There are some specialists who believe that advances in sensing and computer science may one day tip the balance in favor of the hunters, making the seas ''transparent'' to antisubmarine forces. ''The Russians have to know that we are good at tracking them.'' ''We're part of the arms-reduction talks,'' says a naval surveillance officer. Moreover, the detection capacity is an element of nuclear deterrence. Banks of ocean-floor hydrophones feed data to computer centers linked by communications satellites hunter aircraft and attack submarines ceaselessly patrol.Īccording to most military experts, the United States is far ahead in the technology of detection, and that counts American ASW forces would take a heavy toll of the enemy in the event of war. Both Moscow and Washington are spending ever more billions of dollars to find ways to detect and track and, if necessary, destroy each other's submarine fleets. And this destructive new weapon is forcing revolutionary changes in antisubmarine warfare. Out of this deadly competition has emerged a whole new kind of underwater weapon: Some submarines today can achieve speeds of 43 knots underwater, 10 knots faster than the fastest merchant ship afloat - and four times the speed of World War II submarines. (Perhaps the most dramatic sighting came two months ago when a Soviet Victor III was forced to surface off South Carolina after becoming entangled with an array of listening devices towed by an American frigate.) Meanwhile, the United States Government's own commitment to the submarine has deepened, with the Navy now planning to spend $36 billion on a new class of attack submarines. Within the last year, wide-ranging Russian submarines have been seen in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans and the Mediterranean and Caribbean Seas. Their newest submarines are faster, dive deeper and pack more firepower than their American counterparts. Their attack submarines, which can fire torpedoes or tactical cruise missiles against surface ships or submarines, number 280 the United States has 95. They have 62 nuclear-powered strategic-missile subs, compared with the Ufited States' 34. The Russians have made a massive investment in their underseas fleet. Ogarkov, the chief of the Soviet general staff, made the threat more specific: The Kremlin would see to it that missiles in submarines off the American coast could hit their targets as quickly as Pershing missiles launched from West Germany against Moscow. Andropov, the Soviet leader, reacted to the scheduled deployment of American medium-range nuclear weapons in Western Europe by threatening to increase the number of strategic missiles ''in ocean areas.'' Last month, Marshal Nikolai V. And that has never been truer than today. Navy officials offer few details about these exercises, but the world of ASW - antisubmarine warfare - has always been a secret place. The Navy takes this new threat seriously: American attack submarines are increasingly engaged in war games beneath the ice pack, the hunter prowling in silence, its electronic sensors alert for the telltale sounds that will betray its prey. With twin nuclear power plants to maintain life-support systems, the Typhoon can hold that position for months at a time. In the United States Navy, this maneuver is known as ''ice pick.'' It transforms the Typhoon into a floating strategic- missile base, just a few hundred miles from the Soviet mainland but within striking distance of any American city - and well hidden from pursuit. Slowly, carefully, the captain guides the Typhoon upward until its stubby superstructure nudges against the jagged ice ceiling. Beneath the double row of hatches on its forward deck nestle 20 intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Typhoon-class ship, the newest entry in the Soviet underwater fleet, has almost half again the tonnage of the biggest American submarine. THE LARGEST SUBMARINE IN THE WORLD, A DARK mass longer than the Washington Monument is high, rises through the frigid depths below the Arctic ice pack. Allen and Norman Polmar are the co-authors of ''Rickover,'' a biography of Adm.
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