Over the last several years ComNavOps has, quite rightly and
wisely, criticized and mocked the Navy’s many absurd, ill-considered,
individual plans and acquisitions. It’s
time, now, to look at the Navy’s overall fleet concept and see how it holds up
to analysis. Of course, given the failure
and poor performance of the many individual elements, it’s probably not too
hard to anticipate the result of this analysis but we’ll go through the
exercise anyway in the hopes that it can offer some guidance about what not to
do.
When I talk about the Navy’s overall plan, I’m referring to
the Navy’s vision of the ideal task force.
Again, we’ve discussed the individual components but let’s bring them
together, now.
HVU (High Value Unit). The ideal task force will have a HVU(s) which
could be a carrier(s), amphibious ships, or vitally important cargo ships
surrounded by escorts.
Escorts. The
escorts are envisioned to be a few (2-3?) Burke class destroyers for AAW and
control of unmanned assets. The Burkes
will be in constant two-way communication with the unmanned assets as well as
the other Burkes and HVUs.
The unmanned assets will consist of:
LUSV (Large Unmanned Surface Vessel). Sailing near the Burkes will be these small
(by ship standards and large relative only to the smaller unmanned vessels),
missile-carrying, unmanned vessels operationally tethered to and controlled by
a Burke. Essentially, these are unmanned,
mini-arsenal ships whose purpose is to supplement the missile magazines of the
Burkes. They have no weapons or sensors,
themselves, and are wholly dependent on the Burkes for control. These vessels will be in constant
communication with the controlling Burkes who will provide them with remote operation
and fire control solutions.
MUSV (Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel). Forming an outer ring around the Burkes will
be these small, sensor vessels operationally tethered to and controlled by a
Burke. Their function is to provide
detection and situational awareness for the task force. They will have no significant weapons or fire
control. Essentially, these are very
large floating sensor barges. These
vessels will be in constant two-way communication with the controlling Burkes,
continuously broadcasting high bandwidth, large volume data streams for
analysis by the computers and analysts on the Burkes as well as receiving
operational remote control.
UAV. Ranging
out beyond the task force ships, these small UAVs will conduct
surveillance. An example would be the MQ-8B/C
Fire Scout. These UAVs will be in
constant communication with the controlling ship for remote operational control
and continuously streaming transmission of sensor data.
USV. Farthest
out from the task force will be these tiny, free roaming, unmanned surface
vessels that will operate way out in front of the task force, detecting and
tracking enemy submarines and providing situational awareness. Sea Hunter and the tiny sailboats we’ve seen
are examples of these assets. These USVs
will be in constant communication with the controlling ship for remote
operational control and will continuously stream sensor data back to the
controlling ship.
P-8/Triton (BAMS – Broad Area Maritime Surveillance). When available, the P-8 Poseidon/Triton
combination, the pairing being referred to as BAMS, will provide overwatch and
far distant surveillance, situational awareness, and, in their spare time,
anti-submarine detection and prosecution.
Discussion
There you have it – the ideal Navy task force. Of course, I’ve ignored a multitude of
problems which would render the individual components ineffective but, setting
that aside, did you notice the one, overriding characteristic of every element
of the task force? That’s right, it’s
the requirement for constant, high bandwidth, streaming communications between
the various elements. We don’t have
Terminator level AI yet so constant control communications are required. None of the unmanned assets have any
significant degree of on-board computer analysis so all data must be streamed
back to the control vessel for analysis, interpretation, and decision making.
What we’ve just described is, in reality, a large task force
sized, floating electromagnetic beacon continuously shouting, “Here I am!”,
while some enemy surveillance technician tasked with finding the American
running dogs smiles and says, “Well, that was easy.”.
Having handed the enemy our exact location, the only remaining
unknown is the exact amount of time it will take for final ship of the task
force to be sunk.
One of the constants of warfare throughout the ages has been
EMCON. This is beyond elementary. You stay silent while, hopefully, tracking
the enemy who is oblivious to your presence.
This allows you to choose the time and conditions of battle, - an enormous
advantage! The ideal task force not only
violates the very concept of EMCON, it is directly the opposite. It is a continuous electromagnetic beacon,
pinpointing your location for the enemy.
To believe that the degree of required communication can
escape notice by the enemy is simply delusional. If anyone has conducted a wargame about this
(I doubt they have or they would have recoiled in horror at the idiocy of the concept),
I’d love to see how they hand-waved away the free detection advantage for the
enemy … and I’m sure their wrists were sore from all the waving!
What about the special case of a carrier as the HVU? Wouldn’t this change things?
Carrier. Of
course, if the HVU is a carrier, this changes things a bit but,
disappointingly, not all that much. A
carrier’s air wing will add another layer to the task force’s defense, which is
good, but it comes at the price of additional communications. The E-2 must communicate with the aircraft it
controls and must transmit its sensor data to the ships of the task force. The individual aircraft must communicate with
the E-2 and the carrier for air traffic control. The carrier must communicate with the
aircraft. And, of course, the Ford class
EMALS is just the world’s largest electromagnetic beacon all by itself!
So, what has this analysis taught us? It has demonstrated that we are violating the
oldest principle of warfare by not concealing our location. We need to be structuring the fleet to
operate with the least amount of communication possible – none, being the ideal
condition.
Every asset we design and procure that requires
communication is a step along the path to defeat. The path to victory is silence (and
firepower!). During the Cold War, we
practiced EMCON operations (we learned how to launch an entire carrier strike
without transmitting!). Unfortunately,
the situation has gotten worse since every new piece of electronics seems to
require even more power and communications.
In combat, you talk, you die. Stop talking!
- We need to reverse this trend.
- We need to restore the requirement that every piece of equipment (I’m looking at you, EMALS) be shielded and EMCON-capable.
- We need to halt the rush down the unmanned path.
- We need to realistically exercise our communications in a combat setting and see how bad the problem is.
- We need to begin designing equipment with minimal communications as a mandatory requirement.
- We need to rethink our command and control concept and eliminate the top down control bias.
- We need start thinking in terms of combat operations rather than technological fixation.
