Seize the High Ground … Or Some Level Ground … Or Any Ground …

We’ve previously noted that the Navy is a mostly defensive force.  Now, we have to add the Marines to that assessment as they are transforming from a ground seizing force to a missile-based defense force.

 

For the sake of discussion, let’s pretend that the idiotic Marine concept of small, hidden, missile launching forces is completely valid, effective, and survivable.  How does that concept impact an overall war?  Well, let’s consider what influence a small missile launching unit can have in combat.

 

Being able to launch a handful of anti-ship missiles into an area of one or two hundred miles radius around the launch point prevents enemy ships from entering that area – again, we’ll assume that enemy Aegis-type ships would be deterred by a handful of missiles.  That’s a denial capability which is, inherently, defensive.  In the Chinese theatre, this translates to setting up a blockade of sorts – we’ll assume we’ll somehow get permission to set up such bases on the myriad islands that we have no ownership of, or basing rights to, – that, at its most effective, prevents the Chinese surface navy from exiting the first island chain.  We’ll ignore the fact that for the foreseeable future, the Chinese have no interest in exiting the first island chain during a war.

 

Now, let’s consider the geography and distances.  The distance from the first island chain islands to the Chinese mainland is 500-1000 miles depending on where you choose to measure.  The shortest distances are from the Philippines and we can safely assume that the Chinese-leaning Philippines are not going to grant us basing rights in a war with China.  We’ll be lucky if they don’t actively enter the war on the Chinese side!  So, that leaves us with the longer distances, again, assuming we can get basing rights anywhere.  That means that the bulk of the thousand mile deep South China Sea is unthreatened by the Marine’s one or two hundred mile missiles – we’ll ignore the targeting challenges involved in getting sensor platforms one to two hundred miles deep into the South China Sea and surviving long enough to find a target and transmit data.

 

The usual purpose of a war is to seize territory:  either territory you want to take from someone else or territory you want to reclaim because it was taken from you.  As they are constituted today and as they are envisioned in the moderately near future, how are the Navy and Marines set up to seize territory?  The short, brutal answer is that they are not. 

 

The Marines have flat out stated that they are out of the amphibious frontal assault business.  Further, they have transformed themselves from a middle weight force with tanks and artillery to a very light infantry force with no tanks, not much artillery, no armored fighting vehicles, and few heavy weapons.  They won’t be seizing anything.

 

In short, the Marines have very little to contribute to an offensive strategy.

 

The navy can’t, themselves, seize ground, of course.  However, the traditional role of the Navy is to support ground forces that can seize territory.  That role involves transporting soldiers and supplies, providing amphibious assault ships and ground support firepower, and conducting offensive strikes in support of an overall offensive, ground seizing strategy. 

 

Unfortunately, the Navy has completely abandoned naval gun support firepower, has only an obsolete, non-survivable land attack cruise missile that is too expensive to use in general area bombardment, and has ships that are too expensive to risk in open battle.  The Navy’s main weapon system is Aegis and that is a purely defensive system. 

 

The Navy has only the big deck amphibious ships for transport and those are likely to be phased out in favor of the small Light Amphibious Warships (capacity 75 troops) that the Marine Commandant has demanded the Navy give him.  Given the cost of building, manning, and maintaining large amphibious ships that the Marines don’t want, the Navy is likely to quickly begin retiring the large ships.

 

In short, the Navy has very little to contribute to an offensive strategy.

 

The Navy and Marines have ensured that the next offensive waged by this country will be a purely Army affair with no Marine contribution and, at best, some logistics contribution from the Navy.

 

Of course, if we toss in even a bit of realism (you noted all the assumptions we had to make in the preceding discussion in order to keep the conversation moving?), the Marines missile-shooting concept is dead on arrival and they won’t be able to contribute even a defensive effort.

 

Seize the high ground?      Sorry, no ……..

Marine's New Top Priorities: Maternity Leave and Sea Denial

The new Marine Corps Commandant, Gen. David Berger, is off to a mystifying start to his tenure.  He began with a guidance document that basically said that the Marines were going to dump conventional amphibious ships in favor of small, distributed ships and that legacy systems would be eliminated to fund modernization.  No details were offered and the military community has been expectantly waiting for more information.  His guidance document offered some welcome focus on the threat of China even if some of his solutions were questionable.  As we wait for details to emerge about his new combat focus, the Commandant has made some downright baffling public statements about his priorities. 

Gen. Berger has prioritized family leave for Marines with proposals for up to a year’s leave for new mothers (1) as well as,

Furthering gender integration in job fields previously closed to women, expanding maternity leave and raising the intellectual bar for infantry troops are among the Marine Corps’ priorities, the service’s top officer said.(2)

Is this really a priority?  Not only does it have nothing to do with combat but it will clearly hurt our combat capabilities.  It also raises a host of questions.  Will new mothers be counted as combat ready troops in the Marine’s table of manning?   Will returning mothers, fresh off a year of leave and the exhaustion of infant rearing be instantly combat ready?  Of course they won’t so what good are they?  Will returning mothers have to undergo some type of refresher boot camp to get back into shape and regain their combat skills (I can’t type that without laughing but …) – essentially amounting to even more time off in terms of being a combat asset?  The Commandant wants to give female/mother Marines what amounts to a year and a half to two years off to have a child and return to combat readiness?  If a female Marine wants to have multiple children are we really going to pay them to have several years off to do the family thing?  Theoretically, a female could have several paid years off (and highly restricted duty when back) to raise a family, all on the Marine’s dime and without ever serving on a deployment or being combat capable.  Isn’t that called welfare?  Since when did the Marine Corps become a kiddie day care center or a social experimentation program?  Who’s going to fill the female’s vacated billets?  Who’s going to deploy in place of the females?  Yeah, that would be the men.  I don’t see any resentment happening because of this.

The Few, The Proud, The Mommy Welfare Group

Additional priority items include (4):

• Exempting pregnant Marines from “standing at parade rest or attention for longer than 15 minutes”
• Increased gender integration
• Increasing enlistment test scores

The few, the proud, the out of shape exhausted mothers!  The Chinese are trembling in fear.

Continuing the befuddlement, the Commandant is now stating that the Marine’s top ground forces priority is sea denial which he envisions accomplishing by placing small units with anti-ship missiles on distributed islands or land.

The Marine Corps is all in on fielding mobile anti-ship missiles in the Pacific to challenge China’s growing Navy, declaring it in written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee’s seapower subcommittee to be its highest ground modernization priority.

“A ground-based anti-ship missile capability will provide anti-ship fires from land as part of an integrated naval anti-surface warfare campaign,” the written testimony reads. “This forward-deployed and survivable capability will enhance the lethality of our naval forces and will help to deny our adversaries the use of key maritime terrain.” (3) [emphasis added]

The Marine’s ground mission is sea control?????

The Marines, who should be concentrating on figuring out how to get an amphibious combat vehicle from 50 miles offshore to the beach, who should be working to rediscover their amphibious assault capability, who should be taking on the core mission of port seizure (my opinion, not the Marine’s), who should be frantically working on mobile anti-aircraft/anti-cruise missile capability, who should be reversing their trend of shedding tanks and artillery, who should be emphasizing ground force lethality, are now going to switch to sea denial as their new top priority?  Isn’t that the Navy’s mission?  Have the Marines solved all their problems and have so much extra budget that they can now take on a Navy responsibility?

I’m sorry but sea denial is about dead last on my list of priorities for the Marines – just ahead of maternity leave.

So, setting aside my stunned disbelief, how do the Marines see this sea denial working?

The Marines are looking at not just one but two anti-ship systems:  one is based on a remote control version of the HIMARS vehicle (why remote control?  what does that gain us if the troops are there anyway?) firing a Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile and the other is an anti-ship version of Tomahawk which would be launched from an, as yet, unknown platform.  Okay, let’s look a bit closer at this concept.

What’s the overall concept?  According to the Marines,

The Marine Corps’ concept of operations, as outlined by Berger in last year’s planning guidance,  …  the Marines want to be able to spread their forces in small groups around islands in the Pacific and deny freedom of maneuver to the Chinese fleet. (3)

Has anyone wargamed this with even a small dose of reality?  How are we going to infiltrate Chinese controlled areas and land HIMARS vehicles, missiles, men, and supplies without being seen?  You don’t transport HIMARS vehicles and Tomahawk launchers on combat canoes.  They’ll have to be transported on amphibious or cargo ships of some kind.  Won’t the Chinese kind of … you know … see that?  Or, is this more of the military’s ever-growing tendency to assume that the enemy will cooperate in their own destruction?

Honestly, this sounds like some top drawer, high quality, fantasy thinking.

Marine Corps requirements and development chief Lt. Gen. Eric Smith told reporters last year during the Expeditionary Warfare Conference that the Marines want to fight on ground of their choosing and then maneuver before forces can concentrate against them.

“They are mobile and small, they are not looking to grab a piece of ground and sit on it,” Smith said of his Marine units. “I’m not looking to block a strait permanently. I’m looking to maneuver. The German concept is ‘Schwerpunkt,’ which is applying the appropriate amount of pressure and force at the time and place of your choosing to get maximum effect.”

So, we’re disbursing small units on scattered islands and they’re somehow going to ‘maneuver before the enemy can concentrate against them’?  Uh … they’re on small islands.  How much maneuvering can they do? 

Maybe the Marines think they can maneuver to another island?  Again, how will we get large cargo ships to these remote, scattered islands to re-embark the Marines and move them to another island without being seen?

Seriously, if we can sail cargo ships (and escorts? now we’re talking large task forces – won’t those be noticed?) with utter stealth and impunity all around the enemy-controlled waters, we don’t need to use Marines to control the sea, we can just send Burkes to sail up next to the oblivious enemy ships and board them.

Wait, there’s more …

Smith describes a concept where the U.S. fleet can herd Chinese ships into a contested area where the Marines can do damage from the shore.

“So, if I’m maneuvering in support of the fleet commander in a contested, confined space, through the mobility I bring in air and with surface connectors I can get to a point and block or strike something that has been herded into a contested space – something that has been herded into that space by the fleet commander.” (3)

Again, the degree of willing cooperation and the assumed utter cluelessness of the enemy is staggering.  We’re going to set up these magic, hidden anti-ship units and the Chinese are going to allow us to ‘herd’ them into range?  Again, if we have sufficient naval force to ‘herd’ the Chinese navy then we really don’t need a few more Marine anti-ship missiles, do we?

Here’s the takeaways from this:

How do we transport large vehicles to these small, remote islands and lands without being detected?

How do we find targets that are beyond the horizon?  Are we going to build airstrips and operate long range UAVs on these small islands all without being detected?  Or, maybe we’ll use the regional network that ties all the non-survivable surveillance assets together in one ginormous, real time tactical picture?

Without long range surveillance and targeting, the effective area is limited to the horizon which is 12-15 miles from shore.

A small unit’s single launcher with one to a few missiles is of absolutely no tactical significance.  Will we land large numbers of launchers and missiles (along with reload equipment)?  If so, again, how will we conduct these large scale landings and operations without being detected?

This Commandant is all over the map.  China is his number one threat and priority and yet his first actions have to do with maternity leave????  His top ground priority is sea denial?  This guy is not giving me warm, fuzzy feelings about his grasp of the issues facing the Marines.

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(1)military.com website, “Marines' New Top Officer Wants to Give New Moms a Full Year Off”, Gina Harkins, 17-Jul-2019,

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/07/17/marines-new-top-officer-wants-give-new-moms-full-year.html

(2)Stars and Stripes website, “Women in more job fields, added maternity leave on top Marine’s priority list”, Immanuel Johnson, 24-Feb-2020,

https://www.stripes.com/news/women-in-more-job-fields-added-maternity-leave-on-top-marine-s-priority-list-1.620075

(3)Defense News website, “To combat the China threat, US Marine Corps declares ship-killing missile systems its top priority”, David B. Larter, 5-Mar-2020,

https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/03/05/to-combat-the-china-threat-us-marine-corps-declares-ship-killing-missile-systems-its-top-priority/

(4)Marine Corps Times website, “These Are The 21 Internal Memo Items The Top Marine Wants To Immediately Change”, Philip Athey, 4-Mar-2020,

https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2020/03/04/these-are-the-21-internal-memo-items-the-commandant-wants-to-immediately-change-in-the-corps/

Marine's "Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment" Document

The Marine Corps has just released the 2017 unclassified version of “Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment”.  I began reading this with great interest, hoping to have many heretofore puzzling and contradictory doctrinal conundrums explained.  For example, I’ve been reading statements by Marine leadership that in order to effect a landing, they must first land and secure the landing area.  That’s a Catch-22 if I’ve ever heard one!

Unfortunately, I was absolutely stunned by a sentence in the opening paragraphs defining the scope of the document.  From section 2. (Scope), 2.b.1/2 describes the range of operations that the document applies to.  At the low end are what are described in 2.b.1 as “Crisis Response Operations in Uncertain Environments” which include humanitarian assistance, evacuations, and embassy reinforcements – generally non-combat or occasionally very low end combat scenarios.  At the other end of the range, 2.b.2 describes “Contingency Operations in Hostile Environments. 

The latter, presumably describes actual combat … war.  However, the following statement casts severe doubt on how much combat/war this entire concept applies to.

“…major combat operations (MCO) and campaigns versus peer competitors are beyond the scope of this concept.”

What???  Major combat operations and peer combat are not covered by this concept?  Are the Marines really saying that their capabilities and this concept are not useful in a peer war?  That’s what it seems to be saying – that none of the littoral capabilities described in this document apply to actual war?!

Did the Marines really just develop an entire concept that has no applicability to peer war?  Did they really just acknowledge that they have no role in peer combat? 

I can’t believe that’s what was intended but I see no other way to interpret it.  All I can hope is that it was just a very poorly worded sentence but given the Corps’ trend towards lightness, they may be acknowledging that they are no longer a serious warfighting organization.  I’ve got to get a clarification on this.

I’m not going to go any further in analyzing this document for two reasons. 

1. Until I understand the actual scope of the document, I can’t perform a valid assessment.
2. The rest of the document is garbage that reads like a generic sales brochure to Congress.

Cracking the Line

Today we are honored to have a guest post from regular reader and contributor, Mr. Bustamante, who discusses the role of guided missile submarines in A2/AD scenarios.  You may recall his previous post, "Myth of the Unopposed Landing".  Read and enjoy!

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Cracking the Line

The Case for Guided Missile Submarines in Anti-Access and Area Denial (A2/AD) Scenarios

“But things have changed… the resurgence of Russia and the ascendance of China, both of which are producing numerous submarines, and in particular in Russia’s part, extremely capable submarines… we’re facing challenges of both quantity and quality from our competitors (1).

- Rear Admiral Michael Jabaley

War is a numbers game, even the peacetime deployments obey the rules of math; the challenge is that our submarine force numbers are inadequate and will further decline to approximately 41 boats by 2029 (2).  Projected wartime demands of submarine force call for approximately 35 operationally ready SSNs, in turn requiring 48 boats simply to ensure that 35 will be available (3).  Exacerbating the numerical shortfall is the proliferation of sophisticated anti-access and area denial (A2/AD) defenses, which present a lethal zone of land based maritime strike (aircraft, cruise, and ballistic missiles), sophisticated air defenses, and mines.  These A2/AD defenses can extend from 1,000 to 1,500nm offshore and the most viable naval counter is the submarine launched cruise missile.  However, our navy also faces loss of submarine cruise missile delivery capacity due to the retirement of the four Ohio-class guided missile submarines (SSGNs) without replacement (4).  It is worth noting that our submarines are expected to shoulder the high priority ASW mission, and also enable USAF bomber and naval strikes with cruise and missile strikes to defeat sophisticated anti-access and area denial (A2/AD) defenses.  Nor does this represent the full scope of submarine missions (5). 

There are several potential solutions if we desire a larger submarine force:

1.  Build more submarines.  Current shipyard capacity appears to be limited to at most three nuclear-powered submarines a year.  Even if budgets permit; there are only two shipyards in the country capable of building nuclear-powered ships and it is unlikely that construction rates can be increased without significant capitol infrastructure investment (6).  Nuclear submarine production capacity is also constrained by the requirement to build replacement SSBNs for our strategic forces to replace the aging Ohio class, as well as nuclear powered aircraft carriers.  Finally, a new construction SSGN, while highly desirable, is likely to be secondary in priority to the replacement SSBNs, 12 of which will be built before any new construction could start.

2.  Service Life Extension (SLEP) existing SSNs, if possible.  This alternative is a huge unknown and will require analysis of each SSN to determine the engineering and economic feasibility.

3.  Augment our SSN force with advanced Air-Independent Propulsion (AIP) submarines (SSKs) converted into SSGs by installing a hull section with at least 12 (or more) vertically launched missile cells (VLS) to address the land attack mission (7).  This could be done by purchasing the building rights (or outright buy) submarines from our allies.  

To be clear, the SSG is not a replacement for the SSN.  Furthermore, the U.S. should build SSNs at maximum shipyard capacity for the foreseeable future.  SSNs retain vital endurance and high submerged speed operational capabilities vital for open ocean operations.  These advantages allowed, diesel electric SSKs have always been the stealthiest of submarines within the constraints of battery power, making them highly survivable.  Modern SSKs have maximum submerged speeds exceeding 20 knots, and the ability to travel very long distances using fuel efficient diesels.  With the advent of Air-Independent Propulsion (AIP), SSKs now possess optimal survivability, submerged endurance, and speed to penetrate sophisticated anti-access and area denial (A2/AD) defenses owing to the research going into AIP technologies including: fuel cells, Stirling cycle engines, and Module d'Energie Sous-Marine Autonome (MESMA) (8).  Table 1. Follows and includes pertinent open source information comparing a modern SSN with competing SSKs:

Table 1. Submarine Characteristics Compared

Source: survey of current defense literature.

Further points in favor of the SSG are a comparatively low procurement cost of ~$600 million per boat (before installation of a Vertical Launch System), and reduced manning roughly 33% to 50% of the SSN crew requirements. Critically, AIP submarines can be massed produced: ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems GmbH (Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft GmbH) claimed to have nine submarines under construction or being upgraded at its Kiel facility, a vital capability in war (9).

Penetrating an A2/AD defense to launch strikes will require that our SSG get to a firing position within 750 nautical miles or so of an enemy coast.  We must assume that AIP propulsion must be used within the A2/AD zone, as a snorkeling SSK is vulnerable to detection and destruction by Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA); this will reduce submerged transit speeds to 6-8 knots.  At 6.5 knots, a modern AIP submarine can travel about 156 nautical miles submerged each day, so it will take five days for an SSG to travel from a position outside a 1,500 nautical mile A2/AD zone to a cruise missile launch point within 750 nautical miles of the coast (10). 

In the end, the argument in favor of the SSG is not about optimum capability, but instead on procuring sufficient numbers of viable boats to round out the submarine force in the strike warfare mission.  Further improvements in batteries and AIP seem likely to improve the capability of submarines.  The AIP equipped submarine, operated by many potential adversaries, also makes an incredibly useful training asset for our navy to train against. Configured with VLS, the SSG is now an absolutely credible solution for strike warfare (land attack), commerce raiding, offensive mining, and ASW. 

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(1)Congressional Research Service report RL32418, Navy Virginia (SSN-774) Class Attack Submarine Procurement: Background and Issues for Congress, April 14, 2016, by Ronald O'Rourke, pg. 14.

(2)“The Navy’s FY2017 30-year SSN procurement plan, if implemented, would not be sufficient to maintain a force of 48 SSNs consistently over the long run.  The Navy projects under that plan the SSN force would fall below 48 boats starting in FY2025, reach a minimum of 41 boats in FY2029, and remain below 48 boats through FY2036.” Congressional Research Service report RL32418, Navy Virginia (SSN-774) Class Attack Submarine Procurement: Background and Issues for Congress, April 14, 2016, by Ronald O'Rourke, summary page. 

(3)“The peak projected wartime demand of about 35 SSNs deployed within a certain amount of time … is an internal Navy figure that reflects several studies of potential wartime requirements for SSNs.”  Congressional Research Service report RL32418, Navy Virginia (SSN-774) Class Attack Submarine Procurement: Background and Issues for Congress, April 14, 2016, by Ronald O'Rourke, pg. 11.

(4)“From FY2026 through FY2028 the Navy will retire its four Ohio-class guided missile submarines (SSGNs).  Each SSGN can carry a maximum of 154 vertically launched BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles per boat, seven (7) Tomahawk cruise missiles in 22 large-diameter vertical launch tubes (two (2) of the 24 tubes cannot carry the missiles).  The four SSGNs can carry a combined total of 616 vertically launched Tomahawks.  The navy plan is to build Twenty-two Virginia-class boats built with Virginia Payload Modules (VPM) to carry a combined total of 616 Tomahawk missiles.  This plan better distributes the cruise missile across the submarine force, but these same submarines will have many competing tasking’s and the impact of VPM on operational characteristics of SSNs cannot be stated due to classification.”

(5)Additional missions include: Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR); offensive and defensive mine warfare; anti-submarine warfare (ASW); and anti-surface ship warfare.

(6)Virginia-class boats are built jointly by General Dynamics’ Electric Boat Division of Groton, CT, and Quonset Point, RI, and Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding, of Newport News, VA.

(7)For comparison, the SSN 688 and 774 class nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) employ a 12-cell VLS for Tomahawk missiles.  Additionally, the Navy is planning to add Virginia Payload Modules (VPM) to the SSN 774 block 5 SSNs - the additional launch tubes in the VPM could carry a total of 28 additional Tomahawk cruise missiles (7 per VPM), which would increase the total number of torpedo-sized weapons (such as Tomahawks) from 37 to about 65.

(8)Manufacturer claims must be taken with great skepticism, but German, Japanese, and Swedish firms are now claiming submerged endurances exceeding 10 days at sustained submerged speeds in excess of 6.5 knots using Air-Independent Propulsion!

(9)‘Why German company ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems wants Australia’s Future Submarines contract’, by Ian McPhedran May 21, 2015.

(10)This figure is somewhat arbitrary and it is based upon a cruise missile with approximately 1,000 nm range (e.g. the UGM-109 Tomahawk variants).  The 750 nm, allows for deep inland strikes.  Wayne Hughes, Capitan USN (RET) presents additional tactical scenarios in his book: “Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat.”  Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr. of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments has also written numerous papers with useful scenarios.

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Mr. Bustamante is a retired naval officer who served the majority of his career as a Naval Special Warfare Officer and also served as a Surface Warfare Officer and Foreign Area Officer.  He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy with a degree in Systems Engineering.  He also holds a Master of Science degree in Defense Analysis (Operations Research) from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. After retiring from the Navy, Mr. Bustamante worked for the legislative branch as an auditor and analyst, as a civil servant with the United States Department of State, and also in the private sector as an analyst in information technology project management.

Myth Of The Unopposed Landing

We have a treat today in the form of a guest post from a long time reader with a career's worth of experience.  Please check out his bio at the end of the post.

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The Myth of the Unopposed Amphibious Landing

Implications of Anti-access/Area-denial Weapons

G. Bustamante

In 1943 Major General Alexander A. Vandergrift, United States Marine Corps stated: “… that landings should not be attempted in the face of organized resistance if, by any combination of march or maneuver, it is possible to land unopposed within striking distance of the objective.”

- Joint Publication 3-18 Joint Forcible Entry Operations

Current military thinking and doctrine assumes that opposed forcible entry operations (amphibious landings and vertical envelopment) can be avoided; yet the laudable intent to minimize casualties flies in the face of historical record, and the inability to conduct forcible entry operations not only simplifies enemy’s planning, it may lead to a protracted campaign with even greater friendly force casualties. Historians will confirm that with the exception of the landings at Inchon, commanders have done precisely as General Vandergrift suggested: major amphibious operations since Gallipoli were directed against the weakest sections of enemy defenses, although even “weak sectors” could prove to be very challenging. Note that allied losses in the WWII landings at the five Normandy invasion beaches were insignificant compared to the casualties incurred in subsequent combat operations (1).

Perfection of Anti-access/Area-denial technologies (submarines, mines, long range strike aircraft, ballistic and anti-ship cruise missiles) are the principal threat to forcible entry operations; but what is seldom appreciated is that these defenses can be applied not only to the enemy’s territory, but projected across border to the harbors and airports in neighboring nations, calling into question the idea that these defenses can be bypassed.

Consider a friendly defensive scenario from the point of view of India. Using its Agni I ballistic missiles (2), India can strike potential invaders not only along its coastline, but also any forces attempting to use airfields or harbors in neighboring Pakistan or Bangladesh. India also has the ability to deliver sea or land mines by aircraft or rocket, as well as a submarine force. Any potential invader must consider the implications of Anti-access/Area-denial, as demonstrated in the following graphic.

Map of India: Defensive Implications of the Medium Range Agni I Missile

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA): http://www.eia.gov/beta/international/analysis.cfm?iso=IND, annotations by author

This should serve as a reminder that a competent enemy will not oblige us by fighting according to our theorems, timetables, and wishes, but will seek to prevent us to build up substantial forces ashore. It is naïve to assume that there will always be a neighboring friendly ally willing to allow the use of their ports, and airports. Even if sympathetic, an ally may be unwilling to risk the political, economic, and military consequences of allowing the use of its harbors and airspace. The “so what” implication of this is that mines, long range strike aircraft, ballistic and anti-ship cruise missiles and supporting ISR networks will have to be destroyed, neutralized, or suppressed prior to the introduction, or reinforcement of forces into theater.

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(1) The Normandy landings cost the allies an estimated 10,000 casualties; the Normandy campaign, 5 June 1944 through 1 September 1944, cost the allies approximately 225,000 casualties. German casualty estimates range from 400,000 to 530,000 men, most lost in the breakout and encirclement of the German Army Group B in the Falaise Pocket leading the collapse of German defenses in France.

(2) The Agni-I is capable of delivering a conventional payload of one (1) metric ton to a distance of approximately 600 nautical miles. India has further developed its ballistic missile forces.

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"Mr. Bustamante is a retired naval officer who served the majority of his career as a Naval Special Warfare Officer and also is held Surface Warfare Officer and Foreign Area Officer designators.  He is a graduate of the  U.S. Naval Academy with a degree in Systems Engineering.  He also holds a Master of Science degree in Defense Analysis (Operations Research) from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California and numerous service schools. After retiring from the Navy, Mr. Bustamante worked for the legislative branch, as a civil servant with the United States Depart of State, and in the private sector as an analyst in information technology project management."

P-8 and PBY

ComNavOps has long had doubts about the wartime role of the P-8 Poseidon patrol aircraft.  The doubts arise from the combination of the aircraft’s slow and defenseless nature plus the necessity that it broadcast its presence (operating its radar) when performing the maritime patrol function (MPA).  Thus, the enemy is given a free location fix against a high value, slow, defenseless asset.  In other words, the P-8 is a sitting duck in combat if used as envisioned. 

“Used as envisioned”, of course, brings up the subject of the concept of operations (CONOPS).  How will the P-8 be used?  What will its main function be – ASW, MPA, both?  Will it perform its searches actively or passively?  Will it be defended by fighter aircraft or used independently? 

Most importantly, how close to the contested air/water space will it be used?  Certainly, the further back from the front line, the safer.  Of course, the flip side of that is that the further back from the front line, the less useful and effective it is.

The next question is where is the front line?  Well, that’s a nebulous concept that depends on the weapons being considered.  Considering an enemy rifleman, the front line is a hundred yards or so.  Considering enemy surface to air missiles which would be targeted at a P-8 aircraft, the front line is the range of the SAM systems which is 250 -300+ miles.  Here’s some range data on Russian SAM systems for consideration.

S-200 (SA-5)             190 miles

S-300 (SA-10)           121 miles

S-400 (SA-21)           250 miles

S-500 (?)                   250 – 300+ miles

Of course, the reported Russian SAM ranges are, undoubtedly, maximum theoretical ranges.  Effective ranges are probably half that.

Now, compare the SAM engagement ranges to the P-8’s detection range which is reportedly up to 200 miles for large targets with low resolution.  An effective range is probably more on the order of 100 miles. 

Comparing the SAM ranges and the P-8 detection range, it’s clear that the P-8 will have to enter the SAM’s engagement range to see anything assuming the SAM systems are on the front line.  The point is that unless we’re willing to consider P-8s as expendable, they’ll have to be held well back from the front line.  With that in mind, what will the P-8s be looking for? 

So far, this is considering only SAM ranges.  If thousand mile fighters and UAVs are considered, the P-8’s will be pushed even further back from the front line.

Knowledge of the location and movement of enemy units behind the front lines is immensely useful.  Knowledge of the location and movement of enemy units many hundreds of miles on our side of the front line is useful (certainly!!!) but highly unlikely other than the odd submarine.  In simple terms, the P-8 will offer us no intelligence about what’s happening inside the Chinese first island chain which is exactly the kind of intel we’d like to have.

P-8 Poseidon - Useful in War?

Let’s switch gears, momentarily.  ComNavOps is ever one to study and learn from history and it occurs that the WWII PBY Catalina is a relevant comparison to the P-8.  The PBY was designed as the MPA aircraft of its time and, indeed, functioned in that role for the first couple of years of the war before being superseded by long ranged, land based aircraft.  Like the P-8, the PBY was large, slow, and defenseless.  Data is difficult to come by but here’s the best summary of the early PBY loss rates that I could assemble, divided into the two main operational areas.  The operating area is followed by the number of PBY’s deployed and then the number of PBY’s lost.

Location                     Deployed       Lost

Pearl Harbor                   68               56

Philippines                      28               26

The loss rates are staggering.  Admittedly, many of the aircraft were destroyed on the ground but the loss rates in the air were also appalling.  On the other hand, the aircraft performed its function.  For example, the 30 PBY’s based on Midway found the Japanese fleet and set the stage for the battle that followed.  Thus, as a cheap, plentiful, expendable detection system the PBY was effective.  We had lots of PBYs and could afford to send them deep into potential enemy waters as expendable detection devices.  Locating an enemy fleet was deemed worth the loss of the aircraft.  Does this hold true today?  Are we willing to send $200M P-8’s on one-way missions?  Even if we are, we’ll likely only have around 80 P-8’s after the production run is done.  Note that we lost 82 PBY’s in the first couple years of WWII in just two relatively localized theaters.

PBY Catalina - WWII's P-8 Poseidon

Also note that the preceding discussion is focused on the MPA role, using radar for long distance surveillance.  The situation becomes far worse for the ASW role.  ASW detection does not occur at 100-200 mile radar ranges – it occurs at sonobuoy range.  How will P-8’s possibly penetrate far enough into the battlespace to perform useful ASW without being shot down?  I have no answer for that and, indeed, the answer would seem to be that it can’t.

This suggests a disturbing scenario – that we have spent the last few decades building a military force optimized for uncontested operations and one ill-suited for contested operations.  How will we perform ASW inside the first island chain?  Our own submarines can perform ASW and that is, of course, one of their main functions but that then brings the looming submarine shortfall into much sharper focus.  If submarines are to be our main ASW platform why are we allowing such a shortfall in numbers?.  Far from a shortfall, perhaps we should be increasing our submarine numbers?

All of the preceding also leads to the inevitable question, why do we even have P-8’s if they won’t be effective in war?  Why did we ever begin building P-3/8’s?  That answer lies with the nature of the enemy when long range patrol aircraft were developed.  During WWII, with only very short range surveillance systems available, enemy fleets could be anywhere in the Pacific.  Thus, PBY’s were needed to cover the entire ocean (or, at least, the areas of more immediate concern).  In more modern times, the Soviet Union was also a world-ranging naval force (submarines, in particular).  Thus, again, a patrol aircraft was needed to cover the entire world.  The plus side of this was that while the Soviet Union had far ranging submarines that needed to be detected their SAM systems and fighter aircraft were not present world wide.  Thus, the P-3’s were free to roam the world, hunting for submarines and conducting area surveillance, secure in the knowledge that they were relatively safe.

Today, however, our enemy of interest, China, is not a world ranging naval force (though they are moving in that direction) and is, for the foreseeable future, content to operate largely behind the first island chain.  Thus, we need to go into the anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) zone thus created if we hope to generate useful intel.  This means that our primary ocean surveillance platforms, the P-8 and BAMS (Broad Area Maritime Surveillance) UAVs are particularly ill-suited for the mission.

We essentially replaced the P-3 with a duplicate, the P-8 – upgraded a bit, to be sure, but for all practical operational and tactical purposes, the same aircraft.  Over the life of the P-3, the operational and tactical landscape changed immensely from world wide surveillance to relatively small, focused surveillance on A2/AD zones and the threat to the aircraft changed from almost non-existent to very long ranged and lethal.  Despite those immense changes, we simply replaced the P-3 with its duplicate.  Perhaps we should have examined the CONOPS a bit closer and come up with a better means to accomplish the mission – a means that might have been something other than the P-8 or other than an aircraft, at all.

Some will say that the F-35 is how we will obtain our deep penetration intel.  This ignores the reality that the F-35 has neither the flight range nor the radar/sensor range to cover the entire East/South China Seas.  The F-35 might be useful for looking at a specific, tiny spot but it is not a maritime patrol aircraft.  Add to that the likelihood that every available F-35 will be fully occupied trying to establish air superiority and none will be available for generic surveillance work.

Thus, we are left with the conclusion that the P-8 and BAMS will not be particularly useful in high end combat and the question, how will we gather useful A2/AD zone surveillance information?

Surface Combat and Air Support

Here’s a statement I came across that will have most of us shaking our heads in disbelief.

“The Navy will not be able to fight its way into denied environments and maintain open sea lines of communication without the Surface Force being able to take the fight to the enemy in environments where air assets are not available or are unable to effectively or persistently operate.” (1)

Think about that statement.  It’s saying that the Navy cannot do its job unless it can fight without the protection of air assets.  This runs counter to the entire basis of Navy operational and doctrinal thinking.  The assumption of air support and, indeed, air supremacy, is central to naval doctrine, tactics, planning, and procurement.  The Navy takes, as a given, uncontested control of the air and unlimited aviation support for its surface forces.  Yet, now, someone dares to come along and suggest otherwise?  What treasonous and militarily ignorant person said this and why?  Let’s form a lynch mob and put this idiot to death.  I’ve got pitchforks and torches for everyone.  C’mon!

We’ll blow this idiot out of the water with logic.  Let’s start by examining the relevant historical background.

Our carrier force is unsurpassed.  Yes, we’ve seen the number of carriers steadily decline from the 20’s to the current 10 (9 active) and there is no reason to believe that number will ever increase.  Sure, we’ve seen the size of carrier air wings drop from around 90 aircraft to the current 60’s.  Of course, even that is misleading in that several Hornets in each wing cannot be used as combat aircraft since they are needed to fill the tanker role.  True, the Navy has stated that when the F-35 enters service, squadrons will be reduced by a further 2-4 aircraft each.  Granted, the Air Force is undergoing similar reductions.  Admittedly, our basing options in the Pacific are limited and far from any relevant operational area and even our basing options in the MidEast are suspect.  Depending on the parameters of the conflict we may or may not be granted permission to use those bases in a combat role.  Combine that with potential overflight restrictions and MidEast basing is problematic, at best.

Ah, …  Maybe we better set those pitchforks and torches down for a moment.  We may have to dig a bit deeper than I thought to discredit this idiot.

OK, so we may not have as many air assets and aviation basing support as we once did but at least what we have will be uncontested and unbeatable, right?  I mean, it’s not like our enemies are developing their own stealth aircraft.  Well, I guess China and Russia are and they’ll undoubtedly be exporting their aircraft aggressively.  Still, their existing aircraft are, well …  actually they’re pretty good – at least on par with ours or maybe better in some cases.

Alright, so we may have a problem with the whole aviation presence and supremacy thing but, heck, our enemies will have the same basing issues we do.  I mean it’s not like China will have hundreds of airbases in range of the likely areas of conflict and …  we, ah …  we …  Oh, crap.  China, Iran, and N. Korea do have hundreds of bases within range of the likely areas of conflict!  They’ll be able to generate much higher sortie rates than us with much greater numbers of aircraft to call on.  Of course, the RAND report demonstrated that numbers alone don’t matter so, ah …  wait a minute, my bad.  I got that backwards.  The RAND report actually demonstrated that numbers do matter, even more than quality. 

I guess now that I think about it, trying to operate in, say, the Chinese A2/AD zone will severely limit our air support given our decreasing numbers of carriers, shrinking air wings, dwindling Air Force, limited bases, huge distances that must be traveled to reach the areas of interest, increasing enemy numbers, prevalent enemy surface to air missiles, and extensive enemy airborne and land based radar surveillance.

Clearly, the Navy will be fighting with less and less air support as time goes on.  Could this idiot’s statement be right?  I hate to say it but it would seem so. 

Who is this guy?  Let me check the source reference …  Ah, it’s VAdm. Thomas Copeman.  Well, that explains it.  You’ll recall that ComNavOps has praised Copeman several times in the past as one of the few (only?) clear thinkers in the ranks of Navy leadership.  It seems VAdm. Copeman has done it again.  He has identified the trends and pointed out the logical conclusion:  if the Navy wants to operate in enemy zones, it must be prepared to operate without the assurance of aerial supremacy or even support.  I guess instead of lynching him we should be gathering to praise him. 

So, if he’s right, what does this mean for naval ship design and construction?  It means that we need to be designing and building ships for independent operations (independent from carrier or Air Force aviation support).  Such a ship will need certain characteristics that differ from today’s designs.  For instance,

Stealth – This becomes mandatory.  If we don’t control the skies then we’d better be as hard to find and hard to lock on to as possible.  We covered this in a previous post.

Armor – If we don’t control the skies we will take hits.  Armor is mandatory to mitigate damage and allow us to continue to fight.  Cheap kills cannot be accepted.  We covered this in a previous post.

Soft Kill – As we’ve previously documented and discussed, the Navy needs to place much greater emphasis on soft kill AAW measures.  We need a soft kill CEC as we just recently posted.

Close-In – We need many more close-in weapon systems per ship than we currently have.  Without control of the skies, the enemy can just continue to hammer our defenses and missiles and aircraft will get through at much greater rates than we imagine.

UAV – With limited aviation support, our ships will have to generate their own surveillance and targeting.  Extensive use of UAVs will be required to “replace” the Hawkeye/AWACS function.  A couple of UAVs per ship won’t cut it.  We need the ability to hangar and operate dozens at a time and continue doing so in the face of significant attrition.  Remember, we need local situational awareness, not oceanic awareness.  We need small UAVs as opposed to BAMS size.  The UAVs must be reasonably stealthy, as well.

AAW – If you want to operate inside someone’s A2/AD zone and don’t have air superiority, you’ll have to fight to stay there.  A robust AAW capability is mandatory.  In addition to Aegis/AMDR type systems, we’ll need more VLS cells for sustained engagements, more illuminators for redundancy, better separation of illuminators for survivability, a robust backup radar system that is physically separated and isolated from the primary to the maximum extent possible, effective EO backup systems, much greater close-in defenses, and greatly enhanced soft kill systems.

It’s clear from the preceding characteristics that such a ship will be quite large and quite expensive. 

Contemplation of the above leads to two supporting conclusions. 

If we’re going to operate without aerial support we ought to be giving serious thought to increasing our submarine forces.  A submarine bypasses many of the problems associated with the lack of aerial support. 

We need to re-evaluate our current trend of declining carriers and shrinking airwings.  In addition, we need to re-evaluate the type of aircraft we’re procuring.  In an A2/AD scenario, the carrier is going to be acting as the escort for the strike units (Tomahawk) rather than being the strike unit as has historically been the case.  Thus, there is a need for a much longer range air superiority fighter. 

The carrier has been both the Navy’s crutch and addiction for too long.  While incredibly powerful and useful, the carrier has limited Navy operational and doctrinal thinking.  We need to give serious thought to future operations in the absence of significant air support.  Simply saying we won’t operate without air support may be constraining ourselves to the point of defeat.

For those of you who think that ten carrier task forces are more than sufficient to deal with any enemy, even China, you might want to remember that Cold War carrier doctrine called for carriers to operate in pairs and that was when the airwings were much larger than now.  Single carriers were not considered survivable and effective.  Thus, we actually can only muster a maximum of five carrier task forces.  Indeed, the reality of combat may dictate that carriers with reduced airwings need to operate in groups of three or more against modern militaries.  Throw in the inevitable combat losses and we may find ourselves hard-pressed to assemble two or three carrier groups after only a brief period of combat.

The point is that unless we’re simply going to refuse to act without carriers we may find ourselves forced to fight without air support at some point.  Adm. Copeman clearly believes that to be the case.  If he’s correct, we need to develop doctrine and ship designs to support that doctrine.

(1) http://www.public.navy.mil/surfor/Documents/2026Vision.pdf, “Vision for the 2026 Surface Fleet, VAdm. Thomas Copeman III, Commander, Naval Surface Forces, Jan 2014, p.5