Since the end of the Cold War, the Navy has been floundering, desperately searching for a mission and justification for the enormous costs the Navy imposes on the nation. Despite many aborted attempts at proffering a core reason for being, the Navy’s walls are as clean as can be. They’ve thrown every concept they can think of at the wall and nothing has stuck. Just for fun, let’s take a quick review of the Navy’s succession of abandoned core concepts and see what lessons we can learn. In approximately chronological order, we’ve witnessed the coming and going of the following major concepts since the Cold War era:
Vertical Assault (mid 1980’s) – Exemplified by the MV-22 Osprey, this concept envisioned rapid vertical assault as the replacement for traditional amphibious assaults and birthed the subsequent ‘Operational Maneuver From The Sea’ and ‘Ship To Objective Maneuver’ concepts. Vertical assault ignored the lessons of helo assaults from Vietnam and the limitations of the MV-22 in vertical flight mode.
Littoral (mid 1990’s) – As the Cold War’s obvious justification for large fleets faded and the Navy’s budget was threatened, the Navy invented the ‘littoral’ threat. This postulated that there was some characteristic or threat inherent in shallower waters that the existing Navy couldn’t deal with and that the Navy couldn’t successfully operate in such waters. Of course, the entire history of naval warfare refutes this and ‘littoral’ turned out to be nothing more than a budget grabbing ploy by the Navy to secure more shipbuilding funds. The Navy has now all but abandoned the LCS and the ‘littoral’ threat appears to have evaporated.
Operational Maneuver From The Sea (1996) – This concept, published in a paper by then Marine Commandant Krulak (5), sought to avoid the perceived threat of future: precision weapons against traditional beach assaults and, instead, to bypass the beach to attack enemy ‘centers of gravity’ with ‘decisive effects’. This was, arguably, the first step in the process of intentionally avoiding the hard work associated with assured success. This was an attempt to gain a fast, easy victory without the hard work.
Ship To Objective Maneuver (1997)(4) – This concept, which flows from the ‘Operational Maneuver From The Sea’ concept, defined the operations and tactics associated with direct airborne amphibious assault against the ultimate objective rather than landing and building up and supporting a force ashore. Arguably, this was the beginning of the now prevalent tendency by American military thinkers to assume that everything we do will work and that the enemy will passively acquiesce, if not outright cooperate, in his own destruction. The degree of fantasy that appears in this work laid the fantasy-foundation for all future strategies and concepts.
Thousand Ship Navy (2006)(1,2,3) – The Thousand Ship Navy envisioned a vast, cooperative, global navy comprised of naval forces from every freedom loving country in the world. The US Navy would be just one small component of this immense force and the Navy’s shortcomings would be compensated for by the global naval force, thus relieving the Navy of the need to maintain an appropriately large fleet. Again, this was an attempt to avoid the hard work of global sea power projection.
A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower (2007) – This marked a deviation from military combat strategy to one favoring the promotion of global ‘goodness’ and the common commercial interests of the world. This movement defined the Navy’s denial of real world threats and the rejection of the Navy’s core mission of warfighting in favor of warm hugs and fuzziness. This also led to that idiotic recruitment slogan, “America’s Navy: A global force for good”.
The Great Green Fleet (2009) – This was an attempt to refocus the Navy from combat to the supposedly greater threat of global warming and environmental disaster by emphasizing biofuels and environmental awareness over combat.
Distributed Lethality (2010) – This concept envisioned a proliferation of individual ships, deployed deep in enemy waters, each with a handful of anti-ship missiles and all of them waiting to pounce on enemy ships in massive, coordinated attacks. No one ever explained how individually weak, almost defenseless, ships would survive in enemy territory nor how targeting and communications would occur in enemy territory.
Third Offset (2014) – This was an attempt to leapfrog the technology development path and achieve an easy, quick dominance on the battlefield via networks, unmanned assets, artificial intelligence, and machine-human teaming. Again, it was an attempt to avoid the hard work of proper and effective technology development and superiority maintenance.
Networks (2015) – This envisions the supremacy of data sharing and networks over firepower and has led to a significant de-emphasis on, and loss of, firepower in the fleet. It assumes absolutely unhindered, secure, and utterly reliable data communications which is an unachievable fantasy even in peacetime.
Unmanned (2018) – This concept envisions a multitude of small, individually weak ships somehow being more powerful and capable in the aggregate than large, powerful ships. This appears to be the Navy’s means of countering the Chinese navy’s numerical superiority and reversing our own numerical decline. The fact that our numbers would consist of very weak vessels does not appear to be a concern to the Navy and, again, represents an unwillingness to do the hard work.
In addition, there have been many lesser trends. In no particular order:
Lasers – Lasers were going to revolutionize naval warfare and they were just a months away from full implementation – as they have been since the 1980’s when the Air Force operated the Airborne Laser Laboratory in a Boeing NKC-135A. To date, we’re still waiting and development has been limited to a couple of low power test units on Navy ships that have barely been able to be effective against slow, small drones or small boats with prolonged exposure to the laser beams.
Railguns – Once the hottest trend in the Navy, railguns were going to revolutionize naval warfare by providing incredibly long range, near-instantaneous kinetic impacts while removing the risk of volatile magazines from ships. Railgun development has now been officially abandoned by the Navy.
Minimal Manning – This envisioned immense cost savings due to greatly reduced crew sizes and was an example of a business case driving force design instead of combat requirements. The reality is that ship maintenance and readiness nose-dived and the Navy has yet to recover from this ill-conceived effort and, in fact, is still attempting to implement it.
Modular – The LCS was supposed to have been the start of a completely modular force that could swap function modules on the fly to execute any mission. The result is well known and nor worth further discussion.
Distributed ARG – This took the concept of a reasonably powerful, self-contained, multi-faceted Marine combat group, the MEU, and split it among three widely separated ships incapable of mutual support and each individually incapable of effective combat.
Hypersonics – This is the latest fad and, unfortunately, it’s a follow-the-leader movement with China and Russia in the lead!
Lessons
As outlined above, we’ve seen the Navy lurch from one ill-conceived concept to the next with a regularity that is breathtaking in the degree of aimlessness it demonstrates. The Navy is truly lost and floundering.
The lessons from this are as painfully apparent as the idiocy of the string of failed concepts.
- Recognize your core mission and develop a strategy/concept that directly supports the core mission.
- Embrace hard work and stop looking for shortcuts.
- Assume the enemy is every bit as competent as you are and plan accordingly. Drop the fantasy planning.
- Design for combat, not business cases.
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(1)https://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/The-Thousand-Ship-Navy-9-18-2014.asp
(3)https://prospect.org/article/1000-ship-navy./
(4)https://www.mccdc.marines.mil/Portals/172/Docs/MCCDC/Documents/Concepts/STOM%20May%202011.pdf
"Recognize your core mission and develop a strategy/concept that directly supports the core mission"
ReplyDeleteAfter the 1990-91 Gulf War and subsequent dissolution of Soviet Union, US navy thought that it would never face a powerful navy, down the road. Therefore, navy's roles have changed mainly to support land assaults. Products from this thinking include LCS, DDG-1000, etc.
As Chinese navy rises and advanced quickly in both quantity and quality, then, US navy faces questions on fighting powerful navy. Of course, I don't advocate to fight China (stupid) but needs to think on how to handle possible conflicts. It 's military's role to be prepare but politicians' decision whether a war is worthy or not (although low quality politicians keep failing us).
Key is to understand:
1. What kind of possible battles down the road (be realistic)
2. How much resources (money) can be allocated (not fantasy, face reality)
3. How to achieve strategic goals within available resources
4. Design fleet and other weapons structure accordingly
Without a strong economy, no nation can keep supporting a large navy, period. So don't entertain people saying we need to sacrifice for navy.
Seabasing is another flawed concept, and is not yet dead. Here is part of what I wrote in 2015:
ReplyDeleteSeabasing became a hot topic this past decade. It is portrayed as a revolutionary idea that allows a light logistical "footprint" by employing just-in-time logistical support. The idea is that an amphibious or expeditionary force need not establish huge stocks of supplies ashore if it can draw whatever it needs from well-organized ships offshore. This is an attractive idea because it eliminates the need to establish stockpiles and fuel farms ashore, facilities for their workers, and security for all.
This seems brilliant, so why didn't the experts of previous wars discover seabasing? First, sealift is finite and armies usually have many times more tonnage to move than sealift. Therefore, they "stage" near an objective area, then use their limited sealift to shuttle these resources after a surprise landing. If ships must linger offshore to provide seabased support, they are unavailable to shuttle supplies from staging areas. Second, a seaborne landing quickly attracts the attention of enemy commanders who vector their ships, attack boats, missiles, submarines, commandos, and attack aircraft toward that area. It is much safer for a ship to off-load cargo and depart rather than loiter offshore like a duck in a shooting gallery. Moreover, supplies ashore cannot be sunk by a single torpedo or missile. Since many ships are filled with explosive fuel and ammo, ship captains are likely to run at the first sign of an enemy threat.
Third, while rapidly moving supplies from ships to shore on demand seems simple, the "fog of war" may intervene. Bad weather or over-the-horizon communications may leave troops stranded ashore without food and ammo. Ships, helicopters, and landing craft break down while naval forces are often distracted by other naval priorities.
The rest is here: http://www.g2mil.com/seabasing.htm
As our navy fails to have any advances in missile tech, we are advancing in having diversity in the ranks, most famously the girl officer bitch fight between the OOD and CIC which led to the deaths of enlisted men in the subsequent collision.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the fact that an US Navy enlistment is actually more like a prison sentence is notable. A young man can enlist, do his boot and A school, and then spend up to year at sea, literally at sea for a month and then touch on a dock, where he is forbidden to drink or carouse, only to do it all again, as the ship rots around him. Only to get back and chip and paint and desperately try to repair the worst of the broken and worn out equipment for a few months, working 12 hour days only to do the whole cycle all again.
For no reason, since the US navy cruiser sized destroyer has less lethality capability than a Chinese frigate.
But we have diversity in the O ranks, and an admiral for each ship, so some goals have been met.
"...the fact that an US Navy enlistment is actually more like a prison sentence is notable."
DeleteBeing at sea is what a sailor does. If you want to home for dinner every night, join the Air Force. Now the extended deployments and such ARE out of hand and need to be fixed. But describing an enlistment as you did is just wrong. The best part of serving was at sea. Complaints about being at sea and working long hours are a product of a softer society, not a tougher, unsatisfying service. I personally recall the sleepless nights and hard work fondly, as personal sacrifice for somthing larger than myself. Maybe romanticized a bit, but thats how i felt, and am proud of my time.
Every endeavor has its elite tip of the spear place. That job or organization that defines it. For the Navy traditionally this is the SHIP. I am not certain that it still is.
DeleteFYI, USMC the tip of the spear is the infantry.
Navy overlooked ship based anti-ship missiles because for a long time, Navy's strategy is to use carrier based aircrafts to attack. Since F/A-18 can fly close to enemies' ships thus a medium range Harpoon is good enough. To be precise, Navy thought attacking ship is F/A-18's job.
DeleteThings have changed as other nations keep developing supersonic long range anti-ship missiles. They can be launched from submarines which are hard to find.
"They can be launched from submarines which are hard to find."
DeleteYou're completely overlooking the targeting and fire control issues associated with submarine launched weapons.
Having a weapon is only half the requirement. You also have to have a VIABLE means of sensing and targeting. No one has yet solved the long range targeting challenge.
Reconnaissance by one group (i.e. E-2D from carrier), missile launch by another (say, a submarine). E-2D also provide early guidance until the missile is close the target enough that its own radar takes over.
DeleteIf an E-2 is close enough to a target to provide missile guidance, it is close enough to be shot down. There's a reason why E-2's are NOT considered surface surveillance and targeting assets.
DeleteIt is also very difficult to coordinate firing with a submarine and will never be done in combat. That kind of guidance hand off is just a publicity stunt.
You need to come up to speed on realistic tactics. Please make use of the archives to gain a better understanding.
Doesn't E-2D's big dish can find ship 300 miles away? and track it. This is why F/A-18 need E-2D behind them to provide long range reconnaissance.
DeleteOnce a target is located and can be tracked, missiles should then be fired from places where enemy least expected.
No, an E-2 cannot see a ship at 300 miles. You've been reading manufacturer's brochures.
DeleteCan I ask why you're so sure? I know manufactures pump things up but its bad form to lie about it.
Delete"Can I ask why you're so sure?"
DeleteI've read multiple articles and whatnot that cite realistic ranges of 50-150 miles. Also, remember that any claimed range is for a detecting a giant, non-stealthy commercial ship. Warships, except for the US supercarriers, are much smaller and will have a much lower detection range. Since every warship today is stealthy, to varying degrees, the detection range will be much less than claimed. For example, the Visby is claimed to be detectable to radar at something like ten miles. So, one of the two claims is wrong. Either the E-2 can't see it at 300 miles or the Visby can be detected further than ten miles or so. Simple common sense would suggest that both claims are wrong and the truth lies somewhere in between - likely a Visby could be detected at twenty-thirty miles or so but that's just a guess on my part.
Jerry Hendrix published a short 146 pp idiots guide to why America needs a Navy "To Provide and Maintain a Navy: Why Naval Primacy Is America's First, Best Strategy" – December 19, 2020.
ReplyDeleteHave seen favorable comments, which seem to have similar thinking to CNO. have not read as yet, waiting for the less expensive Kindle version:)
I'm aware of the book but I've only read reviews (some extensive!). I would point out that if you need more than one sentence to state the Navy's core mission then you don't know what that core mission is (protect America's seafaring trade, support our strategic interests, and wage high end, peer war). To be fair to Mr. Hendrix, I think he covers much more than just that. Still, there is a such a thing as over-thinking.
DeleteI would also say that from the reviews and snippets I've read, the author suffers from much of the same failings as the rest of Navy leadership which is no surprise since he came from that culture. His explanations for what's wrong with the Navy and how to fix it appear to be largely incorrect (blaming budgets, for example).
Again, to be fair, I haven't read the book so I may be unfairly judging Mr. Hendrix.
I have the book and have read it. I would say that Hendrix pretty much identifies the Navy's core mission as to protect America's seafaring trade, support our strategic interests' and wage high end peer war. He is more fond of unmanned vehicles than either you or I. I think you might find more agreement if you read it than you are suggesting.
DeleteOne thing he does is go into quite a bit of history, from his perspective of course. He discusses the Royal Navy's "two power" concept at the turn of the 19th to 20th century, that they would maintain a navy able to defeat the next two largest navies in the world. I wonder if we are doing any thinking along those lines.
I submit as a (hard learned in the puzzle palace) lesson: "Never show an Admiral a shiny object".
ReplyDeleteThat's quite the list, but there's even more fads.
ReplyDelete- AirSea Battle: What happened to it? I assume it was just forgotten by everyone, but it was a Big Deal.
- Modularity: Died with the LCS, I think. Also patently stupid.
- EABO: A Marine idea, technically, but it'll get the Navy in trouble as well, unless it's abandoned as well.
Also, the general trend towards "non-offensive", "inclusive" warm-and-fuzzy armed forces, while unfortunately not a short-lived trend like the others, isn't exactly going to help (big euphemism here).
The same goes for thinking that girls should be sailors or flirting with demographic quotas for various (moronic) reasons.
Modularity is still a valid idea. When its limited to periods of construction and overhaul. Not thinking you can do it in the space of days.
DeleteLonfo, AirSea Battle was built to compete with the AirLand Battle in the Pentagon Budget Battle Space.
ReplyDeleteI miss SIOP, drop 10,000 nukes, no more worries.
Why can't tough armored ships with lots of firepower executing limited but complimentary missions crewed by the best trained sailors in the world become the navy's fad?
ReplyDeleteLutefisk
Because that doesn't get admirals a cushy job on some defence contractor's board?
DeleteToday, navy battles between powers tend to be "Beyond Visual Range". Therefore, missiles with precision guidance is critical.
DeleteIf you have a huge ship with many 16 inch guns fire together, rather than a firework show, nothing else is accomplished.
"Today, navy battles between powers tend to be "Beyond Visual Range". Therefore, missiles with precision guidance is critical.
DeleteIf you have a huge ship with many 16 inch guns fire together, rather than a firework show, nothing else is accomplished."
Is there anything that prevents a "huge" ship that carries 8", 12", or 16" guns from also having VLS cells packed with anti-ship missiles for use beyond visual range?
Is there anything that prevents that ship from being equipped with radars and other sensors and drones to target enemy ships?
Might it be possible to construct a ship with guns like that with strong construction and armor so that the sailors don't have to feel that going into conflict with a peer enemy is a death sentence?
Could the hugeness of the ship be used to mount multiple defensive weapons systems and ECM equipment to help the ship and its crew survive an engagement?
Could those foolish 8", 12", and 16" guns on those types of "huge" ships be used for something other than fireworks displays?
Call me crazy, but maybe to provide naval gunfire support to troops?
Possibly they could be used to threaten Iranian oil facilities in a standoff with that regime?
Could those guns be used to sink enemy merchant shipping instead of firing multi-million dollar missiles or torpedoes into gigantic container ships?
Is it possible that they might actually be useful on occasion in an unexpected close range fight with enemy combatants?
And possibly those "huge" ships might serve as a deterrence by demonstrating the might of the US Navy during peace time patrolling?
Lutefisk
Having spent time in the Pacific here's how I see things in terms of strategy and hardware.
ReplyDeleteI feel I understand the price required to defeat military hostility - I have less of a sense whether anyone willing or competent enough to pay the price.
I do think there are ways to exploit the weaknesses in the CCP's centralized control of a giant and somewhat heterodox population - but that's outside of the present discussion.
Navy needs to commit to *decisively* defeating the ASW threat in the very opening stages of conflict. If the enemy maintains even regional ASW dominance, I don't see any way forward save acceptance of whatever terms offered to (temporarily) end hostilities.
This will require a commitment to building ASW-optimized SSNs, down to hullform, manning, sensors, training and employment doctrine, something that hasn't been done in living memory and abandoning the ISR, strike, and battle group support roles. Fleet dispersion + remote maintenance and support also needs drastic revision.
While the ASW plan is being executed, allies should expect to defend against invasion without US Support, and make such invasion costly. Every municipality in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and the PI should have optical guided missiles, night vision equipment and caches of arms and munitions.
Navy needs to commit to *reliably* obtaining local air dominance at the times and places of its choosing. Obviously, this is a harder problem than last time around as the enemy arsenal includes heavy supersonic unpiloted drones, hypersonic missiles, and ballistic missiles of unknown combat effectiveness. Air wing of 2021 not up to challenge. Requires redesign. Maybe directed energy weapons can help - probably not over next decade.
Strongly believe we need a large armored surface BBGN-type vessel as a capital ship, as we're most certainly going to have to engage land forces in support of allies when we reach the Western side of the Pacific. Would also serve as platform for directed energy weapons if those reach technical maturity.
Navy needs to commit to operating complex, heavy formations of the type described here in past - 2+ CVN per group + BBGN + escorts.
Independent deployments, presence missions, etc. largely a waste of time at this stage.
There are enormous roles and applications of technology in all these areas - but as design and engineering tools, powerplant engineering, sensors, terminal guidance and homing, etc.
There's no need (yet) to abdicate strategic thought or tactical doctrine to neural networks. We're not being defeated by AI, we're being defeated by solid shipbuilding and program management.
Very good comment with several good thoughts/topics!
DeleteMy only 'negative' reaction is that you're discussing the various ideas in isolation rather than as part of a an integrated strategy and force structure. To be fair, that's well beyond the scope of a comment so I can't fault you too much for that!
For example, your thought that we'll have to engage land forces may or may not be true - it depends on our strategy. If our strategy were a distant blockade then there would be no need to engage land forces. I'm not advocating that strategy, merely pointing our how strategy determines force structure and operations.
"ASW-optimized SSNs"
Great concept!
"There's no need (yet) to abdicate strategic thought or tactical doctrine to neural networks. We're not being defeated by AI, we're being defeated by solid shipbuilding and program management."
This is the gem of your comment! What a great summation of the situation. I'm definitely going to have to shamelessly appropriate that for some future post!
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this comment.
"We're not being defeated by AI, we're being defeated by solid shipbuilding and program management."
DeleteI wonder if any of that is the result of the disappearance of American merchant ship building.
Are we losing the knowledge of how to build ships?
Lutefisk
"Are we losing the knowledge of how to build ships?"
DeleteThere may be some of that occurring but a lot of it is self-inflicted stupidity. For example, neither of the LCS builders had ever designed and built a warship before. Well, what did we think the result was going to be?