Tags
Arab Israeli Wars, Cold Waters, Iran, Israel, present tense, ship combat, thomas dolby, wargames
As I read (and wrote) a little bit about the upcoming game Modern Naval Warfare, I began thinking about how little most of us can really understand and appreciate in terms of the experience of serving aboard a submarine in war. Most critically, the current crop of America’s subs have never fought a naval war. What their crews would experience in a large-scale, great-power war can only be extrapolated from training and doctrine mixed with the world’s experience from World War II.
My time in Cold Waters gives very little consideration to the experience of a submarine’s commander and crew. Every mission starts with contact with a hostile force who, even if it has not already identified your presence, is at least on alert for enemy subs. The elements of submarine warfare that include hiding, sneaking, waiting, and contributing to the strategic and operational plans are largely absent. Of course, there is probably a good reason for that. Who wants to spend hours at their PC tried to verify that, in fact, there is no contact nearby? Maybe games just aren’t going to be able to capture the less engaging aspects of driving a submarine. Since the experience of the World War II submariners has been portrayed in literature and in film, is it possible that there is something similar out there that would help a wargamer understand the Cold War and future war experience?
Then I remembered that I had already purchased a book on such a topic. It was more than a dozen years ago that I bought Depth of Revenge by Richard Golden. At that time his book was already about two years old. My memory barely dredged up that I had made the purchase and it certainly does not include what my motivation might have been, way back when. My decision to buy may have been related to some commentary I had been reading1 or I may have simply wanted, at that particular time as well, to read a good story about modern submarine warfare. Was this when I was playing a lot of Silent Hunter and Jane’s Fleet Command? I don’t recall… and it was all before I had started writing in this blog, so there is no public record for me to fall back upon.
Author Golden has, according to his bio, a strong academic background and (maybe?2) some sort of experience in the world of defense contracting. His goal in writing the book was to mix current events and military history into a dramatic story. He states that, in retrospect, it is surprising how accurate it turned out relative to near crises in today’s (i.e. 2009’s) world. So he says.
The book offers up an odd mix of the good, the not-so-good, and the ugly. For the last, he writes the book in first person, present tense. I tell ya, I hate that. Worse yet, he does it sometimes and, when he shifts tenses, there doesn’t appear to be a reason to do so. For example, the book opens with our main character in a hospital not quite3 knowing how he got there and referring to some flashback imagery. Both are in present tense. Then we go back a few weeks to tell “how he got here,” – also in present tense, except when it flips to past tense (all first person). There seems to be no rhyme nor reason, just whatever struck his fancy while he was typing.
Kinda like I do here.
Eventually I was able to ignore that distraction and concentrate on the story, which was pretty decent. He writes about national self-defense, second-strike doctrine, the unique position of Israel, the burden of command when you are the sole decision maker, and how tough it is to find a good woman these days. The writing ranges from the thrilling to the oddly detailed. For an example of the latter, the CO (we learn, once he gets his wits about him, that the main character was skipper of a nuclear-armed submarine) opens and reads his in-case-of-emergency orders from the IDF high command. Those orders are printed, in their entirety, over six pages of the book – basically the bulk of a chapter.
I can’t speculate at all about whether this makes it one of the best fiction books available about modern submarine warfare – because it’s the only book on that topic I’ve read. As I say, it tells its story well enough. It also is neck deep in the kind of technical details that someone who wants a story about modern submarine warfare is likely going to revel in. I’m glad I picked it up and I am even more glad that I remembered that I own it at just, exactly the right time in my personal journeys through history.
Which is funny. The reviews on Amazon are all from around the time it was written and many refer, as the author did also, to how topical it was in 2009 or in 2011. Yet in 2024, with Israel and the world on the edge of a hot war with Iran, it is more topical right now than it ever was and, in some way, seems to be growing more so by the day4.
It also feeds back some thoughts into my ideas about what makes a good submarine game and what is missing from almost all attempts to make such. A critical factor in the book’s plot, and honestly one of the reasons I wanted to read a modern submarine story, has to do with communications. In 1968 and, apparently, in 2009, any communication between a submarine and the outside world (be it the hierarchy of command or just getting an up-to-date appraisal of world events) have required coming near the service and activating mast-mounted radio equipment. I vaguely recall (from Clancy, I think) that there are technologies for ultra-low-frequency messaging to submerged boats but I’m going to assume that, even today, for a sub commander to be actively involved with a tactical situation, coordinating with other friendly naval assets requires balancing stealth with the exposure that two-way communications would entail.
Cold Waters is at a level where this could be modeled, but it isn’t. Rather than tooling around looking for targets upon which to execute static, standing orders, a player could be required to somehow balance these competing requirements. I don’t know if it makes a great game (or even if it’s entirely accurate), but the book outlines the use of the internet to allow world-wide, two-way communication in a way that limits the traceability back to the submarine’s location or the orders that are being relayed. A Cold Water or a CMO are at a level where the timing of communications would have a major impact on performance. I even have a general memory that Jane’s Fleet Command worked the submarine models using a variation of this. Certainly if a Jane’s-like multiplayer system were ever perfected, the modeling of communication difficulties between the fleet commander and the sub commander(s) would make for a fascinating addition to game play.
The book also provides some unique insight into what a short, sharp fully-nuclear exchange might look like in an international situation that might return to status quo in a matter of days or weeks. For an American heir to the Cold War the thought of a “friendly” nuclear exchange is anathema. For one of the smaller nuclear powers, the possibility that one must engage one’s nuclear deterrent against the very threat that it was built for must be all too real. Part of that possible reality would, naturally, be being able to come through to the other side with the world still intact.
I sure hope we’re not going to see that play out sometime in 2024.
- Given the other books that I ordered together with it, the impetus may have been something written by Larry Correia (Monster Hunter International) on his blog or, perhaps, another author writing about Larry and his experiences. Depth of Revenge came along with a handful of books by non-mainstream authors, who perhaps encountered difficulties getting published for having unfavored political leanings. ↩︎
- The bio inside the book’s cover is vague, mentioning only his degrees (law and accounting) and a (then current) career as a corporate analyst and researcher. ↩︎
- To be honest, after finishing the book, I don’t quite know how he got there. The setup implied he came-to in his hospital bed after, I don’t know, being pulled out of a burning wreck on the high seas. Not to ruin it for you, but that is not at all what happened. He just found himself a little groggy when he woke up from a nap. ↩︎
- The background involves a surprise nuclear strike amidst the fog of international pressure on Israel to agree to an unpalatable peace treaty. I guess one of Goldman’s points then, being made again even as I am typing, is that the situation in the Levant does not really change. Ever. ↩︎