Running Critical: The Silent War, Rickover, and General Dynamics [Paperback]

The Los Angeles class attack sub was borne of attempts to combat two implacable enemies - the Soviet Navy and America's own Hyman Rickover, the so-called father of the nuclear navy. Facing the combined soviet threats of submarine launched anti-ship missiles (previous Russian subs could only fire their missiles only after an elaborate process while on the surface where they were visible and vulnerable) and faster submarines equipped with more powerful reactors, American planners now find themselves desperate to reclaim an edge on speed. (Though setting the benchmark with the Skipjack class, progressive gains in the size and weight of latter subs using the same powerplant eroded this advantage). The switch to a newer reactor (actually one redesigned after use on the USS Long Beach, one of the world's first nuclear-powered surface ships) wasn't enough, and submarine vets had no choice but to make compromises, like reducing hull thickness and conseuqently reducing maximum safe operating depth. Conflict with the headstrong Admiral Rickover occurs when the winning design for the new sub is chosen by a firm other than General Dynamics, the established industry leader. Also complicating things is Takis Veliotis, a wily genius who is the only man who can stand up to greedy corporate reps eager to cut any corner and Rickover himself. Veliotis, unfortunately, has some of his own secrets to hide, resulting in his flight to Greece to avoid charges stemming from millions of dollars in kickbacks. What nearly dooms the program are the extensive compromises made to the construction schedules - resulting in ships being launched half-finished only to be quietly returned to the factory for completion. Millions of dollars in overruns are quietly overlooked, with the hope that a government bailout will convert these losses into profits. When that prospect begins to look unlikely, the corporate heads of GD begin turning on each other, while unskilled and unreliable labor, low morale and impossible construction schedules mix to spell the likely doom of the US submarine force.

This book tackled an unlikely subject - the LA Class is the backbone of America's submarine navy, not something you've heard described as essentially "Unsafe at any depth". However, the book is marred for two reasons - the author spends much more time concentrating on each specific transaction or exchange between characters (like Veliotis and either the head of GD or Rickover) without connecting these exchanges into a cohesive picture of a collapsing defense program. A more glaring flaw is the book being incomplete. "When it was over, there were just the submarines" but the submarines managed to operate at much higher safety standards than the Russian boats they confronted - the author never connecting these boats to the seeming time-bombs produced by GD. What had happened? Who can take credit for the success of the LA Class - or is even that perceived success an illusion? Even the supreme irony of speedy submarines is never addressed adequately, though the information was probably unavailable. Though developments in sub-launched missiles and their submarines themselves did substantiate the need for faster US subs, the threat of high-speed Russian subs was a cold war mirage. The Russians never gave much production priority to their high-powered reactors. Those installed in experimental versions of the November and Papa classes, and regularly in the Alfa class proved more trouble prone than realized. Though more compact than comparable western designs, these reactors were at least as loud, and, using molten metal as a coolant, had to be operated around the clock, even while in port, lest the coolant be allowed to "freeze" into solid metal and ruin the piping. Either of these two ommissions (the post-construction history of the LA class and the real threat posed by the Russians) is fatal to the subject. Nevertheless, I found it important reading. I'm hoping the author will revisit the subject again using the information he had no access to at first.