Changing the Calculus

You’ve probably heard, by now, about the Navy’s AIM-174B air-to-air missile.  It’s a Standard SM-6 surface to air missile adapted to be air launched from F-18 Hornets.  The key characteristic of this missile, in this role, is its 200-300 mile range.  There is no exact published spec on the range, yet, but the ship launched version has a range of 150 – 290 miles, depending on the flight profile.  Various reports suggest that the air launched range is 300+ miles. 
 
Other performance characteristics of note include a weight of around 1,900 pounds, a length of more than 15 feet, a speed of up to Mach 3.5, and an impressive 140-pound blast-fragmentation warhead. In comparison, the Sidewinder has a 20 lb warhead and the AMRAAM has a 44 lb warhead.
 
Of course, this performance comes at a staggering cost of $4.3M per missile.[1]
 

AIM-174B

This missile is intended to be the very long range air to air missile (VLRAAM) that’s been missing from the inventory and is an answer to the very long range Chinese and Russian air to air missiles.  The Chinese have the PL-15 which is reported to have a range of 120-190 miles and a speed of Mach 5, the PL-17 which is reported to have a range of 250-310 miles and a speed of Mach 6, and the PL-21 which has a reported range of 190+ miles.  The Russians have the AA-13 (R-37) Arrow which has a reported range of up to 250 miles and a speed of Mach 6.  A similar, though shorter ranged US missile is the AIM-260, currently under development.  It is reported to have a range of 120 miles and a speed of Mach 5.

 
This category of very long range, very fast missile is a severe problem for high value units such as tankers and E-2 Hawkeyes.  We’ve discussed the impact of this missile and noted that it could force our Hawkeyes, in particular, to operate so far back from the aerial battle as to lose awareness and control which is, of course, the doctrinal key to US aerial combat.  This would, for example, cede aerial supremacy to the Chinese over Taiwan in the event of an invasion.  Our carrier aircraft would be unable to operate effectively in the area with each aircraft forced to operate independently instead of with the benefit of an all-seeing controller.  It would also force each aircraft to radiate instead of remaining emissions silent and allowing the E-2 to detect and designate targets.  The negative impact of Chinese very long range air to air missiles (VLRAAM) cannot be overstated.
 
 
Targeting
 
This is, as always, the crucial and limiting factor.  A 300+ mile missile is useless if we can’t generate targeting at that range.  No fighter radar is going to see modern enemy fighters at anything approaching that range and certainly not enemy stealth fighters.  My best semi-informed guess is that a fighter won’t see an enemy stealth fighter until 20 miles or less.
 
In a match up between the Navy’s F-18, the only plane currently designated to carry the AIM-174B, and an enemy stealth fighter, the enemy is going to get first detection every time.
 
A large radar plane (AWACS or E-2 Hawkeye) might be able to see enemy fighters at somewhat longer ranges but, still, nothing approaching 300+ miles.  So, where do we get targeting for these missiles?  There are a few viable options.
 

• The F-35 (or the occasional F-22 from Guam?) might have the stealth to get close enough to provide targeting against HVUs (though not enemy stealth fighters).  HVUs are not stealthy and are relatively easily detected.  Note: this is one reason I’ve called for stealthy ‘Hawkeyes’, possibly based on the B-21 (see, “B-21 Hawkeye”), to thwart enemy attacks against our HVUs.
• A B-2/21 equipped with passive sensors could be used to provide targeting although it is questionable whether it would be worth the risk.
• Taiwan ground assets might well be able to provide targeting, particularly using passive EO and IR sensors.  It would be almost impossible for the Chinese to completely eliminate this kind of small, non-radiating, hard to find asset.

 
The reverse case of the Chinese providing targeting for their VLRAAMs is interesting.  They would have their own stealth aircraft to provide targeting, land based over- the-horizon radars, and suicide aircraft.  The latter is concerning.  The Chinese do not have the same view of the value of the individual pilot that we do and the idea of sending throwaway fighter aircraft on semi-suicide runs straight at our HVUs, either to shoot them directly or to provide targeting for remote VLRAAM shooters, is viable and concerning.  From the Chinese perspective, if they can trade a handful of second tier fighters to kill a US HVU, that would be a win for them.  The Russians essentially had this as the cornerstone of their anti-carrier strategy during the Cold War.  They were doctrinally willing to sacrifice many Tu-95 Bear search aircraft to provide detection and targeting for their naval aviation bomber regiments.
 
 
Taiwan Scenario
 
The problem with any contemplation of a Taiwan-centered war with China is that it presents a massive advantage for China due to physical proximity.  The skies over Taiwan can safely be assumed to be packed with Chinese aircraft and only occasionally challenged by US sorties from Guam, if it remains operational or carrier aircraft.  The advantage becomes all the greater for Chinese aviation through their uncontested use of AEW and EW aircraft supporting the aerial fight from a safe distance.  Until now, we simply didn’t have a VLRAAM of our own to threaten Chinese AEW and EW aircraft.
 
Conversely, Chinese VLRAAM missiles would be used to push US AEW, EW, and tanker aircraft back, thereby relinquishing control of the air battle.
 
For many decades, US military operations have assumed aerial supremacy.  Chinese VLRAAMs have upended that assumption.  Now, however, the AIM-174B offers the ability to regain control of the aerial battle or, at least, force an even contest (which is not how you want to fight but it’s better than fighting from a disadvantaged position!).
 
 
Summary
 
The AIM-174B VLRAAM offers the possibility of establishing aerial supremacy (or, at least, equality) in the Taiwan scenario.  The key, as always, is targeting.  As usual, the US military has focused on the weapon and ignored the sensor/targeting issue.  We should be working just as hard at solving the targeting issue.
 
We also need to be working on tactics for the Taiwan scenario and I guarantee that we have not addressed this in any realistic fashion.  We need to figure out how best to deploy the AIM-174B and how best to take advantage of the opportunities it creates.  Will this allow our F-18s to fight with a reasonable chance of success or is the F-18 simply outclassed by Chinese aircraft?  Are there tactics that can make the F-18 effective?  This, by the way, is why I’ve repeatedly called for a new, very long range, stealthy, air supremacy carrier fighter and end this idiotic combination strike-fighter nonsense that produces an aircraft that is neither a good strike asset nor a good fighter.
 
We can win the Taiwan aerial battle but it means focusing on what’s important and letting go of our paradigms.  We need new approaches, new tactics, and new aircraft optimized for the Chinese war.  The AIM-174B is one piece of the puzzle but we can’t stop there, as we are almost certain to do.  We need to develop the accompanying tactics and fighter aircraft that will take advantage of the AIM-174B.  And no, we can’t simply stand off and lob these missiles into the skies over Taiwan.  The missiles are far too expensive, complex, and time-consuming to produce to ever have that kind of inventory.
 
We’ve taken the first step.  Now, we need to finish the job.
 
 
 
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[1]https://www.19fortyfive.com/2025/05/aim-174b-is-navys-new-air-launched-missile-a-hypersonic-killer/

Satellite Surveillance Reality

People keep wanting to believe that satellites can track every ship on the ocean in real time, with the data being tied directly to the launch buttons of anti-ship weapons.  I keep refuting this idea but it persists.  Here’s some relevant information on the subject from our space force. 

By the early 2030s, the Space Force hopes to have satellites equipped with sensors to target aircraft in the hands of operators, according to the service’s second in command, Gen. Michael Guetlein.
 
Satellites equipped with Air Moving Target Indicators (AMTI), which would send precise tracking data to “shooters” on the ground, at sea and in the air, would be a new capability — joining the Space Force’s joint program with the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to develop Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI) satellites that track vehicles and ships.
 
“I would say you’re looking at probably early ’30s for some of that capability to start coming online, both for GMTI and for AMTI,” Guetlein told the annual Defense News conference today.[1][emphasis added]

 
These statements demonstrate that satellite tracking is something that does not yet exist but is being worked on and someone hopes to have it working in several years (which, of course, will stretch out to a decade or two, at best).
 
The next quote demonstrates that data is not directly linked to anti-ship launch buttons: 

Space Force since 2021 has been pushing their case to fill part of the gap in ground tracking/targeting left by the Air Force’s retirement of the E-8 Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) aircraft. That campaign has run up against roles and missions related challenges — some of which have yet to be fully resolved — from both the NRO and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA). The NRO owns and operates the nation’s spy satellites, while the NGA is responsible for disseminating space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) imagery and analysis to users across the US government.[1][emphasis added]

Difficulties abound: 

… the closer I can come to the target, the more resolution I get on the target. As I move to space, it becomes harder and harder to get that same level of resolution on a target … [1]
 
… one of the key challenges for tracking enemy aircraft from space is that airplanes and drones move much faster than tanks, trucks and ships. This is compounded by the fact that to be best able to take high-quality pictures or establish radar images of objects on the ground or in the air, satellites would have to be stationed in low Earth orbit where they themselves move around the Earth at about 7.8 kilometers per second (4.8 miles per second) … [1]

 

I see a ship.  Fire!

We see, then, that the common belief in omniscient satellites, tied directly into fire control circuits is pure fantasy.  The Space Farce wants to make that a thing but the military constantly wants things that never happen (how’s that rail gun and laser coming?).  We’re looking at a decade or more for even the rudiments of this king of capability to happen and that’s probably being ridiculously optimistic.
 
Once and for all, let’s give up the fantasy of the all-seeing eye-in-the-sky providing real time weapons launch control.
 
 
 
_____________________________

 
[1]Breaking Defense, “Space Force vice wants sats to track aircraft by early 2030s”, Theresa Hitchens, 4-Sep-2024,
https://breakingdefense.com/2024/09/space-force-vice-wants-sats-to-track-aircraft-by-early-2030s/

Naval Stealth Helicopter

ComNavOps has long criticized the Navy’s plan to use helicopters as off-board sensor platforms in combat.  Helos also appear to be the Navy’s main distributed lethality sensor asset.  As we’ve discussed, the problem with helos is that they are extremely slow and decidedly non-stealthy.  Add to that the need to operate an active radar and the helo has zero chance of remaining undetected and zero chance of surviving the resultant enemy attack.  Unfortunately, the use of active radar ensures that the enemy will see the helo long before it sees the enemy.

Making the situation worse is the fact that each warship will only carry one or two helos which ensures that coverage will be sporadic and sparse and that combat attrition will quickly reduce the host ship to its own organic sensors.  In other words, in combat, helos will be prove to be only a very tiny step above useless and then, only for a very brief period before they are destroyed.

So, what’s the solution?

The ideal solution is to use lots of small, cheap, limited range UAVs and accept the inevitable attrition while depending on numbers to provide the necessary sensor coverage (see, “TheNext Cruiser and Mini-Hawks” and “UAVs – Numbers Matter” and “SensorAttrition”).

While the concept of small, cheap, numerous UAVs makes eminent sense, the Navy almost always prefers much more expensive and complex solutions.  So, …

Alternatively, a stealth helo might enable the helo to carry out the Navy’s desired off board sensor function.  Is there such a thing as a stealth helo considering those large, radar reflecting rotary blades?  Well, the Army seems to think so and pursued the Boeing/Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche as a stealth reconnaissance helicopter in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s before the project was cancelled due to cost overruns and technical issues.  Other examples include the HAL Light Combat Helicopter and Eurocopter Tiger.  Let’s briefly review these examples.

RAH-66 Comanche – This was intended to be a reconnaissance and light attack helo.  Regarding its stealth, Wiki states,

As intended, it would have functioned as a stealth helicopter, incorporating a number of different techniques and technologies in order to reduce its radar cross-section (RCS) along with other areas of visibility and detectability. The exterior surfaces of the RAH-66 were faceted and covered with both radar-absorbent material (RAM) coatings and infrared-suppressant paint; as a result of these combined measures, the Comanche's RCS was stated to be 360 times smaller than that of the AH-64 Apache. The acoustic signature of the helicopter was also reported to be noticeably lower than comparative helicopters; this reduction had been partially achieved through the adoption of an all-composite five-blade main rotor and pioneering canted tail rotor assembly. (3)

RAH-66 Comanche

HAL Light Combat Helicopter – This is an Indian produced, attack helo featuring very light weight and very high altitude.  According to a Wikipedia article, it is claimed to have stealth profiling, armor protection, a digital camouflage system, infrared (IR) suppression, and an exterior covered by canted flat panels to minimize its radar cross-section.(1) 

HAL Light Combat Helicopter

Eurocopter Tiger – This is a stealthy multi-role attack helo that uses advanced composites which reduce its radar cross section and features reduced visual, IR, and acoustic signatures.

Eurocopter Tiger

Russia - Wikipedia reports the existence of a stealthy Kamov helicopter with a reduced radar cross section (RCS), IR suppression, and an internal weapons bays.(2)

Ka-58 Stealth Helicopter?

A naval stealth helo combining the state of the art stealth features from the preceding examples might allow the Navy to achieve the manned, off-board helo surveillance asset that they’ve been chasing for many years and which is the pre-requisite foundation for a viable distributed lethality concept.  Of course, the question is how stealthy can a helo be?  The only hint we have is the Comanche claim of an RCS 360 times smaller than an Apache but without knowing what kind of radar signature an Apache has, that’s not really helpful.  However, it does suggest that a sufficiently stealthy naval helo might be possible.  At the very least, it would be worth some developmental effort along the lines of calculations and small scale testing.

Hand in hand with any physical stealth design is a stealthy Concept of Operations.  How would a stealth helo operate?  Would it radiate, thereby pinpointing its own location?  Can it radiate, obtain a useful picture of the area, and move sufficiently far away to survive the resultant aircraft or surface-to-air missile attack?  Can passive sensors be used to obtain a useful situational awareness or to supplement active radar to a useful degree?  How many helos are needed to provide sufficient coverage?  And so on …

One of the problems the Navy has is its insistence on using only the SH-60 Seahawk family.  These are large, ungainly, helos – decidedly non-stealthy.  If the Navy were to consider the use of smaller, specialized reconnaissance helos, they might be able to operate more of them and attain better coverage and be better able to deal with mechanical and combat attrition.  The RAH-66 Comanche, for example, was 47 ft long, 11 ft high, and a bit over 6 ft wide as compared to the Seahawk which is 64 ft long and 17 ft high.  An LCS, for example, might be able to operate 3-4 small, stealth helos instead of the single Seahawk family helo they can now.  A smaller, lighter, stealth helo would also be more compatible with the structural strength constraints of the LCS flight decks which are the limiting factor in their helo ops.  A Burke might be able to operate 3-4 stealth helos as opposed to 1-2 Seahawk types.

All of this is conjecture, of course, but it offers a possible path for the Navy’s desired distributed lethality concept.  Of course, there’s still the fact that distributed lethality is just plain stupid but the Navy’s going to do stupid anyway so this, at least, offers a possibility of doing it slightly less stupidly.

_______________________________

(1)Wikipedia, “HAL Light Combat Helicopter”, Retrieved 21-Aug-2020,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_Light_Combat_Helicopter#Design

(2)Wikipedia, “Stealth Helicopter”, Retrieved 18-Aug-2020,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stealth_helicopter

(3)Wikipedia, “Boeing–Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche”, Retrieved 24-Aug-2020,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing–Sikorsky_RAH-66_Comanche#Design

Targets and Weapons - Mismatch?

The firepower rage in the US military is precision guided weapons (PGM).  It’s almost a religion.  Every target needs a PGM, the military would have us believe.  We’ve all but abandoned dumb bombs and area weapons.  Is this wise?  Let’s consider the type of targets we’ll encounter in war and peace and the types of weapons they require.

Broadly, there are two categories of targets:

Targets you can see – These are targets that can be sensed by some targeting-capable sensor.  This could be radar, optical, IR, or whatever.  The obvious caveat, here, is that the sensor has to be within sensing range of the target.  Those tanks that we know are moving around, exposed, somewhere in the enemy’s deep rear area may be ‘seeable’ but if we can’t get a sensor in range then they’re unseen, at least temporarily.

In a war, seeable targets will include fixed facilities such as buildings, factories, air bases, ports, missile silos, roads, bridges, and the like.  The notable feature of such targets is that most are far from the site of actual battles.  They tend to be more infrastructure and combat support facilities.  The remaining targets such as ships, aircraft, troops, vehicles, artillery, etc. will come and go – they’ll be seeable for brief periods and then vanish.  The challenge is to get a sensor and a weapon on them during the period they’re visible.

Targets you can’t see – No smart enemy is going to obligingly line up their forces out in the open for us to systematically destroy.  Instead, they’re going to hide their forces from our sensors as best they can.  This may include disguising targets, burying them, camouflaging them, using obscurants, etc.  Alternatively, making a target unseeable can also include destroying our sensors.  Again, we know there’s tanks moving around somewhere in front of us but all our targeting UAVs keep getting shot down before we can get actionable targeting data.

Let’s consider the characteristics of the two categories as they relate to weapon selection.

Targets you can see – If you can see the target then any weapon is a potentially viable choice and the specific selection will be decided on the basis of weapon availability, target ‘hardness’, range, etc.  In other words, the entire arsenal of weapons is possible and selection depends on fairly obvious factors.  This is where PGMs are useful and effective.

Cost, however, is a notable factor.  Using a multi-million dollar missile to destroy a thousand dollar mortar (I don’t know what mortars cost but this illustrates the concept) is not cost effective. 

Targets you can’t see – It is still possible to successfully engage targets you can’t see.  It’s called area bombardment.  If you place enough explosives in an area, you are statistically certain to kill troops and destroy equipment even if you can’t see them.  The important point, here, is that many/most of the weapons used in area bombardment will not hit anything.  While any weapon can be used for this, the obvious caveat is that PGMs are far too expensive and cost ineffective to be used in area bombardment.

Now, let’s take a graphical look at our target and weapon sets.

In the first graphic, shown below, we see a plot of the visibility of targets versus the likelihood of occurrence.

What this is telling us is that the most visible targets are the least likely (numerous) and, conversely, the most likely (numerous) targets are the least visible.  This is just common sense and is a graphical way of saying that the enemy is going to hide his assets in whatever manner he can.  This is not exactly a stunning revelation and yet so many military professionals seem to think the reverse will be true – that we’ll see and be able to target almost all the enemy’s assets.  Nothing could be further from the truth!

In the next graph, below, we see, simply, that unguided area bombardment weapons (effective area shown in yellow) are effective against ALL targets regardless of their visibility, or not.  Again, nothing new about this.

Finally, in the next graph, we see the subset of targets that PGMs are suited for (area in green).

As we see, PGMs are suited only for a small portion of the target set and yet, bizarrely, most of our weapon development and procurement is focused on PGMs.  We are most focused on the weapons that have the least general applicability!  Strange, isn’t it?

This is not to say that PGMs are not useful.  Of course they are!  The problem is that they are hideously expensive which leads to small inventories and they are of limited applicability.

Consider the Israeli situation.  They have access to PGMs in their fight against Palestine/Hamas/Hezbollah and yet their main problem is that they can’t find any targets to use their weapons against.  Since they’ve opted not to use area bombardment, they’ve created a situation for themselves in which their military is almost ineffective as witnessed by the fact that they keep fighting the same war over and over.

As we ponder what we’ve just learned, let’s take a glance at this table of typical weapons with cost and estimated inventories listed.  As you look at it, relate the costs and inventories to the target sets.

Weapon	Unit Cost	Inventorya
PGM Weapons:
Tomahawk	$2,000,000(1)	3,000
LRASM, AGM-158C	$3,500,000(1)	0
Hellfire, AGM-114	$45,000(1)	0
NSM (Naval Strike Missile)	$1,200,000(2)	200
ATACMS	$800,000(3)	1,000
JDAM Guidance Package	$22,000(1)	2,000
Small Diameter Bomb, GBU-53	$221,000(1)	3,000
Area Weapons:
5” Mk187 Mod 0 Shell	$4,631(6)	30,000
500 lb General Purpose Bomb, BLU-111	$6,000(4)	10,000
Unguided rockets, all types	$2,342(5)	10,000

^a Inventory numbers are my own slightly semi-informed guesstimates based on monitoring yearly purchases over time.  They should be used as indicative of relative numbers rather than actual inventory quantities.

Our weapons are out of alignment with our target sets, budgets, and inventories.  We need to correct this imbalance by recalling the value of area weapons.  We need to refocus our research and development efforts and start seriously improving our area weapons. 

____________________________________

(1)The Drive website, “Here Is What Each Of The Pentagon's Air-Launched Missiles And Bombs Actually Cost”, Joseph Trevithick, 18-Feb-2020,

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/32277/here-is-what-each-of-the-pentagons-air-launched-missiles-and-bombs-actually-cost

(2)Wikipedia, “Naval Strike Missile”, retrieved 3-May-2020,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Strike_Missile

(3)Breaking Defense website, “Marines Seek Anti-Ship HIMARS: High Cost, Hard Mission ”, Sydney J Freedberg, Jr., 14-Nov-2017,

https://breakingdefense.com/2017/11/marines-seek-anti-ship-himars-high-cost-hard-mission/

(4)Department of Defense FY2020 Budget Estimates, Procurement of Ammo, Navy & MC, page vol 1-8, eyeball average of several similar entries,

https://www.secnav.navy.mil/fmc/fmb/Documents/20pres/PANMC_BOOK.pdf

(5)Department of Defense FY2020 Budget Estimates, Procurement of Ammo, Navy & MC, page vol 1-40, cost of rocket hardware (body) and HE warhead,

https://www.secnav.navy.mil/fmc/fmb/Documents/20pres/PANMC_BOOK.pdf

(6)Department of Defense FY2020 Budget Estimates, Procurement of Ammo, Navy & MC, page vol 1-119, total of propellant charge plus projectile

https://www.secnav.navy.mil/fmc/fmb/Documents/20pres/PANMC_BOOK.pdf

Piece It Together

We’ve extensively discussed the problems with the Navy’s concept for surveillance and targeting and noted that it is unrealistic and will fail.  ComNavOps has offered ideas that would allow for effective surveillance and it’s time to pull some of that together and present a complete view of how that would work in the context of an amphibious assault, just to pick one relatable scenario.  What follows is presented as a fictional snippet with some analytical commentary mixed in.  The purpose is to illustrate the concept, not present a realistic battle simulation.

___________________________

Aboard the LHA, the Marine assault commander studied his composite screen which displayed the overall situation.  Initially, the screen had shown nothing other than the handful of known, fixed structures which were scattered around the assault site.  As the assault fleet had approached the target, UAV recon drones had been launched to begin filling in the picture.  This was an opposed landing and UAV attrition had been quite high but that was expected. 

The bigger problem was that no single UAV could survive long enough to provide anything remotely resembling the total awareness that misguided military planners of the early 2000’s and 2010’s had assumed and promised would be available.  The large scale Navy Fleet Exercises that had been re-introduced beginning in 2020 had shattered that delusion.  When the opposing fleet forces in the exercises had finally been allowed to utilize their full electronic warfare (EW) and defensive (anti-UAV) capabilities in an exercise, it had become instantly evident that the earlier concept of a few UAVs leisurely circling the battlefield and providing total situational awareness with all ships and aircraft seamlessly connected by a flawless network had been just a fantasy of wishful thinking.

Based on those shocking, eye-opening exercise results, the entire surveillance/recon/network concept had been reworked.  The revised concept had been exercised and refined and was now being put to its first actual combat test.  No one expected it to work perfectly and, in fact, that was one of the foundational assumptions of the system – failure was inevitable, anticipated, and built in!

The assault commander noted that the display was showing that the first assault wave was hitting the beach just about now.  Taking in the entire display picture, he noted the various areas (most of the assault area!) that were largely unknown.  Turning to his Recon Coordinator, he quickly designated and prioritized specific areas for additional, more intensive recon based on the assault plan.  The coordinator contacted the UAV carrier which shortly began launching swarms of small UAVs to the designated areas.

As the recon UAVs approached their target areas they were greeted by enemy laser, EW, missiles, and projectile weapons.  UAVs rained out of the sky or simply vanished in brilliant explosions of light and thunder.  Each UAV was lucky to survive long enough to transmit just a momentary, fragmentary sensor view.  That was perfectly normal in the new recon scheme and was the reason why recon UAVs were as small as possible, simple, dirt-cheap, and deployed in swarms.  As each UAV transmitted its fragmentary data before dying, the central recon data collection center on the UAV carrier began assembling the fragments of data into a cohesive picture.  It wasn’t necessary that any single UAV be able to surveil and transmit the entire battlefield.  It was only necessary that enough UAVs be able to transmit enough fragmentary scans to allow the central computer to assemble a pieced together picture.  Targets were updated and displayed in colors which indicated how old the data point was.  Brilliant red points were newly acquired targets and the color faded to duller red and, eventually, black as the target ‘aged’.  Thus, the operators viewing the data were able to instantly see and comprehend the newness or ‘value’ of the data. 

It was inevitable that many areas were not scanned at all when the designated UAVs were destroyed before being able to acquire and transmit usable data.  Those areas were displayed in patches of gray, letting operators know that the areas were un-scouted.  The Recon Coordinator noted the unknown patches and began designating additional swarms to the areas.

One of the problems was that some (many?) UAVs managed to collect data but the enemy’s EW efforts were disrupting the data transmissions.  Again, this failure was expected and built into the system.  The enemy’s EW disruption and jamming efforts were not, of course, 100% continuous and effective.  The UAVs, assault vehicles, and ships employed various techniques such as frequency hopping to try to shake off the effects of the enemy’s EW.  When momentary (often microsecond bursts) clearances occurred the communications/network computers prioritized which assets to communicate with instead of attempting to talk continuously to every asset.  Communications occurred in microsecond bursts rather than attempting to maintain continuous connections which required massively large broadband channels with unachievably high data rates and network stability.  As the exercises had shown, network stability in a combat zone was a laughable fantasy. 

Thus, the display of the Marine Colonel acting as the shore commander in his specialized Command and Control variant Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV), now sheltered behind a rock outcropping a short ways inland from the beach, was able to receive frequent, fragmentary bursts of data updates.  His situational display was, therefore, never complete and real time in quality but it was alive and functioning.  Noting a couple of areas that were especially lacking on his display but vital to his immediate operations, he designated the areas on the display for priority updates.  The controlling computers back on the UAV carrier adjusted their priorities and the Colonel’s display began filling in the requested areas more frequently at the expense of the lower priority areas.

This was certainly not the all-seeing, all-knowing surveillance system that the delusional Navy leadership of earlier times had promised but that had never been a realistic promise to begin with.  This was a fragmentary approach that allowed commanders to at least maintain a semblance of situation awareness in the face of intense enemy EW and defensive measures.  Yes, there were risks associated with prioritizing certain areas and allowing other areas to remain less monitored but that was the nature of war.

Back aboard the LHA, the assault Commander noted that the assault area display was slowly beginning to fill in.  While the surveillance picture was insufficient to give him a real-time display of the number of rounds remaining in every enemy soldier’s rifle magazine, it was adequate to provide an indication of where enemy units were and were not and in what approximate strength.  With this degree of information, he could begin adjusting his own positions and start calling in fire support where he needed it.

Looking for an opportunity to flank the enemy mechanized battalion that was anchoring the central defensive works, he ordered his Recon Coordinator to concentrate on a stretch of river far to the enemy’s right.  If he could slip a company of infantry in ACVs up the river, they could turn and cut into the enemy’s rear and isolate them from reinforcement.  Again, dozens of small catapults on the UAV carrier launched as one and a small UAV recon swarm formed up and headed for the designated river. 

It took about 30 minutes for the UAV recon swarm to reach the river whereupon they spread out and began their search.  The Commander, noting the time, turned his attention to the recon swarm.  As he watched, the UAV signals began disappearing.  In a matter of minutes, the swarm was wiped out without a single target being detected.  That, the Commander knew, could only have happened if the swarm had run into a large concentration of well equipped enemy forces.  It was safe to assume there was at least an enemy company and quite possible a battalion with attached anti-air units.  Sometimes, a flaming datum was as good as real data.  Having been saved from a possibly disastrous flanking attempt, the Commander marked the river as a likely company/battalion location.  The information would shortly be reflected on the display screens of his own units as communications processing time allowed.  He also passed the information on to the naval commander for air strike and naval gun attention.

 _____________________________ 

We see from this fictional snippet that effective battlefield surveillance is possible but only if we build some fundamental assumptions, based on reality, into our concept.

• Failure must be built into the concept.  The system will be degraded but must operate effectively in a degraded form.
• Attrition among UAV assets will be extreme and UAV assets must be dirt cheap and plentiful – almost unlimited in available quantity.
• A dedicated UAV surveillance carrier will be required.
• The goal must be broad, general, situational awareness, not total, real time omnipotence.
• Communications will be severely degraded and must be designed to function as such.  A real time network is pure fantasy.  Communications and data transmissions will have to be on a ‘when possible’ basis.

What all this means is that we must drastically scale back our surveillance expectations.  Exquisitely detailed, real time information is not possible in an electronically contested environment.  We must learn to work with fragmentary information.  It is sufficient to know that a battalion size unit is in a given area – that we don’t know how many rivets are on each vehicle is not an impediment to effective operations and, more importantly, is not a requirement for effective operations.  Our surveillance goal should be to obtain the minimum information we need, not the maximum.

What all this means is that our current plans and equipment are, largely, wrong and useless.  The Navy’s touted distributed lethality concept is a prime example of an idea that will not work and urgently needs to be reworked (doubtful) or abandoned (preferred).  Our Triton and P-8 aircraft are unsuited for battlefield surveillance.  We lack a cheap, expendable surveillance UAV.  Our underwater unmanned vehicles are completely inappropriate for battle surveillance although they may play a role in the larger strategic surveillance requirements.  We lack a supporting vessel (UAV carrier) for mobile, cheap, short range surveillance UAVs.  We utterly lack any viable Concept of Operations (CONOPS) for naval battle surveillance.

In short, we currently have almost nothing of use for naval battle surveillance.  We desperately need to begin exercising our concepts in a realistic fashion so that we can start recognizing their inherent faults and start working towards a concept that is actually viable.

LRASM – A Good Half of a Weapon System

The Navy has announced that the air launched AGM-158C Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) is operational on the F-18 Super Hornet.  This is very good news as it now provides the non- or semi-stealthy aircraft the ability to launch from long range which enhances the survivability of the aircraft (and decreases the need for stealth?  - what do you say to that, F-35?).  LRASM is a welcome replacement for the obsolete Harpoon. 

However, the LRASM is only half of a weapon system.  The other half is sensors.  As we’ve noted many times, the longest ranged weapon in the world is useless unless you can find a target from the same range as your weapon.

Hornet and LRASM

The LRASM is reported to have a range of 200-500 miles depending on what source you want to believe.  Currently, the Navy has very few sensors (none?) capable of survivably detecting targets at that range.

As a brief reminder, the LRASM is a stealthy anti-ship cruise missile based on the AGM-158B JASSM-ER.  The missile has a 1000 lb penetrating (whatever that means) blast fragmentation warhead.  It uses multiple sensors and modes to find targets which gives it reduced dependence on GPS guidance.

LRASM is designed to detect and destroy specific targets within groups of ships by employing advanced technologies that reduce dependence on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms, network links and GPS navigation in electronic warfare environments. (1)

So, this is some good news but now the Navy needs to put some work into developing a long range sensor system that can effectively and survivably operate in enemy controlled or contested air space.  Only with such a sensor system can we get the maximum benefit of the LRASM.

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(1)USNI News website, “Next-Generation Anti-Ship Missile Achieves Operational Capability with Super Hornets”, Xavier Vavasseur, 19-Dec-2019,

https://news.usni.org/2019/12/19/next-generation-anti-ship-missile-achieves-operational-capability-with-super-hornets

Scout Ship

We recently discussed the Navy’s ill-conceived plan to use unmanned vessels as sensor scouts out in front of a surface group (see, “Navy’s Manned-Unmanned Fleet Concept”).  We noted problems such as small size, limited endurance, questionable speed, high cost for an expendable vessel, broadcasting their own location (due to active sensors), and lack of defense.  The alternate option is to use small UAVs which would accomplish all the same goals at a fraction of the cost.

The Navy is correct in their desire for long range sensing – just wrong about how to accomplish it.  As we begin to procure some longer range missiles (LRASM, NSM, anti-ship Tomahawk), longer range targeting becomes critical.  As I’ve said many times, it’s pointless to have a ten thousand mile missile when your sensor is only good to the horizon.  So, good for the Navy for recognizing the need but they missed the mark on how to do it.

In addition to UAVs, there is another option for long range sensing that is actually closely related to the Navy’s unmanned sensor vessel yet solves most of the small sensor vessel’s drawbacks.  The option is a  larger, manned, scout ship sensor vessel but with a different concept of operations (CONOPS).  Let’s take a closer look.

The biggest problem (that’s actually debatable because the vessel has a lot of problems and they’re all pretty major!) with the Navy’s planned 130 ft long sensor vessel is that it will have to use active radar to find anything and get a targeting location.  Think about it … a tiny vessel will have a very low radar mounting.  A vessel that size will have its radar mounted perhaps 20-30 ft above the surface.  That makes for a very short radar horizon – something on the order of 12 nm or so (there are radar horizon calculators readily available on the Internet if you care to play with the numbers).  Using active radar will give away the sensor vessel’s location long before it can find a target.  Plus, with a sensor field of view that small, the vessels will be nearly useless for providing area coverage unless there are a LOT of them and large numbers simply compound the problems we’ve already identified.

The alternative is to use passive sensors.  The problem with this approach is that passive sensors generally provide a bearing but not range.  Of course, the passive sensor can, over time, develop a range by moving and triangulating – this is what a submarine does.  Alternatively, two or more sensors operating at different locations can work together to fairly quickly establish the target’s position.  The problems with small vessels remain, however.  They are poor sea keepers, have limited endurance, and are too expensive to be the expendable asset they would need to be when used the way the Navy intends.

Alternatively, let’s consider a significantly larger, corvette-size vessel that operates not in front of a surface group but around the periphery, offset well to the sides, and uses only passive sensors.  Due to the nature of the various signals of interest and the effects of atmospheric phenomenon (ducting and the like), passive signal detection can occur far beyond the horizon.  Thus, passive detection range is much greater than active sensors.  The trade off, as we noted, is that passive detection provides only a bearing, not range.  This is where using two or three vessels comes in – they can combine their data and triangulate.  The vessels would be offset hundreds of miles to the sides of the area of interest rather than grouped directly in front of the surface group.  Given the much greater range of detection and area of coverage, only a few vessels are required rather than the Navy’s vision of mini-fleets of sensor vessels.

Wait … communicate and triangulate?  How can they communicate?  Haven’t I repeatedly stated that we won’t be able to maintain a viable network of data in peer war, electromagnetically challenged environment?  Yes, I have.  The difference is that this approach does not require constant communication because there is no need for real time data fusion – thus, no network.  Occasional bursts of minimal data are sufficient.  If a burst doesn’t get through, you try again – no harm done.  Further, this requires only minimal data:  conceptually, the sensor ship’s location and the threat bearing it detected.  The smaller and shorter a signal transmission is, the easier it is to get through any interference.  The point of these vessels is not to establish real time targeting data with constant transmissions but to develop situational awareness of a broad area – though we’ll gladly take a targeting quality datum if we can get it.  With broad situational awareness, we can then allocate additional sensors (the UAVs we mentioned earlier or an F-35 or whatever) to the known threat locations and establish the final targeting data – or, we can avoid the area if we want to stay hidden.

Visby Scout Ship

We see, then, that with this approach we can establish broad area situational awareness with just a few vessels that won’t give themselves away and won’t have a negative impact on the surface group’s movement, speed, or endurance and, being far away from the likely area of action, the vessels won’t be at exceptionally high risk and will be capable of limited self-defense, if needed.

What kind of ship fits this requirement?  The Visby would be a good starting point (see, “Ship Stealth and Visby”).  It is corvette size but with adequate sea keeping and the potential for good endurance and range.  It is very stealthy and has the basis for SeaRAM/CIWS self-defense.  Most importantly, it has the size to accommodate all the signals analysis sensors, computers, and analysts that are needed.  In short, it would be a very capable, very survivable vessel for the role.

USS Palm Beach (AGER-3) - Electronics and Signal Intelligence Ship

Repackage in a Visby-Type Hull

A Visby-type scout ship could also be equipped with acoustic sensors (towed array optimized for long distance, passive, convergence zone detection) which would further enhance the usefulness of the vessel.

The ES-3A Shadow (S-3 Viking variant) once performed this signals intercept and analysis role for carrier groups but that incredibly powerful and valuable aircraft was retired without replacement.  In addition, it could only operate from carriers whereas this scout ship can operate anywhere.

This CONOPS offers the advantage of providing detection without the enemy realizing they’ve been detected.  The Navy’s proposed small sensor vessels, using active radar, would be easily tracked and offer no advantage of surprise.

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Note that this is not a case of mutually exclusive, one-or-the-other options.  I’m not looking to replace every sensor platform the Navy has with just this one scout ship.  This is just another option that better accomplishes the Navy’s intent and complements the other sensor options.  What I’m saying is that I don’t want to hear any comments debating one-over-the-other scenarios because that’s not what’s being proposed.