Ignore the surface ships, subs own the Arctic ...As The Arctic Warms, US Navy Considering Summer Transit, Bering Sea Porthttps://www.defenseone.com/news/2019/01/arctic-warms-us-navy-considering-summer-transit-bering-sea-port/154018/
... The Arctic is heating up and changing twice as fast as the rest of the globe. Some anticipate that it could regularly be virtually ice-free in summer by 2040. That reality, coupled with Russia’s aggressiveness, is forcing the Navy to look at its ability to operate in there with thawed eyes. “
You’re seeing the discussion change dramatically,” said Spencer. “
We had the Navy’s [Arctic] Roadmap. We are adjusting that…and there’s more to come.”
The Navy is meeting its current requirements for Arctic ops, according to GAO reports, but Spencer said that it was time to look beyond those.
He said the U.S. is exploring the possibility of opening a strategic port in the Bering Strait.------------------------------
US Navy Plans To Send More Ships Into The Arctic As It Looks To Establish New Polar Porthttp://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/25875/us-navy-plans-to-send-more-ships-into-the-arctic-as-it-looks-to-establish-new-polar-port ... “A strategic port up in the Bering [Sea] area is being explored, but that would be a whole-of-government approach: that would be Coast Guard, Navy and [Department of] Commerce in that regard,” Spencer explained. “But it’s an area we have to focus on, most definitely.”... Though the Navy is well aware of the strategic importance of the Arctic, and has increasingly made it a priority issue, the service is up against a number of issues that might make it more difficult to expand its presence in the near-term.
For one, it has no icebreakers and the U.S. government as a whole only owns two such ships..... But beyond the environmental hazards and limited infrastructure, many of the Navy’s non-ice-capable surface ships are not necessarily equipped to conduct protracted operations in extreme cold weather conditions, to begin with. The Ticonderoga-class cruisers, the first of which got laid down in 1980, was the last of its surface ship designs to feature a purpose-built steam de-icing system.
This is apparently not a feature on Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, which form the core of the service’s combat surface fleets.
Ice buildup on weapon systems, radomes, antennas, and other features on the Navy’s ships could limit their functionality or even cause damage. Without specialized de-icing features, a crew might have to spend significant effort manually removing the ice without causing any additional harm. That's to say nothing of the need to clear flight decks and helicopter landing pads on carriers, amphibious ships, and other warships.
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Navy May Deploy Surface Ships to Arctic This Summer as Shipping Lanes Open Uphttps://news.usni.org/2019/01/08/navy-may-deploy-surface-ships-arctic-summer-shipping-lanes-open... With three potential trans-Arctic routes potentially opening up, he said, the Navy’s discussion about Arctic presence has changed dramatically in the past two years.“As an example, this summer, the [chief of naval operations] and I have talked about having some ships make the transit in the Arctic. It’s going to be a multi-service task – I think you’ll see the Coast Guard involved. We’re just fleshing it out right now. But what is the purpose of that?
We have to learn what it’s like to operate in that environment,” he said.
Spencer said the Ticonderoga-class cruisers were the last class of Navy ships to be designed with steam systems to remove ice from the ship, and that newer classes are not ice-hardened or equipped with systems to remove ice.When the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group operated north of the Arctic Circle for several weeks this fall, t
he carrier itself handled the environment well, but its smaller escort ships and the supply ships the carrier relied on had a tougher time in the high sea states and icy waters. Similarly, when the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group sailed from Iceland to Norway in October, the larger amphibious assault ship made the journey safely, but the smaller dock landing ship was damaged in heavy seas and had to turn back.
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U.S. Warship Stuck in Montreal Since December Due to Ice Resumes Trip Homehttps://saultonline.com/2018/03/u-s-warship-stuck-in-montreal-since-december-due-to-ice-resumes-trip-home/ MONTREAL — An American warship stuck in Montreal since Christmas Eve has finally resumed its trip to its home port in Florida, the U.S. Navy confirmed on Saturday.
The USS Little Rock was commissioned in Buffalo, N.Y., on Dec. 16 but was trapped by ice at the Port of Montreal less than two weeks into its maiden voyage.The warship was equipped with temporary heaters and 16 de-icers designed to reduce ice accumulation on the hull, and the crew was provided with cold-weather clothing in light of the change to their winter plans.
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Zukunft: Changing Arctic Could Lead to Armed U.S. Icebreakers in Future Fleethttps://news.usni.org/2017/05/18/zukunft-changing-arctic-environment-could-lead-to-more-armed-icebreakers-in-future-fleetAdm. Paul Zukunft told the House Appropriations homeland security subcommittee today that three of each icebreakers was the shipbuilding requirement determined in a study five years ago and would still meet today’s requirements.
However,
he noted that “ice has retreated at record rates” since then, which makes oil and gas reserves more accessible – which creates a particularly thorny problem for the United States, which would like to claim these resources for its own but hasn’t ratified the U.N. Law of the Sea Convention treaty that would validate this claim.
We have sovereign interests at stake up there as well. We have seen China, for example, with their icebreaker (in the region)...
next thing we know we see a Chinese mobile offshore drilling unit going into the extended continental shelf to extract what otherwise would be U.S. oil.----------------------------
Russia May Put Lasers on Its New Icebreaker Shipshttps://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/news/a27447/russia-new-icebreaker-lasers/Last April the Russian Navy ordered for two ships for Project 23550, the Ivan Papanin-class icebreakers. Construction of the first began last September at JSC Admiralty Shipyards in St. Petersburg. The two ships are designed to function as icebreakers, tugboats, and patrol vessels.
According to Janes, the two ships will displace about 8,500 tons, about the size of modern destroyers, but much of that weight is due to the reinforced hull needed by icebreakers to plow through thick sea ice. Dimensionally, the Papanin class will be only about the size of a frigate.
The ships will carry one AK-176MA 3-inch multipurpose deck gun (76.2-millimeter), a Kamov Ka-27 search and rescue helicopter, and eight Kalibr anti-ship missiles or longer-range cruise missile variants. The ships will be powered by diesel electric engines mounted in azipods generating a combined horsepower of 9,160 horsepower, and will carry bow thrusters for precise maneuvering.
According to Russian state media Sputnik News, the
Ivan Papanin ships could be outfitted with lasers in the near future. Later this year Russian engineers will test a 30-kilowatt laser on the icebreaker Dikson, with an eye toward eventually fielding a 200-kilowatt seagoing laser.
The article claims the icebreaker will only use lasers for ice cutting, allowing the ships to get around the arctic faster.
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Russia Designs Ice-Breaking Nuclear-Powered Submarine for Arctic Shelf Operationshttps://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2019/01/russia-designs-ice-breaking-nuclear-powered-submarine-arctic-shelf-operationsA vessel that can both crush through the ice and dive beneath it when working on extraction of mineral resources from the Arctic seabed.It is the design bureau Malachite, famous for developing several classes of Russian navy nuclear powered submarines, that has presented a new 82 meters long submarine with ice-breaking capabilities.
With its special bow and strengthened hull, the submarine is said to be able to navigate through 1,2 meter thick ice in surface position. The vessel will hold Arc5 ice-class according to Russian classification.
Malachite says on its site that the submarine is aimed at working safely beneath the ice without worrying about waves, wind or moving ice on the surface.
Fields of operations include both oil and gas subsea installations as well as potential future extraction of other mineral resources to be mined from the Arctic sea floor.Also Malachite’s Arctic submarine is designed to carry mini-submarines that could work independently from the mother-submarine.
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As the Ice Melts, Nuclear Submarines Train for Arctic Warhttps://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xw5b4d/icex-2018-arctic-war-training... focusing on the GIUK Gap (
the sea between Greenland, Iceland, and the UK) may fall short of the challenge NATO now faces.
For much of the Cold War, the Soviet navy lacked land-attack cruise missiles and would have had to leave its "bastion" in the Barents Sea in order to engage NATO forces, which made the GIUK Gap an important choke point at that time, according to Steven Wills, a military historian and former US Navy surface-warfare officer.
But with the development of sub-launched missiles — especially the modern Kaliber cruise missile — "Today's Russian Navy can remain within its Barents bastion and still launch accurate attacks against ships in the Norwegian Sea and NATO land targets without leaving these protected waters,"
"The real 'Gap' where NATO must focus its deterrent action is the Greenland, Svalbard, North Cape line at the northern limit of the Norwegian and and Greenland Seas," he writes. "It is again time to consider deterrent action and potential naval warfare in the 'High North.'"
The US, Russia and China are stepping up their use of submarines, drones, sensors and other undersea military technology. This is making the security of assets such as undersea internet cables and coastal military facilities an area of growing concern.
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The Arctic is Unforgiving ...Too fast, Vasili. Too fast!http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/26178/dramatic-video-of-russian-tu-22m3-crash-landing-in-bad-weather-emerges
