A New AAW

Anti-air warfare (AAW) is the backbone of the Navy.  You’d think the backbone would be some sort of offensive capability, wouldn’t you?  But, I digress …  We’ve discussed how the Navy has lost its offensive focus and become defensive oriented (see, "The Best Defense Is A Good Offense").  Our frontline ships, the Burkes, are primarily defensive platforms with only a modest and limited capability for Tomahawk strikes.  Anyway, given the importance the Navy attaches to AAW, let’s take a closer look at it.

We’ve already discussed the relative value of active (hard kill) versus passive (soft kill) defenses and the track record of each (see, "AAW - Hard Kill Or Soft Kill?").

Let’s look a bit closer at the hard kill side of the issue.  A few things jump out:

Effectiveness – The historical data shows that AAW missiles are only marginally effective with success rates of 1% - 25%.  Against modern supersonic aircraft and missiles supported by ECM and decoys the success rate will probably be in the 1%-10% range.

Engagement Density – The speed of modern aircraft and missiles makes for very short engagement windows which means that the number of missiles (the density) that can be launched per target is very small.

Cost – The Navy’s Standard missile costs $1M+ each and the more advanced versions (SM-3 & SM-6) are more than that.

What do these factors mean?

The marginal effectiveness means that you need more missiles per target to ensure a kill.  That’s straightforward but the limited engagement density precludes increasing the number of missiles to compensate for marginal effectiveness.  Worse, when the marginal effectiveness is combined with the cost, the desire for more missiles per engagement leads to skyrocketing costs even if we could increase the engagement density.  This is a self-limiting path.

The preceding suggests that the Navy’s emphasis on long range, hard kill missile-based AAW will be only marginally effective and exceedingly expensive.  Compounding this is the Navy’s neglect of short range AAW defense.  The Burkes, for example, typically carry a single Phalanx CIWS (some ships carry two).  That’s hardly adequate.

 

It’s easy to project the ultimate result of the Navy’s current path.  AAW missiles are getting bigger and more expensive.  As the Navy attempts to build ever faster, longer ranged, smarter AAW missiles they will be able to afford fewer and fewer.  Missile size will soon exceed the Mk 41 VLS cell size and have to switch to the Mk 57 Peripheral VLS system of the Zumwalt with the attendant decrease in cell numbers.  Thus, we can foresee a path of increasing costs and decreasing numbers.

We’re already able to see a dilemma involving enemy UAVs.  Do we really want to spend $1M+ to shoot down a $5K or $50K UAV?  If not, what’s the alternative?

So what’s the solution?

Conceptually, we can engage at greater distances to increase the engagement density.  The further out we begin the engagement, the more time we’ll have and the more AAW missiles we can throw at the target.  That’s expensive but would be effective.  The problem is targeting.  Modern anti-ship missiles are generally sea skimming high-subsonic or supersonic which is difficult to detect especially in an ECM environment.  Thus, attempting to engage at greater distances won’t work unless we come up with a breakthrough advance in detection technology.

Conceptually, we can engage at the same, or closer, distances but with much greater engagement density.  The greater number of weapons would compensate for the marginal effectiveness.  The problem is that we’re limited in terminal guidance and target detection and discrimination once missiles start exploding in the target’s vicinity.  Thus, greater numbers are only going to result in untargeted or incorrectly targeted AAW missiles being wasted at $1M+ each.

So, conceptually we can increase our AAW hard kill chances but there are significant problems.  Now what?

Well, this is where we reach the point of this post.  The following is a conceptual missile-based hard kill AAW system patterned after the CIWS.  Imagine a missile that is medium to short ranged (we aren’t going to detect anti-ship missiles beyond that range anyway! – ballistic missiles notwithstanding), cheap, and doesn’t require precision guidance.  We could fling large numbers at targets and increase our overall effectiveness.  

Such a missile system is based on the CIWS concept.  The missiles are fragmentation types that are intended to explode in the path of the incoming target, creating a “wall” of debris for the target to fly through.  As such, precise targeting and guidance is not required since skin-to-skin contact is unnecessary.  A salvo of several missiles thrown in the approximate path of the target ensures a “hit”.  As with CIWS, the missiles can be continually launched until a kill is achieved.

The missiles would be relatively cheap since they would be short to medium ranged and would not need a sophisticated seeker.  In essence, a proximity fuze is all that’s required.  The missiles would not be guided but would simply be launched at a calculated intercept point.  Of course, they would need to be high speed to minimize the amount of maneuvering the target could accomplish before the missile’s arrival.

An added benefit is that massively capable radar systems like Aegis/AMDR are not really necessary since very long distance, precise targeting and guidance is not needed.

In essence, this is a CIWS missile with a much greater range than a conventional CIWS gun.

On an interesting, related note, occasional attempts were made to do something similar to this in WWII using large caliber battleship guns which would fire shells into the water in front of low flying, incoming aircraft with the hope that the planes would fly through the resulting water spouts and be knocked down.  It wasn’t tried often and I’ve never heard of any success with the technique but it is an interesting parallel.

You'll note that I've left out any specific discussion of ESSM.  This is because it falls under the same cost and capability path of diminishing returns and because it has some severe problems to the point that it may not even be functional on a practical basis.  Admittedly, I'm drawing somewhat suspect conclusions about this from various reports.  Regardless, it doesn't change the premise of the post.

This is one of those conjectural posts that ComNavOps comes up with from time to time.  It’s offered as an interesting discussion point and an outside-the-box idea.  Would it work?  Who knows?  It’s worth a few minutes thought, though.  Feel free to offer alternatives that would address the hard kill AAW issues because the current AAW path is unsustainable.

On a related note, I think the Navy recognizes the unsustainable path they’re on and are responding by trying to develop lasers and railguns.  Unfortunately, those technologies are still decades away from practical use.  The approach in this post offers a shorter term alternative.

LCS Waiver Trials

GAO has a fascinating report out about the Navy’s acceptance of the first two LCSs despite significant uncompleted construction work (1).  ComNavOps has reported on this before but this report contains the entire ugly story.  The report describes the contract terms as they affect delivery of the ships and their acceptance by the Navy.  It also identifies the responsible parties within the Navy at the various stages.  For instance,

 “During builder’s trials, inspectors from the Navy’s Supervisor of Shipbuilding, Conversion, and Repair (SUPSHIP) are generally responsible for observing and identifying deficiencies.”

“During acceptance trials, the responsibility for identifying deficiencies falls upon the Navy’s Board of Inspection and Survey (INSURV), an independent organization whose inspectors evaluate the newly constructed ship and report on its material condition to Congress and Navy leadership.”

INSURV conducts two inspections:  one for preliminary acceptance and another following post-delivery outfitting and availability periods to determine final acceptance.  Serious deficiencies are referred to as “starred” and must be corrected by the builder or waived by the Chief of Naval Operations.

Here’s the summary of results from the acceptance trials for LCS-1/2.

LCS-1 Acceptance Trial Part One

Newfound Starred Deficiencies = 21

Uninspected Systems = 63

Incomplete Certifications = 19

Incomplete Compartments = 2%

LCS-1 Acceptance Trial Part Two

Newfound Starred Deficiencies = 31

Uninspected Systems = Not Assessed

Incomplete Certifications = Not Assessed

Incomplete Compartments = Not Assessed

LCS-2 Acceptance Trial Part One

Newfound Starred Deficiencies = 39

Uninspected Systems = 83

Incomplete Certifications = 12

Incomplete Compartments = 31%

You’re probably thinking, this can’t be true.  It must be another humor piece.  No construction program could be this bad.  Sadly, it’s not.  This is real.  Keep reading. 

Both LCS-1 and LCS-2 were delivered and accepted by the Navy with major shortfalls in completeness and adherence to contract specifications.  LCS-2 had 31% of its compartments not even finished!!!  The report notes,

“We found that LCS 1 and LCS 2 were delivered with a large number of open deficiencies, the majority of which were determined to be attributable to the contractors. Our analysis found that over half of these deficiencies were closed after the ships were delivered to the Navy and were being outfitted, but other deficiencies continued to be unresolved one year after delivery—a point at which the Navy had taken final acceptance of LCS 1 and LCS 2.”

Somewhere around half the deficiencies remained unresolved a year after delivery?  How could that happen?  Here’s the explanation.

“Under the cost-reimbursement contracts, the LCS 1 and LCS 2 prime contractors were only required to give their best efforts to complete quality-related activities—along with the other work specified in the contracts—up to each contract’s estimated cost. These efforts resulted in LCS 1 and LCS 2 not completing final contract trials, and LCS 2 not finishing its acceptance trials—resulting in increased knowledge gaps related to ship performance and deficiencies. In addition, the Navy did not achieve the quality standards on LCS 1 and LCS 2 that are outlined in its own ship acceptance policy, although the policy also contains several notable flexibilities to these standards. In particular, the policy recognizes situations where the Navy may defer work until after delivery and final acceptances and affords the Chief of Naval Operations the power to waive certain quality standards outlined in the policy. The Navy relied extensively on these waivers to facilitate its trials and acceptance processes for LCS 1 and LCS 2.”

The report points out that to this day, almost five years after delivery, LCS-2 has not competed acceptance trials!!!  Clearly, the Navy has no intention of ever doing so.

The report points out that the Navy complied with all relevant rules and laws in accepting the significantly incomplete ships through the extensive use of waivers.  Technical compliance does not, however, excuse horrific program management.  None of us would pay full price for an incomplete car and yet that’s exactly what the Navy did multiple times.  By the way, the Navy did the exact same thing with the entire production run of the LPD-17 class.  No lessons learned by this Navy!

The Navy didn't conduct acceptance trials on the LCS, they conducted waiver trials.

Read the report.  It paints an absolutely stunning portrait of incompetence and mismanagement by Navy leadership.

(1) Government Accountability Office, “LITTORAL COMBAT SHIP - Navy Complied with Regulations in Accepting Two Lead Ships, but Quality Problems Persisted after Delivery”, September 2014, GAO-14-827

Navy To Stand Up New Squadrons

In a surprise statement, the Navy today announced that it will add hundreds of new carrier aviation squadrons to accommodate the impending entry of the F-35C into service.  In recognition of the greatly enhanced capabilities of the F-35 compared to the legacy Hornets, each squadron will consist of a single F-35.  Each F-35 squadron will provide its own ISR and ECM support as well as strike and air-to-air functions.

Regarding perceived air-to-air shortcomings among uninformed critics, Navy spokesman Adm. Earnest Bilgewater had this to say,

“Air-to-air was a capability that was added just to placate Congress.  In reality, since the enemy can’t see the F-35 it will never need to conduct air-to-air functions.  There’s no point shooting down enemy aircraft if they can’t harm you, right?”

Further, the Navy has announced plans to give the F-35 a buddy tanking capability.  In keeping with the new squadron organization concept, each F-35 will buddy tank itself. 

“The F-35 buddy self-tanking capability will nicely complement the F-35’s self-ISR and self-ECM escorting capability that it currently has.” 

When questioned about the seemingly small number of aircraft per squadron, the Navy spokesman offered this,

“The unparalleled efficiency and effectiveness of the F-35 compared to any other aircraft means that the new single-aircraft squadrons will be far more capable than the old squadrons of 12 Hornets or even the older squadrons of 14 Tomcats.  In fact, given the immense leap in capability that the new squadrons will have, we considered designating each F-35 as two squadrons but we thought that might be too confusing, organizationally, and too hard to represent in presentations.  However, we’re going to continue to work on ways to represent that in PowerPoint slides.  Our eventual goal, as you might imagine, is to designate each F-35 as its own airwing.  Candidly, we don’t have the PowerPoint capability to represent that yet but that’s what we’re working on.”

Well, there you have it, readers.  We were puzzled why the Navy would build the Ford larger than the Nimitz even though the airwings were shrinking.  Now we know why the Navy increased the size of the Ford over the Nimitz class.  The Fords will have to accommodate hundreds of additional squadrons beyond what the Nimitz can.  Only a significantly larger carrier could do that.

Carrier Squadrons To Shrink Again

ComNavOps has documented the steady shrinkage of naval aviation for some time now.  Carriers have declined from 15 to the current 10 (9 active).  Worse, the airwings have shrunk from around 90+ aircraft during the Cold War to the current levels of around 65.  Carriers embarked 6 combat squadrons (VF and VA) in the mid-60’s and now embark 4 squadrons (VFA).  Even worse, combat squadrons (fighter and strike aircraft) have shrunk from around 14 planes to the current 12 (nominal, actual average is around 11).  The Navy stated some time ago that squadrons would shrink even further when the F-35 entered service.  USNI website now reports (1),

“Seven F-35C squadrons of 10 aircraft and a Fleet Replacement Squadron (FRS) of 30 aircraft will begin to be based at Lemoore starting in 2016, according to the statement.”

Current airwings have around 44 combat aircraft in four squadrons.  This is going to drop to 40 aircraft (nominal).  That’s not a lot of combat aircraft.  Note that the goal of 10 aircraft per squadron is the nominal figure.  The reality is going to be squadrons with 8 or 9 actual aircraft and airwings are going to shrink from the current actual combat count of around 44 to around 36.

You know, of course, what all this suggests?  That’s right.  We need bigger aircraft carriers.  The Ford was a step in the right direction but with airwings continuing to shrink, we need to go further and build an enlarged Ford. 

Ahh ………..   Wait a minute.  I’m re-reading what I just wrote and something seems off.  If the airwings are shrinking, why do we need bigger carriers?  The Fords are bigger than the Nimitzs but will embark fewer aircraft.  That would seem to suggest the opposite – that the carriers should be getting smaller.  Now I’m all confused.  Smaller airwings but bigger carriers?  I can’t figure this out.  I’m just going to trust that the Navy knows what it’s doing.

(1) USNI, "Navy To Base F-35Cs at NAS Lenmoore", Sam LaGrone, October 2, 2014 3:48 PM

http://news.usni.org/2014/10/02/navy-base-f-35cs-nas-lenmoore

ISIS Lessons

ComNavOps occasionally will use non-Navy events to illustrate lessons that can be applied to the Navy.  Such an occurrence was described in a Navy Times website article (1) describing a British aerial attack on ISIS targets in northwest Iraq.  From the article,

“RAF Akrotiri station commander, Group Captain Chaz Kennett said that two Tornado GR4 aircraft used bombs and precision missiles to destroy a “heavy weapon position” and an armed pick-up truck.”

A quick check of a map shows that the distance from the base to the target would have been on the order of 400 miles, assuming a straight line flight.  That’s 800 miles round trip with the attendant risk of pilot’s lives and wear and tear on the airframes, all to plink a machine gun, or some such, and an armed pick-up truck.  That’s just stunningly poor allocation of military assets. 

Note that I’m not picking on the British.  The US is doing the same type of thing.

While combat is not an exercise in business principles, there is still an element of cost effectiveness that must be considered and this mission, as described in the article, did not even remotely meet that criteria.  This mission was the equivalent of using a carrier group to enforce fishing regulations.  Oh wait …  The USN actually did that.  Still, you get the idea.

What lesson is there in this?  Well, there’s several possible takeaways from this.

It illustrates the trap that a military that is excessively focused on high tech can fall prey to.  When a low tech task needs to be performed and all you have is high tech assets the result is bound to be a mismatch between target value and resources.  The Navy (and US military, in general) needs to keep an awareness of low tech necessities firmly in mind.  The days of cavalierly throwing million dollar solutions at thousand dollar problems are gone.  Budget considerations demands a better use of resources.

It illustrates the need for boots on the ground and forces in closer proximity.  Of course, there’s a political element at play, here.  The nation is war-weary and boots on the ground would be an unpopular option.  However, there are certain tasks that boots are a much better choice for and we can’t rule out good options because of poor politics.

It illustrates the need for logical and coherent geopolitical strategies.  The ISIS problem arose from our poor strategic handling of the entire Iraq episode.

It illustrates the potential value of area bombardment as opposed to the current obsession with precision.  A B-52/1/2 aircraft performing area bombardment might be a more cost effective solution than trying to plink individual pick-up trucks.

It illustrates the pitfalls inherent in trying to get involved in every dispute around the world.  Whether this particular involvement makes sense or not is not the point.  The US must exercise restraint when contemplating leaps into regional conflicts that have no good outcome and may not involve core US strategic interests.  I’m not specifically passing judgment on this case because that’s a political consideration and outside the scope of this blog. 

This may illustrate the perfect scenario for drone usage.  Drones have a high loiter capability, carry sufficient firepower to plink trucks, don’t put pilots at risk, and, in this case, would operate in a permissive environment.

As I said, the US is doing the same thing.  The Navy is tasking carrier groups with plinking pick-up trucks.  There has to be a better alternative.  There are plenty of lessons to be learned from this simple example. 

(1) http://www.navytimes.com/article/20141001/NEWS08/310010069/

New Frigate Design - Part 2

I’m sure you all recognized that “new” frigate design as just being a Fletcher class destroyer.  Hopefully, though, that little thought exercise also made you realize just how far we’ve moved away from real warships over the years since WWII.

Consider the sheer density of weapons that WWII warships carried.  Modern warships don’t even come close.  A simple Fletcher class destroyer puts an LCS to humiliating shame and, in many respects, even a Burke.

Consider the armor and survivability of even the lowly Fletcher compared to an LCS or Burke.

My point is not that we need to build exact duplicates of WWII Fletchers but that we need to return to serious WARship design and a study of WWII designs is a good place for the Navy to start since they seem to have forgotten what a warship is.

We tend to think the modern VLS is a wondrous thing – able to spit forth highly accurate missiles all day long.  Why, a single Burke has 96 missiles and can, therefore, shoot down around 85 enemy missiles and aircraft (we’re attempting to be fair and acknowledge that a few misses might occur).  The reality, though, is that the historical record of modern AAW systems is abysmal.  In addition, the Navy’s philosophy is shoot-shoot-look, or some such.  If you consider an average of four missiles per target, that’s only 24 targets that can be engaged (we’re ignoring quad-packs).  Given that a portion of the VLS cells would likely be filled with Tomahawks and ASROC, that probably drops the AAW target capacity to around 16.  There you have it.  A modern Burke can engage around 16 targets before running out of “ammo”.  We’ve covered VLS and AAW effectiveness in previous posts so I won’t belabor it further.

The point is that modern ships have a very low weapon density and even lower “magazine” capacity.  A Fletcher could engage aerial targets for hours on end.

The situation is even worse for surface combat.  Modern USN ships have almost no anti-surface capability.  A Burke has a maximum of 8 Harpoons and a single 5” gun.  Compare that to a Fletcher with five 5” guns and ten large torpedoes.  Again, the Fletcher’s gun magazines allowed it to engage multiple targets, endlessly, for practical purposes.

Even the Burkes vaunted Tomahawk capability is limited.  While the Tomahawk is a very potent long range precision strike weapon, the general utility of the missile is a bit limited.  In an amphibious assault scenario, for example, a Burke would probably have a Tomahawk loadout of around 20 Tomahawks.  That’s 20 targets that can be engaged and then the Burke is limited to a single 5” gun.  Further, the Tomahawk is not capable of area bombardment and suppressive fire (well, I guess it is but at $1M+ per missile no one would use it that way).  By comparison, the Fletcher could engage land targets for hours on end with five 5” guns.

Consider the simple task of sinking an enemy tanker.  A modern Burke probably can’t accomplish it.  Eight Harpoons would be unlikely to sink a tanker.  By comparison, a Fletcher’s ten 21” torpedoes would almost certainly do the job.

I know some of you are going to try to make the argument that modern guided weapons make large magazines superfluous.  A single missile can do the work of hundreds of unguided rounds, you claim.  Well, you’re right – if the guided missile actually worked the way the manufacturer’s claim.  We’ve already documented that the historical record for guided missiles is very poor.  This blog is based on logic and data and the data is unequivocal – guided missiles are not very accurate.  Hit rates for AAW engagements are in the 1% - 25% range and for surface engagements are in the 20% range, at best, and will likely be in the 1%-10% range against actively defended warships.

All right, that’s enough.  My point is not to argue that a Fletcher is more powerful than a Burke, although for many scenarios one could make a credible argument for just that, but that the weapon density, armor, and survivability of modern warships has been severely compromised since WWII.  We have lost our way in warship design and the study of WWII warships is a good place to start reminding ourselves of how we should be designing warships.

New Frigate Design

As the Navy works to settle on its new LCS new small surface combatant design, ComNavOps offers this conceptual possibility for a frigate sized ship.

Length:  376 ft

Displacement:  2500 tons

Range:  5500 miles at 15 kts

Speed:  36.5 kts

Armor:  ¾” – 1” high strength steel with 1” – 2” armor around weapon mounts

Weapons:

5 x 5” guns

7 x 25mm guns

6 x SeaRam

8 Harpoon

It’s about the same size as an LCS, just as fast, better range, well armored, very survivable, and well armed for its role.  What do you think?