As you know, and as we’ve documented, the Navy has been officially
pursuing a 355 ship fleet (established by the 2016 Force Structure Assessment)
for some time. They have looked ridiculous
in that pursuit by early retiring perfectly good ships, deferring maintenance
(which will result in additional early retirements down the road), and building
excessively expensive ships which reduces the number of ships they can afford
to buy, all while proclaiming that they want a 355-ship fleet.
To save face and try to look like they’re accomplishing
their goal, the Navy attempted to fudge the ship count numbers by counting
hospital ships and logistic support ships.
Congress immediately responded by legislating that those types of ships
could not be counted. Undeterred, the
Navy then began counting ships that had been delivered substantially incomplete
(the Zumwalts and Ford) but were quickly commissioned despite being
non-functional. Congress again responded
by forbidding that practice.
Most recently, the Navy has been pushing unmanned craft and
ComNavOps assumed that the Navy would attempt to count them as warships in the
fleet count. Imagine my surprise to see
that the Navy’s official position appears to be that unmanned vessels will not
be counted!
Rather
than using unmanned vessels to help reach the 355 mark, as some have suggested,
Gilday [Chief of Naval Operations, CNO] said unmanned platforms would
supplement the battle force total and not count towards that 355 figure.
“There
are a lot of assumptions that go along with unmanned because they’re pretty
much conceptual. And so the final numbers that’ll come out in a couple of
weeks, when we release the assessment, those final numbers will not include
unmanned. [Navy] Secretary Modly has said publicly that it’s 355-plus, plus
unmanned,” he said. (1)
I had assumed that the Navy would try to weasel the ship
count upward using the obvious ploy of counting minor, marginally capable, unmanned
vessels. While I am glad to hear that
they will not do so, I am immediately suspicious. Why would the Navy not attempt to count
unmanned craft when they’ve attempted so many other blatant manipulations to
fraudulently increase the ship count?
At this point, I had to stop and think about the Navy’s true
and only real mission and motivation which is buying new hulls. So, with that reminder firmly in mind, how
would not counting unmanned craft help the Navy achieve their goal of more new
hulls?
I also recalled that the Navy has just recently suggested
that it needs a bigger slice of the budget pie than the Army, Air Force, and
Marines.
Ah, ha! It now
becomes clear.
If the Navy were to count the unmanned craft then they’d
have less leverage to go to Congress and say, ‘hey, we need more ships and more
budget to reach the magic 355-ship goal’ because Congress would say, ‘we just
gave you lots of unmanned craft that, by your own count, are full-fledged
warships as indicated by the fact that you’re counting them in your fleet count’. So, by NOT counting unmanned craft, the Navy
can still go to Congress and plead ‘poverty’ of hulls.
I have no proof of this but what do you think, did we crack
the code? Or, is there some other
explanation?
(1)USNI News website, “CNO Gilday Calls for Budget Increase
to Reach 355 Ship Fleet; New Battle Force Count Won’t Include Unmanned Ships”,
Sam LaGrone, 14-Jan-2020,
https://news.usni.org/2020/01/14/cno-gilday-calls-for-budget-increase-to-reach-355-ship-fleet-new-battle-force-count-wont-include-unmanned-ships
Or maybe they actually figured that finally this would be the straw that broke the camel's back? Maybe.
ReplyDeleteWise foresight on the part of the Navy? Does that seem likely? Does that seem like it matches their pattern?
DeleteI have hold the navy leaderships competence in managing congress and other politicians in high esteem. It's everything else I have the reservations on.
DeleteThe other part is that maintaining ship numbers matter far less than maintaining deadlier assets...ADMIRALS.
DeleteSounds entirely plausible to me.
ReplyDeleteI think you're on to somthing!!!
ReplyDeleteIt is USN maskirova operation to lull you into a sense of security. Then they'll order the MSC(XN), a 14,000 ton nuclear hyrdo foil with plasma cannons, they swear it'll be ready in 3 years.
ReplyDeleteIt may be that they are being "cunning". If they try to count small unmanned ships with few weapons, Congress will just slap them down.
ReplyDeleteBut if they work up to vessels that look powerful, even if they don't work, they could be able to count those without Congress getting annoyed. And then they can retire the manned ships, and spend all their money on unmanned hulls!
Somewhat related? question. The article is about USN unmanned platforms and I noticed that USN asked? but was denied by Congress the authorization to install VLS onboard the hulls. I didn't see anywhere a proper explanation why Congress denied USN the chance to integrate VLS on some prototype USV. IF USN wants to use these USVs as a VLS barge or dare we say out loud "arsenal" ship!, why not put some VLS onboard and see what happens? This really doesn't make sense....who's more afraid of counting these USVs as real hulls: USN or Congress?!?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/surface-navy-association/2020/01/13/heres-5-things-you-should-know-about-the-us-navys-plans-for-big-autonomous-missile-boats/
Obviously, I don't know what Congress' thinking was but I strongly suspect it was a counting issue but, rather, a distrust of the Navy's history (LCS, Zumwalt, Ford, etc.). I think this was Congress' way of saying, 'hey, you're not going to leap into yet another expensive, unproven, wild venture; build some basic unmanned craft and prove that they can even navigate safely (our manned ships can't!) before you start turning it into a full-fledged program; in other words, show us you can crawl before you come to us asking for running money'. I've seen some bits of statements from various Congressmen that support this supposition but nothing explicit and direct. That said, I think I'm right but I'm not 100% sure.
DeleteVLS that can't be reloaded at sea is a very bad idea. I doubt that congress suddenly got a hint of an engineering clue, but perhaps we should thank them anyway.
DeleteThe whole VLS concep5 as it exists now needs to be seriously rethought before it becomes the basis of a religion. Vertical launch is great, but no reloads for an extended war is suicidal. Particularly in the Pacific.
Dont recall where, ill try and locate it... But I read that they were uncomfortable with that amount of firepower being unmanned "at this point"... So basically they still want actual people "pulling the trigger" for a while...
DeleteI dont think its feasible right now to replenish VLSs at sea, I recall in 2017? USN would look into it again but haven't heard much since...its interesting to note that 1 purpose of a USV would be to act as some kind of VLS barge, fire or reload manned ships? then go back to replenish. My understanding is that it's not easy to reload VLSs at sea.
Delete"VLS that can't be reloaded at sea is a very bad idea."
DeleteI've addressed this repeatedly. It's a non-issue. Navies just don't stand and fight. They execute a single mission and then return to port. Check out the entire history of naval warfare.
Consider a carrier group at sea. At the very low end, you'd have at least 10 Burke escorts in a war. That's 960 VLS cells. If the loadout was 1/2 Standard and 1/4 ESSM, that's 430 Standard missiles and 960 quad packed ESSM missiles. That's a total of 1390 defensive missiles and that's without counting short range RAM. No enemy has the ability to throw a thousand missiles at a carrier group in a single battle.
More realistically, a carrier group at war would have double that number of escorts and defensive missiles. Running out of defensive missiles is simply not a possibility. Therefore, reloading at sea is not a need.
Case in point: when USN fired 80 missiles on that Syrian attack, looks like they immediately turned around and went to ROTA,Spain to reload.
Delete"Consider a carrier group at sea. At the very low end, you'd have at least 10 Burke escorts in a war. That's 960 VLS cells. If the loadout was 1/2 Standard and 1/4 ESSM, that's 430 Standard missiles and 960 quad packed ESSM missiles. That's a total of 1390 defensive missiles and that's without counting short range RAM. No enemy has the ability to throw a thousand missiles at a carrier group in a single battle."
DeleteWithin 1,000 miles, a Chinese force of 70 JF-7As and 60 H-6Ks could deliver 528 missiles in a single sortie.
(70% availability = 49 JF-7As, 196 missiles; 42 H-6s, 252 missiles)
Assuming 2 interceptors per missile, on average, that's 1,056 interceptors required for one sortie. If there was no attrition, they could do it again the next day, or possibly even later the same day.
Now the CVW would hopefully attrite many of the Chinese aircraft before they could launch, but the Chinese do have the capability _on paper_ to launch a thousand missiles in two sorties from their JH-7As and H-6s.
Source: https://csbaonline.org/research/publications/taking-back-the-seas-transforming-the-u.s-surface-fleet-for-decision-centric-warfare
Edit: the above also included 80 DF-26s to get to 528. Obviously they are a one shot deal. So two stories plus the ASBMs results in 976 weapons.
Delete"Within 1,000 miles, a Chinese force of 70 JF-7As and 60 H-6Ks could deliver 528 missiles in a single sortie."
DeleteI got a chuckle out of that. Thanks!
I know you were kidding about that but it would be interesting to imagine a realistic Chinese max strike effort and see what it would consist of. Unless one US carrier group was fighting the entire Chinese military all by itself, I would guess a realistic max effort would consist of a single regiment of H-6K (18 aircraft). Of course, it's academic because the Chinese lack targeting capability for targets that are thousand miles or more away!
Anyway, like I said, thanks for the laugh!
TR just pulled out today with 1 CG and 5 DDG. The reality is missile salvo exchange favors the offense. If at the wrong place at the wrong time China could crack that nut with the hope that having done so we'd balk. Favors your argument about the disadvantage of forward deployment. Favors Mahan and amassing the fleet first. Our own cheap area denial systems should be what's forward most of the time.
DeleteReloading at sea is a no-go for a multitude of reasons.
DeleteBut would it be possible to design a support ship so warships could be reloaded or crossloaded ("we fired all our SAMs,can we borrow some of yours?" Or "ship A needs to go in for repair. Transfer its remaining Tomahawks to ship B.") in remote and/or austere ports, atolls and inlets?
Beats running all the way back to Pearl or Norfolk, or losing a ship and valuable ammo to a maintenance casualty.
" Running out of defensive missiles is simply not a possibility. Therefore, reloading at sea is not a need."
ReplyDeleteI was thinking Tomahawks rather than defensive missiles. Against someone like China, or even Iran, you are going to run dry on Tomahawks pretty quickly.
And if you are using cells for Tomahawks, obviously that is going to cut down on defensive missile availability.
If you start to lose in-theater bases, it may be a long way home to reload. I can also see that as missions change, it may be useful to re-balalance the loadout. Seems inefficient to have to return to a shore facility to do that.
"Check out the entire history of naval warfare."
Its pretty unusual to be unable to reload your main armament without returning to port, at least in recent times. What parallels are you thinking of that have actually been used in combat? I get ballistic missile subs, but that is a different role.
"Its pretty unusual to be unable to reload your main armament without returning to port"
DeleteWell yes but sometimes (not always) you are trading technology costs for an advantage even if it comes with other costs. After all you can't graze your M1A1 in field you happen to camping in but I am sure the solders running it would prefer it to a horse towed anti tank gun even if its not so easy to fuel.
I find CNOs argument persuasive. However it would stronger if the navy announced fleet maneuver X as a yearly thing where 3-4 CV and escorts all did practice for a month doing various fleet operations together and burned trough a lot of ammunition doing it and target planes and missiles and aggressor ships to try and close to firing range in different situations. I would be happy with a 200 ship navy that did that over the mythical 350+ one that can't navigate if that was budget cost.
"VLS that can't be reloaded at sea is a very bad idea."
DeleteThat's a completely different scenario. That scenario involves a strike with an exactly known number of missiles you wish to launch. That being the case, you simply assemble the requisite number of launch platforms, send 'em out, launch, and they return to port to await the planning and provisioning for their next mission.
Of course, that's the worst possible way to conduct a naval Tomahawk strike! The preferred way is to use SSGN subs with 154 missiles per sub. Allocate the number of subs and you're done. Unfortunately, we seem committed to retiring our SSGNs without replacement - a monumentally poor decision.
"After all you can't graze your M1A1 in field you happen to camping in but I am sure the solders running it would prefer it to a horse towed anti tank gun even if its not so easy to fuel."
DeleteSnort!! Brilliant!
But you can reload both of those.
I couldn't agree more about the knowledge deficit caused by the complete lack of gaming these scenarios out.
How many Tomahawks would you burn up against an Iranian target list for example? Where are all those Tomahawks going to come from?
We used 60 or 80 in Syria and accomplished not a great deal. Against one fairly small air base.
So that is my concern. We have a very small fleet today, and potentially some very large enemies with way more targets than we are used to in recent times.
And we have to return to a port to reload our main batteries. Hmmm. What could possibly go wrong? I may well be proven wrong, but the potential issue seems obvious.
"And we have to return to a port to reload our main batteries. Hmmm. What could possibly go wrong?"
DeleteAre you thinking that the Navy is going to put to sea on Day-1 and simply sit there launching non-stop missiles in an attempt to end the war in one massive, never-ending strike? Again, I refer you to the entire history of naval warfare and war, in general.
War is conducted via a series of objectives over time. You build up resources, plan, assemble assets and execute a mission. Then you return to base and repeat the process for the next objective on the list. This is about as basic as it gets!
Dunno. I'm looking mostly at Iran right now rather than China. I just re-read the DIA's latest unclass Iran Military Power Report, which like all their stuff is fascinating reading.
DeleteIran has a very large bunch of ballistic missiles that if used aggressively could do a lot of damage to installations in the Gulf area.
I wouldn't be surprised if events led up to some form of "Shock and Awe" in an efforts to suppress those missiles.
Which might in turn trigger an all out effort from Iran.
If you are up against an enemy the size of Iran, or worse, China, suppressing defenses and offensive capability is going to use up ammunition fast.
Assuming you don't agree with me, how do you see something like a major conflict with Iran going down?
https://www.dia.mil/News/Articles/Article-View/Article/2020456/defense-intelligence-agency-releases-report-iran-military-power/
"suppressing defenses and offensive capability is going to use up ammunition fast."
DeleteProfligate ammo use is a truism of warfare and always has been. In peacetime we ALWAYS underestimate ammo usage by at least an order of magnitude and then we act surprised by how much more we actually use than estimated.
On a closely related note, our total Tomahawk inventory is somewhere around 3000 or so. That won't last long in a real war! That's one of the reasons why I see a war with China lasting a long time - neither side will have enough weapons to achieve a rapid victory. After each side uses up most of its initial, ready inventory the war will settle into a war of production. Who can outproduce the other?
"Assuming you don't agree with me, how do you see something like a major conflict with Iran going down?"
Iran is a completely different affair than a peer war. How we fight an Iran war depends on what our victory conditions are. If we just in for a half-hearted, public relations victory then we'll just launch an initial 'shock and awe' which won't accomplish all that much and then we'll settle into a minor skirmishing attitude while we engage in long, drawn out negotiations.
On the other hand, if we opt for a no-holds-barred, total victory war, we'll launch everything we have. However, with a total Tomahawk inventory of only 3000, there won't be much need for (or available inventory!) for reloading.
Related note, we have more VLS cells than Tomahawk missiles - yet another reason why at-sea reloading is pointless.
"Are you thinking that the Navy is going to put to sea on Day-1 and simply sit there launching non-stop missiles in an attempt to end the war in one massive, never-ending strike?"
ReplyDeleteYou mean like OIF Shock and Awe? Or the initial air campaign portion of Desert Storm?
Thousands of cruise missiles (to suppress C3 and air defenses and kick the door open for the manned aircraft) on the first day seems to be the new hotness. It's pretty much the raison d'etre for the SSGNs.
And, as you saw from those examples, they did not even remotely end the war. There is a world of difference between applying 'shock and awe' against a third tier military from a country the size of one of our states versus doing so against China or Russia.
DeleteOur entire inventory of around 3000 Tomahawk missiles wouldn't even make a scratch of annoyance against China. It would be sufficient to destroy a handful of bases but that's about it.
The point of the CMs is to force the enemy to launch a significant portion of their SAMs and A2A missiles, and hopefully put a nice dent in the enemy airfields, radars, and command posts.
DeleteBy the time our manned planes hit the scene, enemy defenses should be tired, cut off from command, and low on fuel and ammo.
Or the enemy fighters, radars, commanders and SAMs can hunker down in place, and risk taking a tomahawk straight to the jaw.
"If you are up against an enemy the size of Iran, or worse, China, suppressing defenses and offensive capability is going to use up ammunition fast."
ReplyDeleteI worry more about where the bases are and if they are hardened and if we have sufficient logistical capacity to keep them operating even if we start loosing supply ships.
That a USN group of ships has to retire to Guam or Japan is one thing. Its worse if the base is not there anymore.
Well, even if its mostly press release fluff... I read that a tender anchored in Ulithi as part of looking at it for future use. The article was comical in that an officer was quoted saying that they accomplished their mission by pull ing in and anchoring there. But at least it looks like someone is starting to look at other fleet marshalling points in the Pacific...
ReplyDeleteUlithi
ReplyDeleteProblem is the US has not spent much effort even remembering these place exist in political terms. One wonders how long it we be before China starts I dunnno offer loans or investments with that aim detaching these client states from the US.
The US handling of the Marshell islands is I think setting a poor example. Had they been handled with more elegance - The citizenship question and proactively dealing with the the decaying nuclear dump there - I think we might be more likely to have our associates stand by us in a war with China.
But has it stands no I am not sure sans occupation we could count on Micronesia to want be a floating base.
Ship count just went up...now all the ESBs will be commissioned "warships"...
ReplyDelete