Michael E. Glynn - Airborne Anti-Submarine Warfare

Airborne Anti-Submarine

Warfare

From the First World War to the Present Day

Michael E. Glynn

First published in Great Britain in 2022 by

Frontline Books

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Yorkshire Philadelphia

Copyright Michael E. Glynn 2021

ISBN 978 1 39909 273 9

eISBN 978 1 39909 274 6

mobi ISBN 978 1 39909 274 6

The right of Michael E. Glynn to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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A s a young anti-submarine warfare (ASW) pilot, I tried as best I could to immerse myself in the world of submarine hunting. The topic seemed at first to me to be equal parts hard science, an art developed from plenty of practice, and a set of aphorisms and rules passed down from aviator to aviator about what worked and what didnt while an aircrew was on station.

As I learned more and practiced in the air, I found myself growing increasingly frustrated. I found myself asking questions about why a certain tactic was employed or why certain systems on the airplane developed. The tactics manuals were simply instructions, more cookbooks than explanations. Doctrinal publications were no better. They made it clear how the U.S. Navy as a whole faced off against a submarine threat, but they did not explain how the service had done so in the past or why the airborne ASW community had evolved the way it had.

New assignments came, and with them came new perspectives. Why did the British Royal Air Force (RAF) ASW aviators fly tactics differently that the Americans? Why had their aircraft and sensors developed differently than ours? I wondered.

During an assignment helping to develop tactical decision aid software, I was forced to immerse myself in academic works on operations analysis and oceanography. This job proved itself a tipping point. Having flown in the military for nearly a decade, I felt as though I was just starting to systematically understand airborne ASW and the fundamental relationships between the strengths and weaknesses of the airplane and submarine.

This realization was maddening. The topics might have been a bit arcane, but they were all easily grasped with a bit of attention. An aviator did not need a PhD in mathematics to understand operations analysis and did not need a masters degree in oceanography to understand the science behind submarine hunting. Reading about the holistic history of ASW gave insight into why the weapons and sensors had evolved the way they had. This was information I wished I had had a decade before. It would have made the process of learning to be a productive member of an ASW aircrew much easier and much more satisfying.

In my final flying assignment, I was sent to teach at an advanced jet training squadron. Since the instructor pilots ready room was overwhelmingly filled with strike fighter pilots, I picked up a copy of Robert L. Shaws