Undersea Surveillance: Navy Continues to Build Ships Designed for Soviet Threat

The Navys Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System SURTASS program, like other defense programs, has been caught in the midst of rapidly changing world events. SURTASS sensors listen for acoustic signals from enemy submarines in the deep, open ocean. However, the submarine threat for which SURTASS was designed has declined dramatically with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The United States no longer faces a well-defined nuclear submarine threat in the deep water ocean areas where strategic naval conflict and antisubmarine warfare operations were expected to occur. Instead, the Navy faces an ill- defined, less predictable regional threat from diesel submarines operating in shallow water areas. Yet, the Navy continues to build SURTASS surveillance ships designed for the deep water threat. In light of the recent world changes, we examined 1 how the submarine threat environment has changed and 2 what changes the Navy has proposed regarding its SURTASS program.