Unofficial transcript: Day 5, Session 1
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Page 1
Session 1, March 9, 2001
EXAMINATION OF CAPT KYLE (CONTINUED):
CAPT MACDONALD: Let the record
reflect that the members, the parties, and the
counsel for parties and counsel for the court are
again present.
Again, I would like to remind every one to
speak slowly and clearly into the microphones so that
our interpreters can provide the best possible
simultaneous translation.
Sir, we have some procedural matters.
The first matter, we've received a request by
Lt Cmdr Pfeifer for assignment of additional
counsel. This request is dated 8 March, 2001. It
has been marked J. And I am informed that Lieutenant
Dan Shanahan from Yokosuka, Japan from the NILSO
(phon.) will be flying in this weekend to assist in
his epresentation.
In addition sir, the Commander in Chief US
Pacific Fleet Admr Fargo has responded to --
inaudible -- that request has been denied. Copies
have been distributed to counsel. I would like that
marked as next exhibit in order.
And sir, the court requested that counsel for
the court tried to locate a copy of the signed watch
Page 2
bill. One was located on board the Greenville
yesterday, and has been provided. I would like to
have this marked as next court evidentiary exhibit in
order. Copies have been provided to the parties, and
I'm providing copies now to the members of the
court.
Sir, one final point, as we discussed
yesterday, the ship's sonar search plan was located.
The court members had an opportunity to review the
sonar search plan, and are satisfied that the search
plan was properly prepared by the Greenville, and the
court does not desire that it be introduced as an
evidentiary exhibit. They are satisfied that the
document was properly prepared and executed.
Sir, that's all that counsel for the court has.
VADM NATHMAN: Procedural matters
from counsel?
MR. GITTINS: I would just ask for
the sonar -- the sonar log we just talked about -- is
that a classified document?
VADM NATHMAN: It's secret, yes.
MR. GITTINS: At some, point I would
like to briefly review it, yes.
CAPT MACDONALD: We'll do that at
the first break.
Page 3
LCDR YOUNG: Can we clarify the
exhibit -- the watch bill?
CAPT MACDONALD: For the record, the
watch bill has been entered as Exhibit 41.
LCDR YOUNG: Thank you.
MR. GITTINS: We were provided the
copies of the watch bill, sir, was it ascertained how
the markings the circles and et cetera were added to
that. Is that something that identified the
watchstands at the time of the mishap?
CAPT MACDONALD: Sir, we don't know
at this point. We can certainly -- questions are
going to be asked of witnesses brought before the
court as to how the document was prepared.
At this point, we only know that we've got the
original document.
MR. GITTINS: Thank you, sir.
VADM NATHMAN: Counsel for Mr.
Coen.
LCDR FILBERT: (Indicates
negatively.)
CAPT MACDONALD: The court re-calls
Captain Tom Kyle to the stand.
Captain Kyle, if you would please re-take your
seat in the witness box. Sir, I would remind you
Page 4
again that you are under oath.
THE WITNESS: Sir.
CAPT MACDONALD: Captain, before we
begin, I understand that you will be testifying
concerning information contained on the slides that
you prepared for your testimony. In addition, a hard
copy of those slides, you have written in some notes
to aid you in your testimony?
THE WITNESS: That's correct.
CAPT MACDONALD: Commander
Harrison, would you have the -- Captain Kyle's notes
marked as next court's evidentiary exhibit in order?
LCDR HARRISON: These notes will be
marked as Exhibit 42.
CAPT MACDONALD: Thank you.
Q (By Capt MacDonald) Commander Harrison, would
you retrieve the floor exhibit?
Good morning, captain.
A Good morning.
Q Captain, yesterday you testified that one of
the reconstructions that was done was performed by
DEVRON 12 (phon.) is that correct?
A That's correct.
Q And as part of the reconstruction effort, did
you ask DEVRON 12 to determine whether any of the
Page 5
sonar contacts that they evaluated was in fact the
Ehime Maru?
A Yes, I did. In the report DEVRON 12 gave to
me, they said that there was very close correlation
between the contact being tracked as Sierra 13 to the
reconstructed track that they came up with for the
Ehime Maru which is consistent with our conclusion as
well.
Q Sir, referring you again to the chart that you
see up on the screen which is the S 13 reconstruction
chart. There were a lot of questions yesterday,
particularly from Admr Nathman concerning
signal-no-noise ratio.
Is it possible to get range information from
signal-to-noise ratio alone?
A I think it's a very important point that the
answer is sort of yes and no. We have learned
through experience that low or medium S&Rs are not a
determination of range. And we train ourselves --
our operators and ourselves -- to not draw any
conclusion from a low S&R contact.
There can be a very large or loud contact that
may present aspects where the S&R drops off, it's
very common for a ship to have a null area. An
example would be a large tanker, for instance, off
Page 6
the bow, his sound will be masked by the cargo he's
carrying, and his large size in front of him. His
engine sound would be masked, so although the contact
would be allowed and heavy contact maybe at close
range, his S&R maybe low.
On the other hand, we always view rising S&R
and strong S&Rs as an indication of a potential close
contact.
So low S&R is not an indication of range at
all. We try not to draw any inference on range, of a
low or medium S&R. But a high S&R says that the
contact may be coming close.
Q I would like to draw your attention to the
graph on the right-hand side, the range versus time.
If the commanding officer or the officer of the
deck had looked at the fire control solution just
prior to coming to periscope depth, what would this
data have told them?
A It really depends. It's an important point to
understand that if anyone had gone to one of the
other unused consoles on the fire control system on
the day in question, as I understand the situation
there was only one operator there, one console being
used by that operator, so there were three additional
consoles that were not being used.
Page 7
If the officer of the deck or the captain or
anyone else in the control room decided to go to one
of those consoles and to review the contacts being
tracked, independently, and he had just called up the
solutions on those contacts, Sierra 13, Sierra 14,
Sierra 12 -- the only thing he would have seen up
there would have been system solution, not the trial
solution that is being depicted that probably was on
the fire control operator's screen.
So if he, in preparation to go to periscope
depth, had picked up Sierra 13 and looked at it, he
would have looked at this solution up here. That is
what would have been depicted.
Now, I should add that the solution if you
looked at the analysis display where the processing
is being done, if he called up that display, which is
called "mate" that I showed in the demonstration
earlier in the week, it probably would have indicated
in the last few minutes prior to going to periscope
depth that the solution was not very accurate and
that would have been readily apparent to him.
On the other hand, if he had gone to a
different display -- there is an option to go to a
geographic display that just has a top down look of
own ship's position with the contacts being tracked
Page 8
geographically around the ship. If he had just
looked at those displays, they would have just shown
the system positions relative to own ship, with no
indication of quality of solution apparent.
Depending on what and if an independent look
was done on the screens, you can have different
answers coming out.
On the other hand, if the independent person
went and looked at the fire control operator's
screen, I am fairly confident he would have seen a
display for Sierra 13 that was probably reflecting
this solution that was in development.
So it's -- it's a very important question, and
different answers could have come out depending on
what the actual scenario that occurred prior to the
going to periscope depth.
Q It seems to me there is a big "if" in what
you've just said. The "if" being if it had been in
check. Is the officer of the deck required to check
the fire control solution?
A He's required to satisfy himself that it's safe
to go to periscope depth. He can do that in a number
of ways. He can do that by his own analysis. On a
normal day without equipment degradation, he can
probably do that using the AVSDU display, do some
Page 9
mental analysis, maybe some calculations on his own.
Most officer of the decks that I see will go to
the fire control screen and verify his mental picture
of what the fire control operator is doing -- that
would be the normal process -- report the solution on
this contact, and he would check what he was coming
up with independently. Yes, the officer of the deck
should be involved in looking at the fire control
solution.
The commanding officer is required to concur
that it's safe to go to periscope depth. So
depending on the commanding officer's level of
confidence in the OOD's description of how he
verified -- how the officer of the deck verified that
it was safe to go to periscope depth, the captain may
or may not do an independent review of the fire
control screen.
That's -- that's -- he has to be satisfied that
he has enough information in his own mind that it's
safe to go up.
Q Is that stated anywhere by regulation in the
submarine force, or is that just good practice?
A No, it is stated in the standing orders for
going to periscope depth -- this integrative process
of evaluation, the officer of the deck's
Page 10
responsibilities, and the fact that the captain must
concur and give permission to go to periscope depth.
Q So the prudent action is to check all of the
available sensor data that the officer of the deck
has or the captain has in the control room before you
do that?
A Or in sonar, if you have to go to sonar.
If you are puzzled or you need more information
about a contact, and you think sonar may have some
answers -- open that door to sonar, and ask the sonar
supervisor or have the sonar supervisor come out and
report on the added information required.
RADM SULLIVAN: So, captain, what
you're kind of telling me here, at least when we
think through this in this process -- it's not as if
the accounting officer of the deck, if it's the
officer of the deck, or the CO, or whoever is up one
of the senior officers for the accounting of the
ship -- it's not as if they stand between the
periscopes and wait for the information to flow to
them and be told it's safe to go. There is very much
involvement on the part of those senior
watchstanders, or the XO, or CO -- whoever is
involved in the exercise -- in getting to periscope
depth to reach down into the screens, page through
Page 11
the fire control systems, to search the data
themselves?
A That's correct, sir.
He must be satisfied -- he has enough data and
he's comfortable, and he understands the contact
situation and he must go -- dig as deep has he needs
to be to be comfortable that he understands the
contact picture and its safe to go to periscope
depth. And it may mean reaching all the way back and
going into the sonar room itself, and talking to the
operators sitting on the consoles who are listening
to the contact.
And the degree that you have to go -- how far
you have to dig -- is dependent upon the situation.
But he has to go through every contact in his mind --
every contact being tracked, and resolve in his own
mind that it's safe to go to periscope depth with
respect to that contact.
RADM SULLIVAN: So to say it
another way, maybe we've discussed here prior to your
testimony here about makeup of a typical sonar team,
fire control team, people that add information into
solving this problem, that the officer who is conning
the ship, who is involved, should probably have -- is
stepping back the further to get integration to have
Page 12
the larger view, if you will, of the entire
situation.
THE WITNESS: That's correct.
RADM SULLIVAN: And each of the
operators, while having a vital piece of information,
necessarily isn't knowledgeable of the entire
picture?
THE WITNESS: That's correct. The
officer of the deck is trained basically to take the
whole picture. He's the center of all the
requirements around the ship -- what needs to be done
and what the objective is. He is sort of, if you
will, the quarterback of this whole team of people,
and he has the entire play in mind. And the team
obviously works better, like any team, the more he
can disseminate the objectives and what's being done
in his overall situation, so that all the players,
all the participants, are understanding what the
objectives are that we're trying to do and what the
plan is, you know.
For instance, in a normal periscope depth
procedure, it says to have a briefing of all your key
watchstanders. The officer of the deck should
conduct a briefing including all the sensor
operators -- the ESM, the radar intercept folks, the
Page 13
radiomen, the sonar men, the fire control men -- and
discuss the whole plan for going to periscope depth
to get them all thinking on the same -- towards the
same objectives, so they're all working to the same
goal.
Which course he goes up on, what the sea state
is what the environmental conditions are -- the more
he can disseminate that information, the more
proficiently the team will work. If you let your
operators work in isolation, you won't have a
coordinated product. It's a team dynamics up there,
it's a team process.
RADM SULLIVAN: You mentioned
teamwork or these contact solutions are a team
process. When I think of -- I will ask you, the
TMA -- oftentimes in our very high tech world we tend
to think of things as digits, or here is the answer
displayed. What is your -- if you would describe
what TMA is, in your learned opinion -- is it more
an exact science or what is it?
THE WITNESS: It's really -- it's
really -- it's not an exact science. Every
parameter, when you start out, as I said, said
several times, I think it's integrative process when
you first get a contact, you know very little about
Page 14
it. You start with a guesstimate of what the range
may be based on the sound. You start with a closing
solution. You may have an idea, it sounds like a
merchant, and you start with that kind of speed. And
right now, your uncertainty regarding that contact is
fairly large.
And although the solution presented there shows
a discrete bearing, course, speed, and range, there
is also an uncertainty associated with each of those
parameters. And the TMA process is specifically
designed to start to reduce those uncertainties to a
tighter and tighter value, closer and closer to
accuracy.
And the officer of the deck, you know, that is
part of his job. It's part of the fire controlman's
job was the accuracy of this solution. There are
actual procedures in the operation of the fire
control system to provide discrete estimates of the
accuracy of each of those parameters. It's called
sensitivity analysis, and the way you do it is you
just pull all the parameters the same, and you vary
course, and you how far you can vary course, and the
solution fits or doesn't fit, and you get an
estimation of how sensitive the solution is, how
accurate it is to course, speed, and rate -- each of
Page 15
the parameters.
RADM SULLIVAN: I know your tactical
expertise, and you certainly make this to be a fairly
straightforward simple process. Sometimes I have to
play out of my own mind, and I thought for years
myself, where you get where it's more art than
science, a lot of it is just experience, but for a
typical submarine crew that doesn't have someone of
your caliber or someone -- myself who is in command
for about five years -- for a typical, what's on the
ship, would they have the expertise you are talking
about? Is this a graduate level? Or is this what
you consider normal TMA knowledge on the ship?
THE WITNESS: What we're discussing
here is -- I think -- is normal TMA knowledge.
I mean, there are -- in an officer of the
deck's maturation, he may start out with some, you
know, some basic skills. He may -- he will get
better over time.
In other words, he will start recognizing
indications of how to drive the boat optimally --
some indications of what are the best what may be
happening with the contact, he may be more proficient
in his mental analysis so things will be more
efficient. But before an officer of the deck is
Page 16
qualified, they have a base line knowledge of how to
do target. This is a center piece of basic submarine
school, and a pipeline training for the sonar man and
the fire control man.
And so I think there is a fundamental level,
and as he becomes more experienced and moves up the
line, certainly before you know a prospective XO
school and a prospective CO school, these principles
are emphasized again and again, and clearly people
become more experienced and more able to do analysis
quicker in their head, and sort of recognize what are
the best courses to steer, and how do I solve the
solution faster, but basically, to qualify as officer
of the deck on a submarine, you have to be somewhat
proficient at doing this type of analysis.
RADM SULLIVAN: Thank you.
Q (By Capt MacDonald) Captain, I want to refer
you again to the time range chart on the right-hand
side of this slide, and we were talking earlier about
the commanding officer and the officer of the deck
having a responsibility to check all the different
sensors that they have in the control.
But for all we know, the commanding officer and
the OD did check this fire control solution, and if
they did, it was telling them that they had a contact
Page 17
at 15,000 yards, and one that was opening. Isn't
that right?
A That would be correct. Except as I pointed
out, the fire control operator obviously came to
conclusion based on -- on this -- this leg right
here, these dots that came up after time 1331, 1332
coming right down this line. Right in this area,
depending on when they looked this dot here would
have forced this solution to not fit anymore.
So if they looked at what I am talking about
the "mate display" which was presented to the court
over at the training center, they would have seen the
bearing dots not matching up with the projected
solution and that that solution presented there was
no longer accurate.
Q I think this is kind of critical.
So if the AVSDU was working, they would have
seen this in the control room, and that would not
have correlated with the picture they were getting if
they were looking to the right to starboard in the
control room at the fire control display?
A Let me explain this better.
If the AVSDU is working I would expect most --
most ships, the captain and the officer of the deck
would probably be focused on the AVSDU during this
Page 18
maneuver, and they would have seen probably seen some
of this right bearing drift right there on their
screen and said oops. That is an alert that contact
looks close and they would have then gone into
further -- over to the starboard side and delved into
the fire control system to resolve that situation.
But with the AVSDU out, they certainly had an
obligation to get this information. It would have
been presented on one of the screens up is the time
bearing display on the fire control system which
would have shown this same bearing drifts to the
right, and if mate was displayed, if you looked at
this mate display, the bearing difference dots would
no longer have been zero'ed, they would have been
going off, and they would no longer be straight,
indicating that the solution -- this solution -- was
inaccurate. And it would have again set-off the same
alert that we need to develop into this contact
further.
If they would have looked at the parameters and
not looked at the accuracy of that solution, if they
looked at 024, 15,000 yards, speed 11, and not looked
at any of the supporting evidence, they would have
come to the wrong conclusion. But in my mind, they
are obligated to look at the supporting evidence.
Page 19
VADM NATHMAN: Captain, a follow-up
question. There's been a lot of scrutiny on the fire
control technician of the watche's data, and the
importance of that data particularly at time I think
1333, 1334, 1335. But what you just described to me
tells me that one of the key issues out there was
this right bearing drift, so it seems to me we should
be placing a lot of scrutiny on the sonar supervisor,
we should be placing a lot of scrutiny on the members
of the watch team that were working the sonar, the
displays.
THE WITNESS: Sir.
VADM NATHMAN: And we should be
putting scrutiny on the executive officer who
apparently was in and out of sonar at that time, and
I assume -- I assume -- based on what you've just
told me now, that here is a officer that is qualified
as a submariner for some years, understands the
importance of what they are about to go do, is
adjacent to the displays that will allow him to
understand that there is something else here that
we've got to pay attention to, and that there is an
expectation is, what I just heard from you, that he
would be doing that.
There is also an expectation by any officer on
Page 20
the CONN whether it's the officer of the deck or the
CO who were both acting in the capacity I think of
conning the ship, without specifically the officer of
the deck, I assume, had the conn as well as the
officer of the deck. The CO was acting in a capacity
that I would expect a CO would have acted, but they
both had the responsibility to pursue this
situation.
It seems to me this information -- any of these
things -- whether it was the right drift or this one
range solution -- seems to me like this disburses
this requirement to go look at these people, and it
doesn't bore down on one particular watchstander with
the range information?
A Sir, I would like to go into that further.
I have some other slides to discuss this, but
contributing to the problem here -- I agree with you,
sir, under normal condition, you would expect the
sonar team to be engaged looking at -- when the
officer of the deck passes the word on the MC
circuit, announcing circuit, make preparations to go
to periscope depth, the submariner's mind switches.
We now go into contact analysis and focus.
VADM NATHMAN: Your threshold and
sensitivity --
Page 21
THE WITNESS: -- Just goes up.
Exactly right. You are trying to establish a safe
envelope around the ship to say there are no contacts
that are threatening the ship for collision, and that
goes across this entire team, from sonar to fire
control, the officer of the deck -- everybody
switches most from normal steaming mode to an
approach to the interface, and everybody goes into
another mode of operation.
In the scrutiny of looking at the sonar, and
the sonar displays, and what was available, now what
comes into play is the way the ship is driven to give
the sonar men the opportunity to see enough data
there to draw a conclusion from what they are
seeing. Remember, the sonar has no overt analysis
equipment in sonar to do target motion analysis.
They are looking for hints that might fill-in
pieces of the puzzle. They may come up with a range,
they may come up with a speed, but there is no direct
analysis equipment that gives them Course B, bearing
and range. They are doing their assessment primarily
on mental analysis and training.
And if they see an indication of a close
contact, they are trained to recognize that. They
are obligated to call that out and say, I think this
Page 22
contact is close, but is there enough data there on
the screen to make that conclusion. And that's
really a question that needs to be fully explored, I
think.
VADM NATHMAN: But to make a
conclusion, that could be one, or here is parts of
the data -- bearing, speed, you know, that goes along
with TMA or to make the analysis that this guy could
be a problem -- to me, those are slightly different
thresholds.
One is a clear indication, that I know exactly
-- I've got a piece, I can describe this contact very
accurately. The other one is that I think we are
about to do a periscope depth, my threshold has just
been raised -- I want to describe this accurately to
understand -- but does that indicate there is another
threshold out there that we ought to be sensitive to
contacts that may be near, is that what we do?
A Absolutely, absolutely.
They are listening to those ships and trying to
find any contacts of where these ships may be close
and threatening.
RADM SULLIVAN: Just to close that
down. I listen to what you are saying, again playing
this against my own experience. When you decide you
Page 23
have a relatively good feel for contact, and
certainly, you don't have to have a perfect solution
to go to periscope depth, but you have to have one
you feel confident you are safe -- what do you rely
on to make that? Is it a single piece of data, one
display -- or what is it?
THE WITNESS: No, it's -- it's an
assessment, it's the overall -- overall data.
It's the entire picture. You look at the
multiple legs. When I talk about a leg, I am talking
about an easy way to describe that, is the submarine
is more or less obligated to look at every contact
from two different views, each being called a leg.
That's a leg of data.
One batch of data with one setup, one view of
the contact, and then they are obligated to change
that view to resolve the contacts.
So you are trying to look over the multiple
leg, you may have more than two, you may have three
or four legs on a contact. You are looking at the
overall picture, over time, and that's where these
long time history displays are helpful in that
regard. You look over the entire period that you
have contact on a target to try to make sense of
what's happening, and you look at the sonar display,
Page 24
and you look at the fire control solution and say, is
that reasonable, does that make sense with my own
mental analysis? You are trying to engage all
capabilities here -- your mental and machine -- to
come up with an answer that convinces you that it's
safe to go to periscope depth.
It may not be as you stated, an absolutely
accurate solution, but you have enough data to say,
well, he's at least this many thousand yards away,
and he's on this type of aspect, he's opening, or
we're going in the opposite direction, and there is
no way this contact is going to close in on me before
I get up to periscope depth and can observe the
contact visually.
RADM SULLIVAN: So I've heard you
say "integration time" a number of times this
morning. And to me, even the guidance that is in the
NWPs, and it is guidance, direction from the
commanding officer standing orders, there are things
about time -- approximately three minutes,
approximately, whatever.
That seems to be -- I ask for your opinion -- a
key -- the guidance as to why you do this type of
integration, to get a solution that you have some
validity in?
Page 25
A That's correct.
RADM SULLIVAN: And why you need
that time, you need a couple of things really to help
the process. The machine, for instance, will take
out own ship's components of the relative motion
plot. And it can analyze through the fact that my
ship is still maneuvering or changing speed and will
take out the -- because it's fast, and it can take
out in its processing the effects of own ship's
maneuvers. But the human brain is not as fascile to
do that. And so, to do a mental analysis, you really
optimally would like to be on a steady course and a
steady speed to observe the contacts bearing, drift,
and to look at -- to assess what the real bearing
rate change is on that particular look, you would
like it to be steady, and you want enough data there
that you are not subjected to bad tracker data.
I mentioned that yesterday, the tracker
sometimes -- it's a -- it's a mechanical device, it's
a machine -- it can track off a little bit.
You want to have enough data to have confidence
that the data is consistent and reliable, and that
all takes a certain amount of time. You need to get
the ship steady, you need to have enough integration
time to let the contact situation develop, so that
Page 26
you can make a proper assessment mentally to compare
it to what the machine is coming up with, and to come
to common agreement that we have an estimation of
where this contact is.
If you try to compress the time too much, then
you start losing accuracy. And you can make -- make
an improper conclusion.
(Proceed to Session 2)
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