Jump Over Justification

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued a report on the Navy’s unmanned systems acquisition efforts and they list various challenges the Navy faces in expanding the unmanned fleet.  For example,
 

• Inconsistent leadership and priorities impeded RAS [ed. robotic and autonomous systems] investments
• Domain- and platform-centric approaches impeded progress of RAS

 
That’s nice, however, the report entirely ignores the fundamental question, why do we even need unmanned assets?  Instead, they jump over the “why” and proceed immediately to address the “how”.  The Navy, and those who report on the Navy, has done this repeatedly and always to their detriment, if not regret.  Can you say “LCS”?  Can you say “Zumwalt”?  Can you … well, you get the idea.  I don’t need to cite the nearly endless list of acquisitions that ignored the why (the CONOPS, in other words) and focused on the how.
 
The report simply accepts the official Navy spiel about unmanned.
 

Recent conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East prove that robotic and autonomous systems(RAS) are disrupting naval warfare and challenging traditional naval superiority. To provide more adaptable, distributed operations, the Navy intends to shift away from its World War II-era operating model, which was based on closely knit battle groups comprised of several traditional platforms, such as planes, ships, and submarines. [1]

Consider that statement.  Ukraine proves nothing about naval warfare except that a sufficiently inept navy can be injured by drones.  The Middle East proves nothing about naval warfare because there hasn’t been any naval drone warfare.
 
The statement then unquestioningly accepts the Navy’s idea that unmanned assets will somehow, in some unproven, magical manner be successful.  There has been absolutely no relevant, real world experience to justify drones and no exercises that do so.
 

According to Navy strategic documents, a hybrid fleet is necessary to enable this shift and would incorporate smaller, more numerous, and distributed capabilities—including RAS capabilities—as a complement to larger, more individually powerful, traditional capabilities.[1]

So, a hybrid fleet is “necessary”?  Based on what?  Not based on the real world and not based on exercises so … what?
 
I’ll repeat what I’ve said many times:  I have yet to see a viable CONOPS (the why) for unmanned assets.  The people reporting on the Navy need to question the Navy’s proclamations, not blindly accept them.  GAO needs to examine the why before they examine the how … and so do we.
 
 
 
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[1] Government Accountability Office, “GAO Report to Congress on the Navy’s Robotic Autonomous Systems”, 16-Jun-2026, GAO-26-109014,
https://news.usni.org/2026/06/16/gao-report-to-congress-on-the-navys-robotic-autonomous-systems

Where Are The Troops?

This is not a land combat blog but, sometimes, I’ve just gotta dip my toe into that world. 
 
We’ve repeatedly seen the US get attacked (with very little success) in the Strait of Hormuz by a drone or a speedboat and then we retaliate by striking combat related facilities.  The blindingly obvious question is why aren’t we striking these targets before they can be used against us since, clearly, we know where they are?  What kind of idiot commander allows known enemy combat facilities to exist during a war?
 
Now, here’s the land combat portion.  Why haven’t we put a brigade ashore to sweep, say, a 5-10 mile deep swath along the length of the strait?  As best I can tell, that would eliminate every remaining speedboat and most of the relevant combat facilities (weapons warehoused, radars, command and control facilities, troop housing/hideouts, etc.
 
Oh, but what if Iranian troops confront us?  Oh no!  What will we do?  Well, how about we thank them for revealing themselves and gathering together in one place so that we can more easily and efficiently kill them?
 
A sweep would remove most of the remaining ability of Iran to harass shipping in the strait.
 
Are we so afraid of casualties that we won’t risk soldiers?  If so, then this war isn’t very important.  If it is important, then ground troops are justified.  This would be a training exercise for a WWII battalion.  
 
We started the war with a good approach but it’s devolved into a decidedly half-assed affair the last couple of weeks.

US Helo Crew Rescued By Drone!

An Apache helicopter crashed in the water off the coast of Oman and the military is telling us that the 2-man crew was rescued by an unmanned boat, a 24 ft Corsair.  That’s astounding!  An unmanned boat rescued downed aircrew who had been adrift for two hours.  Here’s the headline.[1]
 

In First, 2 US Apache Pilots Rescued by Drone Boat

 
The promise of unmanned is finally being fulfilled!
 
We have no details, only sensationalistic headlines but, presumably, the boat located the aircrew on its own, plotted a course, found the crew, lifted the crew into the boat, applied emergency first aid as needed, and returned the crew to safety.
 
Of course, unless the boat had capabilities I’ve never heard of, it didn’t locate the crew, lift the crew into the boat, or apply emergency first aid because unmanned boats can’t do any of that.  Don’t get me wrong.  Pulling up near the crew so that they could climb aboard, unaided, see to their own first aid (were there any emergency supplies on the boat?  I doubt it), and be transported out of the area is very helpful if no manned asset was available but to call this a rescue by an unmanned boat is akin to saying that a sling on a helicopter rescued a swimmer in the water.  The sling didn’t do anything.  It was just a tool.
 
My larger question is, given that we’re in a high intensity war in the area, shouldn’t we have manned assets blanketing the area, including dedicated search and rescue units?  For example, an SH-60 type helo traveling 170 mph could travel the length of the strait in a half hour or so, depending on the start and end point and could reach any specific point in less time than that, flying a straight line.  Was there no manned ship, boat, or helo anywhere in the strait?  To rescue downed aircrew, we pull out all the stops.  All the stops meant no manned assets?  We’re not talking about covering the entire Pacific Ocean.  The area around the strait is pretty small.  The Navy’s presence in the area seems abnormally sparse which may explain why we seem incapable of escorting ships through the strait.  Is this a war we’re serious about or not?  The Navy doesn’t seem all that serious about it and this is just one more example.
 
 
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[1]Newsmax website, “In First, 2 US Apache Pilots Rescued by Drone Boat”, 9-Jun-2026,
https://www.newsmax.com/us/drone-boat-rescue-us-pilots/2026/06/09/id/1259057/

Lessons From Truk

How often have we seen comments stating that our carriers are hopelessly outmatched against China because a carrier has only around forty combat aircraft (160 in a 4-carrier group) and China has thousands of aircraft?  As good naval analysts always do, let’s turn to history to see what lessons we can learn that might be applicable.  A salient example is the US Navy’s WWII attack on Japan’s Truk island bases on 17–18 Feb-1944.
 
Truk was the major Japanese base in the South Pacific and was referred to as the "Japanese Pearl Harbor" and "the Gibraltar of the Pacific”.  It was believed to be heavily defended, fortified, and nearly impregnable with five airfields and a seaplane base and large numbers of warships.
 
It was feared that an attack on Truk would be quite costly and might well not succeed.  Despite this, an attack was ordered (Operation Hailstone) and conducted by three carrier task forces consisting of 5 fleet carriers  (Enterprise, Yorktown, Essex, Intrepid, and Bunker Hill) and 4 light carriers (Belleau Wood, Cabot, Monterey, and Cowpens) along with seven battleships, including Iowa and New Jersey, and many cruisers and destroyers.
 
The US carriers employed their usual run in under cover of night and pre-dawn launches to begin the attacks and achieved total surprise.  The result was a completely lop-sided victory for the US and Truk was never again a significant threat.
 
As it turned out, the Japanese had already begun withdrawing major naval units from Truk prior to the attack but that does not lesson the courage and skill of the attackers.
 
What can we learn from this?
 
Surprise – Surprise has forever been a major contributor to success on the battlefield and there is no better instrument for achieving surprise on the naval battlefield than a carrier group (submariners might argue that!).  In WWII, carriers conducted high speed run ins to their target under cover of night.  Today, darkness offers less cover but the tactic is still valid.  A carrier at sea is generally “invisible” and can show up anywhere at any time.  An enemy’s superiority can be decisively overcome if surprise can be achieved.  The art and task of the military planner is to arrange matters so as to achieve surprise.
 
Localized Superiority – It doesn’t matter how many assets the enemy has in its total inventory.  What matters is how many are instantaneously available at the point and moment of attack – a concept that seems to elude many of today’s naval observers.  The Japanese had superior numbers of aircraft when the initial US fighter sweep arrived but the Japanese aircraft were largely caught on the ground (see, Surprise, above) thus enabling the US to establish and maintain local, effective superiority.  As long as the attacking force doesn’t hang around too long, local superiority can be achieved and maintained for the duration of an operation.  Thus, the oft claimed superiority of numbers of Chinese aircraft in their total inventory is meaningless.  What matters is how many they can put into the air at the moment of attack.  Even having superior numbers locally is meaningless if surprise is achieved and the aircraft are caught on the ground.
 
Firepower – In addition to the hundreds of attacking aircraft, the US utilized large caliber naval guns on its battleships and cruisers to bombard bases and facilities on the islands and sink several fleeing ships, thus effectively supplementing the carrier aircraft.  As devastating as the air attacks were, nothing compares to large caliber naval gunfire for effective, sustained, unstoppable (with air superiority established!) destruction.  This is a lesson the Navy has completely forgotten.  We have no surface firepower and will one day rue the absence.  Large caliber naval guns are a devastating weapon and it is the responsibility of the naval planner to recognize that and work to bring that firepower into play, as appropriate.
 
Another aspect of firepower is numbers of delivery platforms.  The attack on Truk succeeded due to the immense numbers of carrier aircraft involved (500 aircraft).  An aircraft can only deliver a very limited amount of firepower and has no ability to sustain that delivery without returning to its base/carrier to rearm which means aerial firepower can only be applied sporadically.  This limitation was overcome at Truk (and throughout the war) by applying huge numbers of aircraft.  Each individual aircraft carried an almost insignificant amount of firepower but numbers compensated.  Our carrier air wings, today, consist of only around thirty actual combat aircraft (subtracting out combat aircraft relegated to tanker duty because we idiotically gave up our tankers without replacement).  We’ve forgotten that quantity matters when it comes to delivering firepower.
 
Courage – Last but not least, Truk teaches us the importance of courage.  At the time, there was a great deal of trepidation about an attack on Truk but we went ahead anyway.  Today, we have far too many Chicken Littles who see nothing but doom and gloom and are unwilling to take the slightest risk. 
 
Who Dares, Wins
Fortune Favors the Bold
 
These are the mottos and philosophies we should be living by, not
 
What Will the Chinese Think?
We Can’t Risk Escalation
 
Look at all the people, including within the military, who are terrified by the mere thought of engaging Iran, a third rate military, at best, certain that we cannot win.
 
 
 
As with any battle throughout history, there are important lessons to be learned and, as with every battle throughout history, the Navy is deaf, dumb, and blind to the lessons history is screaming at us.

Decided to Stop or Forced to Stop?

The US pounded Iran and was on the verge of total destruction of Iran’s political and military power and then, inexplicably, stopped attacking in favor of pursuit of a peace agreement.
 
As we’ve often noted, you don’t negotiate with an enemy, you utterly destroy them and then impose whatever surrender terms you want. 
 
Since WWII, the US has failed to pursue ultimate victory in every conflict it’s been involved in and the results have always come back to bite us.
 
Keeping that in mind, let’s change gears.
 
ComNavOps has frequently offered estimates of weapon inventory levels by examining budget documents for the preceding years.  In very brief terms, our weapons have historically had inventories in the low to mid thousands with production rates in the low hundreds.  However, that balance has been upset by the recent heavy expenditures of weapons off Yemen, around Israel, and against Iran.  In other words, our inventories are being depleted far faster than production can replenish.
 
Now, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has done exactly what ComNavOps has done and has issued a report estimating weapon inventories prior to the Iran conflict, specific weapon expenditures during the conflict, and speculation about the amount of time required to rebuild the inventories.
 
As one example, here are the figures for Tomahawk missiles.  As reported by TWZ website, CSIS estimated a pre-war Tomahawk inventory of 3100 missiles and an expenditure of 1000+ missile, thus far.[1]
 
Think about that expenditure rate and note that was against a helpless, fourth rate enemy who was being pounded by other countries and other weapons.  Now, consider how that would change against China.  We’d be expending Tomahawks at a rate of a thousand per week!  But, I digress …
 
What about Tomahawk inventory replenishment ?  It’s not encouraging.
 

Tomahawk procurement “averaged 86 missiles in the past 10 fiscal years (FY 15–FY 26), with most orders coming from the Navy,”  CSIS noted. [1]
 
 … the recent annual production rate is less than 200 … [1]

It’s worse than that, though.  A significant chunk of production is slated for sales to foreign countries, as noted below.
 

Another factor to consider are foreign military sales, with nearly 800 due to Japan, Australia and the Netherlands.[1]

So, we have a very small production capacity which is further “eroded” by deliveries to other countries.  It’s going to take many years to recover our Tomahawk inventory levels.  How much worse will this be during a war with China?  But, again, I digress …
 
The same trends hold true, to varying degrees, for all other weapons in the US military.
 
With low inventories and dismal replenishment rates in mind and returning to the first sentence in this post, we can now legitimately ask whether the seemingly inexplicable pause on the verge of total victory was due to some [misguided] desire for a premature peace or due to having reached a state of weapons depletion that became unacceptable given the constant threat of war with China and the need to maintain a “sufficient “ stockpile of weapons.  In other words, did we choose to stop or were we forced to stop by low weapon inventories?  Did we hit the minimum “safe” inventory levels and had to stop?
 
There’s no way to know the answer but logic suggests that we stopped because we reached a point where we felt we couldn’t expend any more weapons without depleting our inventories to unacceptable levels.  If this is the case, then all the talk of the US being ready and willing to resume attacks is just public relations propaganda for the masses and Iran is in no real danger of further heavy, sustained attacks and that would certainly change the negotiation strategies on both sides.
 
What do you think?  Decided to stop or forced to stop?
 
 
Note:  This is not a post about the “rightness” of the Iran strikes, just the military aspects of those strikes.  Political comments will not be allowed.
 
 
 
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[1]The War Zone website, “Severity Of America’s Depleted Advanced Weapons Stockpiles Detailed In New Report”, Howard Altman, 28-May-2026,
https://www.twz.com/news-features/severity-of-americas-depleted-advanced-weapons-stockpiles-detailed-in-new-report

Discipline

No serious observer of US military forces can have failed to see the decline in training and readiness over the last few decades.  The following news article is testament to that decline by the fact that it is even newsworthy.
 

U.S. Army Gen. Christopher LaNeve, a commander known for enforcing strict discipline and later winning praise from President Donald Trump, is expected to become the Army's next top officer, according to U.S. officials.[1]

Isn’t enforcing strict discipline simply a given in a trained and ready military?  It should be!
 

Two years before joining War Secretary Pete Hegseth's inner circle, LaNeve built a reputation at the 82nd Airborne Division for rigidly enforcing rules, including banning cellphones during physical training and requiring troops to use only military-issued gear.[1]

Banning cell phones and insisting soldiers use military gear?!  What kind of nutcase is this guy?  More to the point, how far has discipline fallen if this is even a story? 
 
As you would expect,
 

The approach did not make him popular with many rank-and-file troops. Current and former members of the division said some soldiers booed LaNeve during All-American Week events in his final year commanding the unit.[1]

Anyone who booed should be instantly dishonorably discharged.  That they weren’t,  proves the depths to which discipline had fallen.
 
Fortunately, not all have bought into the fad of non-existent discipline.
 

However, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, a former 82nd Airborne commander who later recommended LaNeve for a senior Pentagon role, said the general restored discipline and traditional military values to the division.
 
"What he did, which I admired, he brought the 82nd — it had drifted away a bit — back to traditional training and traditional values," Kellogg said. "I think the Army had gotten away from the idea of traditionalism and what it means to fight and how to fight."[1]

Here’s where I fault SecDef Hegseth.  If the unit had “drifted away” from training and discipline, which is to say they drifted away from combat readiness, then the previous commander(s) should be promptly court-martialed for dereliction of duty and dishonorably discharged.  This is the kind of house-cleaning I had hoped Hegseth would implement and has not.  Very disappointing.
 
Please note that this post is not about Gen. LaNeve, specifically, but about discipline and training.  Indeed, LaNeve has some questionable actions he needs to be held accountable for.  For example,
 

In June 2023, LaNeve signed a Pride Month memo recognizing LGBTQ+ troops.[1]

The larger, main point is that military discipline has clearly deteriorated, badly, and needs to be reestablished immediately and forcefully.

 

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[1]Newsmax website, “Gen. LaNeve Poised to Be Army's Next Top Officer”, Sandy Fitzgerald, 28-May-2026,
https://www.newsmax.com/us/christopher-laneve-army-pete-hegseth/2026/05/28/id/1257791/

FY27 Five Year Plan

If you want to read a sales brochure that raves about the magnificence of the Navy, check out the latest 30 year shipbuilding plan.
 
Here are some tidbits from the most recent five year plan for the years 2027-2031 inclusive.[1]
 
Battleship (Qty= 3, $14.5B ea) – Setting aside the reality that these will never be built, the plan is to have three built within the next five years while our high priority, “must get hulls in the water” frigate will only complete four?  There’s some serious delusion at work here.
 
Burke (Qty= 7, $3.61B ea) – Sure, these ships are long since obsolete, non-stealthy, overloaded, have no growth margins, lack close in weapons, and have sub-optimal radars but we’re going to build seven of them anyway because it’s the only ship we know how to build.  Along those same lines, I’ve read that the Navy is going to restart the F6F Hellcat production line because it was successful and we know how to build them.
 
NSC-FF Frigate (Qty= 4, $1.76B ea) – This is our most urgent shipbuilding project, according to the Navy, and we can only get four in five years?  Does this give a feel for our ability to replace sunken ships during a war?  Check out that price!  That’s a long ways from the numbers the Navy was publicly tossing around!  Remember when the Navy was claiming they would build Constellations for around $800M ea?  Now, we’re building slightly upgunned NSC patrol boats for twice that cost!  Yikes!
 
Virginia SSN (Qty= 10, $6.3B ea) – Setting aside the fact that we’ve been unable to maintain a build rate of two subs per year and now we think we’ll build two plus an SSBN each year, do you remember when the Navy proudly (and fraudulently!) claimed it was building Virginia’s for $2B apiece?  Well, now the cost is up to $6.3B and, of course, that’s a lowball Navy estimate.
 
Landing Ship Medium LSM (Qty= 23, $298M ea) – I have yet to hear any viable Concept of Operations for these sitting ducks and yet we’re going to build 23 of them?  I wouldn’t want to be a Marine in the near future!  Shipping on one of those promises to be a one-way trip and a short one at that.
 
Unmanned – Paraphrasing Star Wars, “The delusion is strong in this one.”  From the Navy’s shipbuilding plan,
 

The United States faces a strategic inflection point where peer adversaries have achieved naval mass that the U.S. cannot match with traditional shipbuilding alone.[1]

This statement is utterly false.  We can easily match China’s shipbuilding but we choose not to for reasons that only an insane person could agree with.  This is purely a self-inflicted disadvantage.  We’ve discussed the many ways we could easily and hugely increase our shipbuilding so I won’t belabor it here.
 
The Navy’s solution?  Why, unmanned, of course!
 

To counter this and deliver warfighting capability fast, the USV FoS strategy outlines a rapid, competitive path to deliver affordable, scalable, and adaptable unmanned surface capabilities … [1]

False!  The Navy’s unmanned vessels do NOT delivery warfighting capability.  They are largely unarmed.
 
Retirements - What about retirements?  The five year plan calls for 58 new ships and 46 retirements.  That’s a net gain of 12 ships.  Take that number at face value.  It’s a gain of 12 ships over 5 years which is 2 ships per year.  Compared to Chinese shipbuilding rates, that’s embarrassingly pathetic.  Still, it’s an improvement.  Or is it?  When we start looking at what types of ships will be added and lost, the picture is not good.
 
- 10 CG/DDG will be retired and 10 DDG added.  That’s a net gain of 0 for our top of the line surface combatants.
 
-  Counting all combat ships (carriers, surface ships, attack subs), we’ll gain 22 and lose 25 for a net loss of 3.
 
The numerical gains will be in auxiliary ships, not combat ships.  Auxiliaries are vital but they add no firepower to the fleet.
 
 
Summary
 
Though I’m sure they didn’t intend it as such, the 30 year plan perfectly documents the Navy’s delusions, fantasies, runaway costs, and schedule slippages.  In that sense, it’s quite informative and interesting.  As far as reality … well, that’s not included in the document. 
 
 
 
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[1]Department of the Navy, ”US Navy Shipbuilding Plan”, May 2026, Tables p.15 & 40