The Navy (and, to be fair, the entire military) has gone
all-in on networking as the basis of our future combat capability. We’re attempting to create vast regional (or
worldwide!) networks of distributed sensors and weapons all tied together in a
completely interchangeable, any-to-any linkage.
The Navy claims this will deliver omniscient awareness that will place
us inside the enemy’s decision/action loop (OODA, for those of you who recall
Col. Boyd’s work) and allow us to wreak havoc and destruction against a
hapless, helpless, confused enemy. While
we aren’t at the end point with fully functioning network systems, yet, we do
have more than enough existing pieces to get an accurate assessment of the
viability of the concept.
To ever so briefly review, ComNavOps has mocked the concept
as being utterly unrealistic and pure fantasy.
To ever so briefly review, history and real world events
have mocked the concept as being utterly unrealistic with example after example
of the failure of networks, sensors, and weapons.
Now, we have yet another real world example of the failure
of networking and distributed sensing to examine. You recall the recent friendly fire shootdown
by the Navy of a F-18F Super Hornet on 22-Dec-2024 by the USS Gettysburg (CG-64)? Reader ‘G2mil’ brought an interview to my
attention that examines the incident and offers insight into the networking and
sensor failures that led to the shootdown.[1]
The interview is available on YouTube and features retired Navy Capt.
Kevin Eyer, a former Aegis cruiser captain, discussing the friendly fire
incident with retired former Navy Commander and F-14 RIO, Ward Carroll.
Caution: The interviewee, Capt. Eyer is not on active
duty and made no claim to have inside authoritative information. He did, however, imply that he has access to
unofficial, inside information. The Navy
has not yet issued a formal report. You
can make your own assessment of the credibility of the Captain’s information.
Continuing … I’ve
extracted salient points from the interview and summarized them below.
Here’s a couple of interesting, related notes:
Discussion
As with almost every incident, it was due to a number of
supposedly unlikely factors all occurring together. However, upon examination we see that some of
the factors were well known and, thus, the incident was less of a freak
confluence of unlikely factors and more of a known problem waiting to happen. It was just a matter of time.
In this incident, we see that despite multiple ships and
aircraft tracking the F-18, area wide networks sharing their data, an aircraft
that was talking and squawking its identification, and the most advanced
surveillance and fire control software in the world, we still managed to lose
situational awareness and shoot down a friendly aircraft. If we can’t keep track of a friendly aircraft
with IFF flying a known safe flight path and with no enemy cyber or electronic
hindrance, what hope does a regional (or worldwide!) network have in combat?
With these repeated demonstrations of ineffectiveness and
unreliability, why are we basing our entire future warfare plans on this kind
of network/software approach? This network/data/software
approach to warfare requires perfect performance to even begin to be useful in
combat and when does perfection ever occur in combat?
We shoot down our own aircraft, collide with hulking
merchant ships, are unable to verify attacks on us (USS Mason affair), and yet
we choose to ignore those real world experiences in favor of fantasy level
imaginings of future warfare. How stupid
are we? The answer is … admiralty
stupid!
____________________________
- The IFF interrogation of the aircraft initially succeeded and the aircraft was identified as friendly. However, the Gettysburg was in the act of recovering a helo of its own and during the recovery had to shut down all emissions. Upon re-establishing sensor coverage, the aircraft was again queried but this time the IFF failed and the aircraft was not tagged as friendly.
- An electronic warfare (EW) operator identified the aircraft’s emissions as friendly and designated the aircraft as such. However, the designation failed to register in the system due to a software bug that has been known since 2023.
- The EW operator followed up with a verbal designation of ‘friendly’ on the CIC communication net but, in the din, confusion, and stress of the CIC environment, the verbal statement failed to register with the TAO or anyone who might have intervened. Verbal communications in stress situations always fail.
- The area wide Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) network did correctly have the aircraft identified as friendly however the Gettysburg’s CEC was either down or failed to register the designation from the network. Networks always fail.
- USS Gettysburg ‘failed’ its pre-deployment workups with the ship and crew’s performance being notably short of meeting standards. Despite this, the ship was allowed to proceed on deployment due to a lack of potential replacement ships. You’ll recall that we’ve talked about the widespread use of waivers that inevitably lead to tragedy and are at the heart of nearly every incident. We’ve also noted the Navy’s refusal to hold anyone or anything to established standards. This ship should never have been allowed to deploy. The entire point of pre-deployment workups is to certify that the ship/crew are proficient enough to deploy. Gettysburg was not but deployed anyway.
- NavSea knew about the software bugs but pushed the Aegis
software out into the fleet anyway. This
is literally criminal negligence and, in the civilian world, is the basis for
criminal and civil trials and lawsuits all the time.
This occurred because of threats from Houthis! Imagine this system with 50 missiles and drones inbound from different directions and some supersonic. I suspect the software might just crash.
ReplyDeleteThe radio chatter would be crazy. One solution is for each station to have an emergency override button to speak solo. It cuts off everyone else starting with a beep so everyone knows to shut up and listen because someone has something vital to say. And it better be vital if one is cutting off his captain!
You can ask the Israelis and the Ukrainians,
Deletethey both have experience of raids larger than
what you are talking about.
How did WW1 or WW2 warships maintain verbal communication within the ship over telephone or for that matter Voice pipes. I guess it all comes down practice, practice and practice. There is nothing magical about getting results after putting in hard work.
ReplyDeleteDoes the US Navy have the equivalent of FOST for the Royal Navy. As far as I know ships do not deploy unless they have passed and I would like to think the standards are kept very high.
ReplyDelete"Does the US Navy have the equivalent of FOST"
DeleteYes, the US Navy has several training programs roughly analogous to FOST. One such would be the COMPTUEX (Composite Training Unit Exercise) exercise that carrier groups go through as part of their pre-deployment work up. In theory, this ensures that the individual ships/crews and the groups (escort group and entire carrier group) are all competent and combat ready. Unfortunately, the reality is that poor performance - and even failure - does not result in a halt to deployment as evidenced by the Gettysburg example in this post. To the best of my knowledge, no ship or group has ever been withheld from deployment due to poor performance. The US Navy abhors standards and does not enforce them. Waivers - formal and informal - are always issued and failure is routinely accepted.
I don't know whether the RN still holds to its standards but the US Navy most certainly does not.
I think you may have doubled up on the second and third paragraphs
ReplyDeleteNo, read it again, carefully. Paragraph two was my opinion and paragraph three was history and reality's opinion (also known as fact).
DeleteShould para. 3 perhaps read ‘unrealistic’, rather than ‘realistic’.
DeleteOtherwise too subtle for my poor brain.
Thanks for fixing - makes sense now.
DeleteOr perhaps there’s an element of the ironic there that I’ve missed..,
ReplyDeleteI used to be far more engaged with multiple magazine accounts and all the military news and I remember the days of F14 and A6/A7 workouts out of Fallon? if Im correct, I even think I went out there once to take some pictures? anyways, dating myself here BUT it was a BIG DEAL! Now, would be hard pressed to see any news anywhere of a carrier wing workout before deployment.....if it's not even a big deal for the air part, wonder how much of it is just pretend, make the numbers for the surface fleet....like the other week when we were talking about the USS Stark and some kind of exercises, test they were worried about, if it is that stressful, should have done it BEFORE you enter the Gulf!!! 2025 and USN still screws up this exercise/testing.....
ReplyDeleteNot that it matters, everyone on Threads is so convinced we going to lose to China because of small drones anyways....
Following is a 2021 article after the 15th Abu Dhabi International Defense Exhibition. It gives a simple description of China's for export version of army battle field network. you can see what network can bring and why Pentagon is so keen on it:
Deletehttps://inf.news/en/military/48d7958fb1aea9d06000379155538320.html
Of course, for itself, China's military network is far more comprehensive. For instance, J-20, J-16, J-10C, KJ-500, .... can share information through network as they can dictate standard (Pentagon cannot as each vendor want theirs dominant). At the same time, you need very reliable and highly competent (for instance, very low latency, very high bandwidth, strong anti interference capability, ... etc.) battlefield communications to facilitate your network. Unfortunately, US falls behind China on this. Pentagon needs to work hard on this to build competent network capabilities.
"US falls behind China on this."
DeleteIf you have proof of this, present it. Otherwise, don't make unsubstantiated claims.
"convinced we going to lose to China because of small drones anyways...."
ReplyDeleteAs I keep saying, for a prepared defender, drones are no threat. I guess I'll have to keep hammering on this!
Is shutting down all emissions during a helicopter recovery normal? And if it is would that not be reason alone not to embark helos on an AAW ship?
ReplyDeleteAccording to Capt. Eyers, it is normal procedure. And, yes, that would be one of many reasons not to have a helo on an AAW ship.
DeleteAegis cruiser ops guy here. So, to be clear, you absolutely do not need to shut down “all emissions” when doing helo ops. There may be brief periods when helo is on final when the aft array - only - will be reduced in power. But there is no reason to essentially turn off SPY altogether for this, which is as absurd as it sounds. Without going into it, there’s also nothing about this temporary operating condition that would result in the loss of air picture that is being presented as has happened in this case. The system is extraordinarily capable and with properly trained operators there is no loss of coverage.
ReplyDeleteI’ve handled helo recoveries and launches more times than I can count, almost exclusively when providing carrier air defense, and have seen any issues with losing the bubble like this. Not even close. So, this explanation doesn’t add up for me.
I think at days end we’re going to see lack of training or failure to follow proper procedures to be key causes.
Having watched the video, it appears the main culprit above all others is the software update that was pushed out with known issues. The watchstander was trying to do the right thing for the situation, but could not because the system was hung up. Anyone who's worked on a computer knows how frustrating that can be. In this case, we're lucky it only cost us a plane and not a pilot or two.
ReplyDeleteI think the captain's observation that the CO was not immediately relieved, probably for this reason, also makes sense. You can only be held responsible up to a point for a system that isn't working properly through no fault of your own.
"USS Gettysburg ‘failed’ its pre-deployment workups with the ship and crew’s performance being notably short of meeting standards. Despite this, the ship was allowed to proceed on deployment due to a lack of potential replacement ships."
ReplyDeleteAnd that's the current approach in a nutshell.
Network is important in future wars.
ReplyDeleteIn current Ukraine War, Ukrainians rely on Starlink, etc. to not just communicate but also target information. Unfortunately, while US struggles, China progresses fast. I cannot write details here for it is too long.
Just look civilian wireless communications, you can see who is leading. In today's environment, civilian communications have far more stringent requirements in many fronts. For instance, military communication can tolerate some noise but you cannot tolerate any noise while you make phone calls. This is why Trump and Biden want to kill Huawei as it is leading technology providers in civilian wireless communications.
"Network is important in future wars."
DeleteNot if it doesn't work and all the evidence demonstrates that our networks are unreliable, susceptible to cyber attack, provide contradictory data, and are just plain ineffective.
"civilian communications have far more stringent requirements"
Completely false. You could not be more wrong.
Civilian networks can tolerate data transmission errors because they aren't life and death. In contrast, military networks must be perfect since erroneous data IS a matter of life and death.
Civilian networks can fail with no more consequence than temporary inconvenience whereas military networks must be 100% available and cannot afford any downtime and hope to remain effective.
Civilian networks can, and are, hacked frequently and while they cause disruption, the consequences are, again, relatively minor. Military networks cannot ever be hacked without losing their effectiveness.
And so on.
You need to rethink your view of military network requirements.
Military networks have to be more robust and redundant to absorb the inevitable damage, but there are a lot of civilian networks that require much higher fidelity at very high data transfer rates. Not such a big deal in a digital world, but error correction strategies still matter. A lot. Arguably the traits needed for a good military network are very different from its civilian commercial counterpart and vice-versa.
DeleteToday, consumers' tolerance on Internet glitches is near zero. Ask yourself or your kids, how long can people tolerate any wireless network problems. Service providers have to build multiple redundancy, shield well from all sources of other signals which could interfere their signals.
Delete"Today, consumers' tolerance on Internet glitches is near zero."
DeleteOh, good grief, that's not even a little bit true. Consumers routinely put up with network outages, page load slowdowns, temporary screen freezes, data buffering glitches, abysmal quality software, denial of service attacks, and so on. They may not like it and they may complain but they put up with it. In an effective military application, none of those things can be accepted.
Service providers do the bare minimum necessary to maintain their market share and profit margin.
"civilian networks that require much higher fidelity at very high data transfer rates."
DeleteOh yeah? Tell that to my streaming videos that constantly glitch.
Without understanding way more about the end-to-end network that delivers your videos, and the work you have done or not done to isolate where the choke points are, its hard to form an informed opinion. But I would point out that a qualified network engineer would have this narrowed down in half an hour or less. I do this to my supplier just to yank his chain.
DeleteIts unreasonable to say that civilian networks suck just because of some problems you have with streaming video at the point of deliver. The last mile in particular the ISP has absolutely no control over.
But I guarantee you that the backbone and branches that form the Internet delivery network are incredibly redundant and diverse and still conform to the ARPA philosophy of being to keep the network up even in the middle of a nuclear war.
There is an increasing problem with last mile delivery where we are stuck on old cable, old phone lines, or old fiber, or old wireless delivery systems. The Chinese are installing 6G at an astonishing rate that will make our systems look even worse.
Tie that back to the military, and you have military systems becoming available that leave western systems in the dust. The radio chips are simply better and have been for many years. The encryption chips and algorithms are better and faster, and there is less warfare between manufacturers over whose system is best and should be deployed.
Strength of civilian wireless technologies represent a nation's capability on military wireless network and electronic warfare capabilities.
DeleteNot even a little bit. Civilian and military are two entirely different network applications.
DeleteI once promoted the idea of infrared ship comm, and this has been studied. It's what your TV remote control uses. Yes, range is limited and affected by weather, but its jam proof, intercept proof and generates only a tiny signature. If the infrared connections work between nearby ships, use them. Great for carrier ops, comm with nearby aircraft. No more flag waving either.
ReplyDeleteWow, I googled and found the US Navy uses it, at least for UNREP.
Deletehttps://tplogic.com/lightspeed-an-paq-6-v2/
Infrared laser communications have been widely used but they are wired (via fiber optics). Any heat source emits infrared thus cannot do wirelessly. First military-proof 5G base station has come but unfortunately, it is China. You need reliable very large bandwidth low latency in battlefield today.
Deletehttps://www.business-standard.com/external-affairs-defence-security/news/china-unveils-first-military-5g-to-connect-world-s-largest-robot-army-124123100700_1.html
There was something wrong with flags? Sometimes they’re the best tool for the job.
DeleteThere’s nothing inherently wrong with networks. Link 11 and Link 16 datalinks have been hugely successful and very reliable with trained operators. If you’ve been out there, you know this.
I can’t speak to CEC or other current networks but these seem to have come with all the same stupid frustrating commercial technology issues that explain why I can’t get my smart home to stay smart.
Military networks need to be built to milspec, be simple and robust. It sounds like they’ve got too complicated.
"If the infrared connections work between nearby ships, use them"
DeleteA non-RF comm method is highly desirable, however, as you noted, the range, which is cited as 500 m in the link you provided, drastically limits the usefulness. In combat, ships would not normally be within 500 m and aircraft would never be within 500m of the carrier except on the last few seconds of landing.
Is it worth installing units on ships for those rare occasions when two ships want to communicate and be detectable? I don't know.
It would, however, be a good means of handling carrier deck comms if someone can miniaturize the units to fit on a headset and work off a tiny battery!
"There was something wrong with flags? "
DeleteBlinkers worked quite well for decades.
There has been work that DARPA has funded into laser communication between ships. It's essentially the same principle as blinkers, with the theory being that, like voice comms over encrypted protocol, you prep the message, encode it, hit the transmit button and your laser flashes the message to the reciver faster than a human operator works a blinker. Still a work in progress, and physics limits it to line of sight, but it's something worth working at.
DeleteDon't you think that some proper testing could in realistic conditions could improve the reliability of networks ? Since you've repeatedly said that testing of military equipment isn't done right or not done at all, this could be a way forward. BTW I'm not saying that network are a miracle weapon, just that they have some use.
ReplyDeleteThe Jacques Cassard Fan Club
"proper testing ... network ... have some use."
DeleteIn theory, a network is a wonder to behold, a force multiplier of almost infinite magnitude. In reality, with our current level of technology, they're a liability.
Absolutely we should be testing under realistic conditions to see what works, what doesn't, what can never work, and what might work with more development. Do that and then we can make an informed decisions about the effectiveness of networks.
By the way, do you really grasp what realistic testing would entail? That means testing the network against the most advanced hackers and cyber warfare specialists in the world whether inside the military or outside. It means physically destroying parts of the network to see how it compensates, if at all. It means subjecting the network to the most advanced jamming and signal disruption we can devise. It means operating the network under the worst weather and environmental conditions we can. It means using run of the mill, average sailors to operate the network not industrial Ph.D scientists brought in just for the test. It means doing all those things, AT THE SAME TIME because ... well ... that's what will happen in war.
Being into systems engineering I hope I have an idea. How about testing fonctionnalities separately first to iron out the low hanging bugs and integrating step by step ? I know it doesnt seem to be done on the latest TR for the F35 but that's not a good enough reason to give up.
DeleteThe Jacques Cassard Fan Club
To go back to your original question:
Delete"Don't you think that some proper testing could in realistic conditions could improve the reliability of networks ? ... they have some use."
You mentioned the F-35 TR so you seem at least somewhat aware of the state of the Navy/military's testing efforts which is minimal (and that's being as generous as I can be). Given that reality and the proof of failure after failure of the various network components, there is no hope of fielding a viable network. In an imaginary, ideal world, sure, we could test the network and MAYBE develop something useful but we don't live in that world. So, the real world answer to your question is no, networks have no value.
Here's one example of what I'm talking about. A few years ago, an Army general was asked why they didn't employ realistic electronic warfare against themselves in exercises. His answer was that it was too effective and brought every exercise to a halt. Therefore, the Army opted not to include EW in exercises. That kind of mentality simply cannot conceive of realistic network testing.
Note the proven IR comm system at this link is just 6 lbs with a range of 500 meters. I would think if you upped the size and power to let say 60 lbs and put it high on the mast for 360 degree coverage you could get at least 10 miles.
ReplyDeletehttps://tplogic.com/lightspeed-an-paq-6-v2/
You want to be cautious about extrapolating performance too far. To extend your thought, one might think that if we raised it to 10,000 ft and provided unlimited power we should be able to cover an entire hemisphere. I suspect, however, that other factors would limit the performance (turbulence, airborne particulates, humidity, aerial thermoclines, etc.). There may be a reason why the company has only offered a 500 m range unit. Still, I'd love to hear an engineer offer thoughts on performance and, if theoretically viable, test it just as you suggest.
Delete