Naval Ballistic Missiles

Now that the US is officially withdrawing from the INF treaty, the Navy is free to develop short and medium range ballistic missiles.  While the INF treaty allowed naval ballistic missiles, the prevailing political climate and limited applicability and associated high costs precluded naval ballistic missile development.  Now, we're free to develop missiles that can be used by any/all the services, thereby taking advantage of commonality and economy of scale.

We already have a thousand mile cruise missile, the Tomahawk, however, it is old and bordering on obsolete.  The Tomahawk is subsonic, not maneuverable, non-stealthy, and carries no on-board electronic countermeasures or penetration aids.  Its effectiveness as a long range strike weapon is highly questionable against a peer defender.  Consider … would we have any great difficulty shooting down Tomahawks?  I don’t think so.

Setting aside the Tomahawk’s shortcomings, we need tactical ballistic missiles with ranges out to 3000 miles or so.  Just as the US is struggling to develop an effective defense against ballistic missiles, so too would any enemy struggle to stop a ballistic missile of ours.  The advantages of these missiles in both the land attack and anti-ship roles (assuming we can solve the targeting challenge) are obvious.

Many readers are terrified about using tactical ballistic missiles because the Chinese might ‘misunderstand’ their intent and respond with nuclear weapons.  Well, the Russians and Chinese, in particular, see no problem with the use of ballistic missiles and any potential ‘misunderstanding’ over their type and intention since they are fully committed to producing and using them.  Oddly, the same readers who are terrified about US ballistic missile use seem to have no concerns about Chinese ballistic missile use or our ability to discern their true nature.  Apparently, in their minds, the onus of risk is completely on the US.  That’s just ridiculous.  Turnabout is fair play so let’s develop our own.

I’ll leave the question of land based ballistic missiles to the Army other than noting that such missiles have two issues: range and vulnerability.  We have very few useful bases for ballistic missiles in the Pacific theatre (Guam being the notable one) and those we have are thousands of miles from China.  Further, the limited number of bases and the fixed or semi-fixed nature of any land based ballistic missiles makes them susceptible to first strike elimination.

This is a naval blog so let’s look at ship based ballistic missiles.  The obvious advantages of ship based ballistic missiles are:

Mobility/Survivability – Ship based ballistic missiles are more survivable simply due to the mobile nature of a ship.  Ship mounting would also ensure a survivable, retaliatory strike capability against a surprise, first strike attack whereas land sites are susceptible to first strike destruction.

Range – Ships can move closer to the target prior to launching, thereby reducing the range, if necessary. 

Stealth – In the case of submarine based ballistic missiles, the launching platform is about as stealthy as is possible.  Even for surface ships, the mobility of the ship confers a degree of stealth.

For surface ships, ballistic missiles are dependent on the Mk 57 VLS (the Zumwalt VLS system) being able to accommodate the desired missile or else a new launch system will have to be developed.  To refresh,

Mk 57 VLS Specifications
Missiles	4
Width (ft)	7.25
length (ft)	14.2
Height (ft)	26, 7.93
Weight (lb)	33,600
Max. canister width (in)	28
Max. canister length (in)	283
Max. encanistered weight (lb)	9,020

While the Mk57 VLS is not much larger than the standard Mk41 VLS, Raytheon claims that the big difference between the MK41 and MK57 is thrust capacity.  Raytheon product brochures claim the system can handle up to 45 percent greater rocket motor mass flow rate thereby allowing for much more powerful booster designs.  The Mk57 also allows for heavier canister weights:  9000 lbs vs. 6000 lbs for the Mk41.

Whether a missile with the desired performance characteristics can fit in a Mk 57 VLS is unknown.  If not, one has to seriously wonder what the rationale was behind the Mk 57 since no current or developing missile requires the extra capacity of the Mk 57.  But, I digress …

Back to naval ballistic missiles …

What specific ships would make good naval ballistic missile platforms?

Battleship - A modern battleship would make an excellent ballistic missile launch platform.  It would offer sufficient size for a significant loadout and excellent armored protection.

Submarine – A sub would obviously make an excellent ballistic missiles platform as demonstrated by the existing SSBN and SSGN vessels.

Arsenal Ship – This is another good possibility with the vessel being, essentially, a mobile ballistic missile barge.  Theoretically, the Zumwalt could be converted to a ballistic missile launch platform if a suitable missile could be designed that would fit the Mk 57 VLS.

As demonstrated by the concerns and the enormous effort the Navy, and military, in general, is putting into stopping enemy ballistic missiles, naval ballistic missiles would offer significant striking power on mobile, survivable platforms.  With treaty limitations no longer a concern, there is no reason not to develop tactical naval ballistic missiles and every reason to do so.

_______________________________

(1)Navy Matters blog, “Mk57 VLS”, 18-Jul-2016,

https://navy-matters.blogspot.com/2016/07/mk57-vls.html

IRBMs in the A2/AD Scenario

In the previous post, a reader brought up the possibility of Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBM) as an A2/AD weapon.  I had considered mentioning them, specifically, in the post but opted not to because I feared they would bog the discussion down and obscure the more general topic.  However, now that it’s been brought up, let’s look a bit closer at IRBMs in the context of A2/AD.

The Chinese, of course, have developed IRBMs for various uses including the so called “carrier killer”, the DF-21.  This IRBM has generated much press coverage due to its combination of lethality and survivability.  A ballistic missile is a difficult weapon to counter.  Indeed, the USN is expending a great deal of money and effort in the attempt to defend against these weapons.  The entire Burke class is being modified to counter ballistic missiles.  Lethality and survivability are two of the characteristics that would be highly useful in an A2/AD penetration scenario.  Thus, a US IRBM would seem to meet the needs for a weapon with extremely long range, massive destructive ability, and survivability.

Of course, this immediately brings up the first objection to the use of IRBMs and that is the possibility of misinterpreting a conventional ballistic missile as a nuclear strike missile.  I’ll pause a moment, now, to allow some of you to finish wailing, gnashing your teeth, and wringing your hands in hysteria.  I can hear you saying we can’t use an IRBM – the Chinese would assume we were launching a nuclear attack and it would mean instant nuclear Armageddon.

Take a deep breath … 

OK, you did note the previous paragraph where we noted that the Chinese have already developed their own IRBMs and, apparently, have every intention of using them.  They, clearly, aren’t worried about us misinterpreting their usage so why should we worry about their reaction?  Well, some would answer that their missiles are incapable of reaching the US and so could not be a nuclear threat to us whereas ours could reach their soil and could constitute a nuclear threat.  Hogwash!  First, their missiles can reach US carriers which are sovereign US territory and they can reach bases such as Guam which, again, are US territories.  Second, if the Chinese are that concerned about nuclear misinterpretation, all they have to do is enter into an agreement with the US to ban IRBMs – clearly they have no concerns.  So, there is no problem with using IRBMs.

Moving on …

What platform would launch an IRBM?  Two candidates come to mind.  One is the submarine with it’s attendant benefits of survivability and stealth and the other is a surface ship with either the newer and larger Mk57 VLS (currently only installed on the Zumwalt, as I recall) or a new, purpose built launch system, presumably a VLS variant similar to an SSBN launch tube. 

The Mk57 VLS is a larger version of the venerable Mk41 and is intended to accommodate future, larger missiles.  The canister is around 23 ft long and 28 inches in diameter and can support around a 9000 pound load.  Whether this is sufficient to house an IRBM developed for the A2/AD scenario, I don’t know.  Remember, a 1000-2000 mile conventional IRBM is probably a significantly different beast from an ICBM.  Can we build one to fit existing VLS systems?  I don’t know.

Cost is an issue and I have no idea what the cost of a suitable tactical IRBM would be and, thus, what the cost-value relationship would be.

Numbers are also an issue and are closely related to cost.  Can we build enough missiles to be effective?  Presumably, these missiles would be tasked with destruction of fixed, high value targets.  How many such targets are there and how many missiles would be required for their destruction?  Again, I don’t know.

It would seem that IRBMs offer a partial solution to the A2/AD penetration requirement, at least in theory.  Whether we could build them in sufficient numbers and come up with a suitable launch system is an open question although nothing I’ve read suggests we couldn’t.  Certainly, the very characteristics of lethality and survivability that make defending against an IRBM such a headache for the Navy suggest that they would make an effective offensive weapon against an A2/AD zone.

Aircraft Carrier - Vulnerable?

One of the things that annoys me to no end is when something gets repeated to the point that it becomes accepted as fact without any basis for that acceptance.  An example is littoral, as we’ve discussed in a previous post.  The Navy repeated the statement that a specialized littoral combat vessel was needed so often that eventually the dialog and examination simply skipped over the question of whether a littoral vessel was actually needed and, instead, jumped to what the vessel should look like.

Well, there’s another example floating around of a statement being repeated until it’s almost become a truism and it’s that the aircraft carrier is too vulnerable to be survivable on the modern battlefield.  With absolutely no proof to back up the statement, it’s repeated as fact.  In fact, it’s gotten to the point that even many proponents of the carrier have begun to accept the premise by beginning their arguments with, “Well, sure, it’s vulnerable but …”.

As ComNavOps does with all naval matters, we’re going to examine this issue in more detail, look at facts, and apply logic to determine whether the carrier is vulnerable or not.

Examination starts with definitions.  In this case, vulnerable has one of two meanings:

1. Vulnerable means that the ship is more susceptible to damage/destruction than other ships on a relative basis.  If there’s something about a carrier that makes it inherently more susceptible to damage/destruction than a destroyer or frigate or battleship than it would be considered vulnerable.  For example, a ship made out of aluminum would be more susceptible to damage/destruction than a ship made out of steel.  Another example would be a tanker which, due to the nature of its flammable cargo, would be more susceptible to damage/destruction than a ship carrying dry goods.
2. Vulnerable means that the ship is inherently unable to defend itself with a reasonable expectation of success.

Let’s also dispense with any notion that a carrier, or battleship, or any ship, for that matter, is invulnerable.  Any ship can be sunk given the right circumstances.  The fact that a ship can be sunk does not make it inherently vulnerable by our definitions.

Let’s start by looking at the vulnerability of the carrier compared to other ships.  Capt. Wayne Hughes noted in his book (1,  p.157) that the number of equivalent thousand pound bombs (or, alternatively, the number of equivalent 21” torpedos) required to put a WWII warship out of action (or, alternatively, sunk) was a direct function of displacement with the larger warships requiring more equivalents.  It’s hardly surprising that the finding was that larger ships are less vulnerable.  That’s intuitively obvious.

Hughes goes on to cite a Brookings Institute study (1, p. 161) relating the number of hits required to put a ship out of action to the length of the ship.  The overall relationship determined that the vulnerability of modern ships to cruise missiles was such that an additional missile was required for every hundred feet of length beyond 300 feet.  Again, the larger the ship, the less vulnerable.  No surprise.

Additional studies have drawn similar conclusions.  I won’t bother citing them since this is a blog post, not a book.

The Tanker War in the mid ‘80s further demonstrated the resilience of large ships.  In fact, the US Navy, during its convoy operations, used the tactic of allowing tankers to lead the way for the escorts because the tankers were so much more resistant to damage from mines.

Thus, it’s clear that the larger the ship, the less vulnerable it is in terms of the number of hits, of whatever type, required to put it out of action or sink it.  The aircraft carrier, simply due to its size, is, therefore, far less vulnerable than other ships.

Larger warships have several characteristics that render them less vulnerable than smaller ships.  One aspect is the ability of a larger warship to absorb more damage due to the greater degree of compartmentation.  Fire and flooding is easier to contain and the amount of reserve buoyancy is much greater.  Another aspect is manning.  Manpower has repeatedly been shown to be the single most important factor in damage control.  From WWII up through modern examples such as the Stark, Roberts, or Cole, sufficient manpower has been the key element of successful damage control.  No ship has more manpower than a carrier.  Finally, carriers have more damage control equipment and resources than any other size ship.  Whether it’s fire mains, power, power routing, foam equipment, or whatever, a carrier simply has more of it.



USS Enterprise - Too Vulnerable?



Consider the actual examples of the Enterprise and Forrestal fires.  Enterprise suffered at least 18 explosions, mostly 500 lb bombs, and torrents of burning jet fuel and survived.  The Forrestal suffered at least nine 1000 lb bomb explosions plus burning fuel pouring through the flight deck into compartments below and survived.  These incidents clearly demonstrate that a carrier is a very tough ship to kill.

Ships are lost when one of two things happens.  First, the damage may be instantaneously greater than any damage control effort can deal with and the ship is quickly lost.  This is the catastrophic kill such as the Hood or Arizona during WWII.  The second, and far more common scenario, is progressive damage where the ship was in no immediate danger of sinking from the initial damage but the progressive rate of damage (spread of fire, secondary explosions over time, progressive flooding) was greater than the damage control efforts could keep up with.  Here is where manpower and systems redundancy is so important.

So far, we’ve examined passive aspects of vulnerability.  Now, let’s look at active aspects.  Remembering our second definition of vulnerability, a ship may be vulnerable if it has an unacceptable self-defense capability relative to its size, cost, and intended purpose.  An LCS, for example, has little self-defense capability while a Burke DDG has extensive capability. 

An aircraft carrier is the most heavily defended platform on earth with hundreds of Standard missiles, Aegis sensors and battle management systems, an air wing with fighters and E-2C/D Hawkeyes capable of providing layered defense out hundreds of miles, submarines, and multitudes of RAM and CIWS systems.  Remember, a carrier never operates alone.  It is constantly surrounded by Aegis equipped ships and submarines as part of itself.  Think of the Burkes, Ticos, and subs as remote, off-board sensors and weapons for the carrier.  A carrier group is the toughest nut to crack in the world.  Examined from that perspective, a carrier is the least vulnerable ship in the world (OK, one could argue that an SSBN is).

I stated earlier that any ship can be sunk if it can be found.  Well, isn’t a carrier vulnerable because it’s so big and, therefore, easy to find?  Only someone unfamiliar with naval operations would make that claim.  The ocean is an immensely huge area relative to the size of a carrier.  The carrier is a mere pinpoint on the ocean.  In terms of the likelihood of spotting a carrier at sea, the carrier is no more at risk than any other ship.  Further, there are two aspects to this.  One is finding a carrier and the other is generating a valid targeting solution.  For example, an enemy may “find” a carrier by detecting the radar emissions from the carrier’s Hawkeye but that merely indicates that a carrier is somewhere within a several thousand square mile area – hardly a targeting solution.  One of the purposes of the carrier’s layered defenses is to prevent an enemy from acquiring a targeting solution even if the carrier’s approximate location is known.  Now I know some of you think satellites have a near magical capability to see anything, anywhere, at any time.  And, if a specific location or target is precisely known, that’s true.  A satellite can look into your living room.  However, tasking a satellite with finding an unknown carrier somewhere on the ocean is a monumental task. 

The difficulties inherent in establishing a targeting solution lead us directly to the uninformed public’s greatest fear – the dreaded carrier killer missile.  Aghhh!!!  I’m sorry, I scared myself for a moment, there, but I’m OK now.  Granted, an anti-ship ballistic missile is, potentially, a formidable threat and represents a real danger to a carrier if it hits.  However, as we’ve just discussed, the ability to target a carrier several hundred to a thousand miles away (the range of a ballistic missile) is exceedingly difficult.  As an exercise, run through the math of the amount of movement a carrier group would achieve from the time it is spotted until a missile can actually appear overhead.  The area of uncertainty is immense.  Barring dumb luck, the missile isn’t going to find anything there.  The US Navy recognizes the difficulty inherent in this kind of long range targeting and is expending great efforts to make it manageable.  In other words, we can’t do it, currently, and neither can the Chinese.  The only way to make targeting work at this extreme range is to have continuous mid-course updates from a loitering sensor close enough to the carrier to clearly discriminate it from its surroundings and the entire carrier group is designed to prevent exactly that.

Finally, some claim the submarine threat is too great for modern carriers.  This, of all the arguments, may be the most reasonable.  Modern nuclear submarines are a serious threat.  The Navy has allowed their ASW capabilities to atrophy to an alarming extent and this does increase the vulnerability of the carrier, or any ship for that matter.  Fortunately, the Navy seems to finally be recognizing this and is beginning to reconstitute its ASW capability though with nowhere near enough emphasis.  While submarines are a serious threat, the Navy has operated fleet carriers in the face of a submarine threat since WWII and today is no different.  Further, only China possesses a credible submarine threat and that, just barely, for the time being.

And, last of all, let’s repeat …  Any ship can be sunk.  That fact does not negate the need for, or usefulness of, a ship.  The mere fact that a carrier can be sunk does not mean we should quit building them or that their time is over.  The Navy has a long, proud tradition of standing in harm’s way.  Risk is part of combat.  The benefits clearly outweigh the risks and the carrier is the least vulnerable ship in the world, as we’ve just demonstrated.

(1) Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat, Capt. Wayne Hughes, Naval Institute Press, 2000.

AirSea Battle - What Is It?

All right people, this is a big one so grab your favorite beverage and settle in.  Read carefully, think about it critically, and hopefully, you'll find it worth the time!

What is AirSea Battle (ASB)?  Well that depends on who you listen to.  Outside the military, everyone has their own idea.  From inside the military we hear little that’s useful or informative – mainly just buzzword babble and fantasy wish lists.  In fact, a not uncommon belief is that ASB is just a ploy to justify funding from Congress in the same way the Navy used “littoral” to obtain the LCS.  Well, since the official Navy position is virtually unintelligible, we’re left to come up with our own definition and analysis.  In other words, is ASB even a legitimate concept?

Sifting through the Navy babble, ASB seems to be linked to countering Anti-Access/Area Denial (AA/AD or A2/AD).  Further, while the Navy denies that ASB is targeted towards any specific country, it is clearly a response to China’s Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBM), the so-called “carrier killers”.  A cursory study of the geography of the region shows that there are a number of features, such as chokepoints, that lend themselves to aiding China’s defense of the region, hence the A2/AD concerns.  The A2/AD zone is generally said to extend about 1000 nm out from the mainland. 

It is also important to realize that ASB is not a strategy.  A strategy, by definition is a pathway towards a goal – the goal, in this case being victory in war.  ASB, as fumblingly articulated by the Navy is more of a tactical or doctrinal concept and, for purposes of this discussion, we will stick with that level of detail.

So, ASB should be a conceptual description of tactical and operational requirements for operating within the A2/AD zone.  Let’s proceed.

What are the threats the Navy will have to face if it wishes to penetrate and operate within the zone?



Number One A2/AD Threat



Mines.  This is probably the biggest threat due to the cheapness of the weapon, the ease of deployment, and the presence of numerous chokepoints which are ideal for mine warfare.  I’ve seen estimates that the Chinese mine inventory numbers in the 100,000 range but who knows?



Subs.  While the Chinese submarine threat is not yet at a world class level, it is evolving rapidly both in numbers and expertise.  Again, due to the presence of relatively shallow water chokepoints and the presumed familiarity with local underwater features and conditions, submarines are a major threat.

IRBMs.  Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBM) have gotten a lot of attention as the so-called carrier killers.  While the potential for destruction from a supersonic, large payload missile is certainly huge, realistically, the difficulties in targeting make this a much lesser threat for the time being.  The US has not figured out how to accurately detect and target small, moving ships at ranges of several hundred miles and I seriously doubt that China has either.  More serious is the threat posed by IRBMs to fixed land based targets such as harbors and airbases.

Aircraft.  China will be able to fill the skies with aircraft in the A2/AD zone.  Of course, many of these aircraft will be a generation or two behind current and near-future US aircraft.  Still, this is where quantity has a quality of its own.  The sheer numbers of available aircraft will help to make up for technological deficiencies. 

Ships.  The Chinese Navy is not a serious threat, yet, although it is evolving rapidly.  Again, the number of ships that will be deployed in the zone make surface ships a more serious threat than would be suggested by a simple examination of their specifications.  Large numbers of small missile boats, in particular, pose a severe threat if allowed to get within targeting and launch range.

So, with an awareness of the threats in the A2/AD zone we can begin to see what capabilities our ASB will need to be able to allow us to operate within the zone with a reasonable chance to succeed and survive.

Far and away, the number one need is for a robust and effective mine counter-measures (MCM) capability.  Currently, the Navy has only the 12 Avenger class MCM vessels and until very recently they were being allowed to waste away with inadequate maintenance in anticipation of the LCS taking over the function.  Of course, the LCS won’t be conducting useful MCM for quite some time and so the Navy has had to scramble to try to restore the Avengers to operational status.

The Navy desperately needs a tactically useful MCM capability.  What does tactically useful mean?  In the context of the Chinese A2/AD scenario, it means the ability to clear mines quickly and in a war zone.  Consider that minesweeping has historically been a painfully slow operation with clearance rates measured in days and months.  If a Carrier Strike Group is waiting for clearance in order to advance, waiting days or months is not going to be tactically useful.  Clearance is going to have to be on the order of hours and, unfortunately, that technology does not yet exist.  The situation is further complicated by the need to conduct the minesweeping in contested waters – a war zone.  Since the MCM vessels have no inherent self-defense capability, significant resources will have to be devoted to protecting them as they work.

The next most serious threat is submarines.  China is rapidly increasing the numbers and capabilities of its undersea fleet.  The A2/AD zone will be crowded with both nuclear and non-nuclear subs.  Unfortunately, the Navy has allowed its ASW capability to atrophy to the point of embarrassment over the last few decades.  Chinese subs are literally popping up in the middle of carrier groups.  Inexplicably, the Navy has no equivalent to the Spruance class ASW destroyer and the S-3 Viking was retired without a replacement.  The Navy’s subs (SSNs) and destroyers desperately need to revitalize their ASW capability.  Additionally, the Navy’s SSNs, while superb platforms, are trending down in numbers.  This is the quantity versus quality issue.  The Navy is in danger of simply not having enough subs to do the job.

The IRBM threat, while vastly overblown by the media, is at least being addressed by the Aegis BMD modifications among other measures.  More urgently, the US desperately needs an effective BMD for fixed bases. 

The threat from aircraft is well understood and quite manageable at a technical level.  The combination of Aegis AAW and naval carrier aircraft can hold their own.  Air Force F-15s and F-22s can provide plenty of protection if they can find a base to operate from.  The problem in dealing with the air threat is numbers.  Simply put, the Chinese have, or will have, far greater numbers of aircraft than we have.  While the Navy is banking on superior technology overcoming superior numbers, the Navy trend is, unfortunately, in the wrong direction.  We have ever fewer carriers, fewer aircraft, smaller air wings, and smaller squadrons.  At some point, numbers trump technology.   Again, quantity has a quality all its own.

The Chinese naval threat is manageable though growing rapidly.  The Navy lacks a long range, supersonic, stealthy anti-ship missile to replace the aging and borderline obsolete Harpoon.  In fact, developmental programs for just such a missile are underway though the history of recent weapons development programs does not fill one with overwhelming optimism. 

That sums up the threats and our ability to deal with them on a largely defensive and more or less one-for-one basis meaning, for example, our surface ships against theirs, our MCMs against their mines, and so on.  What’s left is the potential to further manage the threats on a more offensive, asymmetric basis.

For example, the way to deal with the aircraft threat is to attack the airbases rather than the aircraft in the sky.  No base, no aircraft.  Similarly, IRBMs, ships, and mines are all easier dealt with at their points of origin rather than after they’ve been deployed.  Given that the points of origin are largely on the mainland, we are going to need massive first-day strike capability that can bypass the A2/AD obstacles.



B-2 - Limited Usefulness?



There are only two platforms that can provide that kind of strike and really only one of those is probably survivable.  The Air Force B-2 bomber offers long range, stealthy, deep penetration strike capability.  However, given the incredibly small size of the B-2 bomber force (approximately 20 planes) and the sheer distances involved compared to the numbers of defenders, it seems unlikely that the bomber force could last more than a couple of sorties before attrition would render this option inoperable.  I see B-2s being used more as pinpoint strikers against extremely high value targets rather than general purpose strike against a multitude of less high value targets like airbases, docks, mine laying ships, fuel storage, etc.



The second, and far more survivable, long range penetrating strike platform is the guided missile submarine (SSGN).  The Navy has converted four of these subs from Ohio ballistic missile platforms to Tomahawk guided missile platforms carrying 154 missiles each.  These subs are virtually undetectable and would provide a large day-one pulse strike capability.  The only drawback is that there are only four of them and once their missiles are expended (rather quickly, one assumes) they have to return to port to reload.

So, where does this leave us as regards ASB and A2/AD?  We’ve stated that ASB is about being able to operate in within the A2/AD zone.  We need to be able to deliver day-one and sustained follow-on strikes all the way to the Chinese mainland.  We need to be able to pass through the various chokepoints created by the outer islands.  We need to be able to neutralize the mine and sub threats.  We need to be able to deal with the IRBM threat.  We need to be able to establish air supremacy.  Thus, ASB is, or should be, about establishing the tactics and doctrine required to accomplish these things.  Comparing ASB requirements to our current capabilities we can readily identify gaps in our current capability that need to be filled.  Specifically, the Navy needs,

• Long range, survivable, penetrating strike aircraft, whether manned or unmanned.
• More SSGNs.
• Tactically useful MCM.
• A class of dedicated open ocean ASW destroyer (or frigate or whatever name you want to use).
• More carriers and carrier aircraft.
• More SSNs.
• Long range, stealthy anti-ship missiles.

Of course, there are many other aspects to ASB such as interservice communications (we were supposed to have addressed that after Grenada but I guess not), the ability to operate with lost or degraded GPS, the ability to operate in high jamming environments, and the ability to establish and maintain extremely long distance communications with, and control over, UAVs.  For the sake of brevity and simplicity, I’ve also left out discussions of unmanned subsurface intelligence gathering platforms, interactions with the Air Force (the famous idiotic example of a B-2 shooting air-to-air missiles), and a host of other, related topics.  This is a blog post not a book.

To sum up, ASB is a description of the tactics, doctrine, and equipment required to operate within the A2/AD zone.  Properly formulated and analyzed, ASB provides clear recognition of our current shortfalls and offers a roadmap for future weapons and platform acquisitions.

Now compare this description of ASB to the Navy's incoherent ramblings and tell me what you think. 

What's Old is New Again

The current issue of the USNI Proceedings (1) reports that China has reached a deal to license-produce Tu-22M Backfire bombers.  The arrangement will initially result in 36 bombers which is regimental strength from the old Soviet days and was believed to be the amount needed to defeat a US Navy carrier group.

As you recall, the Navy’s response to the Soviet bombers was the long range, high speed Tomcat with its load of AIM-54 Phoenix missiles guided by the plane’s AWG-9 radar.  Tomcats made up the outer layer of the carrier group’s layered defenses.  I bet the Navy wishes they had Tomcats now!



Tu-22 Backfire - Bigger Threat than Ballistic Missiles



The Navy’s current front line fighter is the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet carrying AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles.  The Hornet has a combat radius of 390 nm compared to the Tomcat’s 500 nm.  The latest version of the AMRAAM has a 100 nm range which is comparable to the Phoenix but has a lighter warhead, 40-50 lbs versus the 135 lb warhead of the Phoenix.  Given the massive size of the Backfire, the much larger warhead of the Phoenix will be missed.



There are a couple of interesting points in all this.  First, the acquisition of bombers strongly suggests that the Chinese have realized (or known all along) that the magic, carrier-killing ballistic missile that has the Western media so frightened is only half the equation.  The other half is targeting.  Trying to produce launch quality targeting data on moving ships 500-1000 nm away is a challenge, to say the least.  We can’t do it and I highly doubt the Chinese can, either.  That renders the carrier-killing missiles ineffective.  Bombers, on the other hand, carry their own radar and generate their own firing solution.  The only question is can they survive long enough to get within radar range and launch? 

This is the Cold War scenario all over again and that brings us to the second point.  The Navy was misguided, to put it kindly, to abandon the long ranged, hard hitting Tomcat for the short ranged, light hitting Hornet.  This decision is further compounded by the decision to reduce the size of the carrier air wings based on the rationale that newer planes are superior to older ones.  If you’re going to fight an outer air battle to protect the carrier, you probably want as many airframes as possible to carry your missiles.  Instead of developing the marginally effective Hornet, we should have developed a new airframe with the characteristics of the Tom/Bombcat.  Oh well, at least we have the long range, weapons-dripping JSF coming soon and that will …  ah … well, it's not really long ranged, actually, and it can't carry much of a weapons load but still it can, ah …  Oh crap, we’re screwed!

(1) United States Naval Institute Proceedings, “Back(Fire) to the Future?”, Norman Friedman, Aug 2012, p. 90