Old Ironside's Lesson for Today

The US sailing frigate, USS Constitution, nicknamed Old Ironsides, is the most famous ship in US naval history (USS Enterprise, CV-6, is a close second!) and for good reason.  In addition to her notable victories, she established the pattern of building ships that could stand in a fight, absorb hits, and keep fighting.
 
The Constitution was unique in its construction, for the time, using a system of diagonal beams to support the ship’s structure, thus lending far greater strength to the structure and allowing much heavier planking (armor) to be carried.  This heavy planking and strong structure earned the ship its nickname when enemy cannon balls supposedly bounced off the sides of the ship.
 
In addition to the ship’s heavy planking (armor), she carried a heavy weapons fit.  Nominally rated for 44 guns, Constitution typically carried 50 or more.  For example,
 

During the War of 1812, Constitution's battery of guns typically consisted of 30 long 24-pounder (11 kg) cannons, with 15 on each side of the gun deck. Twenty-two more guns were deployed on the spar deck, 11 per side, each a short 32-pounder (15 kg) carronade. Four chase guns were also positioned, two each at the stern and bow.[1]

Constitution’s heavy firepower and strong planking (armor) allowed her to stay in fights and win.
 

USS Constitution - Firepower and Armor

That original US Navy tradition of heavy arms and armor continued through to WWII where ships such as the New Orleans class cruiser, approximately the same size as a modern Burke, carried heavy armament and armor.
 
 
New Orleans Class Armor
 
Belt                              3-5 in
Deck                            1.25-2.25 in
Turrets                          1.5-8 in
Barbettes                      5 in
Conning Tower              5 in
 
 
Inexplicably, the Navy abandoned armor after WWII.  I don’t know what the last ship built with traditional armor was but it would be interesting to know.  Maybe someone has some data?
 
We had conceptual ship design figured out in the 1700’s and, after proving its worth in WWII, we promptly abandoned it.  How’s that for illogical?  How’s that for failed leadership?
 
Go Navy!
 
 
 
__________________________________

 
[1]Wikipedia, “USS Constitution”,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Constitution

Carrier and Battleship “Throw Weights”

I suspect that a lot of people believe that nothing can match the weight of ordnance (“throw weight”) that an aircraft carrier (meaning, its air wing) can deliver.  It’s significant, without a doubt.  Just for fun, I wonder how a battleship compares to a carrier in “throw weight”?
 
Just so we’re clear, the general definition of ‘throw weight’ is the total weight of shells a ship could deliver in a broadside.  Obviously, carriers don’t have a broadside and that’s not really a useful way to compare a carrier and a battleship so we’ll modify the definition to suit our purposes.  A carrier’s equivalent to a broadside is a maximum effort air strike which, depending on the distance to the target, takes place over several hours.  Thus, a carrier can fire a broadside (strike) once every several hours as opposed to a battleship which can fire its guns continuously.  For our purposes, the comparison, then, should be the weight of ordnance delivery over some time period with the obvious time period being the duration of a carrier strike mission.  Unfortunately, a carrier mission time period is highly variable so, just for the sake of convenience, let’s pick an arbitrary time period of one hour instead of a more realistic several hour period and we’ll assume the carrier’s weapons delivery occurs within that one hour.  The time period doesn’t really matter and won’t change the subsequent conclusions.
 
With that settled, let’s take a look at carrier and battleship throw weights over a one hour period.
 
We need to start with a few assumptions and stipulations.
 

• The carrier’s ‘broadside’ is assumed to be 40x FA-18-E/F aircraft.  Each aircraft has six bomb hard points capable of carrying a 2,000 lb Mk84 bomb for a total load of 12,000 pounds per aircraft and a total of 480,000 pounds for all 40 aircraft. This is the theoretical maximum full sortie capability. Two sorties of the entire wing is the single day maximum.[1]
  
  
• A battleship is assumed to be able to maintain a firing rate of 1 shell per gun per minute which is 60 shells per gun per hour.  A battleship has 9 guns in three triple mounts.
  
  
• The battleship magazine is 1220x 16” shells (per NavWeaps website).

 
With those assumptions in hand, we can derive the following table which shows the one hour throw weights for a carrier and a battleship.  The battleship is shown with the alternate cases of high explosive and armor piercing shells.  For our purposes, it’s one or the other but not both.
 

 

So, what do we learn from the table?
 

• The table shows that a battleship has 2-3 times the throw weight of a carrier in a one hour period.
  
  
• If we extend the time period to, say, two hours, the battleship’s delivery is doubled while the carrier’s delivery remains unchanged as the aircraft are unable to deliver any more ordnance.
  
  
• We also clearly see the folly of trying to use a carrier to provide ground support.  It just can’t deliver the required firepower effectively.

  
Now, before we take these observations and run with them, let’s note some ‘reality’ considerations that impact our table observations.
 
A carrier’s theoretical maximum throw weight can never be achieved due to the necessity to keep a significant portion of the air wing reserved for strike-related, concurrent tasks such as carrier defense, tanking, protection of high value targets (HVU) such as E-2 Hawkeyes and Growlers, target combat air patrol (TarCAP), barrier combat air patrol (BarCAP), etc. as well as the inevitable ‘maintenance-down’ aircraft.  Thus, our maximum strike does not consist of 40 aircraft but, instead, some significant number less.  Thus, the use of ‘40’ as the air wing size is utterly unrealistic.  A more realistic maximum strike package might be 10-20 which reduces the carrier throw weight to 120,000 – 240,000 lb.
 
In addition, an F-18 would rarely (never?) carry six 2000 lb bombs.  The weight would drastically cut into the aircraft’s range, speed, and maneuverability.  A far more realistic scenario would see a Hornet with just 2-4 bombs with two being the most likely.  Thus, the carrier throw weight is further reduced to 40,000 - 160,000 lb.
 
Magazine capacity is an issue.  We know exactly what a battleship’s magazine composition and capacity is.  I have no information on what a carrier’s magazine composition and capacity is.  It could be that a carrier doesn’t even carry 240x 2000 lb bombs.  Or, perhaps it has several times that.  I just don’t know.
 
Related to magazine capacity is ‘emptying’ time.  A battleship, firing all guns at a rate of 1 rd/minute can empty its magazines in 135 minutes.  That would be a staggering total of over 2.5M lbs of munitions delivered in a short period.  A carrier, cannot deliver such large pulses of firepower but because of that limitation can – and must – spread out its delivery.  Of course, a battleship can spread out its delivery period, too, if desired.
 
 
Discussion
 
The above should not be interpreted as saying that a battleship is overall superior to a carrier.  For example, a carrier has a distinct advantage in delivery range.  Both types have strengths and weaknesses and the purpose of this post is not to debate one over the other.  The purpose is to point out the shocking firepower a battleship can deliver under the right circumstances which can only lead one to wonder why we ever retired the battleships?
 
An examination of throw weights tells us that battleships can effectively relieve carriers of some missions and, for some missions, would be vastly superior.  One of the major problems crippling the fleet is the deteriorating physical state of our carriers due to overuse and the resulting deferred/skipped maintenance.  Common sense says that if we would use battleships to take on some of the carrier’s missions, the fleet would benefit enormously.
 
With all due respect (none) to Navy leadership, it is, was, and always will be firepower that wins wars (yes, and logistics and manufacturing and …), not networks and data.  In the final analysis, you have to be able to kill and destroy and, under the right circumstances, nothing does that like the firepower of a battleship.
 
 
 
____________________________

 
[1]“Joint and Interdependent Requirements: A Case Study in Solving the Naval Surface Fire Support Capabilities Gap”, Joint Forces Staff College, Joint Advanced Warfighting School, Shawn Welch, Colonel, Army Corps of Engineers, 17-May-2007, p.81-83

Battleships - Naval Massing

One of the foundational principles of combat, throughout history, is local massing of firepower.  Let’s examine that principle through the historical lens of battleship operations.  If ever there was a ship that could successfully operate alone, it would be the battleship, one would think.  However, in WWII, battleships always operated in groups, when possible, in accordance with the principle of massing of firepower.  Thus, despite their individually impressive firepower and armor, naval commanders of the time understood that massing was the proper way to employ battleships.

 

For the US, earlier in the war, battleships sometimes operated as single units – though still as part of larger groups such as a carrier group – due to inadequate numbers.  Later in the war, as numbers became available, battleships operated in groups, as discrete battleship task forces.

 

One of the earlier examples of US massing of battleship firepower was the pairing of the Washington and South Dakota to form Battleship Division 6 at Guadalcanal, culminating in the famous engagement and sinking of the Japanese battleship, Kirishima.

 

Oldendorf’s Task Force 77.2 consisted of the old battleships USS Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Tennessee, California, Maryland, and West Virginia at Leyte Gulf.

 

The never-formed Task Force 34 at Leyte Gulf would have consisted of the battleships Washington, Alabama, New Jersey, and Iowa along with escorting cruisers and destroyers.

 

Task Force 58/38 included the battleships Alabama, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Washington, and Wisconsin although, of course, the individual ships rotated in and out of the Task Force as operational needs and availability dictated.

 

The British Home Fleet included 2^nd Battle Squadron with the battleships HMS Royal Oak, HMS Royal Sovereign, HMS Ramilies, HMS Nelson, and HMS Rodney although, again, the ships rotated in and out as needs and availability dictated.

 

When the principle of naval massing in combat was violated, it usually didn’t turn out well:

 

• Bismarck operated alone and was sunk after inflicting only insignificant damage on Allied shipping.
• Tirpitz operated alone and was sunk having accomplished little.
• Kirishima was the only Japanese battleship at the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal and was sunk in the famous battleship duel with Washington.
• Graf Spee, a so-called pocket battleship, operated alone and was trapped and scuttled for little return.
• Yamato and escorts faced the firepower of several of Task Force 58’s carriers and was sunk.
• Yamashiro, of the Japanese southern force at Leyte Gulf (Fuso having been sunk earlier), was sunk after facing a US force of several cruisers and six battleships.

 

 

Of course, merely assembling multiple battleships doesn’t guarantee success.  For example, the British Force Z battleship, Prince of Wales, and battlecruiser Repulse operated together but insufficient escorts, lack of air cover, and an operationally untenable position doomed the group regardless of their massing because their cumulative mass of firepower was less than the enemy’s.  In other words, the enemy achieved greater local mass of firepower despite the pairing of the two ships. 

 

This leads to the pointed reminder that massing refers to firepower, not numbers.  One could assemble six battleships but if the enemy can assemble eight, it is the enemy that has achieved superior local massing of firepower.  Similarly, assembling multiple battleships is pointless if the enemy can assemble superior firepower in the form of aircraft.

 

The need to achieve local massing of firepower seems obvious, now, right?  So why are we belaboring it?

 

One reason is the persistent tendency by so many people to make the one-versus-the-entire-enemy argument for why –fill in the blank- weapon system or ship can’t succeed in naval combat.  The reality, as revealed by WWII naval combat, is that it’s never one-versus-the enemy but a group-versus-the enemy.  We should be evaluating systems and ships as groups because that’s how they’ll fight.  How many times have I heard the argument that a battleship is as good as sunk against the enemy’s missiles, aircraft, submarines, and mines?  As if a single battleship is ever going to attempt to take on the entire enemy war machine single-handed!  The real question is whether, say, four battleships operating as a group with escorts and properly supported by air power, reconnaissance, and submarines has value for the kind of operations we envision (assuming we had a naval strategy … which we don’t).

 

Task Force Entering Ulithi

I don’t want to turn this post into a battleship debate because that’s not the point.  I’m using battleships just to illustrate the point about massing firepower.  It’s not the firepower of a single battleship that matters.  It’s the firepower of a group of battleships, relative to our operational plans and the resources of the enemy, that is the proper basis for evaluations.

 

Another reason to hammer on the principle of local massing of firepower is the Navy’s ill-conceived distributed lethality concept which envisions ships operating alone – the opposite of massing of firepower.  Why is the Navy insistent on pursuing distributed lethality using the LCS which is the polar opposite of a battleship?  If battleships have been shown to be unable to successfully operate alone, why do we think an LCS is going to sail blithely around in enemy territory?

 

Finally, we’ve thoroughly discussed the massing of carriers but we have not explored additional forms of massing of naval firepower.  We should be exploring tactics for massing the firepower we have which, for the surface navy, is Burke class destroyers.  Can a group of Burkes accomplish anything useful?  How many ships would constitute a useful and effective force?  How would they operate?  What tactics would they use?  What support do they need?  What constraints should they operate under?  Of course, not only are we not doing this but I haven’t heard anyone in the Navy even broach the subject of examining a Burke surface group.  The idea may have merit or it may not but it should, at least, be examined.

 

One might be tempted to claim that a group of Burkes is never going to be used as a massed firepower unit but the same might have been said of Oldendorf’s group of obsolete, resurrected battleships and yet they wound up facing a Japanese battleship at Suriago Strait.  One never knows what circumstances might arise and it’s best to be prepared and have thought/exercised through the possibilities before they happen.

Small Wars and Firepower

ComNavOps focuses a great deal of attention on major wars and rightly so.  Smaller conflicts are just subsets of major wars and if we’re prepared for major wars then we’ll be prepared for smaller conflicts, at least on the macro scale.  To be sure, smaller conflicts bring their own unique and specific problems that must be addressed but it is major wars that represent existential threats and are the main responsibility of our armed forces.  However, the likelihood of major wars is less than the likelihood of smaller conflicts - witness the never ending parade of small conflicts the US has jumped into over recent decades.  Therefore, let’s take a momentary break from contemplating major wars and look at smaller, localized conflicts.

 

The US military wants to fight small, clean, data based and AI-assisted wars with firepower being a mere afterthought.  The problem with this is that the enemy may not agree. 

 

The US had every possible technological advantage in Vietnam and yet the enemy refused to accept our evident superiority and, instead, opted to wage a brutal, barbaric, individual level war which did not hesitate to kill civilians, use them as hostages and pawns, and use them as intel and supply resources.  The enemy waged a dirt level war while we attempted to wage a high level, technological one and, worse, a technological war with significant self-imposed restraints.  As it turned out, the low level approach prevailed, not just in terms of ultimate victory but, more importantly, in terms of its daily relevance to combat operations though the US military was loathe to acknowledge that fact.  Now, some maintain that the US technological approach was hamstrung by extremely restrictive rules of engagement and, indeed, there is ample evidence to support that view.  But, I digress …

 

 

What allows one to win a small war?  The answer is twofold: 

 

1.     Firepower  – the ability to apply sufficient firepower to devastate the enemy.

2.     Willpower – the willingness to apply one’s firepower.

 

This leads us to recognize the following ComNavOps axiom:

 

War will devolve to the lowest technology level rather than rise to the highest. 

 

 

This has profound implications for technology-loving militaries such as ours.

 

When you’re fighting goat-herders, all-domain technological warfare probably isn’t going accomplish much.  The sniper or suicide bomber hiding as a civilian amongst the population isn’t going to be affected by superior technology.  The verbal orders delivered in person are not really subject to electronic intel collection.  And so on.

 

So, how does this discussion of small wars impact us, today?

 

Breaking Defense website published an article about a new set of Chinese military doctrine which emphasizes smaller, remote (from the Chinese mainland) conflicts and operations.(1)

 

The PLA began shifting in the 1990s from preparing to fight “local wars under modern, high-tech conditions” to “local wars under informationized conditions” to today’s “informationized local wars.” In each case, the Chinese phrase embodies both the scale of the conflict and the key methods by which it would be fought. The PRC’s assessment is that wars will be “local,” not global; as important, they would not be nuclear or total wars. (1)

 

What should worry China’s neighbors and competitors is that the Chinese strategic assessment is so pessimistic. A PRC that sees the global situation as fraying is one that is likely to conclude that conflict is not only more likely, but may be inevitable. (1)

 

Where the US abhors war at any scale and only reluctantly enters into it (despite the contrary evidence of the last two decades!), the Chinese, viewing war as inevitable, may not only not shy away from war, especially smaller, localized conflicts, but may embrace the opportunity for conflict and may actively seek it out, creating the circumstances for such a conflict and hoping that it blossoms into a localized conflict.  By pushing the limits beyond any reasonable point, in an attempt to foster a localized conflict, China would either gain their objectives without combat if their opponent opts for appeasement – as has been the case thus far - or achieve the conflict that they desire.  From their perspective, it would be a win either way.

 

One could make an argument that the construction and militarization of illegal artificial islands in the South China Sea was an example of this philosophy.  China pushed the limits beyond all norms, hoping for a localized conflict and, instead, achieved all their objectives without combat when the US opted for appeasement.

 

Why did this happen?  Because the Chinese had no fear of our firepower (criteria 1. from above) and were absolutely certain that we would never use it since we lack the willpower (criteria 2. from above).

 

So, how do we prevent future small wars?  The answer is almost ageless ...

 

If one desires peace, one must prepare for war. 

 

This means we must embrace firepower and willpower.  Potential enemies must have the certain knowledge that we will crush any small war in short order.  To convince them of this, we must begin demonstrating both our firepower and willpower.  The next time Iran harasses us with their swarm boats or UAVs, we need to destroy them.  The next time a Russian aircraft buzzes our ship, we need to shoot it down.  The next time NKorea tests a ballistic missile, we need to shoot it down.  The next time China focuses a laser on our aircraft, we need to destroy the laser source.  For the squeamish among you, this is not escalation, it is a response to provocation.

 

If someone points a weapon (rifle, UAV, aircraft, whatever) at us, we have the right to assume deadly intent and respond with instant, overwhelming, deadly force.  Again, squeamish, that’s response, not escalation.  Every person and country in the world should know with unwavering certainty that you don’t threaten US forces.  Period. 

 

With that belief firmly in mind, the number of small wars will drastically decrease because the instigators will know with absolute certainty that will lead to total destruction.

 

Now that we understand how to prevent a small war from happening, let’s consider the reverse … a textbook example of how not to prevent and contain a small war:  the rise of ISIS.  The US was so consumed with the desire to avoid collateral damage and potential bad publicity that we refused to unleash our firepower and put a short, violent end to ISIS.  Thus, ISIS grew, captured huge areas, and slaughtered many thousands of civilians.  Our reluctance actually caused much greater death and destruction, in the long run … that continues to this day.

 

 

There you have it.

 

1.     Firepower

2.     Willpower

 

It’s really that simple.

 

 

 

_____________________________________

 

[1]Breaking Defense website, “How China’s Thinking About The Next War”, Dean Cheng, 19-May-2021,

https://breakingdefense.com/2021/05/how-chinas-thinking-about-the-next-war/

Saturation Firepower

As we’ve thoroughly documented, the Navy is going full speed down the path of networks and data and de-emphasizing firepower.  They now want to build smaller, unmanned ships that are significantly weaker than Burkes or even the coming frigate.  ComNavOps has repeatedly demonstrated the folly of this approach and suggested that we should, instead, be pursuing firepower. 

 

That said, what kind of firepower should we be pursuing?  I’m not posing a question about specific weapons but, rather, a question about general types of firepower.  For this post, I’d like to discuss the concept of saturation as it relates to firepower.

 

There are two general types of saturation firepower as it relates to naval weapons:

 

• Area bombardment
• Missile attacks (against either land targets or ships)

 

By definition, saturation attacks overwhelm the enemy’s defenses by presenting the enemy with more attacking munitions than they can defend against in a given moment in time.  By implication, this means that even dumb, unguided munitions can be devastatingly effective if we have more of them than the enemy can stop.

 

It seems blindingly obvious - but remains a mystery to the Navy - that it does no good to have perfect situational awareness about an enemy but insufficient firepower to do anything about it.  It doesn’t matter if you know the serial numbers of every piece of enemy equipment, how many missiles they have left, and what each enemy sailor had for breakfast if you can’t overwhelm their defenses and destroy them.  There’s no getting around the reality of war that, sooner or later, you have to destroy the enemy’s equipment and kill their soldiers.  Right now, we lack the firepower to do that.  Consider our current weapons.

 

Anti-ship Weapons

 

Harpoon – The Harpoon is obsolete and likely totally ineffective against a Chinese fleet due to its lack of stealth, speed, terminal maneuvering, and penetration electronics.  We have Standard missiles that can be used in an anti-ship mode and are faster but their warheads are much smaller and are blast fragmentation rather than high explosive.  The SM-6, for example, has a 140 lb warhead versus the 480 lb Harpoon warhead.  And, of course, they lack terminal evasive maneuvers and penetration electronic aids.  In short, they’re faster than Harpoon but much weaker and no better at penetrating.  Worse, Harpoons are limited to 8 missiles per ship on Mk141 launch racks.  We would need many dozens of ships to mass enough Harpoons to mount a saturation attack and we simply don’t have the number of ships in any realistic scenario.

 

Naval Strike Missile (NSM) – The NSM is modern and stealthy with a 276 lb warhead.  The problem is that we have very few of them and no plans to acquire significant additional numbers.  Given the extremely limited numbers, there is no possibility of mounting saturation attacks.

 

Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) – The LRASM has a large 1000 lb warhead, is stealthy, and has a high sub-sonic speed but, again, we have very few of them and no plans to acquire many more.  In addition, it is currently only aerial launch capable.  Setting available inventory issues aside, the problem with aerial launch is that each aircraft can carry only two missiles.  Assembling even a small saturation attack of, say, 100 missiles would require 50 aircraft which is more than an entire carrier air wing.  In practice, it would require around 3 air wings to assemble such an attack force and still provide sufficient tanking, EW, CAP, defensive reserves, etc.  While the Navy has discussed plans to make a vertical launch (VLS) version of LRASM, the reality is that our surface ships currently have no LRASM capability and, given current flat budget projections, may not for quite some time.  Interestingly, our most advanced anti-ship missile is carried only by the LCS!  How’s that for ironically disturbing?  Worse, the Navy seems to have abandoned the LRASM in favor of the Tomahawk.

 

Tomahawk Anti-Ship Missile – The Tomahawk is slow, non-stealthy, and lacks modern terminal maneuvering, sensors, and penetration aids although some upgrades have been applied to the missile.  Currently, numbers are almost non-existent.

 

 

Land Attack Weapons

 

5” Naval Gun – As we’ve discussed many times, the 5” gun is nearly useless for land attack.  It’s very short range requires that the attacking ship approach shore very closely in order to achieve any useful range.  The 5” shells are good for soft targets but nearly useless for armored or fortified targets.  In the area bombardment role, 5” shells simply don’t have the explosive power to be effective.  Worse, the Burke class destroyers have only a single 5” gun each.  It would require 5 Burkes to equal the firepower of a single WWII Fletcher class destroyer.

 

Tomahawk – The cruise missile is slow, non-stealthy, and has no terminal maneuvering or penetration aids.  In short, it is unlikely to have an acceptable success rate against a peer defender.  Further, at a few million dollars apiece, it is too expensive to use in the area bombardment role although it can be justified for use against high value targets like air or naval bases.

 

 

Summary

 

It is clear that the only weapon we currently have that is capable of mounting a saturation attack is the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM) and it is obsolete and highly susceptible to modern defenses.  The remaining weapons are either too few in number (NSM, LRASM) or have too little density (Harpoon, 5” gun) on ships to mass an effective saturation attack.

 

Modern enemy defenses, whether land or sea, are not going to be penetrated by a handful of weapons.  We’ve grown used to attacking undefended, third world or terrorist targets and, as a result, have become lazy in our operational and tactical thinking.  We have developed the mindset that one precision weapon equates to one destroyed target.  The reality, however, is that modern defenses are equipped with layered surface to air missile systems, electronic countermeasures, sophisticated decoys, GPS jamming/spoofing, radar directed gun systems, radar stealth, IR masking, obscurants, etc.  Small groups of missiles will stand no chance of penetrating such defensive systems.  We need to saturate the defenses and overwhelm their ability to cope.

 

The degree to which we’ve abandoned firepower in favor of networks is truly frightening.  I’ll keep repeating this:  sooner or later you have to be able to destroy the enemy and networks can’t do that.

 

 

Here’s a few implications from this discussion:

 

• We need large caliber naval guns and not any of this sub-caliber sabot nonsense, either.  Sub-caliber means sub-explosive which means ineffective.  Not only do we need large caliber naval guns but we need large numbers of them.  Quantity has a quality all its own.
• Saturation requires numbers.  We need to be able to launch or fire large numbers of weapons.  For example, attacking even a moderate size enemy task force will require hundreds of missiles to overwhelm their defenses.  Where are we going to get hundreds of missiles for a strike?  As noted, we seem to have standardized on around 8 Harpoons/NSM per ship as our offensive firepower.  That means we need 12-30+ ships to generate a single anti-ship saturation strike.
• We need to develop saturation tactics.  For example, maybe a second wave of high explosives after an initial wave of smaller, saturation weapons intended to deplete an enemy’s defensive magazines and inflict sensor blinding damage and disable weapon launchers.
• We need to develop a cheap, basic, anti-ship / land attack missile that can be procured in large quantity.  The key to cheap is simplicity.  It doesn’t matter if the missile doesn’t have every bell and whistle if we can procure and employ it in saturation quantities.
• We need to regain our offensive mindset.  The Navy has, for far too long, been defensive minded and that has negatively impacted our capacity to conduct offensive operations. 

The Decline of Firepower

We’ve touched on this in posts and comments but it’s time to bring it together and hammer it home.  The Navy is headed down a path of smaller, weaker unmanned vessels as replacements for the retiring Ticonderogas and soon to be retiring Burkes.  The result is a loss of missiles, guns, and sensors – what we collectively call firepower and what is responsible for the actual destruction of the enemy.  Data and networks don’t destroy the enemy … firepower does.  Data and networks enable firepower;  they don’t replace it.  Unwisely, the Navy is actually replacing firepower with data and networks.  Let’s take a look at the magnitude of the problem.

 

Let’s start by looking at what we currently have in the way of surface ship firepower.  Note that the following analysis is somewhat affected by what one chooses to classify as existing versus replacement.  For example, is a Burke that is currently being built considered as existing or replacement?  I’ve made my best attempt to present a reasonable interpretation of what’s coming and what’s going but one can easily and validly debate the classification of a few ships.  However, the classification of a few ships won’t change the overall conclusion so view the analysis in that light:  an overall assessment rather than a rigid tally since we have no way of actually knowing what will happen beyond the next few years in terms of retirements or new builds.  We may find that the Navy early retires even more ships than anticipated (the Navy routinely does that!) or we may find that the Navy builds a few more Burkes than anticipated (the Navy loves them!).

 

With that in mind, here’s a table showing the current surface force ships and their firepower as measured by missiles and guns.

 

 

 

Class	Ships	VLS / Ship	Total VLS	Guns / Ship	Total Guns
Ticonderoga	22	122	2684	2	44
Burke	77a	96	7392	1	77
Total			10,076		121

 

^a current, building, or on order

 

 

 

I have not included the LCS or Zumwalts because they have no useful, effective combat capability.

 

Now, let’s look at the replacements that are coming.  To be fair, we don’t have a lot of details on the unmanned vessel configurations, yet, so we’ll have to use our best guesstimates based on the little information we have and based on comparisons to similar size vessels.  Recall that the Navy has identified two classes of unmanned replacement surface vessels:  a small unmanned surface vessel (SUSV) which will be an unarmed sensor platform and a large unmanned surface vessel (LUSV) which will be a mini-VLS barge with few, if any sensors.  Note that the Navy nomenclature of “large” unmanned surface vessel is a joke since the LUSV is described as being 200-300 ft long and 1000-2000 tons which would make it significantly smaller than the 380 ft long, 3500 ton LCS.  So, here’s the anticipated replacements.

 

 

Class	Ships	VLS / Ship	Total VLS	Guns / Ship	Total Guns
Constellation	20	32	640	1	20
LUSV	30a	32b	960	0	0
Total			1600		20

 

 

^a  guesstimate based on announced plans for the moderate future

^b  estimate based on size of LUSV compared to frigate

 

 

There has been talk of a future new cruiser but given the trend towards unmanned vessels and the extreme uncertainty of budgets combined with the absolute certainty of ever-increasing ship construction costs, the likelihood of the proposed new cruiser making it to production is far from certain and, realistically, is probably unlikely.

 

 

 

Now, let’s combine the data and compare the current firepower to the replacement firepower.

 

 

	Ships	Avg VLS / Ship	Total VLS	Total Guns
Current	99	102	10,076	121
Replacement	50	32	1600	20

 

 

 

The problem, the decline in firepower, absolutely jumps off the page.  The total VLS cells are being hugely reduced.  We’re going to lose mammoth amounts of firepower.

 

In addition to the immense loss of VLS cells, we’re also going to lose almost all of our already meager naval gun firepower.  In fact, there are no plans to replace the 5” gun, at all.  The replacement Constellation class calls for the Mk110 57mm (2.2”) which is barely more than a machine gun and there has been no mention of a gun of any kind on the LUSV.

 

Now, we have to be fair and assume that additional ships will be built in the future to continue replacing the steady stream of retiring Burkes but all indications are that the Navy will switch to mostly or completely small (although they call them large!) unmanned vessels with fractional weapon capacities so the declining firepower trend identified here will continue or accelerate.  In fact, the Navy has stated publicly that some portion of the Burkes will be replaced by unmanned vessels.  As stated above, the possible appearance of a few more replacement Burkes doesn’t change the overall assessment.

 

It’s worse than just the loss of firepower and naval guns.  Other sources of firepower are declining, also.

 

Submarines.  The long known and anticipated shortfall in submarines has begun and will result in a decline from the current 68 subs to around 39.  Even the SSBN replacements will be reduced from the original 18 (later 14 + 4 SSGN) subs with 24 missile tubes to 12 subs with 16 tubes which is a 43% decrease in total missile tubes even compared to the current 14 SSBNs.

 

Helicopters.  To the extent that helos represent firepower, the 99 Ticonderoga and Burkes represent a helo force of 2x per ship for a total of 198 helicopters.  Compare this to the replacement helo capacity of 20 Constellation frigates with a single helo each for a total of 20 helos.  The LUSV, of course, has no helo capability.

 

 

	Helos
Current	198
Replacement	20

 

 

 

Sensors.  Sensors enable firepower.  The contribution of sensors to the firepower assessment is difficult to quantify but hundreds of Aegis systems will be replaced by the handful of Constellation small SPY-6 Enterprise Air Surveillance Radar (EASR) and unknown Small Unmanned Surface Vessel sensors.

 

Carrier Air.  We’ve already seen a steady decline in air wing size from the 80-90 of the Cold War era to the current 65 or so.  As F-35C squadrons are activated, the Navy has stated that squadron size will be decreased from 12 aircraft to 10.  We’ve also seen that the number of combat aircraft has been effectively decreased by 6-12 aircraft due to their use as tankers although the Navy hopes that the MQ-25 Stingray unmanned tanker will free up those aircraft for their intended use as combat aircraft.

 

 

 

Summary

 

To be fair, it’s much easier to see what’s going to be retiring from the fleet in the near to moderate future than to see what will be joining the fleet.  It is quite possible, likely even, that more ships will join the fleet than are noted in this post but the addition of a handful of extra ships does not significantly change the conclusion.

 

We seem to have forgotten that, ultimately, even after you’ve collected every bit of data there is about your enemy, you eventually have to destroy their assets to achieve victory.  That requires firepower and lots of it.  We’ve lost sight of that elementary fact.  We’re so focused on data and networks and AI-assisted command and control that we’ve forgotten about the firepower side of things.

 

Firepower?  Yeah, it’s declining and in a big way.