The Military is not a Business

ComNavOps continues to see examples of the military-as-as-business mindset and this is horribly wrong.  The military is not a business.  It’s not subject to business case studies.  Because it’s not a business, there are [many] times when it will be run inefficiently and that must be accepted.  For example, a business study of ship manning would point to the minimum number of sailors necessary to operate the ship.  Combat, however, demands excess crew for damage control, casualties, etc.  Inefficient but necessary.
 
It seems that the higher up the officer, the more likely they are to approach the military as a business case.  I guess this is because so many officers pursue degrees in business related studies.  By the time an officer gets to flag rank, they’re damn near accountants instead of professional warriors!
 
The military is a combat case, not a business case.  Understand it.  Accept it.  Embrace it.
 
Here’s yet another example.  This one is from a retired admiral, VAdm (Ret.) Jeff Trussler, arguing for restructuring the submarine Navy as a service provider.
 
Note:  The phrase ‘as a service’ refers to a business model where a product or service is offered on a subscription basis rather than being owned outright by the customer.
 
He points out, correctly but with zero understanding of the real issue, that the submarine fleet is overworked.
 

The U.S. submarine industrial base that builds and sustains our existing fleet is not keeping pace with operational demands. Combatant Commanders’ requests for submarine capability in theater go unfulfilled.[1]

He then sets out to offer a business solution instead of recognizing the real problem is the Combatant Commander’s incessant and unjustified requests for submarines when, in reality, the submarines need to be undergoing maintenance and intensive combat training not answering useless requests from the Combatant Commanders so that they can increase the public perception of the importance of their little fiefdom.
 
Trussler suggests a ‘service’ model for submarines.
 

The “as-a-service” model—already proven in air and space—could offer a solution by using conventionally powered submarines to improve the readiness, lethality, and availability of our fast-attack SSN fleet. The goal is not to replace nuclear-powered SSNs but to ensure they remain focused on their most critical missions while using diesel-electric submarines for two key roles:
 
Providing platforms for research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) of new undersea technologies. This would reduce the risk and cost of fielding new capabilities by thoroughly testing their performance and tactical applicability before pulling an SSN offline for months of installation, testing at sea, and removal.
 
Expanding training opportunities. U.S.-trained civilian crews operating conventionally powered submarines could act as adversary forces in exercises, helping undersea, surface, and air forces refine their anti-submarine warfare (ASW) skills. These platforms could also support personnel training and qualification pipelines, ensuring crews receive adequate at-sea experience before deploying on SSNs.[1]

And, of course, he makes the usual bogus claim that this will free up nuclear subs for more important tasks.
 

… by freeing SSNs for high-end missions.[1]

We’ve already debunked this mythical claim (see, “Free Up Ships for More Important Duties”).
 
He then goes on to make a cost comparison claim (without any reference or link and the claim is highly suspect).
 

According to Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates, operating a Virginia-class SSN costs approximately $1.6 million per operational day. In contrast, a conventionally powered diesel-electric submarine can operate at a significantly lower daily cost—approximately 40% less than an SSN.[1]

He also proposes operating these non-nuclear subs with civilian crews.
 

By offloading lower-risk missions to commercially operated submarines with Navy-trained civilian crews, uniformed personnel can stay focused on high-end warfighting while maintaining operational proficiency.[1]

 
Discussion
 
There are several questionable aspects to this entire concept of submarines as a service.
 
For starters, no references are provided for any of the claims made in the article which makes verification and understanding of the claims difficult or impossible.  As an example, the claimed operating cost for a Virginia class submarine of $1.6M per day seems unbelievable under any reasonable assumptions.  Nuclear subs have no daily fuel costs so that pretty much leaves the crew salaries as the major operating cost.  Salaries for a crew of 135 would be something on the order of $55,000 per day.  Food would be, what, several hundred dollars a day?  So, where does the rest of the $1.6M per day come from?  My guess would be that someone is piling occasional maintenance and overhaul/refit costs onto the operating cost and perhaps other not-really-operational costs like nuclear fuel/reactor disposal costs, base facility costs, etc.  Without an itemized breakdown, I have no idea but $1.6M seems ridiculous.  This is one of those cases where you can make the number anything you want by manipulating what you choose to include or exclude in the category of operating costs.
 
Another example of unsubstantiated claims is,
 

… improve the readiness, lethality, and availability of our fast-attack SSN fleet.[1]

There is absolutely no documentation or logic to support the idea that operating a few non-nuclear subs will increase fleet readiness, improve lethality, or increase SSN availability.  Logic would suggest there is no relationship, at all, between a few non-nuclear subs and the SSN fleet.
 
Civilian submarine crews are a suspect idea.  How do we handle secrecy and security with civilians?  We don’t even share our submarine technology with our military allies so it’s hard to imagine sharing it with a civilian crew regardless of how many non-disclosure agreements you make them sign.
 
How does the chain of command work with civilians?
 
The entire premise that non-nuclear subs would free up SSNs for more important tasks is completely bogus.  Aside from having previously demonstrated that there are no ‘more important’ tasks sitting around for lack of a sub, the harsh reality is that we have more than enough subs already.  Heck, we’ve got a dozen or more subs sitting idle, pierside, just waiting for their turn at maintenance.  As an example, the Los Angeles class submarine, USS Boise, has been waiting, idle, for over eight years for maintenance.  If we think we need more subs, the solution is to our idled fleet back in service.
 
Another fallacy is that non-nuclear subs can be used to test equipment and develop tactics for nuclear subs.  They’re two different beasts.  They operate differently.  They have different noise levels, different speeds, different endurance, different dive depths, different sizes, different maneuverability, and so on.  Sure, if you want to test a new coffee maker, a non-nuclear sub is fine but if you want to test, say, a new sonar, you need the platform it will actually be installed on to get realistic and applicable results.  We already do far too much simulation testing and we’ve seen the flaws in that when we sent weapons to Ukraine and most failed or had significant flaws.
 
Having said all that, there’s nothing wrong with buying a foreign non-nuclear sub for adversary training but to embark on an entire new type of submarine because Combatant Commanders whine is stupidity on a plate.
 
We need to stop approaching the military as a business case and start viewing it as the often intentionally inefficient warfighting organization it is.
 
 

Reporting for Duty!

 
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[1]Naval News website, “Submarines “As-a-Service” Will Get More Players on the Field Today”, VAdm (Ret.) Jeff Trussler, 7-Jun-2025,
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2025/06/submarines-as-a-service-will-get-more-players-on-the-field-today/

Taiwan Submarines

Taiwan is attempting to build 8 new indigenously designed SSKs.  Reuters has a good article summarizing the effort.[1]

 

Shipbuilder CSBC began construction last year and is aiming to deliver the first of the planned eight vessels by 2025, according to government statements. The value of the project is estimated at up to $16 billion, according to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. [1]

 

Taiwan’s current submarine fleet consists of two Sea Dragon SSKs built in the Netherlands and delivered in 1987.  Typical of SSKs, they have six 533 mm bow tubes and 28 torpedoes.

 

The central rationale for acquiring new submarines appears to be the following,

 

The eight new submarines, plus the Sea Dragons, would pose a deadly threat to an invasion fleet, say veteran Western, Japanese and Taiwanese submariners. Armed with powerful torpedoes and anti-ship missiles, these vessels could attack the convoys of troop transports and warships that China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), would need for any landing on Taiwan. [1]

 

This smacks of the kind of everything-we-do-will-work-and-the-enemy-won’t-try-to-stop-us thinking that the US military routinely engages in.  Can a handful of SSKs really present a significant threat to what would be a massive invasion fleet?  Let’s analyze that premise.

 

Despite anyone’s desperate wishes, the Chinese are not going to launch an invasion fleet with no anti-submarine (ASW) protection.  Chinese ASW efforts will be extensive and will greatly diminish the effectiveness of defending SSKs unless the SSKs are determined to perform a suicidal attack that would only result in a couple of sinkings per submarine. 

 

Even without considering Chinese ASW efforts, ten SSKs have a limited capacity.  With a total of 60 torpedo tubes across ten submarines and using an initial salvo of six torpedoes per sub, two per target, this would only result in 30 targets being hit (sunk or mission kill).  This is ridiculously optimistic and assumes that every sub is available, every sub finds targets, every sub launches unhindered, and every torpedo hits but it defines the absolute upper edge of expectations.  So, the upper end of expectations is 30 hits.  The invasion fleet would consist of two or three hundred ships so this amounts to 10-15% of the invading fleet being stopped (sunk or mission killed).  That’s not insignificant but it’s hardly an invasion stopper, either.  The Chinese would gladly pay that price to seize Taiwan.  To assume further success by the submarines would be compounding the ridiculousness by assuming that, having given away their positions by firing, the Chinese would stand back, do nothing, and allow the subs to continue firing until all their torpedoes were exhausted.  Of course this won’t happen.  It is highly unlikely that any submarine would get a second attack opportunity before the defending ASW forces made a second attack impossible.

 

Now, let’s inject just a small degree of realism into the scenario.  For starters, not all ten submarines would be available and in the right location to attack an invasion fleet, not all the available submarines would achieve a firing situation due to enemy ASW activity, and not all torpedoes fired would hit their intended targets.  So, a slightly more realistic estimate would be that five subs would achieve a firing situation and half the torpedoes fired would hit a target thus giving around 7 targets hit (sunk or mission kill).  There would be no follow up attacks as the submarines would be too busy evading and dying.

This is what a serious invasion fleet would look like.

 

Not only would a few submarines always be unavailable due to maintenance, the submarines might well have other duties that prevent them from being used against an invasion fleet.  For example,

 

The two people in Taiwan with direct knowledge of the sub program said the vessels would also be deployed in the deeper waters east of the island. That would help keep open ports along Taiwan’s eastern coastline, which is furthest from China, for resupplies in a conflict. [1]

 

Thus, some number of subs would be deployed on the opposite side of Taiwan from an invasion fleet and would be unavailable to attack the fleet.

 

So, our more realistic assessment is that a fleet of ten SSKs could achieve 7 hits from an invasion fleet of two or three hundred ships.  Is this level of result sufficient to justify a $16B program?  The best way to answer this question is to pose another question: could the money be better spent on small, mobile, land based anti-ship missile launchers?  For example, the Norwegians have demonstrated that small anti-ship missiles like the Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile (NSM) can be launched from mobile, land based launch vehicles.  Taiwan could acquire thousands of such systems for what they plan to spend on 8 submarines.  Which would do more damage … thirty or so torpedoes or many thousands of anti-ship missiles?

 

Let’s ask some more questions:

 

Which would be more survivable?

 

Which would be easier to acquire?

 

Which would be easier to man?

 

Which would cost less to operate?

 

Which would be easier to deploy on short notice?

 

 

Unless Taiwan chooses to start a war, they are going to unavoidably take the first hit in an invasion.  That means they need widely scattered, numerous, hard to find, hard to hit weapons that will survive to strike back.  China will commence an invasion by finding and striking at the submarines and employing sufficient ASW resources as to prevent the subs from achieving viable firing situations.  In contrast, thousands of small, mobile anti-ship launchers present a capability that cannot be eliminated or even significantly reduced prior to an assault.  The SSK program represents time, resources, and money that could be much better spent on other alternatives.

 

Even if Taiwan is determined to go through with the SSK program, there are many obstacles that make project success less than a given.  Aside from the fact that this is a brand new, never before done effort from a non-existent indigenous submarine building industry (recall how the US LCS turned out when we contracted two companies that had never built a warship before?), the various technologies that make up a modern submarine must largely come from foreign companies and many of those companies and their parent countries are very reluctant to upset China.  Again, the odds of success for a small anti-ship weapon system are much greater than an indigenous SSK program.

 

Ten SSKs are an annoyance to China, not an invasion stopper.

 

 

 

 

________________________________

 

[1]Reuters website, “T-Day: The Battle For Taiwan”, Saito et. al., 29-Nov-2021,

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/taiwan-china-submarines/

SSK Sinks Carrier

This keeps coming up in comments so I guess I have to address it. 

 

I’m sure that everyone has heard, by now, the near-legendary story about the Swedish diesel-electric submarine HSwMS Gotland that ‘sank’ the US carrier Ronald Reagan in an exercise, thereby conclusively and unequivocally proving that submarines are invincible and that carriers are just marking time until they will by 100% sunk within ten minutes of the start of a war – at least, that’s the conclusion that many have drawn based on one widely disseminated story.  Is that really the correct conclusion?  Let’s look just a bit beyond the sensationalistic story and see what the reality is.

 

As we know, the US Navy has no SSKs of its own and leased the services of the Swedish SSK Gotland from 2005-2007 for the purpose of study and exercises.  As far as the actual exercise in question, we have almost no information so almost everything that follows is speculation and reasoned logic.

HSwMS Gotland, SSK

 Wikipedia states that the exercise in question involved Carrier Strike Group 7 (CSG 7) during the 2005 December pre-deployment Joint Task Force Exercise 06-2 (JTFEX 06-2) in the Pacific Ocean (probably in the California Operating Areas).(2)  As such, the exercise would have included all areas of the group’s mission capabilities with ASW being one check box on the list.  Note that the supporting citation in the Wiki article is irretrievable and unverifiable.

 

According to a Wikipedia article about CSG 7, the group consisted of the Reagan, a Ticonderoga, and 3 Burkes.(3)  This isn’t even remotely representative of a wartime carrier group so it follows that any exercise would not be representative of a wartime scenario.  That aside …

 

All right, that’s the end of what we actually know.  Now, let’s move into reasoned speculation.

 

The Navy’s purpose was to find out how stealthy the sub was and to study ways to detect and counter the sub.  Sinking it in an exercise was not the primary purpose.  Think about it … if you want to see how effective the sub is, you’d likely start it at different points, nearer and farther, to observe its characteristics.  In fact, you might intentionally refrain from ‘sinking’ it and allow it to approach as closely as possible to study the acoustic patterns as they vary with distance.

 

So, just as Top Gun aircraft instructors allow the students to shoot them down in order to learn, the Navy may have allowed the sub to sink the carrier to learn how it would be done. 

 

Now, let’s consider what an ASW exercise is. 

 

The number one attribute of an exercise is that it’s not realistic right from the start.  Out in the wild, it would be exceedingly unlikely for a sub to ever get within detection range of a carrier group.  The ocean is an incredibly vast place and the odds that a sub and a carrier would randomly cross paths is very low.  In an exercise, do we want to wait for months while a slow, limited sensor range sub searches for an ocean-roaming carrier?  Of course not!  So, we artificially constrain the exercise by confining the sub and carrier in close proximity to begin the exercise.  Thus, the sub has already, artificially, achieved detection and ‘maneuvered’ into weapons range.  The only remaining uncertainty is whether the defenders will detect the sub in the short time period before the sub achieves final firing position and that is probably unlikely.

 

Consider the history of WWII submarine-carrier encounters.  For all the millions of miles of carrier group travel, both Japanese and American, and all the millions of miles of submarine travel, how many encounters between carrier and submarine actually occurred?  I’m aware of a single Japanese sub encounter with an American carrier, the Wasp.  Another Japanese sub fired on the Yorktown but the Yorktown was already badly damaged and adrift, at that point, at the end of a battle.  On the other side, there were one or two encounters between American subs and Japanese carriers:  the Shinano was sunk by a US sub.  So, out of many dozens of carriers and many hundreds of subs criss-crossing many millions of miles of the Pacific ocean, only half a dozen or so sub-carrier encounters occurred.  That pretty conclusively demonstrates how unlikely SSK-carrier encounters would be in war.  Further reducing the likelihood of encounter is the fact that SSKs are littoral assets and stay relatively close to land while carriers seek out the deepest and most remote waters they can find.  The two are extremely unlikely to meet just due to their different preferred operating areas in addition to the simple statistical unlikelihood of a random meeting in the open ocean.

 

It is instructive to note that Gotland arrived at the start of the lease and returned to Sweden at the end of the lease via mobile dry dock (Norwegian semi-submersible heavy-lift ship, MV Eide Transporter,) rather than sailing under its own power.(1)  Modern SSKs are not generally open ocean assets.

 

The next noteworthy aspect of an ASW exercise is repetition.  If you’ve gone to the trouble and [staggering!] expense of assembling a sub and a carrier group for an ASW exercise, do you want to run one quick iteration and call it a day?  No!  You want to get your money’s worth.  You want to run and rerun the exercise to allow as many people and assets as possible to participate and learn.  In the course of numerous iterations, you would expect that the sub would ‘win’ some and the carrier would ‘win’ some.  Without a detailed listing of every iteration, the conditions, and the results, we can’t draw any conclusions.  Instead, what we get is a sensationalistic story about an invincible sub.  What we don’t hear about are the other twenty times that the sub lost because that’s not a sensationalistic story.

 

The Navy’s Top Gun school has used A-4 Skyhawks, T-38 Talons, F-16N (briefly), and F-5’s, among other types, as its adversary aircraft.  They have routinely ‘shot down’ student pilots.  Does this mean that those aircraft are superior to the front line US Navy aircraft?  Of course not.  It means that the adversary aircraft are used in such a way as to teach lessons to the students.  Similarly, the Gotland SSK was used to practice against and that may well have meant ‘losing’ for the US Navy participants so that they could learn.

 

In an actual combat situation, the carrier is going to be escorted by dozens of ships extending out for 20-50 miles in rings around the carrier (see, “Escorts”).  In addition, the group’s ASW helos will be scouring the sea 24/7.  The sub will have to penetrate fifty miles or so through dozens of escorts and constant helos to achieve a firing position.  In an exercise, as we noted, that entire phase is skipped and the sub is artificially placed inside the defensive layers.  We don’t even know whether any escorts or helos were used in the exercise in question.  It would seem reasonable that they were but perhaps they had other pre-deployment tasks to accomplish? 

 

In combat, the escorts will also be firing on any semi-possible contact just to be safe.  This will influence the sub’s behavior, knowing that either random chance or a momentary contact might result in a torpedo close enough to be a threat to the sub.  The sub will be more cautious and move less aggressively knowing that the alternative is death rather than a reset of the exercise.  In an exercise, the sub can take chances it wouldn’t take in real combat.

 

Carrier groups, historically, have had submarine escorts that, presumably, range far ahead of the group and ‘sanitize’ its path.  In an exercise, there is no far distant submarine escort that the attacking sub had to defeat/evade just to reach the surface escorts/helos and then then, ultimately, the carrier.  Again, another unrealistic aspect of the exercise.

 

In combat, the number one defensive tactic is to flee.  At the first hint of a sub threat the carrier would likely turn and run at 35 kts thus denying the sub firing position.  In an exercise, this is not an option.  As we noted, the sub and carrier are constrained to a fixed location.  The carrier is forced to allow the sub to approach.

 

So, what are we left with in the way of reasonable conclusions?

 

• ASW exercises are utterly unrealistic
• Every ASW exercise has both sides winning some and losing some
• An ASW exercise is an artificially constrained tracking exercise rather than an ASW exercise
• SSKs present a very unlikely threat to a carrier

 

Finally, let’s consider what an actual combat engagement between an SSK and a carrier would look like.

 

For starters, there would be no engagement.  The odds on an SSK intercepting a carrier group is infinitesimal.  SSKs are not deep ocean going subs, as a general statement, whereas carriers are only deep ocean platforms in a war.  The two would never meet.

 

Setting that aside, let’s assume that an SSK was cruising the open ocean.  Barring the million to one random chance encounter where a carrier group literally sails straight over top the submarine, an SSK could never detect and maneuver into a viable torpedo firing position.  The carrier group travels at 20+ kts with maximum speeds of 30+ kts.  By comparison, the SSK’s maximum, short duration speed is just 5-20kts, depending on power source.  The submarine does not have the speed to maneuver into an intercept position without giving away its own position.  SSKs depend on the prey coming to them, not the other way around.

 

 

None of the preceding should be taken to assert that submarines are not a threat.  They most certainly are!  The purpose of the post is to demonstrate just how unrealistic a pre-deployment ASW exercise conducted for a small carrier group is.  This should also demonstrate that the single sensationalistic story is just that – a single example from, likely, dozens/hundreds of exercises.  By itself, it proves nothing.  The SSK may well be, and likely is, a very difficult opponent to defeat but we’ve just demonstrated that the very notion of an SSK-carrier encounter is almost absurdly unlikely.

 

 

 

 

Side note:  Oct 2014, Sweden spent several days looking for a supposed Russian sub and found nothing.  Of course, there may not have been anything there to find but it suggests that the Swedish subs are not the all-seeing, all-knowing, invincible killers of the sea that popular media has portrayed them to be.

 

 

____________________________________

 

(1)https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/sweden-has-a-sub-thats-so-deadly-the-us-navy-hired-it-t-1649695984

 

(2)Wikipedia, “HSwMS Gotland (Gtd)”, retrieved 26-Sep-2020,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSwMS_Gotland_(Gtd)#cite_note-15

 

(3)Wikipedia, “Carrier Strike Group Seven 2004–06 operations”, retrieved 27-Sep-2020,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_Strike_Group_Seven_2004–06_operations

Home Port Defense

A friend of ComNavOps made some very good points in a series of recent discussions.  The U.S. has become complacent in many aspects of its warfighting due to the second rate nature of the opponents it has faced since the demise of the Soviet Union.  We have come to expect air supremacy as the natural state of affairs, we take for granted our unchallenged use of the sea, we assume the ability to freely move troops and materials around the periphery of a conflict, and so on.  These complacencies will come back to bite us and find us wanting in our capabilities if we fight a peer (China) or determined near-peer.

One of the most glaring complacencies is our assumption of remote warfare, meaning that whatever conflict we engage in will not occur on U.S. soil or in U.S. waters.  In particular, our assumption of unfettered and uncontested use of our own ports is a glaring weakness.  Consider this scenario:  an enemy sends a submarine(s) to covertly deploy mines in key U.S. commercial and military port approaches.  What would the result be?  The affected port(s) would be paralyzed.  Remember, it only takes a few mines to completely shut down operations.  The U.S. would be forced to redeploy the very few mine countermeasure (MCM) platforms it has back to home waters.  In turn, this would severely impact our ability to conduct naval operations (or even simple passages) in mined areas in the remote combat zone.  U.S. naval efforts would be severely restricted, if not paralyzed.  We simply don’t have enough MCM assets to clear a dozen major home ports and simultaneously support warfighting efforts.

ComNavOps’ friend went on to suggest the use of diesel-electric SSKs for use in home port defense.  SSKs are ideal for this purpose.  They’re extremely quiet, relatively small, well suited for shallower water operations, and deadly.  A small fleet of a dozen or so SSKs would not only provide valuable defense but could serve as realistic opponents in ASW training.

The point of this post is not to promote the use of SSKs, though there is ample support for doing so, but to suggest that the Navy needs to broaden its warfighting focus.  A pivot to the Pacific is fine but we must not forget the vulnerabilities in our home waters that can be exploited by a determined enemy and subsequently impact our forward deployed capabilities.  As with mines in our home ports, a few enemy submarines operating off our coasts or just outside our ports can wreak havoc all out of proportion to their actual impact. 

The Navy needs a broad range of capabilities and platforms, not just carriers and nuclear subs.  We need a robust mine warfare capability, focused shallow water ASW platforms, enhanced home port defenses, coastal escort capability, and so forth.  The Navy exists not just to build carriers, as Navy leadership seems to believe, but to conduct the entire spectrum of maritime warfare.  Today’s Navy needs to reexamine and rebalance its focus and capabilities.