What Happened To Streetfighter?

Let’s start the new year with a post that may ruffle a few feathers and contradict some dearly held beliefs..

 

The LCS is an abject failure.  Even its staunchest supporters have been reduced to talking not about what LCS is but what it might have been.  Yes, the LCS failed but, oh, Streetfighter!  The Mighty Streetfighter!  If only the LCS had remained true to the Streetfighter concept, what a magnificent combat vessel we would have had!

 

Streetfighter … it has assumed the status of myth and legend;  capable of total domination of the seas and able to defeat vast fleets of the most powerful ships.  It would have ensured world peace, solved global hunger, and established democracy throughout the known universe!   …  And now we have the LCS.  What happened?  Where did Streetfighter go?  Why was its self-evident superiority not developed? 

 

Streetfighter?

Let’s take a look and see if we can figure out what happened.

 

Here’s a timeline to help keep track and make sense of the various events that led from the origin of Streetfighter to the LCS we have today … or was it the reverse?

 

 

 

Streetfighter / LCS Development Timeline
	1987	SC-21 (Surface Combatant for the 21st Century) predecessor studies begin
Jan	1991	End of the Cold War
	1992	DD-21 / SC-21 officially begins
	1993	Navy begins to focus on small combatant ships (approx. time period)
	1995	LCS foundational design wargames (Joint Multi-Warfare Analytical Game) take place in mid-1990’s
Nov	1999	Cebrowski and Hughes publish “Rebalancing the Fleet” which is the first mention of Streetfighter
Jul	2001	Cebrowski unveils Streetfighter ship in Wall Street Journal article by Greg Jaffe
Oct	2001	Cebrowski appointed to head Office of Force Transformation by SedDef Donald Rumsfeld
Late	2001	DD-21 terminated
Apr	2003	Lockheed Martin shows initial LCS concept offering
	2003	Adm. Clark declares LCS his number one budget priority
May	2004	Initial LCS construction contracts awarded
Jun	2005	LCS Freedom laid
Nov	2005	Cebrowski died

 

 

 

As we see from the timeline, the end of the Cold War, in 1991, left the Navy with a fleet of large combatants and no peer enemy.  Faced with potentially declining budgets, the Navy opted to create a new enemy which it dubbed ‘littoral’.  Despite having absolutely no evidence that ‘littoral’ required anything new or unique, the Navy latched onto it as a rationale for continued funding (see, “Littoral Warfare – Is There Such A Thing?”).  The solution to defeating the littoral bogeyman was the LCS, according to the Navy.  Well, wait ... what about Streetfighter?  Wasn’t it the answer to the littoral challenge?

 

Here’s where we start to see the myths surrounding Streetfighter.

 

One of the [many] misconceptions surrounding Streetfighter was that it preceded the LCS.  In fact, as we see in the timeline, the LCS originated with a series of wargames in the mid-1990’s (see, “LCS Conceptual Origin”).  The first mention of Streetfighter does not occur until 1999, some four or five years later.

 

Whether Cebrowski/Hughes got their inspiration for Streetfighter from the LCS origin games or whether they developed their concept independently is unknown.  I can find no reference to Cebrowski having participated in or referencing the LCS origins.

 

In fact, I can find no actual link between Streetfighter and LCS.  There is no document stating that one flowed from, or morphed into, the other.  As best I can tell, the two concepts never overlapped.  Possibly there was informal, undocumented cross pollination but, if so, there’s no evidence of it. 

 

Again, the timeline demonstrates that the LCS concept arose prior to Streetfighter as evidenced by the mid-1990’s design wargames.  Streetfighter first appeared several years after the original LCS design beginnings.  Thus, all the questions and moanings about the LCS failing to ‘stick’ to the original Streetfighter concept appear to be after-the-fact fantasies and reversed fantasies, at that! 

 

To sum up, the Navy’s official response to the end of the Cold War was, initially, the DD-21/SC-21 program which began in 1992.  However, within a few years, small combatant studies and wargames had begun and the SC-21 program was on the road to termination.  The LCS concept took hold and quickly began to metamorphose into the directionless, do-everything-but-do-it-poorly fantasy ship that we have today.  Streetfighter appears to have been a very brief, parallel but not overlapping, side road on the LCS development path.

 

Now, let’s take a closer look at Cebrowski and Hughes article, “Rebalancing the Fleet”, that first mentions the word ‘Streetfighter’.

 

“Rebalancing the Fleet”

 

Cebrowski and Hughes published their landmark piece describing a future fleet structure that incorporated small combatants dubbed Streetfighters, in Nov-1999.

 

While the piece discussed several important, noteworthy issues such as the cost-risk relationship, it failed to offer any details and relied heavily on non-existent technologies and unproven concepts for its envisioned success.  The article was more of a marketing brochure than a substantive technical analysis.  For example,

 

Foremost, Streetfighter will be able to clear out the clutter and sort friend from foe.[1]

 

That’s a great marketing campaign slogan but offers no actual, technical insight or methodologies for its claimed ability to “clear out the clutter and sort friend from foe”.

 

Another myth about Streetfighter is that it was a single, specific ship.  However, in the ‘Rebalancing the Fleet’ article, Streetfighter is described as a family of ‘capabilities’, not a ship.

 

The Economy B force is a family of capabilities—often referred to as the "Streetfighter Concept"—that, in conjunction with power-projection forces, will enable the U.S. Navy to operate anytime, anywhere … [1]

 

Indeed, Cebrowski/Hughes never actually described what Streetfighter was beyond generalities.  There are suggestions of vessels in the 300-1200 ton range with no specifics.  There was no description of size, speed, weapons fit, sensors, etc.  This has led every subsequent naval analyst to assign their own vision to Streetfighter, just as happened to the LCS.

 

The reality is that ‘Streetfighter’ seems to have originally been a reference to a concept of a family of smaller vessels acting as a group.  It was described as a ‘family of capabilities’, not as a type of ship.

 

 

 

A noteworthy follow up piece by Hughes addresses Streetfighter concerns that were raised at the time.

 

“22 Questions for Streetfighter”

 

Hughes, himself, offers criticisms of the Streetfighter concept although he does so in what he believes are positive statements.  For example,

 

One of the first things learned by a task analysis of coastal operations is that low-flying aircraft, not big ships or submarines, are the alternative to streetfighters.[2]

 

Thus, Hughes, himself, offers a far more cost effective and combat effective alternative to Streetfighter in the form of aircraft!

 

In attempting to extol the virtues of Streetfighter, Hughes falls back on the common claim that the enemy will be paralyzed with fear at the thought of a single vessel roaming undetected no matter how individually incapable that vessel might be.

 

… if there is a flock of small ships, each powerfully armed yet hard to detect, then the enemy will live in continuing fear over whether he has found them all.

 

An enemy probably also will see deviltry and cunning in a squadron of streetfighters.[2]

 

This is, again, great as a marketing slogan but woefully short on combat reality.

 

Regarding Streetfighter’s self-defense,

 

A 300-ton streetfighter would depend on stealth characteristics, soft kill, numbers, and the ability to lose itself "in the clutter." It could carry light antiair weapons such as Stingers. The design philosophy should be that visual detection of it will predominate, no present missile guidance system will detect and home on it, and added safely comes from confronting an enemy with a swarm of targets.[2]

 

Even a larger 1200 ton Streetfighter was recognized as having inherent defensive problems,

 

A larger version of 1,200 tons might carry not only soft kill systems but also deployable decoys and Rolling Airframe missile (RAM) or the equivalent, while accepting that low observability and active defense are conflicting characteristics.[2]

 

As Hughes recognizes, you can’t defend without broadcasting (radar) your position and if you broadcast your position, you die since you have no credible defense.

 

Hughes does offer one brilliant and prescient observation,

 

The biggest danger is that streetfighter will be conceived as a junior variation of the projection navy: the same habitability standards, spacious bridge, electronically comprehensive combat information center, offices, and paperwork; a galley with cooks and mess cooks; defenses that are supposed to defeat every attack; stocks for months at sea; standard damage-control teams and procedures; and a guarantee for each young captain that one grounding or failed inspection will send him packing.[2]

 

Indeed, this is exactly what happened to the LCS!

 

 

 

Analysis

 

 

‘Wired’ website offers interesting thoughts about the lack of CONOPS, which doomed the LCS.

 

The confusion over the LCS' roles has gone on so long it has created a bizarre feedback loop, with the Navy, its shipbuilders, the Pentagon and America's regional commanders each developing plans and technologies for the LCS based on conflicting assumptions. The result is a warship theoretically capable of almost anything, and increasingly optimized for nothing.[3]

 

This vagueness and lack of a concept of operations also extended to Streetfighter.

 

For all Cebrowski's and Hughes' passion about small-ship theory, and Clark's and Rumsfeld's determination to build the diminutive vessels, no one had clearly defined exactly what a small warship should look like, and what it should and shouldn't do. On at least one key point – expendability – the strategists and the mainstream Navy were totally at odds.[3]

 

This fundamental flaw – the lack of a viable CONOPS - continues to this day and not just for the LCS but for any conceptual small combatant.  I have yet to hear any viable CONOPS for any small combatant in US service.  Supporters of small combatants are wildly enthusiastic about the ships, themselves (meaning, the weapons, speed, stealth, and other physical characteristics), but totally ignore the fundamental question of how the ship will be used. 

 

This was the problem with Streetfighter. 

 

This was the problem with the LCS. 

 

This is the problem with any small combatant.

 

We’ve thoroughly discussed the problems that arise from the lack of a CONOPS when a ship is designed.  Well, here’s someone else’s discussion of the problem as it relates to the LCS.

 

The only thing everyone agreed on was that the LCS would sail close to shore. But no one specified how close "close" really was. One mile? Twenty-five miles?

 

As theorists, Hughes and Cebrowski never had to be specific. Rumsfeld, for his part, was notorious for ignoring the nitty-gritty details of running the military. Clark tried his best to keep his boss happy and grow the fleet.

 

"As a result, the Navy’s leadership was forced to test out arguments for the new ship on the fly," [DepSecDef] Work recalled. "Sometimes the LCS was labeled transformational because of its high speed ... other times it was because the ship was designed to defeat 'asymmetric' littoral threats." On still other occasions, the Navy chose to emphasize LCS' supposed "transformational impact on the American shipbuilding industry."

 

"The constantly changing rationale for the new ship helped to confuse both the Navy’s internal and external audiences," Work concluded.

 

In short, the circumstances of the LCS' genesis were a perfect recipe for a shipbuilding fiasco.[3]

 

And the utterly predictable result occurred.

 

The [LCS] plan was, in a word, ambitious – which was not what Cebrowski and Hughes had in mind when they argued for the Navy to add smaller, simpler, cheaper ships. In the course of just four years, the Navy fought, embraced, and then completely corrupted the small-ship philosophy. Instead of compact, brute-simple coastal brawlers, it would get over-inflated, gas-guzzling, gutless ships dependent on ultrahigh-tech gizmos.

 

In the absence of clear missions and realistic capabilities, LCS became everything to everyone, as long as no one thought too hard about anything.[3]

 

More generally, the following illustrates a (the?) fundamental flaw in all the ‘streetfighter’, small combatant type ship designs and force structures.  It makes the assumption that large ships are unable to function in a littoral scenario – an assumption that is utterly unsupported by any evidence and, in fact, a great deal of evidence exists to support the exact opposite conclusion!  For example, the destroyers at Normandy that sailed right up to shore to do battle with German shore batteries conclusively proved that large, ocean-going ships had no problems operating and fighting successfully in shallow waters.

 

In the late 1990s, the Navy realized it had a problem. Its 9,000-ton cruisers and destroyers, inherited from the Cold War, were great for open-ocean warfare against the Soviets. But the same ships were considered too vulnerable to safely operate in the shallow, crowded, chaotic coastal waters – aka, the "littorals" – that were fast becoming the next naval battleground.

 

Here, dangers might include gun-armed speedboats, missile-firing fast-attack craft, small submarines and sea mines, plus antiship missiles and aircraft launched from land.

 

The preceding assumption, that large, ocean-going ships can’t function and survive in shallow waters is valid only if one cedes all offensive operation to the opponent … which is exactly what we’ve done;  witness Iran’s constant harassment (to include mining of merchant ships – an act of war or piracy or both).  If, on the other hand, one retains the right of offensive action, any large, ocean-going combatant can wipe away littoral threats with no effort.

 

 

Conclusion

 

It seems clear that the common belief that Streetfighter preceded the LCS is incorrect.  The corollary belief that LCS ‘abandoned’ the Streetfighter design is also false as there is no evidence that the LCS ever had any formal connection with Streetfighter.  Further, Streetfighter was never a Navy program of record and, therefore, there was never any official embrace of Streetfighter other than, perhaps, some informal and undocumented hope that Cebrowski’s appointment by Rumsfeld to head his pet Office of Force Transformation might result in some degree of incorporation of the Streetfighter concept into the LCS.  By that time, however, the LCS was already pretty well set, at least in concept.

 

Most importantly, Streetfighter appears to have never been given any definitive form in the way of specifications.  In fact, I can find no Cebrowski-Hughes artist’s concept drawing of what the Streetfighter vessel might have looked like.  The lack of any formal description has given rise to endless versions proposed by subsequent naval commentators but none have the slightest connection to Cebrowski and Hughes’ concept which, indeed, never actually specified an actual vessel – only a ‘family of capabilities’.

 

Thus, all the romanticism about Streetfighter is just that:  romantic notions that were never actually espoused by Cebrowski and Hughes.

 

All subsequent Streetfighter discussion has been pure, individual speculation with no attached CONOPS – just a vague array of marketing slogans by people who are more enamored of ship weapons than any useful description of how a Streetfighter would actually function.  If you want to begin to get an understanding of just how flawed the small combatant concept is, read the post, “Undisputed and Unaccepted”, which discusses some of the flaws in Hughes small combatant concept as described in his fleet tactics book.

 

We can blame the LCS for a host of failings but failing to follow the design of Streetfighter is not one of them.

 

 

 

 

 

Disclaimer:  Information from the beginnings of the LCS and Streetfighter are hard to find.  If someone can produce information I haven’t found, I’ll gladly consider it and modify my conclusions, if appropriate.

 

________________________________

 

[1]USNI Proceedings, “Rebalancing the Fleet”, Vice Admiral A. K. Cebrowski, USN, and Captain Wayne P. Hughes, Jr., USN (Ret.), Volume 125/11/1,161, Nov-1999

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1999/november/rebalancing-fleet

 

[2]USNI Proceedings, “22 Questions for Streetfighter”, Captain Wayne P. Hughes, Jr., USN (Ret.), Vol. 126/2/1,164, Feb-2000

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2000/february/22-questions-streetfighter

 

[3]https://www.wired.com/2011/08/future-warship-ran-aground/