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Monday, October 18, 2021

Fleet Size Determination

The Navy has been engaged in a seemingly endless pursuit of an increased fleet size with proposals ranging from 300 on up to several hundred with recent proposals seeming to cluster around 355 to 400+.  The Navy has initiated study after study with none of them tied to a geopolitical or military strategy.  In fact, the only purpose of the studies seems to be to justify a larger budget slice for the Navy.

 

Why do we want any particular size fleet?  If we could answer that question, the required size would reveal itself without needing pointless studies.  Unfortunately, the Navy has no answer and is simply trying to get the biggest budget slice it can.

 

The Navy’s floundering aside, there are several possible answers (rationales) to the fleet size question.  Broadly speaking, there are three rationales: 


  • Peacetime requirements as established by the Combatant Commanders
  • Initial war requirements
  • Extended war requirements … recognizing that we have very little capacity to build new ships in a useful time frame

 

Let’s look at each answer/rationale:

 

Peacetime Requirements – We’ve covered this in past posts (see, “Combatant Commanders and OpTempo”).  The Combatant Commander system is a badly flawed, failed system that rewards excessive claims of need (requirements) that serve no purpose other than to enhance the perceived importance of the individual Combatant Commander.  Placing the requirement generation responsibility with those who have no accountability for resource utilization is illogical, unworkable, and just plain wrong.  Requirements and accountability should never be separated.  That path invariably leads to misuse and abuse, as we’re now seeing with ships doing double deployments and maintenance being routinely deferred.  Thus, peacetime requirements – at least as established by the Combatant Commander system - are a very dubious means of establishing fleet size and the legitimate requirements can be met by a variety of means that do not require major ship types.

 

For example, we’ve discussed one viable alternative to major peacetime fleet commitments and that is a two tier, peace/war fleet structure where the peacetime commitments are met by very low end, non-combatant, commercial vessels akin to civilian yachts (see, “Hi-Lo, War-Peace”).

 

Another viable means of meeting peacetime commitments is to simply eliminate the worthless, routine deployments that accomplish nothing and home port the fleet for enhanced training and maintenance (see, “Deployments or Missions?”).  This is essentially recognition that there are no valid peacetime requirements beyond some very low level anti-piracy and policing patrols which can be met by the peace/war concept cited above.

 

Notwithstanding the previous discussion, one clarion fact when trying to determine peacetime fleet size is the recognition that our peacetime fleet is utterly impotent.  Our rules of engagement prohibit using naval force for anything other than a cruise missile attack every few years against some hapless target in order to send some sort of half-baked political message.  When push comes to shove, our Navy’s policy is appeasement and you don’t need a navy to appease someone.  In fact, the Navy just gets in the way of appeasement.  For example, the Iranian seizure of our riverine boats demonstrated that we won’t forcefully use our Navy even when another country commits an illegal act and seizes our vessels.  We won’t even defend ourselves so why even have a navy?

 


Initial War Requirements – This is a legitimate determiner of fleet size.  Obviously, we want to be prepared for the start of a war but what size fleet does that require?  The determinant of an initial war fleet size and structure is, of course, a war with China.  Unfortunately, simply knowing that does not, immediately, lead to a fleet size since it depends on what type of war we want to fight which is another way of asking, what is our geopolitical strategy and its derivative, our military strategy?  Disturbingly, we lack both.

 

Lacking absolutes to blame base a decision on, timid, incompetent leaders will fall back on a never ending, open-ended, ‘more of everything’ position.  The obvious problem with this is that it’s patently unaffordable in addition to lacking any link to strategic reality.  You can readily see the signs of this mentality from Navy leadership, right now.  Our ‘professional warriors’ are simply asking for more of everything with no idea (meaning, no CONOPS) of how to use it;  hence, the LCS, Ford, Zumwalt, JHSV, MLP, etc.

 

What we can explore, even without a concrete strategy, is the fleet size needed to weather the initial year of war until our industry can begin producing on a wartime basis.

 

Unfortunately, even this approach and examination requires at least some degree of anticipated strategy.  Will we implement a fairly passive, long distance blockade which requires relatively few resources, risks relatively little, and leads to an eventual negotiated peace where we try not to give up too much and call it a victory or will we implement a hard hitting, aggressive attack as a prelude to the path to total victory?  The two approaches, and every variation in between, have radically different requirements.  So, you need some glimmer of a strategy.  Again … we lack that so we’re left to guess and theorize on our own.

 

As always, it is instructive to examine history for insight as to peacetime fleet size.  The obvious place to look is the Navy just prior to the start of WWII.  The table below shows the fleet size and structure in the years leading up to WWII and a few years into the war.

 

 

 

 

 

Jun ‘38

Jun ‘39

Jun ‘40

Dec ‘41

Dec ‘42

Dec ‘43

Dec ‘44

Battleships

15

15

15

17

19

21

23

Carriers, Fleet

5

5

6

7

4

19

25

Carriers, Escort

-

-

-

1

12

35

65

Cruisers

32

36

37

37

39

48

61

Destroyers

112

127

185

171

224

332

367

Destroyer Escorts

-

-

-

-

-

234

376

Submarines

54

58

64

112

133

172

230

Amphibious

-

-

-

-

121

673

2147

Combat Fleet

216

241

307

345

552

1534

3294

Mine Warfare

27

29

36

135

323

551

614

Patrol

34

20

19

100

515

1050

1183

Auxiliary

101

104

116

210

392

564

993

Total

380

394

478

790

1782

3699

6084

 

 

Table adapted from:

https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/us-ship-force-levels.html#1938

 

 

 

We see, then, that we didn’t have a large navy prior to the start of WWII.  The fleet had only 216 combat ships just three and half years before Pearl Harbor.  However, what we did have was plenty of shipyards and the capacity to quickly build new ships as demonstrated by the total fleet size increasing from 380 ships in June 1938 to 6,084 by December 1944.

 

Simplicity was also a key as compared to today’s highly complex ships which take much longer to build.  We need simple, easily produced ship designs and if that means accepting simpler, less capable equipment, primarily electronics, then so be it.  For example, what’s wrong with WWII optical fire control for large caliber naval guns?  At the very least, it should be a backup capability.

 

Finally, one of the characteristics of the pre-WWII fleet was that ships were designed to be survivable with heavy armor, extensive redundancy, and large crews for attrition and damage control.  Our current ship designs lack all of those characteristics which suggests that initial ship losses will be far more than was experienced in WWII.  This implies that we would need a much larger fleet than the pre-WWII fleet in order to absorb the expected greater losses.

 

 

Extended War Requirements – It is obvious that any extended war will require a massive increase in fleet size.  Unfortunately, we currently have very little capacity to build new ships in a useful time frame.  China’s shipbuilding capacity far exceeds our own.  We can counter this one of three ways:

 

Option 1.  Build a very large initial fleet that can weather the initial battles and still have enough ships to constitute a powerful force for years into the war.

 

Option 2.  Continue our policy of appeasement so as to avoid a war and any need for a fleet.

 

Option 3.  Drastically increase our shipbuilding capacity.

 

 

Option 1 is patently unaffordable among many other problems with the concept.

Option 2 ensures Chinese global domination.

Option 3 is the only one that makes sense.

 

 

It is evident that the combination of poor (non-survivable) ship design, overly complex ship designs resulting in drawn out construction times, and the severe lack of shipyards (for both new construction and battle damage repair) means that the extended war requirements method of fleet sizing is not realistic.  We simply won’t be able to replace our losses, let alone increase the fleet size, in any useful time frame.  Thus, we’ll essentially fight the entire war with only the fleet we start with plus a few odd, occasional replacements.  This, in turn, means that we either need a much larger fleet or a much more survivable fleet.

 

Building, maintaining, and operating a much larger fleet during peacetime is not a viable option given our dysfunctional ship acquisition process.

 

What we’ve just concluded is that there is no realistic, militarily relevant fleet size that can meet both our peace and war needs.  That’s a depressing conclusion but one we need to face before we can begin to look for solutions.


64 comments:

  1. "[...] what is our geopolitical strategy and its derivative, our military strategy? Disturbingly, we lack both."

    Correct, and this is another galaxy-sized hole.
    There are a million possible approaches to China, from 'kneel and submit' to 'kill all them bastards', and everything in between.

    The fact that every US administration goes its own way doesn't exactly help either.
    China's system gives them an advantage in long-term planning.

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  2. Random thought of the morning. We really don't do feeder containerships in this country from what I've seen. Right now with the port back up, many talk of there not being enough truckers to move the containers from the ports. I can't think of ever having seen barge traffic moving containers. It wouldn't do much on the west coast, but it sure would help much of the rest of the country if we developed container traffic on the inland waterways. The barges work on the waterways, but we would probably develop feeders to get from large ports to the actual river system. Just trying to think how to up the need for commercial shipbuilding domestically so its any kind of additional lever for naval shipbuilding capacity. I'd also work on what I'd call the Bezos regulation which would be anything to incentivize domestic yacht building. No sense in handing this guy my money to get a pack of mints for 8.5 cents less just so he can blow it overseas on a half billion dollar yacht.

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    Replies
    1. There have been at least two approaches to this in the past--SEABEE (Sea barge) and LASH (Lighter aboard ship). In theory they would work well where there was a large navigable river so that the barges could be transited far inland--places like New Orleans with the Mississippi-Missouri-Ohio system and Rotterdam with the Rhine. The Navy has some of both types in MSC, but the concept has never been a commercial success. With the trucking issues you note, it might be possible for it to achieve commercial success now.

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  3. Option 3 is only possible if we gasp have a broadly supported political consensus on industrial policy. Until such time as we go back to subsidizing ship building and education to produce the skilled workers to run it... Aside - you know like Japan, the ROK, Norway, and China... If we do that we might build back that industrial base.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "only possible if we gasp have a broadly supported political consensus on industrial policy."

      In the long term, broad view, there are only two possible outcomes with regard to China:

      1. We retreat from the world stage and allow China uncontested conquest of the world. By conquest, I mean a combination of physical and economic. What China doesn't physically conquer, it will economically conquer and turn into de facto vassal states - to include the US if we don't contest China at some point.

      2. We eventually come to a national consensus that we need to contest China's global domination effort and we begin to take ALL the actions necessary. This is where/how/when we would achieve the required 'broadly supported political consensus on industrial policy' that you mention. It is noteworthy that we were beginning to take those first steps under Trump so I definitely see it happening at some point in the future.

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    2. "tariff war"

      Comment deleted.

      We're not going to argue politics. Period. End of story.

      Delete
  4. "Option 1... Option 2... Option 3..."

    These are exactly the choices. We'd all probably agree on wishing to see #3. But depending on the time until those first shots are fired, and expecting to not see a huge shipbuilding spike, I think the key is to reform WHAT we are building. Short of a protracted conflict, which I dont forsee, I think we will fight with whatevers afloat on Day 1. So while greater numbers are always good, building more survivability into our ships would be my priority. Armor, more close-in defensive weapons, and larger crews for damage control would be my focus. The second two are relatively easy. The armoring is obviously a major undertaking, affecting ship design, building procedures, steel and shipyard infrastructure,transportation, etc, so it will require effort and funding. But keeping ships in the fight would be my focus...
    To be clear, Im not advocating for anything heavier on tech, or transformational. Im looking at upgrading what we have. (ie; If we were to keep building Burkes, but had to add 40 feet of length in order to carry 5in of armor, and a few more CIWS/RAM, so be it, but otherwise the ship remains unchanged. Im saying that in the vein of trying to make changes in the easiest and most realistically possible way. Of course new designs and classes/types would be ideal but thats usually a rabbit hole so...)

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    1. "new designs and classes/types would be ideal but thats usually a rabbit hole"

      Only if we let it be. I could produce a state of the art, front line warship design by the end of the day, if necessary, using nothing but existing equipment and it would be superior to anything afloat today in the US Navy. Yes, the engineers would have to flesh out the details but I could have the conceptual design ready in a matter of hours.

      This (conceptual design) is what the General Board used to do routinely and then they'd turn the conceptual design over to BuShips for the actual nuts and bolts design work. Why can't we do it today? All it would take is 'the word' from CNO or SecNav and we'd have a conceptual design by end of the day. If the existing admirals, our supposed professional warriiors, can't produce a conceptual design by end of the day then they should be fired on the spot.

      Industry and the Navy try to make ship design out to be something on par with sending a man to the moon but it's actually pretty simple. In WWII, the General Board designed dozens of new ships every year.

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    2. Absolutely... I was just looking at it in the "semi-realistic" sense, as opposed to the ideal. But youre right. If there was any sense of urgency, an upgraded or even new design could be formalized in no time. Sadly there's no urgency, and I dont think theres anybody with the perspective to man a General Board or BuShips anymore...

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    3. I'll keep this short and nice. Please put your cards on the table and throw down. What would be 1 viable concept design? Conops, propulsion, speed, endurance, payload, accommodation, price?

      Delete
    4. "I dont think theres anybody with the perspective to man a General Board or BuShips anymore... "

      … … … you mean in addition to me, right? :)

      Delete
    5. "I'll keep this short and nice. Please put your cards on the table and throw down. What would be 1 viable concept design? Conops, propulsion, speed, endurance, payload, accommodation, price"

      I think I have pretty well put my cards on the table in prior posts. ComNavOps disagrees with some of my ideas (although I still think the differences are smaller than he seems to think), but I definitely think that my ideas (or for that matter his, as expressed at his Fleet Structure tab or in his other posts) are far superior to what the Navy is doing.

      Anyway, I've shown my cards, and gotten some feedback. Anybody else willing to do so, let's see your ideas.

      Delete
    6. "'I don't think theres anybody with the perspective to man a General Board or BuShips anymore...'

      … … … you mean in addition to me, right? :)"

      Agree, which would seem to suggest that a major part of our future development should include creating a pipeline of senior officers and civilians with that perspective. That can't happen immediately, of course, but it can't happen at all until we set about intentionally and deliberately to make it happen. Again, I've put my cards on the table about steps I would take to accomplish that, would appreciate ideas from others.

      Along with that, we need an intentional and deliberate effort to rebuild our shipyard capability to a level that can support both the buildup to a proper wartime fleet level and the capability to perform maintenance, repair, upgrade, and replacement as necessary to maintain and sustain such a fleet.

      And while we are at it, that needs to come as part of a concerted effort to restore our manufacturing capability, across the board. Bottom line, once China has us in a position of dependency upon them for basic manufacturing needs, they win in a walk any time they want to. We cannot allow that to happen. I have thoughts about what is needed to prevent that (including specifically the shipbuilding piece), but they are more political than naval, and so beyond the purview of this blog.

      Delete
  5. The USN has picked option #4, "It's the Air Corps' problem"
    All the bad ideas of the 1950s, fractional orbital bombardment, nuclear powered cruise missiles.

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  6. In addition to combat survivability, future designs whoudl be designed for manufacturing so we can replicate the expansion of hte Fleet.

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    Replies
    1. "designed for manufacturing"

      The heart of the matter!

      Delete
    2. "designed for manufacturing"

      I would expand on this point in that future designs should be laser-focused on meeting the requirements with a minimum of additional features, materials, and systems. In doing so, the design is naturally dubbed towards simplicity, manufacturability, maintainability and reliability. The simpler a system is, naturally, the easier it is to produce and repair and therefore usually works when required. This is in direct contrast with current Navy designs that emphasize unnecessary features (multi role everything), complex technology (every whiz bang helps to sell the project), and maintenance is an after thought (or worse, required contractor maintenance).

      Good design starts with good requirements and usually, the fewer requirements the better and more robust the design. If we want to expand the fleet and expand the ship building infrastructure, then we need simpler, single function ships.

      Delete
    3. If you look at ship building times ours aren't much different than Japan and Korea. Where they beat us is from concept through design and into build. They are also current on shipbuilding in general and this seems to guide them to what they need and how to build it much faster. For instance, I know nothing of their COGLAG systems, yet they are out there happily in service with ships that have a combat system compatible with the rest of their fleet rather than sitting on 4.5 billion dollar experiments.

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  7. I would base my fleet level on wartime needs, but keep a bunch of it at less than maximum readiness. I would target a rotation of:

    10% in drydock/major maintenance
    30% in reserve status, with 50/50 regular/reserve crewing, focus on maintenance and training; would provide OpFor for Fleet Problem/Springtrain exercises
    30% in home fleet status, with 85/15 regular reserve crewing, again focus on maintenance and training; home fleet ships would go through Fleet Problem/Springtrain-type major exercises once a year
    30% in mission deployable status, with length of missions limited to 4-6 months max and no more than 1/2 of time deployed; no 13-month cruises and no back-to-back deployments

    Doing the math, you would end up with a max of 15% of the fleet on deployment/mission at any given time. So, 45 out of a fleet of 300, 60 out of 400, 75 out of 500, 90 out of 600 (my target end number). That's roughly where we were in the 1980s when we had 100 ships deployed out of a fleet of 500-600. We were able to do plenty of maintenance and training back then, or at least did not have the shortfalls we have now.

    We would build those 600 ships for an average of $1.5B each, or roughly half the $2.8B that CBO estimates the cost/ship for the USN's current plans, so 600 would cost about the same to build as 355. With 40% in a significantly reduced operating posture, the operating costs should not be substantially more either.

    The surge to build to that number would require a significant increase in shipyards, which should be doable with the number of firm long-term contracts on offer. Those yards would then be available to perform sufficient volumes of maintenance to catch up on the backlogs there.

    We do need tax and economic policies to make this happen, and indeed to return substantial manufacturing back to the USA, but those are tax and economic policies beyond the scope of this blog.

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    1. "With 40% in a significantly reduced operating posture, the operating costs should not be substantially more either."

      When war comes, how do you suddenly many those 40% ships? It was one thing to train people to the mechanical level of WWII ships but another to train people to today's level of radar, sonar, sensors, fire control, electronics, etc. I know not every job is at that PhD level of training but many are. Surging idled ships may be possible but surging non-existent crews to the required level of training would be a challenge. As we saw in some of the Navy's recent collisions, even knowing how to operate today's helm equipment requires extraordinary training and the ship-to-ship differences in bridge/helm equipment directly caused at least one of the collisions. Surging idled ships sounds great on paper but has many practical challenges.

      The overwhelming temptation is to leave idled ships in degraded condition as regards the latest equipment and software updates. How do you ensure that idled ships are up to date?

      Delete
    2. "When war comes, how do you suddenly many those 40% ships?"

      In terms of headcount, you have a reservist for every active duty type that is not aboard.

      I would shoot initially for 72 hours readiness to go for the non-deployed but deployable ships, 30 days for the home fleet, and 120 days for the reserve ships. As time passes I would hope to be able to shorten those time frames. If we are doing an adequate job of training all hands, it should be possible.

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    3. If we have 600, and can get 180 ships out within 72 hours, and 360 within 30 days, we would be way ahead of where we are now.

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    4. You know it takes years to train many of those jobs and that doesn't count basic training and the like. And that's assuming the people are actually performing the jobs full time in order to stay current. Are you really thinking we can use part time reservists to man these various high tech positions? That seems optimistic in the extreme.

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    5. Earlier in other posts I had been thinking about Blue/Gold crews for active ships in order to have a spun up crew ready to take a reserve fleet ship out. Now i was toying with that idea in relation to ships like SSGNs that are close to the end of their life, but are being maintained with "one good wars" life left, like say a year maybe two left on the reactor fuel. But, if we were to end deployments, and bring the fleet home to focus on training, warfighting/gaming, and maintenance, maybe big crewing alterations could/would work. How or if a twin crew for an active surface ship could make sense im not sure. Maybe the crew spends some time aboard the inactive ship doing upkeep(??) Or that second crew could be reservists(??) although obviously that "two weeks a year" or whatever would have to change.
      I know I say Im trying to avoid reinventing the wheel, but some of this is new territory, and so I do sometimes look "outta the box"...

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    6. "How do you ensure that idled ships are up to date?"

      Thats easy. Reinstitute old practices!!! Most WWII ships went to mothballs right after being overhauled. Now admittedly they werent often "modernized", but then again, the guns and radars of the day didnt have software either. But they WERE put into reserve in excellent material condition...

      Delete
    7. "Are you really thinking we can use part time reservists to man these various high tech positions?"

      I think there is a tendency to sell reservists short. Many reservists in highly technical ratings also work in highly technical civilian careers. It makes sense to use your navy training that way, and that keeps them up to date on at least the theory end.

      I had command of a reserve unit that was in a specialized and technical field. Most of my sailors worked in similarly technical fields in the oil and gas exploration energy. When our gaining command had its ORI, we were ordered to active duty to undergo the inspection with them. At the end of the inspection, we all agreed that without the reservists the inspection would been failed, but that the reservists pulled the active duty types through to pass.

      Keep in mind that I am viewing this as a workup process. A ship spends three years in reserve status, then upgrades to 3 years active home fleet (training and maintenance) with a Fleet Problem/Springtrain every year, and then advances to deployable status. And each ship has to pass the equivalent of FOST before being certified ready to deploy.

      One thought I've had if we can find the people is aiming for 10 crews for every 10 ships, as follows, over a 10 year cycle. Out of 10 ships, 1 would be in the 1 year major maintenance window, 3 ships in the 3 year reserve window, 3 ships in the 3 year home fleet window, and 3 ships in the 3 year deployed/deployable window. The ship is decommissioned for the 1 year maintenance period (like the Royal Navy) and carries only a skeleton crew for that period. For the 3 year reserve period, 3 ships would each have be 50% manned with active duty sailors, so 1.5 active crews for those three ships. The 3 ships in the 3 year home fleet period would be 85% manned, so basically 2.5 active crews for 3 ships. The 3 ships in the 3 year deployed/deployable could carry blue/gold crews that rotated at 4 month intervals, so that deployed ships could be kept deployed without requiring inefficient long transits for short operational missions. That would make 10 crews for 10 ships, and so the people needed would be ready in short order.

      Crew turnover could take place at advance bases in Guam, Diego Garcia, and somewhere in Europe. ABM/BMD ships as well as shore facilities would protect those bases from cruise/ballistic missile attack.

      The blue or gold crews, whichever were off, could receive extensive training in specialty schools and team training using simulators to keep them whipped into shape. Of the 3 off crews, if the balloon goes up then 1.5 could go to the reserve ships, 0.5 to the home fleet ships, and 1.0 to the maintenance ship to get them fully crewed.

      It's an idea. I'm sure someone will shoot holes in it. For one thing, it requires a full 10 crews for 10 ships, so there is no real reduction in manning benefit. But if we move 22,000 sailors from admin/overhead to combat and 12,000 more from admin to combat support (see my prior posts) then we should be pretty close to where we need to be, and blue/gold crewing for deployments would ease the strain on sailors.

      Note that I'm using deployments more in the sense of specific missions, similar to ComNavOps's mission designation, rather than 13 month trips to nowhere to do nothing except sail around in circles. There could be longer term deployments under this model, but with regular crew rotation you wouldn't be wearing sailors out as badly, and with extensive training and team training during down times, you would be creating a more professional force.

      Delete
    8. You've got a peacetime, deployment mentality and this codifies it. Your navy goal appears to be to create peacetime deployable ships.

      In contrast, my goal is to have a 100% combat ready force at all times. We have two drastically different goals.

      "if we move 22,000 sailors from admin/overhead to combat"

      I'm all for hugely reducing our land based personnel and filling our ship billets. HOWEVER, it does no good to simply place unqualified bodies into organization chart manning slots. They have to be trained and capable of filling the slot. While there are still 'muscle' slots, many slot require extensive training AND DAILY PRACTICE/EXPERIENCE that can only come from FULL TIME training and operating. You have to be very careful that the spreadsheet-appealing idea of mixing and matching fractional crews to an endless series of rotating ships doesn't result in unqualified crews. This is the problem with reservists for the more complex jobs. If a sonar operator has a sonar job in civilian life, using Navy equipment and techniques, that's great but, let's be honest, it doesn't happen. If an Aegis software/radar tech has a civilian job using Navy software and equipment that's great but there is no such thing. And so on.

      Our systems have become too complex to expect a two-week a year person to be qualified. This is one of the weaknesses inherent in highly complex systems. Part time, fractional, rotating personnel simply can't stay proficient.

      "deployable status, with length of missions limited to 4-6 months"

      I really wish you had a war/combat focus instead of deployments. A mission of 4-6 months IS A STANDARD DEPLOYMENT. What possible legitimate mission during peacetime requires 4-6 months to execute? And you're envisioning 30% of the fleet doing this utter waste of time?

      Offhand, I can't think of a single worthwhile peacetime mission that couldn't be done and done better and cheaper by very low end, machine gun armed, civilian patrol yachts. I'm hard pressed to think of ANY legitimate peacetime mission. Feel free to rattle off a handful to me.

      30% of the fleet on 4-6 month deployments????? THAT IS OUR STANDARD DEPLOYMENT SYSTEM!

      Delete
    9. As far as missions versus deployments, you can't sail from San Diego or Norfolk on Monday and perform a mission in the Arabian/Persian Gulf on Tuesday. It takes a bit of transit time, and that's why the 4-6 month number.

      And it's not 30% on deployment, it's 30% able to be deployed, with probably half that number deployed.

      As far as your peacetime civilian patrol yachts idea, how does somebody serving on one of those receive the training on complex Navy systems like AEGIS that you claim are indispensable?

      I'm trying to balance several needs here--the need for a wartime-sized Navy with a peacetime budget, along with the need for a wartime personnel level with a peacetime personnel budget. The only way I can see to do it is to keep a substantial part of that wartime force at less than a peak level of readiness in peacetime. To me that means a substantial reserve force. That in turn implies that Johnnie Z references below for a truly viable and effective Naval Reserve force. No, a reservist is probably not able to perform at the level of an active duty equivalent upon day one of activation, but he/she is a whole lot closer than a civilian off the street.

      We've got some competing requirements here, and I'm trying to plot a path between them that serves all of them as well as possible. What I've proposed is my best shot at it. If anyone has a better way, have at it.

      Delete
    10. "It takes a bit of transit time, and that's why the 4-6 month number."

      Well, that's the proverbial slow boat to China. What are they doing … drifting? Depending on exact departure and arrival locations, it's just a few weeks transit time. Where are you getting 4-6 months? Face it, you're stuck in deployment mindset.

      Where's that list of worthwhile peacetime missions, by the way?

      " how does somebody serving on one of those receive the training on complex Navy systems like AEGIS that you claim are indispensable?"

      They don't! They're the peace part of the peace-war, two tier system.

      "If anyone has a better way, have at it."

      I've described it repeatedly … war-peace, two tier, no deployments, max training and maintenance. It really is that simple. Things like fractional, part time, rotating crews that swap ships is just churn for no benefit.

      Delete
    11. "4-6 month"

      USS Triton circumnavigated the earth submerged in 8 weeks.

      Delete
    12. "'how does somebody serving on one of those receive the training on complex Navy systems like AEGIS that you claim are indispensable?'

      They don't! They're the peace part of the peace-war, two tier system."

      Well then, why have them?

      Delete
    13. "Well then, why have them?"

      Ah … for the 99% of the time we're in a state of naval peace? Is this a trick question?

      Delete
    14. "'4-6 month'
      USS Triton circumnavigated the earth submerged in 8 weeks."

      They also didn't make any stops along the way for port visits. That probably adds a week or so to transit time both ways.

      Say it takes 3 weeks from Norfolk to the Mideast, 4 weeks from the west coast. Let's say you do a 4-week mission. That's 10-12 weeks, 2.5-3 months right there.

      Some missions, like pirate patrol in the Arabian Gulf, are longer duration. I'm not doing 13-month deployments, I'm not doing back-to-back deployments, 70% of my fleet is not deploying, and another 15% or so is deployable but not deployed. But we do have some commitments that reasonably require operations away from home waters. Call the missions, call them deployments, call them George.

      I hardly think 15% of the fleet away from home at a time is excessive, nor should that materially impact training or readiness negatively. We were at roughly that number when we had 100 ships deployed out of a 500-600 ship Navy back in the 1980s. The problem is that we've allowed the 500-600 ships number to dwindle to under 300, without a commensurate decrease in the 100 deployed number.

      Another thing that I have advocated is letting our allies take up some of the slack. The Royal Navy can easily take some of our commitments in Europe, the Indian navy in the Indian Ocean, Australia and Japan in the Pacific.

      Delete
    15. "Ah … for the 99% of the time we're in a state of naval peace? Is this a trick question?"

      Seems to me that anything not useful in war is a waste.

      Delete
    16. "port visits. That probably adds a week or so to transit time "

      If you're stopping to do port visits then you're not on a mission, are you? You're just doing a leisurely deployment.

      "Some missions, like pirate patrol "

      I asked you for a list of worthwhile peacetime missions and this offering is a perfect example of an utterly worthless mission for a WARship. This is a MG-armed civilian yacht job. Perfect example of the complete lack of worthwhile missions and a deployment mentality. Sending a WARship to do the lowest level of routine patrols is a near criminal waste of a WARship.

      "I hardly think 15% of the fleet away from home at a time is excessive"

      It is incredibly excessive when the deployments accomplish nothing, detract from readiness and training, put unnecessary wear and tear on equipment, reduce the service life of aircraft and ships, and do nothing to promote tactical competence.

      It's crystal clear that you believe in the current deployment model so stop trying to disguise it. Say so and stand proud, since that's your philosophy. If you believe in it, shout it!

      Delete
    17. "Seems to me that anything not useful in war is a waste."

      You mean like exercise facilities on ships? Or crew lounges? Or video games? Or women on ships? Or the Marines? Or lawyers on ships? Or flammable linoleum? Or ...

      Delete
    18. "It's crystal clear that you believe in the current deployment model so stop trying to disguise it. Say so and stand proud, since that's your philosophy. If you believe in it, shout it!"

      Nope. It's not crystal clear because it's not true. Please don't go putting words in my mouth than I'm not saying.

      A little history. After WWII, we took on the job of protecting our allies' sea lines of communication (SLOCs) in return for their taking our side against the evil Soviet empire. Through the 1980s, we had 500-600 or more ships (1), and could deploy 100 or so to fulfill this bribe. As the fleet has drawn down to 250-300, we have tried to maintain the same deployment level. And the strains imposed on training and maintenance by 30-40% deployed are far greater than the strains imposed by 15-20% deployed.

      I don’t buy the no deployment model. That would leave a vacuum that I would guess that China and Russia would be all too happy to fill. But I do buy a significantly reduced deployment model. In the long term the solution is to grow the number of ships. In the short run, the only solution would appear to be:

      1) Cut our deployments back to 15-20% (basically in half with current numbers).
      2) Increase our reliance on allies to cover missions that we now cover, primarily the Quad—India I the Indian Ocean, Japan and Australia in the Pacific—and UK in Europe.
      3) Vastly increase our training and repair/maintenance capabilities to serve the 80-85% non-deployed ships.

      It’s not perfect—and I know that you have been critical of the reliance on allies part in particular—but I don’t see any other way to get done what needs to be done.

      (1)https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/us-ship-force-levels.html#1938

      Delete
  8. However, what we did have was plenty of shipyards and the capacity to quickly build new ships as demonstrated by the total fleet size increasing from 380 ships in June 1938 to 6,084 by December 1944."

    Except most of the ships built during WW2 were lightly armed and armored amphibious, mine warfare, patrol, and auxiliaries. Many of these ships were laid down and commissioned in a few months. I can't imagine Navy even being remotely capable of building a Cyclone-like patrol boat in twice that time.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Except most of the ships built during WW2 were lightly armed and armored amphibious, mine warfare, patrol, and auxiliaries."

      But, if you weed out all the light and fluffy stuff, plus the amphibs... Youre still looking at over a thousand actual, serious warships!!!!
      10 Battleships... Some of the most complex machines ever built. And not even so-so ones, but some of the best in the world!
      20 Carriers. Best in class.
      25 Cruisers. Best in class.
      550 DDs and DEs. Again, top
      notch... But 550!!!
      Thats over 600 serious, capable warships from '40 when production ramped up til late '44. Absolutely amazing!!!

      (Can we have a shoutout for all the amazing folks that made that happen?!?!?)

      Delete
    2. "Except most of the ships built during WW2 were lightly armed and armored amphibious, mine warfare, patrol, and auxiliaries."

      Thank you for reminding us that the bulk of any effective naval fleet is auxiliaries, amphibs, patrol, logistics, etc.

      As far as combat ships, as seen in the table, we went from 218 combat ships in '38 to 1147 combat ships in '44. That's an average increase of 155 combat ships per year.

      Delete
    3. "As far as combat ships, . . ."

      Most of which were of simple construction and lacked the complex electronics and fire control systems we have today. All of which, shortened their construction time. For example, the Fletcher-class were laid down and commissioned in about 9 months.

      We also started WW2 with something of a running start with a naval modernization plan that started in the early-1930's. That's not something I see happening today anytime soon.

      Delete
    4. "Most of which were of simple construction"

      Aside from arguing for the sake of arguing, what is your point? Come on, contribute something worthwhile!

      Delete
    5. To be fair, while todays ships are complex, its all relative.
      WWII ships were cutting edge, and quite complex, for their time. The radars and the electromechanical systems for fire control were merely science fiction a decade or two before. Internal combustion engines and autos were still in their infancy. Those ships were built with cranes using drum and friction systems, many still steam powered. Heck, the kids that went off to war in those ships, many, especially those from rural areas, may have grown up without electricity or indoor plumbing!!! Many of their parents rode horses to get around. So I really think that complexity is relative.

      Delete
    6. "I think you ought to consider"

      Comment deleted as unproductive and argumentative. See Comment Policy page.

      Until you decide to discuss something worthwhile, your comments aren't going to appear. I'm not going to waste time or blog space on irrelevancies. Agreement is not a requirement but relevance is.

      Delete
  9. "Option 3. Drastically increase our shipbuilding capacity"

    Think brainski post above "designed for manufacturing//simpler, single function ships" above was spot on, CNO has posted numerous times on the subject eg Break Up The Burkes etc

    If such a policy was adopted and the shipyards were guaranteed orders the shipyards would invest in new capex to be able to drastically increase shipbuilding capacity so as to be able to build more ships per year, what incentive do shipyards have to invest today due to the uncertainty of future orders eg FY2022 budget for Burkes, one or maybe three?

    At the moment Navy is in decline as a global power due to the decline in fleet numbers, too small to deter, protect and win war.

    The Navy finds itself in its current situation partially due to wasting tens of $billions on the Fords, LCS and Zumwalts, and its current Gilday strategy of "Divest to Invest" eg scrapping 7 Ticos, is nonsensical at the moment due to the failure with Zumwalts.

    Another incidental point did see it reported that 85% on Navy maintenance costs nuclear, essential for the subs but not for carriers, another reason to move to conventional carriers from CVNs, payback will take many years but it will come.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. "...reported that 85% on Navy maintenance costs nuclear..."

      Link???
      We've had this convo before, and the cost of an RCOH, for instance, is mostly non-nuclear...

      Delete
    2. Link??? - Vago Muradian DEFAERO Report Daily Podcast [Aug 04, 2021] Sea, Air & Space Day 3 - 37:30. I was surprised nuclear maintenance accounted for 85% of budget, emailed Vago Muradian for source of his figure, never received a reply, think fair to say info on his site found to be truthful.

      RCOH - USS Truman - Washington Post columnist David Ignatious "The overhaul itself costs $6.5 billion" do agree costs mostly non-nuclear but would not be surprised if nuclear one third? Navy does not disclose breakdown of the figures and would also point out the non-nuclear costs will be inflated by its nuclear shipyard overheads for use of weapons grade nuclear material, nuclear handling facilities costs will not come cheap neither will be its necessary extremely high security.

      https://defaeroreport.com/2021/08/04/defaero-report-daily-podcast-aug-04-2021-sea-air-space-day-3/

      Delete
    3. Ill check this tonite. Maybe the maintenance budget has 85% going to nuclear ships... That might be possible (??) But theres no way that 85% of maintenance dollars go to nuclear-specific work....

      Delete
    4. "reported that 85% on Navy maintenance costs nuclear"

      I've looked into this and that is nowhere near what I've been able to document. It's a ridiculous amount compared to any available public information.

      Delete
    5. Would 85% of maintenance budget nuclear be believable if figure based on maintenance of the 11 CVNs and 68 SSBNs, SSGNs and SSNs with the balance of 15% to cover the 215 conventionally powered battle force ships from Amphibs, Ticos, Burkes down to the remaining 8 Avenger MCMs.

      Please correct me if wrong but the four public shipyards (Bremerton, Norfolk, Pearl and Portsmouth) the majority of their workload if not all at Portsmouth? for the nuclear carriers and subs plus NNS for CVNs RCOH (was Ford's 18 month post delivery fit out funded by the maintenance budget while at NNS). NNS for the first time recently started maintaining SSNs due to the public shipyards severe backlog. The 215 conventionally powered ships maintained by the private shipyards.

      What's needed is a breakdown of Navy maintenance budget.


      Delete
    6. I think thats what was meant on that podcast...that nuclear ships get 85%. I feel like it was more an off-the-cuff comment than a specific figure, and I have a hard time accepting any number over 60-65%. Now, if you look at it from a different perspective than just the ship count. Displacement helps tell the story differently, as the nuclear navy is about (guessing) 40% of the total tonnage...
      But i sure agree with you about needing real date. Id absolutely love to see an actual accounting for where all the $$$ go. Its probably even more disturbing and wasteful than we think!!

      Delete
    7. "85%"

      This is a good example of why I'm so vigilant about sources and why I challenge people who throw 'facts' out without verifiable sources. It's why I provide footnote references for everything I quote that isn't common knowledge.

      This blog is all about data - verifiable data. This 85% figure conflicts with every source of data I've ever seen so it's either false or it's been defined in some unorthodox way to make it true and now it's being misconstrued.

      Delete
    8. Sure. Facts matter!! The fact that it was Bryan McGrath, who's well known in navalist circles, is odd. Its also dangerous to throw out numbers like that, especially to the uninformed, or those willing to take them at face value without research. To be fair, I felt that it was an off the cuff comment, and it was made in the context of the conversation, which only encompassed carriers, submarines, cruisers, and destroyers, omitting amphib and logistic ships. But even then, Id think its factually questionable...

      Delete
    9. Statistics can say anything you want them to. As we've seen in nuclear discussions, it's all about what you include or exclude. If you lump everything ever done to a nuclear powered ship then perhaps you can come up that number but it would be misleading to the point of false/fraud.

      Lacking any source, I'm simply going to ignore it as false.

      Delete
  10. One solution to many of those problems is a truly viable and effective Naval Reserve. Instead of a hard to join (I've seen many complaints from vets on that) with mostly just ancillary functions it could be a source of bother experienced sailors and a place to put ships that are long in tooth but still useful like Ticos and Los Angeles class subs.
    The problems of training large groups of new sailors on sophisticated equipment are eased as you have a pool of veterans to both handle that equipment while the roles requiring less sophisticated training goes to the newer troops until the training pipeline catches up.
    The Navy shrinks the active carrier squadrons due to cost. But if we expanded the amount reserve aircraft it would give us the ability to rapidly expand our squadrons in wartime for less cost.
    But instead we have the Reserve limp along and talk about drones incesstantly.

    ReplyDelete
  11. What do we expect this fleet to do in wartime?

    How does Navy Shipbuilding fit in with a National Maritime Strategy or a National Industrial Strategy?

    What role does the Merchant Marine play?

    I also point out that the USMC end strength before WW2 was ~35,000 and the Corps was comparatively inexpensive because it had few aircraft and just a few armored cars in an era when manpower was cheap. The Corps is now much larger, much more expensive due to the cost of manpower, and the expense of service specific weapons like the H-53.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Here is a bit on how to leverage Coast Guard to support the national strategy and to get the Navy built better faster by continuing NSC and FRC lines. https://blog.usni.org/posts/2021/10/19/the-u-s-coast-guard-a-global-force-for-the-greater-good

      Delete
  12. BBC and RT News, the Russian propaganda channel, is discussing the report on the loss of the gator Bonhomme Richard.

    US news has been decided to ignore it for some reason.

    It is not good.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You need to broaden your news horizons a bit. For example, USNI News website has a long discussion of the report. See, Report

      Delete
  13. It seems as if every aspect of US Naval policy is based on the premise that somehow we won't take any damage. In my experience discussing this issue with others, this idea manifests in two ways.

    1. There will never be a war between two major naval powers ever again due to nuclear weapons (which I see as the Interwar attitude that only leads to more war).
    2. We have such technological superiority that no one would attack us, and if they did we'd be able to easily fend off their attack.

    This sort of ideology is common among the general population and those in gov't who should know better. In order to adopt your proposals, there is a massive need to educate the public on the actual state of our Navy and the rest of our military.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "there is a massive need to educate the public on the actual state of our Navy"

      There is! HOWEVER, we first need to educate Navy leadership on the state of the Navy!

      Delete
    2. I think this is one of those chicken and egg type problems. How do you get the political will to pressure the Navy to improve itself? From the public. But who tells the public that the Navy needs to be improved? The same Congress that takes millions from defense contractors? Unlikely. What is likely needed is a president who makes this an issue and is willing to remove those who get in the way.

      Delete
  14. Reading your blog is like reading Hector Bywater in the 1920-30 era. Keep up the good work.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Seems to me like you need a navy prepared for war. Possibly a conflict sooner rather then later given the increasing strength of the PLA Navy.
    The most likely flash point would be Taiwan declaring independence and a resulting Chinese invasion.
    Prior knowledge of such a declaration would focus minds at the top. Plans and preparations could be put in place under the guise of a strategy shift.
    The main emphasis being, how does the US help Taiwan defend itself against a Chinese invasion.
    Post declaration, US Navy is in the area in force and on a war footing. Possibly US marines moved onto Taiwan would help sharpen resolve.
    Sorry if I don't add much to the above debate but I don't see much of an impetus to change come from within the US Navy. Reading ComNavOps has made me gloomy about such an outcome.

    ReplyDelete

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