Strategy First, Then Buy

I listened to the speech that Gen. James Cartwright, USMC(Ret), gave at the Joint Warfighter Conference in Virginia Beach, VA on 15-May-12.  During his talk he uttered a statement that was simultaneously the most profound and most obvious thing I've heard from a professional military man in quite a while.  He said,

"You really need strategy before you spend money."

Sadly, the statement, while profound by military standards, rises to that level only because the professional military leadership routinely operates on such a clueless level.  The rest of us see the statement as incredibly obvious.  Before you buy equipment for a job, you need to have an idea of what the job entails and what type of equipment you need to do it.

JSF - Platform Without a Strategy

Applied to military weapons procurement this means that you need to have an idea of what your strategy is for the likely scenarios you anticipate having to deal with.  Knowing that, you can then intelligently decide what weapons you need to buy.  If you don't have a strategy, you wind up purchasing whatever you can and hoping that something will be useful when the time comes.

Unfortunately, our current procurement is not based on well defined strategic and tactical needs.  I'm going to focus on the Navy now;  this is, after all, a Navy related blog.  Right or wrong, the Navy seems to have latched onto the AirSea Battle (ASB) as its "strategy" even though the ASB is not a strategy.  It is a collection of semi-operational and vague, disjointed strategic musings.  Nonetheless, given that ASB is the Navy's new guidance, ASB envisions a drawn out battle of attrition waged over extremely long distances (1000 nm or more).  Thus, the ASB strategy dictates that the Navy purchase very long range strike systems to deal with the ranges and lots of platforms to absorb the attrition losses.  What is the Navy actually purchasing?  The very short ranged JSF (F-35), Ford class carriers whose Air Wings can't reach any targets until the very end phase of the conflict, DDG-1000 Zumwalts that can't perform ballistic missile defense, the LCS which is simply useless in any scenario, and so on.

The point is that the Navy's procurement is not being guided by a coherent strategic vision but, rather, on a piecemeal basis based on whatever they can get Congressional approval for.  I do not believe that the Navy has actually bought into the AirSea Battle concept other than using it as the latest buzzword to obtain funding just as they did with the word "littoral" and the LCS.

We need a coherent strategy first, then we can buy intelligently.  Unfortunately, Gen. Cartwright is the only one who seems to understand that and he's retired!

Carriers - It's the Air Wing that Matters

I think we've all read the arguments for and against the carrier until we're tired of it.  However, all of the arguments, both for and against, have missed the most important point.  The carrier, itself, is irrelevant; it's what the carrier can do that matters.  And what is it that a carrier can do?  Well, obviously, it's to launch combat aircraft into battle.  I'm belaboring the point, you say?  Well, bear with me. 

It's the Air Wing the Matters, not the Carrier!

The value of a carrier is, of course, wholly contained in the air wing.  If the air wing were to become "devalued" beneath a critical threshold, the carrier itself would cease to have any reason to exist.  How can an air wing devalue?  Well, reduction in number of airframes, reduction in combat radius, or reduction in stores capacity would render the air wing less effective.

What few people seem to realize is that current air wings are around half the size of air wings from the '80s.  In 1981 the typical air wing had 5 squadrons (VF & VA) totalling 60 aircraft. These are the combat planes. The remaining helos, ASW, AEW, electronic warfare, etc. brought the total to around 92 planes.  Compare this to the current air wing which consists of 4 squadrons (VFA Hornets) totalling 44 combat planes and around 60-64 for the overall wing size.  Going further, the Navy has already announced that when the F-35 enters service, the squadrons will be reduced by 2-4 planes, each.  Note - WWII Essex class carried around 100 combat planes!

  

Less Capable Air Wings

Consider, now, the combat radius of the Hornet versus its predecessor, the A-6 Intruder.  The Intruder had a combat radius of around 1000 nm versus the Hornet C/D with around 200 nm and the E/F with around 300 nm.  The F-35 will have a radius of around 400 nm.

Finally, the stores capacity of the Intruder was 18000 lb versus the Hornet C/D of 13700 lb and the E/F of 17700.  The future F-35 will only have 3000 lb of stores capacity without resorting to external hardpoints and sacrificing stealth and range.

So, air wings are becoming less "valuable" with each passing year.  We appear to be headed for a point where the supercarrier's cost can't be justified due to the ever decreasing effectiveness of the air wings.

People who argue either for or against the carrier, miss the point that it's the air wing that's important, not the carrier.  Unfortunately, the air wings are getting steadily smaller and less capable.  As you make your arguments for or against the carrier, do it from the perspective of the air wing.  Thus, the question becomes, is the cost of a modern supercarrier justified to carry around 40 combat planes?  I'll leave it to you to decide that.

On a related note, the new Ford class is bigger than the Nimitz but will carry an air wing approaching half the size that the Nimitz first carried.  Am I the only one who sees a logical inconsistency here?

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For those interested in the numbers, here are the Air Wing sizes as of April 2012 as listed in the May 2012 issue of Proceedings.

CVW-1   44 combat / 58 total
CVW-2   46 combat / 70 total
CVW-3   45 combat / 66 total
CVW-5   46 combat / 67 total
CVW-7   44 combat / 59 total
CVW-8   44 combat / 70 total
CVW-9   44 combat / 75 total
CVW-11  44 combat / 67 total
CVW-14  46 combat / 55 total
CVW-17  44 combat / 59 total

The large variation in the totals is due to some Air Wings carrying an extra squadron of helos, for some reason. 

All Air Wings also embark 2 CODs (C-2A) when deployed but they aren't part of the wing.

LCS - Bigger Crew Coming?

Most of us realized, after about 30 seconds of thought, that the target crew size of the LCS (about 40 for the core crew) was too small to operate, maintain, and fight a ship that size.  Because personnel costs are one of the major sources of life cycle costs, the Navy has tried everything possible to keep to the small crew size.  However, Michael Fabey of Aviation Week (article) reports,

"... according to a source intimately familiar with shipboard operations, the Navy has plans to increase the sailor count by 50% to 60 personnel this summer, and is studying the impact of further increasing the crew size to 150, close to the crew size on a a frigate, both to allow for the maintenance now being deferred, and to make sure the vessel can conduct combat operations."

So, the Navy is finally coming around and seeing what everyone else has known since the beginning.  Unfortunately, given the non-existent weight margins and constrained internal volume, installation of extra berthing, mess, laundry, showers, heads, food storage, etc. to support the additional crew will prove challenging, to say the least.

Hmmm .......  This ship is sounding more and more like a frigate - except for the total lack of weapons and sensors, of course!

LPD-17 - Whose Fault?

LPD-17 - Unfinished Ship

The consensus among naval observers seems to be that the LPD-17 class is a flawed design complicated by shoddy workmanship by the manufacturer.  The list of problems is seemingly endless and all relate back to the poor quality of construction.  While admitting to some slight degree of responsibility, though not much, the Navy would have us believe that they were victimized by the manufacturer and are just as outraged as we, the taxpayer, are.

Consider this …  If you went to purchase a new car and were shown a vehicle that was only 90% complete would you buy it?  Of course not!  You’d refuse to pay until the car was complete and a test drive had proven that it was fully functional.  That’s just basic common sense consumerism, right?

Now consider the following from the Congressional Research Service report, Navy LPD-17 Amphibious Ship Procurement:

Background, Issues, and Options for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke - Specialist in Naval Affairs, March 16, 2011.

“The Navy accepted delivery of LPD-17 with about 1.1 million hours of construction work remaining to be done on the ship. This equated to about 8.7% of the total hours needed to build the ship, and (with material costs included) about 7% of the total cost to build the ship.”

The Navy went car shopping and bought a vehicle that was only 90% complete!  1.1 million hours of construction left to go!  How is it that the Navy doesn’t understand what every consumer in America knows – you don’t pay for an incomplete and non-functional product.

Well, maybe the Navy made a mistake on the LPD-17, first of class.  Maybe they trusted the manufacturer and simply got burned.  Maybe the Navy was the victim and not a fatally stupid consumer.  Again, from the report,

“The Navy accepted delivery of LPD-18 with about 400,000 hours of construction work remaining to be done on the ship.”

So, having created an unacceptable situation by accepting an unfinished ship the first time, the Navy repeated process on the second ship.  In fact, the report goes on to document that the Navy accepted the third ship, LPD-19, also in an unfinished state.

Back to the opening sentence of this post.  Who is to blame for the LPD debacle?  It seems clear to me that the fault lies with the Navy.  Does this absolve the manufacturer of blame?  No, but no one forced the Navy to accept an unfinished ship.  Further, the Navy’s internal inspection group also accepted the ship with all its quality defects.  Again, while not absolving the manufacturer, that puts the responsibility squarely on the Navy.  We’ll cover the failed inspections in more detail in a subsequent post.

In summary, quite the opposite from what the Navy would have us believe – that they were a victim – we see that the Navy is 100% responsible for the LPD problems.  Keep this in mind as you read about the further misadventures of the LPD-17 class.

LCS - Module Swapping



ASuW Module - 30 mm Gun

The LCS was envisioned to be a flexible and rapidly adaptable seaframe carrying customizable mission modules.  In fact, depending on which reports are to be believed, the LCS's high speed was less about tactical uses and more about high transit speed to and from the module swapping location.  Unfortunately, module swapping (not that there are any!) has proven to require two to three days of continuous work which kind of negates the flexible and rapidly adaptable portion of the concept.

Related to module swapping comes this tidbit from the Department of Defense Developmental Test and Evaluation and Systems Engineering FY2011 Annual Report, March 2012, p.67.

"While the MM [mission module] swap aboard LCS 1 was completed within the threshold time period, the stability limitations and tight quarters aboard the mono-hull seaframe became evident. In order to maintain the allowable list angle during movement of the 15,000 lb Remote Multi-Mission Vehicles (RMMV), the ship’s force needed to balance the ship by emptying a JP-5 fuel tank on the port side of the ship, and by placing a weight equal to that of an MH-60S helicopter on the starboard side. Changes have reportedly been incorporated into the LM design for LCS 3 and beyond that will increase stability and should eliminate the need for adding weight to accommodate mission packages."



Note that movement of a 15,000 lb object was sufficient to cause unacceptable list angles.  The LCS displaces 3000 tons.  A 15,000 lb object is 0.25% of the total displacement.  That's a pretty insignificant object to be causing stability issues.  One has to wonder how the movement of helicopters around the flight deck will be accomplished.



Testing the Mine Countermeasures (MCM) Module

So, once again we see a vessel that has serious weight (remember, buoyancy tanks had to be added to the stern) and stability issues which further complicate an already difficult and time consuming module swap procedure.

I think we're going to see far less module swapping than envisioned in the original concept.  In fact, there are signs that the LCS is moving towards a single purpose vessel with module swaps occuring only rarely.  More on this at a later time.

AirSea Battle Failings



AirSea Battle Report from the CSBA

Much has been made about the AirSea Battle document produced by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.  For those of you who are only casually familiar with it, the AirSea Battle (ASB) describes the scope and impact of Chinese Anti-Access/Area Denial (AA/AD) capabilities and attempts to provide a battle strategy for countering it.  The document does a fairly nice job of the former by providing a fairly explicit description of Chinese capabilities, objectives, and methods and for this reason alone the ASB is worth reading.  Unfortunately, the ASB fails to deliver on the latter.  The battle strategy is deficient on two counts, one practical and one conceptual. 

Again, for those less familiar with it, the ASB’s strategy envisions a two stage process whereby the Chinese capabilities are sequentially countered and then methodically rolled back during a period of prolonged combat.  The rollback will allow the Navy to operate closer and closer to China (the location of most of the U.S. military objectives, of course) over time.  The rollback phase is deemed necessary since the U.S. military, and Navy in particular, have only limited range weapons and must achieve a certain level of “closeness” in order to employ their weapons.  This is, essentially a war of attrition.

Thus, the ASB’s first failing becomes apparent.  In a war of attrition, the side with the most, wins.  Setting aside the adverse public reaction to a war of attrition and the resulting lack of support, the U.S. military does not have sufficient numbers of planes, ships, weapons, or people to successfully engage in a war of attrition.  While the U.S. may maintain a technological superiority enabling it to achieve a favorable kill ratio, the end result will be depletion of U.S. forces to a point where “victory” becomes impossible. 

The U.S. military has recognized since WWII that mutual attrition is not a desirable strategy.  Every battle doctrine and strategy since then has emphasized selective concentration of forces, maneuver, stand-off engagement, and so forth for the express purpose of achieving victory without mutual attrition.  To return to a strategy of attrition, especially against a numerically superior enemy is both simplistic and impractical.

Besides, what’s the point?  Is the purpose of a rollback strategy of attrition to kill every person in China?  Of course not.  But what, then, is the point of the rollback strategy?  This question reveals the second and most serious failing of the ASB.  It does not define what victory is.  What end result or set of conditions constitutes victory?  A certain number of people killed?  A certain level of degradation of Chinese military capability?  A level of destruction of industrial capability sufficient to ensure that the Chinese military can’t be rebuilt within a given time frame?  A simple return to pre-war boundaries?  What? 

ASB itself seems to recognize its own failing to certain degree with the statement, “As a doctrine for the operational level of war, AirSea Battle should not be seen as a “war-winning” concept in itself.”  Fair enough but if the authors don’t see their own strategy as “war-winning” then what is its purpose?

Without a definition of victory the suggested strategy has no frame of reference against which to measure its value.  This is analogous to describing how to throw a baseball.  Interesting in and of itself but without knowing the context the value is limited.  Is the throwing for the purpose of playing catch in the backyard?  Playing professional baseball?  The answer will determine the intensity of the effort, the amount of time that should be spent learning the skill, and the ultimate degree of skill required.

So, too, with a strategy of rollback.  To what purpose is it being applied?  To what degree and level of completion must it be taken?  If we know the victory conditions we can begin to make assessments of the amount and type of weapons that will be needed.  Without the victory conditions we can only describe vague generalities about warfare – and that is exactly what the ASB winds up doing. 

Now, having criticized the ASB, let me turn around and briefly praise it for what it does well.  It presents a though-provoking description of Chinese objectives, strategies, and weapons.  It’s a good start for a further, serious discussion of the issue.  To be fair to the authors, the title itself recognizes this, “AirSea Battle, A Point-of-Departure Operational Concept”.  Unfortunately, too many people within the Navy seem to believe that ASB is a complete and finished work of strategy.  It’s not and I’m waiting for someone to take the next step and define victory and begin matching strategy and force structure to the victory conditions.  Hmmm…..  sounds like another post about to happen!

For those interested, here's the link to the actual AirSea Battle document.

LCS - Crippling the Future Fleet

Everyone has an opinion, whether good or bad, about the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) and a lot of writing has been generated about it.  Let's set aside the debate about the number of weapons, cost, problems, etc., for the moment.  The LCS is here and, barring an unexpected change in Navy philosophy, will make up a significant portion of the fleet, in terms of numbers of hulls in the water.  What does that mean, though, in terms of impact on the future fleet? 

LCS-1, USS Freedom - Taking Over the Fleet?

For the sake of this discussion, let's assume that the Navy goes ahead with the full 55 ship construction run.  As of this writing, the official Naval Vessel Register (NVR) website lists the current fleet size as 283 ships which, at the moment, includes destroyers, carriers, cruisers, subs, amphibious ships, and some support and logistics vessels.  Of the total, 209 are actual combat vessels.  Consider, now, the impact of the LCS construction program on the combat capability of the future fleet.  If the number of combat vessels stays the same but the composition is adjusted to include 55 LCS, that means that a quarter of the fleet will be ships that have very limited weapons fits and are deemed non-survivable in a hostile enviroment (combat!) by the Navy's own admission.  Sure, we may still be able to claim to have a 300 ship fleet but 25% of it will be toothless compared to now. 

Of course, if budget concerns force continued early retirements so that the fleet shrinks even further then the proportion of LCS goes up and further decreases the fleet's combat capability.

This is the real problem posed by the LCS - it dilutes the combat capability of the fleet while allowing politicians and Navy leadership to claim that we have a 300 ship fleet.