The Miracle of HIMARS

HIMARS … the unending miracle weapon system!
 
To briefly review, HIMARS is the single pod version of the dual pod MLRS.  The pod contains either six 227 mm rockets or a single ATACMS missile.  The pod/launcher is mounted on a FMTV 5-ton truck.  HIMARS was developed as a lighter weight, lighter firepower version of the standard M270 MLRS.
 
Marines, naval observers and analysts, and blog commenters have called for HIMARS to be mounted on all manner of ships for land attack and anti-ship as well as for the Marine’s small unit, hidden bases to sink enemy fleets and control the seas.  Proponents credit it with 120% accuracy.  Truly, a miracle weapon system.
 
Of course, HIMARS, as is, is totally unsuited for naval mounting and would require a nearly new launcher/mount (materials of construction to deal with corrosion, multi-axis stabilization, fire control integration with existing ship’s systems, electronic signal deconfliction and interference checks, etc.) and a significantly redesigned host vessel (magazines, ammo storage and movement mechanisms, reload mechanism, magazine armor and firefighting systems, etc.).  As we’ve noted in the past, there are very few examples of successful adaptation of land weapons to naval use.  However, let’s set that issue aside.
 
An interesting data point has come to light from the recent US-Philippines Balikatan 2023 SinkEx.  It seems that the HIMARS system missed all six of its shots.  As reported by Naval News website,
 
The performance of the Army HIMARS was also questionable, with it being reported on the SINKEX’s live stream that the system missed all six of its shots at the World War II-era corvette. In previous SINKEXs, such as those held at RIMPAC exercises, targets were relatively static which allowed for munitions that struggle or cannot hit moving targets to participate. One of these systems that cannot hit moving targets is HIMARS with its current set of rockets. Due to unknown circumstances, BRP Pangasinan developed a drift that threw off the HIMARS’ targeting.[1]
 

U.S. Army HIMARS “Tommy”
from the 5-3 Long Range Fires Battalion
of the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force fires at BRP Pangasinan.
(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Samuel Fletcher)

 

So, it would appear that HIMARS has some challenges in the anti-ship role due to target movement – assuming one classifies ‘drift’ as target movement.  If it can’t handle slow drift, is it really the miracle weapon so many are claiming?
 
Here’s a worrisome thought:  if the target vessel hadn’t developed a drift and the HIMARS had hit the target we’d be reading about how wonderful it is and no one would know it’s useless against moving targets.  Do the Marines know about this shortcoming?  Do they care?  Do proponents know or care?
 
HIMARS may be a useful, effective weapon on land – or it may not - but it’s clearly not ready for naval combat and would require an enormous effort to make it so.
 
Why do people keep calling for this?
 
This is yet another in the endless list of systems whose claims far exceed their actual performance.  We have got to stop believing manufacturer’s and the military’s claims about weapon performance.  With 100% certainty, they’re significantly overstated.  I keep hammering on this and yet people keep buying into claims. 
 
We’ve already got multiple anti-ship weapons (Hellfire, Naval Strike Missile, Harpoon, LRASM, Tomahawk, Standard, ESSM, etc.) that are already adapted to naval use.  Why do we need another system, especially one that is not adapted to naval use?
 
In the land attack role, MLRS/HIMARS has some potential but, again, would need an extensive and expensive development program to adapt it to naval use.  No, you can’t just bolt it to the deck of a ship and call it a day.
 
While I like the idea of an MLRS-ish weapon as a suppressive fire (area bombardment) system to support amphibious assaults and ground forces, I would much rather spend development money on an 8” naval gun that could be used against land and sea targets.
 
 
 
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[1]Naval News website, “Kill Chain Tested At First-Ever Balikatan SINKEX”, Aaron-Matthew Lariosa, 27-Apr-2023,
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2023/04/kill-chain-tested-at-first-ever-balikatan-sinkex/
 

Drone Wars

Hey, let’s have a little fun today!

 

The Navy is obsessed with unmanned ships and aircraft, not as a means of achieving greater military effectiveness, but as a means of achieving reduced manning costs so that they can build more ships.  At best, this will produce a very weak navy that has somewhat reduced costs and any savings will be consumed by the hugely increased construction costs of those few manned assets that are left.

 

What if, instead of going down the Navy’s path of small, weak, unmanned ships, we, instead, postulate an unmanned ship that goes the other direction:  a very powerful, combat-dominating, unmanned ship?  What would such a ship look like?  What characteristics would it have?  How would it operate?  Let’s speculate and have some fun with it!

 

Now, what do we do before we begin designing a vessel and loading it up with every weapon system we’ve ever heard of (you know … the Navy way of designing)?  That’s right!  We develop a Concept of Operations (CONOPS). 

 

CONOPS

 

Here’s a few unmanned characteristics that should influence our CONOPS (absent an actual strategy which is what should drive the CONOPS!):

 

• Unmanned vessels should be cheap since they don’t need berthing, heads, galleys, food and water storage, waste treatment, passageways (beyond a few service passages), showers, gyms, lounges, mail handling, postal services, etc.  That immediately reduces the ship size and, hence, cost by half.
• Cheap unmanned vessels should be numerous.
• Unmanned vessels are ideal for high risk missions.

 

What do those simple, general, foundational unmanned characteristics suggest in the way of a CONOPS?  They suggest – actually demand! - that the proper use for an unmanned warship is one that is not only intended to stand in harm’s way but to actively seek it out.  This is the offensive ship that the Navy has been lacking for so long – the ship that will take the fight to the enemy rather than sit back and passively try to defend and survive.  This ship will be used to aggressively seek out and engage (go straight at, not just try to defend against) enemy fleets, advance into the teeth of enemy port defenses and destroy those ports, and engage and destroy coastal bases and fortifications.  The ship will operate in squadrons of half a dozen on up to a couple dozen or more, depending on the mission, and will be supported, as needed, by other vessels and assets that will perform ASW, long range AAW, and long range surveillance.  Thus, this is NOT a do-everything ship – it is an attack ship, pure and simple.

 

It is also not a Terminator-like, artificial intelligence ship that is going to wander around on its own looking for targets among civilian shipping and deciding what is or isn’t a valid target.  That kind of AI doesn’t exist and would cost enormous sums to develop and would never achieve operational status.  Plus, that kind of candy-ass mission doesn’t call for a powerful WARship like this.  Instead, this is an unmanned ship that is simply given a series of waypoints and instructed to attack anything it can, within some generalized target parameters.  We already have this level of AI … it’s called cruise missiles.  Thus, the AI already exists and would cost almost nothing to develop and integrate.

 

It is important to note, as a crucial part of the CONOPS, that the ship will NOT be required to stay at sea, wandering around aimlessly and autonomously.  Instead, the ship will execute a mission and, if it survives, will return to port where needed maintenance and repairs will be performed and weapons will be reloaded.  It will stay in port until the next mission.

 

So, with that cursory CONOPS in mind, what does the CONOPS tell us about the required ship design characteristics?

 

The CONOPS assures us that the ship will come under attack, will take hits, will have to absorb damage, and will have to continue fighting with only minimal degradation of its combat effectiveness due to battle damage (a complete departure from current Navy ship design practice!).  Further, the ship will need massive amounts of offensive weapons because, having fought its way to a target, we have to make sure we can destroy the target or it’s all a waste of resources and effort.

 

What then, are the specific characteristics of this ship?

 

Sponge Construction – This ship will have nothing in common, structurally, with conventional ships.  Instead, the ship will be built as a ‘sponge’.  By this, I mean that instead of open, floodable compartments bounded by thin sheets of metal, the ‘compartment’ volume will be ‘filled’ by a metallic (or ceramic or resin or whatever material we can technologically produce in this form) ‘foam’.  Like a sponge, the volume will be a closed-cell (you plastics people know what that means) metal (or whatever material) foam.  Picture a giant cube of metal with lots and lots of void spaces like a sponge.  Thus, there will be no compartment to flood and sink the ship.  The worst case would be that an explosion takes a chunk out of the foam.  This kind of foam construction would likely confer tremendous resistance to missile penetration and would absolutely contain and mitigate the effects of a missile explosion.  With foam construction and only a few small service passages and compartments, the vessel would be very resistant to sinking.

 

The only non-foam compartments in the ship would be a few spaces that contain machinery that would need to be accessed for maintenance and repair.  The bulk of the electrical and utility conduits and piping would run through the foamed volumes.  As such, they would not be readily accessible and, if damaged in combat, would be bypassed until repairs could be made.  This ability to bypass and reroute utilities is something that would be designed in with numerous pre-existing cross connects.  In essence, this would create a spider web of electrical and utilities that can be automatically isolated and re-routed as dictated by damage.

 

Service Life - Hand in hand with the foam concept is a short design life span.  If equipment is going to be sealed inside foamed material, it goes without saying that it can’t be easily serviced which automatically limits the life span of the ship.  These ships would have 10-15 year design life spans.  This also eliminates the entire idiotic future proofing and mid-life upgrades that so many people love but that never happen.

 

Weapons - With no need for internal habitability volume, the bulk of the ship’s volume would be available for a very dense weapons fit. 

 

• Missiles – Offensive missiles are the reason this ship exists.  Each ship would carry around 64 missiles in heavily armored, dispersed launch housings.  I use the term ‘launch housings’ because I don’t think the Mk41 VLS is a combat resilient mechanism.  We saw from the Port Royal grounding that the VLS was knocked out of alignment by the gentle nosing aground of the ship.  If a VLS can be put out of alignment by something that gentle, it is unlikely to be combat resilient.  We need a new type of launch housing designed for the abuses of combat.
• AAW – AAW would be limited to horizon range using ESSM missiles.  Each ship would carry around 64 missiles in quad-packed, heavily armored launch housings.
• Close-In Self-Defense Weapons – CIWS/SeaRAM mounts would be numerous (several per ship) to offer the best chance of surviving the inevitable attacks.
• Guns - A ship like this is intended to sail right through enemy missile barrages and into enemy fleets and ports/bases so large caliber guns would be quite useful.   I’m thinking that a heavily armored, double or triple barrel, large caliber gun mount (I’m thinking 8”) is mandatory.  Nothing has the destructive power, efficiency, and cost effectiveness of a large naval gun with a magazine of hundreds of shells per gun.

 

Sensors – Sensors will be triple redundant, widely separated, and housed in armored ‘pop up’ mechanisms.  There would be no delicate, complex Aegis/AMDR arrays.  The sensors would small, simple arrays or rotating arrays (TRS-3D/4D, as an example) suitable for horizon range sensing … nothing more.

 

Armor – It should go without saying that this ship needs to carry the heaviest armor fit it can.  Note, though, that the foam construction fills much of the armor function.

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

All right, there you have it:  a conceptual unmanned WARship that embodies what it means to be a WARship and that takes maximum advantage of the benefits of an unmanned platform.  This is a mean, decisive, offensive machine that would restore some attack capability to the Navy.

 

This would not be a cheap, $200M one-hit-sink unmanned vessel with no significant capabilities (you know, like the unmanned vessels the Navy is building today).  This ship would cost on the order of $600M which is good value for something with the capabilities just described.

 

This conceptual exercise is an object lesson for the Navy.  If you want to implement unmanned vessels, at least make them useful.  Use them to attack, let them shoulder the brunt of the risk, and give them significant firepower so that they’re worth having.  Keep the AI simple and direct to eliminate development costs.  Maximize the benefits of unmanned and use them to their strengths.

 

That was fun!  Now, what does your unmanned vessel look like?

LCS Hellfire Update

The Navy seems to be committed to mounting the AGM-114L Longbow Hellfire missile on the LCS for use against small craft.  Hellfire had previously been tested in March 2017 for launch capability and the Navy was working on problems with tip over – trying to get the missile to tip over from the vertical launch to horizontal flight and pick up the target.  That issue has apparently been solved, at least enough to allow further testing. 

USNI News website reports that the Navy conducted a live fire test in which four Hellfires were vertically launched from the USS Milwaukee, LCS-5, cued from ship’s radar and “other systems”, and hit small craft targets.  Thus, the test appears to have been an integrated launch using the ship’s combat control system.  The conditions of the test and the results are unknown although the Navy released footage showing one missile hitting a target.  Whether the other missiles hit is unknown.  The targets appeared to be moving although speed and range were not stated and it is unknown whether the targets were maneuvering.  The website article contains a brief video of the launch, if you’re interested. (1)

Just to refresh, here’s a few specs on the Longbow Hellfire, which is the Apache helicopter version of the missile.

Weight     100 lbs

Length     64 in

Diameter   7 in

Seeker     millimeter wave radar

Warhead    20 lbs

Range      ~4 miles with a minimum safe range of 546 yds

Hellfire missiles have a variety of warhead types (fragmentation, shaped charge, etc.) and it is unknown which type or types will be used by the LCS.

LCS Hellfire Launch

Range is less than for helo launched missiles due to the vertical launch.

The LCS launcher appears to be an adaptation of the Army M299 launcher in an embedded box mounted in the former NLOS weapon pit.  The launcher can hold 24 missiles. (2)

Recall the lineage of this LCS weapon. 

1. The original surface to surface missile for the LCS was to have been the Non-Line of Sight (NLOS) networked munition

2. After cancellation of NLOS, the Navy looked to develop a custom replacement missile but dropped this project.

3. The Griffin missile was announced in 2011 as the next replacement but was also dropped.

Note that the Navy has still not officially committed to the Hellfire.  The project is considered developmental and is due to wrap up in 2019-20 at which point a decision will be made about deploying the system.

Successful integration of the Longbow Hellfire missile into the LCS will finally provide a credible anti-swarm capability.  Of course, the range is too short and the warhead too small to be a serious threat to corvette or larger size ships.  Thus, the Hellfire will offer a substantial improvement over the current, well … nothing, but still falls woefully short of the original anti-surface and land attack requirement of the ASuW module.

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(1)USNI News website, “USS Milwaukee Launches Hellfires in LCS Surface-to-Surface Missile Module Test”, Megan Eckstein, 16-May-2018,

https://news.usni.org/2018/05/16/uss-milwaukee-fires-lcs-surface-surface-missile-module-developmental-test

(2)Navy Recognition, “Q & A with the U.S. Navy on Lockheed Martin Hellfire missiles for Littoral Combat Ships”, 17-Jul-2014,

http://www.navyrecognition.com/index.php/focus-analysis/naval-technology/1900-q-a-a-with-the-us-navy-on-lockheed-martin-hellfire-missiles-for-littoral-combat-ships.html

Surface Ship Torpedoes

In a previous post, we touched on the subject of anti-surface torpedo tubes in surface ships.  Yes, many ships today have torpedo tubes but the majority are intended for anti-submarine use and utilize lightweight torpedoes.  The US Navy’s standard surface ship torpedo armament is the Mk32 triple tube launcher with Mk46/50/54 lightweight anti-submarine torpedoes.  These torpedoes may or may not have an anti-surface ship mode but they are not ship killers.  The ship killing torpedo in the US Navy is the Mk48 ADCAP (Advanced CAPability) heavy torpedo and even this is intended primarily as an anti-submarine weapon.

                 Mk 48        Mk54         Mk50         Mk46

Range, yds       35000        ?            16000        12000

Speed, kts       55 (63?)     40+          50+          45

Diameter, in/mm  21/533       12.75/324    12.75/324    12.75/324

Length           29’2”        8’11”        9’6”         8’6”

Weight, lbs      3450         608          800          508

Warhead, lbs     650          95           100          95

Cost             $2.4M(FY88)  $0.8M(FY14)  $1M(FY02)

For comparison, here are a couple of the main Russian Torpedoes.

                 Type 65      Type 53 UGST (2)

Range, miles     62@35mph     25

Speed, kts       50           26-45

Diameter, in/mm  25.6/650     21/533 

Length           30           24’  

Weight, lbs      10450        3800   

Warhead, lbs     990-1225     801                 

The Mk46 was designed for open ocean, deep water anti-submarine use and had problems in shallow water.  The Mk50 was developed as the replacement for the Mk46 but encountered problems.  The Mk54 was developed to rectify the problems identified in the Mk50 but does, itself, suffer from shortcomings against shallow water non-nuclear submarines.  A Mk54 Block Upgrade (BUG) program was initiated to address the problems but DOT&E still assessed the torpedo as not operationally effective in its intended role in a 2014 Annual Report and reiterated that assessment in the 2016 Annual Report despite additional upgrade efforts.

According to Polmar (1), US surface ships had anti-ship torpedo tubes until the late 1950’s.  During the 1960’s the Mk48 was intended to be fitted to surface ships for long range, wire guided ASW use but that never occurred.

Polmar also notes that a dedicated anti-surface torpedo was proposed by the Navy in the mid-1980’s (1).  The torpedo was envisioned as a low cost ($200K in then year dollars vs. $2.43M per Mk48 in FY88), no frills alternative to the Mk48.  The program was cancelled in the late 1980’s.

As a brief historical reminder of the use of anti-surface torpedoes on surface ships, here’s a list of the post-WWII ships that have had large, anti-surface-capable torpedo tubes installed.

• Garcia/Brooke Class FFG 2x 21” fixed, stern tubes, Mk37 Torpedo
• Sherman Class DD 4x 21” tubes
• Mitscher Class DL 4x 21” tubes
• Gearing Class DD 10x 21” tubes, twin trainable quintuple mounts, Mk15 Torpedo

That brings us to today.  The US Navy has no surface anti-ship torpedo capability and only a marginally effective submarine launched anti-ship torpedo, the Mk48.

The next question, and the main point of this post, is, does the US Navy need a surface anti-ship torpedo launch capability?

To better frame the question, consider that currently the Burke class DDG probably cannot sink a large ship such as a tanker or large cargo vessel.  If the US attempted a blockade and wanted to sink enemy merchant shipping, the Navy’s surface ships would be hard pressed to accomplish the task.  Small 5” guns are incapable of sinking a ship bigger than a patrol boat and Harpoon or Standard missiles in anti-ship mode will only damage superstructure, not sink a sizable ship.  Smaller ships such as the LCS which would be expected to perform most of the blockade and merchant shipping attacks have zero ability to sink a large ship.  A heavy weight anti-ship torpedo would go a long way toward providing a credible anti-ship capability.

Thus, the main argument for a surface anti-ship torpedo capability is lethality.  Compare the warhead weight of the Mk48 (650 lbs) versus the Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile (276 lbs) which is, apparently, going to be the Navy’s standard anti-ship weapon for smaller ships.  The difference is significant and, while simply comparing warhead weights is fraught with irrelevance, it nonetheless gives some idea of explosive power and concomitant lethality.  Clearly, a heavy torpedo packs a much more potent explosive punch.  Add to that the fact that torpedoes explode on or under the hull and let water in while missiles let air in, and the lethality of torpedoes is accentuated.  Smaller ships such as the LCS would gain a huge increase in lethality by mounting heavy anti-ship torpedoes.

The Mk48 warhead is lighter than the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) (1000 lbs) which may become a standard anti- ship missile for larger ships.  Again, though, the underwater location and nature of a torpedo explosion magnifies its explosive effectiveness.  Thus, even a Burke equipped with the LRASM could benefit from a heavy anti-ship torpedo.  We should also note that the vertical launch version of the LRASM may or may not ever happen and, if it does happen, takes away VLS cells from the ship’s main purpose which is anti-air warfare.

Another argument for torpedoes is their inherent survivability.  Currently, there are no effective active countermeasures to destroy attacking torpedoes and it is debatable how effective acoustic decoys, such as the US Nixie, will be given the Russian development of wake-homing torpedoes.  Unlike anti-ship missiles which are susceptible to electronic countermeasures (ECM), decoys, anti-air missiles, and close-in weapon systems and, therefore, need to be launched in large numbers to ensure sufficient hits, torpedoes can be used in relatively smaller numbers since they are largely immune to countermeasures.

On the other hand, one of the drawbacks to anti-ship torpedoes in the past has been the limited range, at least compared to anti-ship missiles.  The standard WWII Mk15 torpedo, for example, had a maximum range of around 8 miles.  That kind of range is unsuitable for today’s long range, over the horizon type of warfare where anti-ship strike ranges need to be 20-100+ miles.  However, modern torpedoes have greatly increased ranges that bring them in to the low end of anti-ship missile ranges.  For example, while the actual range of the Mk48 is unknown, the often cited range is around 20 miles.  The Mk48 upgrades have increased the fuel load and improved the propulsion so it is reasonable to assume that the range has significantly increased.  30 miles?  60 miles?  Who knows?  The point is that the torpedoes’ range is beginning to approach, for example, the Harpoon range of 60 miles. 

Certainly, modern torpedoes outrange the ship’s onboard sensors which makes them effective to the limit of the ship’s sensors.

Speed is another drawback.  Torpedoes are very slow compared to anti-ship missiles.  A fast torpedo has a speed of 50-60 kts versus even slow anti-ship missiles which have high subsonic speeds.  Thus, the travel time from the launching ship to the target allows for a great deal of movement by the target which complicates the targeting probability of success.  Further, the long travel time allows the enemy the opportunity to strike the launch platform before the torpedoes arrive.  Even if the torpedoes arrive and sink their targets, the launching ships may be destroyed in the interim!

Some of the arguments against torpedoes are valid due to the limitations of US torpedoes whose design and development has languished for decades compared to the advances in Russian torpedoes.  If the US were to develop a completely new anti-ship torpedo, many of the limitations would be eliminated or reduced.

Consider these improvements to torpedo performance.

Range.  Range could be 60-90 miles, matching the low to mid range for anti-ship missiles.  The old Russian Type 65-76 had a range of 60+ miles at 35 mph (2).  The German Navy’s current DM2A4 Seehecht (export designation "SeaHake mod 4") has a reported range of 87 miles (2) with GPS waypoint capability and carries a warhead of 572 lbs.

Speed.  Speed could be 60+ kts.  Russia’s VA-111 Shkval is the extreme example of high speed, reportedly capable of 200+ kts via supercavitation although the high speed comes at the cost of a reduced range of about 9 miles.  The US Mk48 is capable of around 60 kts.

Guidance.  Currently, the US has no wake homing torpedo but there is no technical reason why we could easily develop one.  Thus, a new torpedo could use multiple modes of guidance including passive and active acoustic, wake homing, and GPS/Inertial.  Wire guidance is probably not feasible for a surface ship due to the ship’s maneuvering and near surface turbulence but it’s worth looking at.

WWII Destroyer Torpedo Tubes - Time To Return To The Past?

A modern, new design, anti-ship torpedo could offer a lethality option for surface ships that is currently lacking.  Heavy torpedoes would not negatively impact VLS inventories although deck space and/or internal volume would have to be allocated.  Such a weapon would offer a relatively low cost increase in tactical options to the ship commander and ought to be part of every surface ship’s standard armament.

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(1)“The Naval Institute Guide To The Ships And Aircraft Of The U.S. Fleet”, 16^th ed., Norman Polmar, Naval Institute Press, 1997, p.465-469

(2)Submarine Matters blog, 1-July-2015,

http://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2015/07/russian-torpedos.html

LCS and Hellfire

Here’s an ever so tiny bit of good news related to the LCS.  The Navy has conducted the first test in a series intended to integrate the Hellfire (AGM-114L Longbow) missile into the anti-surface (ASuW) module (1).  Before you get too excited, the test firing was just a structural test to see whether the ship and its structures and fittings could stand the stress, heat, chemicals, etc. of a firing.  This was not a firing involving targets and integration into the ship’s combat control software.  Actual integration and fielding is probably a couple of years away, yet.  Still, it’s a first step to that end.

Hellfire, if it can be successfully integrated into the ship’s combat system, will give the LCS a credible small craft defense capability.  The missile has a millimeter wave radar seeker which gives it a fire and forget capability which will be useful in a swarm scenario.  Advertised range is around 4 miles which is just barely adequate against rocket armed swarm craft.

Let’s also bear in mind the limitations of the Hellfire-LCS.  This does not turn the LCS into a full fledged warship.  The missile has a warhead of around 20 lbs.  That’s not exactly a ship sinker!  Also, the 4 mile range is very short when it comes to dueling with enemy missile boats or frigates.  The LCS will be woefully outranged and “outgunned”.

What the Hellfire gives the LCS is a credible capability against small craft – nothing more.

For a bit of perspective, recall that the original ASuW module called for the NLOS missile which had a range of 25+ miles and was supposed to be capable of in-flight, networked, self-designation of targets and a 30 minute loiter capability over the battlefield, both land and sea.  When one compares that to the actual capabilities of the Hellfire, it is readily apparent just how much capability the ASuW module has lost.  The Hellfire is better than nothing but not by much.

Hellfire Missile

Aside from the challenge of integrating the missile with the ship’s combat system, the main challenge will likely be getting the vertically launched missile to tip over and acquire its target reliably.  Getting the missile’s seeker to quickly spot a small boat, partially obscured in wave clutter, from an initial 90 degree off-angle, is, I suspect, going to be difficult.  The missile seeker’s field of view is limited and the target, a small speedboat, will be moving fast.  If the seeker does not quickly locate the target, it will go dumb and miss.  Also, the initial vertical launch will use up fuel on a path 90 degrees to the target.  In other words, the missile will initially be using fuel but will not be moving towards the target.  That will reduce the missile’s effective range.  Whether that reduction in range is significant or not, I have no idea.  At a guess, I would think the vertical launch will knock a mile of the advertised range, bringing the missile’s effective range down to around 3 miles.  That’s just speculation on my part.

In summary, this is a tiny bit of good news for a program that rarely has any but it is not going to turn the LCS into a warship.

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(1)USNI News website, “VIDEO: Navy Tests Anti-Swarm Boat Missile on Littoral Combat Ship USS Detroit”, Sam LaGrone, 7-Mar-2017,

https://news.usni.org/2017/03/07/video-navy-tests-anti-swarm-boat-missile-on-littoral-combat-ship

ATACMS and Geo-Strategic Reality

Once upon a time, the US military engaged in geo-strategic military planning.  This meant that we identified our potential enemies, studied the geography of the expected battlefield, identified weaknesses of our own associated with the geography, sought advantages we could gain from the geography, and planned and equipped for that geo-specific battle.  Thus, our forces and capabilities were closely aligned with the anticipated battle and battlefield location.  Simple and wise.

The classic example of this type of strategy was the Air-Land Battle strategy designed to counter a Russian invasion of Europe.  We understood the geography.  We understood how the geography would dictate the operational planning of both sides, how it would impact operational execution, and we developed plans and equipment designed specifically to take advantage of, and work within, that geography.

Now, however, the US military has abandoned geo-strategic planning in favor of techno-strategic planning.  Rather than develop strategies to counter specific enemies (heck, we won’t even name our enemies!), we now develop strategies to counter generic technologies – technologies that any given enemy might or might not have.  We have abandoned planning for the geographic realities associated with any specific enemy and, instead, are planning generically for opposing technologies.  Thus, our planning overlooks or ignores geographic considerations and cedes geographic advantages to the enemy.

For example, a fight with Russia will occur in a completely different geographical setting than a fight with China and yet we’re treating both the same from a strategic perspective.  We’re attempting to counter their technologies rather than the geo-military realities. 

Let’s look at a specific example.

The Army has announced that it is adding a seeker to its land based ATACMS (MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System) missile in order to be able to hit moving ships at sea at a range of 100 miles or so (1).  The Army is reviving its coastal artillery concept in order to remain a relevant player in the Pacific Pivot.

Two obvious, related points jump out.

• This is clearly an attempt to remain budget-relevant in a Pacific theater that allows for little use of Army ground forces.  Is a ship-attack ATACMS really useful or even viable?  It doesn’t matter.  What matters is that it can be used to strengthen the Army’s budget position.

• This is clearly a niche capability that has little usefulness in any geo-specific battlefield that we are likely to find ourselves fighting on.

An anti-ship ATACMS suffers from the same challenge that every long range missile system does which is the difficulty in targeting at long range.  The 100+ mile ATACMS needs a target and the land based Army has no ready means of providing that targeting.  UAVs could be used although they suffer from the same susceptibility to destruction and susceptibility to communications disruption that all UAVs do.  Land based radar, unless sited on a significant elevation, can’t detect surface targets at that range due to the limited radar horizon.  Targeting data can be provided by Navy or Air Force patrol assets but that not only requires dependence on networking, which we’ve already noted is likely to be degraded and only sporadically available, but it requires dependence on cross-service networking.  Intra-service networking (within a single service) is unreliable.  Inter-service networking (across services) is a fantasy.  We’re still working to get all the services to use the same communications protocols – we’re not going to get cross-service networking to function!

Army ATACMS - Impressive But Useless

So, we’re left with a theoretical capability that sounds good on paper but has little likelihood of usage or success.

Now, let’s look at the geo-specific considerations which the military has chosen to ignore, as we’ve noted.

The Pacific-Chinese theater has very little land accessible by the US military within a 100-200 mile range of any likely battlespace.  China already controls the first island chain and is beginning to eye the second.  Japan is a possibility for siting ATACMS units but 100-200 miles from mainland Japan is not where the main battles are going to occur. 

Well, can’t we seize the first chain islands and then place ATACMS on them?  Sure, but if we have the power to seize the islands then the likelihood that we can’t totally control a 100 mile range around the islands is miniscule.  Look at a map.  The first chain islands are generally not within a hundred miles of likely battles.  If we’ve seized the islands, there won’t be any Chinese ships remaining within range.  They’ll have been destroyed or pulled back to defend the mainland.  Thus, there won’t be any use for anti-ship ATACMS.

Now consider a war with Russia.  It will be a European land war.  Russia simply doesn’t have a significant Navy that is going to operate near land.  Their few ships will be destroyed at the outset by airpower.  There will be no use for an anti-ship ATACMS in a war with Russia.

Similarly, Iran and NKorea possess no relevant navies for an anti-ship ATACMS to defend against.

This is nothing more than recognizing the geo-strategic realities and the enemy order of battle.  When we consider the potential for use of an anti-ship ATACMS, it quickly becomes obvious that there is no practical use.  If there is no practical use then that only leaves its use as a budget leverage gimmick.

Well, why would supposedly intelligent Army leaders want to pursue this if it’s nothing more than a budget leverage gimmick?  They pursue it because it does provide budget leverage.  Remember, the goal of current military leaders is not the defense of our country; their goal is enhancement of their service’s budget slice.  Additionally, this is another symptom of a military that is techno-strategic rather than geo-strategic.  The few military leaders that are not blatantly political and bureaucratic have forgotten what geo-military analysis is and know only how to match technologies.  An anti-ship ATACMS is cool technology, when considered in isolation from any geo-military reality.  The fact that it has no practical use is lost on leaders who have never known any other way to analyze a military problem than by focusing on technology match ups.

Our military leaders have been educated in business management, systems analysis, politics, budgets, accounting, and civilian business practices.  They no longer know how to formulate a coherent military strategy.  Consider the hundreds of poor military management decisions we’ve highlighted on this blog.  They were poor decisions because they were based on factors other than a guiding military strategy.  This anti-ship ATACMS is a symptom of a military that has forgotten how to formulate a strategy.

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(1)Breaking Defense website, “Carter, Roper Unveil Army’s New Ship-Killer Missile: ATACMS Upgrade”, Sydney J. Freedburg Jr., 28-Oct-2016,

http://breakingdefense.com/2016/10/army-atacms-missile-will-kill-ships-secdef-carter/

War Is Unfair!

The Navy has taken LCS whining to new lows, calling combat test scenarios “unfair”.  Before we go any further, let’s just sit back and reminisce about all the wars that have been fair to both sides and in which both sides agreed to make the conditions fair if they inadvertently became unfair.  Yeah, it’s a pretty short list, isn’t it?  Nobody willingly enters into a fair war.  In fact, the entire aim of warfare is to create unfair conditions that offer overwhelming advantages.  Okay, let’s return to the point.

The Navy apparently conducted some LCS anti-swarm testing in Aug and Sep of last year and it didn’t go well (1).  According to DOT&E’s Michael Gilmore and as reported by Bloomberg Business website, attacking swarm boats penetrated the LCS “keep out” zone in two of three tests.  The test conditions were not specified.

“In the exercise, the crew of the Coronado “expended a large quantity” of 57mm and 30mm ammunition “while contending with repeated network communications faults that disrupted” information flowing to gun systems and weapon elevation flaws that occurred more than a dozen times, disrupting firings, he [Gilmore] said.”

Breaking Defense website reports on the Navy whining (2).

“Yes, a Navy official told me, in the test some “enemy” boats got dangerously close to the USS Coronado and inflicted simulated “damage.” But the LCS still repelled the attack — and without its full complement of weapons: The long-range Hellfire missile has yet to be installed.”

““It just seems to me it was an unfair treatment,” the Navy official concluded.”

Note that the "repelled" part occurred after the swarm drones penetrated to lethal range.  Given that the LCS is not designed to take a hit and keep fighting, "repelling" the craft after they've sunk the LCS is a bit of a misleading claim for the Navy to make.

So, I guess the takeaway from this is that the LCS will only be used in combat that is fair.

Of course, this raises questions about what happens when the modular LCS is caught without the proper module for the combat at hand – say, when a MCM LCS is attacked by swarm boats.  Will the crew radio the Iranians and ask them to wait until the LCS can swap out its module for an ASuW one to make the combat fair?

I recall from my history that the Japanese turned back from attacking Pearl Harbor because surprise attacks weren’t fair.  Oh wait, that didn’t happen.

Professional warriors whining about fairness …  This is what our Navy has come to.

(1)Bloomberg Business Website, “New U.S Navy Ship Struggles in Test to Fend Off Attacking Boats”, Anthony Capaccio, Jan 29, 2016,

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-29/littoral-ship-struggles-in-u-s-test-to-fend-off-attacking-boats

(2)Breaking Defense, “LCS Test Vs. Fast Attack Boats ‘Unfair': Missile Missing, Navy Says”, Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., Jan 29, 2016,

http://breakingdefense.com/2016/01/lcs-test-vs-fast-attack-boats-unfair-missile-missing-navy-says/

LCS Hellfire

As we all know, the current plan to beef up the anemic ASuW capability of the LCS is to incorporate the AGM-114L Longbow (Apache helo) Hellfire missile.  The Hellfire replaces the Griffon missile that the Navy briefly considered.  Here’s a few Hellfire specs.

Range:            500 yds – 5 miles (likely less with a sea level vertical launch)

Seeker:          millimeter wave radar

Speed:           Mach 1.3

Warhead:       20 lb, high explosive anti-tank (HEAT)

The missile’s active radar seeker gives it a fire-and-forget capability which, in turn, gives it the ability to engage multiple targets in a short time frame.  This is ideal for the small boat swarm scenario.  Hellfire is proven, lethal to small boats, and cheap enough ($100K+ per missile) to justify using for the intended purpose.

On the other hand, the Hellfire’s target set is extremely limited.  The target is strictly small boats that must close to a few miles or less to attack.  Presumably, this means small boats armed with RPGs and machine guns.  Larger missile carrying boats and fast attack craft (FAC) armed with small anti-ship missiles far outrange the LCS’ Hellfire and, thus, are not an applicable target set.

Still, assuming the Hellfire launch system does not wind up taking up too much deck space or internal ship’s volume, the missile is easily justified despite its limited target set.

The other question is whether the Hellfire will become part of the core seaframe capability or will be present only as part of the ASuW module.  Again, assuming the space and weight requirement is minimal, the missiles ought to be part of the seaframe although this is somewhat at odds with the Navy’s original intention of modular outfitting.  Of course, even the Navy has essentially admitted that the modular concept won’t work for the LCS.

Hellfire Missile

All in all, the Hellfire represents a good choice for the intended target set and can’t help but improve the LCS’ overall capability, at least to some small extent.  A small step in the right direction for the LCS!

LCS OTH RFI

No, that post title is not a random assortment of letters.  The Navy has issued a Request For Information (RFI) to industry to solicit ideas for an over-the-horizon (OTH) missile system for the LCS.  The two obvious candidates are an upgraded Harpoon and Kongsberg’s Naval Strike Missile (NSM) was “test fired” from an LCS in an absolutely worthless test in which the missile launcher was simple placed on the deck of the LCS-4, USS Coronado, last year and launched with absolutely no tie in to the ship’s weapon systems.  The same test could have been equally well performed from a dock or a parking lot in a shopping mall. 

In any event, the assumption was that the test was paving the public relations way for selection of the NSM as the OTH weapon for the LCS.  It is unclear why the Navy is taking a step that could be construed as a step back by issuing this RFI.  Presumably, something has come to light regarding the NSM that renders it less than ideal for use with the LCS.  Aside from mundane issues like cost or production capacity, the only technical issue I can imagine is an inability to smoothly integrate into the fire control system.  Supporting this thought is the RFI’s language calling for industry information regarding complete weapon systems for the OTH role.

ComNavOps will continue to keep an eye on this.

New Frigate Design - Part 2

I’m sure you all recognized that “new” frigate design as just being a Fletcher class destroyer.  Hopefully, though, that little thought exercise also made you realize just how far we’ve moved away from real warships over the years since WWII.

Consider the sheer density of weapons that WWII warships carried.  Modern warships don’t even come close.  A simple Fletcher class destroyer puts an LCS to humiliating shame and, in many respects, even a Burke.

Consider the armor and survivability of even the lowly Fletcher compared to an LCS or Burke.

My point is not that we need to build exact duplicates of WWII Fletchers but that we need to return to serious WARship design and a study of WWII designs is a good place for the Navy to start since they seem to have forgotten what a warship is.

We tend to think the modern VLS is a wondrous thing – able to spit forth highly accurate missiles all day long.  Why, a single Burke has 96 missiles and can, therefore, shoot down around 85 enemy missiles and aircraft (we’re attempting to be fair and acknowledge that a few misses might occur).  The reality, though, is that the historical record of modern AAW systems is abysmal.  In addition, the Navy’s philosophy is shoot-shoot-look, or some such.  If you consider an average of four missiles per target, that’s only 24 targets that can be engaged (we’re ignoring quad-packs).  Given that a portion of the VLS cells would likely be filled with Tomahawks and ASROC, that probably drops the AAW target capacity to around 16.  There you have it.  A modern Burke can engage around 16 targets before running out of “ammo”.  We’ve covered VLS and AAW effectiveness in previous posts so I won’t belabor it further.

The point is that modern ships have a very low weapon density and even lower “magazine” capacity.  A Fletcher could engage aerial targets for hours on end.

The situation is even worse for surface combat.  Modern USN ships have almost no anti-surface capability.  A Burke has a maximum of 8 Harpoons and a single 5” gun.  Compare that to a Fletcher with five 5” guns and ten large torpedoes.  Again, the Fletcher’s gun magazines allowed it to engage multiple targets, endlessly, for practical purposes.

Even the Burkes vaunted Tomahawk capability is limited.  While the Tomahawk is a very potent long range precision strike weapon, the general utility of the missile is a bit limited.  In an amphibious assault scenario, for example, a Burke would probably have a Tomahawk loadout of around 20 Tomahawks.  That’s 20 targets that can be engaged and then the Burke is limited to a single 5” gun.  Further, the Tomahawk is not capable of area bombardment and suppressive fire (well, I guess it is but at $1M+ per missile no one would use it that way).  By comparison, the Fletcher could engage land targets for hours on end with five 5” guns.

Consider the simple task of sinking an enemy tanker.  A modern Burke probably can’t accomplish it.  Eight Harpoons would be unlikely to sink a tanker.  By comparison, a Fletcher’s ten 21” torpedoes would almost certainly do the job.

I know some of you are going to try to make the argument that modern guided weapons make large magazines superfluous.  A single missile can do the work of hundreds of unguided rounds, you claim.  Well, you’re right – if the guided missile actually worked the way the manufacturer’s claim.  We’ve already documented that the historical record for guided missiles is very poor.  This blog is based on logic and data and the data is unequivocal – guided missiles are not very accurate.  Hit rates for AAW engagements are in the 1% - 25% range and for surface engagements are in the 20% range, at best, and will likely be in the 1%-10% range against actively defended warships.

All right, that’s enough.  My point is not to argue that a Fletcher is more powerful than a Burke, although for many scenarios one could make a credible argument for just that, but that the weapon density, armor, and survivability of modern warships has been severely compromised since WWII.  We have lost our way in warship design and the study of WWII warships is a good place to start reminding ourselves of how we should be designing warships.

LRASM Update

Defense Industry Daily (DID) has an article (1) on the Navy’s possible Harpoon replacement, the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM).  Here’s a few salient points.

• The program is a DARPA research effort, not an acquisition program.  Even if the missile is successfully developed the Navy must adopt and fund it.

• The program originally looked at two versions, LRASM-A and LRASM-B.  The –A version is a subsonic, air launched version while the –B is a heavier, high Mach, ship launched missile.  The –B version has been put on indefinite hold.

• The LRASM-A is not currently VLS capable though there is no reason why it couldn’t be adapted to VLS.  Of course, there has been no reason the Harpoon couldn’t be adapted to VLS and, yet, it never was!

• The proposed interim anti-ship version of Tomahawk has been cancelled, if it ever was a legitimate project.

The DID article makes the point that given the current budget situation and the Navy’s stated and demonstrated desire for new construction above all else, the funding and acquisition of the LRASM is anything but a given, no matter how great the need.  The Navy will continue to fund new construction even if they have to cut every other project to do it.  We’ll keep a close eye on this one.

By the way, do you remember the post about your enemies telling you what they fear most (if not, read it here)?  Well, if you turn it around, what do we fear the most as regards anti-ship missiles?  I’d say it’s heavy, supersonic missiles with maneuvering capability and on-board ECM.  What we don’t particularly fear is small subsonic missiles.  With that in mind, why are we pursuing the LRASM-A, a small subsonic missile?  Is it just me or does something not seem right about this?  Also by the way, didn’t we develop the Mk57 peripheral vertical launch cell specifically to handle larger missiles?  Wouldn’t this seem to be an ideal match between the launch system and the LRASM-B?  Of course, I don’t know if the –B would even fit in the Mk57 but you get the idea – we developed the larger cells to handle larger missiles and now we’re going to develop a smaller anti-ship missile.  What????

(1)   Defense Industry Daily, http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/lrasm-missiles-reaching-for-a-long-reach-punch-06752/