Haven't Got A Clue

We’ve belabored the professional incompetence of Navy leadership in these pages on an on-going basis.  Each example seems more unbelievable than the last as the Navy absolutely, steadfastly, unwaveringly, refuses to learn any lessons, whatsoever, from each succeeding debacle.  Here’s a Breaking Defense article that kind of sums up the utter lack of professional military thinking that is now guiding Navy operational thinking and associated equipment purchases as the Navy struggles to find an ‘offset’ advantage to hang their hats on. (1)

The Navy is scrambling to write its new acquisition and operational playbook on the fly, a decision based as much on what US rivals are doing as it is on what the service hasn’t done in recent decades. (1)

Well, how can acquisitions and doctrine/operations developed “on the fly” not produce a good result?  Isn’t “on the fly” the key to a successful, solid, well founded program?  OF COURSE IT’S NOT!!!!  Only an idiot – or the Navy – would initiate major programs “on the fly”.

The construction and innovation booms being undertaken by the Chinese — and to a lesser extent Russian — navies, are forcing the admirals at the Pentagon to push new, still mostly theoretical,  unmanned technologies into the water as quickly as possible for urgent make-or-break tests. (1)

Why are we reacting to the Russians/Chinese instead of the other way around?  What have our esteemed, professional, military leaders been doing the last decade or two while the Russians and Chinese have been steadily catching up to us?  We know what they’ve been doing – they’ve been pursuing gender sensitivity, green energy, jobs creation, diversity, misanthropy, humanitarian response, and the like.  What should they have been doing?  They should have been studying the Russians and Chinese, anticipating future military challenges and needs, preparing for combat, and maximizing readiness.  But, they weren’t.

The biggest gamble — with potentially the highest payoff — is the $3.7 billion worth of unmanned programs the service included in its 2020 budget submission. The spending includes $447 million to buy two large unmanned surface vehicles [LUSV] that can provide a variety of missions from long-range surveillance to offensive operations. (1)

So, in a desperate attempt to find some military advantage, after having squandered our previous advantages, the Navy has latched on to ‘unmanned’.  Yes, unmanned platforms (doesn’t matter what kind!) will give us unrivaled military advantages and vanquish our foes.  True, none of these unmanned platforms are designed and based on solid warfighting principles, none have valid concepts of operation (CONOPS), and none have been tested in realistic combat exercises but that’s beside the point because …  they’re unmanned !!!!! 

Well, let’s be fair.  ComNavOps has repeatedly called for more extensive prototyping and the Navy is just buying two of the LUSVs so what’s wrong with that?  It’s only one more than a prototype, right?  Well, there’s also this,

After the 2020 budget, the Navy plans to buy two LUSVs a year until 2024, for a total of about $2.7 billion. The Navy is making plans to buy 232 unmanned platforms of different sizes and configurations over the next several years. (1)

I guess the Navy is already committed to more than two LUSVs.  It looks like, sight unseen and utterly untested, they’re committed to a $2.7B program to obtain around ten of the LUSVs !!!!  Did the Navy learn nothing from the LCS debacle where they committed to 55 ships before the first was even designed?  Apparently, not.  So, we’re going to repeat our mistake because we’re in panic mode and flailing around looking for something to give us an advantage since we wasted the advantages we had and appear incapable of reasoning out and developing legitimate advantages based on professional military acumen.

It appears, though, that some vital questions have not yet been addressed and answered despite our commitment to the acquisition program.

But most key questions over how these unmanned ships will be controlled, by who, and if they will deploy independently or as part of traditional strike groups, have yet to be answered. (1)

Correct me if I’m wrong – and I’m not – but these kinds of questions are exactly what a CONOPS would answer.  So, having failed to learn the lesson of building ships (LCS, AFSB, new frigate, etc.) without a CONOPS, we’re going to do it again.

Why are we doing this?

Announcing these huge investments without a corresponding operational plan is “an expression of the urgency the Navy is attaching to the situation” of trying to stay operationally unpredictable while keeping ahead of the Chinese and Russian, Ronald O’Rourke, the top naval analyst at the Congressional Research Service, told an audience Monday at the Heritage Foundation. (1)

No, this is not a sign of urgency, this is a sign of stupidity and, given the repetitive nature of the errors while hoping for a different outcome, a sign of insanity.

“Operationally unpredictable”?  Yeah, I guess stupidity, by its very definition is unpredictable but that doesn’t make it combat-useful.  Hey, Navy, why don’t you build a fleet of attack rowboats?  It would be a lot cheaper and still meet the goal of being “operationally unpredictable”!

This is bad but at least it’s not like this kind of scatterbrained, haphazard, clueless acquisition is normal … or is it?

The big spending on unmanned systems before many core questions are answered “is emblematic of where some acquisition may be heading in the coming years … (1)

After how many failed acquisition programs, we’re now going to codify this type of idiotic acquisition process and make it our new standard?  Are you kidding me?

Navy observers, at least, can see that this approach will lead to failures.  Noted observer Eric Labs stated,

The Navy “needs to socialize for various audience that we’re going to have failures,” as these programs move forward quickly, and continue to change, said Eric Labs, appearing alongside O’Rourke at Heritage. (1)

Of course you’re going to have failures.  It’s baked into the idiotic process.  It would be surprising if it produced anything but failures.

Labs continued,

“If they don’t do that socialization as part of the acquisition process many people might draw parallels to the LCS program,” which has suffered years of criticism — much of it earned — as it slogged through different operational concepts and technology failures. (1)

Parallels to the LCS????  It’s an exact duplicate!  It’s already an assured failure.

Honestly, I grow weary of the institutional incompetence of the Navy.  The failures-in-the-making could not be more obvious and yet the Navy refuses to heed the warnings and learn any lessons.  The entire Navy flag rank needs to be fired.

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(1)Breaking Defense website, “232 Unmanned Ships May Be Key To Countering China, Russia ”, Paul McLeary, 15-Apr-2019,

https://breakingdefense.com/2019/04/232-unmanned-ships-may-be-key-to-countering-china-russia/