Seawolf Submarine Collision Surfaces Importance of “Fly-by-Wire” Technology

By Kris Osborn – President & Editor-In-Chief, Warrior Maven

The recent undersea collision involving a U.S. Navy fast-attack Seawolf submarine in the South China Sea raises some interesting questions about the value of more recently integrated navigational technology now being used by Navy submarines.

The SeaWolf-class of submarines, first built in the 1980s, are Cold-War era boats intended to rival or out perform the Soviet Union’s Typhoon class. They emerged in the 1980s and then deployed in the 1990s, however the end of the Cold War resulted in a budget reduction in the Navy’s planned fleet size and the eventual creation of the Virginia-class submarines.

As older submarines, Seawolf boats, and the earlier Virginia-class attack submarines are not built with any kind of computerized or digital navigation systems. Starting with the U.S. Navy’s Block III Virginia-class submarines, boats are engineered with a computerized “fly-by-wire” technology wherein key variables such as depth, speed and descent can be regulated by computer automation to gather intelligence and map the ocean floor and, perhaps more importantly, prevent unwanted collisions.

The mechanical and hydraulic controls of the Seawolf submarine are quite different than computerized “fly-by-wire” joystick controls of the Block III and beyond Virginia-class boats. The collision incident, therefore, may seem to lend further evidence in support of those now calling for a faster production and deployment tempo for high-tech Virginia-class attack submarines engineered with “fly-by-wire” navigation.

 Certainly the circumstances may not be know as to what kind of collision may have occurred, it seems quite possible that more advanced navigational technology might be able to prevent or certainly decrease the likelihood of this kind of collisions. 

Fly-by-Wire

Virginia-Class submarines are engineered with a “Fly-by-Wire” capability which allows the ship to quietly linger in shallow waters without having to surface or have each small move controlled by a human operator.

With “Fly-by-Wire” technology, a human operator will order depth and speed, allowing software to direct the movement of the planes and rudder to maintain course and depth. The ships can be driven primarily through software code and electronics, thus freeing up time and energy for an operator who does not need to manually control each small maneuver. Previous Los Angeles-Class and Seawolf class submarines reled upon manual, hydraulic controls.“