As reported by the Pacific fleet commander’s website [1], the Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV [5]), USNS City of Bismarck, has been conducting training missions with partners in the Pacific region. From the beginning, ComNavOps wondered what kind of combat useful mission a JHSV could perform and could never find a satisfactory answer (see, "JHSV" and "More JHSV" and "JHSV Update"). Well, with JHSV ships now actively serving, the question is being answered.
Let’s see what kind of actual missions the ships are training for. The current training mission, running from July of this year through December, is Koa Moana 21 which involves exercising with the Republic of Palau. From the fleet commander’s website,
Koa
Moana, which means “Ocean Warrior,” is designed to strengthen and enhance
relationships between the United States and partner nations in the Indo-Pacific
region, improve interoperability with local security establishments and serve
as a humanitarian assistance survey team afloat in support of U.S. Indo-Pacific
Command strategic and operational objectives. [1]
Okay, that was, I hope, just the usual buzzword garbage and doesn’t really indicate what the ship was doing. Fortunately, the website provides a few more specifics:
Participants,
like the USNS City of Bismarck crew, take part in exercise activities that
enhance interoperability necessary during humanitarian assistance and disaster
relief operations. These include engineering projects on the island of Peleliu
and the capital island, Babeldaob. Other capabilities exercised as part of Koa
Moana include medical, maritime law enforcement and explosive ordnance
disposal.
During one interagency law enforcement
training event, the crew of USNS City of Bismarck, U.S. Marines and agents with
the Palau Narcotics Enforcement Agency conducted training with a team of canine
working dogs.
USNS City of Bismarck performed various other functions during Koa Moana, providing the Marines involved with a base of operations that includes berthing, flexible meal times, communications support, including secure communications, and working spaces for exercise planners. [1]
So, the exercise/training involves:
- humanitarian assistance
- disaster relief
- engineering projects
- medical
- law enforcement,
- explosive ordnance disposal
- drug enforcement dogs
- berthing for non-crew members
- providing meals at flexible hours for non-crew members (take that, McDonalds!)
- communications
- rooms for planners
Um … Where’s the combat training? How is this helping the US Navy prepare for combat?
Now, I understand that the US military engages in peacetime activities that don’t involve combat – whether they should is a separate topic – but when the resources of a half year exercise involve no combat training one has to begin to question the wisdom of the effort.
 |
| JHSV |
As a reminder, the JHSV was ?apparently? intended as an intra-theater, high speed transport. I say ‘apparently’ because, like all Navy ships, it had no pre-design CONOPS that I could find. Further, the high speed aspect is quite constrained. From Wikipedia,
One disadvantage of the ship's design is instability in rough seas and at high speeds. At 10 knots in calm sea states, the hull can roll up to four degrees to each side, while conventional ships would roll very little, which would increase if the ship goes faster in rougher conditions, raising the possibility of seasickness. To achieve its top speed, the ship has to be traveling in waters not exceeding sea state 3 (waves up to 1.25 m (4.1 ft) high). At sea state 4 it can travel up to 15 knots, travel only 5 knots in sea state 5, and has to hold position in any sea state higher; while this might be seen as an operational limitation that can delay its arrival to port facilities, the ship was intended to operate closer to shore rather than in blue-water conditions. [2] [emphasis added]
Thus, in the open oceans of the Pacific theater, the high speed is something that is only sporadically available which is not exactly a sterling quality for an open ocean, intra-theater transport vessel.
Has the Navy built an entire ship class that has no combat value? As ComNavOps noted when the JHSV program first began, it would appear so. Even worse, it appears the Navy may have built an entire ship class with only limited peacetime use, as well.
This would seem to be another example of building a ship and then trying to find a use for it and, as we have seen with the Afloat Forward Staging Base (AFSB), it turns out that there is no use – at least, no combat use. So, why are we building such vessels? If something doesn’t enhance our combat capability we shouldn’t be touching it.
The JHSV is another useless, wasted ship class. When will the Navy learn?
________________________________
As a reminder, the Spearhead class has a range of 1,200 nautical miles and can transport up to 600 tons of troops and material.[3] The JHSVs cost a little over $200M each.[4]
_______________________________________
[1]Commander, Pacific Fleet website, “Expeditionary fast transport ship supports Marines during Koa Moana”, Leslie Hull-Ryde, 9-Nov-2021
[2]Wikipedia, “Spearhead-class expeditionary fast transport”, retrieved 9-Nov-2021,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spearhead-class_expeditionary_fast_transport
[3]USNI News website, “Low Cost Ship Options for U.S. Navy’s Drug War”, Sam LaGrone, 20-Mar-2013,
https://news.usni.org/2013/03/20/low-cost-ship-options-for-u-s-navys-drug-war
[4]Government Accountability Office, “Defense Acquisitions - Assessments of Selected Weapon Programs”, Mar 2012, p.93
[5]Since renamed expeditionary fast transport by the Navy in a public relations attempt to make everything ‘expeditionary’ without actually changing anything, so … T-EPF, but we’re going to stick with JHSV.
"Has the Navy built an entire ship class that has no combat value?"
ReplyDeleteI think I spotted a typo. You meant "another" rather than "an", right?
Probably true!
DeleteThey missed the boat with not taking the Incat/Bollinger option among many things they chose to fail at. Pick an existing com ercial ship and make it Navy. Don't fiddle with it when you nothing about shipbuilding and aren't remotely as qualified to make decisions as civilian industry. The fact LCS and EPF weren't either 1 ship or 2 versions of one base design is an epic missed opportunity.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the conops was move a company (312) with its gear 1100 miles at 35 knots and keep them provisioned for 4 days. Or keep a mission crew of 104 aboard provisioned for 14 days. With the 42 regular crew that works out to be about the 98 for 21 days LCS was to support.
Key with the bad handling is lack of designing for slamming which Incat has always worked on and all the newer designs have made more headway on. Plus they could have always gone with a trimaran which Austal also envisioned.
"the conops was move a company (312) with its gear 1100 miles at 35 knots and keep them provisioned for 4 days."
DeleteUnless you have a document that I haven't seen - and if you do, please share it ! - that's not a CONOPS, that's a capability. There's a difference. The difference may seem subtle but it's important. For example, a battleship can fire a shell per gun every 45 sec until the magazine runs out. That's a capability, not a CONOPS which would spell out how the BB would fit into, and support, a naval strategy. The CONOPS would spell out what missions would be undertaken and how they would contribute to the strategy. When you think that through BEFORE STARTING A SHIP DESIGN then you are assured that the resulting design will actually be of use and will contribute meaningfully to your naval strategy.
How many times have we heard admirals say, we need to get a ship into the hands of sailors to figure out what we can do with it? That's 180 deg wrong. CONOPS tells the sailors what to do with the ship, not the other way around.
The JHSV, like other ship classes, has no CONOPS and, therefore, no useful function - just random capabilities.
What is the CONOPS of a C-17? I'd rather buy talent and figure out how to use it because the game is always changing.
Delete" I'd rather buy talent and figure out how to use it"
DeleteWell, that's the Navy way of thinking and it's given us multiple, useless ship classes.
"the game is always changing."
No, not really. If you are a professional warrior you can readily anticipate your operational needs because you will have developed a military strategy. That, then, allows you to develop specific CONOPS and, therefore, highly useful pieces of equipment.
The people who fall back on the 'we can't predict the future so let's just get anything we can' thinking are simply inept. To illustrate, prior to WWII, we developed War Plan Orange and thoroughly gamed/exercised every aspect of the war and so we were able to develop very useful ship classes that well supported our operational and strategic needs. We didn't just develop random pieces of equipment and hope that we could find a use for them.
Your approach - and the Navy's - has given us the LCS, Zumwalt, MLP/AFSB, Ford, Mk VI boat, F-35, etc. that have little useful capabilities, are hugely expensive (because they weren't focused on a strategy-specific role), and are not relevant to our needs. And you want to do more of the same?
I would hope you - and all readers - would have grasped, by now, this most basic and fundamental concept about force design. I guess I have more work to do ...
Great highlighting the difference between capability and CONOPS. Most people in Acquistion Requirements have no clue about that. Hence the crappy ships we are getting.
DeleteA long tropical vacation for the crew, essentially.
ReplyDeleteThe JHSV has high speed, but short range as a direct consequence of design compromises made to achieve the high speed, and cannot travel at high speed in rough seas- much like missile boats the Soviet and Chinese Navies used and exported to Iraq, Iran, and other nations. If the USN itself has no need for a missile boat, then the best use I can think of for the JHSV, is as OPFOR in combat exercises, simulating an enemy missile boat so our ships can defend themselves from its attacks.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, the USN no longer limits its operations to defending its own shores; its current doctrine is to sail ships far away from American shores, towards ENEMY shores, and then force these enemies to submit to our demands. Any short range ship is USELESS, and it's stupid to sacrifice range and endurance- not only how many hits a ship can take before she sinks, but how long she can sail before she must stop to refuel, rearm, and replenish onboard stores- for speed.
Useless? I think not.
ReplyDeleteThis is the answer to the Marine Commandant's prayers.
This speedy little vehicle is just what the doctor ordered to put in place, and then re-supply, small bands of scrappy Marines using phasers and photon torpedoes (still under development) to deny enemy use of the sea.
Even better, add stealth to the name and the Chinese radars won't even be able to see it.
Brilliant!
Lutefisk
"This is the answer to the Marine Commandant's prayers."
DeleteThis kind of "answer" is like God giving you a stroke that permanently cripples you, in answer to your wish to get out of work- worse consequences than the very problem you wanted to avoid.
The JHSV is OK as a testbed, but as a service vessel, it consumes resources needed to put and then keep more useful ships in service. Worse, the testing has proven the JHSV contributes little to a combat mission, but the USN and USMC refuses to learn any lessons from the tests, and are throwing good money after bad, trying to make the JHSV useful the way Homer Simpson will use a sledgehammer to force a square peg into a round hole.
This is the follow on to the Westpac Express, which was never intended for combat.
ReplyDeleteIt was meant to admin haul gear and vehicle operators around, initially quick trips from Oki and the Army docks in Japan, to Korea, and sometimes down to the PI and Thailand. And if the weather was really good, to Guam.
The idea was the LSD could stay in port for maintenance or training, and the air force could save lots of hours on the C5s and 17s.
It worked well for that. The Marines want to send their UDP battalion from Okinawa up to Fuji for the training package there? Put their, and the supporting unit's, equipment on the Westpac Express, saving big bucks, the rest of the unit plays range games for a week then flies up cheap on some 130s to meet their stuff and marry up.
It worked so well the Navy/Marines ordered some more, and now the good idea fairy has decided it can do actual missions, not just the admin moves.
Just like with the (now) Puller class, which was an idea to have a base for pirate suppression off Africa so a gator didn't have to get tied down (and it could be run cheaply with minimal civilian ship crew and the military in their own berthing playing military games).
Good idea, so the military bought a few more and now is making up how to shoehorn them into totally unsuited missions.
I was looking at maps of Palau this week. 1. The US is responsible for Palau's defence. 2. Palau is between Hawaii and Guam. 3. Their is an old US airbase there. 4. China is sniffing around. - since earlier this week civil unrest has broken out in The Solomon Islands. The USN presence helps prevent this in Palau.
ReplyDelete