Evening star., 1963-05-13
THRESHER
Adaqe Of Set Thief to Catch Thief
Would Have Put Sub on Lonely Vigil

Continued From Page Al
Navy has undoubtedly refrained
from publicizing. The Nautilus
first trip to the North Pole was
no mere grandstand play, but
Q serious operational exercise.
The Polar rendezvous Of Skate
and Seadragon in 1862 was o
full-scale Arctic anti-submarine
warfare maneuver.
This is cold-war combat. It
is going on daily. Had Thresher
survived her "post-shakedown
availability" test April 10, she
might even now have been on
such q cruise. With the most
sensitive sonars ever built, with
the quietest propeller and rub
ber-moJmted engine ever de-
vised, with the deepest rated
hull ever constructed, she was
tailor made for long, lonely
vigils in the icy waters off
Murmansk or Nordyik or some
other Soviet Arctic port.
set thief to catch q thief"
the adage advises. Similarly,
modern anti submarine war
fare Is best done by attack
submarines. They have only
passing interest In goings-on
above, from which they sepa-
rate themselves for so days at
a time. Their principal business
is to keep track Of Russia's
large and growing undersea
force, and in the event of hos
r.lities. to do something about
1t.
Nuclear-Ti Missiles
Something" in such q case,
would be done at present with
torpedoes and such conventional
devices, tomorrow with nuclear
tipped anti-submarine missiles
like Subroc.
Attack submarines Of the
Thresher type have q different
function from Polaris subma-
rines like George Washington,
which are floating missile plat
forms that use the sea for con-
cealment. The submarine Navy
plays its game by a two-platoon
system, and assumes that the
Red undersea fleet does, too.
Geopolitically, Russia Is re-
garded as q continental state
while the United States is an
island power. In this view Rus
sia's freedom Of movement is
overland while that Of the
United States is via the seas.
The submariner's world m a pI
convinces him that the United
States has an easier time keep
ing track Of its competitions
submarines than Russia does.
Even a layman's Impractical
eye can discern the point:
For q Russian submarine to
reach the great world ocean
from almost any Soviet port,
she must traverse at least one
bottleneck. American attack
submarines lying off Red ports
and in these relatively narrow
seas have q great strategic ad-
vantage over their Russian
counterparts who are charged
with patrolling and controlling
the Free Worlds long. open
coastline.
Latest Advancement
In submarine warfare, as in
other branches Of the military
art, the constant imperative is
to keep ahead Of the enemy.
The Threshers class Of attack
submarines, able to run silent,
run deep" is only the latest ad-
vancement; 1t is by no means
the ultimate In summarizing.
The designers of ThresherI
pushed shipbuilding to its lin
its - perhaps even a little bit
beyond, In view Of what hap
pened. The sole reason Thresher
would travel only so fast and
dive only so deep was that
no one designing a submarine
in 1858 when Thresher's keel
was laid knew how to build
one that would 60 faster or
deeper. 1t is reasonable to as
sumo that the attack 'subma-
rines Of the late SOS, nov on
the drawing boards, will take
advantage Of subsequent state
of-the-art advances.
How fast, and how deep, was
Thresher built to go2 OF this,
the Navy says only more than
400 feet. more than 20 knots
submerged" This tells abso-
lutely nothing Of Thresher's|
capabilities, which is the way
the Navy wants to keep mat
ters. All World War II subma-
rines were rated at 400 feet or
better. and Thresher was many
generations removed from
these. The first nuke" Maui
titus, was revealed as having a.
20-knot submerged capability
(actually 1t was more), and
Thresher was years beyond
Nautilus in all respects.
Redesigned Depth Charges
The Navy strives to keep
submarine capabilities secret
for many reasons. among them
protection Of the ships them
selves. The 400-foot depth OF
World War II boats leaked out