Now That's Scary!

It’s a shame it isn’t Halloween because I can’t think of anything scarier than what Navy Secretary Mabus is hinting at which is abolishing DOT&E (Director of Operational Testing & Evaluation).  You’ll recall from numerous previous posts that ComNavOps considers DOT&E to be the saving grace of the military – the only reality check on the otherwise unbounded fantasies of the military where every weapon works perfectly and none need testing.  Check this out from Breaking Defense (1),

“The Navy Secretary even had an unkind word for the Pentagon’s independent testing process. (He didn’t name names here, but the key player is the congressionally-mandated Director of Operational Test & Evaluation, DOT&E, which most on Capitol Hill consider a vital watchdog agency). 'Testing proves that testing works,' Mabus said, but not necessarily much more. ‘We spend sometimes hundreds of millions on these tests and it’s unclear what the tests are telling us.’ ”

Let me make it clear to you, Secretary Mabus, what the testing is telling you.  It’s telling you that most of your weapons and systems are heavy on fantasy and light on performance – that your Navy is buying into the manufacturer’s claims hook, line, and sinker without asking for proof of performance.  DOT&E is the only thing saving you from unmitigated performance disaster.  You, sir, are an idiot to fail to recognize that DOT&E is the best thing the Navy has going for it.

The current crop of Navy leadership, significantly including civilian leadership, is as bad as I can remember in my lifetime.  This kind of thinking is just scary beyond belief.

Note:  For those who read the entire linked article, and in fairness, the rest of the proposed cuts described in the article may well be valid and worthwhile.

(1)Breaking Defense, “Cut ‘Pure Overhead,’ Navy Sec. Mabus Says: DFAS, DLA, DOT&E”, Sydney J. Freedberg, June 02, 2015

http://breakingdefense.com/2015/06/cut-pure-overhead-navy-sec-mabus-says-dfas-dla-dote/

Admiral Count Update

The latest Proceedings Naval Review issue (May 2015) lists the Navy as having 293 Admirals so I guess the heady days of 300+ Admirals is over.  Still, with only around 280 ships, this seems just a wee bit top heavy, yet, don't ya think?

Aegis Modernization

USNI News website reports that the Aegis cruiser Chancellorsville received the first Aegis Baseline 9 modernization upgrade (1).  Apparently, the work occurred in an approximate six month period during the latter half of 2012.  The ship, you’ll recall, was involved in the drone crash during subsequent system testing.

The interesting part of this is that the Navy has claimed to Congress that it needs to put the Aegis cruisers through a four year modernization program in order to upgrade them.  Instead, we see that the major portion of the upgrade, the Aegis Baseline 9, can be performed in six months or less.  To be fair, the Navy undoubtedly had other modernization action items in mind for the four year upgrade but, come on, four years worth of other “stuff”???  Again, to be fair, the Navy has never released a comprehensive list of planned modernization items - I seriously doubt that such a list even exists since the Navy has no intention of ever modernizing the ships.  Further, the astute among you may be wondering how the Navy can perform a mid-life nuclear refueling and comprehensive overhaul of a carrier in less time than a cruiser modernization.  This simply reinforces the suspicion (certainty) that the Navy’s cruiser modernization plan was a thinly veiled attempt to retire the ships prematurely.

(1)USNI News, “Modernized Cruiser Chancellorsville Leaving for New Homeport in Japan”, Megan Eckstein, 28-May-2015

http://news.usni.org/2015/05/28/modernized-cruiser-chancellorsville-leaving-for-new-homeport-in-japan

Who's Out of Step?

Defense News website reports on remarks by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter regarding China’s expansionist policies. (1)

"China is out of step with both the international rules and norms that underscore the Asia-Pacific's security architecture, and the regional consensus that favors diplomacy and opposes coercion."

China is clearly setting the tone in the South and East China Seas. 

It is very important to understand and recognize that statement.  Let’s say it again.

China is clearly setting the tone in the South and East China Seas. 

That means that it is not China that is out of step – China is establishing the “step”.  It is the US that is out of step with China.  It is up to us and, indeed, in our best interest to recognize China’s “step” and get ourselves in synch with them. 

Now, getting in synch does not mean going along with China’s desires.  It means that we have to gear our diplomatic and military capabilities to their actions.  Instead, we are somehow hoping that they will gear their actions to our “step”.  The Pacific Pivot, which has, thus far, turned out to be mostly words and little effective action, was a very tentative first step in aligning our actions with their steps.  We need to aggressively continue that movement and it has to be backed with credible military force and will.  The Navy, in particular, can and will play a major role in relations with China and we need to make some major adjustments in our force structure and capabilities.

The point of this post is not the politics of the situation but the military and naval adjustments that need to be made.

(1)Defense News, “Carter: China 'Out of Step' With Pacific”, Aaron Mehta , 30-May-2015,

http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/policy-budget/budget/2015/05/29/carter-china-out-of-step-pacific-islands-sovereign-reclamation-shangri-la/28146053/

Still Afloat!

Hey, ComNavOps is back ...  somewhat.  HQ relocation has been challenging, to say the least.  From fighting off Chinese, Russian, and N. Korean special forces and cyber attacks determined to disrupt America's greatest military asset to trying to find just plain old, basic Internet service out in the country, it's taken much longer to get back up and operating than planned.  However, there is light at the end of the tunnel (assuming the light isn't a Chinese Special Ops force approaching!) and I'll be continuing on with the insightful commentary and analysis that you and our military need and depend on.

Keeping Up With the Jones

This is just a quick observation about the trends in combat capability of the U.S. versus the rest of the world.  We’ve repeatedly alluded to the fact that the rest of the world seems to be engaged in an armored combat arms race.  Hardly a week goes by without reading about some country developing a new, heavy tank or infantry fighting vehicle.  China, Russia, and others are bulking up for high end combat.  What is the U.S. doing?

Breaking Defense website (1) reports that, according to Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno, the Army’s planned acquisitions over the next few years include four new combat vehicles:  a parachute-droppable light truck for Airborne soldiers, a scout car, a light tank, and a new infantry fighting vehicle. 

Notice anything interesting about the acquisitions compared to, say, Russia’s new heavy tank and fighting vehicle family?  That’s right, everything we’re buying is geared at the low end of combat operations.  In fact, they’re barely low end – they’re almost peacetime, patrol, crisis management type operations and vehicles.

Hey, isn’t this a navy website?  Why are we talking about the Army?

Well, this news bit illustrates that the entire military is headed down a lighter, lower end force path and the Navy is certainly doing its part to move in that direction.  While the rest of the world is buying “frigates” that encompass cruiser or destroyer-like capabilities, we’re buying LCSs that barely qualify as corvettes.  China is churning out new and impressive surface combatants at an amazing rate while we’re continuing to recycle the Burke design and shoehorn in capabilities that it is not optimized to handle.

The Navy really needs to start thinking about a high end surface combatant that has heavy hitting power, an Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile, very long range supersonic cruise missiles, combat MCM capability, a seriously capable air superiority fighter for the Pacific (China) theatre, etc.  You all know the list as well as I do since we’ve discussed it repeatedly.

We must look at the combat capability trends by other countries and ask ourselves how we’ll fare against them when the inevitable combat occurs.  This is a short and simple post but it is necessary that we constantly remind ourselves about what our enemies are doing and what we’re doing.

Blind Faith

ComNavOps is disgusted and repulsed by unsubstantiated statements that are presented as blanket truisms, especially when spouted by uniformed military professionals.  The common and most disturbing one, currently, is that the future of warfare is unmanned.  I just read yet another article that laid out that suspect premise with absolutely no logical or factual support and then leapfrogged into the author’s pet idea of transforming the entire fleet into a giant UxV operation with no further thought.

Are UxV’s really the future of warfare?  Everyone seems to think so but there is no evidence to support that view.  Indeed, the new offset strategy being promoted by Mr. Work is heavily based on UxVs.  Now, admittedly, anytime a new idea presents itself, there is a dearth of evidence to support the new concept - understandable, since the concept hasn’t yet been implemented.  However, the concept can be logically evaluated through wargames, scale models, small scale trials, and simulated performance by surrogates.  If the experiments and tests warrant, the new idea can then be implemented in a carefully managed, phased approach so that we don’t forfeit our current capabilities on a shiny new toy that may not pan out in the real world. 

What we can’t do is instantly and totally commit to a new idea that is unproven or, worse, may demonstrate weaknesses that are glossed over because they don’t support the new idea.  Witness the LCS fiasco – a complete and total leap into a brand new concept with absolutely no evidence that it would work – and it didn’t.

All right, let’s look at UxVs.

To refresh, on the plus side,

• Reduced risk for the operator.
• Endurance – UxVs are not limited by human endurance and have already proven well suited to long endurance surveillance missions with the caveat of mean time between failures which currently is typically a matter of hours, not days.

On the minus side,

• Communications, both control and data, are a major weak link.  Many UAVs have been lost to failed comms both as a result of deliberate enemy action and simple technology failure.  UUVs are notorious for wandering off during exercises, never to be seen again.
• Situational awareness – Anyone who has flown real aircraft and simulators will attest to the fact that situational awareness is greatly reduced in a simulator/controller.  While this may not be critical for simple surveillance missions it will be for unmanned combat.  The air-to-air (or sea-to-sea) combat advantage currently lies overwhelmingly with manned platforms.

Neutral factors include,

• Cost – while many suggest that UxV production costs should be less, the reality is that UxV costs are the same as the corresponding manned versions and, often, greater.  Logically, the costs should be about the same for the same capability.  The incremental cost of manning is relatively small and generally offset by the increased costs of communications and automation.  At the moment, there is no evidence or logic to support claims of cost savings.

That’s a cursory look at some individual factors that go into the evaluation of UxV applications.  Now, let’s try a little logical thought exercise on a more holistic basis.  Let’s look at a “typical” UAV mission as envisioned by proponents.

Specifically, let’s consider a deep penetration UAV strike into a heavily defended area against a peer enemy.  We’d have, perhaps, two dozen aircraft attacking a target, say, 300 nm overland and launched from a carrier 1000 nm away.  Each UAV would carry two guided bombs or moderately short range missiles of some sort.  There would be no electronic warfare (EW) support although we could theorize such but an EW UAV would broadcast its location and would be a magnet for enemy attack and would not last long.  The UAVs would be mid subsonic, at best.

How would such a strike fare?

The aircraft would be slow, only moderately stealthy, with poor situational awareness and probable communication/control lags (remember, in combat a lag of just a second is likely fatal).  They would have to penetrate several hundred miles of enemy aircraft, sensors, and SAMs with no EW assistance.  How many are going to make it to the target?  Not many.  How many are going to successfully strike and survive the return flight to be available for the next mission?  Even fewer.

Is that the kind of result that justifies a total conversion of the fleet to unmanned platforms as the CSBA offset strategy advocates?  I’m not seeing it.

UxVs have a niche role to play, for sure, but not a dominant one.  They simply don’t have the capability to be successful, at least not at the cost point we seem to be facing.  Now, if we could build a long range, penetrating UAV for $1M each instead of $190M each, we might be able to change tactics and conduct strikes with massive numbers so that some aircraft are assured of getting through.

The UUV situation is even more unproven with nothing but vague ideas being substituted for rigorous engineering and tactical evaluations.  Again, hardly the basis for an immediate remake of the fleet.

Unmanned supporters will likely grudgingly acknowledge that we don’t have the full technology yet but someday we will and therefore we need to begin the fleet’s transformation now.  Well, fine, then someday when the technology proves itself we can re-evaluate and, if warranted, modify the fleet.  In the meantime, converting the fleet structure to feature UxVs is akin to having removed all the masts from all the ships in the sailing navy because someone thought steam engines would someday be superior.  In the meantime, though, the hulls would float uselessly, unable to move, while hoping that someday an engine would come along that would allow them to move.

Simple thought exercises show that UxVs not only do not have any magic properties but that they have some significant weaknesses as combat platforms.  So, let’s continue to develop UxVs but let’s not bet the fleet on an unproven theory that has thus far demonstrated severe limitations.  The CSBA offset strategy needs to be halted in its tracks until we have enough operational experience to be able to pass a reasoned judgment.  Until then, it’s folly.