Herman Hum
29 Aug 06, 13:14
Tight budget forces Navy to put squeeze on sub (http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20060828-9999-1n28dolphin.html)
But analysts say subtracting Dolphin will only add to costs
By Steve Liewer
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
August 28, 2006
Navy budget cutters are about to achieve what flood and fire could not: sink the Dolphin submarine.
Less than a year after completing a $50 million project to repair and upgrade the San Diego-based research vessel, the Navy will decommission it Sept. 22. It is the country's last diesel-electric sub.
Pentagon officials say the Dolphin's age and uniqueness caught up with it, making it expensive to operate and maintain. The research vessel is based at Point Loma.
Axing the Dolphin will save the cash-strapped Navy about $18 million annually, said Capt. John Schwering, director of the Navy Range Office in Washington. The Navy's budget this year is $125 billion.
Some military analysts say the Dolphin's unique missions will get pushed over to ships that are far more expensive to operate, thus costing the Navy more in the long run.
“It's just ridiculous. This submarine is very valuable,” said Norman Polmar, an independent naval expert who rode the Dolphin during its return-to-sea trials in the fall. “It's money, money, money.”
Money is among the Navy's biggest problems right now.
A supporting role in the expensive Iraq and Afghanistan wars frequently has put the Navy behind the Army and Marines in the queue for funds at the Pentagon.
“There's a concern within the Navy that they are not as central to the global war on terror as the Army and Marine Corps,” said Ron O'Rourke, a military budget analyst for the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. “There's a perception that they are at risk for becoming the bill payer for the other services.”
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's office is considering a transfer of $23 billion from the Navy and Air Force to the Army in 2008, with more shifts likely before 2013, the newsletter Inside the Pentagon reported this month. The White House also stuck the Navy with most of the nearly $2 billion tab for President Bush's border-security effort, according to the journal Aerospace Daily & Defense Report.
Cmdr. Andrew Wilde climbed the ladder to the Dolphin's hatch. His crew was caught off guard when shortly after the submarine returned to service, they learned it would be decommissioned. "It's a sad time," Wilde said.
At the same time, the Navy is struggling to replace an aging fleet with modern warships whose development costs are spiraling. The new vessels include the CVN 21 aircraft carrier, the Zumwalt-class destroyers, the Littoral Combat Ship and the Virginia-class submarines.
“The shipbuilding accounts are in a shambles,” said Chris Hellman, a military budget analyst with the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, a left-leaning research group in Washington. “The Navy is scrambling for every dollar it can get its hands on.”
As a result, Hellman said, the Navy is foraging in every corner to pay for shipbuilding. Small programs that don't directly involve war operations, including the Dolphin's scientific research mission, are especially vulnerable.
“There are a lot of really unusual decisions being made right now because of budgets,” Hellman said. “Rather than taking on big systems, they're doing a lot of salami-slicing like this.”
Pentagon officials said they hadn't determined what fate the Dolphin would meet. Among the options are for it to be sold to another country or taken apart. The Navy only would confirm that the submarine has been targeted for “disposal.”
After a 2002 accident nearly sank the Dolphin 100 miles southwest of San Diego, the Naval Sea Systems Command spent 3˝ years and $50 million to repair and upgrade the vessel.
The Dolphin returned to action last November. Four months later, Cmdr. Andrew Wilde and his crew learned that it would be decommissioned.
“It's a sad time,” Wilde said. “You have people who put their heart and soul into this ship.”
News that the Dolphin would be retired so soon after its return to service struck hard at the vessel's close-knit, 40-member crew and its fraternity of alumni.
“It was jaw-dropping. I couldn't believe it,” said David Guettler, 41, of San Marcos, who served two tours totaling five years aboard the Dolphin before leaving the Navy in 2003.
Petty Officer 2nd Class John Garrett also was caught off guard by the announcement.
“I had heard some rumors, but I really didn't think she'd be decommed,” said Garrett, 29, of Seattle, who has worked in the ship's machinery division for two years. “She had a lot of history.”
Commissioned in 1968, the Dolphin in its first year of duty claimed what is still a submarine record – diving more than 3,000 feet, Wilde said.
During the Cold War, it carried out secret missions along with its acknowledged oceanographic duties.
The Dolphin had other notable firsts: sending the first successful submarine-to-aircraft laser communication and the first sub-to-surface e-mail and making the deepest launch for a torpedo. It has served as the testing platform for numerous sonar systems. As the Navy gradually retired the rest of its diesel-electric fleet, the Dolphin often played the enemy in anti-submarine warfare exercises – an important role because most of the world's navies still field diesel-electric subs.
Pentagon officials say the Dolphin's age and uniqueness caught up with it, making it expensive to operate and maintain. They say it carries obsolete sonar, is too slow and can't be maneuvered well enough to convincingly simulate a modern diesel-electric sub.
“The Dolphin's capabilities no longer represent today's diesel submarine threat,” said Schwering of the Navy Range Office. “There are better platforms.”
Nuclear submarines will pick up some of the Dolphin's duties, while others will fall to the Gotland, a modern Swedish diesel submarine that the San Diego-based Third Fleet has just leased for a second year at $11 million.
But analysts say subtracting Dolphin will only add to costs
By Steve Liewer
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
August 28, 2006
Navy budget cutters are about to achieve what flood and fire could not: sink the Dolphin submarine.
Less than a year after completing a $50 million project to repair and upgrade the San Diego-based research vessel, the Navy will decommission it Sept. 22. It is the country's last diesel-electric sub.
Pentagon officials say the Dolphin's age and uniqueness caught up with it, making it expensive to operate and maintain. The research vessel is based at Point Loma.
Axing the Dolphin will save the cash-strapped Navy about $18 million annually, said Capt. John Schwering, director of the Navy Range Office in Washington. The Navy's budget this year is $125 billion.
Some military analysts say the Dolphin's unique missions will get pushed over to ships that are far more expensive to operate, thus costing the Navy more in the long run.
“It's just ridiculous. This submarine is very valuable,” said Norman Polmar, an independent naval expert who rode the Dolphin during its return-to-sea trials in the fall. “It's money, money, money.”
Money is among the Navy's biggest problems right now.
A supporting role in the expensive Iraq and Afghanistan wars frequently has put the Navy behind the Army and Marines in the queue for funds at the Pentagon.
“There's a concern within the Navy that they are not as central to the global war on terror as the Army and Marine Corps,” said Ron O'Rourke, a military budget analyst for the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. “There's a perception that they are at risk for becoming the bill payer for the other services.”
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's office is considering a transfer of $23 billion from the Navy and Air Force to the Army in 2008, with more shifts likely before 2013, the newsletter Inside the Pentagon reported this month. The White House also stuck the Navy with most of the nearly $2 billion tab for President Bush's border-security effort, according to the journal Aerospace Daily & Defense Report.
Cmdr. Andrew Wilde climbed the ladder to the Dolphin's hatch. His crew was caught off guard when shortly after the submarine returned to service, they learned it would be decommissioned. "It's a sad time," Wilde said.
At the same time, the Navy is struggling to replace an aging fleet with modern warships whose development costs are spiraling. The new vessels include the CVN 21 aircraft carrier, the Zumwalt-class destroyers, the Littoral Combat Ship and the Virginia-class submarines.
“The shipbuilding accounts are in a shambles,” said Chris Hellman, a military budget analyst with the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, a left-leaning research group in Washington. “The Navy is scrambling for every dollar it can get its hands on.”
As a result, Hellman said, the Navy is foraging in every corner to pay for shipbuilding. Small programs that don't directly involve war operations, including the Dolphin's scientific research mission, are especially vulnerable.
“There are a lot of really unusual decisions being made right now because of budgets,” Hellman said. “Rather than taking on big systems, they're doing a lot of salami-slicing like this.”
Pentagon officials said they hadn't determined what fate the Dolphin would meet. Among the options are for it to be sold to another country or taken apart. The Navy only would confirm that the submarine has been targeted for “disposal.”
After a 2002 accident nearly sank the Dolphin 100 miles southwest of San Diego, the Naval Sea Systems Command spent 3˝ years and $50 million to repair and upgrade the vessel.
The Dolphin returned to action last November. Four months later, Cmdr. Andrew Wilde and his crew learned that it would be decommissioned.
“It's a sad time,” Wilde said. “You have people who put their heart and soul into this ship.”
News that the Dolphin would be retired so soon after its return to service struck hard at the vessel's close-knit, 40-member crew and its fraternity of alumni.
“It was jaw-dropping. I couldn't believe it,” said David Guettler, 41, of San Marcos, who served two tours totaling five years aboard the Dolphin before leaving the Navy in 2003.
Petty Officer 2nd Class John Garrett also was caught off guard by the announcement.
“I had heard some rumors, but I really didn't think she'd be decommed,” said Garrett, 29, of Seattle, who has worked in the ship's machinery division for two years. “She had a lot of history.”
Commissioned in 1968, the Dolphin in its first year of duty claimed what is still a submarine record – diving more than 3,000 feet, Wilde said.
During the Cold War, it carried out secret missions along with its acknowledged oceanographic duties.
The Dolphin had other notable firsts: sending the first successful submarine-to-aircraft laser communication and the first sub-to-surface e-mail and making the deepest launch for a torpedo. It has served as the testing platform for numerous sonar systems. As the Navy gradually retired the rest of its diesel-electric fleet, the Dolphin often played the enemy in anti-submarine warfare exercises – an important role because most of the world's navies still field diesel-electric subs.
Pentagon officials say the Dolphin's age and uniqueness caught up with it, making it expensive to operate and maintain. They say it carries obsolete sonar, is too slow and can't be maneuvered well enough to convincingly simulate a modern diesel-electric sub.
“The Dolphin's capabilities no longer represent today's diesel submarine threat,” said Schwering of the Navy Range Office. “There are better platforms.”
Nuclear submarines will pick up some of the Dolphin's duties, while others will fall to the Gotland, a modern Swedish diesel submarine that the San Diego-based Third Fleet has just leased for a second year at $11 million.