Anti-submarine warfare moving to the forefront.

• Author: Tiron, Roxana
• Position: Naval Systems

Anti-submarine warfare has become an area that the Navy has to reinvent completely, according to service officials.

The Navy's requirements office, OPNAV, will reorganize in the coming months to bring ASW to the forefront in "a significant way," said Rear Adm. Henry Ulrich, the director of surface warfare in the office of the chief of naval operations.

This time around, the approach towards ASW is going to be different, he said during an industry day.

"Acknowledging the fact that we have had spurts of 'we care about ASW' and then a rapid decline, I believe that we are serious this time," he said. "I am personally committed, and lots of folks are." In the future, the lack of advanced ASW capabilities could be a "show-stopper," Ulrich said.

The "force on force" way of doing ASW is a thing of the past for Ulrich. "I would like to get away from it," he said. "I am not sure I want my surface ships out there looking for a submarine. Maybe they do not have a distinct advantage, but there are other ways of doing it."

Ulrich said he wants surface ships to have capabilities to detect and neutralize an incoming torpedo.

According to Ulrich, a defense technology expert panel made several recommendations on ASW capabilities. These included rapidly deployable, active/passive distributed fields to cover a full range of shallow and deepwater environments without frequent reseeding; non-acoustic sensors with long-endurance that can fly at low altitudes; tactical air vehicles and rapid-attack weapons.

Longer-term recommendations focus on an autonomous ASW sensor system; large-area, non-acoustic search capability against shallow submarines; long-range standoff ASW weapons and decoys or countermeasures.

The Navy is planning a series of demonstrations for next year, said Ulrich. One is scheduled for January 2004, and will look at off-board active defense in a littoral setting. The second one is scheduled for May 2004 and will examine acoustics and non acoustics together with a moving area search. The third is scheduled for September 2004 and will focus on active/passive distributive systems and non-acoustics, according to Ulrich's presentation.

"You bring me technology proposals that I can touch, feel, do a demonstration and experiment with, I am committed," he told contractors. And the money will follow after successful demonstrations, he said.

Ulrich said he shuns away from the idea of a long-term master plan. "Mine is old after three months," he said. "That...