Defeat in Detail

‘Defeat in detail’ is a military tactic of destroying an enemy force by engaging its small, isolated units one by one with a larger force.
 
This is a great military theory – and proven successful – but it requires that the enemy present his forces in small, dispersed packets ready to be defeated.  This generally only happens if one is fighting an utterly inept foe or if the enemy’s units are forced to disperse due to unrecoverable circumstances such as the rout of a main force or the end of a conflict when the enemy lacks the forces to mass and fight.
 
In other words, no sane military is going to willingly present its forces to the enemy in small, isolated units.  Unfortunately, this is exactly what the Navy and Marines seem determined to do.  They seem committed to a war doctrine of small, isolated, individually weak units that will, in some unexplained and unfathomable manner, not only survive and avoid defeat in detail but will go on to exert an effect greater than the woefully weak sum of its parts.
 
Let’s briefly remind ourselves of the small, isolated units the Marines and Navy are planning to field.
 
Missile Shooters - The Marines have converted from a middle weight, combined arms force to a penny packet force of platoon size units that will engage in missing sniping deep inside enemy controlled territory. 
 
Distributed Lethality – The Navy wants to disperse all manner of isolated ships (the LCS is frequently mentioned) deep inside enemy territory where they will not only survive but, in some mythical way, find enemy ships and sink them while remaining undetected.  The Navy has even talked about arming amphibious and logistic ships for use in the distributed lethality scheme.  How these non-stealthy, slow, defenseless ships would remain undetected and survive remains unexplained.
 
LAW – The Marine’s Light Amphibious Warship (a laughable term right up there with Littoral Combat Ship) is intended to operate alone or in very small groups while supplying hidden Marine units and relocating them from island to island.  How these small, non-stealthy, slow, defenseless ships would remain undetected and survive remains unexplained.
 
Unmanned Surface Vessels – The Navy plans to use dispersed, remote, and/or isolated small, unmanned vessels in some yet to be fully explained manner which they believe will ‘confuse’ the enemy and rain destruction down on an unaware foe.
 
Unmanned Underwater Vessels – Similar to the USV plan, the Navy envisions small UUVs operating alone inside enemy waters in some unexplained manner.
 
Retirements – The Navy is downsizing the fleet’s firepower by retiring Ticonderoga cruisers and SSGNs with no direct replacement, contributing to a significant decrease in VLS cells in the fleet.  Thus, the individual ships and task forces are becoming steadily weaker.
 
LCS – The Navy has described the LCS as the modern day PT boat and envisions them operating in enemy territory, hiding amongst islands.
 
Task Forces – The Navy is training only with single carrier task forces and escorts numbering around three per carrier.  While one would desperately hope this is not the actual wartime plan (so why aren’t we training like we’ll fight?), the reality is that’s the only configuration being practiced.  If this is what actually happens, this will be less than a ¼ carrier task force.
 
And the list goes on.
 
The common characteristic of these small, isolated units is that they are defenseless in any practical way.  When found – and it’s a question of ‘when’ not ‘if’ – they will be destroyed as a matter of course.  In other words, they’ll be defeated in detail.  The Navy and Marines seem utterly ignorant of the lessons of history as they apply to combat.  All of our much-hyped plans will be quickly put to ruin when the individual units encounter larger forces. 
 
Defeat in detail.

Island Naval Warfare

Pre-WWII, naval analysts envisioned open ocean clashes between mammoth battle lines of opposing battleships.  Cruisers with float planes were designed to operate as far ranging scouts for the battle line, seeking out the enemy’s battle fleet.  Destroyers would support the battle line by launching torpedo attacks and defending against the enemy’s torpedo attacks.  The vision was well understood, doctrine was well established, and the concept was extensively practiced.
 
Of course, reality came and none of that materialized.  Instead, the Navy found themselves fighting as small, disjointed units amongst the Solomon Islands, lost in the darkness, blinded by the mass of the islands, utterly confused, and unable to form a battle line that lasted more than a minute when combat began.
 
What were a few of the relevant factors that rendered the pre-war vision and scenarios irrelevant?
 
Detection – Detection of the enemy, whether visual or radar, was reduced to very short ranges by darkness and by the blocking mass of the islands.  Visual detection of enemy ships was severely hindered by the blocking mass of nearby islands with ships either hidden behind the islands or obscured on the near side by the background of the dark mass of the islands.  Similarly, the islands cast concealing radar shadows and returned clutter which hid or obscured targets and rendered radar far less effective than was hoped.
 
In one notable example, US ships were fired on by Japanese destroyers and the US returned fire against a nearby island, believing that the flashes from the Japanese ship’s guns were actually land artillery batteries!
 
Range – The impaired detection meant that engagement ranges were incredibly short compared to the extended ranges envisioned pre-war.  The short range had major implications for torpedo and gunnery tactics, none of which had been envisioned or practiced pre-war.
 
Uncertainty – The difficulty in detection led to a great deal of uncertainty in target identification – what we now refer to as Identification Friend or Foe (IFF).  Many firing opportunities were passed by due to uncertainty about target identification.  The well known axiom, ‘attack effectively, first’, was extremely difficult to implement.  The lack of close combat doctrine contributed to the uncertainty.  Having no viable doctrine, uncertainty abounded;  no commander had any solid expectation of what other friendly ships would do and where they would go and so they were often forced to hold fire due to uncertain identification.  This cost us badly on numerous occasions.
 
 
Given that our pre-war exercises and planning (War Plan Orange, for example) correctly anticipated an island hopping strategy, it is baffling that we didn’t make the logical conclusion that we needed to practice naval combat in close proximity to islands … but we didn’t and so we had to learn on the fly.  Learning on the fly in combat is the most expensive and deadly way to learn and, unsurprisingly, we paid a heavy price for the knowledge.
 

 
Today
 
Bolstered, now, by a thorough understanding of history and its lessons, we can turn our attention to current events and a war with China.  It is quite likely that we will be fighting amongst the islands surrounding the East and South China Seas and yet we’re practicing for long range missile engagements in open ocean.  Does this sound eerily familiar?  We’re repeating the mistake of WWII by failing to train for naval combat amongst islands.
 
To offer some context, Wikipedia notes that Indonesia consists of 17,000 islands and the Philippines have 7,641 islands.  Given that those are likely combat areas, wouldn’t it make sense to anticipate island naval combat and begin training for it?
 
Of course, it’s possible that a war with China will avoid any proximity to islands (although that seems like wishful thinking more than reality) but we should, nevertheless, train for it.  If it doesn’t happen it’s no big deal and if it does, we’ll be prepared.
 
How will the various island factors impact naval combat today?
 
Radar – The physics of radar haven’t changed.  Islands will still cast radar shadows and generate cluttered returns that will hide or obscure targets.  Recall the supposed land-based, anti-ship missile attacks directed against the Burke class destroyer, USS Mason?  As it turned out, we couldn’t even determine whether attacks had even occurred (they didn’t!), likely due to the interference/obscuration of the land mass. 
 
Detection ranges will still be far shorter than expected.  Incoming missiles, especially sea-skimmers, will be hidden in radar shadows.  The same islands that hide us, hide the enemy.
 
Of course, no sane commander will be using radar, anyway, so radar detection will be an infrequent occurrence.
 
Optical – The wise naval commander will be using passive sensors, for the most part, and islands still obscure targets on both the near and far side of the land mass.
 
Missiles – Islands will degrade missile effectiveness.  Ships sailing close inshore will be obscured by the surrounding land mass and modern missiles will likely lack the ability to discriminate a ship from a rocky outcropping, atoll, or other mass.  To the best of my knowledge, no navy or manufacturer has considered missile performance near islands.  We need to conduct realistic testing of missiles in proximity to islands and find out how well they can identify and acquire targets obscured by land masses.
 
Islands will block missile approaches.  A sea skimming missile (which most modern anti-ship missiles are) will be unable to attack a target on the far side of an island or will have to take an altered path to navigate around the island to approach the target.  We need to factor this into our combat tactics.
 
UAVs – UAVs will be affected by islands.  They’ll have to fly higher, linger longer to search and clear/identify targets near land, compensate for island-blocked communications, etc.  UAVs may also take advantage of islands by hiding in their shadows and background.  A UAV operating against the background of an island mass may well be able to ‘approach’ a target quite closely without being detected.  Again, we haven’t made any attempt to study UAV operations near islands and develop appropriate offensive and defensive doctrine and tactics.
 
 
Conclusion
 
There is every reason to expect that we’ll find ourselves operating in, around, and near islands and there is no reason to believe that the various WWII factors that made such operations dangerous, difficult, and chaotic won’t still apply.  Detections and engagements will still be sudden, unexpected, and short ranged.  We desperately need to begin training for such operations. 
 
We have no idea how missiles will behave near islands.  We have no idea what doctrine and tactics will prove successful.  We can prepare for island naval combat or we can be surprised and pay the horrific price to learn on the fly.
 
Assuming the anticipated scenarios occur, one blindingly obvious conclusion is that large caliber guns will be of immense value.  With short detection ranges, large caliber guns can establish and sustain fire that missiles can’t match and can do so far more cost effectively.  As our Ukraine donations have amply demonstrated, we’ll run out of high end missiles very quickly.  Large caliber guns and cheap (free on a relative basis!) shells will seem a godsend, at that point.
 
Hand in hand with large caliber guns is armor.  Ships that can absorb damage and stay in the fight (a Burke cannot) will be the difference between victory and defeat.
 
Bear in mind that we aren’t just talking about opposing ships being nose to nose like they were at Guadalcanal.  The scenario could be an anti-ship attack from a hundred miles away, directed towards a ship in or near the first island chain islands.  All the factors we discussed apply.  How will the missiles identify valid targets?  Will the missiles need to be ‘waypointed’ around various islands?  Will the target ships be effectively hidden by the surrounding islands?  Will terminal guidance be required?  We need to understand naval combat in and amongst islands.
 
We’re repeating the mistakes of WWII by failing to prepare for combat scenarios that are likely to materialize and focusing exclusively on open ocean scenarios that are less likely.

Last War, Next War

There’s an old saying that Generals are always preparing to fight the last war. 

 

Historically, there’s always been an element of truth to that although perhaps not as much as popularly believed.  For example, the popular notion is that the Germans perfected tanks and ‘invented’ tank warfare leading into WWII while the French were caught preparing WWI trenches (the Maginot Line) and that this was demonstrated by Germany’s armored divisions rolling over and around the French defenses.  The reality is that the French had some excellent tank designs, bolstered by innovations in production (casting), steering, armor, and tracks and had produced 6,126 tanks by June 1940.(1)  They certainly correctly foresaw the importance of tanks in the coming war.

 

French Char B1 bis Tank

Where they failed was in the utilization of their tanks.  They focused on a defensive doctrine, epitomized by the Maginot Line and derived from the trench warfare model of WWI.  Thus, they envisioned tanks as infantry support assets – essentially, slightly mobile pillboxes rather than highly mobile strike forces.  Just as importantly – or more so - the French tanks lacked radio communications with only command tanks possessing long range radio gear.  This hindered their ability to coordinate their tank actions.  Again, this was the result of doctrinally consigning tanks to distributed infantry support positions.  Of course, failed logistic support and the lack of air cover were also important factors.

 

Conversely, the Germans envisioned highly mobile tanks with mobility being preferred over armor.  Communications and coordination were seen as key to the effective use of tanks.

 

The point is that it is not enough to recognize that the next war will be different or even to correctly foresee which assets or technology will become major factors, as the French did with tanks;  it is also necessary to devise effective means of utilizing the anticipated assets.  Thus, we see, yet again, that doctrine and tactics are more important than equipment.

 

The US military has, correctly, recognized that the next war will be different.  They may even have correctly anticipated some technologies that will emerge as major factors.  However, it is quite evident that they have failed utterly to recognize the doctrine and tactics that will allow those assets to succeed.

 

For example, the US military has correctly identified that networks and unmanned vehicles (of all types) will assume major roles in the next war but they have failed to grasp the proper uses of those capabilities.

 

The US military is not preparing to fight the last war but neither are they correctly preparing to fight the next.  They are focused on the equipment rather than the doctrine and tactics to successfully use the equipment.  How many times have we heard an Admiral say, ‘we need to get hulls in the water so that the sailors can figure out what to do with them’?  Hey, you’re an admiral.  YOU’RE supposed to be the one to set the doctrine and tell the sailors, not the other way around. 

 

This leads – as so many posts do – back to the role of firepower.  The last war (2) was Desert Storm whose main characteristic firepower … overwhelming firepower.  Since then, we’ve set out on a path of networks and unmanned assets as a substitute for firepower which illustrates the military’s recognition that the next war will be different but also illustrates the military’s incorrect understanding of how to correctly apply the anticipated changes.  Networks and unmanned assets should be supplementing and complementing firepower, not replacing it.

 

 

 

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(1)https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/france/ww2_french_tanks.php

 

(2)The designation of the ‘last war’ is a debatable point which hinges on what one considers to be a war.  Desert Storm was, clearly, a war albeit a geographically limited one against a third rate opponent.  The various Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts are less wars and more some kind of ill-conceived police action combined with nation building.

Do We Know How To Do This?

Because of the last two decades of low level wars, we’ve come to believe that a couple of ships or a few aircraft constitute a significant force.  As a result, we have admirals who have never commanded a bona fide task force and commanders who have never operated a large air group.  We’ve completely lost our institutional knowledge of how to command fleets and immense fighter sweeps or air strikes.

 

Consider the following:

 

China flew 52 fighter planes toward Taiwan on Monday in the largest show of force on record, continuing the three days of sustained military harassment against the self-ruled island.

 

The sortie included 34 J-16 fighter jets and 12 H-6 bombers, among other aircraft, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense. (1)

 

Now, ask yourself, could we do this?  Could we operate and coordinate 50+ aircraft on a single mission? 

 

Now, go further and ask yourself, could we defeat 50+ aircraft in a single battle?

 

As you ponder those questions, remind yourself that 50+ aircraft is just a small subset of what a real war will see.  We’ve forgotten that WWII routinely saw multiple hundreds of aircraft involved in single missions.  We’ve forgotten the threat level that a real war will bring and we’ve certainly forgotten how to carry out such missions either offensively or defensively.  China, however, is learning how to do this while we’re focused on gender integration, sensitivity training, and stamping out extremism (meaning conservative views) among the troops.

If you want to go a step further, ask yourself, could we put 50+ aircraft over Taiwan at a moment's notice, if we chose to defend the country?

 

China is gearing up for war.  What are we gearing up for?

 

 

 

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(1)Navy Times website, “China flies record 52 planes toward self-ruled Taiwan”, Huizhong Wu, 4-Oct-2021,

https://www.navytimes.com/flashpoints/2021/10/04/china-flies-record-52-planes-toward-self-ruled-taiwan/

Comparative Fleet Roles

The key to an effective Navy is to have a balanced fleet - a balanced fleet that is designed to handle all of the missions and roles required of it.  Is today’s fleet balanced and capable of meeting its requirements?  To answer that question, let’s start where wisdom always starts … history.  Let’s see what kind of balance the surface fleet of WWII had and how that compares to today.  We do this by looking at the various required roles and what ship types filled those roles, as demonstrated in the table below.

 

 

Role	WWII Type	Example	Current Type	Example
Strike and fleet defense	Carrier	Essex	Carrier	Nimitz
Aviation escort	Escort Carrier	Casablanca	-	-
ASuW and land attack	Battleship	Iowa	-	-
Escort and land attack	Cruiser, Heavy	Baltimore	-	-
AAW	Cruiser, AA	Atlanta	Destroyer	Burke/Tico
ASW/ASuW escort	Destroyer	Fletcher	-	-
ASW	Destroyer Escort	Buckley	Destroyer	Burke
ASW and convoy escort	Corvette	Flower	-	-
Patrol and ASuW	Patrol	PT Boat	-	-

 

 

Notes:

 

I have not included the LCS in the table because it has no actual combat capabilities.

I have not included the Zumwalt in the table because it’s only three ships and they have no defined purpose.

 

 

The first thing we note is that the WWII fleet had a ship type for every role and, in many cases, multiple ship types for a given role.

 

Comparing the WWII fleet structure versus our current structure demonstrates that we’ve lost several fleet functions or, more precisely, condensed them down into fewer ship types.  The problem with condensing the roles down is that the resultant ships are hugely more expensive, more risk averse, and less optimized which means less capable.

 

During WWII, the balance and diversity of ship types allowed mixing and matching of ship types to perform specialized roles such as the ASW hunter-killer groups composed of escort carriers and destroyer escorts.  The diversity of ship types endowed the fleet commanders with tremendous flexibility to tailor the task forces to the specific needs of the operation.

 

Today’s fleet commander has no flexibility and no choices.  We have carriers (too expensive to risk in combat) and Burkes … and that’s it. 

 

The Navy’s quest for efficiency and cost savings has resulted in a necking down of all the ship types into just two types:  carrier and Burke.  While the endless production of now-obsolete Burkes has, indeed, produced cost savings, it has produced an inflexible fleet that is going to be mismatched to the specific operational needs when combat comes.

 

Today’s fleet is unbalanced, inflexible, and ill-prepared for war.

Operation Hailstone - Carrier As Escort

Well, the previous post about the changing role of the carrier certainly revealed the paradigms and how difficult it is to change them!  The battleship carrier proponents will fight tooth and nail to hang on to their traditional role.

 

Let’s follow up with an actual historical example of the carrier as an escort for other strike assets.  WWII offers an illustrative example of the concept of the carrier as escort in the form of Operation Hailstone which was the US attack on the Japanese base of Truk.  An excellent description of the operation is available at the Naval History and Heritage Command website and I leave it to the reader to visit the site for an in-depth description of the operation.

 

To briefly summarize, the attack on Truk occurred in mid-February 1944.  The US attacking fleet consisted of five fleet carriers, four light carriers, six fast battleships, ten cruisers, 28 destroyers and more than 500 aircraft.  Although the Japanese main fleet had fled from Truk just days prior to the attack, the Japanese defenders still had 300-400 aircraft operating from five airfields on the island which constituted a major threat to any attacking surface force.

 

Attack on Truk

Though not explicitly intended as such, the operation illustrates the use of the carrier to escort a surface strike force and clear the way for it to operate by establishing local air superiority.

 

The opening action of the strike on Truk involved a US carrier fighter sweep of 72 aircraft launched during the pre-dawn hours from 90 nautical miles northeast of the island.  The sweep, combined with a subsequent steady stream of bombing and strafing attacks (does any of this sound vaguely like a story you just read?) over the course of the day eliminated the Japanese aircraft and airfields as a threat.

 

With the Japanese aerial threat eliminated, Admiral Spruance led a surface group of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers on an extended bombardment cruise and surface sweep around the island.

 

Vice Admiral Spruance led an “around-the-atoll cruise” (TG 50.9) on 17 February to catch leakers, bombarding shore installations as it went. Consisting of the new battleships New Jersey and Iowa, the heavy cruisers Minneapolis (CA-36) and New Orleans (CA-32) (all survivors of the Tassafaronga debacle in November 1942), and four destroyers (covered by combat air patrol from the light carrier Cowpens), TG 50.9 caught the light cruiser Katori. That ship, the auxiliary cruiser Akagi Maru, two destroyers Maikaze and Nowaki), and a minesweeping trawler Shonan Maru No. 15 had left Truk before the attack but had not gotten far enough away. (1)

 

Though not explicitly the operational intent, the carriers cleared the way for the battleships and cruisers to conduct extended strikes without fear of Japanese air attacks.  By establishing local air superiority, the carrier aircraft were able to cover the battleship’s movements and strikes, provide a combat air patrol (CAP) for the surface group, and cover the group’s eventual withdrawal.  This illustrates the concept of carriers escorting the striking power of the battleships, though, again, this was not the operational intent.  Still, it offers a concise, albeit unintentional, example of the concept.

 

 

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(1)Naval History and Heritage Command website, “H-026-3: Operation Hailstone—Carrier Raid on Truk Island, 17–18 February 1944  ”,

https://www.history.navy.mil/about-us/leadership/director/directors-corner/h-grams/h-gram-026/H-026-3.html

The Future Air Wing

The Navy has begun the process of designing the next generation (I absolutely despise that term as it implies that we’ll leap a generation ahead, which never works) carrier fighter.  The Navy is supposedly, also, preparing for future war with China although you’d never know it from the lackadaisical approach they’re taking.  Regardless, this all brings to mind the composition of the future carrier air wing. 

 

The Navy seems utterly confused.  They claim to want long range aircraft but continue to acquire short to medium range Hornets and F-35s.  They seem to want to emphasize unmanned but have refused to develop unmanned combat aircraft and are content with a tanker.  They say that anti-submarine warfare is important but show no interest in a new S-3 Viking equivalent.  They say that sortie rate is a paramount design factor even though that claim has been thoroughly debunked.  They’re building bigger Ford class carriers even though the air wings are steadily shrinking.  They claim resupply (COD) is important but replaced the C-2 Greyhound with a less capable MV-22 variant.  And so on …

 

So, if the Navy has it wrong, what is the right air wing for the future? 

 

Obviously, the air wing composition depends on the missions it will be given so we have to start by defining the mission.  Unlike many observers and the Navy, itself, ComNavOps does not see strike as being a main air wing mission in a future war.  I’ve posted that the task of future aircraft carriers is to escort Burke Tomahawk shooters and to establish mobile, local air superiority for other operations such as landings, Air Force bomber strikes, or cruise missile attack streams (basically escorting cruise missiles so that they can’t be significantly attrited during flight).  The common requirement from those missions is for a very long range, very high weapons capacity, long endurance/loiter air superiority fighter.  In order to meet those requirements, the aircraft will have to be quite large compared to what we’re used to today.

 

Let’s look, first, at the aircraft types our future air wing will need.

 

Fighter – There will be no more design-compromised strike/fighters.  We need single purpose, exquisitely optimized air superiority fighters to deal with the stealth fighters that the Chinese are developing and now fielding.  A semi-fighter / semi-strike aircraft isn’t going to be good at anything – witness the Hornet. 

 

The fighter we need will be a very long range, very high weapons capacity (12-18 missiles), long endurance/loiter air superiority fighter.  The aircraft will need good speed to enable it to reach the far off operational areas in time to be effective (we don’t want to spend half a day slowly cruising to reach the operation area only to arrive with exhausted pilots).  This suggests the need for sustained, economical supercruise.  All of this strongly suggests a much larger size fighter although I’ll leave the actual dimensions to the design engineers.

 

ASW – We desperately need to reconstitute fixed wing ASW to provide distant, outer layer ASW.  We need a modernized S-3 Viking with basic stealth shaping, decent speed, and good loiter time.

 

Tanker – Since we’re contemplating long range air superiority engagements, we’ll need a dedicated, long range tanker.  The idiocy of using front line combat aircraft as tankers is over.  The tanker needs to be a fairly large aircraft in order to carry enough fuel to be efficient and effective.  The problem with the Hornet as a tanker (aside from the idiocy of using a front line combat aircraft as a fuel truck) is that it couldn’t carry enough fuel to be effective for anything other than overhead recovery tanking.  Unfortunately, even the Navy’s new unmanned tanker carries too little fuel to be effective.  We need something on the order of a Viking or A-3 Skywarrior.  Of course, if it’s going to be in the vicinity of engagements, it will need basic stealth shaping.  Obviously, it will need enough speed to reach its refueling points in a timely manner.

 

Airborne Early Warning (AEW) – We’ve previously discussed the vulnerability of the current E-2 Hawkeye and the need to replace it with a stealthy B-21 variant (see, “B-21 Hawkeye”) or equivalent.  This will allow the Hawkeye to accompany and support far flung engagements without being a large, slow, blinking target.

 

Electronic Warfare (EW) – The EA-6B Prowler and EA-18G Growler have proven their value many times over and that value has only increased with modern electronic warfare.  We need a new EW aircraft that has the stealth, speed, range, and endurance to operate with the fighters, providing direct support at great distance from the carrier.  Presumably, this would be an electronic variant of the air superiority fighter which, since it would be a larger aircraft, would dovetail nicely with the EW requirements by being large enough to carry more equipment, pods, and operators.

 

Strike – While strike is not a primary mission, there is a need for a secondary strike aircraft.  This would be a modernized A-6 Intruder with good payload, basic stealth shaping, decent range, and good ground sensors.  These would not be used for 1000+ mile, deep penetration strikes but, rather, for medium range, moderately contested strikes that, for whatever reason(s) don’t warrant cruise missile attacks.

 

Now, let’s look at the numbers.

 

 

Type		Squadrons	Squadron Size	Number of Aircraft
Fighter	VF	4	14	56
Strike	VA	1(a)	10	10
AEW	VAW	1	8	8
ASW	VS	1	8	8
EW	VAQ	1	8	8
Tanker		1	10	10
				Total = 100

 

^(a)Depending on the mission, an additional VF squadron could replace the VA.

 

 

 

Operating in a wartime 4-carrier group, this gives us 400 aircraft including 224 fighters.

 

This air wing composition and size provides an effective means of accomplishing the carrier’s main mission of air superiority.  It is worth recalling that ‘stealth’ can be achieved not just via the aircraft’s inherent stealth characteristics but also through the use of supporting electronic warfare measures (see, “Alternative Stealth”).  For example, if the enemy’s radar can be disrupted then our aircraft are ‘hidden’.  EW will be extremely important in future aerial battles and this air wing provides a strong measure of EW support that is integrated directly into the fighter’s efforts.  Added to that is the ability to provide battle direction/management via stealthy AEW aircraft.  This ability to bring an E-2 Hawkeye forward in the form of a B-21 Hawkeye and provide battle management is a force multiplier, itself.  Overall, this is a balanced air wing with enough aircraft to accomplish its mission.

 

There you have it.  Having defined the proper role of the carrier, we were able to define the type and size of air wing needed to fill that role.  It is one of heavy air superiority with most of the remaining aircraft devoted to supporting the fighters in the air superiority role.

The Illusion of Breakthroughs in Warfare

The US military is obsessively pursuing a Breakthrough in warfare that will provide a massive advantage.  The modern term for such a paradigm shifting Breakthrough is ‘Offset’ although that term, while all the rage for a while, has somewhat faded from use of late.  We’ll use the two terms interchangeably for the rest of this discussion.

 

The US military believes there have been two previous Offsets: 

 

First Offset = nuclear weapons (1950s)

Second Offset = precision guidance (1970s)

 

Some discussions include stealth in the Second Offset.

 

The US military is now pursuing the Third Offset (see, "Third Offset Strategy" and "Offset Strategy Follow Up").

 

The fact, though, is that neither the First nor Second Offset produced any lasting advantage and, in fact, neither produced a decisive advantage in any combat. 

 

Nuclear weapons never produced any decisive advantage, partly because the US wound up opting never to employ them in first use and partly because the Soviet Union detonated an atomic bomb in 1949 thus ending any advantage the US might have had after only four years. 

 

Precision guidance has been useful but has never been decisive;  not in Vietnam (which we lost), Desert Storm (useful but not the decisive factor, by any means), Afghanistan (if we haven’t lost, we certainly haven’t won), or against ISIS (ISIS functioned quite well in the face of precision guided weapons and lost only to ground troops).

 

Stealth, if you wish to include that as an Offset factor, was useful in Desert Storm but was not the decisive factor and has played no significant role in any conflict since. 

 

The major problem with Offsets/Breakthroughs is that they never last long enough to prove decisive in war.  The other side invariably is able to produce the same Breakthrough in amazingly short order.  Consider the following examples of paradigm shifting breakthroughs in warfare.

 

 

 

Stealth – The stealth advantage has been negated both by other countries producing their own versions of stealth aircraft and ships and by the development of stealth detecting technologies such as specialized radar, IRST, etc.

 

Precision Guidance – Guided weapons were copied around the world almost as soon as they came out.

 

Nuclear Weapons – The Soviet Union detonated an atomic bomb in Sep 1949 thus ending the US advantage after barely four years.  Nuclear weapons never provided a decisive advantage in war for the US and, ultimately, proved useless even as a deterrent since no one believes the US would execute first use of nuclear weapons.

 

Monitor and Merrimack – The ironclad was a huge leap forward in naval warfare and produced a vessel that was, for all practical purposes, invincible compared to the previous wooden, sailing ships.  Incredibly, both the North and South developed ironclads almost simultaneously which completely negated any systematic advantage either side might have gained.

 

Dreadnought – The UK’s HMS Dreadnought revolutionized naval ship design but succeeded only in triggering a naval arms race and the ship was copied and surpassed within five years without providing any advantage for the British.

 

Blitzkreig – While it produced an initial advantage for the Germans, it was negated and defeated in fairly short order and produced no lasting benefit for the Germans. 

 

The Tank in WWI – The first tank to see combat took place in Sep 1916 and by Mar 1918, Germany had introduced its own tank and the first tank-to-tank battle occurred in Apr 1918.  The tank produced no lasting advantage for the Allies.

 

And so on …

 

An interesting Breakthrough that did produce a fairly long lasting advantage was the submarine as implemented by Germany in WWI and WWII.  This is, perhaps, the closest to anyone having achieved a long lasting Breakthrough in warfare and it wasn’t the submarine that was the breakthrough but how it was used.  Other countries developed submarines right along with Germany.  What they didn’t do was develop the operational and tactical implementation to effectively use them.  Germany developed the operational application – convoy interdiction – and the tactics (wolf packs, night attacks, etc.) to maximize the benefits of submarines to unprecedented levels.  They achieved a Breakthrough.

 

The noteworthy aspect of this is that it was not the technology – the submarine – that produced the Breakthrough but the method of employing it – the concept of operations (CONOPS, in modern terminology).  This offers a lesson for us that technology is not the solution but that CONOPS or doctrine can be.

 

Clearly, chasing Offsets is like chasing after Fool’s Gold.  It’s illusory and not real.

 

So where should we look for advantages in warfare?  Unsurprisingly, the advantages come from the old, tried and true factors:

 

• Maintenance
• Tactics
• Training
• Production capacity
• Firepower
• Logistics

 

The US military is focused on the illusory Breakthrough instead of doing the mundane, dirty, lowly, hard work that is necessary to win wars.  The Breakthrough is ‘hard work’, not technology.