Reconfiguring Air Cushioned Vehicles to Enhance Distributed Lethality

Distributed Lethality Topic Week

By John Devlin

With the continuing buildup of Chinese and Russian navies, as well as increasingly capable regional actors, the task of leveraging a 300 ship US Navy using distributed lethality (DL) as a force multiplier in response remains a formidable task. It is reminiscent of another period in our history when our scientists and engineers had to conjure a way to prolong a life sustaining air supply while constrained to only limited resources available to a stricken space craft. Most of us are familiar with the story of Apollo 13 astronauts using duct tape and plastic bags to adapt parts never intended to work together in order to return safely back to earth. Those scientists and engineers toiled feverishly with various configurations before agreeing on a workable course of action. The birth of distributed lethality is similarly constrained, but with a much larger mission and far-reaching consequences.

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BRAVO ZULU to the tacticians and engineers who adapted the SM-6 surface-to-air missile (SAM) to a surface-to-surface missile (SSM) to rapidly extend the stand-off range for our surface action groups (SAG).  It is encouraging that these innovators were not dissuaded from their pursuit by the arguments against using an air warhead against a surface target or the $4M cost per unit or the command and control implications of shooting at a target so many miles over the horizon potentially dispersed among friendly vessels. This is an innovative first step to demonstrate the capability.  The necessary refinements will follow as the value of this new weapon becomes accepted and integrated into battle group tactics.

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Figure 1. Air Cushioned Vehicle easily maneuvers over a rocky beach.

Let’s examine the advantages of the SM-6 in the SSM mode and why this adaptation is a smart and innovative use of existing ships and munitions. The missile dimensions are the same as the SM-6 in the SAM mode which allows the use of existing launchers and platforms. Crews are in place. As mentioned previously, the stand-off range is substantially improved. The kill probably of a continuous rod or fragmentation warhead against hardened ship targets is unlikely; however, a soft kill of the target’s sensors and communications antennae, at least initially, is almost as good as sinking it. It will likely blind the enemy’s fire control systems. The allocation of missiles in the ship’s missile magazines for SSM versus SAM targets is an old discussion and is only appropriate when discussed relative to the expected opposing force. Another potential negative is the $4M cost of these missiles. But nonetheless, this is a step in the right direction and is in alignment with distributed lethality.

Where else can the US Navy apply this type of innovative thinking to further increase lethality? How do we out gun, out run, and out maneuver opposing forces using the current inventory of platforms, weapons systems, C2, and manning? Why not reconfigure the 1st generation Landing Craft Air Cushioned (LCAC) into shooting platforms? The VLS Hellfire missiles can be mounted in the cargo deck. Pedestal-mounted APKWS missiles could be similarly mounted. Chain guns such as the M61 Vulcan 20mm Cannon or the Mk38 25mm machinegun can all be mounted in the cargo deck for line-of-sight targeting. This craft has demonstrated 100 knots speeds.  Its ability to maneuver in shallow water, reef zones, shifting sand bars, riverine, and beach zones gives it the maneuverability of no other afloat vehicle. This tactical advantage of speed and maneuver cannot be matched. It travels at near-helicopter speeds, can carry 10 times the helicopter’s payload, with four times the on-station time. It could be configured with an AEGIS Ashore Missile Payload and positioned at many improved and unimproved sites.

Initially, targeting can be line-of-sight with over-the-horizon targeting when DL integration development progresses. We have seen enemy fighters using mosques and urban

Figure 2. Air Cushioned Vehicle maneuvers from an obscure beach.
Figure 2. Air Cushioned Vehicle maneuvers from an obscure beach.

areas to shield them from incoming fire. We can expect enemy maritime forces to use fishing, merchant vessels, and fleeing refugees as defensive shields. Engagement criteria, for at least the initial engagement skirmishes, will be line of sight positive identification via manned observation or remote observation. Clear Rules of Engagement (ROE) will need to be developed and practiced. Greater forward force autonomy should be anticipated to ensure engagement success.

The air cushioned vehicles will be positioned forward of the battle group in picket roles in archipelagic regions or in strategic straits such as the Strait of Hormuz where the shifting sandbars are not an obstacle to maneuvering for these vehicles. Their maneuverability will allow them to cut the escape routes of marauding high speed conventional craft who traverse narrow channels with impunity because they know the potential of grounding a chasing naval vessel is an unacceptable risk to the USN.  Submarine based threats and mined areas are also of limited concern for a vessel that has no draft. 

But these air cushioned vehicles are not suitable to plow through high seas. How can we get them to theater and provide operating support?  Platform Supply Vessels (PSV) have been performing this type of role in the off-shore oil industry for three decades. They have transported the heavy equipment and operating supplies that allow oil rigs to operate at sea for long periods. These vessels are designed to carry a tremendous volume of drill mud, fresh water, and fuel needed for use in off-shore oil drilling. The drill mud storage tanks can be used to ballast down the stern and allow self-propelled access to air cushioned vehicles. They are rugged vessels and are built to withstand the rigors of high seas.  In the

Figure 33. PSVs can carry Air Cushioned Vehicles to theater on this wide open deck.
Figure 33. PSVs can carry Air Cushioned Vehicles to theater on this wide open deck.

post-Deepwater Horizon off-shore oil industry, they have reduced the high insurance costs of hoteling crews on the rigs by providing hotel services on the PSVs. As a consequence of the shale oil revolution and low world oil prices, new PSVs are tied to their piers because operating them is no longer profitable. They are available for lease, purchase, or contracted services.

As the new LCAC 100 comes into service, the old LCACs are headed to the scrap pile.  Why not reconfigure them with modular weapons to give the US Navy a combatant craft that can out gun, out run, and out maneuver opposing forces?

John Devlin is Director of Navy Programs with ISPA Technology and a retired US Navy Captain.  He was a Tactical Action Officer (TAO) in carrier battle groups as a Surface Warfare Officer and has experience in littoral operations as a Special Operations Officer.

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Enabling Distributed Lethality

Distributed Lethality Topic Week

By LCDR Josh Heivly 

Distributed lethality offers an innovative way ahead for the US Navy’s surface forces by returning them to a sea control role, detached from HVT defense and grouped into hunter-killer SAGs designed to complicate adversary targeting efforts, deter adventurism, and reassure allies and partners. This has been couched in terms of an “operating concept” and not a strategy, per se, but its implementation will certainly produce strategic effects.  Distributed lethality amounts to a form of strengthened dispersal, designed as a direct counter to anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategies [1] while increasing the deterrence value of USN forces. The US Navy has already made strong efforts to find “least-cost” paths toward achieving the desired increases in lethality and survivability of surface platforms. The long term implications of distributed lethality may necessitate a revised USN approach to basing and shipbuilding – it could also prompt regional arms races as potential adversaries respond to distributed lethality by expanding their ISR and A2/AD capabilities in kind.

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The strategic implications of employing USN surface forces using Distributed lethality concepts are considerable. Operationally it acts as a direct response to A2/AD concepts, complicating adversary sea denial efforts by filling the sea space with small groups of well-defended, heavily armed platforms, each of which is capable of producing additional deception and counter-targeting effects. Politically, doubling down on presence in the form of surface combatants will reinforce deterrence by complicating the operational picture, enable persistent challenge to the excessive maritime claims of regional actors, and counter larger strategies designed to weaken US influence. By creating uncertainty on the part of potential adversaries, distributed lethality ”…aims to degrade an adversary’s confidence in their weapons rather than through overwhelming force…,”[2] fundamentally altering calculations of risk and lowering the potential payoffs of initiating hostilities. Distributed lethality also acts to reassure and support US partners and allies by providing consistent presence and support, strengthening our coalitions abroad.

It is in the economic details that the viability of distributed lethality becomes a bit murkier. In the short term, the Navy has actually done very well by capitalizing on existing systems. Rapid acquisition and fielding efforts are currently underway to build a long-range strike capability to replace the aging Harpoon by adapting existing systems; possibilities include the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), the Norwegian Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile [3], the SM-6 [4], and a proposal to modify existing stocks of TLAMs for anti-ship missions [5].  Survivability has also been addressed in the same way with an ongoing project to update and integrate SeaRAM [6].  All of these efforts are a testament to the Navy’s commitment to implement distributed lethality without calling for larger budgetary outlays. This makes distributed lethality easier to sell on the Hill and allows the Navy to claim the high ground on this issue in terms of resource utilization.

Norweigan Strike Missile (NSM) launch.
Norweigan Strike Missile (NSM) launch.

None of this changes the arithmetic of force generation required to create persistent presence.  There are only so many forward deployed platforms overseas, certainly nowhere near enough to complicate the operational picture of potential adversaries.  Sooner or later the Navy will need to reassess its ability to support distributed lethality with current platforms, systems, and budgets; achieving the desired effects (dispersal and deterrence) will require cost-effective numbers of platforms to be maintained on-station. Surface combatants will need to transit back and forth from CONUS bases, taking up large periods of time moving to and from operational areas. 

In order to maximize loiter time and capitalize on existing platforms, the Navy should take a long hard look at the forward basing of more surface combatants.  This will require close engagement with host nations and long term investments in infrastructure; shipyards, repair facilities, distribution centers, housing, and administrative activities would all need to be expanded to support additional hulls. The LCS, although designed as a littoral platform specifically in response to swarming attacks, partially fulfills the requirement for numbers of hulls, although the details of this system are still being worked out and the Navy is now working on an expanded “fast frigate” concept based on the LCS [7].  Small surface combatants have been proposed as a partial solution [8], offering cost-effective platforms that can be produced in quantity – but not without some compromises in survivability. It seems certain that the Navy will have to seek a balance of quantity and quality, and this will require a reassessment of design concepts.

Morning colors at Naval Support Activity Bahrain (US Navy photo).
Morning colors at Naval Support Activity Bahrain (US Navy photo).

Finally, by its very design, distributed lethality is intended to elicit a desired reaction on the part of potential adversaries [9]. A2/AD strategies were adopted by regional actors as an asymmetric response to US power projection capabilities, in direct support of their perceived interests; these countries will not simply drop this approach in the face of multiple hunter-killer SAGs operating nearby. They will undoubtedly expand their investment in ISR and A2/AD capabilities, responding with both increased quantity and quality of their own.  This increased expenditure of resources will produce comparatively greater strain on the more modestly sized and resourced militaries of these countries, many of which already labor under sanctions. Technological and industrial competition will almost certainly increase as a result.  Luckily, as the world leader in innovation, such a situation would favor the US, but only in general terms and with considerable uncertainty.

LCDR Josh Heivly is an active duty Navy Supply Corps Officer. The views voiced here are his alone and in no way represent the views of the US Navy or the Department of Defense.

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[1] Rowden, Thomas, Gumataotao, Peter, and Fanta, Peter.  “Distributed Lethality.”  Accessed 20 Feb 2016 at http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2015-01/distributed-lethality

[2] Filipoff, Dmitry.  “Distributed Lethality and Concepts of Future War.”  Accessed on 16 Feb 2016 at https://cimsec.org/distributed-lethality-and-concepts-of-future-war/20831

[3] LaGrone, Sam.  “SNA:  Navy Surface Leaders Pitch More Lethal Ships, Surface Action Groups.” Accessed 17 Feb 2016 at http://news.usni.org/2015/01/14/sna-navy-surface-leaders-pitch-lethal-ships-surface-action-groups

[4] Eckstein, Megan.  “Navy Finds Offensive Uses for Defensive Systems to Support Distributed Lethality.”  Accessed 17 Feb 2016 at http://news.usni.org/2015/12/01/navy-finding-offensive-uses-for-defensive-systems-to-support-distributed-lethality 

[5] Eckstein, Megan.  “A Year Into Distributred Lethality, Navy Nears Fielding Improved Weapon, Deploying Surface Action Group.”  Accessed 17 Feb 2016 at http://news.usni.org/2016/01/13/a-year-into-distributed-lethality-navy-nears-fielding-improved-weapons-deploying-surface-action-group

[6] Eckstein, supra. “Navy Finds Offensive Uses for Defensive Systems to Support Distributed Lethality.”

[7] LaGrone, Sam. “SNA:  Modified Littoral Combat Ships to be Designated Frigates.”  Accessed 21 Feb 2016 at http://news.usni.org/2015/01/15/sna-modified-littoral-combat-ship-class-changed-fast-frigate

[8] McCabe, T. Holland.  “Capstone Essay:  Distributed Lethality Requires Distributed Capability Across the Surface Fleet.”  Accessed 17 Feb 2016 at http://blog.usni.org/2015/08/03/capstone-essay-distributed-lethality-requires-distributed-capability-across-the-surface-fleet

[9] Rowden et al.

Implementing Distributed Lethality within the Joint Operational Access Concept

Distributed Lethality Topic Week

By LCDR Collin Fox

If you look for “distributed lethality” in doctrine, you won’t find it.  It’s a concept that exists in articles, speeches and panel discussions, which paint the topic with broad strokes – easy to understand, but leaving plenty of room for forums like this one to flesh out details. Tempting as it is to think about a few Surface Action Groups (SAGs) heroically dominating the contested maritime battlespace with SM-6s hitting everything from FFGs to ASBMs, distributed lethality remains just one part of a larger joint fight. Distributed lethality, so far as it has been articulated, closely follows the Joint Operational Access Concept (JOAC).

Potential enemies – principally China and Russia – can hold our forces at risk in certain contested areas, denying freedom of action. JOAC starts at this hard truth of vulnerability and seeks to protect friendly forces operating within those contested areas. Conceptually, it all starts with force protection:

“A joint force will lessen its exposure by a combination of dispersion, multiple lines of operations, speed of movement, agile maneuver that reroutes around threats, deception, masking or other concealment techniques, and disruption of enemy intelligence collection through counterreconnaissance, countersurveillance, and other methods.” (JOAC Protection)

“[D]ispersion [and] multiple lines of operations” sounds a lot like the first part of distributed lethality, and in the naval context, it makes a lot of sense to spread out, hide, and try not to look too important when anticipating DF-21 and ASCM salvos. Dispersion has its own complications, though. Concentrated naval forces may be easier to target, but they generally have a more potent sensor and weapon mix, to say nothing of their C2. Dispersed forces must remain capable of self-defense and power projection, and so the second part of ‘distributed lethality’ follows from the first.  JOAC puts it this way:

“Once arrived in the objective area, joint force elements can no longer use some techniques to avoid detection and will therefore rely on active and passive defensive measures to defeat actual enemy attack.”  (JOAC Protection)

So far, distributed lethality resembles JOAC with naval characteristics, but JOAC keeps on going where the conceptual sketch of distributed lethality trails off. Distributed lethality, as a naval variation on a joint concept, should follow the conceptual path already beaten by JOAC.

Distributed lethality, like JOAC, requires reliable communications between sensor-shooter nodes.  The ranges between distributed units and the bandwidth requirements for responsive C4I and lethal, cooperative targeting will drive communications onto SATCOM nets, networks that remain vulnerable to anti-satellite missiles, directed energy weapons, and cyber-attacks. GPS and intelligence satellites face the same threats. JOAC recognizes this vulnerability, and directs the joint force to “develop systems, technologies, and warfighting techniques to ensure continued freedom of action and access to space, cyberspace, and the electromagnetic spectrum when and where needed.” Lacking that freedom of access, the implications are clear and dire for distributed lethality: the enemy would attack the distributed fleet sequentially, as it located ship groups, with locally massed fires. The distributed fleet, unable to communicate, could only respond with uncoordinated counterattacks. Sending a divided fleet with nothing but locally organic sensors and weapons deep inside an enemy threat WEZ courts disaster. In order to effectively implement distributed lethality, robust and resilient supporting networks are absolutely essential.

Chinese HQ-9 TEL on parade.
Chinese HQ-9 TEL on parade.

Satellites face the same persistent threat that prompted the concepts of JOAC and distributed lethality to begin with: the presence of friendly critical vulnerabilities inside the threat WEZ. The solution remains conceptually similar: increase the capability, type and number of available platforms such that the enemy never has the capability to decisively target and neutralize friendly critical capabilities. To that end, what naval “systems, technologies, and warfighting techniques” could change the sudden loss of our most important space-based assets from a travesty to a moderate inconvenience?  The remainder of this piece will depart the broad conceptual discussion and dive down to some very tactical level solutions.

Rather than present the killer app, silver bullet or what have you, I’ll briefly introduce a few capabilities that could take the sting out of losing the most important satellites in a region during the opening salvos. 

Navigation 

CosmoGator mitigates the loss of GPS by automating celestial navigation fixes and feeding them into the ship’s inertial navigation system, enabling weapons quality tracks even in a GPS denied or degraded environment – provided the stars remain visible. As anyone who has tracked a submarine with sonobouys can appreciate, imprecision in the sensor location yields imprecision in the target track and targeting solution.

Adding the capability to track non-U.S. commercial SATNAV constellations (Galileo, GLONASS, BeiDou, etc) would add navigational and time/time-interval redundancy to naval platforms.  The targeting of U.S. navigational satellites should be a forgone conclusion, but targeting satellites of non-belligerent states is anything but.

Local Communications

Currently, communicating within a SAG is relatively easy, but at the cost of a very distinctive electronic signature.  Distributed lethality requires low-observable and low-probability of attribution communications within the SAG.

First, low-attribution communications means taking existing commercial waveforms and using them to replace distinctively military signals. A DF scan for 2.4/5 GHz 802.11, CDMA, LTE or GSM signals in most contested areas would be overwhelmed by emitters.  Coastal residents, merchant mariners and local fishermen tend to use these signals rather a lot without much concern for EMCON. Coupling these frequencies and waveforms with stabilized, high gain directional antennas would enable high bandwidth, low-latency line-of-sight communications within the SAG while maintaining the electronic signature of a freighter or coastal village. When sneaking through a forest of transmitters, it’s best to look like a common electronic tree.

In an update on flashing light Morse signals, the ONR project for High-Bandwidth, Free-Space Optical Communications is designed to support Marines at austere FOBs, but could also offer unimpeded communications in a highly attenuated – and therefore difficult to intercept – part of the spectrum. Like celestial navigation, meteorological conditions may occasionally preclude this method, but for the rest of the time, it’s a good way to complicate enemy targeting.

Finally, better integration of automatic level control – adjusting transmit power based on signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and signal-excess – could do much to reduce the probability of detection for existing RF transmitters.  Only transmit the power required to reliably reach the ship 10 miles away, not the ELINT aircraft 400 miles further.

Long-range communications

I’m not the first to think about making elevated nodes like satellites a bit more redundant for communications.  DARPA and ONR have been developing the Towed Airborne Lift of Naval Systems (TALONS), a towed shipboard parafoil system capable of lifting a 150 pound payload to 1,500 feet.  Unlike most aircraft (manned or unmanned), a towed system can remain aloft for days on end. Improving on the system that well-tanned parasailing operators have been using for decades, DARPA has made an automated launch and recovery system. In the context of distributed lethality, ships such as the LCS and EPF (formerly JHSV) could serve as communication nodes for ships with long-range weapons.

The Air Force has been using the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node  (BACN) for years as a communications Swiss army knife to connect disparate platforms, waveforms, and standards. The technology is platform agnostic – the Air Force operates it from modified business jets (E-11A) and UAVs (RQ-4); the Navy could just as easily operate the system from P-8As or MQ-4s.

TALONS and BACN have their appeal, but also their limitations.  A radar horizon of roughly 50 nautical miles limits TALONS, and on-station time limits BACN and systems like it. Counter targeting is a common threat to both. Ideally, a satellite replacement would be close to disposable and not so closely proximate to a manned and/or difficult to replace platform like the LCS, EPF, P-8A or MQ-4. Which brings us to lighter-than-air unmanned vehicles. 

A Google Project Loon internet balloon in flight. Photo credit: Google.
A Google Project Loon internet balloon in flight. Photo credit: Google.

Google has deployed stratospheric balloons to bring internet services to remote locations, getting and keeping them on-station with altitude-picking algorithms.  Similarly, the Navy could rapidly deploy very high altitude, very high endurance vehicles – atmospheric satellites – in the immediate aftermath of an attack on regional communications satellites at a lower cost and greater quantity than the enemy’s inventory of high-altitude missiles capable of taking them down.  Much of the cost and difficulty of satellites is the launching part.  Launching a balloon from a ship consists of setting a course and speed for minimal winds, opening a valve to a helium tank and assisting the inflation with a crane and a crew of deck handlers – hardly rocket science.  Any naval platform with a flight deck could launch balloons on demand to fill in for neutralized satellites or to quickly add more C4ISR capabilities. While the time on station of roughly 100 days can’t match a satellite, it exceeds the state of the art for heavier-than-air vehicles by an order of magnitude.

It’s quite possible, even likely, that none of the particular solutions above have any place in the Navy’s future. I hope that the unifying theme, however, resonates: pragmatic over exotic, commercial off-the-shelf over bespoke military kit, and integration within a larger joint effort rather than a service specific attempt to win the next war singlehandedly.

Collin Fox is a Western Hemisphere Foreign Area Officer (FAO) assigned to U.S. Fleet Forces Command. In his former career as a SH-60F and MH-60S pilot, he flew over 1,400 flight hours and conducted three life-saving rescues. He earned a Master of Science degree in Systems Analysis from the Naval Postgraduate School, where his final project won the John Hopkins Applied Physics Lab Award for Excellence in Systems Analysis. The views expressed here are his own.

Distributed Lethality, Non-traditional Fleets, and the Law of War

Distributed Lethality Topic Week

By Chris Rawley

In simplest terms, the U.S. Navy’s distributed lethality concept complicates the enemy’s targeting problem by dispersing larger numbers of platforms capable of offensive action over a wide geographic area.  With no significant increases in fleet size anticipated for the foreseeable future, it is incumbent that all avenues be pursued that will optimize the use of scarce ships.

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A video recently released by the Surface Force U.S. Pacific Fleet shows a variety of ships besides surface combatants equipped with anti-ship missiles and unmanned aircraft capable of targeting these weapons.  In addition to amphibious vessels, a Lewis and Clark Dry Cargo/Ammunition ship is depicted (minute 1:21) with a drop-in missile module. This ship, and 29 others in the U.S. Navy’s Combat Logistics Force (CLF), are controlled by the Military Sealift Command (MSC) and manned by professional civilian mariners (CIVMARS).  The introduction of armed naval auxiliaries in the U.S. fleet would raise a number of important operational and legal questions.

In what sort of tactical situations might an offensively-armed replenishment ship be worthwhile?  Distributed lethality requires distributed logistics. Meaning, surface combatants operating alone or in small groups will require fuel, food, ammunition, and parts. In a major theater war, traditional replenishment ports will be placed at risk by mines, theater ballistic missiles, terrorist surrogates, and other area-denial capabilities. To mitigate these risks, underway replenishment has been a mainstay of U.S. naval surface ship operations for nearly a century. A CLF ship armed with self-defense weapons and a small number of medium ranged surface-to-surface missiles operating in tandem with a group of cruisers and destroyers (CRUDES) provides additional magazine capacity for the surface combatants.

Conversely, oilers operating solo while transiting to or from underway replenishment stations are an appetizing target for would-be adversaries. In some cases, these ships would require a dedicated “shotgun” surface combatant to protect their precious cargoes. But these escorts would take scarce CRUDES ships away from other offensive duties. CLF ships equipped with additional self-defense weapons, be they remotely-operated crew served machine guns or short-ranged surface-to-air missiles (like the SeaRAM), will enable defense against a variety of potential attackers. However, the possibility that CLF ships are capable of not just defending themselves, but of fighting back, will challenge indirect enemy strategies that rely on attrition of our logistic forces.  A CLF ship would target its over-the-horizon weapons by either cueing off another platform’s sensors or using organic manned or unmanned aircraft.  These ships sometimes deploy with MH-60s, which can carry their own weapons, but can also assist in targeting a ship’s missiles.  For longer ranges, future unmanned air vehicles such as DARPA’s TERN prototype could support CLF-launched missile engagements over hundreds of miles. Besides the aforementioned weapons, CLF ships providing replenishment operations within adversary threat envelopes will need to employ counter-targeting techniques and some will carry Surface Ship Torpedo Defense Systems.

Non-traditional or Normal?

I’ve been guilty of using the phrase “non-traditional” naval vessels when referring to auxiliaries engaged in naval operations other than logistics. A recent example would be MSC’s Expeditionary Fast Transports serving as Partnership Station platforms. Historically, however, civilian-run shipping has been integral to naval warfare for as long as humankind has fought on the seas. Lincoln Paine discusses a number of non-traditional fleets in The Sea and Civilization, an amazingly comprehensive chronology of all aspects of maritime trade and warfare. In lieu of a powerful navy, the early Roman Empire established coloniae maritimae (maritime colonies), which exempted their men from service in the legions in exchange for their promise to destroy invading enemy vessels. A millennium later, Byzantium held off Muslim invaders at sea with a largely provisional force of merchants and fishermen. In the 19th Century, pirates turned privateers were engaged as naval commerce raiders by various states including Spain, Mexico, and the Republic of Texas.

In World War I, the British Admiralty encouraged merchant vessels to arm themselves with deck guns, ostensibly for the purposes of defense. Some of these merchants took it upon themselves to actively attack German shipping, often using false flags. The German Empire, as one might expect, grew to view these vessels as belligerents, rather than as neutral shipping, a role they were initially accorded by international law. Then in World War II, thousands of American merchant ships were protected by Naval Armed Guards, who manned anti-aircraft weapons and up to 3″ deck guns. Merchant mariners supported these gun crews by passing ammunition, but were also trained to employ the weapons when necessary, and many did so, distinguishing themselves in battle.

WNUS_6-50_mk8_Mongolia_stern_pic
Historical Precedence: Naval Armed Guard Sailors Man the stern 6″ (15.2 cm) gun on S.S. Mongolia in May 1917 (U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph # NH 41710) .

More recently, we’ve watched the emergence of China’s rather sizable maritime militias, which are a key aspect of the PLAN’s expansion strategy in the South China Sea. These sorts of maritime surrogates have kept up with changing naval technology. Today, instantaneous data communications have made over-the-horizon networked targeting by civilian craft a distinct possibility. Additionally, concealable anti-ship weapons, such as Russia’s Club-K containerized missile system, could raise the threat posed by merchant shipping. These non-traditional fleets are not anomalies, but rather mainstays of offensive naval warfare.  How does this historical reality reconcile with modern legal norms of international armed conflict?

Nuances Riding on a Single Letter

Traditional prohibitions against civilians taking a direct part in hostilities are based on a duty to discriminate between combatants who may be lawfully targeted and non-combatants who may not be intentionally targeted. International humanitarian law is also designed to protect duly-recognized combatants from prosecution and provide for status as prisoners of war. In modern times, these distinctions have been interpreted to prohibit civilians aboard a warship from serving as a weapons release authority or standing tactical watches.  Besides CIVMARS, a host of civilians routinely ride naval ships, including maintenance contractors, college instructors, and Morale, Welfare, and Recreation planners; all of course, in non-tactical roles.

img23_700px
The hidden shipping threat: Russian Club-K containerized missile system.

To understand the legal nuances behind arguments for and against non-traditional naval vessels undertaking offensive operations, it’s worth examining the distinction the U.S. Navy makes between warships and naval auxiliary vessels.[1] In accordance with Navy Regulations, Article 1259, a commissioned warship – designated USS – requires “a personal flag or command pennant of an officer of the Navy, or a commission pennant.” U.S. Naval Ships (USNS) operate under the control of civilian mariners, and therefore do not technically qualify as warships. Under the same regulations, in some circumstances, a USNS ship can be reclassified as a USS hull, but this requires approval by the Secretary of the Navy.  These conventions are supported by Article 29 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which states a warship is “a ship belonging to the armed forces of a State bearing the external marks distinguishing such ships of its nationality, under the command of an officer duly commissioned by the government of the State and whose name appears in the appropriate service list or its equivalent, and manned by a crew which is under regular armed forces discipline.” The 1994 San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea also provides a non-binding, but widely-accepted view of naval auxiliaries in warfare.

Auxiliaries are vessels, other than warships, that are under the exclusive control of the armed forces of a state. Some interpretations of international law infer that naval auxiliaries (non-warships) may defend themselves and other friendly forces in the vicinity, but may not be used to conduct offensive belligerent acts. Under the strictest legal interpretations, MSC ships would be prohibited from a range of activities to include launching anti-ship weapons, but also to missions as innocuous and defensive as clearing a channel of mines for the safe passage of commercial shipping. International agreements are important, but we should not ignore historical precedence and operational necessity that may force auxiliaries into combat roles. As further precedence, not every vessel conducting offensive missions in the U.S. Navy meets the criterion required for warship. For example, combatant craft of the Navy’s Special Boat Teams and Coastal Riverine Squadrons are not commissioned warships, but may carry out offensive operations. Of course, these boats are run by Navy crews, and a commissioned officer resides at some point in their chain of command (though not always embarked).

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Embarked Security Team (EST) watchstander on the Military Sealift Command’s Expeditionary Fast Transport (T-EPF-1) in Sekondi, Ghana, Feb. 14, 2015 (US Navy photo).

Given generally-accepted views of international law, what are the alternatives available to include naval auxiliaries as offensives nodes in a distributed lethality regime? A handful of warships in the U.S. Navy, including USS Ponce (AFSB(I) 15), two flagships, and submarine tenders, feature a hybrid crewing model. These ships are commanded by a commissioned naval officer, though their navigation and engineering functions are primarily conducted by CIVMARs. This hybrid crewing approach enables them to conduct or command offensive operations in accordance with international law. Implementing this approach on a wider scale would require the reclassification of armed CLF ships to USS and the introduction of permanent Navy crews, an option not necessarily supported by today’s manpower budgets.

Embarking military detachments to operate defensive and offensive weapons might be another acceptable alternative. Over the past few decades, the combat logistics force has transitioned from USS ships, to USNS ships embarking military detachments (MILDETS) run by a junior surface warfare officer, and now to primarily USNS ships with no MILDETS. When embarked, MILDETS mostly handled command and control (C2) functions. Many of these roles have been absorbed by CIVMARS, but others, like operating self-defense weapons, are still supported by embarked Navy security teams. It’s possible that arming a CLF ship and operating its weapons systems with a MILDET, without reclassifying it as USS could put a ship’s status as naval auxiliary in jeopardy during hostilities. However, like merchant shipping that was targeted during the World Wars, that becomes largely an irrelevant academic argument once ordnance starts flying and logistics ships become primary targets themselves.

In an era of declining Navy end strength and increasing personnel costs, it is no longer fiscally prudent to assign full time military detachments to every ship that might require one in wartime.  The Navy’s reserve component (RC) provides a feasible C2 alternative which can be surged forward during contingency operations, while meeting legal and operational requirements for offensive operations. In recent years, military detachments for theater security cooperation missions onboard MSC ships have been created ad hoc from cross-decked active duty Sailors or sourced from existing staffs such as Destroyer Squadrons. In the event of a major contingency, it is likely that these staffs will be tied up with their primary missions and unable to dedicate manpower to supporting auxiliary C2 requirements. In recognition of these demands, the Military Sealift Command recently established a dedicated Navy Reserve unit designed to provide C2 elements for MSC ships involved in non-logistics missions. This nascent capability has been demonstrated with embarked detachments onboard various MSC ships during fleet exercises and security cooperation missions.

The expansion of additional RC military detachments should be explored that support not only theater security missions, but future offensively-armed combat logistics force ships. The advantages of this capability residing in the reserve force are several: The first relates to cost.  On average, a part-time reservist costs the navy approximately one fifth of an active duty Sailor. In peace-time, reservists would train for the mission by embarking CLF ships to support weapons testing and fleet exercises, and surge forward if required for contingency missions.  Additionally, reserve Sailors, some of them with licensed merchant credentials themselves, have a strong knowledge of MSC ship unique operating procedures and understand how to integrate well with CIVMARs. The habitual relationships dedicated reserve units build with CIVMAR crews have proven valuable in other missions.

Regardless of whether the decision is made to increase the weapons capabilities of our Military Sealift Command ships, additional RC detachments would provide the legal and operational top-cover necessary to perform other traditional naval operations on these vessels in peace and war to include maritime security operations, mine-countermeasures, special operations direct action support, and amphibious raids.

Chris Rawley is a Captain in the U.S. Navy Reserve and serves as Commanding Officer for the Navy’s sole unit dedicated to providing command and control detachments aboard Military Sealift Command vessels. The opinions and views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Navy, or any other agency. 

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[1] The author is not an operational law attorney.  The reader is encouraged to seek out other legal interpretations.

Fostering the Discussion on Securing the Seas.