Ship Order Quantities

Continuing on a little bit of an acquisition theme, we have become conditioned to think of military acquisition ordering, specifically ship ordering, as occurring in large quantities.  For example, here’s some planned or built orders for some classes:
 

 
 

But, this was not always the case.  In fact, this is an anomaly in the history of the Navy.  Historically, most shipbuilding programs resulted in small orders.  Consider the following sequential list of combat ship types in the WWII era and note the size of each class, as shown in the table below.

 

We see that even in the midst of an emergency wartime crash construction program that would see the Navy ultimately build a fleet of 6000 ships, the individual class sizes were still very small … stunningly small by today’s norm.
 
Even the smaller ships, of which the Navy needed many hundreds, were built in fairly small quantities as shown below.
 

 

Even these larger destroyer and destroyer escort class numbers are deceptive in that they were all built in the span of a few years.  Thus, although the numbers may have been larger, the construction period for the classes was very short which is almost the same as being a very small class as far as how it impacts ordering, construction, and pricing.  Contrast this with the LCS class, a corvette size ship, which has been under construction for some twenty years or the 3-ship Zumwalt class which began construction in 2009 and is still continuing, sixteen years later!
 
 
Future Proofing
 
One of the major impacts of class size has to do with the misguided notion of future proofing, the concept so beloved by so many naval observers.  The idea of future proofing is that if we build excess capacities (weight margin, electrical power, internal hull volume, hull length, extra cabling and ducting, etc.) into the new ship it will be much cheaper to upgrade it in the future as new technologies emerge.  While superficially appealing, the concept has failed almost completely in practice and has resulted in more expensive ships that never get ‘futured’, meaning, they never receive those nebulous, undefined future upgrades.
 
Future proofing results in compartments that have no function, cables and ducting that are dead ends, and length, width, and volume added to the ship for future needs that, history tells us with near 100% certainty, will never happen.  In short, we increase the cost of ships trying to future proof them despite knowing full well that we’ll never apply the future upgrades.  Instead, when the time comes for adding future upgrades, the Navy will claim, as they always do, the ships are too old and that it is no longer cost effective to upgrade the ship and that the ship is too worn out to be worth upgrading and that we must buy new hulls.  How many times have we seen this happen and yet naval observers keep calling for future proof designs?  Remind me, what’s the definition of insanity?  Oh yeah, that’s right …
 
In WWII, there was zero future proofing built into ships.  Future proofing, meaning the incorporation of new technology, was handled by building small classes so frequently that classes with new technologies (or the lessons of actual combat) were always just around the corner.
 
 
Order Size
 
One might think that industry would love large orders and, in theory, that would be correct if the Navy ever followed through on the large order (see, “Follow Through”).  In theory, large orders would lend stability to shipbuilders since they could plan years ahead for their workloads, better manage workforce levels, and intelligently plan facility improvements.  Of course, this is not what happens in practice.  In practice, shipbuilders are left unsure about future workloads since every program is always on the verge of being cancelled or reduced, orders surge and wane resulting in frantic attempts to hire workers followed shortly by layoffs, and facility improvements and, indeed, basic maintenance, keeps getting pushed into an undefined ‘someday’ that never arrives.  What’s the point of large orders that just get cancelled or reduced?
 
Contrary to what one might think, small orders actually promote stability in the shipbuilding industry because industry has a much higher confidence that the order will be fully carried to completion and that subsequent small orders are coming.
 
Large orders have had the effect of reducing new classes and new projects to near zero.  For example, we’re down to one new combat aircraft order every twenty or thirty years now.  This results in one winner in industry getting all the work for decades (Lockheed Martin and the F-35, for example) and the other manufacturers being forced to consolidate and/or die due to lack of work.
 
It is time to return to the historically more normal practice of building frequent, small classes of ships with short life spans (10-20 years).  We knew this, once upon a time, but stupidly abandoned timeless wisdom.  Let’s study our history, recall the lessons, and return to sanity.

Surface Ship Aviation

It has been some 80+ years since WWII and in that time we have seen some truly remarkable advances in tank design, aircraft design, missile development, sensors, etc.  One would think that ship design would have advanced at least as much and yet this is clearly not the case.  Not only has ship design not advanced, in many respects it has regressed.  Armor, weapon density, survivability, redundancy, endurance, sailing range, etc. have all regressed.  Well, at least we can say that surface ship aviation has advanced with the development of the helicopter … right?  Or has it?  Let’s look.
 
As a reminder, WWII US cruisers typically carried four seaplanes operated from two catapults and recovered with one or two cranes.  The seaplanes they used included, primarily, the OS2U Kingfisher and, at other times in the war, the Curtis SC-1 Seahawk and Curtis SOC Seagull.  Today, Burke class destroyers Flt IIa and beyond carry one SH-60 type helo (theoretically capable of two but never done, as far as I know) and provision for a small Fire Scout type UAV which have rarely been used and are being phased out (see, “Fire Scout Status”).  Flt I/II Burkes, have no hangar and carry no helos.  The Constellation class carries one SH-60 type helo and one Fire Scout type UAV.  The LCS carries one SH-60 type helo and one Fire Scout or smaller UAV.
 
 
Aircraft
 
Just as the value of an aircraft carrier is wholly dependent on the size and abilities of the air wing, so too is the surface ship aviation value dependent on the aircraft they carry.  Following is a comparison of the primary aircraft from WWII surface ships and today’s surface ships.

OS2U Kingfisher

Discussion

 
The main function of ship’s aviation both in WWII and today is scouting/targeting.  In WWII, ship’s planes, with a few hundred miles of search radius and an enemy ship speed of advance of only 30 kts maximum, a ship/scout could ensure the ship’s safety for the better part of a day.  Today, with enemy weapons having a speed of advance of several hundred miles per hour or more, long range searches are more critical than ever and yet today’s shipboard aircraft have around half the range of WWII aircraft.  Does that make sense?  What ship designer thought, “Hey, let’s cut the range of our shipboard aviation in half and go with that.”  and everyone agreed with him instead of laughing him out of a job?
 
The other notable regression is in the number of embarked aircraft.  A WWII cruiser carried four aircraft.  Today’s ships carry one full size helo and a small UAV.  Quite a drop!  Admittedly, a WWII cruiser is a bit bigger than even a Burke but the WWII cruiser also didn’t have the 100 ft flight deck and enormous hangar that a Burke has.  Approximately one third of a Burke’s total length is devoted to aviation.  WWII ships devoted almost no length to aviation.  Catapults were placed wherever there was a small amount of room available, including on top of gun turrets!  

The one area where an argument can be made that aircraft have significantly improved is anti-submarine warfare (ASW).  Helos have proven quite useful and effective at this thanks to sonobuoys, dipping sonar, and air-dropped torpedoes.  Unfortunately, the reduction in number of embarked aircraft have rendered the ASW helo only marginally useful unless several ships can pool their aircraft.  As the saying goes, if you have one helo, you have none.  This is recognition of the very high maintenance demands of helos and their inability to maintain a high readiness rate.
 
So, while ASW helos are theoretically significantly improved, the reality of reduced numbers and readiness rates have rendered any theoretical improvement only marginally useful.
 
As with so many other aspects of ship design, today’s surface ship aviation capabilities have not significantly improved and have, in many ways, regressed.  Today’s ships carry fewer (half or less) aircraft with significantly shorter ranges.  
 
How can we address the shortcomings in surface ship aviation?  We have, potentially two possible alternatives to today’s aviation problems:
 
1. Revert to shipboard seaplanes.  With modern engines, enhanced aerodynamic designs, stealth shaping, etc., we should be able to design a ship’s seaplane with range in excess of a thousand miles and a reasonable degree of stealth for survivability and the ability to scout without being instantly detected.  Four (to use the historical number) such aircraft would go a long ways towards providing ships with effective situational awareness and target detection.
 
2. UAVs.  We’ve discussed the use of small, stealthy UAVs for shipboard surveillance many times.  Operated by the dozens at a time, small UAVs can be quite effective while representing little financial risk if some are lost (see, “UAV’s – Numbers Matter”).

A Stealthy Carrier

Reader ‘SRB’ recently wondered about how to make a carrier stealthy.  What a great thought exercise!  Let’s have some fun and explore the idea a bit.
 
At first glance, it would seem difficult or impossible to make a carrier stealthy and still retain its full functionality.  The sheer size, alone, makes it a challenging task.  In addition, the sponsons add all kinds of non-stealthy protuberances.  Sprinkle on the multitude of weapons, masts, radars, domes, etc. and the task seems impossible.  Well, that means we’ll need to think outside the box to design a stealthy carrier.  In no particular order, here are some design characteristics of a stealthy carrier.
 
Aircraft Elevators – Conventional external, side opening elevators would be eliminated in favor of internal elevators that momentarily open at flight deck level to load/unload aircraft.  This eliminates the non-stealthy openings and external elevator gear and allows a smooth, uninterrupted hull whose shape can be maximized for stealth.
 
Sponsons – Sponsons, whose purpose is to mount weapons out of the way of the flight deck, would be eliminated and the weapons converted to forms that are embedded in the hull (side angled VLS cells, for example) or retractable (under the flight deck, for example, as flight ops would not be conducted while firing weapons).  A carrier is mammoth and it’s not as if a carrier has lots of weapons.  We should be able to find plenty of room.
 
Island – The island, if it is still needed, would take the form of a typical slanted superstructure of a surface ship like the LCS or Visby.  In fact, the Ford class has a slightly stealthy island with a couple of slanted faces.  Of course, it then totally negates any benefit by festooning the island with protruding bridges, catwalks, masts, domes, etc.
 
Even better than a stealthy, slanted superstructure would be no superstructure, at all.  Why not have the functions buried inside the ship?  The only possible legitimate need for an island is to provide an elevated overwatch from which to direct flight deck activities and movements.  However, I’m thinking that we could function without this by using extensive camera views from many dozens of angles with the views being assembled into an ‘overhead’ view via software manipulations. 
 
Antennae – All antennae (Satcoms and the like) would have to be flush mounted into the superstructure just as radar panels are now.
 
Aircraft Spotting – Assuming a stealthy carrier would only operate stealthy aircraft, deck spotting should not be a major problem as far as impacting radar signature since the aircraft are, inherently, stealthy. 
 
Overhangs – I don’t know whether deck overhangs negatively impact stealth but I suspect they do.  A stealthy carrier would need a smooth hull that joins the deck all around – no overhanging decks.
 

An artist's concept of a stealth carrier

Discussion
 
One obvious implication from the preceding is that we’ll need a lot more internal ship’s volume to contain the many external functions that need to be internalized.  Just as it is a challenge to find room for internal weapon bays on stealth aircraft, so too, will it be a challenge to find room for the carriers external functions that now need to be moved internally.  This dictates that we ruthlessly eliminate any current function that is not directly combat related.  That means eliminating crew comforts, non-essential functions such as the extensive and powerful radar fits (carriers don’t radiate in combat), one or two aircraft elevators, and so forth.
 
Clearly, any attempt at a serious stealth carrier would result in a design well outside the conventional box but, why not?  There’s nothing inherently impossible in the task.  The basic carrier design hasn’t changed since pre-WWII.  Perhaps it’s time.  What do you think?  Could we build a stealthy carrier with enough stealth to be worth the effort?

Visby As The Model

ComNavOps has frequently cited the Swedish corvette Visby as the model for future WARship designs based on the extreme (compared to current standards) radar stealth of the ship.  Radar stealth, while not the be all and end all of WARship design, is, without a doubt, the minimum price of admission to the modern naval battlefield.  Stealth, alone, won’t guarantee success or survival but the absence of stealth will guarantee failure and destruction.  Visby is the only existing, functional high stealth WARship that I’m aware of.  Yes, there are other experimental prototypes that claim high stealth (Sea Shadow, for example) but they aren’t functional WARships – they’re experiments that emphasize one attribute not the entire WARship package.
 
What does it mean to call for Visby as the model for future US Navy WARship design?  Well, it doesn’t mean to make an exact copy and just add a hundred feet of length – though that would likely produce a much better ship than what we have now!  What it means is to take the conceptual attributes of the Visby and incorporate them into a clean sheet design.  However, even that is not the end of it.  Visby, while decently (not great) equipped and armed for a corvette, lacks many attributes that a high end WARship will need for the future naval battlefield.  So, what should we take from Visby and what do we need to add? 

 

Visby

Stealth – Visby’s radar stealth is due in large measure to its angular, uninterrupted shape with very few protuberances.  Compare Visby’s look to our latest Burkes and the Constellation and you’ll instantly see just how obsolete the Burkes and Constellations are in this regard.  They’re jokes and will stand out on the battlefield like the radar beacons they are.  Several decades ago, the Burke was notable for its stealth but that time is long since passed.
 
Electromagnetic Stealth – Radar stealth is not enough, by itself.  We need extreme emissions control across the entire spectrum.  Not a single stray electron can be emitted if a ship hopes to survive.  Visby may or may not have this – I suspect not.
 
Acoustic Stealth – This is how you gain a degree of immunity from submarines.  A ship cannot allow any avoidable noise to escape.  Note that this likely means downgrading other attributes such as speed (no giant waterjet trumpets – looking at you, LCS).  I have no idea to what extent, if any, Visby has this.
 
Visual Stealth – This is an ignored aspect and we need to incorporate modern coatings and processes (electrochemically reactive coatings, for example).  Old fashioned camouflage, adapted to disrupt optical seekers, is necessary and we’re not talking about the idiotic, crew-designed camo schemes on the LCS.  Visby does not have this, at all.
 
Infrared Stealth – Modern ships cannot emit a significant infrared signature.  Active cooling systems are mandatory and engine exhaust must be significantly cooled even is this means downgrading performance (underwater exhaust, for example, which creates backpressure and decreases engine performance).  The current nuclear washdown systems, adapted to infrared cooling, would be a good start towards heat signature management.  Non-heat absorbing coatings and materials should be developed.  Visby does not have this.
 
Weapons Density – We’ve talked at length about the extremely sparse weapons density on modern ships and Visby is as guilty of this as anyone.  We need to load the new ship with weapons appropriate for its size and purpose.  To offer one ballpark example, no major WARship should sail without a minimum of 8 close in weapon system (the Burkes have 1 – what a joke).
 
UAV – We’ve talked at length about ships needing to be able to operate many dozens of small, stealthy UAVs for situational awareness.  This means the ship needs a small catapult/launcher of some sort, a recovery mechanism, and storage for many dozens of UAVs.  Visby has no such capacity.
 
Electronic Warfare – Todays EW is a joke.  We need ten times the capacity, antennae, power, and sensitivity of existing SLQ-32/SEWIP systems.  We also need to emphasize offensive/active EW, not just detection and defensive.  Again, this means output power.  Visby does not have this.
 
Optical/Passive Sensors – To emit is to die.  The modern WARship’s sensors must be optical/passive and incorporate automated search/tracking and fire control … in other words, an optical/passive Aegis system.  Visby does not have this.
 
Range of Weapons – The modern trend towards nothing but VLS missiles is idiotic.  Naval warfare demands flexibility which demands a wide range of weapons.  The modern ship needs missiles, of course, but it also needs large caliber guns (appropriate for its size and role), medium caliber guns, and small caliber guns, heavy torpedoes, ASW RBUs, small anti-drone weapons, lasers (because, they’re just around the corner of being ready, right??), etc.  Visby does not have this to an effective degree.
 
 
Conclusion
 
It is obvious from the preceding discussion that Visby is the only logical starting point for modern WARship design but it is not the end point.  It lacks many of the required attributes for a survivable, effective WARship.  Think of the Visby as the USS Monitor - it’s a great first step towards a truly modern WARship but nowhere near the end product of the required development.

Asymmetric Warfare Against the Chinese

A reader recently offered his opinion that the US has no hope of achieving victory in a war with China due to China’s overwhelming superiority in technology, numbers, and industrial capacity.  I’m not going to cite the reader’s comment as I have no wish to embarrass him.  Besides, his view is shared, to varying degrees, by many people so he’s hardly unique.  Is he correct?  Is America doomed?  Let’s examine this view.
 
For starters, the reader’s assumption of China’s overwhelming superiority is incorrect, in many ways, but for the sake of this discussion, let’s stipulate that he’s exactly right – that China does, indeed, have overwhelming superiority of technology, numbers, and industrial capacity.  It would seem, then, that the US, indeed, has no hope of victory.  After all, those are the main determinants of victory in any war, right?
 
Or are they?
 
Let’s start where we always do … history.  Let’s look at some recent examples.
 
Vietnam – The US enjoyed total, overwhelming domination in technology, numbers, and industrial capacity and yet lost the war.
 
Afghanistan (US) - The US enjoyed total, overwhelming domination in technology, numbers, and industrial capacity and yet lost the war.
 
Afghanistan (Soviet Union) - The Soviet Union enjoyed total, overwhelming domination in technology, numbers, and industrial capacity and yet lost the war.
 
Korea - The US enjoyed total, overwhelming domination in technology, numbers (at least until the Chinese entered the war), and industrial capacity and yet could only achieve a stalemate.
 
Without a doubt, technology, numbers and industrial capacity are important, especially in a conventional war, but, clearly, history proves that there are other, more important, factors that can overcome technology, numbers, and industrial capacity.  What are those factors? 
 
 

• Will – First and foremost is will.  Determination.  The absolute unwavering desire for victory and nothing less.
• Victory Conditions – One sure way to lose a war is to enter into it without a clear idea of the end state (total victory, one assumes).  The US has violated this requirement repeatedly since WWII.  Indeed, a very strong case can be made that the US has not had a clear idea of victory conditions in any conflict it’s entered since WWII.
• Commitment – Hand in hand with will is the willingness to do whatever is required to win.  This means not allowing the enemy sanctuary across some border, not holding back out of fear of collateral damage or casualties, not scrubbing target lists to see which ones will play well on the public relations stage, and not giving a damn what the rest of the world thinks.  If you’re serious enough to enter a war, the only ‘good’ outcome is total victory as quickly as possible using whatever means necessary.
• Training - Training can overcome a lot of other disadvantages.  A properly trained man with a knife can beat a man with a machine gun.  We have hollow forces, currently; China's level of training is unknown.  We need to be trained to the peak of effectiveness. 
  
• Brutality – Part of the commitment to war is the commitment to the brutality of war.  The US has been far too squeamish about war since WWII and, thus, unable to wage war efficiently, meaning brutally effective.  I recall a small uproar of protest amongst the population during Desert Storm when it was revealed that the US bulldozed trenches and buried Iraqi soldiers alive.  Killing is killing.  It’s not our job to gently cradle enemy soldiers while we wait for them to die of old age.  Our job is to kill as efficiently as possible.
• Simplicity - Simplicity trumps complexity in battle.  Complex equipment that won’t function in the stress of combat, can’t be maintained, and can’t be repaired is of no use.
• Decentralization – A decentralized command and control structure can only help during war.  It reduces confusion and eliminates a vulnerable center of gravity.

 
 
In every example conflict cited above, the loser violated one or more (generally all!) of the factors just described.
 
So, can the US win a war with China even with the stipulation that China possesses superior technology, numbers, and industrial capacity?  Of course we can!  However, it requires unwavering determination, crystal clear victory conditions, and total commitment. 
 
There is yet another factor that can offset superior technology, numbers, and industrial capacity and that is unconventional strategy and tactics.  Ukraine has amply demonstrated this with their unmanned assets, among other developments.  The Chinese used human wave attacks.  The North Vietnamese / Viet Cong used all manner of unconventional tactics.  The Taliban used IEDs and hid amongst the civilian population.  And so on.
 
Some people refer to this as asymmetric warfare and often use it as an excuse as to why a seemingly superior country lost to an inferior one.  Is asymmetric warfare some kind of magic solution?  Let’s consider it.
 
Let's start by dispensing with the silly notion that asymmetric war is somehow a different kind of war. It's not. War is war. Asymmetric simply means the enemy used different tactics than you did and, more often than not, asymmetric is used to try to explain away how you managed to lose to an inferior force.
 
So, recognizing that war is war, we now note that technology is not only NOT a guarantee of victory, it is often a detriment. For example, Germany's focus on ever more exquisite tanks to the detriment of just plain good tanks produced in large quantities cost them valuable time and resources. Thus, Vietnam and Afghanistan are not some kind of special war for whom the constants of war do not apply. They are war and the enemy conducted their war better than we did.
 
As an aside, readers, you might benefit from reviewing Vietnam, Korea, Desert Storm, Afghanistan, and more and try to identify which factors were truly deciding in the outcomes. You'll be surprised.  Ours is not the only way to wage war and, arguably, might be the least effective, depending on circumstances! Figure out why.
 
During a discussion of asymmetric war, and in response to the examples of Vietnam and Afghanistan and others, an anonymous reader made the comment,
 
"Afghanistan and Vietnam were asymmetrical, counterinsurgency operations, so are not analogies to what we would face with China."
 
Again, sticking with our stipulation of China possessing superior technology, numbers, and industrial capacity, and keeping in mind the other factors that impact victory, what does that suggest for a US strategy? A student of warfare, might look to history and postulate that the US could and should fight exactly the kind of asymmetric war that the reader dismissed as not being applicable! Perhaps the US should identify asymmetric operations and tactics that would enable it to succeed despite being hopelessly outclassed by the Chinese in every conceivable way?
 
How could the US do this? What kinds of asymmetric tactics could the US use that might succeed? Well, for example, instead of attempting a toe-to-toe slugfest of army against army, perhaps the US should emphasize the use of small, special forces units to destroy Chinese oil and gas pipelines in Russia (*gasp* we can't put troops inside Russia! that would violate international law! ... well, that's why they call it asymmetric; you'll recall that the NVietnamese used Laos and the Taliban didn’t hesitate to cross into Pakistan?) thereby imposing a total sea AND LAND blockade of a critical resource.
 
Another example might be that instead of going toe-to-toe with the magnificent, all-powerful, Chinese navy, perhaps we could emphasize our still formidable advantage in submarines to destroy their fleet and systematically launch cruise missile attacks on every Chinese port, airfield, and base on the Chinese mainland - basically, guerilla warfare using sub-launched cruise missiles! Done correctly, this kind of attack would be almost undetectable and unstoppable.
 
And so on.
 
Asymmetric is not a special category of war that transcends the constants of war.  It is merely a set of tactics and operations that your/our military doesn’t normally use.  If we think China truly has superiority of technology, numbers, and industry then perhaps we should be looking at implementing asymmetric tactics ourselves.  If we took this approach, it would, of course, require a different force structure, doctrine, and tactics and would require intense training to become proficient … none of which we’re doing.
 
China is beatable.  What we need to do is decide how we want to go about it and start getting serious about equipping and training for it.

2025 Shipbuilding Plan

China is building warships faster than we can keep track of them with dozens of new ships every year.  How is the US Navy doing, by comparison?  Let's take a look at the Navy's most recent 30-year shipbuilding plan and, more importantly, the five year portion of that plan (everything beyond five years is just made up guesses).

 
New Construction
 
According to the Navy’s most recent 2025 30 Year shipbuilding plan [1], over the next five years the Navy plans to build 33 combat ships (average 6.6 per year) which break down as follows:
 
Carriers CVN           0
Burke DDG            10
Constellation FFG   7
Virginia SSN            9
San Antonio LPD    3
Columbia SSBN      4
 
In comparison, China went from around 190 to 250 (+60) in the four years 2020-2023 inclusive for an average of 15 new ships per year which is twice the build rate of the US.
 
In addition, the Navy plans to build 24 assorted auxiliaries and logistics vessels.
 
 
Retirements
 
Balanced against the build plans, the Navy plans to decommission 64 ships as indicated below and broken down by year.
 
2025 19
2026 17
2027 12
2028   7
2029   9
 
2025 CG 4, SSN 3, LCS 2, LSD 1, other 9
2026 CVN 1, CG 3, LCS 1, SSN 3, SSGN 2, LSD 2, other 5
2027 CG 2, SSN 1, SSBN 1, other 8
2028 DDG 2, SSN 1, SSGN 2, SSBN 1, LSD 1
2029 DDG 3, SSN 1, LSD 1, LHD 1, other 3
 
Total retirements by type:
 
CVN     1
CG       9
DDG    5
SSN     9
SSGN  4
SSBN  2
LCS     3
LSD     5
LHD     1
other  25
 
 
Discussion
 
We see, then, that in the five year plan (beyond five years is just pure made up guesses), the Navy is planning to retire 39 combat ships and 25 auxiliaries while building 33 combat ships and 24 auxiliaries for a net decrease of 6 combat ships and 1 auxiliary … while we’re supposedly gearing up for a near term war with China.  What’s wrong with this picture?
 
Other notable findings:
 

• The entire MCM force will be retired
• All SSGNs will be retired
• Nimitz class retirements will begin
• Burke class retirements will begin
• No new carriers are scheduled in the period
• No Burke/Tico replacement is planned

 
The MCM capability is of major concern.  The entire current MCM force of Avenger class ships and MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopters will be retired with only a half dozen or so Independence variant LCS-MCM to take over mine countermeasures for the entire world.  Worse, the LCS MCM module is not yet functional and is entirely ineffective.  For all practical purposes, we no longer have any mine countermeasure capability.
 
The SSGN is far and away our most stealthy and effective land attack naval asset and will be retired without direct replacement.  The Virginia class, even with the VPM, simply cannot equal the SSGN in effectiveness and operational usefulness.
 
The lack of a Burke/Tico replacement is a major weakness.  We’ll be losing VLS (strike and AAW) capacity from the fleet while replacing them, numerically, with small, unmanned vessels with a fraction of the VLS.  The Burke Flt III is obsolete even before the first joins the fleet and is emphatically not the solution to future naval warfare due to the lack of stealth, armor, firepower, weight/stability margins, combat resilience, effective damage control, and a sub-optimal radar system.
 
 
 
_______________________________

 
[1]Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, ” Report to Congress on the Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for Fiscal Year 2025”, Mar 2024

Beckoning Beacon

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

• We need to reverse this trend. 
  
• We need to restore the requirement that every piece of equipment (I’m looking at you, EMALS) be shielded and EMCON-capable.
• We need to halt the rush down the unmanned path.
• We need to realistically exercise our communications in a combat setting and see how bad the problem is.
• We need to begin designing equipment with minimal communications as a mandatory requirement.
• We need to rethink our command and control concept and eliminate the top down control bias.
• We need start thinking in terms of combat operations rather than technological fixation.

 
In combat, you talk, you die.  Stop talking!

Armor Against Missiles

There are a few naval topics that just seem to trigger controversy and argument (like battleships) and armor, for unfathomable reasons, is one of them.  Armor would seem to be something that no one could possibly object to.  At its very worst, it mitigates damage and improves survivability and yet some people seem to want to argue against it.
 
One of the reasons for the reaction to armor is that many/most people have a couple of misconceptions which cloud their thinking.  Let’s examine those misconceptions and dispense with them.
 
 
Purpose – So many people seem to think that if armor can’t provide absolute and total invulnerability to every weapon past, present, and future that the armor has no value.  This is, of course, utter nonsense.  Armor does provide immunity to the types of weapons it’s designed to and it provides mitigation to the rest which improves survivability.  This was thoroughly covered in the post, “Armor for Dummies”, so I won’t belabor it further, here.
 
Note that no one has ever claimed that armor can provide total immunity against every threat ever conceived.  Thus, there is nothing to argue on this point and yet so many people illogically attempt to just that.
 
System vs Single Plate – So many people seem to think that armor is a single plate of steel welded onto the side of a ship.  While that has been done in the past, that is not what the majority of WWII armor schemes did.  Note the use of the word, ‘scheme’.  This means that armor was not (is not) a single plate of steel but is, instead, a system of various components acting in a layered effect to achieve mitigation of a weapon’s impact.  As an example, torpedo armor was not a single plate of steel under the waterline;  it was a system of layered bulkheads, voids, and plate that was designed to act as a whole to provide mitigation of the effects of torpedoes.  Thus, voids were ‘armor’.  Similarly, the deck armor of a ship was not a single layer of steel but was a layered system consisting of an upper decapping/trigger layer and one or more main layers to further contain and mitigate the blast effects.
 
In addition to physically separated layers, armor often consisted of layers of materials with different metallurgical properties so that the layers might be (to put it crudely) harder or softer, acting in concert to deplete, absorb, and deflect the missile’s energy effects.
 
We’ve also discussed the importance of transverse bulkheads as part of the overall armor scheme.
 
It should also be noted that every bulkhead in every compartment acts as another layer of armor to contain and mitigate damage effects.  Unlike a tank, which only has one compartment and if you penetrate that you’ve likely achieved a kill, a ship has dozens/hundreds of compartments, each acting as a containment unit to limit the extent of damage.
 
It should be obvious, at this point that simply pointing to a weapon and saying that it can penetrate xx inches of steel is completely missing the concept of an actual armor system.
 
WWII – Yet another misconception is the belief that if we apply armor to a ship today we’ll do it exactly like we did in WWII.  I see this argument repeatedly as people argue that modern missiles with diving or pop up maneuvers will easily defeat deck armor because, in WWII, deck armor was less extensive than side armor.  Well, duh!  In WWII, side penetration was the main threat. Don’t you think that if the main threat today is diving missiles that a modern armor designer would take that into account and design the armor scheme to deal with that?  Wouldn’t we put our emphasis on armoring against overhead threats?
 
Data – A final misconception is that there is any data on modern missile’s effectiveness versus armor.  There are only two data points that I’m aware of:  a long ago test of a ?Harpoon? missile against an unspecified battleship armor plate which resulted in nothing more than scratched plate and a widely repeated but wholly undocumented claim of a Soviet ‘shaped charge’ missile warhead that can penetrate xx inches of steel under unknown conditions.  I flat out don’t believe any Soviet claim.  The Soviet’s number one export was exaggerated propaganda.  Thus, there is no credible evidence to assess the effectiveness of missiles against armor and certainly nothing to assess the effectiveness of missiles against an actual system of armor, as we’ve discussed.
 
 
Conclusion
 
We now understand that armor is a system, or scheme, consisting of many components and that the system acts as a whole to protect the ship.  The ability of a missile to defeat or penetrate one component does not invalidate the overall scheme.  As we noted, the purpose of armor is to mitigate the degree of damage from a weapon.  If that mitigation is in the form of immunity (as in the WWII battleship zones of immunity to plunging fire), that’s great but even weapons that penetrate the ship are mitigated by the additional layers of armored bulkheads, void spaces, plates, etc.
 
Before we close out our discussion, it should also be noted that land armor has made immense strides since WWII.  Naval armor has made almost no strides.  There is no reason why some land armor advances couldn’t be adapted to naval use, resulting in even more effective armor.  Newer armor materials and arrangements such as ceramics, polymers, composites, electric armor, sloped armor, spall liners, spaced armor, reactive armor, etc. ought to be adaptable to naval use.  Again, focusing on the claimed ability of a missile to penetrate xx inches of steel is almost a pointless argument.
 
It should be obvious, now, that most anti-armor arguments are based on misconceptions.  There is absolutely no valid reason not to apply armor to every ship, as appropriate for its size, and every reason to do so.
 
Most importantly in the missile versus armor discussion is the recognition that no one has ever tried to design a naval armor system against modern missiles and yet so many people seem convinced that it can’t be done.  Let’s give it a try!  I see no reason why it can’t be successfully done.  Given the staggering, multi-billion dollar cost of even destroyer size ships, it is mind-bending that we don’t armor our ships.
 

Prepare to Fight the Last War

There’s an old saying that generals always prepare to fight the last war.  Nowhere is this truer than the Ukraine-Russia war.  The US (and, to be fair, the entire world) is preparing to fight the Ukraine conflict for the next war. 
 
We noted the success Ukraine has had using unmanned surface drones against the Russian navy and so we are dutifully pushing ahead with unmanned vessels just as quickly as we can while ignoring the unique factors that make the Ukraine conflict a true one-of-a-kind example.
 
We noted the inability of manned aircraft to exert decisive effect and so we’ve begun revising our air doctrine and tactics to reflect this while ignoring the unique factors that make the Ukraine conflict a true one-of-a-kind example.
 
We noted the impact of small UAVs in attacking individual soldiers and vehicles so we’ve enthusiastically embraced all manner of small drones while ignoring the unique factors that make the Ukraine conflict a true one-of-a-kind example.
 
We noted the marked lack of success by tanks and their high rates of attrition and so we’ve eliminated the entire Marine Corps tank component and begun moving away from tanks and toward light vehicles while ignoring the unique factors that make the Ukraine conflict a true one-of-a-kind example.
 
 
There can be no dispute.  When we enter into a duplicate of the Ukraine conflict we will be more than ready.  On the other hand, when we take on China we’ll be lost, floundering, and wondering why we aren’t better prepared.  It’s because we’re preparing to fight the Ukraine war, not China.

Paid in Full, Paid in Blood

The previous post about landing craft was informative and somewhat disappointing as far as the comments are concerned.  Too many people want to ignore the lessons that we paid in blood to learn in WWII.  People want to acquire large landing craft outfitted with all manner of sensors and weapons and then cram dozens/hundreds of troops and vehicles on the craft while completely ignoring the lessons of dispersal of risk, efficiency of unloading, procurement cost, and ease of production.
 
Similarly, many people are ignoring the lessons about how to conduct an amphibious assault.  What is the proper role of a carrier group?  What is the role of aircraft?  What is the job of the escorts?  What is the expenditure rate of munitions in an assault?  How much weight of munitions do we need for fire support and how can we delivery the required volume?  We’re also ignoring the history of helo survivability over a battlefield.  And so on.
 
All good discussions must begin with a consideration of history and its lessons.
 
Before we even begin to contemplate changing doctrine and tactics, we’d better be absolutely certain we understand why the doctrine and tactics exist instead of whatever it is we’re thinking about doing.  We learned our lessons in WWII and paid the blood bill for the learning.  That doesn’t mean we can never change anything but it does mean we’d better be awfully sure we’re making a change for the better and, again, that means thoroughly understanding what already exists and why.

 
We also need to keep the K.I.S.S. principle firmly in mind.  Murphy still roams the battlefield and offers no second chances.
 
Think about it.
 
Think hard about it.
 
Think very hard about it and then think again before you abandon established, proven doctrine and tactics.

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.

The Passive Warship

While many of the lessons of war are timeless, tactics do change as technology changes.  Consider the following observations and logic chain.

• With the existence of hundred/thousand mile cruise missiles, multi-thousand mile ballistic missiles, supersonic aircraft and missiles, 50 mile torpedoes, SSGNs, etc., any ship that is spotted can be killed and fairly quickly, from a distance.
• Given SIGINT, radar warning receivers, direction finders, and all manner of electromagnetic sensing devices, any ship that emits, intentionally or unintentionally, can be spotted.
• Hence, to be spotted is to be sunk.
• The obvious conclusion is don’t get spotted!
• The obvious way to reduce the chance of being spotted is to emit nothing.  No active radar.  No unshielded electronic devices.  No signals.  Emit nothing for an enemy to pick up.

 
Of course, with today’s ship designs, emitting nothing is, potentially, another definition of being blind and a ship that is blind is going to stumble into trouble.
 
The job of a naval force is to find the enemy.  How can that be accomplished without active emissions?
 
This is where we begin to see that we need a paradigm shift away from active detection systems and toward passive systems.  This doesn’t mean tacking a single electro-optical (EO) sensor on the superstructure somewhere and glancing at it occasionally, as is done today.  Instead, it means designing an entire ship around passive sensing as its main sensor system.  We need a passive warship design.  Let’s look a bit closer at this concept.
 
 
The Passive Warship
 
The passive warship begins with a maximum stealth design which includes not just radar stealth but infrared, acoustic, optical, electromagnetic, and wake stealth.  Once we have a ship that is as stealthy as possible we can begin designing its sensing system.  We want a maximum stealth ship design combined with primarily passive sensing – a ship that can’t be seen but can see all around itself.  The enemy can’t see it but it can see the enemy.
 
Electro-optical – The F-14 Tomcat (and other aircraft – no need to list them) had optical systems that were reportedly capable of detecting bomber size aircraft out to a hundred miles or so.  We have optical telescopes that can see distant galaxies.  Of course, those telescopes are far too large to mount on a warship but with something in between the F-14’s tiny camera and a giant observatory telescope we should be able to easily see fighter size aircraft at hundreds of miles.  Place several (not just one!) of these EO sensors around the ship to provide 360 degree coverage with a huge amount of overlap and redundancy to allow for battle damage and we have 360 degree, long range, passive sensing that matches or exceeds what radar can provide.  Remember that one major advantage of optical systems is that they can easily detect stealth aircraft.
 
What makes this approach viable is accompanying software that can monitor the optical images continuously and detect the faintest of possible targets – something that a human would fail to do simply due to visual fatigue. 
 
Of course, optical sensing is vulnerable to interference and degradation from weather, smoke, and other effects.  Thus, we need additional passive sensing to supplement and complement optical sensing.
 
Infrared – Take the preceding EO concept and duplicate it with IR sensors.  Picture aircraft infrared search and track (IRST) pods, scaled up for much greater sensitivity and range, placed all around the ship to, again, provide 360 degree coverage with overlap and redundancy.  IR sensing nicely supplements and complements optical sensing.
 
SIGINT – Signal intercept sensors provide passive detection of enemy electronic signals and communications.   These signals might be fire control comms, voice comms, data communications traffic, missile networking comms, helicopter traffic control comms, or any other type of signal.  Given the ability of many signal types to travel beyond the horizon – and thus be detected over the horizon – SIGINT can provide very long range detection.
 
UAVs – Not only do we want our passive warship to have the preceding capabilities but we need to extend the ship’s sensor reach/range using small, cheap reconnaissance UAVs equipped with passive sensors.  These UAVs can be employed continuously for area recon, specifically for target confirmation or intense monitoring of a specific area, or sporadically so as not give even a hint of the host ship’s presence.
 
Fire Control – The final step is to tie the passive sensor systems into the ship’s fire control.  Thus, passive sensors become the primary fire control and the ship never needs to radiate, even while defending against an attack.  Of course, if the ship is being attacked, it’s already been spotted and it’s no longer necessary to remain passive.  Active radar can be used at that point although it would still be preferable to avoid active systems thereby eliminating the enemy’s use of radar homing targeting.
 

There are already purely passive fire control systems throughout the world's militaries so this isn't something radically new. 

An alternative fire control scheme might be a mixed passive/active scheme which coordinates passive and active sensing so that tracking is passive and, at the last moment, active sensors (radar) activate for weapon guidance.  This would not, however, be the preferred approach. 
 
 
Discussion
 
From the preceding, we can envision a passive warship at the center of a 360 degree spherical ‘eye’ made up of dozens of optical, infrared, and signal sensors.  The sphere would extend from the horizon to hundreds of miles for elevated targets.  UAVs would further extend the monitored area.
 
The complementary systems would mitigate the negative effects of weather and whatnot.  What one system fails to detect, another will.
 
Of particular note is the ability of passive systems to detect stealth aircraft with ease.  A properly designed passive system almost renders radar stealth useless.
 
As noted, a passive fire control eliminates the enemy’s ability to use radar homing weapons.
 
We see, then, that a purely passive warship system has a lot going for it.
 
Radar would still be provided on our passive warship as there may be occasions to use it but there would be no need for high end, Aegis type systems.  A simple TRS-4D type radar for horizon ranges would be sufficient.
 
While the passive system is a rock solid concept, there are some unknowns that would need to be tested.  For example, can passive sensors provide sufficient weapon guidance?  What size sensors do we need?
 
We need to set up a passive test ship and determine whether we can detect, track, and fire control purely passively with sufficient effectiveness.  If we can’t, we need to find out where the limitations are and work to eliminate them.  We need to find out what the practical detection ranges are for various size/shape targets and flight profiles.  And so on.
 
Technology has changed and that demands a change in tactics.  Unfortunately, the Navy is anchored in the past.  We’re producing Burkes that are based on technology and tactics that are several decades out of date and hopelessly obsolete.  Our latest combat ship, the Constellation class, was obsolete before the first one was even laid down.  We are mired in the past.  It’s long past time for a paradigm shift in warship design.