Book Review - "Hornets Over Kuwait"

ComNavOps has offered occasional book reviews and I’ll try to include a few more in the upcoming year.  ComNavOps loves books written by the men who were there.  There’s nothing like hearing it from the horse’s mouth.  Of course, that doesn’t guarantee that the horse is right but it’s a pretty good start.  One such book is “Hornets Over Kuwait” (1) which, as the title indicates, is about a Marine Hornet pilot in Desert Storm.  The pilot was, at the time, a 30 year old Marine Corps Captain flying with VMFA-451 (Warlords).  The book is written from the day to day perspective of the pilot rather than attempting to delve into the larger strategic or operational picture.  As such, we get a fantastic glimpse of the pilot’s limited but up close view of the war. 

He describes:

• The striking degree of confusion and uncertainty surrounding the initial movement to the Gulf and the sheer magnitude of the logistics required to get a squadron into theater.
• Problems caused by women deploying with the unit.
• Interesting assessments of the F-18 including a somewhat surprising comparison of its air-to-air capabilities against the F-15 Eagle and F-16.
• The monotony of endless, routine CAPs.
• The adrenaline and terror of the first strike mission and the feelings associated with being shot at by AAA and SAMs.
• The Hornet’s air-to-ground performance.
• The overwhelming importance of tankers on nearly every mission.
• Interesting thoughts about the two seat F/A-18D which the author deems useful for FAC but not much else.
• The confusion of the Close Air Support (CAS) effort and the lack of peacetime training for the task.
• Aerial communications problems and overuse of the radio.
• Intel and bomb damage assessment (BDA) as being woefully lacking due to lack of peacetime training.
• The high and unexplained dud rate for iron bombs and the failure of electrical fuzes.
• Base life between missions which consisted of TV, cards, food, and mail and packages from home, among other activities.

The book is as noteworthy for what it doesn’t describe as what it does.  What it doesn’t describe is peer-opposed air operations.  Instead, the book clearly conveys that Desert Storm was, essentially, a live fire exercise conducted in a leisurely manner, the more so after the first few days.  The author/pilot even acknowledges this in his preface and throughout the book.  Thus, the applicability of the author’s experience to a peer level war is quite limited.

The author has done a magnificent job of providing a head down, lower level perspective of a pilot in Desert Storm combat.  The gems and insights scattered throughout the book make for a completely absorbing tale that is every bit as entertaining as fiction but carries with it the fascination of reality.  I highly recommend it.

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(1)“Hornets Over Kuwait”, Jay A. Stout, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 1997, ISBN 1-55750-835-6

Mobile Submarine Support

Here’s an interesting and encouraging bit of news …

The Los Angeles class submarine, USS Key West (SSN-722), exercised with a dry cargo logistics ship, USNS Richard E. Byrd (T-AKE-4), to demonstrate forward, mobile logistics support for submarines.  This is kind of the second half of what’s required for forward support of submarines with the other half being a submarine tender for mechanical support.

Apparently, this was a first of its kind event which seems hard to believe but, hey, better late than never! 

Dry cargo class ships are responsible for providing logistic lifts to deliver cargo (ammunition, food, limited quantities of fuel, repair parts and ship store items) to U.S. and allied ships at sea. (1)

The demonstration was performed to highlight the submarine’s ability to go safely alongside a dry cargo class ship, which could facilitate the transfer of weapons, stores, critical repair parts, and provide the ability to support crew rest. (1)

USS Key West is one of four Los Angeles class SSNs based in Guam along with the submarine tenders USS Frank Cable (AS-40) and USS Emory S. Land (AS-39).  The combination of submarine tenders and dry cargo logistics ships offers the ability to support submarines in a mobile, forward deployed setting, independent of a land base.  This offers a degree of resilience in the face of attacks against Guam naval base facilities.  Someone is beginning to think in terms of combat operations and that's a good thing!

USS Key West Alongside USNS Richard E. Byrd

Submarine Tender USS Frank Cable, AS-40

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(1)Commander, US Pacific Fleet website, “USS Key West conducts mobile logistics demonstration”, Lt.j.g. Meagan Morrison, 11-Dec-2019,

https://www.cpf.navy.mil/news.aspx/130541

Open Post

It's been a while so here's an open post.  What would you like to discuss?  What would you like to see addressed in a post?  What's on your mind?

Des Moines Class Cruiser - In many ways, the ultimate development of the gun cruiser and, with modernization, would be a formidable ship today.

The Wrong Next War

There’s an old saying that Generals are always preparing to fight the last war.  Well, there’s a related and previously unknown phenomenon developing within the US military which is that the Generals are preparing to fight the wrong next war.

To give some credit where credit is due, the US military is devoting a fair amount of effort to preparing to fight the next war.  The problem is that the next war that our military envisions is one entirely of their own creation rather than one defined by consideration of the enemy’s capabilities and intent.  We’re not preparing to fight the war that China and Russia are going to deliver;  we’re preparing to fight the war that we want to see:  a war of high technology, with lots of cross-domain buzzwords, artificial intelligence assisted joint battle command, with dispersed, small, flexible, light units creating havoc deep within enemy territory, tiny unmanned vehicles roving the air, land, and sea and applying nearly magical capabilities, all supported by an exquisite, ephemeral network providing perfect situational awareness.

What kind of war are the Russians and Chinese preparing to deliver?  They’re building heavier and heavier armored units with more, bigger, and far more lethal conventional explosives delivered by massed artillery and ballistic missiles.  The Chinese are building for a war of attrition and are on a quick path to outnumbering us in every category of military capability.  The Russians are telling us exactly what kind of war they’ll deliver with their semi-proxy invasion of Ukraine.  It’s a war of unimaginable destruction delivered by artillery supported by electronic warfare and UAVs, all backed by heavy armored units.  Entire mechanized units are wiped out in seconds.  Our enemies are preparing to employ lethal battlefield unmanned vehicles without a care for unintended casualties.

In short, our enemies are preparing to deliver a war with massive firepower, heavy armored units, widespread and effective electronic warfare, and Terminator style unmanned killing machines.

Now look at the kind of war games we’re conducting.

We’re preparing to conduct the first multi-domain command and control exercise, Cross Domain One.

The Air Force will lead the first experiment of Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) capabilities in two weeks, tying fighter jets to Army ground systems and Navy ships in a real-world example of Multi-Domain Operations.

Preston Dunlap, Air Force chief architect for acquisition, told Breaking D that the exercise in Florida will “be powered by” the service’s nascent Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS). (1)

We’re preparing to fight a war of neat columns of data, sophisticated user interfaces, systems of systems, and cross-domain synergistic spreadsheets all backed up by dispersed light infantry and distributed logistics ships with a few anti-ship missiles.  Our idea of heavy firepower is the 30 mm machine gun that we’ve so proudly stuck on the Strykers and dubbed ‘Dragoon’.  The Russians in their heavily armored, T-90 or T-14 Armata tanks with 125 mm guns must be quaking in their boots over the prospect of facing unarmored Strykers with machine guns for main weapons.

Stryker Dragoon - Wrong For The Next War

While Russia is developing improved cluster munitions and China is mass producing conventional ballistic missiles, we’ve established a Department of Defense, Non-Lethal Weapons Program (2).

Where’s our war game that examines the devastating effects of pure firepower?  Where’s our wargame that tries to figure out how to defeat an armored division?  Where’s our wargame that looks at how to deal with massive artillery barrages?  Where’s our exercise that forces units to operate with jammed communications, no GPS, jammed radar, and constant cyber attack?  Where’s our wargame that looks at trying to operate under enemy controlled skies?

Our [badly] misguided military leadership has created a fantasy vision of what a future war will look like – a war that doesn’t match the predictable reality - and are now contentedly ‘validating’ our weapons and systems against that unrealistic fantasy war.   Our Generals and Admirals are busy congratulating themselves for the rosy results of these fantasy wargames that are concocted from wishful thinking rather than the enemy’s demonstrated capabilities and plans. 

We’ve left firepower far behind in the rear view mirror in our pursuit of perfect data awareness.  We’ve forgotten that even perfect awareness is useless without the means to destroy what we see.  We’ve forgotten that firepower trumps awareness – you don’t need to know exactly where that enemy unit is if you’ve got the firepower and are willing to wipe out a grid square (and all the collateral damage that might go with it) to destroy it.  An unstoppable barrage of artillery fire doesn’t require precision guidance – close counts in horseshoes and artillery.

The decades of low intensity, low threat conflict have led our military leaders who have grown up in that environment to believe that war with Russia/China/Iran/NKorea will be more of the same and that the war can be won with data and networks.  These ignorant leaders have now concocted fantasy wargames because they simply can’t grasp the horror, devastation, and barbarity that will be a modern peer war.

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(1)Breaking Defense website, “First Multi Domain C2 Exercise Planned: Cross Domain One ”, Theresa Hitchens, 6-Dec-2019,

https://breakingdefense.com/2019/12/first-multi-domain-c2-exercise-planned-cross-domain-one/?_ga=2.158096826.1014876450.1575726476-1757035925.1542652267

(2)https://jnlwp.defense.gov/

Duplication and Overlap

The US military is set up with certain, fairly well defined roles and areas of responsibility.  Why?  Well, this prevents needless duplication of effort, defines responsibilities and authorities, and clarifies operational requirements.  In simple terms, the service responsibilities are:

• Army – Responsible for physical occupation of territory and the battlefield’s immediate front out to 30 miles or so.

• Air Force – Responsible for aerial supremacy and deep strike beyond the Army’s front.

• Navy – Responsible for naval supremacy, logistical support and transport, and short to medium range inland strike.

• Marine Corps – Responsible for rapid response and entry point seizure.

Those roles seem pretty clear and straightforward with relatively little overlap or duplication of responsibilities.  However, the services have, of late, been expanding beyond their own realms and moving into each other’s areas.  The Marines are far and away the leaders in this mission creep/grab but all the services are guilty of it to some degree.

Here are some examples of duplication and overlap:

ATACMS – ATACMS missile has a 100+ mile range which more than covers the Army’s immediate front responsibility and now Raytheon is developing the ATACMS successor, DeepStrike, with a 309 mile range.  This is well beyond the Army’s immediate front responsibility and overlaps and duplicates the Air Force’s deep strike.  The weapon is capable of hitting land and sea targets (ships) which duplicates and overlaps the Navy’s responsibility.  On a related note, the 309 mile range is a limit imposed by the 1987 INF treaty.  The weapon’s actual range could, and will, likely be much longer now that the treaty is no longer in effect.

AGS/LRLAP – Although the Zumwalt’s Advanced Gun System (AGS) and Long Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP) have been cancelled, this is still an example of the Navy’s attempt to move into the Air Force deep strike mission.

Marine Aviation – The Marines have moved beyond simply providing their own close air support and have entered the areas of air superiority, anti-shipping, deep strike (well, as deep as an F-35B can go), broad area maritime surveillance, etc.  The Marines are in the process of becoming America’s third air force.

MUX – The Marines have called for a MUX Group 5 UAV (same size group as Triton, Reaper, Global Hawk) to perform broad are maritime surveillance, ISR, early warning, electronic warfare, and communications relay.  Well, we already have Triton broad area maritime surveillance aircraft, Growler electronic warfare aircraft, AWACS early warning and aerial surveillance and control, E-2 Hawkeye airborne early warning and control, and numerous varieties of ISR UAVs.  This is utterly pointless duplication.

Marine Sea Control Missiles – The Marines are looking at HIMARS and various other options for launching long range anti-ship missiles which blatantly overlaps the Navy’s sea control mission.

Super Cannon – The Army is developing a super cannon with a 1000 mile range.  This duplicates, carrier strike groups, Tomahawk cruise missiles, B-1/2/52 bombers, Air Force AGM-86 cruise missiles, Navy SSGNs, etc., all capable of thousand-plus mile ranges.

And the list goes on.

This is not to say that all duplication is bad.  Some is warranted and useful but – and this is the key point - the problem is that each service is seeking to expand their domain even while their own core responsibilities are not being met.

Marines lack an effective ship to shore connector that jibes with the Navy/Marine doctrine of assaulting from 25-50+ miles offshore and yet they’re expanding into fleet airborne early warning, broad area maritime surveillance, and electronic warfare with the MUX drone.

The Marines lack initial wave heavy firepower and mobile anti-air defense and yet they’re trying to establish anti-ship missile capability.

The Army lacks effective mobile anti-air defense capability, electronic warfare capability, and a Bradley replacement, yet wants to expand into deep strike.

The Navy lacks … well, everything we’ve talked about in this blog and yet they want to expand into deep strike.

If you have everything taken care of in your area of responsibility, are fully trained and 100% combat ready, and have extra money to spend then, sure, expand – but that’s never happened before and never will.  The services are engaged in budget grabs, pure and simple.

Hide It, Don’t Fix It

What do you do if your organization is failing?  Well, one solution – the only correct solution – is to fix the problem.  The other approach – the Navy solution – is to hide the problem and restrict the public from hearing about the problem.

As you know, the Navy suffers from a steady, never-ending stream of firings of Commanding Officers (CO), Executive Officers (XO), and Command Master Chiefs (CMC) … the leadership triad.  Given the steady drumbeat of firings and the resultant poor public relations, the Navy has now opted to stop releasing information about XO and CMC firings.  According to Navy spokesman, Cmdr. Clay Doss,

I think you’ll see CO/Flag Officer relief announcements as press releases more frequently/consistently than the past few years but not necessarily other triad members. (1)

You’ll recall that several years ago the Navy suffered a spate of INSURV inspection failures.  As pressure mounted from Congress and the public to explain the failures, the Navy’s response was to classify INSURV inspection results.  When that didn’t completely work, the Navy changed the inspection from a pass/fail to a mere advisory report.  If you have a problem, hide it, don’t fix it.

Each time the Navy gets a new Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), my hopes go up.  Unfortunately, each new CNO seems worse than the preceding one.  When CNO Gilday took office recently, my hopes went up and now he implements a policy of hiding failures to start his tenure.  Looks like another failed CNO.

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(1)Navy Times, “Mystery relief of carrier’s command master chief revealed”, Staff, 14-Nov-2019,

https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/11/14/mystery-relief-of-carriers-command-master-chief-revealed/

LCS and Distributed Lethality

As you know, the Navy’s big combat concept is distributed lethality (see, "Distributed Lethality") and the LCS is prominently mentioned as one of the candidates for the concept (see, "Exploring Distributed Lethality").  Distributed lethality is idiotic in every respect but we’ll confine ourselves to consideration of the use of the LCS in the concept.

As you also know, the Navy’s restructuring of the LCS force has resulted in two squadrons, one on each coast.  Each squadron consists of a single 4-ship group of each of the three mission areas:  ASW, MCM, and ASuW.  In each group of 4 ships, one of the ships is designated as a non-deployable training vessel.  Thus, each mission area consists of just three ships.  That means that each squadron has 3 ASW, 3 MCM, and 3 ASuW ships and that, in turn, gives a total fleet force of 6 ASW, 6 MCM, and 6 ASuW ships.

The LCS-MCM is the total replacement for our aging Avengers which are long overdue for retirement (see, "LCS MCM - What's the Point?").  The 6 total LCS-MCM will replace the 14 ships of the Avenger class minesweeper.

The LCS-ASW is the replacement for the ASW aspect of the Perry class frigates.  Thus, the 6 total LCS-ASW will replace the 51 ships of the Perry class frigate.

The LCS-ASuW is the replacement for the ASuW aspect of the Perry class frigates.  Thus, the 6 total LCS-ASuW will replace the 51 ships of the Perry class frigate.

Okay, with that reminder of the LCS force structure, let’s get back to the LCS and distributed lethality (DL).  There is only one question that needs to be asked:

Given the immense importance of mine countermeasures and with only 6 deployable LCS-MCM, does it make sense to risk them in distributed lethality?

By its very definition, DL places the ships deep in enemy territory, alone, in harm’s way and the LCS has extremely limited defensive capability.

Our entire mine countermeasure force is going to be 6 LCS-MCM.  If those are sunk (or even just a one or two!) our MCM efforts will go from woefully inadequate to nearly non-existent.  Does that seem wise to anyone other than the Navy?

Another LCS Sunk, Alone, in Distributed Lethality

The preceding also applies to the LCS-ASW and LCS- ASuW.

With that simple consideration, the idiocy of the Navy’s distributed lethality concept and the use of the LCS in it becomes clearly manifest.  There’s really nothing else that needs to be said.