Influence Sweeping and the LCS

The LCS mine countermeasures (MCM) module has experienced repeated failures, undergone conceptual resets, and seems terminally mired in developmental testing.  I won’t bother citing the litany of failures like realizing the helo couldn’t safely tow the MCM equipment, discovering the launch/recovery mechanism was designed by a kindergarten class, cancelling the Remote Minehunting System (RMS) after purchasing 10 of the planned 54 units (1), suffering a Nunn-McCurdy program breach, finding that the Remote Multi-Mission Vehicle failed reliability standards, etc. (oops,  I guess I did cite a mini-litany!)

What little progress there’s been has been almost peripheral in nature.  Consider this proud announcement from the Navy proclaiming successful integration testing of the Knifefish Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV) and Textron Unmanned Influence Sweep System (UISS) around the beginning of the year.

During these integration events, both the Knifefish and UISS successfully verified the communications link between Independence and the unmanned systems as well as executed multiple launch and recovery evolutions from the ship. (2)

So, 15 years of effort managed to prove that the communications link worked (at least long enough to complete the test) and that the vehicles could be launched and recovered (at least once).  What’s missing from the testing?  - How about any semblance of actual performance testing like, can it actually find a mine?  I get that you have to start with small, incremental tests of the various subsystems before you can attempt an overall performance test but wouldn’t you think that after 15 years we’d beyond simple comm checks and the basic vehicle launch/recovery stage?  But we’re not!  I mean, just great – 15 years and we can launch the vehicle and talk to it.  Wow.  Impressive technological achievement!

As a point of interest, the LCS MCM IOC date has slipped multiple times and is now tentatively scheduled for 2022. (4)  By the time IOC is achieved, if it ever is, we’ll be looking at around 20 years of developmental effort !

Okay, I’m mocking the LCS MCM program and rightly so but I actually want to examine one specific aspect of it and that is the influence sweeping.

To begin with, we have to understand that the very concept of the LCS MCM effort was flawed even if everything had worked perfectly.  Huh???  How could that be?  If everything had worked perfectly the MCM module would have been a success, right?  Wrong!  The inherent flaw in the concept was, and still is, time.  That’s right, time.  The MCM module was, and still is, envisioned to laboriously, painfully, sloooooowly look for individual mines and then laboriously, painfully, sloooooowly neutralize them one by one.  Given that the speed of the underwater vehicles involved is around 5-7 knots, you can readily imagine how slowly mine clearing operations would proceed.  Having examined the various technologies and methodologies, and read the various reports, my best estimate is that each LCS would be fortunate to clear around two mines per hour.  Considering that minefields can easily consist of thousands or tens of thousands of mines, I leave it to you to do the math on the total clearance time required.

You don’t believe me about the time and clearance rate, do you?  Well, the concept calls for multiple passes through the suspect area.  The first pass does a ‘quick’ (quick, meaning 5-7 kts) pass to identify items of interest.  The second pass slowly zeroes in on the items of interest and verifies that they are, or are not, actual mines.  Systems like the unmanned underwater vehicle Knifefish or the towed AQS-20 sonar are used for the first two passes. The third pass is the actual neutralization pass where an underwater, expendable vehicle self-destructs against the mine.  SeaFox, Archerfish, and Barracuda are examples of such vehicles.  In the envisioned LCS module, a helo can carry up to four of these neutralization vehicles.  Thus, the helo can destroy four mines before it has to return to the host ship to land and reload vehicles.  That return to the ship, landing, unloading and reloading, and return to the operational area takes time, time that is added to the effective clearance rate.

By the way, did you realize that search vehicles, such as the Knifefish, have to wait until they return to their host ship to upload their data for analysis?  Not until that data is uploaded and the analysis completed can the verification and neutralization of the mine begin.  I bet you thought the process was real time and that mines were being neutralized as quickly as they were found!  Anyway, that return transit time, vehicle recovery time, upload time, and analysis time all gets added into the effective clearance rate.  Now are you beginning to see where the 2 mines per hour clearance rate estimate comes from?  And, even that rate may be optimistic!

Each neutralization event requires around 30 minutes.  The helo has to position itself, release the neutralization vehicle, the vehicle has to find and positively identify the specific mine, properly position itself relative to the mine, and then detonate.  After detonation, the disturbed water has to settle and then the destruction of the mine has to be verified.  Doesn’t sound like a speedy process does it (and that’s ignoring the first two passes)?  So, at best, the helo can neutralize two mines per hour and, after neutralizing four mines, has to return to the host ship to reload on neutralizers so that 2 mines per hour clearance rate is going to drop to around 1 mine per hour!

Now, if you’re clearing minefields after a conflict is over then, fine, take as much time as you need.  However, if you’ve got an assault fleet backed up behind you waiting to hit the beach or a carrier/surface group piled up waiting to transit a chokepoint, clearance speed is of monumental importance and that’s the inherent flaw in the LCS MCM scheme.  Even if it worked perfectly, it would be monumentally too slow to be useful in combat.  Now you understand what I meant when I said that the concept was flawed even if it had worked perfectly.

This is where sweeping comes in.  Sweeping, as opposed to the slow, careful, clearance approach, emphasizes speed by foregoing the location and identification of the individual mines in favor of an area wide attempt to simply trigger the mines into exploding by putting out a signal (acoustic, magnetic, etc.) that mimics a ship’s signature and tricks the mines into exploding.  If you can do that, who cares about carefully locating and identifying individual mines?  Sweeping is much more efficient.  It’s the ‘many’ versus ‘individual’ approach.

However, sweeping has drawbacks.  Sweeping is not, and never has been, 100% effective.  Thus, the tradeoff is speed for effectiveness.  With sweeping, you’re never sure you got all the mines because you never bothered to locate and identify each mine.  Thus, you accomplish the sweep very quickly but you accept a degree of risk that you didn’t get all the mines.

In WWII, sweeping was fairly effective because the mines were mostly pretty ‘dumb’ and could be easily triggered.  With modern smart mines that can be programmed to ignore initial signals, use multiple aspects of a ship’s signature to decide whether to trigger, and spot sweeping signals, the effectiveness of sweeping has decreased and the associated risk has increased.

The Unmanned Influence Sweeping System (UISS) currently under development consists of the Textron Common Unmanned Surface Vessel (CUSV) tow craft and the signal emitter payload.

The UISS payload includes a specialized magnetic cable that tows a modified Mk-104 acoustic device.

“The Mk-104 generates an acoustic source by cavitation and the specialized cable creates an electromagnetic field. The output of these two emitters generates the appropriate fields that satisfy the mine logic so that the mine detonates,” explained Colleen E. O’Rourke, an official at Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA). (5)

The Mk104 is a legacy sweep unit currently in use by MH-53E MCM helos and has been in service since at least the early 1970s where it was employed in Operation End Sweep, the minesweeping effort that took place at the conclusion of the Vietnam war.  The Mk104 can be acoustically adjusted or tuned to mimic specific ship types.

Mk104 Acoustic Mine Sweep

The CUSV has towing capacity of 4,000 lbs-force at 20 kts and is claimed to have 20 hours endurance. (3)  Will the CUSV actually prove capable of towing the required equipment?  Will it prove to be sufficiently reliable (recall that the RMMV failed to meet its reliability requirements and was dropped)?  Can we maintain comms with the craft?  We’ll see.

CUSV

CUSV with what appears to be a Mk104 at the stern.

What does all this mean?  We noted earlier that the inherent flaw in the LCS MCM module concept was the extremely long time required to achieve clearance and that useful clearance rates were simply not achievable using the LCS MCM individual mine approach.  The sweep procedure, on the other hand, is much faster but is far less reliable and modern smart mines may well render influence sweeping very ineffective.  So, we’re left with a  dilemma: clear very slowly which is not useful in combat conditions or sweep quickly but run a significant risk of uncleared mines.

At this point, one might reasonably wonder whether smart mine technology has such an advantage over mine countermeasures as to render the application of countermeasures almost pointless?

Beyond that, the Navy needs to decide what degree of risk it’s willing to accept.  Are we willing to conduct rapid combat mine sweeping and accept a significant risk to high value ships?  Or, have we reached a point where the risk associated with sweeping is too great to risk high value ships in which case one has to wonder why we would bother with sweeping at all?

Obviously, none of us has the actual performance data on the effectiveness of sweeping against modern, smart mines and without that data we can’t draw any definitive conclusions.  My sense is that the LCS MCM individual mine approach is limited to peacetime/non-threat environments and that sweeping can’t produce an acceptable level of risk.  That means that the mere presence of mines is sufficient to ban surface ships from operating in the area, swept or not.  This has profound operational implications since every potential enemy of ours has mine inventories that number in the thousands to tens of thousands or more.  This, alone, almost guarantees we can’t conduct amphibious assaults!

The conclusion is clear – the Navy lacks a credible combat mine clearance capability and influence sweeping is not the solution.  As with other non-sexy functions like gun support, logistics, ASW, etc. the Navy has largely ignored mine countermeasures for decades.  The fact that we’re using the exact same technology today (although the Navy raves about it for the LCS and would have us believe that it’s some brand new, never before seen capability) as we did in Vietnam tells us all we need to know about the Navy’s misguided priorities.

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(1)USNI News website, “Navy’s Remote Minehunting System Officially Canceled, Sonar May Live On”, Megan Eckstein, 24-Mar-2016,

https://news.usni.org/2016/03/24/navys-remote-minehunting-system-officially-canceld-sonar-may-live-on

(2)Ocean News and Technology website, “General Dynamics Knifefish UUV and Textron UISS Complete Shipboard Integration Testing”, 28-Jan-2019,

https://www.oceannews.com/news/defense/general-dynamics-knifefish-uuv-and-textron-uiss-complete-shipboard-integration-testing

(3)https://www.textronsystems.com/sites/default/files/resource-files/TS_US_CUSV_datasheet_0.pdf

(4)USNI News website, “LCS Mission Package Office Focused On Test, Fielding; IOC Dates Continue to Slip”, Megan Eckstein, 25-Jan-2019,

https://news.usni.org/2019/01/25/lcs-mission-package-office-focused-on-test-fielding-ioc-dates-continue-to-slip

(5)Defense Systems website, “Navy approves testing for unmanned minesweeping system”, Katherine Owens, 24-Apr-2017,

https://defensesystems.com/articles/2017/04/24/uiss.aspx

The A-12 We Could Have Had

Let’s stroll down memory lane and visit the stillborn A-12 Avenger II.  As we do, bear in mind that, even today, little is known for sure about the A-12.  It never got beyond the mock up stage and no actual performance specs were ever established.  Thus, most of the discussion about performance ranges from semi-informed to speculative.

The Avenger was the proposed A-6 Intruder replacement from the McDonnell Douglas/General Dynamics team.  It was to be an upgraded, stealthy, A-6 that could fly faster and further than the Intruder though, apparently, not by a huge margin.  Its main improvement was to have been stealth.  You can see in the picture below that it was a flying triangle with smooth, blended surfaces, two engines, and internal weapon bays.  From Wiki, the dimensions/specs were 38 ft long, 70 ft wingspan (36 ft folded), 39,000 lbs empty weight, 5160 lbs internal weapon capacity (A-6 had 18,000 lbs weapons capacity, all external), 800 nm range (this must be combat radius; by comparison, the A-6 is credited with a combat range, presumably meaning radius, of 878 nm).

However, the initial specs were much more ambitious.

… the initial requirements for the A-12 called for an aircraft with a 1,700 nautical mile combat radius and an internal payload of 6,000 lbs with a radar cross section comparable to the Northrop B-2 Spirit strategic bomber. (4)

Technical problems conspired to reduce the A-12 capabilities to 1000 nm unrefueled combat radius and, eventually, to perhaps as low as 785 nm. (4) 

A-12 Avenger

The A-12 had two main weapon bays, each designed to carry one HARM and one strike weapon with the bay sized to fit any weapon in the Navy inventory.  In addition, there were two outer self defense bays which would each hold one AMRAAM.  Thus, the A-12 would have been a self-escorting aircraft with capability against both land (SAM) and air threats with two HARMS and two AMRAAMs.  The main strike weapons could have included guided or unguided bombs,  Standoff Land Attack Missiles (SLAM – land attack version of Harpoon), etc. that could strike defended targets from close in or stand off distances.

Actual development and production efforts began in 1988.  By 1990, the program was in trouble due to excessive weight, radar problems, advanced avionics delays, and runaway costs.  The program was cancelled in Jan 1991.  Years of litigation between the manufacturer and the Navy ensued.

A-12 Avenger

Cancellation of the A-12 permanently removed long range strike from the list of carrier capabilities and naval aviation has never recovered.  Termination of the A-12, while certainly a proper and wholly justified decision, negatively and, thus far, permanently impacted carrier strike capability, rendering carrier strike a short to medium range capability instead of long range, stealthy, penetrating capability.

The two biggest problems were excessive weight, reportedly 30% overspec, and problems with the Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (ISAR).

Excessive weight was, apparently, due in large part to the failure of new composite materials to achieve anticipated structural performance and weight savings. (3)  Some composite structural elements had to be replaced by heavier metal versions which lead to increased weight.

Now for the fun part.  Let’s speculate a bit.  What if, instead of insisting on leap ahead non-existent technology, we had settled for state of the (then) art materials and electronics?  In other words, the 80% solution instead of the 110% one or good instead of perfect.  Here’s what we could have done to achieve a very good aircraft using existing technology.

Radar.  Instead of the ISAR, what if we had installed the APG-70 radar that was installed on the F-15E Strike Eagle that was built around the same time?  It was a highly effective radar.  Here’s a brief description of the APG-70.

Gate array technology enables the APG-70 to incorporate modes not available in earlier radars while providing greatly enhanced operational capabilities in other modes.

The APG-70 radar system allows aircrews to detect ground targets from long ranges. One feature of this system is that after a sweep of a target area, the crew freezes the air-to-ground map then goes back into air-to-air mode to clear for air threats. During the air-to-surface weapon delivery, the pilot is capable of detecting, targeting and engaging air-to-air targets while the WSO designates the ground target.

… during Operation Desert Storm … Pilots claimed the APG-70 attack radar in the F-15E and the APG-68 in the F-16 offered "phenomenal" range and resolution. In interviews, they proclaimed "if it had metal in it, we could find it," and "with the APG-70, you could tell from 30 miles away whether a MiG-sized target had weapons or fuel tanks on it." (1)

Composites.  Instead of non-existent composite materials to achieve stealth and weight savings, what if we had gone with existing conventional materials and relied on shaping and internal weapons carry to achieve stealth?  Flying wing designs have been demonstrated to be inherently quite stealthy, dating back to the late-WWII German Horten HO 229.  There is no reason to believe that adequate stealth and acceptable weight could not have been achieved.

Wing Fold.  The wing fold mechanism was, apparently, a major source of excess weight in that it had a complex, convoluted design.  What if, instead of that design, we had gone with a simple, straight forward design like any other folding wing Navy plane?  I don’t know the specifics of the fold issue but folding wings are something that the Navy mastered long ago and should not have been a problem had we simply stuck to the basics.

Avionics.  Instead of non-existent advanced avionics displays, what if we had used the same avionics as in the F-15E Strike Eagle?

Engines.  Reports suggest that the A-12 was significantly underpowered. (5)

The aircraft was designed to have two General Electric F412-GE-D5F2 turbofans, each producing about 13,000 lbf (58 kN) thrust … (2)

As an alternative, the F-15E Strike Eagle used 2× Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-220 afterburning turbofans each producing 14,590 lbf (64.9 kN) thrust (Wiki).  Substituting the F-15E engines into the A-12 would have provided a bit over 12% more thrust for the A-12.  Even using older engines, such as the F-111 Aardvark’s 2× Pratt & Whitney TF30-P-100 turbofans with 17,900 lbf (79.6 kN) each would have provided 38% more thrust.  What effect, good or bad, alternate engines with differing fuel efficiencies would have had on the A-12’s range is unknown but the point is that the power issue could have been easily solved with existing engines.

There you have it.  Had we gone ahead with the A-12 using then current, state of the art equipment we could have had a long range, penetrating, stealth attack plane that, with suitable upgrades, would still surpass any other strike aircraft in the world, including (you F-35 fanboys might want to turn your heads for a moment) the F-35.  Consider the following characteristics for our notional A-12, built as we’ve described.

Stealth.  We can only speculate about the A-12’s stealth level, however, the flying wing form of the A-12 would far exceed the F-35 stealth level and would do so from all aspects as opposed to the F-35 which is optimized for frontal stealth and is reportedly far less stealthy from other aspects.  Perhaps only the B-2 would equal the A-12 stealth levels.  Updates, including modern stealth coatings would further enhance the stealth levels.

Range.  This one is pure speculation but it’s interesting to note that even the most downgraded range estimate is significantly greater than the F-35 or F-18.  More likely, with appropriate engines and considering the lift imparted by the flying wing, the combat radius would be in the 1000+ nm realm.  Upgrades with more modern engines would further enhance the range.  Even the F-15E Strike Eagle, listed at 700+ nm range is only at the very low end of the A-12 range estimates.  Recall that the A-12 was designed to have greater range than the A-6 which is credited with 800-900 nm combat radius.  This suggests, again, that a 1000+ nm range for the A-12 is not unreasonable.

Radar/Sensors.  Using then state of the art radar and sensors would have provided the A-12 with very capable sensing, equal to the F-15, for example, and upgrades, as has been done for the Hornet and F-15E would have kept the A-12 as good as any aircraft.  The sensor suite would have been state of the art but not some kind of magical, unattainable capability – just darn good.

Weapons.  The self-escorting design of the A-12 is intriguing although, as regular readers know, I’m not a fan of multi-purpose platforms.  The drawback to the self-escorting capability is that every weapon dedicated to self-escort (air to air missiles and anti-radiation missiles) detracts from an already limited weapons payload of 5,000-6,000 lbs.  Although the program never advanced far enough, presumably the A-12 would have been given external pylons for larger weapon loads in more permissive environments, as was done for the F-35.

The internal weapons payload limitations are an inherent problem for all smaller stealth aircraft like the A-12 and F-35.  The 5,000 lb or so limits are dwarfed by the 15,000-20,000+ lb payloads of conventional aircraft. 

Summary.  We see, then, that it would have been possible to build a very stealthy, very long range strike aircraft that, even today, would be the best in the world for its size.  The weapons payload would have been adequate, though nothing special, given the requirement for internal carry.  Radar and sensors would have been state of the art, for the time, and upgrades would have maintained that status.  In short, we could have had a very good aircraft that would still be the standard for strike aircraft today.

More importantly, the A-12 would have kept long range, penetrating, carrier strike aviation in the game instead of being woefully short ranged and ineffective as is the case today.

The key to achieving this very good, but not magical, aircraft would have been to resist the temptation to design around non-existent technology and, instead, use existing, then state of the art equipment.  The only saving grace from the A-12 debacle is that at least we didn’t engage in concurrent production and development.  We were able to cancel the program before we committed to vast numbers of unachievable aircraft as we’ve done with the F-35.

The lesson from the A-12 is crystal clear:  build with existing technology and leave non-existent technology in the R&D world until it’s ready.  Had we done so, we could have had a very good attack aircraft, quite likely the best in the world – it just wouldn’t have been magical but it would have existed and been better than anything else and certainly better than the nothing that we got.

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(1)https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/systems/an-apg-70.htm

(2)http://www.governmentsecrets.com/a-12-avenger-ii-the-u-s-navy-stealth-aircraft/#

(3)http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/models/Aircraft/McDonnell-Douglas-A12.html

(4)https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/12-avenger-ii-navy-almost-built-stealth-bomber-fly-aircraft-carrier-25536

(5)http://aviationintel.com/fast-history-12-avenger-iis-cockpit-ahead-time/

Assault Ratio

One of the well known cornerstones of maritime strategy is,

The Seat of Purpose is on Land (1)

Too many naval observers tend to view naval matters in isolation, as purely ship-on-ship affairs.  The reality is that navies exist to support ground actions.  Yes, they may do this, in part, by ship-on-ship battles but the ultimate purpose of a navy is to influence and support matters on land.  Thus, the US Navy in WWII found itself conducting a series of amphibious assaults in the Pacific in order to support the overall strategy of seizing the LAND(S) of Japan.

Unfortunately, the land (islands) that needed to be seized was held by Japanese forces that had had sufficient – often lengthy – periods of time to build fortified defenses.  Thus, overwhelming force was needed to ensure victory against a dug in and fortified defense.  This brings us to that well known axiom of attack which gives the advantage to the defenders by a margin of 3:1.  This means that the attacker must bring a numerical superiority in troops of 3:1 in order to ensure victory.

Attack is to Defense as 3 is to 1

Let’s look at the historical data for the Pacific campaign and see how the numbers and troop attack:defense ratios compared in several of the major defended assaults.

	Date	US Troops	Japanese Troops	Attack:Defense
Tarawa	Nov 1943	18,000	4,800	3.75 : 1
Hollandia	Apr 1944	50,000	14,000	3.57 : 1
Saipan	Jun 1944	59,000	29,000	2.03 : 1
Guam	Jul 1944	36,000	22,000	1.64 : 1
Tinian	Jul 1944	41,000	8,000	5.12 : 1
Peleliu	Sep 1944	47,500	10,900	4.36 : 1
Philippines	Oct 1944	200,000	85,000	2.35 : 1
Iwo Jima	Feb 1945	110,000	21,000	5.24 : 1
Okinawa	Apr 1945	183,000	76,000	2.41 : 1

Indeed, we see that the attacking US forces did, generally, have a 3:1 advantage although the ratios varied quite a bit.  A further factor affecting the ratio is that in an amphibious assault, there are other elements involved such as aircraft and ships which may positively impact the attacker’s effective ratio (fire support, bombardment, etc.) while not impacting the numerical ratio.  In short, the attacker:defender ratio is a useful concept but is affected by many factors beyond just troop counts.  The takeaway from the ratios we see in the table is that the attacking force did seem to recognize the necessity and/or desirability of having a significant numerical advantage and this is the lesson for us, today.

One also can’t help but be struck by the sheer numbers of troops involved.  We’ve come to believe that war is something that is conducted by a squad or platoon on patrol and that a major action might involve a company of a hundred or so troops.  In stark contrast, amphibious assaults in WWII involved multiple regiments, divisions, and even armies!  Given that a single big deck LHA amphibious ship can carry 1600 or so troops and other amphibious ship classes even less, where are we going to get the transport capacity to move 50,000 – 200,000 assault troops for a single operation?  But, I digress …

The numbers of troops – and remember that this was repeated for each assault! – suggest that we need to radically readjust our operational thinking.  When was the last time we practiced an amphibious assault with more than a single ship, let alone the twenty to ninety troop transports necessary for a serious assault?  If we think we’re going to conduct major amphibious assaults (a notion that ComNavOps does not agree with!), as the Marines claim to be able to do, we need to begin practicing how to coordinate that many ships, how to integrate them into a single operational plan, how to simultaneously unload them without them getting in each other’s way, how to get all those troops ashore (currently, we can only land a portion of the troops as we are limited by AAV numbers – how will the rest get ashore?), how to get the troops ashore quickly, how to move enough supplies (the logistics that are the heart of any operation) to sustain an assault, and a thousand other aspects – including fire support and, yes, I’m going to continue to bang that drum because our doctrine calls for it, assumes we have it, and yet we have none.

On a broader level, this same 3:1 requirement applies to land battles.  I’m not as familiar with Army matters but I know that for the last few decades we have stopped exercising complete, large units.  It’s probably safe to say that there is no serving General who has commanded an entire division in an exercise.  The Army has been leading the way among the services as far as refocusing on major war but even they are still woefully behind the curve.  Perhaps they’ve begun to exercise at brigade and larger levels but, if so, I’m unaware of it.  Regardless, the Navy and Marines are absolutely not operating at these levels and they need to begin doing so, immediately.

I touched on it, already, but these kinds of troop numbers also point to a need to reinvigorate our logistic capability.  How will we supply food, ammo, fuel, water, and the thousand other items needed by 50,000 – 200,000 men in the field?  How will we get that quantity of supplies to the operational area?  How will we provide escort for the logistic ships?  How will we get the vast quantity of supplies ashore in a timely manner given that we struggle to get enough supplies ashore during a minor humanitarian assistance mission?  How will we get supplies ashore if we don’t have a secure port?  And so on …

As I’ve stated in previous posts, it is not reasonable to have all the equipment and capabilities to accomplish this on hand today.  We didn’t have that capability at the start of WWII, either.  Those are the things you build during the war.  What is reasonable is to have designs for cheap troopships ready to go, prototypes of effective landing craft (not the nearly useless LCACs that we have) that are operational and working on tactics, plans in hand for likely major assaults, fire support plans (you know, for our non-existent fire support capability), etc.

Regarding exercises, no, I don’t expect us to perform an amphibious exercise involving 50,000 – 200,000 troops (although the assault fleets did exactly that prior to each assault!) but we should do at least a yearly assault exercise involving, say, a complete Marine Expeditionary Brigade (14,000 troops or so).  What a cluster**** that would be but, at least, we’d know where the problems are and we could begin addressing them now rather than waiting for our own Tarawa to find out that we don’t know what we’re doing.

We need to wake up. 

We need to remember that war involves massive numbers of people and equipment. 

We need to recognize that what we’re organized for and training for, today, bears almost no resemblance to actual war. 

We need to begin preparing for war …  China is.

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(1)http://www.navy.mil.za/SANGP100/SANGP100_CH01.pdf , p.6

Captain-In-Training

We’ve talked about the blatant poor ship handling that’s systemic in the Navy.  We’ve suggested that the Navy adopt the Master Mariner certifications as a requirement for command.  However, there’s a problem with this approach.  If the Navy did opt to train every prospective ship captain to the Master Mariner standard, it would be a poor return on investment since, under the current system, a ship’s captain only serves for a brief period before moving on to some other duty, staff work and/or a land tour.  Worse, given that many Navy ships are now spending more and more time sitting idle in port (no LCS deployed in 2018, for example, and our carriers are generally sitting idle), a captain’s command tour might only involve a few months at sea – not exactly a great return on the investment of Master Mariner training!

What’s the solution?  Well, how about some common sense?

Instead of short tours with little at-sea time, how about making command tours last multiple years, maybe 3-5 years?  Let a ship’s captain become thoroughly familiar with his ship, its capabilities, his crew, and have plenty of opportunity to master ship handling.  What’s the drawback?  Well, there really isn’t one.  We’d have less officer career movement but is that really a bad thing?  Let’s find the good captains and leave them in place for extended periods.  Yes, there would be fewer command opportunities but we’ve clearly seen that simply tossing bodies through brief command stints isn’t producing ship handlers and I think it’s safe to extend that to say that we’re probably not producing good combat operators and tacticians, either.  Give the captains time to not only master ship handling but also combat operations and tactics with their ship, type, and squadron.  Let them experience many exercises in command and become proficient at combat.  Isn’t that what we ultimately want?

After the initial command tour of 3-5 years, let’s put our now very experienced captains to work and choose the best of them to command larger and more valuable ships rather than immediately shipping them off to shore or staff assignments.  There may be a portion who, for various reasons, don’t want to continue with at-sea commands.  That’s fine, they can fill the staff and shore positions.  This might mean a smaller pool of staffers but does anyone think smaller staffs are a bad thing?

Of course, this might also shrink our pool of prospective admirals but does anyone really think that’s a bad thing?

Hand in hand with this approach, we can provide far more extensive training to our prospective captains by establishing a captain-in-training status.  This would be a prolonged, multi-year program whereby a prospective captain sails with a ship and captain as a trainee.  He would NOT be the Executive Officer but, instead, would be outside the ship’s chain of command.  He would be a supernumerary whose only task or purpose is to learn to be a captain.  He would observe and practice.  For example, when docking, the ship might dock and undock multiple times to allow the captain-in-training to learn the techniques.  Yes, it might be a bit tedious for the crew but, as we’ve seen, they need all the seamanship practice they can get, too!

The culmination of this training would be Master Mariner certification.  Additionally, a multi-year captain-in-training program would also allow us much more time to evaluate the prospective captain-in-training and, hopefully, we’d avoid a lot of the firings that now plague and embarrass the Navy.

The captains-in-training can be rotated each year so as to expose them to other ship types and allow them to be evaluated by other captains.

At its core, what am I really suggesting, here?  I’m suggesting that we make command at sea the pinnacle of a career rather than a momentary stopping point.  Let’s make command at sea something to aspire to, to hold on to, to excel at, and to be the focus of a Navy officer’s career.  Let’s also reward these people appropriately in terms of pay, pension, benefits, etc.  Let’s make command at sea something really special.

Fired Another One!

The Captain of the LCS Billings, which hit a parked car moored ship, has been removed from command by the Navy.  It was the standard reason: “due to loss of confidence in his ability to command”. 

This may be setting a new record.  The ship wasn’t even commissioned, yet!  The poor (in multiple senses of the word!) Captain was relieved before the ship was even a commissioned.

Now, I have no problem with relieving a Captain who can’t handle a ship, however, with the multiple recent groundings and collisions it’s crystal clear that the Navy isn’t training its Captains to be proficient ship handlers let alone master mariners.  That being the case, why fire the guy for being a poor ship handler?  Isn’t poor ship handling exactly the level of ship handling we’re training for?  And, having relieved him for poor ship handling, why do we think the next guy is going to be any better since he’ll have received exactly the same deficient ship handling training?

I feel for these Captains, a little bit.  They’re poor ship handlers.  They must know they’re poor ship handlers.  There’s little they can do to improve their skills.  It’s no wonder they almost literally hold their breath through their entire command tour, just praying nothing goes wrong because they know they aren’t qualified to deal with ship handling problems (they’re not qualified to do basic navigation and ship handling, let alone anything unusual!). 

So, what’s the Navy’s solution to poor ship handling?  Is it more training, like any of us would think?  No, it’s to fire the Captains and move on to the next poor ship handler and then wonder why these things keep happening.  Remember, the definition of insanity is to repeat the same actions and expect a different outcome.  That’s what the Navy is doing by firing these Captains for deficient ship handling:  they put another deficient ship handler in place and expect a different outcome – that’s insane!

If the Navy is serious about getting rid of every substandard ship handler in command of a ship, we won't have any Captains left!

There's a practical side to this, too.  The Navy invests a LOT of time, money, and resources into developing Captains and then to just throw that investment away because a Captain fails, through no fault of his own (lack of training is not his fault), is incredibly wasteful.

Hey, listen, Navy.  You can fire people or you can better train them.  Firing isn’t working since we keep running into things.  Just for shits and giggles, why not try better training?

More Offense, Please

Here’s a partial list of some recent Navy exercises.  Provided is a brief description of the type of training with the wording being lifted from the various official public relations announcements.  I’ve not bothered providing references, in most cases, because they’re readily available on line.

Citadel Pacific 2019 – anti-terrorism force protection

Northern Edge 2019 – command, control and communication relationships, develop interoperable plans and program between allies

Pacific Vanguard (Guam) – “strengthen practical cooperation at sea”; defensive anti-air, ASW, combined maneuvers, replenishment at sea

Rim of the Pacific – static SinkEx, disaster relief and maritime security operations, sea control, amphibious operations, ASW, air defense, counter-piracy operations, mine clearance, explosive ordnance disposal, and diving and salvage operations

La Perouse - formation sailing, live fires, communications, search and rescue, damage control, and personnel transfers

Sea Dragon 2019 – ASW

Talisman Sabre – crisis response and humanitarian assistance

Cobra Gold 2019 - field training exercise (FTX), humanitarian civic assistance (HCA) to communities, humanitarian assistance, and disaster relief

Dawn Blitz – command and control concept test, airfield repair, mine countermeasures, HIMARS test, medical support, amphibious landing

CARAT – symposia, explosive ordnance disposal, live-fire gunnery, search and rescue, humanitarian assistance, disaster response, professional exchanges, sports and social events, community service projects, band concerts

Keen Sword - logistics exchanges, replenishment-at-sea, senior leadership engagements, air-defense, anti-submarine warfare, three day war-at-sea exercise (no details available).

Pacific Bond - anti-submarine warfare, anti-air warfare, helicopter visit, board, search and seizure exercise, and liaison officer exchanges

Bold Alligator Series – focus on medium-threat scenarios and interoperability with other countries (1), ground forces live fire practice, staff planning

Note that ‘amphibious landing’, which is listed as a component in a few exercises, is a misnomer as we will never conduct an assault the way we exercise it.

What is noteworthy about these exercises is the near total absence of any offensive aspect.  They’re mainly humanitarian and interoperability and what actual combat training there is, is defensive in nature.  Where’s the training to conduct inland strikes from a carrier?  Where’s the training to conduct an assault on an enemy port?  Where’s the training to conduct a contested air strike?  Where’s the training to conduct offensive carrier operations with four carriers operating as a group?  Where’s the training to seize a peer-defended island?  Where’s, you know, … training for the stuff we’ll actually do to win a war, not just defensively hold our ground?

These exercises have very little combat value at a time when everything should be run through the filter of, “will this improve our combat capability?”.  Unfortunately, few or none of these exercises can answer, “yes”.

Setting aside the worthless humanitarian and interoperability aspects, this is symptomatic of the Navy’s defensive focus for the last few decades.  The Navy has almost totally abandoned offensive warfare training, focus, acquisition, and tactical thinking. 

Think about it …

• What’s the Navy’s current focus? – ballistic missile defense
• What’s the Navy’s intentions for the F-35?  - sensor node, not offensive strike
• What’s the Navy’s current improvement for the Burke class? – a bigger radar for better defensive BMD and AAW

Even the offense that the Navy is engaged in is an afterthought.

• The Navy’s idea of offense is to put a few anti-ship missiles on logistics ships. 
• The Navy’s new anti-ship cruise missiles (LRASM and NSM) are a reluctant response to the Harpoons exceeding their shelf life and being left with no missile and to the abject failure of the LCS.  Neither was an enthusiastic embrace of offensive warfare.
• The Navy’s new carriers will put to sea (assuming they ever do) with even smaller air wings than the current Nimitz air wings which are the smallest the Nimitzes have ever carried.

Offense wins wars, not defense.  Defense is what you do while you’re preparing the next offensive.

We need to drop our useless exercises and start focusing on offensive warfare.

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(1)Seapower website, “Big Plans For Bold Alligator”, Daniel P. Taylor, Apr 2018,

http://www.seapower-digital.com/seapower/april_2018/MobilePagedArticle.action?articleId=1367759#articleId1367759