Book Review – “Brave Ship, Brave Men”

In WWII, at Okinawa, the US Navy countered Japanese kamikaze attacks with a system of outlying picket ships that screened the invasion force.  The picket ships were subjected to unending, brutal suicide attacks and, although the pickets succeeded in their task, the US Navy paid a huge price in ships and sailors.
 
One such picket ship was the USS Aaron Ward (DM-34) which underwent a horrific kamikaze attack by ten planes and suffered six kamikaze crashes and two bomb hits while shooting down four attackers in a 52 minute ordeal.  Not only did the ship not sink but it kept fighting effectively the entire time.  Does anyone think a Burke could do that?
 
Brave Ship Brave Men[1] tells the story of that battle. It's stunning reading especially against the backdrop of the weakly built ships of today, made worse by minimal manning.
 
The author writes in a highly readable, semi-fictional style (reconstructed dialog and thoughts) which makes the events vivid and alive.  The reader is immersed in both the daily routine of the ship preceding the battle and the terrifying events of the battle.  The routine events paint a picture of wartime life aboard the ship which, alone, makes the book well worth the read.  This leads directly into the battle itself and the writing style places the reader in the middle of the action and chaos, with combat, casualties, destruction, and damage control swirling around.
 
Brave Ship Brave Men reads like Red Storm Rising except that it actually happened.
 
The book graphically slams home the various lessons I preach on this blog about armor, ship construction and strength, weapons density, redundancy, damage control, emergency measures and equipment, adequate manning, etc.  When you read the book and compare the Ward to what we have today, you realize how far we've fallen.
 
If you want to understand the ‘how’s and why’s’ of what I preach on this blog, this book provides the answers.  Read the book, ‘experience’ the battle, and then reassess your understanding of naval matters.

 

Aaron Ward after the battle.
Note the armored aft 5" unmarked despite the mangled devastation
all around it. That's what armor is for.

 
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The Ward was a Smith/Sumner class destroyer converted to a minelayer.  Anti-aircraft armament consisted of [1, p.29]:
 
3 × 5”/38 cal. dual guns
2 × 40 mm quad Bofors AA guns
2 × 40 mm dual Bofors AA guns
8 × 20 mm Oerlikon AA guns
 
 

3-May-1945  -  Note the times in this brief sequence of events during the battle:
 
1829 hr  -  Shot down Kamikaze
1830 hr  -  Shot down Kamikaze
1831 hr  -  Kamikaze and bomb hit on ship  -  mount 44 destroyed, mount 53 on manual/local
1859 hr  -  Shot down Kamikaze
1904 hr  -  Shot down Kamikaze
1908 hr  -  Kamikaze hit on ship
1913 hr  -  Kamikaze and bomb hit on ship
1913 hr  -  Kamikaze hit on ship
1916 hr  -  Kamikaze hit on ship  -  mount 43 destroyed
1921 hr  -  Kamikaze hit on ship  -  various 20 mm mounts destroyed
 
In addition to the gun mounts damaged or destroyed, almost every compartment and piece of equipment on the ship was damaged or destroyed.  However, despite the immense amount of destruction, the majority of the gun mounts were still functioning albeit at reduced efficiency at the conclusion of the battle.  This is testament to the design and ruggedness of WWII ships and the recognition by the designers that amid all the damage, the weapons MUST continue to function.
 
 
 
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[1]Brave Ship Brave Men, Lt. Cmdr. Arnold Lott, USN (ret), Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, 1964, ISBN 1-55750-523-3

DDG(X) Visual Assessment

DDG(X) Assessment

 

The DDG(X) destroyer is beginning to get pinned down in terms of capabilities and appearance.  Below is a concept drawing taken from an official Navy presentation graphic.

 

 

Understanding that this is still not a final design, let’s see what a visual assessment offers in the way of positive and negative features.  Has the Navy learned any lessons?  Have they been reading this blog?

 

Positive Features

 

Superstructure – The superstructure is noticeably smaller than in previous ship designs.  This will decrease radar, infrared, and optical signatures.  One can see that the smaller superstructure has the effect of increasing the usable deck space with a notable large flat area amidships that may house a VLS cluster or other weapons.  The fact that the structures still stretch the full width of the ship is disappointing but the overall reduction is a net positive.

 

It’s interesting to note that the various power related air intakes and exhausts make up a significant portion of the superstructure.  If those could be eliminated or substantially reduced due to rerouting to the waterline or substituting a different power source than the common turbines, the ship would achieve a marked decrease in superstructure size and signatures.

 

See, “Ship Superstructures” and “Top Heavy”

 

Hull – The Navy has, wisely, abandoned the tumblehome hull form of the Zumwalt which had some significant operating restrictions regarding certain sea conditions and decreasing wetted area as the ship settles/sinks which has negative implications for survivability.  That the Navy abandoned the tumblehome hull should be telling us everything we need to know about that hull form, right?

 

 

Negative Features

 

Weapon Density – The weapon density appears appallingly deficient.  It looks like the ship will have 2x 32-cell VLS, 1x 5” gun, 1x laser, and 2x RAM.  That’s a pitifully meager amount on a ship that size.

 

Fantasy – The Navy appears to be counting on a laser for significant defense despite there being no actual demonstrated laser capability.  This is delusional and has no place in a useful, effective, realistic design.

 

Close In Defense – Close in defense appears limited to the two RAM launchers with 21 missiles each.  Unless the Navy has some super-secret, Star Wars type laser ready to go, the laser is limited to possibly disrupting a small quadcopter and will be completely ineffective against missiles.  Potentially worse, the two RAM launchers have a limited engagement zone of about 120 deg to either side with substantial blind spots directly forward and astern.  RAM requires targeting from the ship’s fire control system and I don’t know whether it can engage targets the missile’s sensor can’t initially see.  Normally, the launcher is fired facing directly at the target.

 

The Navy appears to be discounting close in defense.  You’ll recall that the Zumwalt class has no close in defensive weapons!

 

Illuminators – It’s hard to tell from the blurry drawing but it appears that there are two fire control illuminators atop the aft superstructure and one atop the forward superstructure.  The aft pair are located side by side with what appears to be just a few feet separation in violation of every precept of survivability.  A single hit in that area would eliminate 2/3 of the ship’s fire control illuminators – a horrible design flaw.  Worse, the illuminators are located just feet away from one of the two hot exhaust outlets which will be major heat seeking missile targets.  This is just bad all around.

 

 

Questionable Features

 

Aviation – The ship appears to have a larger hangar for enhanced aviation.  The question is what type of aviation?  An additional -60 type helo or Fire Scout is useless.  This ship will not be risked conducting ASW and Fire Scout is not survivable.  If the additional space is intended to support small surveillance UAVs, then the space would be a positive development.

 

 

 

Summary

 

All in all, the design is a decidedly mixed bag of positives and negatives.  Clearly, the Navy is not learning any lessons and, if this design holds, will produce a very sub-optimum vessel that falls well short of a true WARship.

 

 

Caution/Disclaimer – The drawing is just a concept drawing.  The final design may be quite different, however, I suspect that the drawing is fairly set and accurate, at this point.  If it does turn out to be substantially different, we’ll re-evaluate.

 

Book Review – “United States Navy Destroyers of World War II”

We haven’t done a book review in a while so let’s do one!

 

The Fletcher class destroyer was the iconic destroyer of WWII but have you wondered why?  Why did it become an icon?  What characteristics made it so successful?  How did it evolve?

 

John C. Reilly, Jr.’s book, “United States Navy Destroyers of World War II”, answers these questions and many more.  As the name suggests, the book is an exploration of the pre-war evolution of US destroyers which culminated in the Fletcher class and its successors the Sumner and Gearing classes.

 

The book is soft-covered (there is a much more expensive hard cover version available) in an 8-1/2 x 11 inch format which provides ample area for the over 200 b&w photos, most of them quite close up and revealing all manner of detail about equipment.  Each photo is accompanied by detailed captions explaining what you’re seeing.

 

The book begins with a brief history of the beginnings of destroyers and then examines the evolution through the Farragut, Porter, Benham, Sims, Benson, and Gleaves classes and then, of course, the Fletchers along with the following Sumner and Gearing classes.  It is a treat and highly informative to flip through the pages and see the visual evolution of the classes as the form of the Fletcher becomes more and more evident with each succeeding class.

 

Of intense interest are the descriptions of the debates and considerations that went into each succeeding design and how real world experience fed back into the evolutionary process.  The role of the General Board and BuShips in developing designs really stands out and is made all the more emphatic when compared to the absence of any guiding design authority today and the almost random nature of today’s ship designs.

 

A chapter on anti-aircraft (AA) roles, evolution, and impact on tactics and ship design is utterly fascinating.  Diagrams of various AA projectiles is most illuminating.  Passages such as,

 

On 12 June [1940] the General Board forwarded a memorandum to CNO.  This summarized fleet AA firing of 1939-40 and concluded that ‘the firing is generally ineffective, that a large amount of ammunition is expended in obtaining only occasional effective hits, and that anti-aircraft gunnery – as at present developed – does not provide reasonable security against air attack.’[1]

 

emphasize the degree of testing and honesty about results that is sorely lacking today (not withstanding the Navy's pre-war torpedo testing fiasco!).

 

Additional topics such as the development of radar, the role of the torpedo, the rationale for armor, the shift in focus from anti-surface to anti-air, the importance of topside weight, the development of the 5” gun, and more are all detailed through the discussions of the development of the various classes.

 

I look at the development and evolution of the destroyer and can’t help but be impressed by the logic and common sense as well as the feedback of real world experience that inexorably led to the ultimate destroyer, the Fletcher class.  Every new design/class along the way built on the preceding class and represented a marked and steady improvement.  In contrast, we seem to have no steady development and improvement with today’s ship classes.  Indeed, each new design/class seems almost worse than the preceding one!

 

This book is a treat and a feast for the eyes and the mind and I highly recommend it.  A reader will come away with a detailed understanding of ship design, ship evolution, the role of equipment in the development of tactics, and many more aspects of ship development, in general, and destroyer development, in particular.

 

 

 

 

Disclaimer:  I have absolutely no connection, whatsoever, with the author, the book, or the publisher.  As a point of interest, I picked this book up decades ago for the price of $9.95. I shudder to think what inflation has done to the price!

 

 

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[1]John C. Reilly, Jr., “United States Navy Destroyers of World War II”, Blandford Press, 1983, ISBN: 0 7132 1026 8

Knee Jerks and Paradigms

The knee jerk reactions to the recent destroyer post (see, "The Missing Destroyer") have highlighted the phenomenon of paradigms.  So many people instantly decided that the specified weapons and sensors couldn’t fit on a destroyer with the specified size.  Why?  For no reason other than because they’re not used to seeing densely packed ships.  Today’s ships are, literally, designed for almost everything but combat.  They’re designed to be roomy and comfortable for 6-8 month deployments with every imaginable crew comfort and convenience.  They’re floating hotels with a few weapons attached as an afterthought.  Our expectation, our paradigm, today, is comfort not combat.  It’s that paradigm that made so many people instantly claim the proposed destroyer couldn’t be built with the specified weapons.

Armor was another knee jerk reaction.  So many people think that if we add armor the ship will either sink outright under the weight or, at best, be reduced to a 5 knot barge, nearly unable to move.  Those people are ignoring the fact that every WARship built in WWII had heavy armor, appropriate for their size, and yet managed to not only float but sail around at 30+ knots and carry a weapons fit that puts our modern designs to shame and all on hulls that were much smaller than today’s ships.  Armor can be done.  We routinely did it.  We’ve just forgotten that it can be done because our paradigm, today, is unarmored ships.  It’s that paradigm that made so many people instantly claim the destroyer couldn’t be armored.

Crew comfort was also a popular knee jerk reaction.  Many people seem to feel that if today’s crew doesn’t have luxurious five star accommodations they’ll either die or flee the ship.  The fact that tens of thousands of sailors fought for four years in WWII under spartan conditions seems lost and forgotten.  We not only managed to operate ships with minimal crew comforts but we actually won an entire war while doing so!  It’s only today’s paradigm of cruise ships masquerading as WARships that have conditioned people to think luxury comforts are necessary.  It’s that paradigm that made so many people instantly claim the proposed destroyer couldn’t be crewed with only minimal comforts.

Paradigms … they really restrict our thinking, don’t they?

Let’s try a paradigm-breaking exercise.  Let’s imagine taking a WWII Fletcher and simply replacing its weapons with modern equivalents.  Specifically,

• Leave 5” gun mounts number 1 and 5
• Replace 5” gun mounts number 3 and 4 each with a 8-cell VLS
• Replace 5” gun mount number 2 with a CIWS
• Replace the aft 40 mm with a CIWS
• Replace the 4x port/starboard midships 20 mm guns with a SeaRAM port/starboard
• Replace the torpedo tubes between the stacks with 2x 8-cell VLS
• Leave the aft set of torpedo tubes
• Replace the port/starboard deck edge depth charge launchers with an RBU port/starboard
• Replace the bridge top fire control/range finder with a TRS-3D radar
• Replace the stern depth charge racks with a towed array sonar

Fletcher Class Destroyer - Visualize the Modern Replacements

Hey, that’s everything I specified for the modern destroyer except for the hangar and flight deck!  And all on a 376 ft hull !  With an additional 50-60 ft to play with, as specified for the modern destroyer design, and a little rearranging (weapons on top of the hangar, for example, as on the Perry and Burke) we can easily accommodate the hangar and flight deck.

And, we still had the 2x forward 20 mm gun spaces that we can use for still more weapons/sensors!  Hmm … I may have oversized the spec on the modern destroyer length!

Further, a modern destroyer would have a wider beam than the 39 ft wide Fletcher – probably something around the 45 ft beam of the Perry class (Burkes have a 66 ft beam).  That gives even more space for weapons.  We could probably fit the 32 VLS cells in the space of the forward torpedo tubes and retain the 5” gun mounts number 3 and 4 – everything I specified plus two additional 5” guns for a total of 4 !!!!!

You see what can be achieved if you’re not constrained by paradigms?  Anytime you have an instantaneous reaction (especially a negative one), stop and ask yourself why?  It might be for a good reason but often it’s because you’re subject to a paradigm that you didn’t even realize you had. 

The Missing Destroyer

One of the key elements of a balanced and effective surface navy is completely missing from the US Navy force structure and that is a true destroyer.  Yes, the Navy calls its Burkes destroyers but we’ve previously noted that Burkes are not functional destroyers – they’re the modern cruiser/battleship in that they are closely tied to carrier and amphibious escort duty in the anti-air (AAW) role.  Given their cost ($2B each) and value (Aegis AAW), no sane commander is going to risk them in the anti-submarine (ASW) role.  Being tied so closely to the carrier, they are also not a tactically flexible and useful anti-surface (ASuW) asset.

What is missing, and needed, is a true destroyer that can provide useful and effective ASW and ASuW.  Thus, the functions of a true destroyer include:

• Extended layer ASW escort for carriers, amphibious, and surface groups
• Independent attack groups (Guadalcanal being an example)
• Picket line
• Heavy ASuW (analogous to the WWII Fletcher heavy torpedo fit)
• Higher end convoy escort

ASuW – This is the main function of a modern destroyer just as it was in WWII.  The WWII heavy torpedo fit is replaced by heavy anti-ship cruise missiles (AGM-158C LRASM) although a heavy torpedo fit is also retained and would prove a useful weapon against merchant shipping and in close surface encounters, should those happen.  As in WWII, destroyers would operate in squadrons, able to mass their firepower for effective anti-ship strikes.

The flexibility of not being intimately tied to carriers allows the destroyer (squadron) to act independently in the anti-surface role, conducting sweeps, patrols, raids, and interdiction.  The higher risk of such operations is justified by the lower cost of the ships.

One could also add a single Burke to a destroyer squadron to act as a destroyer leader and provide higher end AAW protection.

ASW – While the main responsibility for open ocean carrier, amphibious, and surface group ASW protection lies with the destroyer escort, the destroyer provides the complementary higher end, close up ASW capability as well as providing helicopters to support the destroyer escort’s ASW efforts.  Not being tied to the high value unit’s AAW needs, like the Burke is, the destroyer can leave the group to prosecute submarine contacts, if needed.  It should be noted that the destroyer is built from the first rivet to be an ASW platform with acoustic isolation of all machinery, built in quieting, Prairie/Masker, and whatever other ASW-specific quieting is available.

AAW – The destroyer is not intended to provide area AAW protection.  It’s AAW capability is limited to medium range ESSM surface-to-air missiles for self-defense and local area protection for vessels in fairly close proximity.  With no need to provide area AAW protection, there is no need to mount an expensive Aegis/AMDR radar and combat suite, thus saving significant cost.

To summarize, from the blog Fleet Structure page, the destroyer’s main features are:

•  2x 5” gun
•  2x Phalanx CIWS
•  2x SeaRAM
•  32x Mk 41 VLS (ESSM, VL-ASROC, LRASM)
•  4x 21” torpedo
•  2x RBU-ish ASW rocket depth charges
•  2x MH-60R ASW helo
•  TRS-4D radar
•  Hull mounted multi-frequency sonar
•  Towed array

From the preceding discussion, we can see that the Concept of Operations (CONOPS) for the destroyer is two-fold, as ever-so-briefly described below:

1. Escort - The destroyer is used to expand the escort (AAW and ASW) coverage area with significant and effective firepower and capability without risking high value, close escort Burkes.  Operating in the middle zone between the outer ASW destroyer escorts and the inner AAW Burkes, this adds an additional layer of protection around the escorted vessels and expands the sensor coverage area.  The expanded coverage area enables earlier warning and engagement of attacking aircraft, ships, subs, and missiles.

One of the key aspects of the escort concept is numbers.  Destroyers must be deployed in sufficient numbers to provide effective coverage and to be mutually supporting.  A carrier group, for example, would require ten or more destroyers.

2. Independent Operations - Destroyer squadrons allow for effective anti-surface sweeps and operations, again without risking higher value Burkes, while maintaining a formidable amount of firepower and a reasonable amount of AAW self-protection.  While a destroyer squadron is not sufficient to conduct a sweep of the South China Sea, by itself, against the entire Chinese military, a squadron is powerful enough to conduct peripheral or supporting operations while being capable of a reasonable degree of self-defense. 

Unlike a solitary ship engaged in the Navy’s idiotic distributed lethality, which is subject to isolation and defeat in detail, a destroyer squadron has the firepower to constitute a significant offensive threat while presenting a challenging defensive capability that is sufficient to give an enemy pause.

At this point, readers may be asking, ‘how is this different than the frigate that ComNavOps is always arguing against’?  The answer is that, on the surface, the destroyer does spec out somewhat like a modern frigate.  However, the deeper answer reveals that there are significant differences:

CONOPS – The Navy envisions their frigate as a jack of all trades, continually deployed, running around and accomplishing little.  The problem is that the Navy has not developed a CONOPS for the frigate whereas I’ve laid out a very specific, and limited CONOPS for the destroyer.  The destroyer CONOPS requires significant numbers of ships in order to be effective whereas the Navy is only planning on building 20 frigates – totally insufficient.  The destroyer CONOPS emphasizes a very heavy anti-surface fit as opposed to the Navy’s frigate.  The greatest overlap in the two ships lies in the ASW role and, in this, they are reasonably equivalent.

Combat – The destroyer, totally unlike the Navy’s frigate, is built for combat.  To that end, it will have WWII levels of armor, as appropriate for its size (1.5”-2” armored guns, 1”-2” hull armor, 1”-1.5” deck armor, internal armored command (CIC) space, armored VLS, etc.). 

The ship will be built to take damage and continue fighting.  This includes characteristics such as healthy weight reserves, extremely good stability (metacentric height), excessive buoyancy reserve (recall the Navantia/Norwegian frigate that sank so quickly from such minor damage? – that won’t happen with this ship), state of the art damage control design, redundancy and separation of key components, etc.  This is not a ship that will go down easily and, if it does go down, it will do so while continuing to fight.

Finally, we must consider the issue of cost.  While I’ve stated repeatedly that cost cannot be the controlling factor in ship design, neither can it be totally ignored.  The goal of intelligent ship design is to build in the MINIMUM capability that can accomplish the CONOPS, rather than trying to build in every capability ever conceived, as modern ship designers do.

All of the above is tremendous but unless it can be done for a reasonable cost, it won’t be feasible.  So, what would a destroyer cost? 

First, it is necessary to accept that this is a warship, not a cruise ship.  This is not a ship to send on worthless 6-10 month deployments.  Therefore, the ship would have minimal crew comforts.  All available space would go directly to weapons and supporting functions.

The starting point for cost estimating is the Burke which costs around $2B, depending on specific version and acquisition time frame.  The major cost adjustments to the Burke would be:

Radar – Substituting a TRS-3/4D type radar for the Burke’s Aegis/AMDR/BMD would save $200M-$300M in radar, supporting utilities, computers, and software.

Size – The destroyer would be smaller than a Burke (510 ft long).  Relevant comparative data points would be the Forrest Sherman DD class at 418 ft long, the Adams DDG class at 437 ft, and a modern frigate such as the F100 (Navantia) FFG family at 481 ft.  The F100 is a bit oversized with excessively large flight deck area (see a plan of a Ticonderoga or Spruance to see what the flight deck area should be) and a greatly oversized superstructure to accommodate advanced radars.  The conceptual model for the destroyer would be the WWII Fletcher with its minimalist superstructure and no-frills construction.  The overall size of the destroyer would be around 430 ft.  As a very crude approximation, the 430 ft length is 84% that of a Burke.  Thus, the Burke cost would scale down to $1.7B based on a linear scaling of size and cost.  I recognize that’s not how cost works but it provides an idea of the savings due to size.

Of course, as size decreases, other aspects also decrease resulting in further cost savings.  For example, smaller engines, smaller propellers, smaller air intakes and exhausts all result in reduced costs.  With smaller propulsion equipment goes reduced manning which means smaller berthing spaces which, in turn, means smaller galleys, food storage, water storage, etc.

The other significant size decrease would be in the superstructure.  Modern ships have hugely increased the size of their superstructures since WWII, presumably in pursuit of stealth shaping.  This destroyer would retain stealth shaping where possible but it would return to the conceptual model of WWII ship design and hugely reduce the size of the superstructure.  This, alone, improves the stealth by simply removing superstructure – the best stealth there is, is non-existence!  The conceptual model for the superstructure would be the WWII Fletcher with its minimal superstructure.  By greatly reducing the size of air intakes and exhausts, eliminating giant radar arrays, and placing command spaces below the main deck (the destroyer has minimal crew comforts, remember), we can significantly reduce the size of the superstructure.

We see then, that a destroyer would be significantly cheaper than a Burke due to reduced size, reduced crew comforts, greatly reduced radar fit, smaller superstructure, etc.  My guesstimate on the cost is $800M.

The Navy desperately needs balance in its fleet composition instead of the all-Burke fleet we have now.  We need balance in ship types, roles, cost, risk-aversion, and capabilities.  Until we get that, we have a limited fleet that is heavily skewed toward expensive, risk-averse ships which makes for an ineffective combat fleet.

Bring back the missing destroyer!