Dolphins Still Aground

Uh-boy.  AFP laid an oeuf and a half, it looks like, with its now-near-viral report that the Israelis have taken delivery of their two new U212 “Dolphin” submarines from Germany – a year early.

This thing is all over the web, but more sober (and credible) commentary suggests the report isn’t true.  See this squib from Information Dissemination:  Galrahn’s source at Janes says the submarines are still in the yards at HDW (the German manufacturer), and a reader comments that he saw the bow section of one of the Dolphins under construction in the yards three weeks ago.  He accurately points out that that doesn’t represent enough time for the submarine to have moved from Germany to Israel.  The initial sea trials – in Germany – alone would take longer than that.

Of course, it won’t hurt Israel’s rep any for this word to remain out there, generating speculation about Israeli military prowess (and secretiveness).  We should not expect any watershed moments of public correction.

But this is as good a time as any to make a couple of points about these new submarines.  The most important one is that if Israel uses them to launch missiles at Iran, the missiles need not be, and probably will not be, nuclear.  Please read that again, and get the idea firmly in your mind.  Israel can use submarine-launched cruise missiles without the missiles being nuclear.

This point is important because whenever you hear about the Israeli Dolphin submarines, you will hear, like love going with marriage, or a horse with a carriage, that they can carry nuclear cruise missiles.  And they can.  But the “Popeye” land-attack cruise missiles can also be equipped with conventional warheads.  “Israel using cruise missiles” does not equal “Israel using nukes.”

If we’re all clear on that now, we can move along.  A second point about the submarine-launched cruise missiles is that, as with the US Tomahawk, there is a limit to the kind of target the Israelis can do effective damage to, using standoff cruise missiles.  Much less is publicly verified about the Israeli Popeye cruise missile than about our Tomahawk, but the capability and sophistication of Israeli weapons can be estimated with some accuracy by comparison with their US analogs.  A conventional-warhead Popeye is likely to be a “1000-pound class” weapon, meaning it can achieve the standard effect of 1000 pounds of explosive, with the comparison usually based on a 1000-pound air-delivered bomb.

Thousand-pounders remain in pervasive use with active militaries like ours, the Brits’, etc.  They do a lot of damage to soft targets.  When paired with shaped penetrators and other boom-enhancing features, they can be very effective.  They are not, however, useful for initial penetration or same-strike exploitation of hard or underground targets.  For that, a minimum 5000-pound bomb is typically required.  The 1000-pound warhead also does less damage than its big brother, the 2000-pound warhead (now used about as commonly as the 1000-pound warhead, depending on target and targeting objective).

Submarines in today’s fleets don’t launch 2000-pound warheads on cruise missiles, and it is unlikely the Israeli Dolphins do.  Besides the physics challenge of air-mailing the heavier payload, the Dolphins launch their cruise missiles from the torpedo tubes rather than from dedicated vertical missile launchers, as US and British submarines do.  The additional maneuvers required by the airframe add to the physics challenge of weight versus distance.

Israel could also have developed fragmentary conventional warheads – warheads that deploy dozens of small bomblets – for the Popeye missile.  These warheads are favored for hitting “area” targets like multiple fighter jets grouped on a parking apron, or a garrison yard full of 2.5-ton trucks.

The appropriate “cruise missile target,” therefore, will be a soft one that can be adequately damaged without hard-target penetration or the greater “thump” of the 2000-pound class warhead.  This narrows the list considerably – and in fact, none of the critical nodes in Iran’s nuclear program is well suited to cruise missile strike, at least as the primary or initial weapon.

The probable scope and geometry of an Israeli strike diminish the value of the cruise missile.  A key limiting feature with it is that it will be tracked through the target nation’s airspace.  An enterprising target nation might even manage to shoot it down.  Israel cannot “blanket” Iran with submarine-launched cruise missiles; and most of the key targets are in northern and central Iran, which a submarine-launched cruise missile can only approach by flying all the way through southern Iran.  This process will take as much as 45 minutes.  It would be very difficult to time cruise missile hits to coincide with a tactical airstrike, without giving the whole thing away as the cruise missiles chug endlessly through Iranian airspace.

So as kewl as the submarine-launched cruise missile (SLCM) option is to think about, there are limitations that will inherently minimize its incorporation in an Israeli strike package.  SLCMs could still, indeed, be used in a strike, but they will have a subordinate and probably reinforcing role.  Adding them to the strike could be a way of increasing the complexity of Iran’s air defense problem, for the duration of the operation, and that might well be worth the effort and expense.

This role for cruise missiles raises the issue of a role for (ground-launched) ballistic missiles in an Israeli strike.  Without going into that topic in great depth, I can say that ballistic missiles might indeed have a role.  They need not be nuclear missiles, and if the strike occurs in the next 6-18 months I do not think they would be.  Conventional warheads delivered by Jericho-II would be used against soft targets, and for follow-on exploitation of previous penetrator strikes, by aircraft, at the hardened sites.  Either ballistic missiles or SLCMs could be employed usefully against Iran’s counterstrike capabilities:  fighter-bomber bases, ballistic missile storage and garrison sites, and air force fuel depots.  If I were planning the strike, I would consider hitting these the highest-payoff uses of the standoff assets.

(We should note, in passing, that the Dolphin submarines are equipped to launch cruise missiles, but not ballistic missiles.  Israel does not have a submarine-launched ballistic missile capability.  That capability requires different submarines, built from the keel up to house ballistic missile bays.)

The new Dolphins due from Germany next year will have air-independent propulsion (AIP), and that will give Israel a new and significant capability.  Diesel-powered submarines normally have to come to snorkel depth fairly often to take in air, so that their engines’ combustion process can continue.  A submarine with AIP can go much longer than the typical diesel-powered submarine (SS) without coming up for air.  This won’t make the Israeli subs completely undetectable, since they will have to transit the Suez Canal to get to the Red Sea and points beyond.  That literally cannot be done covertly.  (The transit around Africa requires refueling for an SS, and although the Israelis might try it, it would inevitably involve substantial exposure at some point.)  But it will be possible, with skilled operation, for an Israeli Dolphin SS to operate as far as the Persian Gulf undetected, once it has entered the Red Sea.

The Israelis may not have time, before a strike, to condition Iran to a continuous Dolphin SS presence in the Red Sea (based in Eilat on the Gulf of Aqaba), so that Iran is not in a state of nail-biting alertment whenever a Dolphin is south of the Canal.  Having two additional submarines – for a total of fleet of five – would make that easier, though.  Ultimately, Israel can bring off a strike that will set Iran back without using SLCMs.  But the additional Dolphins will expand Israel’s strike options, and – equally important – make a greater general maritime presence in the Red Sea more feasible for the Israeli submarine force.

For previous posts on the design of Israeli and US strikes on Iran’s nuclear program, see here and here.  For another interesting, fairly in-depth view from shortly after the Qom facility revelation, see this WSJ piece by long-time defense commentator Anthony Cordesman.  He takes a more pessimistic view than I would, and I would call our perspectives representative of contrasting “types” among military thinkers.  Cordesman tends to be pessimistic, but he is never to be dismissed.  I estimate 60-70% of targeteers and strikers in the US Navy and Air Force would share my view, in its main essentials.  An Israeli strike is feasible – the key is to keep the target list small, and recognize going in that the operation’s effect will be to set Iran back, not permanently disable her nuclear program.