By Geoff Fein
Advances in design, systems and technology make USS Hawaii (SSN-776) more reliable, easier to maintain and combat ready, according to the submarine’s commander.
After wrapping up her first deployment, the Hawaii will be heading into post shakedown availability (PSA) for required upgrades and modifications later in May.
The Hawaii was commissioned one year ago this month and in less than a year underwent her first deployment to Southern Command to conduct counter-narcotics operations, Cmdr. Ed Herrington told Defense Daily in a recent telephone interview.
Herrington has served aboard several attack submarines including the USS Narwhal (SSN-671), as executive officer aboard the USS Seawolf (SSN-575), and he supervised construction as the Officer in Charge on the USS North Carolina (SSN-777).
Herrington said there are noticeable differences between other submarines and the Virginia class.
“If you were to look at the maintenance load on the crew, how much effort did it require of the crew to maintain the ship, the workload of the crew on the Seawolf was much greater than the workload of the crew on [the Hawaii] and considering the fact we are newer,” he said. “I do see a decrease in the amount of effort in my crew to maintain the submarine, fully operational, as opposed to my previous experience on other classes.”
General Dynamics [GD] Electric Boat built the Hawaii.
Part of the reduced workload can be attributed to the decline in the number of valves and pumps on Virginia-class submarines, Herrington said.
“We have 50 percent fewer valves and 30 percent fewer pumps on this class, so just the simplicity of the systems lends itself to a reduced workload,” Herrington noted. “We also take advantage of the fact, from a fire control standpoint and sonar standpoint, the systems are not really unique to this boat. They are the same proven technology we are using on the 688 class. So even though it is a new submarine, kind of the heart of a lot of the electronics is exactly the same as what’s on board a standard 688.”
Herrington also saw improved reliability in the Hawaii, whether it was new back-up diesel generators or the continued reliability of the propulsion plant.
In other classes of submarines, the back-up generators were specifically designed for the ship. On the Virginia class, the Navy is using a commercial grade Caterpillar [CAT] high-speed diesel. One of the selling points of the system is that Caterpillar advertises that because the diesel engine is so widely used, it can get any part for it within 24 hours, Herrington said.
“What you kind of look at when you get to a new class of submarines is, of all the new gear how does it perform…from the reliability standpoint, particularly in the machinery room,” he said.
The machinery room is where the submarine’s atmosphere control equipment is located along with the emergency diesel generator and a new sanitation system, Herrington said. “There would be concerns going in…what’s the reliability going to be? It was great.”
The Hawaii is outfitted with some complex systems, for example, a new photonics mast, Herrington said.
“And with any new significant improvement, over the previous class, there’s always some issues that pop up,” he added. “But we are working closely with Kollmorgen to try and resolve those.”
Kollmorgen Electro-Optical makes the photonic mast.
Another difference between the Virginia-class submarines and other classes is the flexibility of the weapons room, Herrington said.
“For this deployment we only had to bring a limited number of Mk 48 torpedoes. That was my entire weapons load out,” he said. “On every other class, even if you didn’t bring weapons, you still had a torpedo room full of valves and hydraulics and the space is basically wasted.”
Because of the flexibility of the weapon room, the Hawaii was outfitted with a 25-man berthing module, a first for any submarine, Herrington noted.
The module occupied about half the torpedo room, he added.
“We took the rest of the torpedo room space and converted it into what I called the Hawaii weight room,” Herrington said.
He had the torpedo room outfitted with workout equipment for the crew. And crew members took advantage of the equipment, “We had a crew member lose over 50 pounds. We had several crew members lose 40 pounds. It was not uncommon to have three to four people in the torpedo room working out simultaneously, throughout the deployment, 24 hours a day.”
The ability to reconfigure the torpedo room so easily is critical for the class, Herrington added.
“Even though we had about a 10-man intelligence detachment and an entire crew complement, we still had three racks that were empty for deployment,” he said. “And that’s compared to your average fast attack submarine that will deploy with 20, 30, 40, 50 members of the crew hot racking.”
As for the sonar system, Herring said it is on par with Seawolf‘s. “What you do gain, though, this is the first time we have had sonar operators in the command center.”
Herrington said at first he was a bit concerned with the idea of sonar operators moving into the command center.
“I was a little cautious of that when I first heard we were doing that because I had concerns the sonar operators might be distracted. Their ability to recognize contacts might be degraded by the fact that there are other people disturbing them in the control room,” he said. “But what I did see, that’s not a problem because they have noise cancellation headphones that keep them isolated from what is going on.”
One benefit Herrington found is that the officers that are the tactical decision makers in the control room now have available to them almost all of the information, from an intelligence standpoint and from an operational standpoint, that is happening and they can see and interact with the operators directly.
“If we are tracking a contact and he maneuvers, from the time it takes for us to recognize the maneuver and to work with the officers to figure out what the contact is doing, until we are now acting on that, that time has been dramatically reduced,” Herrington explained. “[That’s] because you get that free flow of information exchange from the operators directly to the officers as opposed to having to work over phone communications from a different room that is remote.”
By having the sonar operators in the command center, those operators can quickly draw the attention of tactical decision makers and therefore enable a faster response. “I saw that in spades when we were on deployment,” Herrington said.
On May 21 the Hawaii will enter dry dock to begin her 10 month PSA. In 2009, the boat will do a homeport shift, moving from Groton, Conn., to Hawaii, in time for the 50th anniversary of Hawaii’s statehood, he added.
The Hawaii will then do its workups in preparation for its first full six-month deployment, Herrington said. “The goal is to get the boat out to the West Coast as soon as possible and to get her deployed as soon as possible.”