PT Gunboat Reaction

Wow!  I mean … wow!  The almost universal reaction to the last post on a PT gunboat was to hugely upgrade it by doubling the size and adding large guns (up to 76 mm), anti-ship missiles, radar fire control, UAV aviation, mines, etc.  No one was content to let the gunboat be a simple, small gunboat with the missions listed in the post.
 
Speaking of missions, no one really objected to the mission list nor did they amend the list to account for their proposed changes in weaponry and sensors.  Instead, they instantly jumped to more and bigger hulls and weapons.
 
Does this sound familiar?  It should.  It’s exactly how the Navy designs ships.  They start with a potentially focused, common sense idea and then instantly double the size, add every thing  and every function they can think of, and gold plate the entire design.
 
Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against discussing a large patrol ship (corvette) which is what almost everyone was describing (even the ‘you should look at xxxx’ references were, invariably much larger vessels), however, none of the proposed ships retained any real relationship to the original PT gunboat subject of the post.
 
Don’t understand why the Navy designs are always so bad?  This is why.  We did it, ourselves!
 
Re-read the post and then the comments and note the instant upsizing.  Not a single person stuck with the scope and missions of the PT gunboat.  Hey, maybe you didn’t like the gunboat idea.  That’s fine but to start designing a vastly increased substitute without modifying the mission list and CONOPS is exactly how the Navy gets it wrong.
 
This was an eye opener!  I honestly didn’t expect that.  I guess I have more work to do to hammer home the proper design principles.

PT Gunboat

As we have previously discussed, the gunboat version of the WWII PT boat was the most effective form of the PT Boat (“PTboat”) and, along with its surveillance (ISR) duties, were the most useful functions.  Interestingly, we have modern PT boat equivalents in the Mk VI and, in a larger form, the Cyclone class, although both are being eliminated from service.  There have been other small boats, as well, in recent decades.  The Navy, although it has toyed with small boats from time to time, has rejected all attempts at establishing a persistent small boat naval component within the fleet.
 
Pivoting our thinking away from the ship-sinking role for the PT-ish boat (we’ll use the term ‘PT boat’ in a generic sense for the rest of the article) and keeping in mind that the most effective use was as barge-busting gunboats and ISR, we could easily imagine a very useful PT boat component in the Navy, today.  For example, we could flood the Persian Gulf with PT boats to monitor and eliminate Iran’s maritime harassment, ship seizures, and ship mining.  Of course, that would require us to have the will to use force, as necessary, otherwise there would be no point.
 
 
Weapons
 
Consider the impressive density and types of weapons on PT gunboats.  As an example, listed below is the weapons fit on PT-596 later in the war:
 
PT 596

• 4x torpedo
• 1x M4 37 mm autocannon
• 2x Mk50 5” Rocket Launcher
• 2x Twin .50 cal MG
• 1x 20 mm single
• 1x 40 mm single

 
In addition, many PT boats added various types of weapons as desired and as availability allowed.  Such ad hoc weapons included the 37 mm anti-tank gun, depth charges, mounted bazooka, .30 cal MG, 40 mm dual, 20 mm dual, 81 mm mortar, and so forth.
 
All that weaponry was packed on an 80 ft boat!  We struggle, today, to mount one CIWS on a 500+ ft Burke.
 
Now, consider modern equivalent PT boat weapons on a small boat.  With such a boat, what kinds of missions could we effectively perform?
 
 
Missions
 
Here’s a partial list of missions that could be performed by a modern PT gunboat:
 

• Persian Gulf anti-Iranian maritime harassment
• Philippines anti-Chinese patrol
• Fishery anti-Chinese incursion patrol
• Africa and South America riverine patrol and raid
• Anti-terrorism

 
Note:  None of the above missions are major war missions.  The PT boat is simply not suited for major combat, today.  It would, however, offer benefits in the pseudo-peacetime role as long as we’re willing to use them forcefully, when necessary.
 
It’s also noteworthy that the missions we’ve discussed generally occur at a useful level, meaning at the source of problems rather than at the high end, geopolitical level where we wind up having Burkes standing by watching bad actors instead of taking action because we’re too afraid of escalation or international hurt feelings.
 
One argument against a modern PT boat is that they’re rendered ineffective by the whole ‘don’t fire until fired upon’ philosophy that so many people believe is some kind of ironclad, mandatory requirement that prevents us from using force.  This, however, is complete bilgewater.  There is nothing in the law or the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice) that prohibits US forces from firing first if they feel sufficiently threatened.  That a prohibition against firing first appears in some Rules of Engagement is a purely self-imposed constraint and, arguably, contradicts the military Code of Conduct.
 
For example, if an Iranian boat makes an attack run on a US vessel, we should assume it’s real and fire first.  We are not responsible for reading the enemy’s mind.  We cannot depend on past behavior to know for certain that the attack run is just a bluff.  Indeed, the local commander would be derelict for not taking action if it did turn out to be a real attack.  Most importantly, after a few Iranian boats are destroyed while attempting reckless harassment, they would stop harassing us, knowing that to do so is fatal.  Iran is responsible for the consequences of its own stupid acts.  It’s not our job to be responsible for their stupid behavior and to rescue them from the consequences of their own stupid behavior.
 
Additional benefits of a PT gunboat, authorized to take appropriate action, would be that it would provide low level command opportunities and would be a great way to begin identifying personnel with actual combat mindsets and promoting them into higher commands instead of the cowering crap we have for captains and admirals today.
 
What do you think?  Are there useful missions for a modern PT gunboat?
 
 
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Note:  For a fictional story describing the use of a PT gunboats, see, “MkVI –Gunboat Diplomacy Story”

ET, Phone Home

Here’s a little tidbit from the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict about radio signal security. 

On top of the strikes themselves, Lebanese civilians describe shock at Israel’s ability to obstruct and overtake radio frequencies in Lebanon in order to broadcast an announcement warning people to stay away from Hezbollah sites and forecasting the air strikes to come.[1]

One of the foundational beliefs among US military planners is that our communications will be secure … despite no evidence supporting that belief and a fair amount of evidence to the contrary (see, “Communications Vulnerability”).
 
So many of our weapon systems depend on guidance signals, telemetry, data flow, and so forth and the security of those communications has been taken as an article of faith despite evidence to the contrary.  For example, Iran has had success disrupting and/or capturing our UAV control signals resulting in loss or capture of UAVs.
 
The US military consistently refuses to test communications under realistic conditions during field exercises and, in a display of unbelievable illogic, has publicly stated that using our full capabilities would be too disruptive during an exercise.  Do we not believe that China will have capabilities at least equal to our own?  Should we not, then, subject our communications to the maximum disruption possible in exercises to see what works and what doesn’t and to learn how to work in the face of disruptions?
 
I have consistently heard from military communications specialists that our communications are nowhere near as secure as we’d like to believe.  That doesn’t necessarily mean that China can decrypt our signals.  Decryption is not need to learn a great deal.  Signal frequency (number of signals, not wavelength), strength, location, etc. can offer a great deal of information as the British found out in the Battle of Heligoland Bight (see, ”The Battle of Heligoland Bight”).
 
I would hope that the military has conducted extensive and realistic tests and just aren’t sharing the information publicly but I doubt that’s the case.  It’s simply impossible to keep large scale tests of that nature a secret.  It might be possible to keep the results secret but not the event.
 
This is just a brief post to remind us about our potential communications vulnerability.  We need to begin realistic tests and exercises yesterday or we’re going to be rudely surprised when war comes.
 
 
 
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[1]Breaking Defense, “For Lebanon, a war in all but name has finally arrived: Experts”,   Agnes Helou, 25-Sep-2024,
https://breakingdefense.com/2024/09/for-lebanon-a-war-in-all-but-name-has-finally-arrived-experts/

SEAL Deaths

You may recall the deaths of two SEALs back in Jan 2024, off Yemen, during a night boarding operation in poor weather with 6 ft seas.  One man slipped while climbing a scaling ladder and fell into the sea.  The second man dove in to assist the first man who was struggling to regain the ladder.  The Navy’s report states that the deaths were preventable and attributes the deaths to, 

The cause of the deaths was attributed to poor training, unfamiliarity with flotation gear, and possible improper maintenance of personal flotation devices.[1]

It is also noteworthy that the men were heavily loaded with gear. 

Each SEAL carried about 50 pounds of personal and mission equipment.  Navy Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Nathan Gage Ingram, 27, dived into the sea to assist Chambers. Ingram is believed to have carried about 80 pounds of gear when he dived in.[1]

Diving into high seas with 50-80 lbs of gear is not a formula for success.
 
The Navy identified what they consider the root cause of the tragedy to be: 

The root cause of the incident was unfamiliarity with personal flotation gear and a lack of standard procedure for using, training with, or wearing it.

Other team members told investigators that while they knew the importance of their tactical flotation system — which includes two inflatable floats that attach to a belt and foam inserts that can be added — few had ever operated one in training and there is little instruction on how to wear it.[1]

Contray to the Navy's claim, that is not the root cause and the statement clearly indicates that the Navy doesn’t have the faintest idea what the term ‘root cause’ means or how to conduct a root cause analysis.  A root cause is the ultimate reason something occurs and, inevitably, produces a cascading chain of lesser causes leading to the event itself.  Almost invariably, the true root cause of anything lies with flawed leadership at fairly high levels and, almost inevitably, organizations stop their root cause analysis at a low level, well before they get to the true, upper level (leadership) cause (I wonder why they stop, he asked sarcastically, knowing exactly why).
 
In this instance, the root cause was not the SEAL’s lack of familiarity with the flotation equipment.  That was a low level cause but nowhere near the true root cause.
 
Moving up the root cause chain a bit, the person who selected/specified unfamiliar equipment for the unit was a cause but, again, not the root cause.
 
Proceeding further up the root cause chain, the assignment by leadership of a mission in questionable weather by inadequately trained personnel was a higher level cause but, again, not the true root cause.  This is similar to whoever assigned the riverine boats a mission beyond their capabilities which resulted in the boats and crews being seized by Iran.
 
The true(er) root cause, then, was high level Navy leadership who were unaware (or uncaring) of the equipment and level of training of the unit and proceeded to assign a mission anyway under very questionable weather conditions.
 
The truly ultimate root cause was a Navy system that encouraged lackadaisical training, a never say no culture, an ignorance of real world conditions, and a lack of personal responsibility towards those under their command.  To be clear, I’m talking about SecNav and Chief of Naval Operations who fostered a flawed culture.  This flawed culture has been evident repeatedly in collisions, groundings, waivers leading to fatalities, capsized amphibious vehicles, a surrender rather than fight mentality, acquisition failures and coverups, prioritizing social issues over combat readiness, and so on.  There can be no disputing the failed culture of the Navy.
 
Aside from the root cause, there is another aspect to this tragedy and that is personal responsibility.  Frankly, given the SEALs supposed creed of attention to detail, I’m astounded that they would embark on a mission with unfamiliar equipment and known shortcomings in their training.  I know they (and the Navy/military, in general) have a ‘can do’ attitude (arrogance, when it comes down to it) that drives them to do foolish things but there comes a point where personal responsibility comes into play.  In addition to knowingly endangering themselves, each SEAL knowingly allowed their fellow SEALs to begin a mission that they knew their fellows were not adequately trained or prepared for and that danger was compounded by the darkness and weather conditions.  Even if they wish to ignore the danger to themselves, each SEAL is obligated to be responsible for his fellow team members if he sees them about to do something foolish.  Each SEAL member failed their obligation to their teammates.
 
I’m deeply disappointed in the SEALs individually and as a group culture.
 
Some of you may be offended by this analysis but that doesn’t change the reality.
 
 
 
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[1]Redstate website, “Investigation Reveals Drowning of Two Navy SEALs During a Boarding Operation Was Entirely Preventable”, streiff, 12-Oct-2024,
https://redstate.com/streiff/2024/10/12/investigation-reveals-drowning-of-two-navy-seals-during-a-boarding-operation-was-entirely-preventable-n2180468

Blast From The Past

If you look to the sidebar of the post, you’ll see a new feature called ‘Blast from the Past’.  In it is a link to a single post pulled from the early archives.  The post will change with some frequency and will be a post that remains pertinent today but may have been missed by many current readers who had not yet joined the blog at the time of the posting.  The posts will reveal the timelessness of ComNavOps’ wisdom and his eerie foresight and omniscience.  Enjoy!

Prepare to Fight the Last War

There’s an old saying that generals always prepare to fight the last war.  Nowhere is this truer than the Ukraine-Russia war.  The US (and, to be fair, the entire world) is preparing to fight the Ukraine conflict for the next war. 
 
We noted the success Ukraine has had using unmanned surface drones against the Russian navy and so we are dutifully pushing ahead with unmanned vessels just as quickly as we can while ignoring the unique factors that make the Ukraine conflict a true one-of-a-kind example.
 
We noted the inability of manned aircraft to exert decisive effect and so we’ve begun revising our air doctrine and tactics to reflect this while ignoring the unique factors that make the Ukraine conflict a true one-of-a-kind example.
 
We noted the impact of small UAVs in attacking individual soldiers and vehicles so we’ve enthusiastically embraced all manner of small drones while ignoring the unique factors that make the Ukraine conflict a true one-of-a-kind example.
 
We noted the marked lack of success by tanks and their high rates of attrition and so we’ve eliminated the entire Marine Corps tank component and begun moving away from tanks and toward light vehicles while ignoring the unique factors that make the Ukraine conflict a true one-of-a-kind example.
 
 
There can be no dispute.  When we enter into a duplicate of the Ukraine conflict we will be more than ready.  On the other hand, when we take on China we’ll be lost, floundering, and wondering why we aren’t better prepared.  It’s because we’re preparing to fight the Ukraine war, not China.

Low-Manned Surface Vessel

There has been a good deal of discussion in the naval observer camp lately about some form of supplemental weapons vessel;  an arsenal ship/barge, as it was called in earlier times.  The vessel, by whatever name, would act as a supplemental magazine for manned ships thereby allowing … well … I’m not really sure what it allows.  Let’s take a look at the latest country to latch onto the fad and see what’s good about their design and concept and what isn’t.
 
The Royal Netherlands Navy is going to acquire two-low manned surface vessels which are euphemistically and optimistically referred to as ‘The Rapidly Increased Firepower Capability’ (TRIFIC, ‘terrific’? one assumes they’ll be called in a tortured acronym that some staffer probably received a promotion for coming up with) and, in some articles, Modular Integrated Capability for ACDF and North Sea (MICAN) and Multifunctional Support Ship (pick a name and stick with it!).
 
The vessel is 170-200 ft long and is based on a commercial offshore supply vessel.  It will carry up to 4 containers on the aft deck.
 

TRIFIC Low-manned Surface Vessel

 
From various articles, here’s a list of some of the claimed capabilities of the vessel:
 

• increase front-line firepower
• support surveillance efforts
• containerized weapon packages
• electronic warfare (EW) packages combining both intercept and jamming functionality
• operate as an ‘offboard’ magazine for RNLN air defence and command frigates (ADCFs)
• fire support/precision strike for the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps
• provide additional long-range surface-to-air missile capacity for the four De Zeven Provinciën-class ADCFs
• employ long-range precision-guided munitions against coastal targets in support of amphibious operations
• provide protection for infrastructure in the North Sea
• deploy the Harop long-range loitering munition
• precision strike capability against critical targets such as headquarters, artillery or rocket installations, and supply areas
• EW suite to collect information on radar emitters, jam threat radars, and disrupt control links associated with hostile drones
• deploy underwater vehicles/sensors to support surveillance and protection of North Sea infrastructures
• deploy above-water sensors to record the activities of suspicious ships for evidence 

 
Looking at that list, this vessel is a true miracle.  The only capability it doesn’t seem to have is the ability to operate an air wing while submerged.  Perhaps that’s coming?
 
What is the rationale for the vessel? 

The requirement for additional long-range anti-air missiles has been shaped by operational analysis which has determined that a massive and simultaneous attack with anti-ship missiles or swarming drones could rapidly exhaust existing ACDF [air defence and command frigates] magazine capacity. According to Tuinman [Dutch state secretary for defense Gijs Tuinman], the concept of ‘distributed operations’ developed by the RNLN will see a De Zeven Provinciën-class frigate operating in close company with a multifunction support vessel with additional missiles housed in containers on the aft deck.[1]

Will a couple of containers of missiles (2?  maybe 4 missiles per container?) make the difference to a frigate facing “a massive and simultaneous attack with anti-ship missiles or swarming drones”?  Of course not!  A massive and simultaneous attack with anti-ship missiles or swarming drones is not a winnable scenario for a single frigate … not even close.  To believe that a few extra missile containers will enable a frigate to defeat “a massive and simultaneous attack with anti-ship missiles or swarming drones” is pure fantasy.
 
We’ve already demonstrated that a ship – any ship – will be lucky to get off a single two-missile salvo against any incoming missile and a frigate has a basic radar, not even a Aegis type sophisticated radar.  As we’ve noted, having a million defensive missiles available is of no use whatsoever.  You can only launch two missiles per engagement and responding to “a massive and simultaneous attack with anti-ship missiles” is simply not possible.
 
Making the scenario even less likely is that the launch commands and missile guidance will be provided by the accompanying frigate.  How is a frigate that is under attack by “a massive and simultaneous attack with anti-ship missiles” going to have the time or resources to provide external missile targeting and guidance control? 
 
Even worse, a frigate that is controlling a remote vessel has to have constant communication between the control ship and the low-manned support vessel.  This means the ship’s location is being constantly broadcast.  Is this a good idea in combat?
 
The cost of this vessel is also concerning.  The budget for the multifunction support vessels is between €250 million and €1 billion. This covers procurement costs, a risk reserve, and operating costs through to 2039.[1]  It’s a certainty that the cost is going to be much closer to the high end of that enormous range than the low end.
 
The practical operating aspects of this vessel have clearly not been thought through.  This is an example of latching onto a fad because you have no grasp of the realities of combat.
 
 
 
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[1]Naval News website, “Netherlands Firms Up Plans For Multifunction Support Vessels”, Richard Scott, 27-Sep-2024,
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2024/09/netherlands-firms-up-plans-for-multifunction-support-vessels/