operate. We are no longer the unchallenged masters of the sea. This is a direct result of the Soviet submarine-building program.

As one measure of comparison, I think it is fair to say that we would lose more ships today from submarine attack than we would have lost perhaps a few years ago.

On the other hand, we are building now a new ASW weapon; we are improving our ASW capability. The Congress has now approved the program for the 688 submarines, which will be useful in defending against a worldwide submarine campaign on the part of the Soviets. I think that with the programs we have in the budget, it is clear that our capabilities are going to increase.

So, in a nutshell, what I am really saying is that one cannot make a flat statement that the Soviets have supremacy; in terms of the total Navy you must look at it in terms of the various tasks that they would like to perform in carrying out their national objectives, and it is in the attack submarine area that they present us with a significant. problem.

QUESTIONABLE ANSWER

I am afraid I have not given you a yes or no answer, but I do not think there is a flat yes or no answer as to who has the biggest and best Navy. They are moving out with new helicopter ships and new missile cruisers--they have emphasized the surface-to-surface missile, as you know. Consequently, their surface ship threat is greater than it has been in the past and they have used this to advantage primarily in the Mediterranean.

In addition to that, they are making frequent visits to the Caribbean-to Cuba for instance-with their newer ships. We have observed them in the Indian Ocean and in the Pacific. Also, the Secretary of Defense has mentioned another aspect related to their strategic capability; namely, their very rapid build-up of the Yankee class missilefiring submarine.

MODERN FLEET SHIPBUILDING PROGRAM

I discussed with you yesterday their large scale production capacity. This program is moving out with a momentum which I do not think will be arrested in the near future. [Deleted.]

As you know, sir, there was a period in the midsixties when the shipbuilding program for the U.S. Navy was very low, and it is only in the last 2 or 3 years that we have been able to get approved a shipbuilding program which will serve to reduce the average age and to modernize the fleet. If you look at the record, you will see what has happened during the last 10 years. I think that the action that has been taken in the last 2 or 3 years is going to significantly enhance the strength of the Navy.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much for such a complete answer. The Soviets show a growing capacity to produce?

Admiral MOORER. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. In these fields particularly that you mentioned. And they are far more of a threat than heretofore and there is every evidence that that threat will increase.

Admiral MOORER. That is a correct statement.

The CHAIRMAN. To intercept us. But now with our carriers, if the are what they are supposed to be, and I put great value on them, ar the Soviets not having any carriers you certainly would be far superi in controlling the air in any spot you chose to go.

SOVIET RESTRICTIONS OF OPERATION

Admiral MOORER. Yes, sir; that is why I made the statement that the Soviets are restricted to operating from surface ships in those area which can provide them air support from the shore and certainly 1 Soviet surface ship without any air defense would be subject to de struction by the carrier aircraft.

The CHAIRMAN. We have that capacity as far as the number operat ing, and are far superior to anything not only the Soviets have bu anyone else in the world?

Admiral MOORER. That is right.

The CHAIRMAN. Any combined group that would likely be agains us?

Admiral MOORER. However, I should point out that the Soviets hav considerably increased the areas in which their naval forces can oper ate with shore-based air cover. This has occurred as a result of the gaining access to ports and airfields in several strategic areas, suc as the eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea. There is another aspec I believe mentioned in the Secretary of Defense statement and that is the Soviets still have considerable to learn in the area of what I would call staying power and replenishment at sea. They tend to do a larg part of their replenishment by anchoring in sheltered areas. We note them in this evolution all the time in the Mediterranean.

I think, for instance, one of the reasons that they have trailed oc forces from time to time is in order to observe these techniques an. attempt to learn just how we do this kind of thing. Operating a flee a distance from its bases is a somewhat new experience for the Soviets They have always looked on their Navy as purely a coastal defens organization. Despite the fact that during World War I they had tremendous Navy, they never deployed it away from their shores Now they are learning day-by-day how not only to operate at a d tance from home waters, but to operate in coordination. They hav conducted exercises [deleted] involving operations by their vario commands in the different oceans of the world, which indicates the increasing capability to operate naval forces worldwide.

COMBAT FORCES BUILDUP

Associated with the buildup of their combat forces-I alway come back to the fact that they are making a very significant buildu of their merchant marine. This has a definite purpose other than ee nomic in my view, because from the economic point of view they a not need the availability of so much sealift.

They are going to use this sealift to establish a presence worldwid. This will permit them to set up offices in various ports. Then they ca compete with the other shipbuilders or ship operators, such as t Norwegians, undercutting them in terms of rates for political purpose and through this means, simply extend their influence.

That is, in my view, the main reason for their building up this rather large maritime tonnage of very modern ships.

To go back to your original question, I still think that our Navy is a very formidable force, but it is true, particularly with respect to the submarines, that we have to be prepared to accept a significant attrition of our merchant marine and the merchant marine of our allies if we become involved in any large scale war with the Soviets.

NAVAL WAR IN TWO OCEANS POSSIBLE

There is another aspect of this that I think I would like to emphasize, Mr. Chairman-that if we should become involved in a naval war in the Atlantic with the Soviets, we would also become involved in a naval war in the Pacific. I say this because the Soviets, like the United States, have borders on both the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. They have a large fleet in the Vladivostock and Petropavlovsk areas, and our Navy would have a worldwide problem of selecting Lines of Communications (LOCs) if we actually become involved in a world war III type of conflict with the Soviets. And the Chinese, as I told you yesterday, are just beginning to build up a capability. We have watched them very carefully, and they never venture away from their home waters. As a matter of fact, they very seldom go out of sight of land.

CHINESE NAVY IN EIGHTIES

I think, in light of the fact that they have built this big shipyard and are beginning to build more modern submarines and ships, the time is coming when we will see them moving a greater distance away from their home ports. This is not a problem as of right now, sir, but it is coming, I believe, in the eighties.

The CHAIRMAN. You mean they will have a seagoing Navy in the eighties?

Admiral MOORER. Yes; although I think they still will confine their activity to the western Pacific. They will have a naval force which must be reckoned with beginning around 1980, in my view.

The CHAIRMAN. So the Russians are really moving into what you would call a seagoing Navy now and they have already made some appreciable headway on it?

Admiral MOORER. Yes, sir; Admiral Gorskov, the Commander in Chief of the Soviet Navy, has on two or three occasions boasted about the Soviets having free access to the oceans and about their navies being capable of operating on a worldwide basis, just like the United States and Britain.

The CHAIRMAN. You made an excellent statement and I appreciate it very much-if I understand you, the area that they are building in, it is the submarines and then these surface ships?

Admiral MOORER. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. And that would be what we would have to deal with say in the next 2 or 3 years as they grow?

Admiral MOORER. That is correct, yes.

The CHAIRMAN. There is no strong evidence that they are going into a carrier yet?

Admiral MOORER. No, sir.

Admiral MOORER. Well, I think it is desirable, of course, to accelerate the conversion from the diesel-powdered submarines to the nuclear submarines. [Deleted.]

Secretary LAIRD. There were five authorized last year, Mr. Chairman, and four the year before. We have really gone up one a year between fiscal 1970 and 1973.

The CHAIRMAN. I thought we put in six last year.

Secretary LAIRD. What happened last year was that you put in five but you put in the long-leadtime funds for one additional submarine. We are going forward with that one and, of course, it is one of the ships that is in this fiscal 1973 program, but the Congress did not authorize anything additional last year but the leadtime funds.

The CHAIRMAN. Here is a note the Navy only requested long-lead funds in 1973 for five attack submarines in the 1974 program. Secretary LAIRD. That is correct.

Admiral MoORER. That is correct.

The CHAIRMAN. The idea of being in any immediate danger within the next year or two is not there except to the extent you indicated they are making it a more difficult job.

Admiral MOORER. Yes, sir. As I said, if we had become involved, we would just have had to accept the fact that the attrition was going to be high on our surface transport-type ships.

I would like in this connection, sir, to point out how long it takes to build a Navy, and so if we are going to have an emergency within the next year or two, we are going to have to deal with what we have in the fleet today. There is usually not sufficient time to build after an emergency begins.

THE ULMS PROGRAM

The CHAIRMAN. All right. You mentioned the ULMS and I wanted to go into that some more. I was impressed with what the Secretary said about it yesterday. What range does it have?

Admiral MOORER. The program that will be described to you by the Navy involved the development of a missile using the latest technology. It would initially have a [deleted]-mile range and it would be suitable for either backfitting the Poseidon or installing in a new submarine which would be developed coincidentally with the missile itself. The missile can also be built in another version, which will give it a [deleted]-mile range, but which would only fit in the new ULMS submarine. The submarine has an IOC of late 1978. The same technology would be used for both of these missiles.

The second missile would be scaled up and it would have a [deleted]mile range. As the Secretary of Defense said yesterday, the big advantage of that would be that we would be able to operate our submarines out of our own ports, and, also, we would be able to deploy them for all practical purposes worldwide [deleted].

In other words, we would have wide selectivity as to where these submarines would operate. This, in itself, would very seriously com plicate, if not make impossible, the Soviet ASW problem in trying to locate these submarines. The amount of square miles of ocean in which a submarine carrying a [deleted]-mile missile could operate would be far greater than what we are operating in right now. This is

one of our major objectives in building these submarines. In addition, we have mentioned the big buildup of the Soviet submarines of the ame type and the fact that the Polaris, by that time, will be a subnarine with 15- or 20-year-old technology, requiring replacement

inyway.

JUSTIFICATION FOR PROGRAM

We normally think of a submarine's life in terms of about 20 years and a surface ship's life, of about 30 years.

Secretary LAIRD. I would like to add one other point on the ULMS program, because I think it will certainly be debated in the Congress, and I believe that we have a good justification for going forward with this program. I outlined it in my classified statement on pages 116 to 118 but one of the points that I may have overlooked yesterday is the fact that the ULMS submarine will be able to carry a larger number of missiles. This means that a given nuclear payload can be deployed with fewer boats and crews.

This crew problem is an important problem, because you have a submarine out at sea for a long period of time. Not only will the ULMS program allow you to operate out of U.S. ports but you will also be able to have a larger number of missiles with a given number of crews. The crew-to-missile ratio gives you an added advantage, particularly when you look at some of the manpower problems which we have in the out years.

The CHAIRMAN. How many of these do you contemplate?

Secretary LAIRD. The present program we are talking about now includes [deleted].

The CHAIRMAN. When you say from your own ports, do you actually mean a port on this eastern coast?

Admiral MOORER. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. You can operate from there?

Admiral MOORER. Yes, sir.

Secretary LAIRD. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Inside what is called the port area?

Admiral MOORER. No, we would come in there, change crews and so on [deleted].

Secretary LAIRD. What we are saying is that, rather than operating from Rota and England and these forward bases, we would be able o operate from the U.S. ports either out of Hawaii or port on the east coast here.

It would not be necessary to operate this range submarine out of hose ports that are so far away. Maybe I am overly concerned about his, but considering the crews and families, it does give you a little advantage that I think should not be overlooked or minimized when you look at the ULMS program.

The CHAIRMAN. I think it is a fine point.

SMALL POSSIBILITY OF ATTACK

Secretary LAIRD. It also minimizes the capability of the enemy from he standpoint of attacking these boats, having them closer to the operiting areas when they are in port.