Goodbye Triton?

As you may recall, the MQ-4C Triton UAV was going to solve all the Navy’s surveillance monitoring requirements.
 
The Triton is a large, high altitude, long endurance (30 hrs) UAV derived from the Global Hawk.  It was intended to team with the P-8 Poseidon under the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) concept.  Triton would conduct high altitude surveillance and the P-8 would focus on anti-submarine and anti-surface surveillance.
 

MQ-4C Triton

The first demonstration aircraft flew in 2013 and, ten years later, Initial Operating Capability was just announced.  Plans called for 70 aircraft to be produced.  Groups of 4 aircraft were planned to operate from 5 sites, keeping 20 aircraft in active operations at any one time. 

 
A USNI News article notes the wonders of Triton,
 

… Triton is poised to bring significant improvements that will increase its effectiveness in the battlespace, enabling our manned-unmanned team to maintain awareness in the maritime domain,” Rear Adm. Adam Kijek, the commander of the Navy’s patrol and reconnaissance group, said in the service news release. “The Indo-Pacific theater is the ideal arena to demonstrate the advanced capabilities that Triton brings to our Fleet Commanders and the nation.”[1]

This would certainly sound like amazing news if it weren’t for the fact that the Navy, having just declared IOC, is halting production and severely cutting the Triton inventory.
 

The IOC benchmark comes as the Navy looks to halt the MQ-4C line. The Fiscal Year 2024 budget proposal sought to buy the final two MQ-4Cs in the next fiscal year, drastically cutting the program of record from an original 70 airframes to 27, according to service budget documents.
 
“The MQ-4C Triton inventory requirement has been re-assessed by the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC), which has modified MQ-4C Triton’s Capability Development Document (CDD) to reduce total inventory requirement,” the budget books read.
 
“The total number of aircraft are attributed to the program as 22 production, and 5 development … ” [1]

So, the Triton inventory is being cut from 70 to 22 production airframes.  In addition, the number of operating sites has been reduced from 5 to 3.
 
Why?
 
No explanation has been given.  My speculation is that the Navy has concluded, as has the Air Force, that large, slow UAVs are not survivable in the modern aerial battlefield – something they should have realized before development even began!
 
Does this sound eerily reminiscent of the LCS which the Navy is retiring almost as fast as they’re being produced?  Or, perhaps it reminds you of the Zumwalt which went from being the absolutely vital, future of naval warfare to being deemed entirely unneeded by the Navy in a matter of months?  Or, maybe it sounds like the brand new Mobile Landing Platforms (MLP) which the Navy attempted to retire, was thwarted by Congress, and was, instead, placed in Reduced Operating Status (retired in all but name)?
 
This is what happens when you produce assets without any Concept of Operations (CONOPS) – you quickly realize that they have no use and then you’re forced to dump them. 
 
Humiliating.
 
 
 
____________________________

 
[1]USNI News website, “MQ-4C Triton Reaches Initial Operational Capability, UAV on 2nd Guam Deployment”, Mallory Shelbourne, 14-Sep-2023,
https://news.usni.org/2023/09/14/mq-4c-triton-reaches-initial-operational-capability-uav-on-2nd-guam-deployment

F-35 Broad Area Maritime Surveillance

I keep encountering a recurring belief among observers/commenters that the F-35 is some kind of miracle, broad area maritime surveillance (BAMS) platform and I don’t know where this comes from.  I suspect it’s a case of F-35 proponents latching on to anything they can to justify the aircraft.

This is an important claim because the F-35 in the BAMS role is claimed to be the foundation of the distributed lethality concept, the savior of carrier groups, the guidance system for attacking missiles, and the key to achieving total victory over China – all due to its claimed ability to leisurely cruise through enemy air/water space completely undetected while using its radar to search an entire hemisphere of the world with 100% detection of all enemy assets.  If that’s true, China stands absolutely no chance against us.  Is it true? 

Well, there is zero authoritative public domain information on the subject, that I’m aware of.  That makes drawing any definitive conclusions difficult, to say the least.  However, we have unlimited logic available to us so let’s apply some and see where it leads.

Detection Range.  The F-35 with its APG-81 radar is claimed to have nearly unlimited detection range with 100% detection and target identification.  Of course, this is ridiculous.  Without getting into the math, physics, and software of radar function, the simplistic truth is, ‘more power equals greater range’.  Thus, the larger, higher powered radar has better range and resolution than the smaller, lower powered one.  So, a fighter size radar, for example, has less range than an AWACS.

The only hint of range data for the APG-81 that I’m aware of is a claim of 150 km (90 miles) or so and that claim has occasionally been associated with a 1 sq.m. target which implies an aircraft target and aerial detection mode.  How applicable that is to the broad area maritime surface search we’re discussing is an open question.

Any manufacturer’s claim, which is, presumably, what the 90 mile claim is, is based on non-stealthy targets under ideal conditions, at best, or, far more likely, it’s just based on someone’s theoretical calculations.

Let’s consider the nature of the targets that are the subject of BAMS.  We’re looking for stealthy warships of various sizes.  China, for example, has their versions of the Burke although, visually, they appear to be a bit more stealthy.  They also have stealth missile boats (the Type 22 is a good example), corvettes, and frigates.  These stealth ships have reduced radar signatures.  The only data we have on ship stealth is vague statements that the ship (whichever ship) has a radar signature of a ‘fishing boat’.  Oddly, almost every ship of whatever size and degree of stealth seems to have the same claimed ‘fishing boat’ radar signature.  Obviously, the claim is very generic and utterly useless.  Still, it gives us some sort of very general idea of the reduction in radar signature.

What this means for our F-35 BAMS mission is that whatever the claimed range of the APG-81 radar might be, the effects of wave clutter, weather, and ship stealth combine to greatly reduce the actual detection range.

We also need to recognize the difference between detection and identification.  Let’s say we detect a ‘fishing boat’ at x-miles.  Okay, that’s nice but what is it?  Is it an actual fishing boat?  We’d hate to launch a maximum effort naval strike only to find out that the target was, indeed, a fishing boat!  That would be a lot of wasted missiles.  That means we have to identify the target in addition to detecting it.  That, in turn, means we have to get much closer – to the point where we can either visually identify it or our radar provides sufficient resolution that we can identify the signature.  So, our effective identification range is much shorter than our detection range which, we’ve already noted, is much shorter than the manufacturer’s claimed maximum range (which we don’t have for the APG-81 in surface mode).  So, our detection range is a mere fraction, and not a big one, of the maximum range.

Thus, the notion that a small, low power, fighter size radar can ‘see’ vast areas of ocean with 100% detection and identification is ludicrous. 

Logical Conclusion 1.  An F-35 APG-81 radar is going to provide a very limited view – the soda straw analogy.

Logical Conclusion 2.  Effective targeting is a two part challenge.  Detection is only half the problem and it’s the easy half.  Identification is the other half and requires that the F-35 approach the target much closer.  Thus, the suggestion that an F-35 can provide targeting from hundreds of miles away is utterly unrealistic.

Logical Conclusion 3.  Ship stealth will greatly reduce the detection/identification range.

Survivability.  In order for the F-35 to be an effective BAMS platform, it needs to be survivable long enough to find a target and track it to provide mid-course guidance for an attack.  That could, and likely will, require flying in enemy controlled air space for hours.  All the while, the enemy will be diligently searching the air space for just such activity.  Our F-35 will have to evade a multitude of all manner of sensors:  airborne patrols, ship radars, ESM, land radars, IRST, optical sensors, etc.  Yes, the F-35 is stealthy (from the front aspect – the sides and rear, not so much) but stealth isn’t magic.  Worse, the F-35 will be operating its own radar which further increases the chance of detection.  The odds on being able to loiter undetected in the vicinity of an enemy force in enemy air space are poor. 

Detection is a simple matter of statistics.  To illustrate, let’s say that a stealth aircraft has only a 1% chance of being detected in any given minute.  Hey, that’s great!  We have a 99% chance of not being detected.  Those are great odds, aren’t they?  However, over the course of an hour (sixty 1-minute intervals, each with a 1% chance of detection), that 1% chance of detection means a 46% chance of detection.  Oops.  Make it two hours and the chance of detection goes up to 71%.  Yikes.  Admittedly, this is a simplistic treatment of stealth and detection but it is, essentially, conceptually correct.  There is always a chance of detection and the longer the stealth aircraft loiters, the greater the chance of being found.  Thus, the idea that an F-35 can loiter and track targets and guide missiles is fundamentally suspect.  And, of course, the closer the F-35 loiters to the target, the greater the momentary odds of being detected.

Logical Conclusion 4.  Stealth aircraft WILL be found and the odds of being found increase with loiter time and proximity to the target.

Low Probability of Intercept (LPI) Radar.  The magic solution to detection and survivability, according to F-35 fanboys, is the fairy dust LPI radar.  F-35 proponents would have us believe that the LPI radar is undetectable while retaining maximum range and resolution.  Of course, this is simply untrue. 

LPI radars use a variety of methods to reduce the chance of the signal being intercepted (recognized in the background noise – the signal will always be intercepted).  These include frequency agility, pulse rate variation, etc. and, mainly, power reduction.  However, hand in hand with power reduction goes decreased detection range.

Make no mistake, LPI radars do, indeed, lower the chance of intercept (recognition) but do so at the expense of range and resolution.  Thus, our F-35, operating its APG-81 radar in LPI mode, will have the effective detection range (which we previously noted would be only a small fraction of the manufacturer’s claimed range) reduced even further.  This further reduction in detection range also means that the F-35 must get even closer to a target which, we previously noted, further decreases the F-35’s survivability.

Logical Conclusion 5.  LPI radar is not magic and will decrease detection range and survivability.

Area Search.  The key characteristic of BAMS is that it is a large area search function.  As such, the searching aircraft must, simplistically, pass back and forth repeatedly (a euphemism for whatever search pattern is employed) in order to effectively cover the desired area.  As we noted, given that detection range for targets of interest is going to be only a fraction of the claimed range, the searching aircraft will have to cover very small increments of the search area as opposed to sweeping vast areas in a single radar pulse, as F-35 proponents would have us believe.  This continual and extended back and forth searching, all the while with the radar broadcasting, is going to still further increase the chance of the F-35 being detected.  As noted in a Wiki article on LPI radar, a searching aircraft with LPI radar active will always be pointing its main lobe at some radar receiver. (1)

Having considered and applied all the preceding logic, it is logical to conclude that the F-35 cannot be an effective BAMS asset.  There is, in addition, one final bit of evidentiary logic that disproves the F-35 fanboy’s claims of effective BAMS and the simplicity of the logic is so self-evident that it needs no additional analysis:

Ultimate Logical Conclusion.  If all the claims for the F-35 broad area maritime surveillance capability were true, we’d have already eliminated AWACS, Triton, BAMS, E-2 Hawkeyes, etc. in favor of the F-35 with its APG-81 radar.

So, does the preceding mean that an F-35 is incapable of finding a target?  Of course not.  It just means that the F-35 is not a magical BAMS asset as so often claimed.  The F-35 is not the magical answer to the distributed lethality sensor problem.  The F-35 is not the magical answer to some notional sea control concept.  The F-35 is not a substitute for a carrier’s E-2 Hawkeye.

What can the F-35 do?  It can provide search over a limited area if we’re willing to risk the detection and loss of the aircraft.  Is it worth risking a $100M aircraft to do limited area search?  Well, that’s an operational question whose answer depends on what the potential benefits are in relation to the potential loss.

Where this can work best is when we have an idea where the target is and the search area – and risk - is, therefore, limited.  This is not as unlikely as it might sound.  Naval forces usually have at least a general idea of where the enemy is.  This was true throughout WWII and is true today.  A shared understanding of our own and the enemy’s strategies and objectives combined with various other sensor reports and intelligence are sufficient to offer general locations of enemy naval forces.  Thus, we do not need to search the entire ocean, we just need to search a moderately constrained area although prudence dictates sending search assets out in all directions just to be safe (the WWII carrier dawn 360 degree search by SBD Dauntlesses). 

We see then, that the F-35 is NOT a BAMS platform and would not be effective as such.  It can, however, be effective as a search/confirmation asset when we have a general idea of where to find enemy targets.

_______________________________

(1)Wikipedia, “Low-probability-of-intercept radar”, retrieved 20-Dec-2019,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-probability-of-intercept_radar

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?

Useless UAVs

There are a large group of people throughout the military Internet community who extol the virtues of UAVs in combat scenarios.  I’m talking now about the use of UAVs as surveillance platforms rather than strike or A2A combat.  Supporters believe that UAVs will cruise for extended periods through contested or enemy held airspace and send back precise intel and targeting data. 

However, ComNavOps has long questioned the value of UAVs in such situations.  UAVs are slow, not particularly stealthy, and lack situational awareness.  In short, they’ll be nothing more than target drones in a contested environment.  We wouldn’t allow enemy UAVs to observe us so why would we think an enemy will allow our UAVs to observe them?

Despite this, the US military seems intent on building a massive force of UAVs.  Just as the military has developed an over-dependence (addiction) on GPS that won’t be available (or only sporadically so) in actual combat, we are also well on our way to developing an over-dependence on UAVs which won’t be available in actual combat.

Are UAVs really that non-survivable?  Is ComNavOps right about that?

Consider all the UAVs that have been lost during operations.  Many have been claimed to have been shot down or “comm’ed” down.  The military has not acknowledged any of those but common sense suggests that many were, indeed, lost to enemy actions of one type or another.  Common sense further suggests that in actual combat against a peer or near-peer UAVs will have a very short lifespan.

Still don’t agree with ComNavOps?  OK, let’s see what the Air Force has to say on the subject, as reported by Defense News website (1).  The report was triggered by news that an MQ-1 Predator was just shot down over Syria.  The loss was confirmed by defense officials but, as usual, the cause was not.  From the article,

“But Air Force officials have long warned that the current generation of remotely piloted aircraft cannot survive airspace that is defended by enemy aircraft and ever-more sophisticated anti-aircraft systems."

The article cites an example demonstrating the severe mismatch between a UAV and even a low level opponent.

"A Predator armed with a Stinger reportedly got into a brief dogfight with an Iraqi plane in 2003 — and lost."

The article goes on,

"... Gen. Mike Hostage, then head of Air Combat Command, was much more serious when he told reporters at the same conference that Predators and Reapers are "useless" in contested airspace ..."

Consider that word: “useless”.  That’s from the Air Force.

" 'Today … I couldn't put [a Predator or Reaper] into the Strait of Hormuz without having to put airplanes there to protect it,' Foreign Policy quoted Hostage as saying on Sept. 19, 2013."

There you have the situation in a nutshell.  UAVs can’t operate in contested airspace without escorts.  Well, if you have to have escorts then you don’t need the UAV since you already have aircraft there.  Further, if you have to allocate several aircraft to operate a single UAV then you haven’t gained anything by operating the UAV.

UAVs are a wonderful peacetime surveillance asset but when the shooting starts they’ll be “useless”.

We need to greatly scale back our developing dependence on surveillance UAVs.  Further, the non-survivability of UAVs strongly suggests that affordability should be the number one characteristic the aircraft since the loss rate will be high.  As long as they’re affordable (meaning expendable), there’s nothing wrong with using large numbers of UAVs to collect what data they can before they’re destroyed.  What we can’t do is become so dependent on their data and presence during peacetime that we’re lost without them during combat.

That Triton/BAMs that will solve all the Navy's surveillance and targeting problems?  Don't count on it!

(1) Defense News, "Predator UAV lost over Syria", Jeff Schogol, March 17, 2015,

http://www.defensenews.com/story/military/tech/2015/03/17/predator-uav-lost-over-syria/24933027/

Triton Sense and Avoid

From Janes website, an interesting tidbit about BAMS (1)  …

“The US Navy (USN) is revisiting the sense-and-avoid (SAA) capability of the Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) after previous efforts have failed to produce a system that works to the service's satisfaction.

The navy's efforts to develop and field an SAA system for the MQ-4C have proven to be more challenging than was first anticipated.

This issue has proven to be so problematic that the navy issued a stop-work order to Exelis, which was developing the SAA sensors under contract to Northrop Grumman, while it evaluates alternatives.”

There’s nothing special about this.  Developmental challenges are to be expected but it does remind us that even the seemingly mundane features can prove difficult and that should give us pause as we leap into our assumptions about the ease of development of rail guns, lasers, anti-gravity, and telepathic networks. 

For all you fanboys of [fill in the blank], remember ComNavOps rule of thumb:  a program will be fortunate to achieve half its claimed capabilities at twice the cost.

(1) IHS Jane's Defence Weekly , “US Navy seeks new sense-and-avoid solution for Triton UAV”, Gareth Jennings, 5 November 2014,

http://www.janes.com/article/45431/us-navy-seeks-new-sense-and-avoid-solution-for-triton-uav

BAMS CONOPS

A word of explanation:  This post is inspired by discussions of the BAMS aircraft in a previous post.  It is in no way an attempt to slam the commenters or embarrass them.  Quite the contrary.  Their input, whether I agree or disagree with any particular point, is valued and, in this case, is directly contributing to a better blog and more interesting and educational reading.  I thank all who commented on BAMS.

The Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) program is described in the FY15 Budget Highlights book from the Navy,

“MQ-4 Triton system development and demonstration continues in FY 2015 to provide a High Altitude-Long Endurance Unmanned Aircraft System designed to provide persistent maritime ISR of nearly all the world's high-density sea-lanes, littorals, and areas of national interest. Envisioned as an unmanned adjunct to the P-8A MMA, and crucial to the recapitalization of Navy's airborne maritime ISR capability, the system will seek to leverage maritime patrol and reconnaissance force manpower, training and maintenance efficiencies. The Triton UAS air vehicle features sensors designed to provide near worldwide coverage through a network of five CONUS and OCONUS orbits, with sufficient air vehicles to remain airborne for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, out to ranges of 2,000 nautical miles. Onboard sensors will provide detection, classification, tracking and identification of maritime targets and include maritime radar, electro-optical/infrared, and Electronic Support Measures systems. Additionally, Triton will have a communications relay capability designed to link dispersed forces in the theater of operations and serve as a node in the Navy's FORCEnet strategy.”

The annual GAO assessment of weapon systems (GAO-14-340SP) offers this description of the BAMS program.

“The Navy's MQ-4C Triton is intended to provide a persistent maritime intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capability even when no other naval forces are present. Triton will operate from five land-based sites worldwide as a part of a family of maritime patrol and reconnaissance systems that recapitalizes the Navy's airborne ISR assets. Planned improvements include a signals intelligence capability and an upgrade to the systems communication relay. The Triton is based on the Air Force's RQ-4B Global Hawk air vehicle.”

The same GAO report cites a program unit cost (including R&D) of $193M per aircraft with a total acquisition of 70 aircraft planned.

The specific sensor package and range is unknown.  Given the small size of the aircraft and its radar compared to, say, an E-2C Hawkeye, it can be surmised that the sensor range is on the order of a hundred miles or less.  The Air Force Global Hawk from which the Triton is derived, is credited by Wiki with a radar sensor range of 62 miles.  If someone has a definite source for the sensor range, let me know.



BAMS - What Role In War?



The key to the rest of this discussion is my assessment of the sensor range.  If I’m significantly wrong and the sensor range is significantly greater (meaning on the order of 250 nm or more) than the premise of this post is wrong. 

So, with that general description, the question now becomes, what will the aircraft provide during war?  What is it’s Concept of Operations?  It’s clear that such a surveillance capability would be useful during peacetime activities (I’m ignoring the cost-benefit aspect, for the moment) but what can the aircraft provide during war?

For starters, consider that the aircraft is not particularly stealthy, fast, or maneuverable and it has no air-to-air defense capability.  Thus, it’s what we might call a target drone if an enemy detects it.  So, how does this aircraft operate during war?  If it has to approach within one or two hundred miles of an enemy asset in order to detect it, it will have a very short lifespan for the reasons listed above.

We could provide an escort of F-22s or F-35s but what would be the point?  Supposedly the F-22/35 can provide the required sensing if they’re in the area anyway.

We could keep the BAMS safely behind our “lines” but, again, what’s the point?  We know what’s behind us.  What we want to know is what’s in front of us.

We could restrict the usage to within areas protected by airbases or carrier coverage but we already have AWACs and Hawkeyes in those areas so what’s the point.

We could attempt to provide saturation coverage of enemy airspace through sheer numbers under the philosophy that the enemy can’t find and shoot down every BAMS if we have enough of them.  However, at $193M per copy, we won’t be able to afford that approach for very long.

You see the problem?  I can’t come up with a wartime scenario in which the BAMS will prove useful and survivable.  So, what is the concept of operations (CONOPS) for this aircraft during war? 

I’m opening this up to readers.  Anyone have any ideas how to utilize this aircraft during war?

Weapons Don't Matter!

Firepower without a targeting solution is useless.  That’s obvious but what does it really mean for today’s Navy?

The caveman sighted his target over the end of his spear or club.  This eventually progressed to sighting over the barrel of a gun and, essentially, held until WWII.  WWII, with the advent of aircraft carriers and radar target acquisition allowed attacks on unseen enemies.  This inflection point also allowed for a new phenomenon:  the ability to strike an enemy and remain undetected.  Sure, the possibility existed previously that a sniper, for example, could fire on an enemy while remaining undetected but even in that case the enemy had an equal chance of detecting the sniper (if he could see you, you could see him) and could return blind fire in the general direction of the sniper with some degree of success (suppression, if nothing else).  Somewhat similarly, the submarine was the sniper of the ocean. 

With the advent of radar, especially aircraft mounted radar, it was possible to target and strike an enemy without him knowing where the firing (launch) platforms were.  The development of long range missiles further enhanced this possibility.  A strike could arrive seemingly out of nowhere leaving the enemy with no target upon which to return fire.

While reconnaissance (or intelligence or surveillance or scouting or whatever word you want to use) has historically always been vital, it has taken on an even greater level of importance in the modern radar/missile age.  In fact, given the lethality of modern cruise and ballistic missiles, the old adage about firing effectively first becomes even more critical and the only way to fire first is to have superior reconnaissance ability.  Thus, modern naval warfare is all about recon – the ability to find the enemy and the ability to prevent him from finding you.

Once upon a time, “finding” (or detection) implied the ability to strike.  If the pilot of a WWII dive bomber could find the enemy, he could strike because his weapons were short ranged (the bomb carried on his plane) and the enemy’s position (the targeting solution) could not change significantly before the strike could occur.  However, with long range missiles the time lag between finding the enemy and striking becomes great enough that finding no longer guarantees a targeting solution.



BAMS - More Important Than Weapons



Consider the situation of a carrier group in an A2/AD scenario.  The group is detected at a range of 1000 miles from the launching location, a land based intermediate range ballistic missile, in this case..  Allowing for a bit of command and control delays and an effective speed of, say, Mach 3 (a Mach 5 missile slowly arcs upward  so that the actual distance traveled is greater than the linear distance and the apparent speed is less than the missile’s max), we might imagine the missile arriving anywhere from an hour, optimistically, to several hours or more, realistically.  During that time the carrier, moving at 30 kts, let’s say, would have covered 30 – 200+ miles giving a possible target area (to allow for course changes in the interim) of 2800 sq miles – 125,000+ sq miles – hardly a firing solution!  Remember that the detection window of radars or other sensors carried onboard attacking missiles is extremely small compared to the possible area. 

In these kinds of scenarios it’s not enough to simply detect the enemy.  Detection will have to be maintained until the strike arrives, assuming the strike is capable of mid-course guidance and assuming that the enemy isn’t obliging enough to maintain a constant course and speed.

The modern, long distance battle will be less a question of weapons and more a question of detection and targeting.  The side that “wins” the targeting battle will probably win the actual battle.

What does this mean for the Navy today?  It means that significant resources should be applied to longer range, more effective scouting platforms and methods, in addition to better weapons.  Along this line, the Navy is developing the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) UAV among other efforts. 

While there is little definitive public information about the Navy’s long range detection and targeting capabilities, I don’t believe we currently have the ability to effectively perform this function.  At the moment, that’s not a severe issue because we don’t have long range anti-surface weapons, anyway.  Even with BAMS, I don’t see this being an effective capability in a wartime environment.  BAMS is not particularly stealthy, as far as I know, in either its physical presence or its radiating signature.  In other words, in peacetime it will be effective but in war it will be easily targeted and destroyed or forced so far outside its desired operating area for survival that it will be ineffective.  While it may provide some measure of detection, I don’t think it will be able to generate firing solutions.

Of course, there are other means of targeting such as satellite, submarine, and extreme long range passive detection.  I have no idea whether those are capable of going beyond dectection and achieving firing solutions under wartime conditions.

Suffice it to say that targeting is going to be the challenge for future naval combat.

As an extension of this discussion, one can easily imagine the role that counter-targeting should play in modern combat.  This is more than just stealth – it can include speed, location changes, decoys, deception, etc. and incorporates tactics as well as equipment.  Being detected by the enemy is not necessarily a fatal failing if the enemy can be prevented from achieving a valid firing solution.  I leave it to the reader to ponder this aspect in greater depth.