| LETTERS
The Jimmy Carter's
Undiminished Combat Capabilities
Thank you for publishing the article on the Naval Undersea Warfare Center
in the July 2001 issue of Sea Power. Please note that the USS Jimmy Carter
(SSN 23) has a torpedo room and will retain its full warfighting capability.
The SSN 23 is being modified with additional volume and functionality
to support new multimission opportunities. These changes will have no
direct impact on the ship's warfighting capability, but will give the
submarine an enhanced payload capability with a more modular architecture.
The article and the caption accompanying the picture of the Jimmy Carter
were not intended to imply that any warfighting capabilities were removed
from the ship, particularly from the torpedo room. The redesign and reutilization
of torpedo room space could occur on future submarines, however, as the
result of new developments and improved interfaces for launching and
recovering unmanned underwater vehicles and advanced weapon payloads.
John Sirmalis
Technical Director, NUWC
Newport, R.I.
Electric-Drive Footnote
Dr. Edward Whitman's article ["The IPS Advantage"] in the July 2001
issue of Sea Power captured the various research and development initiatives
taking place with electric drive. Soon, advances of this extraordinary
technology are going to be incorporated into operational platforms. The
promise of electric drive is now being seriously discussed and Dr. Whitman
has made a useful contribution to the understanding of its capabilities.
I would like to add a footnote regarding Large-Scale Vehicle 2 (LSV-2),
which is featured in the article. The 6,000 horsepower permanent-magnet
motor installed and now performing in this vessel is an independent research-and-development
(IR&D) effort by General Dynamics, Electric Boat. We donated the motor
to the Navy as a means of demonstrating this emerging technology on LSV-2.
Electric Boat, along with the Navy and our LSV-2 teammate, Newport News Shipbuilding,
are eagerly anticipating the service operation of this autonomous submarine
hydrodynamics test capability.
Millard S. Firebaugh
Electric Boat
Groton, Conn. |
