Carrier Scouting

ComNavOps constantly harps on targeting (see, “Weapons Don’t Matter”).  As I always say, a million mile missile is useless with ten mile targeting.  Closely related to targeting is scouting.  You want to know where the threat is and is not.  In a sense, targeting is a subset of scouting; the final ‘phase’ of scouting before the strike. 
 
Unlike targeting which is purely offensive, scouting supports both offense and defense.  If you know where the threat is, you can prepare your defenses accordingly.  Scouting provides the commander with situational awareness and, as such, it is just as important to know where the enemy isn’t as where he is.
 
Let’s look a bit closer at carrier group scouting.  As always, we begin with historical examples.
 
 
WWII
 
Many of us don’t realize that the standard operating procedure of American carrier groups in WWII was to send a dozen or so scout planes (generally SBD Dauntless aircraft) out at dawn every morning to search the surrounding seas for any sign of enemy ships or aircraft.
 

SBD Dauntless

In the book, Queen of the Flat-Tops, Lt.Cmdr. Mort Seligman, executive officer of the Lexington (CV-2) had this to say about scouting: 

“We are under a handicap out here.  The limited range of our scouts makes it necessary for us to be forever on our toes.  If we want to find out what the enemy is doing we’ve got to move up to within easy range of his land-based aircraft to find out.
 
“On the other hand, the Japanese, by using these 3000-mile Kawanishi [flying] boats, can see a lot farther than we can.  They range out over the ocean and watch every movement within some 1,000 miles of their bases.  There’s little we do in daylight that they can’t know about.  It costs them a plane every so often because we shoot them down every time we come across them.  But with these clouds out here this isn’t always possible because even though we know they are there we can’t always find them.
 
Once their day patrols have come out and they know their waters are clear for 500 miles around, they can relax.  Even if they find us they have time to bring up air defenses before we can get in our poke.  That limits our attacks almost to early morning only after an all-night fast approach.  And it makes it very difficult for us to gain the advantage of the element of surprise which is a much more important factor in war than most people realize.”[1]

Lt.Cmdr. Seligman succinctly defines both the problem and solutions for the carrier group:
 

• Problem:  Our carrier scouts were shorter range than the Japanese land based scouts.


• Solution:  Seek out and destroy the enemy’s scout planes (counter-scouting) and conduct high speed, night run-ins to the target to launch dawn strikes before the enemy can get their scouts out and alert their defenses.

 
Of course, in the open ocean, out of range of land-based scouts, the enemy naval forces had the same scout range limitations we did and the scouting contest was even;  both sides had an equal chance of finding the other first.
 
Prior (or in addition) to carriers, one of the functions of cruisers was to operate floatplanes to conduct scouting.  The Brooklyn class cruiser, for example, operated four floatplanes using a pair of stern catapults and a recovery crane.
 
That summarizes the issue for WWII surface and carrier groups but how does the issue translate to modern times?
 
 
Today
 
The same general issue and constraints apply today with the carrier at, perhaps, a somewhat worse disadvantage. Let’s consider some aspects of modern naval scouting.
 
Scout Planes – Part of the problem is that we have no carrier scout aircraft.  The E-2 Hawkeye is most emphatically not a scout aircraft and they are never deployed too far from the protection of the carrier.  We lack a dedicated scout aircraft with great range and great sensors (passive and active).  Instead, we would have to use F-18 Hornets as scouts and the Hornet simply hasn’t got the range (or sensors) to be an effective scout.  The F-35C offers a slight improvement in range and survivability but is still not an effective broad area maritime scout.
 
Conversely, China has very long range, land-based bombers, maritime patrol aircraft, and UAVs that can serve the scout function, just as Japan did in WWII.
 
Sensors – Enemy scout assets include land-based, very long range aircraft, satellites, UAVs, etc. which, in the aggregate, offer potentially multi-thousand mile scouting as compared to our few hundred mile range carrier scouting capability.  Of course, we also have the possibility of using satellites and UAVs as scouts but given that we’ll be operating far closer to China than to any US bases, we’ll be much more limited in the degree of scouting support we can expect.
 
Strike Range – WWII carriers only had to scout a couple hundred miles out to be assured of safety since that was the limit of carrier aircraft strike range.  Today, cruise and ballistic missiles have extended the potential strike range – and, hence, scouting range requirement - to thousands of miles.
 
Counter-Scouting – One of the F-14 Tomcat’s roles was counter-scouting.  Their job was to eliminate the Soviet Tu-95 Bears before they could find our carriers.  Counter-scouting, today, includes countering satellites, submarine surveillance, over-the-horizon radars, SOSUS-type listening arrays, aircraft, etc.  This can no longer be done just by the carrier’s organic assets.  For example, countering satellites is a strategic responsibility outside the carrier’s capability (barring ship launched anti-satellite missiles).  Countering sea bed listening arrays is, again, a strategic responsibility.
 
 
Conclusion
 
While we may optimistically hope that we can get land-based scouting support, the reality is that our nearest source of scout aircraft in the Pacific theater will be Guam or some such base that is thousands of miles from likely carrier operating areas and that makes any scouting support sporadic, at best, and utterly ineffective, more likely.  Our carriers need an organic scout aircraft that is available whenever and wherever needed
 
Night, and the corresponding dawn search from WWII, is no longer sufficient given that darkness is no longer the ‘shield’ it once was.  We need to be able to scout 24 hours a day and, again, land-based scouts simply cannot provide that capability on a sustained basis.
 
Interestingly, the F-35C could serve as an effective scout plane if it were given a dedicated set of effective passive and active sensors.  The F-35C has a useful degree of stealth, though not up to modern combat standards, and this would allow it to conduct scouting missions survivably and with a fair chance of not being spotted, in turn.
 
The F-35C can also effectively perform the counter-scout role against non-combat aircraft and would even have a chance against combat stealth aircraft, though not dominantly so.
 
It’s clear to see that counter-scouting must extend many hundreds of miles in all directions, on a continuous basis.  This last part is vital.  Given the speed of modern aircraft, it is no longer sufficient to scout/clear an area once a day.  We must have nearly continuous coverage.  An enemy scouting asset can appear far too quickly and cover far too much area to assume an area once cleared will stay clear of enemy scouting assets.  This suggests a heavy reliance on long endurance UAVs.  Ideally, we’d have long endurance, stealthy, UAVs operated by the dozens from a dedicated UAV carrier (a converted merchant ship).
 
The Navy has to start getting serious about combat instead of just being focused on new hulls.  We need to focus on mine warfare, mine countermeasures, logistics, large caliber naval gun support, long range fighters, small ASW ships, close in defensive AAW weapons, and scouting  …  you know, all the things that aren’t shiny and sexy but that win wars.
 
 
 
 
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[1]Johnston, Stanley, Queen of the Flat-Tops, Bantam Books, 1942, ISBN: 0-553-24264-4, p.130