Navy Needs $40B in Savings

As described in a memo from Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly on 18-Feb-2020, the Navy has decided to reduce spending by $40B over the next 5 years (2022-26).(1)  The driving forces behind the reduction decision are, according to SecNav and in his exact words, the need to (1):

• ‘build a bigger Navy’
• ‘claw our way out of readiness and lethality shortfalls’
• ‘begin a 40 year recapitalization of our nuclear ballistic missile submarine force’

Note that neither the cost reduction nor the driving forces are legislatively mandated.  These are, essentially, self-imposed requirements although to listen to the Navy moaning about them, you’d think they were imposed on the Navy by outside forces.

The only legislatively imposed factor is the semi-legislatively imposed prospect of flat budgets for the next few years.  I say, ‘semi-legislative’ because until each year’s budget is passed by Congress and signed into law, the budget is free to increase or decrease by any amount.  The prospect of flat budgets is just the military’s attempt at anticipating the future.  They may well be correct but it is not yet law.

Why does the Navy need to find $40B?  What will it do with money?

We must find savings within the Department to reinvest in the kind of decisive naval force that will provide for our nation’s future economic and political security. (2)

That’s certainly generic and vague enough but what does it mean?  According to SecNav, it means:

These savings will be repurposed in accordance with my top three priorities: designing and building a future integrated naval force structure (355+ ship Navy by 2030); advancing our intellectual capacity and ethical excellence; and accelerating digital modernization across the fleet. (2)

Pardon my language but, holy shit !!!!!!  Have you ever seen a bigger pile of steaming crap than that?  We’re going to cut ships, aircraft, and personnel in order to ‘advance our intellectual capacity and ethical excellence?????  What the hell does that mean?  How is that going to win us a war?  Are we putting pastors with Ph.Ds on the front lines? 

An ‘integrated naval force structure’ is a euphemism for unmanned and networked.  This is saying that the Navy wants to transition from a firepower based force to an unmanned, networked, distributed, multi-domain force with the smallest possible labor force to operate it.  This is the Navy’s current vision of the future.

I have no idea what ‘digital modernization’ is.  Maybe every sailor gets a new Game Boy console to pass time while on watch?

Here’s a couple thoughts to consider about the Navy’s cost cutting drive.

• If the Navy were content with today’s firepower based Navy then they wouldn’t need any cost savings.  That’s something to ponder, isn’t it?
• The Navy’s budget is at near historic highs.  The issue is not the size of the budget, it’s how they’re spending it.  For example, $15B carriers is insane!  Or, $8B Zumwalts that have no main weapon is equally insane.

I could go into a long post about the stupidity of the Navy’s rationale and actions but I’ve essentially done that over the course of years of posts, haven’t I?  You all know the idiotic decisions that have gotten the Navy to this point.  Rehashing them won’t cover new ground.  Instead, let’s play a game of pretend.  Let’s pretend that we buy into the Navy’s rationale and need for cost cutting.  Where would we go for cost savings?  What would we cut?  Here’s some of my candidates.

$5.77B.  Eliminate 220 of the 250 Admirals and staffs (say, 20 staffers per Admiral?).  At, let’s say, $250,000 per Admiral and staffer, times 220, that would save $1.155B per year.  Over the target 5 year timeframe that provides $5.775B savings.

$6B.  Cancel the Ford program and build new Nimitzes.  For an average of one carrier over the next five years, that would save $6B ($15B Ford - $9B Nimitz = $6B).

$1.92B.  Scrap the LCS fleet and save the annual operating costs.  I don’t have an exact figure for the operating cost but the Perrys supposedly cost around $16M per year so let’s call the LCS around $12M.  For 32 ships, that’s $384M per year for the LCS fleet and $1.92B over the five year target time frame.

$1.2B.  Scrap the Zumwalts and save the annual operating costs of, say, $20M per year.  For three Zumwalts over five years that’s $0.3B.  Given that none of the Zumwalts are yet complete, there are additional construction and fitting out costs that would also be saved.  Let’s estimate those costs as an average of $300M per ship for a total savings of $900M.  That gives a total savings of $1.2B.

$19.7B.  Scrap the F-35 purchases (30 per year x $100M per aircraft x 5 yrs = $15B) and associated operating costs (say, $35K per flight hour x 180 hrs/yr x 150 aircraft x 5 yrs = $4.7B).  Note, this calc is not strictly correct because the aircraft would be phased in over the five year period but I don’t feel like doing the exact calc and this gives us a ballpark idea.

$42B.  Cut shore side manning by 30%.  Currently, there are around 280,000 shore-based naval personnel (this will be documented in a near future post).  Cutting 30% would eliminate 84,000.  At a yearly cost of, say, $100,000 per person that’s a savings of $8.4B per year which, over five years, would save $42B.

Total Savings = $76.59B

Note: The above calculations are just ballpark estimates to demonstrate what general savings could be had.  Don’t bother replying to tell me that I’m 0.4% off on some specific cost estimate – it’s irrelevant.

It’s important to note that these savings, which total far more than the target of $40B, simply cut items that are truly worthless.  They do not touch readiness, maintenance, training, parts supplies, or anything necessary or useful. 

The only item that is remotely debatable is the shore-based personnel.  Did you know that our fleet billets number only around 53,000 versus the shore-based component of around 280,000?  While a certain degree of shore-based support is required, clearly our tooth-to-tail ratio has gotten out of hand.  Eliminating most of the legal, public relations, green initiative, gender/diversity, compliance, useless/duplicate joint positions, etc. we should be able to easily cut 30%. 

I’d also give serious consideration to eliminating NAVSEA since they aren’t doing their job, anyway.  They accept incomplete ships, ships with massive, serious problems, and fail to find problems on the ships they inspect.  Can’t we accept incomplete, flawed ships without needing NAVSEA?  But, I digress …

Well, there you have it.  We can instantly and easily achieve far more than $40B in savings without impacting anything useful.  It took me all of about ten minutes thought to come up with my list.  The Navy, on the other hand, is going to agonize over this for the next year and, undoubtedly, assign a blue ribbon panel of Admirals (did I mention that I’d cut them?) to come up with a list of recommended cuts which will certainly impact readiness, maintenance, and training – the things we can least afford to cut.

So, there you have my easy list.  What’s on yours?

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(1)USNI News website, “Acting SECNAV Kicks off Navy ‘Night Court’ Cost Savings Drive with Aim to Save $40 Billion”, Megan Eckstein and Ben Werner, 18-Feb-2020,

https://news.usni.org/2020/02/18/acting-secnav-kicks-off-navy-night-court-cost-savings-drive-with-aim-to-save-40-billion

(2)Memo from SecNav, “Department of the Navy Stem-to-Stern Capability-Based Strategic Review”, 18-Feb-2020

MQ-8C Fire Scout Status

Many commentators have described the near magical benefits of the MQ-8C Fire Scout in the surveillance and targeting role especially as it relates to the Navy’s distributed lethality concept.  ComNavOps is not one of those.  But, I digress …

MQ-8C Fire Scout

It seems that the Navy has assessed the MQ-8C as a failure, at least for the moment.

Although there are marked improvements in endurance over the MQ-8B, the Navy and DOT&E assessed the MQ-8C system as not operationally effective, not operationally suitable, and not cyber survivable. (1)

Well that was a touch damning.  Why the negative assessment?

Primary degraders that led to this assessment included the overall air vehicle reliability, image quality and system performance of the BRITE Star II EO/IR system, and the poor reliability and inconsistency of the Tactical Common Data Link (TCDL). The TCDL is the conduit for payload video and control. Excessive operator workload coupled with an immature supply support system also contributed to the assessment of not operationally suitable. (1)

So, essentially, the Fire Scout can’t see, hear, or talk but at least it’s slow and not stealthy!  This reminds me of the common assessment of my favorite cellar dwelling hockey team:  they may be small but they’re slow.

So, there you have the DOT&E testing assessment.  Despite the results and the Navy’s own negative assessment, the Navy declared that the Fire Scout achieved Initial Operational Capability (IOC) in Jun 2019 .

The Navy declared its MQ-8C Fire Scout unmanned helicopter mission capable and ready to deploy aboard Littoral Combat Ships. (2)

Let me understand this.  The Navy believes that the Fire Scout is not operationally effective, not operationally suitable, and not cyber survivable and that constitutes a declaration of IOC?????  Well, doesn’t that just sum up the state of the Navy today?

Many people believed that the Fire Scout would also be used to defeat swarm boat attacks but the Navy has dropped that idea.

A little more than a year ago, the Navy was still testing how Fire Scouts could be used to repel swarm attacks of small attack craft. By this spring, the Navy scrapped those plans in favor of loading the aircraft with sensors to provide an LCS with superior over-the-horizon targeting capabilities. (2)

Why did the Navy opt to drop the idea of arming the FireScout?

The decision to focus on targeting missions comes after the Navy experienced some space constraints associated with arming the Fire Scout aboard an LCS. The Navy intended the Fire Scout to carry BAE System’s advanced precision kill weapon system (APKWS), which are modified 70mm Hydra rockets fitted with a guidance system.

While a smaller MQ-8B Fire Scout was able to successfully demonstrate its ability to operate the weapon aboard an LCS in 2018, it became clear the LCS ships themselves do not have a lot of magazine space, explained Capt. Jeff Dodge, the Navy’s Fire Scout program manager … (2)

The Navy has bought, or is planning to buy, 38 MQ-8C Fire Scouts.

The MQ-8C first flight occurred in 2013.  Now, seven years later, this is where we’re at.  The -8C should have been about the easiest development program possible.  It used existing airframes and technology.  There was nothing particularly novel about it and, yet, the Navy can’t seem to make it work.  I think the lesson herein is that technology is always oversold.  It always suffers from performance problems despite glowing manufacturer’s claims.  It’s always more difficult to implement than anticipated.  Observers who marvel at the latest claims are just deluding themselves.  The more technology you put into something, the more problems you’ll have (Ford, LCS, Zumwalt, F-35, etc.).  There is a very good argument for simpler, more basic equipment that has a much higher chance of actually working.

There you have the current status of the Fire Scout.  It will not be armed and will be tasked with surveillance and targeting despite being assessed by the Navy and DOT&E as not operationally effective, not operationally suitable, and not cyber survivable.  Sounds like the basis for an effective distributed lethality concept, right?

The new DOT&E category of cyber survivability is an interesting one.  This suggests that the possibility exists that an enemy could take control of a Fire Scout during flight via cyber attack or, at least, render it a mission kill.

With all that in mind, keep going Navy!  Against all reason, you’ve declared IOC so keep going!

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(1)Director, Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E), FY 2019 Annual Report, 20-Dec-2019, p. 151-2

(2)USNI News website, “Navy Declares Unmanned MQ-8C Fire Scout Helicopter Mission Capable”, Ben Werner, 9-Jul-2019,

https://news.usni.org/2019/07/09/navy-declares-unmanned-mq-8c-fire-scout-helicopter-mission-capable

Navy Rescinds Ship Service Life Extensions

As we previously noted and discussed, in July of 2018 the Navy arbitrarily extended the design service life of most ship classes by ten years or so (see, “Ship Service Life Extensions”).  The Burke class was extended from 35-40 years (an utterly unrealistic target to begin with, given the Navy’s failure to provide proper maintenance and tendency to early retire ships) to 45-50 years!  I chuckle as I type this but such is the nature of the Navy’s delusions.

Of course, we roundly mocked this flight of pure fantasy.  Given the Navy’s repeated disregard for maintenance and near 100% record of early retirements, arbitrarily extending service lives with no concomitant plan to improve and fund maintenance was obviously just a fictitious ploy to make some plan or admiral look good on paper.  We knew it would never actually happen.

Reality has now reared its head and the Navy is rescinding the service life extensions as a cost savings measure.(1)  Everyone outside the Navy knew it wasn’t going to happen and now the Navy has officially admitted it.  This is why you come to this blog.  You were informed in no uncertain terms two years ago that the Navy’s service life extension plan was pure fantasy and would never happen.  This is just simple confirmation.  If the Navy would just read this blog they could save themselves a lot of effort and embarrassment.  But, I digress …

So, what does this do to the Navy’s plan to grow to a 355 ship fleet?  Do I really need to lay it out for you?

I’ll simply note that the Navy is furiously retiring ships early (Aegis cruisers, the first four LCS, Los Angeles subs, and so on) while claiming to want to build the fleet.  Extending the service lives of Burke destroyers could have aided in that endeavor if their maintenance was properly funded.  Instead, as they always do, the Navy has opted for new hulls over maintained hulls – anything for a new hull even if it’s a useless LCS, an experimental unmanned vessel, a non-functional Ford, or a non-functional Zumwalt.

Do you recall how vital the Burke modernization effort supposedly was?  This will remind you,

The decision to ax the service life extensions for the Arleigh Burke class comes after years of assurances from Navy leaders that the destroyers would be modernized with an eye to growing the fleet over the coming decades. (1)

In its FY20 30-year shipbuilding plan, the Navy said extending the lives of the Arleigh Burkes was an imperative to growing the fleet to a battle force of 355 ships. Instead, the cancellation of the service life extensions means that between 2026 and 2034, the Navy is slated to lose 27 destroyers from its battle force. (1)

The Navy changes its mind more frequently than a girl with multiple prom proposals. 

In testimony that year, Merz [then Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Warfare Systems Vice Adm. Bill Merz] said ballistic missile defense [BMD] was the biggest requirement driving the retention of the DDGs to 45 years. (1)

I guess BMD wasn’t really that important, after all?

So, the Navy is set to lose 27 Burkes between 2026-2034.  And we’re going to replace them with … small and medium displacement unmanned surface vessels????  China doesn’t have to build a bigger, stronger navy than us – they just have to wait while we dismantle our navy for them!

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(1)Defense News website, “Destroyers Left Behind”, David B. Larter, 7-Mar-2020,

https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/03/07/destroyers-left-behind-us-navy-cancels-plans-to-extend-service-lives-of-its-workhorse-ddgs/

Marine's New Top Priorities: Maternity Leave and Sea Denial

The new Marine Corps Commandant, Gen. David Berger, is off to a mystifying start to his tenure.  He began with a guidance document that basically said that the Marines were going to dump conventional amphibious ships in favor of small, distributed ships and that legacy systems would be eliminated to fund modernization.  No details were offered and the military community has been expectantly waiting for more information.  His guidance document offered some welcome focus on the threat of China even if some of his solutions were questionable.  As we wait for details to emerge about his new combat focus, the Commandant has made some downright baffling public statements about his priorities. 

Gen. Berger has prioritized family leave for Marines with proposals for up to a year’s leave for new mothers (1) as well as,

Furthering gender integration in job fields previously closed to women, expanding maternity leave and raising the intellectual bar for infantry troops are among the Marine Corps’ priorities, the service’s top officer said.(2)

Is this really a priority?  Not only does it have nothing to do with combat but it will clearly hurt our combat capabilities.  It also raises a host of questions.  Will new mothers be counted as combat ready troops in the Marine’s table of manning?   Will returning mothers, fresh off a year of leave and the exhaustion of infant rearing be instantly combat ready?  Of course they won’t so what good are they?  Will returning mothers have to undergo some type of refresher boot camp to get back into shape and regain their combat skills (I can’t type that without laughing but …) – essentially amounting to even more time off in terms of being a combat asset?  The Commandant wants to give female/mother Marines what amounts to a year and a half to two years off to have a child and return to combat readiness?  If a female Marine wants to have multiple children are we really going to pay them to have several years off to do the family thing?  Theoretically, a female could have several paid years off (and highly restricted duty when back) to raise a family, all on the Marine’s dime and without ever serving on a deployment or being combat capable.  Isn’t that called welfare?  Since when did the Marine Corps become a kiddie day care center or a social experimentation program?  Who’s going to fill the female’s vacated billets?  Who’s going to deploy in place of the females?  Yeah, that would be the men.  I don’t see any resentment happening because of this.

The Few, The Proud, The Mommy Welfare Group

Additional priority items include (4):

• Exempting pregnant Marines from “standing at parade rest or attention for longer than 15 minutes”
• Increased gender integration
• Increasing enlistment test scores

The few, the proud, the out of shape exhausted mothers!  The Chinese are trembling in fear.

Continuing the befuddlement, the Commandant is now stating that the Marine’s top ground forces priority is sea denial which he envisions accomplishing by placing small units with anti-ship missiles on distributed islands or land.

The Marine Corps is all in on fielding mobile anti-ship missiles in the Pacific to challenge China’s growing Navy, declaring it in written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee’s seapower subcommittee to be its highest ground modernization priority.

“A ground-based anti-ship missile capability will provide anti-ship fires from land as part of an integrated naval anti-surface warfare campaign,” the written testimony reads. “This forward-deployed and survivable capability will enhance the lethality of our naval forces and will help to deny our adversaries the use of key maritime terrain.” (3) [emphasis added]

The Marine’s ground mission is sea control?????

The Marines, who should be concentrating on figuring out how to get an amphibious combat vehicle from 50 miles offshore to the beach, who should be working to rediscover their amphibious assault capability, who should be taking on the core mission of port seizure (my opinion, not the Marine’s), who should be frantically working on mobile anti-aircraft/anti-cruise missile capability, who should be reversing their trend of shedding tanks and artillery, who should be emphasizing ground force lethality, are now going to switch to sea denial as their new top priority?  Isn’t that the Navy’s mission?  Have the Marines solved all their problems and have so much extra budget that they can now take on a Navy responsibility?

I’m sorry but sea denial is about dead last on my list of priorities for the Marines – just ahead of maternity leave.

So, setting aside my stunned disbelief, how do the Marines see this sea denial working?

The Marines are looking at not just one but two anti-ship systems:  one is based on a remote control version of the HIMARS vehicle (why remote control?  what does that gain us if the troops are there anyway?) firing a Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile and the other is an anti-ship version of Tomahawk which would be launched from an, as yet, unknown platform.  Okay, let’s look a bit closer at this concept.

What’s the overall concept?  According to the Marines,

The Marine Corps’ concept of operations, as outlined by Berger in last year’s planning guidance,  …  the Marines want to be able to spread their forces in small groups around islands in the Pacific and deny freedom of maneuver to the Chinese fleet. (3)

Has anyone wargamed this with even a small dose of reality?  How are we going to infiltrate Chinese controlled areas and land HIMARS vehicles, missiles, men, and supplies without being seen?  You don’t transport HIMARS vehicles and Tomahawk launchers on combat canoes.  They’ll have to be transported on amphibious or cargo ships of some kind.  Won’t the Chinese kind of … you know … see that?  Or, is this more of the military’s ever-growing tendency to assume that the enemy will cooperate in their own destruction?

Honestly, this sounds like some top drawer, high quality, fantasy thinking.

Marine Corps requirements and development chief Lt. Gen. Eric Smith told reporters last year during the Expeditionary Warfare Conference that the Marines want to fight on ground of their choosing and then maneuver before forces can concentrate against them.

“They are mobile and small, they are not looking to grab a piece of ground and sit on it,” Smith said of his Marine units. “I’m not looking to block a strait permanently. I’m looking to maneuver. The German concept is ‘Schwerpunkt,’ which is applying the appropriate amount of pressure and force at the time and place of your choosing to get maximum effect.”

So, we’re disbursing small units on scattered islands and they’re somehow going to ‘maneuver before the enemy can concentrate against them’?  Uh … they’re on small islands.  How much maneuvering can they do? 

Maybe the Marines think they can maneuver to another island?  Again, how will we get large cargo ships to these remote, scattered islands to re-embark the Marines and move them to another island without being seen?

Seriously, if we can sail cargo ships (and escorts? now we’re talking large task forces – won’t those be noticed?) with utter stealth and impunity all around the enemy-controlled waters, we don’t need to use Marines to control the sea, we can just send Burkes to sail up next to the oblivious enemy ships and board them.

Wait, there’s more …

Smith describes a concept where the U.S. fleet can herd Chinese ships into a contested area where the Marines can do damage from the shore.

“So, if I’m maneuvering in support of the fleet commander in a contested, confined space, through the mobility I bring in air and with surface connectors I can get to a point and block or strike something that has been herded into a contested space – something that has been herded into that space by the fleet commander.” (3)

Again, the degree of willing cooperation and the assumed utter cluelessness of the enemy is staggering.  We’re going to set up these magic, hidden anti-ship units and the Chinese are going to allow us to ‘herd’ them into range?  Again, if we have sufficient naval force to ‘herd’ the Chinese navy then we really don’t need a few more Marine anti-ship missiles, do we?

Here’s the takeaways from this:

How do we transport large vehicles to these small, remote islands and lands without being detected?

How do we find targets that are beyond the horizon?  Are we going to build airstrips and operate long range UAVs on these small islands all without being detected?  Or, maybe we’ll use the regional network that ties all the non-survivable surveillance assets together in one ginormous, real time tactical picture?

Without long range surveillance and targeting, the effective area is limited to the horizon which is 12-15 miles from shore.

A small unit’s single launcher with one to a few missiles is of absolutely no tactical significance.  Will we land large numbers of launchers and missiles (along with reload equipment)?  If so, again, how will we conduct these large scale landings and operations without being detected?

This Commandant is all over the map.  China is his number one threat and priority and yet his first actions have to do with maternity leave????  His top ground priority is sea denial?  This guy is not giving me warm, fuzzy feelings about his grasp of the issues facing the Marines.

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(1)military.com website, “Marines' New Top Officer Wants to Give New Moms a Full Year Off”, Gina Harkins, 17-Jul-2019,

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/07/17/marines-new-top-officer-wants-give-new-moms-full-year.html

(2)Stars and Stripes website, “Women in more job fields, added maternity leave on top Marine’s priority list”, Immanuel Johnson, 24-Feb-2020,

https://www.stripes.com/news/women-in-more-job-fields-added-maternity-leave-on-top-marine-s-priority-list-1.620075

(3)Defense News website, “To combat the China threat, US Marine Corps declares ship-killing missile systems its top priority”, David B. Larter, 5-Mar-2020,

https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/03/05/to-combat-the-china-threat-us-marine-corps-declares-ship-killing-missile-systems-its-top-priority/

(4)Marine Corps Times website, “These Are The 21 Internal Memo Items The Top Marine Wants To Immediately Change”, Philip Athey, 4-Mar-2020,

https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2020/03/04/these-are-the-21-internal-memo-items-the-commandant-wants-to-immediately-change-in-the-corps/

Where Are You Shopping?

Of late, I’ve been seeing nothing but a non-stop parade of proposed products from industry that are the cutting edge (and beyond) of high technology.  I’m seeing exquisitely high tech, artificial intelligence assisted, battle management, unmanned, cross domain, synergistic …  well, that’s enough buzzwords strung together.  You get the point.  No one is offering the military basic, simple firepower that costs next to nothing even though that is likely a better product.  Why not?  Well, it’s all about where you shop.

On a personal level, if you shop at the local thrift store, you’re going to see cheap, basic items.  If you shop at the Apple store, you’re going to see the latest technology stuffed with every function and app that the designers at Apple could conceive.

If you’re the military and you shop at Lockheed Martin, you’re going to see AI-assisted battle management computer products.  What you’re not going to see is offers of bulk quantities of mortar shells.  Which one is likely to be of more use on the battlefield to say nothing of which one is more likely to work?  LM is going to offer what they know how to do and what can make them the most money.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  It’s what business is supposed to do.  The problem is that if the military doesn’t shop at the low level, basic firepower stores then they’re never going to see low level, basic firepower solutions even though those solutions are far more likely to useful on the battlefield.

Here’s the kind of product being offered at the store the military is shopping at.

The Air Force is launching a next-generation airborne surveillance and command and control technology intended to successfully synchronize air, ground, drone and satellite assets onto a single seamless network, service officials said.

ABMS [Advanced Battle Management and Surveillance] seeks to harvest the latest ISR-oriented technologies from current and emerging systems as a way to take a very large step forward – and connect satellites, drones, ground sensors and manned surveillance aircraft seamlessly in real time across a fast-changing, dispersed combat area of operations. (1)

Wow!  You can’t get any more exquisite and less firepower than that!

Wait …  I bet we can do better.  How about this,

The Missile Defense National Team is conducting a feasibility study on connecting the Missile Defense Agency’s integrated command and control system with the U.S. Army’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System.

The team, which is led by Lockheed Martin, consists of Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics and other companies. This team develops C2BMC, the system that integrates separate elements (Aegis, THAAD, SBIRS etc.) of the ballistic missile defense system into a global network. Through C2BMC, commanders can link any sensor, any shooter, at any phase of missile flight in any region, against any type of ballistic threat. (2)

Outstanding!  A global network linking anything to anything.  Is that pretty much the definition of exquisite?  Is there any possible way to top that?  How about this,

Lockheed Martin today unveiled its new HI-Vision Air-Space Integration Lab, a state-of-the-art development and integration facility designed to enable collaboration with customers and industry partners for future advancements in Joint command and control (C2) across air and space domains.

“We are focusing our resources within Lockheed Martin to help address our customers’ increasing requirements for horizontally integrated, network- centric solutions,” said Al Smith, Executive Vice President, Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems and Solutions business area.  …

Modeled after a functioning Air Operations Center, The HI-Vision lab creates a collaborative environment where military and industry personnel will address current and future architectural challenges to achieve greater synergy across air and space go-to-war C2 systems. The lab will serve as an integration proving ground for a wide range of current and future systems, including the C2 Constellation, Theater Battle Management Core Systems (TBMCS), E-10A Battle Management Command and Control (BMC2), Integrated Space Command and Control (ISC2), Distributed Common Ground Station (DCGS), and Missile Defense National Team efforts. (3)

Now we’re integrating the totality of air and space and doing so without any mention of firepower.  Zounds!  I’m lightheaded and my hands are trembling from excitement. 

What do all these proffered products have in common?  None of them involve actual firepower.  You remember what firepower is, right?  Yeah, it’s that stuff that actually kills the enemy.

Another thing they all have in common is price tags that would make even the US government take notice and gulp.

It’s all about where you shop.

When the Navy wanted a gun for the Zumwalt did they shop at the local 155 mm artillery gun maker who’s been cranking out artillery and ammo for half the world’s armed forces?  No, they went to BAE for the exquisite, non-standard, rocket assisted 155 mm gun maker and bought a gun that, despite nominally being the NATO standard 155 mm, couldn’t use any other gun’s ammo.  A gazillion dollars spent and we got nothing out of it.

When the Navy wanted a new stealth fighter did they go to Grumman Iron Works (now Northrop Grumman) for the latest version of a rock solid, basic fighter?  No, they went to a worldwide consortium representing a United Nations of suppliers for an aircraft so complex that it’s been twenty years in development and is just barely now entering service and has sustainment costs that even the military has acknowledged is unaffordable.

When the Navy needed a way to kill drones did they go the neighborhood Oerlikon store and look at the basic, 20 mm machine gun (Oerlikon 20mm/85 KAA, for example, capable of 1000 rds/min at a range of 1+ mile) that’s been a staple on naval ships since the Revolutionary War?  No, they immediately jumped on the laser bandwagon.

When the Navy needed a weapons elevator for their new carrier, did they go to elevators-R-us?  No, they went to the science fiction, quantum physics store for non-existent, theoretical electromagnetic pulse elevators.  How’d that work out?  Well, I’ll let you know if and when the Ford elevators ever get working properly.

If you shop at high tech stores you’ll get high tech products.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean high performance products.  In fact, all too often, it means products that flop miserably.  With high technology comes a high risk of failure and a certainty of difficulty in support.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Artillery, We Got Data.  Let's Buy Ten Of These!

We can’t blame the high tech companies.  It’s what they do.  Of course they’ll push high tech solutions.  That’s where the money is and making money is what they’re supposed to do.  Lockheed isn’t going to suggest binoculars and a note pad for battle management.  They’re going to push bio-matrix, artificial intelligence battle management, with nodes linked by telepathic relays using subspace inductive communications and multi-dimensional, interactive, spatial displays.  Sure, the binoculars and notepad are probably more reliable when the enemy starts raining artillery shells on you but that’s not what will make Lockheed money.  It’s incumbent on the Navy to know what will really work and not be lured by shiny toys.

We need to stop shopping at the high tech stores and start shopping at the bargain basement, firepower clearance stores.

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(1)The National Interest website, “The Air Force Is Creating a System to Manage the Military's Forces in War”, Kris Osborn, 1-Mar-2018,

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-air-force-creating-system-manage-the-militarys-forces-24701

(2)https://navaltoday.com/2014/06/27/lockheed-martin-led-team-conducts-study-on-battle-management-systems/

(3)http://www.defense-aerospace.com/article-view/release/26379/lockheed-unveils-new-air_space-lab-(sept.-30).html

Chinese Escalation

The US Navy reported that a Chinese Type 052D destroyer, the Hohhot (pennant 161), lased a P-8A Poseidon 380 miles west of Guam.  This puts the location several hundred miles outside of the first island chain and several hundred miles west of the Philippines – in other words, well outside even the ridiculous Chinese claims of ownership of the South/East China seas.

No details were provided such as duration of exposure, type of laser used (dazzler, rangefinder, high power), or range from the ship to the aircraft.

The Navy notes that the use of a laser on an aircraft violates multiple international agreements.

Additionally, these acts violate the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES), a multilateral agreement reached at the 2014 Western Pacific Naval Symposium to reduce the chance of an incident at sea. CUES specifically addresses the use of lasers that could cause harm to personnel or damage to equipment. The destroyer’s actions were also inconsistent with a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between U.S. Department of Defense and the Ministry of National Defense of the PRC regarding rules of behavior for safety of air and maritime encounters. (1)

On the face of it, this is an odd incident, being so far beyond even the China’s ridiculous territorial claims.  A few possible reasons spring to mind.

Force Down – Reminiscent of the Chinese force down of the US EP-3 aircraft, they may have been hoping to disrupt the aircraft enough to force a crash although a water crash would have provided no opportunity to seize the aircraft, as happened with the EP-3.

Message – The Chinese, while not explicitly claiming the entire Pacific Ocean, yet, have not hesitated to publicly denounce the US presence in the Pacific anywhere west of Hawaii.  This might have been intended as yet another message for the US Navy to leave the Pacific.

Limits – This may have been a simple continuation of their practice of testing how far they can push the limits of US patience and appeasement before provoking a response.

Of the three listed possibilities, the latter seems the most likely.  As we’ve often discussed, appeasement simply encourages and guarantees more incidents, more frequent incidents, and more serious incidents.  The US display of patience and appeasement is actually counterproductive to maintaining peace in the region.  At some point, we need to respond forcefully and decisively.   The Chinese destroyer, presumably on a solo mission, should be made the target of several strike exercises by assets out of Guam.

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(1)Naval News website, “Chinese Destroyer Lased a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon MPA”, Xavier Vavasseur, 28-Feb-2020,

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2020/02/chinese-destroyer-lased-a-u-s-navy-p-8a-poseidon-mpa/

Marine Corps Manning

A reader, who generally prefers to remain anonymous, mentioned Marine Corps manpower in a post comment some time ago and pointed out that it has not always been at the current level.  In fact, it’s varied greatly.  The reader posed the question whether the current levels are justified when considered against historical levels? 

A further comment was the suggestion that a smaller Corps might provide the core for ramping up when necessary (war) while allowing the organization to be more agile, flexible, and adaptable in addressing substantial changes in warfighting requirements and methods during peacetime.

I think it’s worth pondering those questions so let’s start by taking a quick look at historical Marine manpower levels, as shown in the table below.

Marine Corps Manpower History (1)
1900	5,414
1918	52,819
1930	19,380
1940	28,345
1945	469,925
1950	74,279
1955	205,170
1965	190,213
1975	195,951
1985	198,025
1995	174,639
2020(2)	186,200

Note the massive and rapid buildup in manpower from pre-WWI (1900) and pre-WWII (1930) levels to the end of war levels in 1918 and 1945.  Note also the extreme reductions that took place post-war.  That trend of small peacetime levels and rapid buildup for war was the norm until around1955-1960 which was post-Korean war.  From 1960 until now, levels have stayed elevated and fairly steady.

Why have levels stayed elevated and constant since 1960?  What has changed to invalidate the pre-1960 practice of smaller peace time levels?  I have no definitive answer to these questions but they are very good questions that I hope Marine Corps leadership has an answer for.

One partial explanation is that since the Sep 11, 2001 (9/11) terror attacks we have been in a constant state of ‘war’ (the global war on terror – GWOT) and manpower requirements have been elevated and consistent, as a result.  However, that does not explain why the manpower levels were elevated for forty years prior to 9/11.

Another possible answer is budget competition.  No service wants to downsize because that means a subsequent smaller budget and, short of war, it’s very difficult to regain lost budget.  Of course, budget competition has been around since 1776 so, while competition is undoubtedly a factor, it offers only a partial explanation and does not explain why once considered much smaller peacetime manning to be acceptable.

Moving on, one of our initial questions involved the act of ramping up manpower levels for war.  The obvious question is whether that can be successfully done, today.  It certainly was done, and done successfully, in response to WWI/WWII manpower demands.  Can it be done today or has technology advanced to the point that it takes too long to train a Marine to make rapid buildup a viable war response.  For example, a Marine computer/cyber technician can’t be mass produced in an abbreviated, three week boot camp.  It takes years of training to become competent.  An F-35 or MV-22 maintenance tech, unlike a WWII Hellcat/Corsair aircraft mechanic, requires a good deal more time to train.  On the other hand, a basic Marine rifleman can still likely be produced in fairly short order.  So, what does this tell us about the optimum peacetime manning level?  Honestly, I don’t know.  One thing it does tell us is that we should be cautious about committing to technology so advanced that only a Ph.D genius with 20 years of experience can maintain and operate it.

The most interesting aspect of Marine Corps manning levels is the suggestion that a smaller peacetime Corps might be more agile, flexible, and adaptable in recognizing and adjusting to changes in warfare.  Are smaller organizations more flexible and adaptable than larger ones?  I don’t know that that would inherently be true.  While one could argue that a smaller organization has fewer people who need to be ‘convinced’ to change, it should be noted that ‘smaller’ is a relative term.  Even 20,000 people is still a lot of people to convince.  One could, conversely, argue that a smaller organization is likely to be an older organization in terms of average age and that older people are more set in their ways and less open to change.

One aspect that I suspect is true is that a smaller organization has less inertia once they decide to change.  For example, it’s easier to abandon 100 heavy tanks in favor of a lightweight tank than it is to abandon 10,000 tanks.  In other words, the ‘structural’ costs of a large organization may make significant change much more difficult to implement.  In another exaggerated example, the current Marine Commandant has suggested that he wants to move away from the typical amphibious ship and move towards smaller, distributed transports.  Well, it’s going to be difficult to get Congress to agree to abandon thirty-some multi-billion dollar amphibious ships than it would be to abandon a single large amphibious ship.  So, it is reasonable to suppose that a smaller organization has less inertia, however, this is relevant only after the organization has decided that change is needed.  Less inertia does not, itself, promote change.

So, what did we learn from the preceding discussion.  Honestly, not a lot.  It raised more questions than answers but at least we’re better informed to ponder those questions.

Should we have a smaller peacetime Marine Corps?  My feeling is yes, but I can’t offer any substantive reasons why.  I can offer this thought:  a Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) has around 2000 men and a Marine Expeditionary Brigade has around 14,000 men.  Normally, we have one or two MEUs deployed so that puts around 4000 Marines on the ‘front lines’.  Currently we have 5 MEBs which accounts for 70,000 men.  Compare those numbers to the current manning level of 186,000.  That’s 116,000 ‘unattached’ Marines that are doing what?  I know, there’s a certain required level of support personnel but have we grown inefficient in our ‘tooth to tail’ ratio?  I’m sure we have.  I strongly suspect we could cut 50,000 personnel without drastically affecting our peacetime combat capability especially since we normally only deploy one or two MEUs at a time.  Using 186,000 people to deploy 4000 (2x MEU) seems entirely out of whack.  To be fair, someone who knows exactly what those 186,000 people are doing would have to address my supposition but I’d be surprised if all 186,000 were absolutely vital to our peacetime security.

Is a smaller organization more flexible and adaptable?  Inherently, no, but it is logical to assume that it has less inertia once a decision to change has been made.

This is one of those rare posts that examines an issue but fails to offer conclusions.  I simply don’t have the requisite information and understanding.  At least we now know more than we did.

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(1)http://alternatewars.com/BBOW/Stats/US_Mil_Manpower_1789-1997.htm

(2) https://www.secnav.navy.mil/fmc/fmb/Documents/20pres/MPMC_Book.pdf, p.4