Adm. Caldwell: Submarine Force in ‘Very High Demand’
Posted on November 16, 2020 by Richard R. Burgess, Senior Editor
ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy’s submarine force is in high demand worldwide and is in the midst of a very high operations tempo (optempo), a Navy senior admiral said.
“Navy leaders, fleet commanders, combatant commanders have high expectations for us,†said Adm. Frank Caldwell, director of the Navy’s Nuclear Power Program, speaking Nov. 16 in a webinar for the annual symposium of the naval Submarine League. “They love what we bring to peacetime operations and they are absolutely counting on us and our warfighting capability and our readiness to execute those wartime responsibilities.
“We are a force that’s in very high demand,†Caldwell said. “In fact, all of the maritime commanders want a lot more of what the submarine force can bring and what we bring to the undersea domain. Our team is out there every single day doing eye-watering work on submarine missions or on patrols. The deployed OpTempo is very high right now and our boats and our crews are stepping up to the challenge. This is true even in the midst of COVID, which has put friction in the entire system, whether it’s from building new-construction submarines, delivering boats from deep maintenance, or simply executing the operational schedule.
https://seapowermagazine.org/adm-caldwell-submarine-force-in-very-high-demand/
