Pre-WWII, naval analysts envisioned open ocean clashes
between mammoth battle lines of opposing battleships. Cruisers with float planes were designed to
operate as far ranging scouts for the battle line, seeking out the enemy’s battle
fleet. Destroyers would support the
battle line by launching torpedo attacks and defending against the enemy’s
torpedo attacks. The vision was well
understood, doctrine was well established, and the concept was extensively
practiced.
Of course, reality came and none of that materialized. Instead, the Navy found themselves fighting as
small, disjointed units amongst the Solomon Islands, lost in the darkness,
blinded by the mass of the islands, utterly confused, and unable to form a
battle line that lasted more than a minute when combat began.
What were a few of the relevant factors that rendered the
pre-war vision and scenarios irrelevant?
Detection – Detection of the enemy, whether visual or
radar, was reduced to very short ranges by darkness and by the blocking mass of
the islands. Visual detection of enemy
ships was severely hindered by the blocking mass of nearby islands with ships
either hidden behind the islands or obscured on the near side by the background
of the dark mass of the islands. Similarly,
the islands cast concealing radar shadows and returned clutter which hid or
obscured targets and rendered radar far less effective than was hoped.
In one notable example, US ships were fired on by Japanese
destroyers and the US returned fire against a nearby island, believing that the
flashes from the Japanese ship’s guns were actually land artillery batteries!
Range – The impaired detection meant that engagement
ranges were incredibly short compared to the extended ranges envisioned
pre-war. The short range had major
implications for torpedo and gunnery tactics, none of which had been envisioned
or practiced pre-war.
Uncertainty – The difficulty in detection led to a
great deal of uncertainty in target identification – what we now refer to as
Identification Friend or Foe (IFF). Many
firing opportunities were passed by due to uncertainty about target
identification. The well known axiom,
‘attack effectively, first’, was extremely difficult to implement. The lack of close combat doctrine contributed
to the uncertainty. Having no viable
doctrine, uncertainty abounded; no
commander had any solid expectation of what other friendly ships would do and
where they would go and so they were often forced to hold fire due to uncertain
identification. This cost us badly on
numerous occasions.
Given that our pre-war exercises and planning (War Plan
Orange, for example) correctly anticipated an island hopping strategy, it is
baffling that we didn’t make the logical conclusion that we needed to practice
naval combat in close proximity to islands … but we didn’t and so we had to
learn on the fly. Learning on the fly in
combat is the most expensive and deadly way to learn and, unsurprisingly, we
paid a heavy price for the knowledge.
Today
Bolstered, now, by a thorough understanding of history and
its lessons, we can turn our attention to current events and a war with
China. It is quite likely that we will
be fighting amongst the islands surrounding the East and South China Seas and
yet we’re practicing for long range missile engagements in open ocean. Does this sound eerily familiar? We’re repeating the mistake of WWII by failing
to train for naval combat amongst islands.
To offer some context, Wikipedia notes that Indonesia
consists of 17,000 islands and the Philippines have 7,641 islands. Given that those are likely combat areas,
wouldn’t it make sense to anticipate island naval combat and begin training for
it?
Of course, it’s possible that a war with China will avoid
any proximity to islands (although that seems like wishful thinking more than
reality) but we should, nevertheless, train for it. If it doesn’t happen it’s no big deal and if
it does, we’ll be prepared.
How will the various island factors impact naval combat
today?
Radar – The physics of radar haven’t changed. Islands will still cast radar shadows and generate
cluttered returns that will hide or obscure targets. Recall the supposed land-based, anti-ship
missile attacks directed against the Burke class destroyer, USS Mason? As it turned out, we couldn’t even determine
whether attacks had even occurred (they didn’t!), likely due to the
interference/obscuration of the land mass.
Detection ranges will still be far shorter than expected. Incoming missiles, especially sea-skimmers,
will be hidden in radar shadows. The
same islands that hide us, hide the enemy.
Of course, no sane commander will be using radar, anyway, so
radar detection will be an infrequent occurrence.
Optical – The wise naval commander will be using
passive sensors, for the most part, and islands still obscure targets on both
the near and far side of the land mass.
Missiles – Islands will degrade missile
effectiveness. Ships sailing close
inshore will be obscured by the surrounding land mass and modern missiles will likely
lack the ability to discriminate a ship from a rocky outcropping, atoll, or
other mass. To the best of my knowledge,
no navy or manufacturer has considered missile performance near islands. We need to conduct realistic testing of
missiles in proximity to islands and find out how well they can identify and acquire
targets obscured by land masses.
Islands will block missile approaches. A sea skimming missile (which most modern
anti-ship missiles are) will be unable to attack a target on the far side of an
island or will have to take an altered path to navigate around the island to
approach the target. We need to factor
this into our combat tactics.
UAVs – UAVs will be affected by islands. They’ll have to fly higher, linger longer to
search and clear/identify targets near land, compensate for island-blocked
communications, etc. UAVs may also take
advantage of islands by hiding in their shadows and background. A UAV operating against the background of an
island mass may well be able to ‘approach’ a target quite closely without being
detected. Again, we haven’t made any
attempt to study UAV operations near islands and develop appropriate offensive
and defensive doctrine and tactics.
Conclusion
There is every reason to expect that we’ll find ourselves
operating in, around, and near islands and there is no reason to believe that
the various WWII factors that made such operations dangerous, difficult, and
chaotic won’t still apply. Detections and
engagements will still be sudden, unexpected, and short ranged. We desperately need to begin training for
such operations.
We have no idea how missiles will behave near islands. We have no idea what doctrine and tactics
will prove successful. We can prepare
for island naval combat or we can be surprised and pay the horrific price to
learn on the fly.
Assuming the anticipated scenarios occur, one blindingly
obvious conclusion is that large caliber guns will be of immense value. With short detection ranges, large caliber
guns can establish and sustain fire that missiles can’t match and can do so far
more cost effectively. As our Ukraine
donations have amply demonstrated, we’ll run out of high end missiles very
quickly. Large caliber guns and cheap (free
on a relative basis!) shells will seem a godsend, at that point.
Hand in hand with large caliber guns is armor. Ships that can absorb damage and stay in the
fight (a Burke cannot) will be the difference between victory and defeat.
Bear in mind that we aren’t just talking about opposing
ships being nose to nose like they were at Guadalcanal. The scenario could be an anti-ship attack
from a hundred miles away, directed towards a ship in or near the first island
chain islands. All the factors we
discussed apply. How will the missiles
identify valid targets? Will the
missiles need to be ‘waypointed’ around various islands? Will the target ships be effectively hidden
by the surrounding islands? Will
terminal guidance be required? We need
to understand naval combat in and amongst islands.
We’re repeating the mistakes of WWII by failing to prepare
for combat scenarios that are likely to materialize and focusing exclusively on
open ocean scenarios that are less likely.