Crimea - Now What Do We Do?

This is not a political blog but I have commented many times that our military requires a geopolitical strategy in order to develop a meaningful military strategy which can, in turn, be used to guide our procurement, force structure, force levels, training, doctrine, etc.  The lack of a US geopolitical strategy has never been more evident than while watching the ongoing Russia/Ukraine/Crimea issue.  The US is clueless about how to respond because we don’t have a coherent strategy.  It’s no wonder, then, that our military often seems directionless – they have no geopolitical strategy to work from so they’re operating in a near vacuum. 

As I said, this is not a political blog so I’m not going to delve any deeper into this. 

Budget Highlights

Christopher Cavas, writing for the Navy Times website, has posted an article highlighting some budget impacts on individual weapons and platforms (1).  Here are the main points.

• Shipbuilding will be almost unaffected.

• JSF - Marine F-35B buys will remain unchanged, however, the Navy's F-35C will be cut from 49 to 20 in the 2015-2018 period.

• P-8A - The Poseidon buy will drop from 56 to 49 in the 2015-2018 period.

• MH-60R - The 2016 buy of 29 helicopters has been eliminated.

• MQ-8C Fire Scout - Eliminated.

• Tomahawk - The Tactical Tomahawk buy of 980 has been reduced to 100 in 2015 and none beyond that.

• Hellfire - The Hellfire missile buy of 1519 has been reduced to zero.

• JSOW - The missile buy has been reduced from 1799 to 400 in the 2015-2018 period.

As I’ve stated repeatedly, the Navy will do anything to protect new ship construction funding.

(1) http://www.navytimes.com/article/20140304/NEWS05/303040038/Navy-budget-takes-bite-out-aircraft-weapons

It's Raining UAVs

The Navy has publicly declared their intent to incorporate significant numbers of UAVs into carrier airwings.  Depending on who you listen to, carriers of the near future may include a squadron or two of UAVs on up to entire airwings of UAVs.  In addition, UAVs are being looked at for maritime surveillance, electronic warfare, tanking, air superiority, ASW, and any other role that manned aircraft now fill.  The general consensus seems to be that UAVs will become significant assets within the next few years and will dominate operations within a decade.

However, there are two related problems with this: cost and reliability.

As the UAVs take on more roles and become more complex their costs will rise sharply.  As an example, if we want a UAV that has the range, speed, stealth, payload, networking, etc. of an F-35, the UAV will cost what an F-35 does.  The incremental cost of manning an aircraft (the cockpit and life support) is miniscule and is largely offset by the additional datalinks and communications equipment needed for remote control as well as the more complex programming.  This is fairly obvious and straightforward.

What’s less apparent to most of us is the current state of reliability of UAVs in general.  Data on UAV operations is very difficult to come by but data from the U.S. Air Force Safety Center reveals that a total of 79 General Atomics MQ-1/9 Predator/Reaper fixed-wing UAVs have been destroyed in accidents, with another 21 seriously damaged. The Air Force acquired 248 Predators and 156 Reapers through the end of Fiscal Year 2011 (1).  That’s 100 damaged or destroyed UAVs out of 404.  I was stunned when I saw that.

What the data doesn’t indicate is the cause of the various incidents.  Anecdotally, communications loss seems to be the leading factor.

Back to the earlier point, how are cost and reliability related?  As the UAVs become more capable and complex and costs rise, the loss rate is going to quickly become unacceptable.  Consider the low side of the cost curve for our F-35-ish UAV example.  Losing 100 F-35-ish UAVs at $100M per aircraft for a total of $10B is simply unaffordable.

Consider the losses described above – those occurred in benign electromagnetic environments.  What kind of losses would be incurred in a hostile environment with challenged communications?

ComNavOps is on record as being doubtful about the controllability of UAVs in an electromagnetically hostile environment.  However, I had been under the impression that operations in benign environments were reasonably reliable.  This is an eye-opener.

Now, to be fair, I would assume that communications and control reliability are constantly improving.  Nevertheless, this suggests that we are still very far away from reliable control in combat.  Much, much further than I had thought.  The website dronewars.net lists 73 USAF Predator/Reaper/Global Hawk crashes since 2007 (2).

I’ve been unable to find corresponding Navy UAV data but I was able to document the following incidents in the last few years.

2 August 2010, an MQ-8 Fire Scout became unresponsive to commands during testing and entered restricted airspace around Washington, D.C -Wiki

21 June 2011 Fire Scout lost communications and crashed over Libya.

30 March 2012 Fire Scout crashed off the coast of Africa after it was unable to land on the frigate Simpson at the end of a surveillance mission. 

6 April 2012, another Fire Scout crashed in Afghanistan.

11 Jun 2012 BAMS-D (RQ-4 Global Hawk) crashed in Chesapeake Bay, MD

24 Oct 2013 MQ-8B crashed at Patuxent River

15 Dec 2013 MQ-8B crashed in the Atlantic

I’ve also found documentation of two BQM-74 drone crashes due to communications loss.  The BQM-74 is the drone that just recently crashed into the cruiser Chancellorsville during a training exercise.

I’m not advocating stopping the development of UAVs, just pointing out that the communications and control issues seem not to be as far along as the military would have us believe.  We also need to be cognizant of the cost-reliability relationship.  Finally, I’ll repeat:  I’m highly dubious about the controllability of UAVs in combat.

 (1)http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/ain-defense-perspective/2012-04-13/us-navys-fire-scout-grounding-highlights-uas-losses

 (2) http://dronewars.net/drone-crash-database/

In Harm's Way

Our recent discussions about amphibious assault have highlighted a characteristic of the Navy that is a bit disappointing and that is the unwillingness to accept any degree of risk in combat.  In fact, it’s gotten to the point where it’s becoming codified in the form of doctrine.  Put simply, the Navy has become risk averse to the point where safety and preservation of assets has taken precedence over mission accomplishment.  Let’s look at some specific examples.

The Navy has decided that they can’t operate even remotely near an enemy shore.  This shows as a doctrinal move from horizon distance amphibious assaults to 25 nm - 50 nm or even greater.  Of course, as we’ve discussed, these kinds of distances have hamstrung the ability of the Marine/Navy team to conduct a successful amphibious assault. 

In fact, the Navy has gone so far as to design an entire LCS class around the concept that the blue water Navy couldn’t operate in littoral waters.  The littoral zone (whatever distance that is) is now accepted by the Navy as a forbidden area due to the threat of land launched anti-ship cruise missiles.

The Navy appears to have ceded the A2/AD challenge to the Chinese without a shot being fired.  The Navy now implicitly recognizes that they can’t operate within the A2/AD zone.  This is evidenced by the overwhelming focus on BMD.  Of course, the issue is not that they can’t operate but that they won’t.  They won’t risk ship losses and so they strive for a mythical and unachievable perfect defense that will allow them to operate in the zone.

At its most basic level, war is attrition.  To win, you have to inflict attrition on the enemy to the point where it becomes unacceptable to him and he quits.  The corollary to that is that you have to be willing to accept attrition of your own forces in order to accomplish your goals.  That doesn’t mean behaving recklessly but neither does it mean being so risk averse that you can’t or won’t accept losses.

If you want to conduct a successful amphibious assault you have to move to horizon range and accept some losses.  If you want to ensure no losses then you can stand 200 nm offshore but your assault will fail.

If you want to operate in the restricted waters of the Middle East during a war then you have to accept some losses.

If you want to press a war with China then you have to enter the A2/AD zone (long range blockade strategies not withstanding) and accept some losses.

Why has the Navy developed this risk aversion and what can be done about it?

The why is easy to answer.  The Navy has opted for a force structure that is continually shrinking while the individual ships are getting bigger, more expensive, and more capable.  In other words, we’re concentrating more and more firepower in fewer and fewer hulls.  We have so much money and capability tied up in each hull that the loss of one borders on catastrophic.  No wonder we’re risk averse! 

Consider the amphibious assault issue.  Aegis, and now AMDR, was designed specifically to deal with swarms of supersonic cruise missiles.  Yet now we’re refusing to approach an enemy’s shore closer than 50 – 100 nm because of the presence of anti-ship missiles.  Why are we spending a bazillion dollars on Aegis/AMDR ships if we don’t think they can stand in close and fight they way they’re designed?  Why are we spending billions on new amphibious ships that are going to stand so far off shore that we can’t conduct a successful amphibious assault which is their reason for being?

We have got to turn this trend around and the only way to do so is to stop concentrating so much capital and firepower in each hull.  We need to revert to a much more distributed firepower force structure.  We need greater numbers of less capable hulls.

I’m not arguing against having any highly capable ships.  There’s nothing wrong with having some highly capable ships that can act as the core of a group.  We just can’t have every ship be a very expensive, highly capable platform.  We can’t afford that approach, it’s gutting our fleet numbers, and it’s imposing a culture of risk aversion that conflicts with mission accomplishment.

Aegis Cruiser Replacement

As you all know by now, the Navy has announced that it will idle 11 Aegis cruisers.  These are the most powerful AAW vessels in the world.  The Navy says it only needs half the current number of Aegis cruisers given the budget constraints that currently exist.  OK, that’s fair.  But, if that’s the case, doesn’t that inexorably lead one to ask why we’re pursuing new Burke Flt III ships that are the intended replacements for the Aegis cruisers?  If we already have 11 extra of the most powerful AAW vessels in the world why do we need to build more?  Couldn’t we just skip the first 11 Burke Flt IIIs? 

Some will say that the Flt III’s BMD capability is what we need.  Think about that.  The Navy has already told us that Aegis ships can perform BMD and that many Aegis ships already possess that capability so what does the Flt III gain us?  The only real difference between the Tico/Burkes and the Flt III will be the AMDR radar.  As I understand it, the advantage of AMDR over Aegis/SPY is that it gives us the ability to perform AAW and BMD simultaneously which is something that Aegis/SPY can’t do.  OK, that’s fair.  But, does that alone justify scrapping (cause that’s what will ultimately happen to the 11 cruisers – once laid up, they’re never going to sea again) 11 of the most powerful cruisers in the world and spending billions for new ships? 

If BMD is that important and the AMDR is the key to that capability, then why are we skimping on the dimensions of the AMDR for the Flt III so that it’s not anywhere near as powerful as its statement of needs says it should be?  If BMD/AMDR is that critical shouldn’t we be building whatever size ship we need to gain the full advantage of the AMDR?

Alternatively, and most logically, given the very limited applicability of the BMD mission, wouldn’t it make more sense to develop a dedicated BMD sensor vessel and keep the Aegis/SPY ships as more general purpose combat ships?  I’m thinking, of course, of the proposal to base a BMD sensor suite on an LPD-17 derivative.  A handful of LPD(BMD) vessels to sail with carrier/amphib groups would take care of the BMD mission without requiring that we scrap 11 Aegis cruisers while simultaneously building Aegis cruiser replacements that only partially meet the stated need. 

I just don’t understand the Navy’s ongoing path of early retirements to fund ever-decreasing numbers of new construction vessels.  This is a classic death spiral in action.

Taylor CO Fired

Navy Times website reports (1) that the Captain, Cdr. Dennis Volpe, of the frigate Taylor has been relieved of command following the grounding of the ship in the Black Sea during the Olympics.  The article states,

“The investigation hasn’t turned up any egregious mistakes by Volpe.”

And yet he’s being relieved.

I have no further information about the incident and it may be that the Captain was negligent in some way and should be fired but it’s starting to look like another case of zero-defect mentality.  Even if the man was, in some way, at fault where’s the harm in allowing people to make mistakes if they can learn from them.  I’d rather have a Captain who once grounded a ship and learned from it than a man who’s scared to handle the ship aggressively when needed. 

All this zero-defect mentality does is encourage a zero-aggressiveness mentality – not exactly what we want from our combat leaders.

(1)http://www.navytimes.com/article/20140225/CAREERS03/302250017/Frigate-Taylor-CO-fired-2-weeks-after-running-aground

The Reality of the Next Frigate

I can’t tell you how many comments, texts, and emails ComNavOps has received since the new budget announcement came out that the LCS was dead and a frigate would be pursued.  They all start with, “Here’s what I think a new frigate should have,” followed by a list of favorite weapons.  Many reference foreign frigate designs.  In short, everyone has their idea of what a new frigate should be.   And, taken in isolation (meaning divorced from strategic and force structure needs), they’re all fine.

Here, though, is the reality.

The Navy is not going to buy a foreign design.  If for no other reason, the Congressional outcry about job loss prohibits that approach.  There is a very remote possibility that the Navy could obtain license rights to a foreign design for production in America, I suppose, but, for better or worse, that’s just not how the Navy works.  Sure, we’ll buy a foreign radar or something but not a foreign ship.

The Navy could build a scaled down Burke but there’s one important part of a Burke that would not scale down and that’s the cost.  This would be a fiscal non-starter.

The Navy could build a modernized Perry and, to be honest, there’s a lot to be said for this approach.  It’s a proven design and would require somewhat less development, one would hope.  A modernized (stealth’ed) superstructure and some VLS cells would make for a pretty fair frigate.  However, the Navy is never going to take this approach because doing so would be an admission that the Navy was wrong all along about the LCS issue and the Perrys.  You’ll recall all the statements from the Navy that the Perrys couldn’t be modernized in any useful manner.

OK, that covers what the Navy won’t do.  What will it do?

The Navy is going to build a frigate-ized version of the LCS very similar to the export versions that the LCS manufacturers have proposed.  The hull designs already exist, the manufacturers have already done preliminary design work, and the industrial production base already exists.

The Navy is also going to do this because it’s the shortest route to getting hulls in the water.  You’ll recall that the original LCS impetus was hulls in the water as fast as possible (the end of the Cold War was threatening the Navy’s budget slice) and the Navy would figure out what to do with them later.  Well, the same motivation exists for the new frigate.  The Navy desperately wants a major construction program funded so as to ensure future budget slices.  If the Navy goes too long without building new, low end ships and the world doesn’t collapse, it may be difficult for the Navy to justify an increase in their slice of the budget pie several years down the road when a new design is finally ready.  For that reason, the Navy will go with whatever gets hulls in the water the quickest and will worry about what to do with them later (boy that sentence sounds familiar).  Unfortunately, the quickest route is an export LCS.

I say “unfortunate” because the LCS design is fundamentally flawed in so many ways.  I’m not going to bother listing them since we’ve covered them repeatedly.  Simply adding on a few VLS cells isn’t going to make the LCS a winner.

I could be wrong about this. 

I hope I’m wrong about this. 

I’m rarely wrong about things like this.