LCS Scorecard

The LCS production run is nearing an end and the ships have been in service for over a decade so let’s take a moment and see how the promise of the LCS has panned out.

 

 

 

LCS Attribute	Result	Comment
Speed	fail	Arguably the number one design attribute of the LCS, the speed has been steadily reduced to a pedestrian 35-37 kts despite so much being sacrificed at the altar of speed.
Module Swapping	fail	This was abandoned when stability and other issues were found to preclude rapid swapping.  The LCS is now a single function, non-swappable vessel.
Minimal Manning	fail	The original minimal core crew of around 40 has ballooned up to 50-60 and now two crews per ship put the total core crew at well over one hundred.  Add in the module crew, helo detachment personnel, and shore maintenance crew and the manning figure is around 200+ per ship.
Deployment	fail	The rotating crew concept was supposed to enable extended forward deployments but the reality is that very few deployments of any kind have occurred.  Most LCS have remained pier side on a nearly permanent basis.
Affordability	fail	The LCS was originally targeted at $200M each which then increased to $220M and then on up to $750M or so before steadying out around $500M-$600M without modules.
Modules	fail	After nearly two decades of development, no LCS has yet deployed with an effective module of any type despite each module having been dumbed down to nearly ineffective levels.
Numbers	fail	The initial plan called for 55 LCS.  The number was steadily reduced and currently stands at 35 vessels built, under construction, or on order.  The first four LCS have already been retired, leaving a current total of 31 and several of those have been designated non-deployable training vessels.

 

 

 

The LCS is the very epitome of a failed program.  Not a single promised capability has materialized and most capabilities have been significantly dumbed down.  The original concept has been completely abandoned and the entire LCS fleet has been reorganized multiple times along with total revamping of the crew training program.  Speed, range, and endurance have been downgraded.  The modules, which are the main weapon of the LCS, have failed completely and have been continually revised downward.  The ASW module was completely abandoned and re-conceptualized when the original concept was deemed a mistake.  The ASM and MCM modules are struggling with performance and weight issues.  The ASuW module has been hugely downgraded and has still not been fielded in any useful, combat-effective form.  The Freedom class variant is plagued by a systematic propulsion design flaw severe enough to cause the Navy to halt ship deliveries.  Most LCS that have put to sea have suffered major propulsion plant failures and many have suffered multiple failures.  The first four LCS have already been retired.  And the list goes on …

 

The promise of the LCS has utterly failed to materialize.  This is the very definition of abject failure.

Blue/Gold Manning Model Is Fundamentally Flawed

If you want to learn how to invest your money successfully, would you go to learn from someone who went bankrupt or someone who made a million dollars?  I think it’s safe to say that all of us would choose to learn from the millionaire.  It’s pretty simple, really.  Learn from those who have succeeded.  With that in mind, I was struck by the following statement from Vice Adm. Roy Kitchener, Commander of Naval Surface Forces.

 

… the service is working hard to take lessons learned from years of struggles with the LCS and ensure the upcoming frigate program can hit the ground running. (1)

 

Referring back to the investing example, do we really want to take lessons from the most flawed ship program in modern history and use them to guide the frigate program?  Wouldn’t it make far more sense to apply lessons from a successful program … of course, we don’t actually have a successful program to learn from, do we?  So, that’s a problem.  Still …

 

“When we started building [the] frigate, we looked a lot at LCS and what we can learn – for example, the way we train on LCS, train to qualify, is a really good model and we’re going to leverage that for FFG-62.” (1)

Admiral, are you sure you want to apply the same training program that resulted in almost every LCS that put to sea being sidelined with major propulsion system problems, many of which were blamed on training deficiencies?  I would also remind the good Admiral that the entire LCS manning and training model was deemed a complete and total failure, was abandoned, and now a new model is being implemented with no discernible positive results, as yet.

 

Now, I understand that it is possible to glean negative lessons – how not to do something – from a failed program and there’s nothing wrong with that but the Navy is not using the LCS experience to do that.  They’re doing the opposite by pulling flawed results out of the LCS program, branding them as positive lessons, and using them to mold the frigate program.  Can anyone see any problem with that?

 

Moving on …

 

The following statement is the heart of this post:

 

“And then the manning, we just looked at what we’ve done on LCS, the blue/gold concept, and how we’re going to fit them out. And we think that is probably the way to get the most presence” out of the frigate hulls. (1)

 

Again, let us recall that the LCS program originally concocted a bizarre 3 crews for 2 ships (3:2) manning model in an attempt to keep the LCS actively deployed for longer periods with the three crews rotating and shuffling between two ships.  That, of course, failed miserably as the Navy quickly found that maintenance was being ignored and problems were simply being passed on to the next rotational crew.  There was no pride of ownership (or consequence of ownership) and it showed in degraded ships.  Of course, there was also the problem that the Navy couldn’t get an LCS to deploy long enough to rotate crews.

 

None of that mattered, in the end, since one of the various LCS study groups ultimately decided that the highly trained crews were actually not well trained and were responsible for multiple major system failures.  The entire manning model was abandoned and a Blue/Gold (2:1) model was adopted whereby two crews would rotate on a single ship - of course, that doubles the effective crew size and totally negates one of the major claimed benefits and justifications for the LCS which was minimal manning but, I digress ...

 

Let’s consider the implications of a Blue/Gold manning scheme.  Even if perfectly executed and the result is longer ship deployments by using rotating Blue/Gold crews, there’s a fundamental flaw with the concept and that is that the ships will be deployed longer!  The blindingly obvious result of longer deployments is less maintenance and shorter service lives.  We’ve already seen the detrimental effect of longer deployments demonstrated repeatedly across all ship classes that have tried extended deployments.

 

For example, the carriers have been routinely double deployed and extended deployed and when they finally get maintenance time they’ve been invariably found to require far more maintenance than anticipated.  Carriers have been nearly doubling their maintenance times and it’s resulted in carriers sitting pier side for months on end waiting for their turn at maintenance while other carriers are forced to do even more double deployments which further exacerbates the problem – a vicious cycle, if ever there was one.

 

The Navy is engaged in a fundamental contradiction.  They claim to want extended ship service lives (40+ years) and yet they want extended deployments which means less maintenance, shorter service lives, and premature retirement.

 

What we should want is the opposite of Blue/Gold manning with multiple crews and maximally deployed ships.  Instead, we should want single crews and ships that are minimally deployed and maximally maintained and trained.  In fact, ComNavOps has argued against any deployments (see, “Deployments or Missions?”).

 

Unless adequate maintenance time is built into the manning model, as with SSBNs, the Blue/Gold manning model is just a premature retirement and scrapping model.

 

The Navy is drawing lessons from a failed LCS program and now seeks to apply those failures to the frigate program.  Someday, we’ll look back and wonder how the frigate program got so screwed up.  Well, the answer is it started here and now and it was painfully obvious why it happened:  the Navy turned to a failed program for guidance.  Failure begets failure.  Don’t duplicate and propagate failure, abandon it!

  

 

 

 

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(1)USNI News website, “SWO Boss: Study Pushing Further Changes to LCS, Informing Frigate Manning Plans”, Megan Eckstein, 10-Jan-2021,

https://news.usni.org/2021/01/10/swo-boss-study-informing-further-changes-to-lcs-inform-frigate-manning-plans

What If?

The US Navy and Marine Corps has grandiose plans for future combat based on sterile, clean, carefully orchestrated concepts of networks, sensors, and data all seamlessly and flawlessly linked to every unit and individual on the battlefield.  Our forces will have perfect situational awareness, perfect synchronicity, and a degree of omniscience almost unimaginable, all carefully controlled by massive artificial intelligence-aided command and control software. 

 

Let’s set aside the fantasy aspects of the preceding vision and just ask ourselves one simple question:  what if we find ourselves in a position where our assumptions are not valid?  What if?  … What then?

 

Here’s a highly relevant quote from retired Marine Gen. Charles Krulak,

 

“Where were we weak? We were weak in any kind of close terrain. If we got into urban environments, if we got into woods, if we got into any place where our systems, our overhead systems, couldn’t see, if they were able to get us dispersed, if we weren’t able to bring together our combat power, if we were dumb enough to continue to drive down the same roads, to walk like we did in Vietnam or drive like we did in Iraq, they would blow us up.” (1)

 

There it is;  the key assumption and key weakness in today’s vision of battlefield omniscience:  if we get into a situation where our systems can’t see.  If we get into a situation where our sensors can’t see or, seeing, can’t communicate their data or the data can’t be disseminated over the network.  If that happens, our entire concept of battlefield dominance breaks down and we lose.

 

Why might our systems not be able to ‘see’?  The list of possible reasons is long and, in the aggregate, quite likely:

 

Weather – Bad weather is still a reality and still negatively impacts sensor performance.  Clouds obscure and degrade lasers and satellites.  Rain impacts radar, infra-red (IR), lasers, and electro-optical (EO).  Fog impacts electro-optical, laser, and IR.  Waves degrade radar.  Wave clutter obscures targets.

 

Attrition – The enemy is going to do everything they can to destroy our sensors and platforms like the P-8 Poseidon, MQ-9 Reaper and similar large, slow, non-stealthy UAVs, MQ-8 Fire Scouts, etc. are going to have battlefield lifetimes measured in minutes, at best.

 

Obscurants – Multi-spectral chemical obscurant clouds hinder all forms of surveillance. 

 

Cyber – China, NKorea, Russia, and Iran have repeatedly proven their competence at conducting cyber warfare right now, during supposed peacetime, so one can only assume that the degree of cyber attacks will increase dramatically in a real war.  Those attacks will degrade and negate our communications, command and control, sensor nets, unmanned control systems, and many other aspects that we haven’t even thought of yet.  Won’t we be surprised when our F-35s are cyber attacked through their vaunted APG-81 AESA radar (if it can receive signals, it can be cyber attacked) and we lose control of various aircraft functions?  Also, if we go to war with any one of those enemies, you can be sure that the rest will drastically ramp up their cyber attacks against us in support of whoever we’re fighting.  We’ll be fighting a 4-front cyber war.

 

Jamming – Old fashioned and highly effective.  Jamming has evolved to become a computer controlled, frequency hopping weapon and, of course, there’s always good old, reliable, broad spectrum, high power jamming.  We’ll find our communications and signal links degraded or eliminated.

 

Fog of War – Since time immemorial, combatants have understood that nothing ever goes as planned and confusion reigns supreme on the battlefield.  To this day, despite all our vaunted technology, we constantly suffer confusion, often with fatal results, during our daily, peacetime operations.  We suffer friendly fire, ship collisions, uncertainty about whether we were actually attacked by anti-ship missiles (the Yemen affair), and so on.  In war, our UAVs will be shot down, our comm links will be disrupted, our networks will fail, and we’ll be completely confused.  Confusion is the normal state of affairs on the battlefield and all of our technology can do nothing to change that.

 

Cover – Buildings, foliage, caves, tunnels, camouflage netting, etc. all provide cover, to a greater or lesser extent, from radar, IR, EO, lasers, and satellites. 

 

Decoys – Decoys don’t hide anything but they degrade sensor performance by presenting false targets, adding to the previously discussed confusion.

 

 

What if any, many, or all of these mitigating conditions exist on a battlefield (and they will ! )?  Our omniscient sensing will be suddenly rendered suspect or useless.  What then?  Our entire foundation of future battle is based on a concept whose failings and vulnerabilities are readily anticipatable.  What then? 

 

What if our sensors, networks, communications, and artificial intelligence command and control systems are degraded or rendered useless?  What do we actually have to fall back on?  Frighteningly, the answer is … nothing.  We have no fall back mode of operation.  No alternatives.  No safety net.

 

What should be the ‘what if’ solution?  What do you fall back on when everything else falls apart?  Why, firepower, of course … broad area, high explosive, non-precision, erase entire grid squares, raw firepower.  Firepower makes up for a whole lot of mistakes, capability gaps, sensor failures, and intelligence shortcomings.  Not sure exactly where the enemy is?  No problem … blanket any suspect areas with high explosives and you’ve solved the problem.  You can figure out later which area they were actually in … if you can find any pieces of them large enough to identify.

 

The problem is that we’ve been eliminating firepower.  The Marines have shed all their tanks and much of their artillery.  We’ve allowed our anti-ship missile, the Harpoon, to become obsolete with only the possibility of the LRASM to replace it and budget constraints make that a dubious proposition.  We’re dropping thousands of VLS cells as we begin retiring Ticonderogas and Burkes and replacing them with small, weak, unmanned vessels.  We’re dropping the already weak 5” gun in favor of the 57mm overgrown machine gun.  We’ve got a looming submarine shortfall.  We’ve significantly cut back our SSBN deterrence in terms of both numbers of subs and numbers of missile tubes.  The Marines have eliminated their large 120 mm mortars.  Our offensive mine inventory is almost non-existent.  The SSGN is being retired without replacement.  The Perry class frigates were replaced by the non-combat LCS.  And the list goes on.

 

Any good battle operation planner routinely plans for failure scenarios, for the the things that can go wrong.  Contingency plans are drawn up to account  for and compensate for the unexpected and for the things that go wrong because … things always go wrong.  This is just good, solid, battle planning and yet, we have no such contingency plan for when our entire future combat model falls apart – and it will.  The only question is to what extent it will fail and considering the sheer number of failure modes, the extent of failure is likely to be significant.  The contingency plan should be pure, raw firepower and yet we’re divesting ourselves of firepower.  We need to reverse this trend and begin emphasizing firepower as we always have in the past. 

 

What’s the downside to building our firepower back up?  There isn’t one!  Worst case – meaning if it turns out that our networks work flawlessly – we’re left with excess firepower that didn’t get used.  Nothing wrong with that.

 

 

 

 

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(1)Defense One website, “Want to Understand the Future of War? Talk to Chuck Krulak”, Tobias Naegele, 3-Feb-2018,

https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2018/02/want-understand-future-war-chuck-krulak/145665/

LCS Update

Naval News website has some fascinating tidbits on the LCS.  Let’s take a look.

 

More Studies.  The LCS must lead the league in Admiral-chaired studies.  The Navy regularly forms groups to study the LCS with results that accomplish … nothing useful.  Changes are made but none are worthwhile.  For example, one study group recommended changing from 3 crews for 2 ships to a Blue/Gold (2 crews per ship) scheme.  Okay, one can debate the merits of each approach but, in the final analysis, the change accomplishes nothing.  It doesn’t make the LCS better or more effective.  It just changes the crewing construct.  It’s just churn.

 

Unbelievably, the Navy has now formed yet another study group with the catchy name, LCS Strike Team, to analyze the maintenance, reliability, and lethality issues regarding these small warships.(1)  Maybe this team will recommend switching up and forward to down and aft … you know, something meaningless.

 

The “LCS Strike Team” is also in charge of a few studies, such as a “2016 LCS Study” addressing LCS issues with the crew, maintenance, and training.  This study is set to conclude soon while another study will address the lethality of the LCS. (1)

 

So, studies that study studies?  Sounds productive.

 

 

Maintenance.  This one is interesting.  Everyone except the Navy has known from day one that eliminating a crew’s ability to conduct maintenance and repairs aboard ship was an idiotic decision.  Maybe that will change …

 

RDML Casey Moton, USN, envisions giving more self-sufficiency to the LCS crews to make their own repairs and hopes to make quick progress addressing these maintenance issues. In addition, the U.S. Navy announced late last year that it would test Spearhead-Class EPF USNS Burlington as a maintenance and repair vessel for Littoral Combat Ships.(1)

 

Of course you want more maintenance and repair self-sufficiency onboard ship, Admiral.  It should take all of ten seconds to come to that conclusion although it took you and the Navy a decade and a half.  The problem is that you’ve painted yourself into a corner with the mandated design requirement of minimal manning.  More onboard maintenance and repair means bigger crews, more parts storage, and fabrication shops and the LCS design has no more personnel berthing and hotel services capacity for additional crew and no room for shops unless you start cutting into module space and weight margins.  Face it, you concocted a bad design and now the consequences are coming home to roost.  There’s just not much that can be done to fix the LCS because the original design was so flawed. 

The interesting aspect of this maintenance tidbit was the mention of a potential tender in the form of the Joint High Speed Vessel (now EPF in one of the Navy's ridiculous renaming ventures).  The LCS has cried out for a tender from the start and this could make deployment of the LCS more viable (neglecting the inherent lack of LCS capabilities, of course).  We should get rid of the LCS but, failing that, this would be a significant step forward in getting whatever use we can out of the LCS.

 

 

Mission.  How many years in and the Navy still doesn’t know what mission(s) the LCS can perform??? 

 

Nonetheless, the Vice-Admiral did state that the U.S. Navy has to determine what missions the LCSs are suitable for to accomplish. (1)

 

This is what happens when you design and build without a CONOPS.  A decade and a half into the class’ service life and you still don’t know what mission it can perform.  Here’s a hint:  it can’t perform any mission!

 

 

MCM.  Mine Countermeasures was always an idiotic idea for the LCS.  In the MCM role, the ship is far too large, far too expensive, has useless speed for the slowest task in the Navy, and has limited unmanned vehicle handling and storage capacity and the situation is made worse by the fact that none of the MCM components work. 

 

Stunningly, none of those things are the worst problem with the LCS MCM concept.  The worst thing is that even if everything worked perfectly, the concept is too slow to be useful.  The Avenger minesweeper, which the LCS is trying to replace, is several times faster and it is too slow to be useful.  We’ve documented in several posts the problems with the LCS MCM concept but now the Navy is finally, publicly, admitting it.

 

Compare the LCS to the MCM Avengers. If the Avenger acquires a mine via sonar, it can do a run to detonate the mine.  With an LCS using unmanned systems, the LCS sends out the drone, gathers the data, analyzes it, and if questionable, sends out the drone again, do a different pattern to gather more data and then analyzes it again, and then send out a system to neutralize the mine.  So, for an Avenger that can detect and destroy a mine in four hours, it might take the LCS an entire day and that is because the LCS cannot do a single sortie to detect and engage and relies on unmanned systems. So, it’s like comparing apples to oranges when you look at the LCS and the Avenger.  But looking forward, I think that the LCS, when compared to the LCS itself, the LCS [of today] can clear [mines] faster [than an LCS five years ago with immature and untested MCM packages].” (1)

 

The LCS MCM process involves, at minimum, a three pass process to eliminate a single mine.  You don’t have to be a MCM expert to understand why taking three passes at a mine takes longer than a single pass and why such a process would be absolutely useless in combat.

 

 

Conclusion

 

Well, there you have it.  The Navy is finally catching up to where we’ve been since day one.  Yes, it took the Navy a decade and half but they’re slowly realizing just how bad this ship is.  While I applaud the Navy, ever so slightly, for trying to fix the problems and improve the class, the reality is that the original design is so badly flawed that no significant improvement is possible.  Weight margins are gone, berthing is max’ed out, the ship’s structure is weak, stability (Freedom class) is an issue, and so on.  There’s nothing to work with and no significant improvement is possible due to the inherent design flaws.  Tragically, the only logical thing to do is retire the entire class and cut our losses.

 

Even more tragic is that the entire debacle could have been avoided if the Navy had listened to … well … absolutely anyone outside the Navy because absolutely everyone outside the Navy could see the problems with the LCS right from the start.  The tragedy of the LCS was that it was entirely avoidable and that’s the real tragedy.

 

 

 

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(1)Naval News website, “Update on the U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship Program”, Peter Ong, 4-Feb-2021,

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2021/02/update-on-the-u-s-navys-littoral-combat-ship-program/

Biden Strikes Again

I try very hard to avoid political commentary on this blog but, occasionally, it can’t be avoided.  Such is the case today.  I certainly hope that this does not become a regular occurrence as that would indicate the political imposition of massive negative impacts on the military.  Note that I also don’t care whether the political impacts are caused by Democrats or Republicans.  I care only about political stupidity.  With that said …

 

President Biden’s incompetent direction of the military continues with the announcement of a 60 day stand down to weed out extremism.

 

President Biden's newly appointed Pentagon chief Wednesday issued a "stand down" for the next 60 days, ordering military leaders to spend time talking to troops in an effort to weed out extremism in their ranks … (1)

 

There are several stunning aspects to this announcement:

 

• Safety and diversity stand downs typically last a day or two.  Aircraft safety, a matter of life and death, only warrants a day or two but extremism warrants 60 days??!!!!!!!!
• Who determines what constitutes extremism?  I’m pretty sure that the Democrats will define it and it will encompass multiple conservative groups and views and no liberal ones.
• This sounds ominously like a Democrat attempt to purge conservatives from the military.  While active duty limits some of the actions a service member can take in promoting their views, it does not limit one’s beliefs and such purging would be unconstitutional.
• There are a lot of issues that could vie for top priority in the military but this is not even on the top 100 list.
• Biden’s Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, is looking like a political lap dog by going along with these idiotic policies.  He’s embarrassing himself, his office, and degrading his reputation.

 

 

The military has huge problems with readiness, aircraft mission capable rates, submarine shortfalls, a floundering Marine Corps, ill-conceived acquisition plans, etc. and this kind of thing just demonstrates an utter failure of civilian leadership and direction and a betrayal of the trust of the military and the American people.

 

 

Believe it or not, this is not a political post, per se.  I don’t care which party does something this stupid and, possibly, unconstitutional and when they do, I’ll address it.

 

This is just an awareness post.  We’re not going to do comments on this, for obvious reasons.

  

 

 

_____________________________________

 

(1)Fox News website, “Pentagon orders 'stand down' across military to investigate extremism in the ranks”, Danielle Wallace, 4-Feb-2021,

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pentagon-defense-stand-down-military-extremism-in-troops-ranks

More Marine Insanity

Having previously gotten into the long range strike, air force, anti-ship, and anti-submarine businesses, the Marines are now getting into the business of unmanned naval vessels.  They have ordered Metal Shark ‘40 Defiant’ Long Range Unmanned Surface Vessels. 

 

Louisiana-based shipbuilder Metal Shark announced on Monday that Marine Corps Systems Command had selected the company to develop the so-called Long Range Unmanned Surface Vessel (LRUSV) for the service. (3)

 

What do we know about this craft?  The manufacturer describes these 40 ft long vessels:

 

The 40 Defiant satisfies the visual-deterrent requirements of today’s naval forces with a futuristic design featuring a chiseled and menacing profile and unique faceted hull. Unlike other available welded-aluminum military patrol boat offerings, which are often hard to distinguish from a commercial work boat or even a private recreational vessel, the 40 Defiant is immediately identifiable as a no-nonsense military machine ready to respond with overwhelming force to any hostile threat. The 40 Defiant flaunts its capability and bristles with armament. As configured for the US Navy, the vessel features six MK 16 weapons foundations plus a large forward foundation for stabilized, remote operated, optically guided MK 49 / MK 50 weapons systems. Like all Metal Shark offerings, the 40 Defiant may be customized to suit operator requirements and may be configured to accommodate the complete range of available weapons systems. (2)

 

 

Metal Shark Manned Version

Metal Shark Unmanned Version

 

So, the craft is ‘chiseled’ and ‘menacing’.  Well that should sink some Chinese ships because, as we all know, appearance is the most important characteristic in determining lethality and successful naval engagements.

 

‘Visual-deterrent requirements’?????  Who made that one up?

 

The craft has ‘overwhelming force’  …  consisting of up to 6 machine guns.  I’m not sure that constitutes ‘overwhelming’ unless you’re fighting an unprepared Boy Scout troop.

 

What will the Marines do with these vessels?  I’ve been unable to find any description of how the Marines intend to use these boats but we have this from the Naval News website:

 

This tiered, scalable weapons system will provide the ability to accurately track and destroy targets at range throughout the battle space. (1)

 

Presumably, the Marines will use these boats in their anti-Chinese, hidden, small unit, anti-ship/anti-sub concept.  That being the case, what will a boat with a maximum of 6 machine guns destroy ‘throughout the battle space’?  If all it takes is a 40 ft boat with 6 machine guns to ‘destroy targets at range throughout the battle space’ then we’re wasting a lot of money on Burkes, Fords, and frigates!

 

There is also this from the Task and Purpose website announcement,

 

The LRUSV is “an unmanned platform capable of traveling autonomously for long distances and launching loitering munitions to address sea and land targets,” according to a December request for information regarding the vessel’s autonomy systems.

 

Loitering munitions, also known as kamikaze drones, are best described as bombs that are designed to loiter above a set area, search for targets, and attack once a target is formally identified. (3)

 

So, the Marines may be looking to conduct naval battles using some kind of minature, kamikaze UAVs?  It would take, what …  ten thousand of them to sink a ship?  This is getting more bizarre by the second. 

 

From the manufacturer,

 

The 40 Defiant has been designed to carry a power projection capability far beyond that of a traditional force protection boat. The vessel therefore boasts a superlative array of capabilities. Available ballistic protection enables the vessel to sustain extended firefights, allowing crews to respond with overwhelming force to asymmetric threats such as swarm attacks while remaining secure and protected from hostile fire. The armored, climate-controlled pilothouse may be configured with a wide range of shock-mitigating seating options. The vessel delivers enhanced situational awareness and fleet connectivity through an advanced communications and sensor suite. These capabilities allow operators to expand the mission profile of their patrol boats, allowing them to operate in permissive environments during asset protection and port security missions, and also to make forays into hostile environments. (2)

 

 

Well, we don’t have much on the performance specs of the vessel but I’ll give the manufacturer full marks for creative writing.  The boat description reads like the Star Wars Death Star brochure.

 

I have no idea what operating concept the Marines have in mind but whatever it is they’re way out of their lane.  At this rate, it’s only a matter of time until they start operating submarines (subMARINES … see, it’s right there in the name!) and intercontinental stealth bombers.

 

The Marine Corps has gone insane.

 

 

_________________________________

 

(1)Naval News website, “Metal Shark Developing Long Range USV for the U.S. Marine Corps”, Xavier Vavasseur, 26-Jan-2021,

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2021/01/metal-shark-developing-long-range-usv-for-the-u-s-marine-corps/

 

(2)https://www.metalsharkboats.com/40defiant/

(3)Task and Purpose website, “The Marine Corps is eyeing a long-range robot boat that can nail targets with kamikaze drones”, Jared Keller, 27-Jan-2021,

https://taskandpurpose.com/news/marine-corps-long-range-unmanned-surface-vessel-contract/

The Value Of Small Vessel Command

There is a school of thought that suggests that the US Navy emphasis on large ships to the near exclusion of small ships robs junior officers of small ship command experience.  This experience would lead to better developed officers more ready for eventual large ship command, according to the thinking.

 

Is this true or is this yet another idea that is appealing, in concept, but fails in application?

 

Let’s take a look at one historical example of widespread small ship command:  the Jefferson Gunboats.  Around 200 such ships were built, thereby providing lots of command opportunities for officers in the fledgling Navy of the time.  What was their experience?

 

In his book, The Jeffersonian Gunboat Navy, author Spencer Tucker offers this thought,

 

The gunboats were a naval school for young officers such as James Lawrence, James Biddle, …  The record here is mixed, however.  Most senior officers felt that the best place for junior officers to learn officership was on medium or large seagoing vessels under experienced commanders.  Gunboat service did provide command experience for junior officers, but it could not produce the skills acquired and needed in the larger vessels.  Gunboats spent most of their time in harbors and coastal shoal waters, and this precluded learning seamanship.  Their commanders were often poor role models for novice officers, and because there was usually only one officer on board a gunboat, this worked against creating the professionalism that developed best where many officers served together. (1)

 

 

Tucker’s assessment raises several good points.

 

Mentorship – Though Tucker does not use the term ‘mentor’, he is clearly referring to the concept when he discusses the grouping of officers in larger ships which leads to the education and development of younger officers by being exposed to, and learning from, the examples of other officers.  This education via example, or mentorship, if you wish, is unavailable in smaller, isolated commands.

 

Professionalism – Closely related to mentorship, the development of a professional atmosphere and professionalism is clearly facilitated by groupings of officers as opposed to isolated command.  Officers can discuss professional aspects of their job both on watch and in the wardroom and junior officers can learn from the professionalism of their seniors.  Junior officers can acquire a sense of what ‘professional’ means.

 

Command Exposure – Without a doubt, early small vessel command provides valuable exposure to the requirements of command albeit without any mentor or example to learn the proper lessons from.  Thus, the young officer is exposed to command but lacks the resources to properly master that command.  Some officers will find their own, successful, mode of command and some will fail, drawing the wrong lessons.  This undoubtedly is the reason for Tucker’s assessment of ‘mixed’ results.

 

Correction and Discipline – Closely tied to the above, an isolated small vessel commander has little opportunity for correction and learning from more knowledgeable officers.  The naïve young officer may well come to believe that he has figured out the best method to command and may fail to receive corrections that may produce better command techniques.  In the extreme, he may take his flawed views along with him to higher command.

 

Environment – As Tucker noted, small vessels may well not routinely sail where larger ships do and, as a result, the young officer may not acquire the ocean going skills and seamanship required for larger ships. 

 

 

Clearly, there are arguments both for and against junior officer small vessel command.  For some additional insight, let’s consider the Navy’s most recent and relevant example of small vessel command:

 

Iranian Riverine Boat Seizure – This was a classic case of an officer in command of small craft being completely bereft of professionalism and competence.  Not only did he fail on a personal level but his failure to train, motivate, and discipline his crew(s) led to total failure by the crew as individuals and a group, including a crystal clear case of mutiny which the Navy, much to their everlasting shame, opted not to prosecute. 

 

The officer in command not only failed individually but his command-wide failings resulted in damage to his crew’s professional development and achievement , his squadron’s reputation, and the Navy’s reputation.

 

The officer in command was clearly in over his head and lacked any effective support system to correct, guide, mentor, and, if necessary, remove him from the Navy if he was found to be irredeemably incapable.

US Riverine Boats Seized By Iran

 

Let’s consider another example:

 

MCM Grounding – In 2013, the minesweeper (MCM) USS Guardian ran aground near the Philippines.  The Navy’s investigation showed that the commanding officer, a Lieutenant Commander (O-4, junior officer), made a multitude of mistakes and exercised incredibly bad judgment which led directly to the grounding and loss of the vessel.  See, “A Harsh Mistress”.

 

USS Guardian Aground

Those were two glaring examples of failures of junior officers in small vessel commands.  Do those two examples condemn the entire concept?  Of course not.  Unfortunately, the reverse side of the issue, examples where junior officers flourished in small vessel command are not readily available.  The riverine boat and MCM grounding examples are simply meant to illustrate that junior officer small vessel command is not automatically beneficial and positive.  Whether it is systematically beneficial or detrimental is an open question.  Certainly, the Navy appears to place no value on the concept but given the Navy’s track record of badly flawed decisions about … well … everything, the Navy’s opinion can’t be given much credence.

 

I suspect that the benefit of junior officer small vessel command is like most other ventures.  If properly run, closely supervised, and supplemented with additional professional education, experience, and exposure it would likely produce generally positive results.  Lacking any of those elements, the concept is likely to produce detrimental outcomes.

 

For our Navy today, it’s obvious that none of those elements are present and, therefore, junior officer small vessel command is a bad idea.

 

 

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(1)The Jeffersonian Gunboat Navy, Spencer C. Tucker, University of South Carolina Press, 1993, ISBN 0-87249-849-2