – once carrying 24 long-range missiles -- will carry up to 154 cruise missiles each, plus up to 66 special forces personnel; the current 688-class attack subs only carry between 12-18 Tomahawk missiles. Providing targeting information for all those missiles and supporting the commandos (as well as delivering their intel take back to HQ) will place increasing demands on satellite capacity. All total, 80% of the satellite bandwidth used in Iraqi Freedom came from the commercial sector, according to a recent Aviation Week article. Future versions of Tomahawk will also be satellite bandwidth consumers, since missiles will transmit health/status info ('Still flying, have passed second waymark'), reprogramming to other targets in flight, and "Battle Damage Indication" (i.e. 'Hi, I'm blowing up the target now—').
And the Navy is broadening its thinking in other aspects with SSGN as well. The most exotic concept on the drawing board is an undersea-launched UAV, springing out of the ballistic missile tube, then unfolding wings and heading out for recon, controlled from the sub by a wide-band data link. Recognizing the Tomahawk missile is not the speediest way to thump a time-sensitive target, the Navy is looking to adapt the Army's ATACMS missile for use with SSGN, rather than spending many years developing an All-Blue solution. Versions of the missile can hit targets up to 300 kilometers away, not as far as the 1100 kilometer Tomahawk, but the cruise missile travels at a "slow" 880 km/hr.
Admiral Hyman Rickover might be rolling over in his grave to see an Army system on one of his precious babies, but there are an equal number of former naval officers that would find amusement in his discomfort. µ
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