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Capability Analysis

Naval Gunfire Liaisons and 21st Century Fires

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By Alan Cummings

It’s no secret that a fight in the Pacific is atop the Pentagon’s list of concerns. The 2022 National Defense Strategy fact sheet explicitly states that China is “our most consequential strategic competitor and the pacing challenge for the Department.” A large part of the Pentagon’s effort to deter—and if necessary confront—China is investing in new technology to connect platforms and sensors. One of the most important initiatives is to improve joint fires as part of the Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) concept, often summarized as “any sensor, any shooter” and more recently as enabling “the Joint Force to ‘sense,’ ‘make sense,’ and ‘act’ on information across the battle-space. Speaking at the Hudson Institute in 2020, then-Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General John Hyten credited JADC2 as the key to giving any element of the joint force “the ability to defend itself or the ability to strike deep into an adversary area of operations.”

While JADC2 is focused on technology, war is inherently human. This article will discuss the role of the Naval Gunfire Liaison Officer (NGLO) as one human in a  JADC2-enabled theater. Any conversation about fires, lethality, and the Pacific leads either implicitly or explicitly to considerations of how naval vessels can support maneuver forces ashore. However, this legacy — maritime fires directed against terrestrial objectives — is now only one part of the equation. As concepts evolve for potential wars in the Pacific, the NGLO can provide maritime expertise that improves the integration of joint, multi-domain fires at the tactical and operational levels of war.

The NGLO Origins, Briefly

The Pacific is the birthplace of naval gunfire as a coordinated contribution to combined arms. The Marine Corps’ forward observer handbook credits Lieutenant General Holland Smith with establishing a formal naval gunfire section at V Amphibious Corps in 1943 and a companion unit for close air support training in 1944. Citing work by the historian Allan Millet, it notes that codifying the training and employment of amphibious fire support “reflected the lessons from three years of intense combat across the Pacific and formed the basis for the Marine Corps’ current procedures for controlling supporting arms.”

This NGF Section gave rise to the Shore Fire Control Party (SFCP), a small team of four or five enlisted Marines led by the NGLO (a naval officer) who can be employed as naval gunfire spotters in the field, controllers in a fire support coordination center, or planners in a headquarters element (and often all three).

The specific size, task organization, and mission of a NGLO’s SFCP has varied based on the availability of personnel and the actual tasking of the unit they’re assigned to. However, the gist has remained the same over time: a small cadre of individuals who are particularly well-versed in sea-based fire support and deployed with Marine Corps maneuver elements. In this regard, the SFCP is distinct from Air and Naval Gunfire Liaison Companies (ANGLICOs) who have a greater emphasis on close air support and are doctrinally tasked to “conduct terminal control of fires in support of joint, allied, and multinational forces,” i.e., to work for non-Marine Corps units. This distinction — NGLOs and SFCPs for Marine units and ANGLICO elements for all others — may no longer be the most efficient or effective way to coordinate joint fires in a maritime-centric environment like the Pacific. New weapon capabilities and the JADC2 concept are driving deeper integration that requires more “connective tissue” across maneuver and fires elements. While communication and data transmission are a vital part of this, it will always be necessary to have the right people in the right places at the right time. That is where the NGLO comes into play.

A New Landscape for Maritime Fires

The traditional employment of an NGLO and the SFCP is coordinating gunfire from a ship at sea in support of an amphibious operation. The principal constraint on this since World War II has been the range of a ship’s gun, such as the Mark 45 workhorse aboard U.S. cruisers and destroyers which is rated to 13 nautical miles. This is no longer the case as weapon system capabilities improve and joint warfighting doctrine evolves. A 21st Century war in the Pacific now offers three distinct categories where NGLOs have a role to play.

Maritime Fires Against Terrestrial Targets: Naval fire support against targets ashore is no longer limited to guns aboard main combatants. For instance, ANGLICO Marines in the Pacific recently executed a Tomahawk call-for-fire as part of exercise Valiant Shield 2020 and options for firing HIMARS rockets from the decks of amphibious ships were demonstrated in 2017. Future integration of conventional prompt strike capabilities from Zumwalt-class destroyers presents further opportunities to rapidly apply maritime fire power against objectives ashore. Moreover, integration of missiles into naval fire support means submarines may now be viable shooters for near-real time fire missions. Of course, this is not wholly new for the Navy-Marine Corps team. This is the traditional integration of naval fires in support of amphibious maneuver as originally envisioned. It is, however, new — or at least a reinvigoration — of capabilities for the Army. The Marine Corps is a formidable force, but any large-scale conflict in the Pacific cannot be fought by them alone. This is why, as in World War II, the Army is getting back into the island-seizing business.

Terrestrial Fires Against Maritime Targets: Until recently, this category was largely concerned with coastal defense thanks to the range and targeting limitations of shore-based fires. This is also no longer the case. The confluence of the U.S. withdrawal from the INF Treaty with the possibility of conflict in the Pacific has led the Marine Corps and the Army to express their strong interests in operating land-based, anti-ship weapons. From their perspective, this capability gives them the means to counter adversary naval forces which may threaten their operations ashore without needing to have ships on station. From the Navy’s perspective, it means Army and Marine Corps firing batteries can be called upon as part of the maritime fight in a way that they have never been before. This versatility is a mutually reinforcing and beneficial development that exemplifies the joint warfighting concepts taking shape today, enabling elements of the joint force to use cross-domain capabilities to defend themselves or strike deep as circumstances require.

Maritime or Terrestrial Fires Against Littoral Targets: This hybrid category is a distinct situation where observers on shore or near shore are directing fire from any firing unit against targets in the littorals. These engagements can be prosecuted to support maritime objectives like chokepoint control, or terrestrial objectives like countering adversary amphibious assaults. This is especially relevant as tactical drone aircraft proliferate across the battlefield, greatly expanding the sensor envelope of forward observers and turning small islands and coastal enclaves into viable observation posts.

Okay, But Why The NGLO?

As it stands now, most NGLOs are drawn from the surface warfare community. Their greatest strength is their familiarity with the shipboard operations and the maritime environment. Just as artillery forward observers learn how the gunline works as part of their professional development, NGLOs come to the table as warfare-qualified naval officers who have already gained significant understanding of how a ship operates when providing fire support. This gives them a clear advantage in planning, supervising, and conducting fires that originate from naval platforms. Similarly, their broader experience at sea is valuable insight about how ships operate in the maritime environment and is uniquely relevant when terrestrial fires are being directed against naval and littoral targets.

One thing NGLOs are not: a substitute for ANGLICO Marines or other personnel with advanced fire support certifications like Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTACs) or Joint Fires Observers (JFOs). While these personnel can and should be versed in naval fires, and may also count NGLOs in their ranks, their mandate is often broader. This requires a greater investment in training and results in them becoming notoriously high-demand, low-density assets. A “grunt” NGLO specifically, and SFCPs more broadly, are a supplement that eases the burden on these high-demand personnel. This has typically been a consideration within the Navy-Marine Corps team, but it is shaping up to take on new urgency as Army units increase the demand signal for both receiving and providing naval fires.

Embedding NGLOs with ground units has obvious value for the Army and Marine Corps who benefit from improved planning and execution of naval fire support; but, sending NGLOs to these ground units also benefits the Navy. This is most apparent when terrestrial fires are directed against maritime and littoral targets: naval officers at the firing unit or higher headquarters can provide real-time context and nuance to commanders in a way that fire support requests, the joint target list, and operation orders cannot. In more deliberate scenarios, these NGLOs have professional networks and reach-back capabilities that are reciprocated as touch points for the fleet with ground force staff— all of which facilitates and improves the planning process. At a more fundamental level, officers returning from NGLO tours bring unique perspective to the fleet that, especially in wartime, can prove invaluable to every echelon from the individual warship to fleet staffs.

There are numerous opportunities to integrate NGLOs and NGLO-qualified officers with Army and Marine Corps units. The most straightforward billets are the traditional ones currently embedded with Marine Corps infantry and artillery units. Depending on task organization, this can be an NGLO and SFCP assigned to the Weapons Company in general support of a battalion or a distribution of naval gunfire observers across three to four company-level fire support teams. In time of war, this can and should be replicated with their Army counterparts at least at the battalion and brigade level if not lower. Short of war, the Navy and Army should cooperate to establish joint duty assignments for NGLO-qualified officers at the infantry division level, with the Army’s fire support training enterprise, and with the Navy’s Expeditionary Warfare Training Groups in order to begin building procedural and doctrinal familiarity.

Separately, if replacements for PCs and Mark VI patrol craft are fielded, those officers and Sailors should be given formal training on naval gunfire procedures. Ideally, the officers would be fully-qualified NGLOs; however, this may not be feasible under current peacetime requirements. Similar consideration should be given to training the crews of allied patrol craft as well as U.S. small and medium-sized Coast Guard cutters that may be deployed to the theater in time of war. As land-based anti-ship capabilities evolve in the Army and Marine Corps, patrol crews operating in the littorals may become some of those best positioned to call for and deliver indirect fires against maritime and littoral targets.

To do this well, the Navy’s surface officer community will have to put greater value on joint combat experience (as opposed to high-echelon staff tours) as part of its personnel management. The community’s number one goal is to prepare and select the best officers for command afloat while filling key operational billets. This is the driving force behind the ideal career path that is heavily centered on grey-hull, blue-water tours. This is a reasonable approach that has been largely sustainable (though arguably sub-optimal) in the post-Cold War era. In a wartime Pacific, the surface Navy will face a hostile environment that it has not truly wrestled with for nearly 80 years and, furthermore, will be depended upon for an unprecedented level of wide-spread fires integration. This is to say that the surface Navy will not be able to fight alone, a statement that is neither new nor surprising. But, in execution, the community will have to improve the way it values joint warfighting tours like NGLOs—similar to aviators in JTAC tours— because, even if they are not blue-water themselves, they provide a key linkage that enables the surface fight.

Conclusion

NGLOs are not a panacea to the enduring complexities of integrating multi-domain fires. They are, however, a uniquely valuable member of the fire support community. As the overarching JADC2 concept emphasizes, joint integration and cooperation is the name of the game. If war comes in the Pacific, NGLOs are a human advantage and an economy of force that the Navy can contribute to the joint fight. By leveraging a relatively small number of personnel placed in key positions, the Navy would improve the effective integration and delivery of naval fire support and increase the benefits it derives from new shore-based maritime fires.

Alan Cummings was an active duty Naval officer for ten years, including as an NGLO with 10th Marine Regiment and Battalion Landing Team 3/8. He continues to serve in the Navy Reserve. He is indebted to the Marines of his SFCP—Nick Ingmire, Mark Olsen, R.T. Fullam, and Richard Barcena­—for all they taught him. The views expressed here are solely his and do not reflect the official positions of any organization with which he is affiliated.

Interviews

General Anthony Zinni (ret.) On Missed Opportunities, Integrated Deterrence, and Ill-Advised Red Lines

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By Mie Augier and Major Sean F. X. Barrett

This is Part IV of our conversation series with General Anthony Zinni, USMC (ret.) on leadership, strategy, learning, and the art and science of warfighting. Part I can be found here, Part II here, and Part III here. In this iteration, we focus on how the decline in strategic thinking following the end of the Cold War, which we discussed in Part I, helped lead to the situation in Ukraine, how to construct credible red lines, and what integrated deterrence may mean.

You talked about how winning the Cold War led to a decline in strategic thinking, poorly defined aspirations for a “new world order,” and how expanding NATO was not necessarily going to be a positive development or without challenges in the long term. This seems particularly important for understanding how we got to where we are now in Ukraine.

Zinni: Yes, originally when the Wall came down, and in the immediate aftermath, there was talk about redefining NATO’s role. The first question was, “Do we need NATO, or should we disband it now?” The answer was we should rethink NATO. We actually thought of not only expanding NATO, but also perhaps even bringing Russia into NATO and redefining NATO’s role in some way, as maybe more of a global defense organization. That kind of died. We made all sorts of gestures to Russia, not only in terms of a military-to-military connection, but Secretary of State Baker also started this “modified Marshall Plan” for the former Soviet Union republics and Russia. We emptied war stocks out of Germany and other places, things like hospital equipment and medicines, as a gesture of goodwill. We ran Operation PROVIDE HOPE and brought these things to the orphanages. We ran it out of EUCOM and sent supplies to places that needed it.

Secretary Baker had Ambassador Armitage go to Japan and other places to talk about helping Russia, helping the eastern European countries, helping them meet international auditing standards, and working with them to get a convertible currency. He was going back and forth, and I was the military coordinator for him. I was impressed with Russia, all these young people who came in at the top to the cabinet positions, and I watched them just get so discouraged as we were doing this because underneath it all was still the old bureaucratic communist mentality, and that was hard to change. People with that old thinking were stifling the reform efforts, but early on, people were cheering democracy and had high spirits. Then, people became disillusioned with Yeltsin, and the oligarchs saw this guy, Putin. They figured they could control him and put him in as a figurehead. Putin, however, took them out and put in his own guys, and that takes us to where we are today.

I look at this and see mistakes that were made on both sides. I go back to President Bush 41. He and Gorbachev both said there would be this “new world order” and a “peace dividend.” Since the Cold War had ended, military spending would go elsewhere. I’m in Germany at this time watching this, and there’s a euphoria, but there are also things that are starting to come apart, like the Balkan states. In a different part of the world, Saddam was starting to give us problems in the Middle East.

I was thinking about what Kissinger wrote about reordering, and this was another major reordering, but if you are not orchestrating the reordering or trying to influence it, it is going to reorder itself in a nasty way. At the end of World War I, we didn’t do it. At the end of World War II, we did a great job. But then, after the Cold War, despite the words, it never really happened. Bush was challenged on this. Reporters asked Bush, “Where is the strategy?” However, he dismissed it as a “vision thing.” Even Obama said he didn’t need any Kennans and dismissed strategy in a sense. Well, if you are not strategic, you are transactional. If you don’t have a plan or a long-term vision, you just hop from one crisis to another, and things tend to orchestrate themselves in nasty ways.

We are perhaps paying the price for that decline in thinking now.

Zinni: A couple of observations about Ukraine. One thing that has really shocked me is how incompetent the Russian military is, virtually across the board. At the strategic level, they greatly misjudged the Ukrainians and their own ability to defeat them rapidly. From a military perspective, they moved on seven axes when they could not support them. Logistically, they got spread too thinly, they didn’t move enough logistics forward, they reached culminating points, they overran their lines of communications, and their rear area security was bad. They never put their combined arms together in any real way. The quality of their soldiers, especially the conscripts, is horrible. The morale is bad, and their command and control is unbelievably bad. Supposedly, this is the modernized Russian Army.

When I was in Europe, the SACEUR, General Galvin, wanted us to connect with the former Warsaw Pact and Russian militaries, but in particular the Russian military, to reassure them. We had an agreement to connect and run these series of conferences. I used to go to Moscow, and we’d meet with their senior leadership. They even gave me a Russian aide, and they were very open about the problems they had in the Russian military. I couldn’t believe how bad a shape it was in. There were serious problems about hazing in the barracks, no real NCO corps, morale was low, troops were stranded and couldn’t get home, a lot of revolt among their junior officers, senior officers had real problems with alcoholism, and so on. They shared these things with us and even allowed their dissidents to talk with us, and they were vocal and defiant toward their senior leaders.

I heard that they had rehabilitated and modernized their military since those times, but here we are, hearing more than 100,000 conventional forces have been committed to Ukraine, and God, it is horrible. I told someone the other day, I’d love to have a Marine Expeditionary Force and fight these guys. We would go through them like a knife in melting butter!

In watching this, I have been trying to think about where the Russian generals’ heads might be at. First of all, they are demonstrating a lot of incompetence at the senior leadership ranks. Secondly, they have been thrown into this mess, and they have to see that this is taking a heavy toll on their forces. They have had trouble with encryption and even with basic communication. These are like 1950s-level problems that they have. It’s amazing.

I just wonder how long Putin can last. I don’t know how effective the punishment of the oligarchs will be. I don’t know his handle on power, but if he gets desperate, what does he do?

I’m trying to figure Putin’s calculation. Maybe he thought NATO was no longer effective and that after Afghanistan, the current administration was too weak, or at least not willing to take him on in any serious way. I think he thought NATO solidarity wasn’t there and that he had the Germans over a barrel, literally. After Afghanistan, we were weak, and he probably thought this was going to be an easy grab. But how does he get out of it now? Everybody is talking about trying to find an offramp. I don’t see how. It’s not going to be easy. How does this end? NATO’s solidarity seems stronger than it has been in decades. Putin has created something that didn’t exist before. He has actually strengthened NATO.

Concerning what the situation is teaching us, particularly about integrated deterrence, Congressman Mike Gallagher recently noted (for example, here and here) that as a concept, integrated deterrence failed, and we should probably study and learn from that. Congresswoman Elaine Luria has also been critical of the concept. It reminded us of your approach in some parts of your “Combat Concepts” lecture, trying to figure out how to make sense of nice words.

Zinni: Well, the only thing I know is, whatever it is, it failed. From a Combatant Commander’s perspective, you have war plans, but the way the war plans are constructed, it is, “Okay, bad stuff is happening, let’s go to the plan, start flowing the TPFDD [Time Phased Force Deployment Data], let’s get into the action.” However, war plans are never going to go down the way they are planned.

There is always going to be a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning will entail tensions mounting. Warnings start coming, and we are going to make deterrent moves or containment moves. In the Pacific, you are probably going to hear the Japanese, the South Koreans, and our allies out there scream, “Hey, help us out here, these guys are getting ready to do something bad.” You are going to see the need to establish freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. We are going to start putting forces forward. Look at what we did in Poland and in the Baltic states. We started moving forces forward, NATO forces, as an attempt to deter. Reinforcing Japan is the first thing that is going to happen in the Pacific. You may be required to support the defense of Taiwan, including actually putting troops on the island to help defend it. In the stages leading up to this, 7th Fleet could rush to the South China Sea. If the balloon goes up and we start to get into a fight, I, as a Combatant Commander, have to start with all this stuff that was originally done to deter and contain. Integrated deterrence is supposed to be all these moves you take that make the other guy unwilling to take you on.

But then you go back to your plan, and let’s say you buy Commandant Berger’s strategy of putting guys on islands with anti-ship missiles. That’s overcome by events. You already have a MEF in Korea, another MEF in Taiwan or someplace, and the whole idea of a plan working out sequentially in the way you planned is only to get the basics down, of what you would employ, how you would employ it, the allocation of forces, and the sequencing. But you know darn well decisions are going to be made early on that will lead to that work being overcome by events.

Then, you have the middle, and you must fight from these positions that aren’t part of the nice, logical build-up you had in your war plan. There is no logically flowing reception, staging, onward movement, and integration as you get inside the opponents’ area of influence. By definition, you are already there because you have 26,000 troops in Korea, and you have 56,000 in Japan. No one’s going to be worried in the beginning about what you can put on small islands in the Philippines and elsewhere—you are already in his grill, so you have to go from there. The middle is the fight.

The third thing is the end state. Nobody goes home anymore. We are still in Germany, we are still in Japan, we are still in South Korea, and we are still in NATO. We know there will be an alliance, and we are going to support it. I might be stuck with what you lay down if I’m a Combatant Commander. How do we arrange that? What are we doing to support that?

So, back to integrated deterrence. I think it was supposed to mean we would make moves in a combined joint way that would put the potential adversary off balance, and put them in a position where they would either be unable to react or would find themselves in a position where they were trumped in their ability to do something. Now, the problem they ran into in Ukraine is the self-imposed limit that nothing would happen outside of NATO’s borders. You can make all the moves you want back here, but Putin is no fool. He said if NATO attacks him, he will attack NATO, and he started to make noises about nukes and tactical nukes. “Integrated deterrence” had a line, and we couldn’t cross it. And by not crossing it, we couldn’t change his mind and actually deter. Integrated deterrence is only good if the other guy thinks it is a deterrent. If the other guy doesn’t see it as deterrence and understands its limitations, then you have got a problem.

Now, in the case of China, you can make a case that we are already there. They want us to be out of the East and South China Seas, to possess Taiwan, and probably as an adjunct, have us out of South Korea, too. The deterrence here might be stronger if you immediately reinforce those positions, which are in his grill. Make the taking of Taiwan very difficult because you are there. We weren’t there in the Ukraine. The U.S. Navy will not sail into the Black Sea now. We are not making any moves that could be perceived as provocative or threatening, so we have limited ourselves. President Biden has made all these declarations about what we won’t do, which defines the parameters for Putin. He didn’t leave anything ambiguous. He didn’t say, “Nothing is off the table.” He told everyone what was off the table. So, Putin understood the space he had to operate in.

The term is still a little fuzzy and based on some assumptions. Some may say it seems to mean mostly integration, and less deterrence.

Zinni: I am assuming that integration means either integrating elements of power, or we are integrating our military forces in some way, or both. But go to the word “deterrence.” That is the key word. A strategy can only be effective if the other guy is deterred by it. You can’t have a deterrence strategy if he doesn’t see it as a deterrent. It hasn’t happened with Putin—he wasn’t deterred in any way. He knew economic sanctions would be put on him, and he probably reasoned that NATO would not try to start any direct military confrontation. He could always throw out the nukes, tactical or otherwise, as his form of deterrence. Think about the reverse: his deterrence has worked to a certain degree and certainly in a military context. By threatening tactical nukes or other weapons of mass destruction, he has basically deterred NATO.

Maybe it is overcompensation for when President Biden was in the Obama administration. They drew red lines then, and now they are telling us that they are specifically not going to draw any red lines. Instead of leaving some ambiguity in the middle that could possibly lead to more deterrence, we are now spelling out exactly what we are or are not going to do.

Zinni: Here’s the trouble with red lines. First of all, when you establish a red line, you turn the initiative over to the other guy. In other words, if he finds it advantageous to start something, he will cross the red line, so you don’t have control over the initiative. That’s what happened in the Obama administration. At the most inopportune time, they challenged him, knowing, or assuming, that he wouldn’t do anything. And red lines also mean that if you say, “Okay, you crossed the red line, I’m going to punish you,” but the adversary is not deterred by the punishment, that is not very useful either. I had this discussion with Gen Mattis. I said, “Whoever prepared that strike on the airfield must have been Mother Teresa or something, since you didn’t do anything really damaging.” There were some potholes in the concrete that the pothole crew was able to fix the next day.

I go back to the Clinton administration, when we were told that if Saddam crossed our red lines—there were two: take a shot at our airplanes or start interfering with the inspectors—we are going to hit you. President Clinton gave us the freedom to pick the targets, and we picked the entire air defense system. The UN went crazy, but we used the justification of the UN Resolution, which was vague on all this stuff, so we sort of expanded its authorization. But it shocked the hell out of Saddam when some guy with a little anti-aircraft gun took a couple of shots and we took out their defense headquarters in Baghdad. You don’t get motivated when that happens.

The second part of the red line is that the punishment for crossing it has to hurt or reduce capability in some way. We knew that Saddam would test us on these red lines and mess with the inspectors, so we designed plans to systematically take down their air defense system.

When we struck in DESERT FOX, it paralyzed them. My fear was the government was going to collapse. They were so shaken. They were so paralyzed they couldn’t even come up on the net and say hostile things to the United States. And, of course, our inspectors were back in the next day.

I’ve been doing some thinking about no-fly zones. I did a few TV appearances on it, too. I did it because I wanted to help people understand that you don’t just snap your fingers, and then you have a no-fly zone. You need to understand what is involved in doing it: what the cost is, what it entails to put together, what the risks are, and how complex the rules of engagement can be. If the Russians put an anti-air system in a built-up area with a lot of civilians around, what are you supposed to do if it shoots at you? What are you going to do if a plane comes in from Russia, takes a shot, and goes back into their airspace? What will you do if you see their airplanes bombing the heck out of civilians, and you have a plane up that can take it out? Is that pilot just going to watch it, be witness to it? That is a tough scenario. Then the question becomes, what else can fly? Can the Ukrainian Air Force fly? There are lots of these difficult questions. No one answers them. They just say, “Oh, let’s put in a no-fly zone.” And then I keep reminding people the no-fly zone in Iraq lasted over 12 years.

Red lines, however, are not like no-fly zones. People have to understand what no-fly zones are. With a no-fly zone, you must have bases to operate out of. You must have some legitimate authority to do it. Is it going to be NATO, is it going to be the UN, is it going to be something you can hang your hat on? Where are the bases, and who is going to give them to you? Is anyone else going to operate with us? Then, you have to realize that, in Ukraine, you have an area the size of Texas, and you have to keep that air space sanitized. The number of combat air patrols you need to do that, the radar systems, the refuelers, the base operations you need . . . you are going to constantly patrol because the Russians can see when you are in and out, and they will test you, they will come in when you are out and try things. So, the rules of engagement are going to be very complex in what you do. How long can you keep that up? You also need search and rescue. What happens if a plane has a mechanical failure or gets shot down? You have to go in and get the pilots. You have to answer all these questions. And pilots will tell you that it is crappy duty. Pilots lose proficiency by just going up and patrolling and coming back. They don’t go through all the wickets they need to stay current, so you must rotate units regularly. All these people screaming for no-fly zones don’t understand how this works.

It’s similar with humanitarian corridors. You can’t have a humanitarian corridor unless you are sure that both sides fully agree and there will be no violation. If you are going to secure the corridors, who is going to run it? Is it the United Nations? Are you going to have peacekeepers or observers in there? Hardly anyone thinks this through. This is the “inch deep” crowd that comes up with these ideas. They are around the Beltway and have no idea what is involved.

General Anthony Zinni served 39 years as a U.S. Marine and retired as Commander–in–Chief, U.S. Central Command, a position he held from August 1997 to September 2000. After retiring, General Zinni served as U.S. special envoy to Israel and the Palestinian Authority (2001-2003) and U.S. special envoy to Qatar (2017-2019). General Zinni has held numerous academic positions, including the Stanley Chair in Ethics at the Virginia Military Institute, the Nimitz Chair at the University of California, Berkeley, the Hofheimer Chair at the Joint Forces Staff College, the Sanford Distinguished Lecturer in Residence at Duke University, and the Harriman Professorship of Government at the Reves Center for International Studies at the College of William and Mary. General Zinni is the author of several books, including Before the First Shots Are Fired, Leading the Charge, The Battle for Peace, and Battle Ready. He has also had a distinguished business career, serving as Chairman of the Board at BAE Systems Inc., a member of the board and later executive vice president at DynCorp International, and President of International Operations for M.I.C. Industries, Inc.

Dr. Mie Augier is Professor in the Department of Defense Management, and Defense Analysis Department, at NPS. She is a founding member of the Naval Warfare Studies Institute and is interested in strategy, organizations, leadership, innovation, and how to educate strategic thinkers and learning leaders.

Major Sean F. X. Barrett, PhD is a Marine intelligence officer currently serving as the Executive Officer for 1st Radio Battalion.

Featured Image: CAMP FUJI, Japan (June 13, 2022) – U.S. Marines with 3d Battalion, 2d Marines, prepare to begin Exercise Shinka 22.1 at the Combined Arms Training Center (CATC), Camp Fuji, Japan, June 13, 2022. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Michael Taggart)

South Pacific/Oceania

The Case for U.S. Coast Guard Cutters in American Samoa

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By Ridge Alkonis

Regardless of prognostications of future conflict it is clear that the history of the 21st century will be written in the Indo-Pacific. Accordingly, as the United States steams into in an increasingly turbulent maritime security environment, it should not discount harvesting “easy wins” in the region. Compared to the marquee U.S. military installations at Diego Garcia, Yokosuka, or Guam, American Samoa is a U.S. territory that evokes images of idyllic island life rather than strategic competition. However, by considering American Samoa through the lens of strategic competition, a military installation manned by the U.S. Coast Guard is an easy step to demonstrate commitment in the region that makes imminent sense for several reasons. Due to the sheer distances involved in the Pacific — the closest Coast Guard installations are from Hawaii (2,260 nautical miles) and Guam (3,120 nautical miles) — current sustained operations in region are necessarily expeditionary.

Establishing a Coast Guard installation in American Samoa would lengthen the reach of the Coast Guard’s highly capable Sentinel class cutters, galvanizing partnerships throughout the Southern Pacific. With increasing concerns surrounding illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing (IUUF), the law enforcement presence and know-how of the U.S. Coast Guard will be a boon to safeguarding erosion of geographic and economic sovereignty of island nations in the Southern Pacific. This approach dovetails with the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy, which calls for “Build[ing] Connections Within and Beyond the Region.” Notably, the U.S. Coast Guard is one of the few government agencies called out by name in the strategy. One of the  great contributions and strengths of the Coast Guard are the multitude of unique service and agency relationships and bi-lateral agreements it shares with international partners. . Expanding Coast Guard presence in the Southern Pacific has the potential to enhance dozens of bilateral and multi-lateral relationships for the United States while bolstering maritime security in the region.

Regional Consequences

The state of play in the region which necessitates U.S. Coast Guard presence in the South Pacific is best viewed through the prism of climate change and IUU fishing. U.S. stakeholders and defense watchers may express significant and well-founded concern with Chinese expansion in the region, as evidenced by the recent Solomon Islands security agreement, while regional leaders find themselves more concerned with immediate threats like climate change and IUU fishing.

IUU fishing is among the greatest threats to ocean health and is a significant cause of global overfishing. This contributes to the collapse or decline of fisheries that are critical to the economic growth, food systems, and ecosystems of numerous countries around the world. The deleterious effects of IUU fishing manifest around the world due to the reach of largely Chinese owned and operated, distance water fishing fleets (DWF). They engage in industrial scale commercial fishing operations, many times illegally, in the waters of other states. Wholesale, it is not an exaggeration to say that IUU fishing is a singular threat to both the economic and geographic sovereignty of nations around the world. Relatedly, the downstream effects of IUU fishing exacerbate the environmental and socioeconomic effects of climate change. These specific problems are aggravated in a remote region such as the South Pacific where maritime domain awareness — broadly defined as the knowledge and awareness of the maritime activities within a given states’ jurisdiction — is generally lower and enforcement mechanisms are weaker.

President Biden is considering expanding the Pacific Remote Islands Marine Monument (PRIMNM). A major concern of the initiative (besides that it harshly impedes indigenous fishers), is it may allow foreign illegal fishing to take stronger hold inside U.S. Exclusive Economic Zones. Western Pacific Fishery Management Council member McGrew Rice warns, “We need to consider that the Pacific Remote Islands monument is surrounded by more than 3,000 foreign vessels that fish in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean.”* If President Biden expands the PRIMNM, the region would require a significant increase in maritime security forces to ensure illegal fishing does not imperil U.S. resources and render the PRIMNM impotent.

Added pressure from illegal foreign fishing fleets would have devastating consequences to the local American Samoa economy. A capable patrol force to oversee the surrounding fisheries is necessary to protect against (largely Chinese) distance water fishing fleets, whose blue water fishing fleet numbers some 12,490 vessels, a number that dwarfs the number of fishing vessels flagged or charted by South Pacific nations. The South Pacific’s tuna fishery is already under significant pressure from unregulated fishing, with 1 in 5 fish being caught illegally. Chinese fishing vessels also provide auxiliary support to People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM) forces in the South China Sea. An increase in Chinese distance water fleets and influence in the South Pacific creates the opportunity for similar tactics in and around the islands of the South Pacific. The specter of an Indo-Pacific conflict could see a proliferation of Chinese distance water fishing fleets throughout the South Pacific pose an asymmetric threat to U.S. forces.

Climate change poses a serious threat the South Pacific, with several countries in the region ranking in the most vulnerable in the world. In fact, the leaders of many Pacific nations cite climate change as their number one existential threat, vice a host of security-related, Sino-centric concerns Western audiences often project onto the region. In conjunction with rising sea levels, an increased number of extreme weather events threaten critical infrastructure and highlight the need for a quick response humanitarian and disaster relief capability in the region. For example, recent calamities caused significant damage to Vanuatu, Tonga and Samoa, with estimates of the damage amounting to over 60 percent of GDP in some cases. A dedicated “quick reaction” disaster relief force would act as a safety net for the region, able to respond to both large scale calamities and smaller scale but critically urgent situations. For example, recently Kiribati’s Kiritimati atoll ran out of freshwater. The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Oliver Berry was the first on scene, using its reverse osmosis machine to create fresh water and pump it into tanks waiting on shore for the 5500 residents of Kiritimati atoll.

Given this state of play, it is clear that the U.S. Coast Guard is an ideal fit to address U.S. specific security and economic concerns that align with those of the region more broadly. Critically, permanently stationing Coast Guard cutters in American Samoa would skirt well-founded concerns of militarizing the Indo-Pacific. Compared to a U.S. Naval installation, a Coast Guard outpost would be perceived as more genuine and less bellicose given the unique contributions the service can make to the region.

Location of American Somoa in the Pacific (Graphic via Wikimedia Commons)

The Sentinel Class Cutter

A significant body of work exists that extols the virtues of the Coast Guard’s Sentinel class cutters, praising the cutter’s multi-mission utility. The Sentinel class is a highly capable platform already operating in OCONUS locations like U.S. 5th fleet in Manama, Bahrain, Honolulu, HI, and the newly minted Coast Guard Patrol Forces Micronesia in Guam. Despite the acclaim for the platform, feedback from recent expeditionary patrols has been measured, with one operational commander noting, “We’ve been lucky because we’ve done really good operational planning, and we put a lot of attention on the success of this mission. But we’re exceeding the design and operational intent of what this asset was created to do.”

Sentinel-class cutter characteristics. Click to expand. (USCG graphic)

Operating in a surface action group (SAG) with larger seagoing buoy tenders, the Sentinel class cutter Joseph Gerczak recently completed “proof of concept” transits from Hawaii to Tahiti and American Samoa respectively, operating well outside its five-day, 2,500 nautical mile endurance limits. Ever “Semper Paratus,” the cutter reported utilizing after-market freezers and coolers on the ship’s weather decks to house enough provisions for the voyage. The cutter also had to meticulously monitor their fuel load to have enough fuel to complete missions in Tahitian and Samoan waters — made complicated by the fact that the turbo-charged marine diesel engines are meant to be run at high speeds which are not conducive to fuel conservation. This plucky resourcefulness underscores the risks that would be eliminated by placing cutters in American Samoa. Operating out of a central location would intensify the positive impact of having several capable assets able to saturate a given area.

Practicalities

Despite their lack of a flight deck, Sentinel class cutters are the top-choice for an expeditionary squadron, due to their shallow draft. Despite the range of larger Coast Guard cutters, their deeper draft makes some remote South Pacific locations inaccessible. Accessibility raises important questions about the practicality and logistics associated with several Sentinel class cutters operating out of Pago Pago Harbor. If the state of American Samoan critical infrastructure is any indication, then plans for a Coast Guard presence will require significant funds and creative planning. In 2019 the Army Corps of Engineers found the Lyndon B. Johnson tropical medical center to be in a state of failure, “due to age, environmental exposure, and lack of preventative maintenance. Extensive repair and/or replacement of facility sections is required to ensure compliance with hospital accreditation standards and to ensure the life, health, and safety of staff, patients, and visitors.”

 Given this state of affairs and the limited budget of the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is unlikely to spearhead the service’s expansion into the region. The Coast Guard presence in Guam enjoys use of U.S. Navy built and owned facilities. Despite protestations about militarizing the region, a practical way forward could be utilizing U.S. Navy funds to stand up a small naval installation for primary use by the Coast Guard. Naval personnel, like a detachment of Seabees, as the Secretary of the Navy has suggested to assist with climate resilient infrastructure in the region, could use facilities on American Samoa as a central operating location.

The permutations of such a base are large, but in principle should include pier, maintenance, and shoreside facilities. Such a facility could pave the way for a long-heralded U.S. Coast Guard Forces Indo-Pacific, with cutters synchronizing operations out of Guam and American Samoa. Further, if the Navy adopts the Sentinel class cutter as a small surface combatant, an installation in American Samoa would increase interoperability between the sea services while carrying out missions on the low end of the competition spectrum. This model is attractive because it frees up larger capital U.S. Navy and Coast Guard assets for equally critical, but more technically demanding missions, such as freedom of navigation exercises, counter-narcotics, or responding to emergent crises such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Critically, following the results of a Trump administration era feasibility study, local government leaders support the stationing of U.S. Coast Guard assets in American Samoa given the need to both strengthen and diversify the economy while combating Chinese influence in the region. The U.S. Congresswoman from Samoa, Uifa’atali Amata affirmed, “We in American Samoa welcome talk in Washington of home porting a squadron of U.S. Coast Guard cutters in Pago Pago Harbor.”

The American Samoa economy relies heavily on tuna fishing. Fourteen percent of the American Samoa workforce comes from the tuna canning industry, an amount large enough to affect many facets of life on the island. Affordable energy, transportation, and retail all benefit from the presence of the lone tuna processing plant on American Samoa. A U.S. military presence of any form would not only transform maritime governance in the region, but galvanize and diversify economic growth on American Samoa.

Conclusion

It is clear there are manifold benefits of a U.S. Coast Guard presence in American Samoa, and the Sentinel class cutter is well suited for the role. The Coast Guard’s contributions to maritime governance, through both training and enforcement, should help stabilize a region lacking maritime domain awareness and enforcement mechanisms. The soft power of the U.S. Coast Guard presence in American Samoa will assuage fears about over-militarizing the Indo-Pacific region, yet, if a large-scale conflict were to materialize, ready-made infrastructure in American Samoa could prove crucial for maintaining U.S. and allied sea lines of communication. One thing is for certain, with the eyes of the world on the Indo-Pacific, solutions for keeping strategic competition within reasonable parameters should not be overlooked.

Sentinel class cutters operating out of Pago Pago harbor represent a powerful, permanent deterrent to IUU fishing in the vast stretches of the Southern Pacific Ocean and would be optimally postured for acting as a timely humanitarian and disaster relief force. Despite some practical details surrounding the base itself, such a presence would represent a transformational shift in maritime governance in the region, expanded bilateral relations with Pacific nations, and an economic boon for American Samoa.

LT Ridge H. Alkonis is a U.S. Navy Surface Warfare Officer currently serving as the Weapons Officer in USS Benfold (DDG 65) stationed in Yokosuka, Japan. Originally from Claremont, California, he is a 2012 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, with a B.S. in Oceanography and the Naval Postgraduate School where he earned a M.S. in Acoustics Engineering.

*This quote has been updated following a clarification from the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council.

References 

  1. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/06/27/fact-sheet-president-biden-signs-national-security-memorandum-to-combat-illegal-unreported-and-unregulated-fishing-and-associated-labor-abuses/
  2. https://www.marinelink.com/news/uscg-report-small-cutters-prove-patrol-a-497335
  3. https://chuckhillscgblog.net/2022/02/15/a-new-coast-guard-base-in-the-western-pacific/
  4. https://www.talanei.com/2022/03/09/uifaatali-reiterates-call-to-base-uscg-cutters-in-pago-harbor/#disqus_thread

Featured Image: The Coast Guard Cutter Forrest Rednour arrives in San Pedro, California, Aug. 11, 2018. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class DaVonte’ Marrow.)

Force Structure

All You Need is a Landing Craft

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By Przemyslaw Ziemacki

Amphibious and transport operations can play a vital role at all levels of war, but landing craft can do much more than just move things – they can also shoot. The global growth of anti-access/area denial capabilities favors smaller, harder to find, more numerous, and attritable vessels. At the same time, the potent evolution of missiles can be combined with the open cargo area on small and medium landing craft to shoot back against both sea and land targets. Civilian offshore support vessels suggest what tomorrow’s landing craft might look like, while the missions they could fulfill are only limited by the imagination.

A Question of What and How Many

Western navies with expensive and highly-trained crews typically focus on high-quality vessels as a deciding factor in contemporary naval operations. On the other side, Russian military thought and even Josef Stalin himself espoused that “quantity has a quality all its own.” Both considerations are important: quality plays a key role but there is a minimum quantity needed to perform particular task, particularly when considering combat attrition. A navy can have a single high-end warship, like a French aircraft carrier, that simply cannot be operationally available 365 days a year. The insufficient quantity of modern vessels is a widely known problem for many navies.  Each vessel can only be in one place at a time, which periodically includes the dry dock for planned and unplanned maintenance.

Constructing and maintaining more high-quality and single-mission vessels is rarely the best option due to fiscal constraints. Instead, multi-mission vessels can help fill these gaps. One of the ways to fulfill this concept is to build a hull with possibility of changing its payload, such as the Littoral Combat Ship and Absalon-class support vessels – both frigate-like ships with replaceable modules. A more natural word association with “payload,” however, is “landing craft” rather than “frigate.”

Many naval discussions fixate on large, high-profile navies that mainly need expeditionary vessels to perform operations all over the world and to transit rapidly between theaters. So, even if a vessel class is dedicated for green water or littoral operations, it is usually designed with the range and seakeeping of a typical blue water warship to simply arrive in theater.

Maritime geography is vitally important for both warship and fleet design, but this applies to all navies, both large and small. Many small navies have a more focused area of operations – along their national coasts or within a particular inland sea, many of which are also strategic hotspots (e.g., the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Arabian/Persian Gulf and the South China Sea). Naval presence and potential conflicts in these regions require relatively smaller but more numerous vessels. Naturally, this does not mean that frigates, destroyers and cruisers are useless, but to fulfill missions close to coasts, larger numbers of smaller vessels are more optimal in many scenarios. Moreover, many of these smaller countries have land borders with their main potential enemies instead of extensive land or ocean buffers, and so with a more compelling national requirement for a standing army and tactical air force, small vessels may be the only affordable option for small navies.

Even then, truly numerous flotillas with several types of bespoke and single-purpose small vessels is not feasible. Budget cuts often target more complex and expensive warships programs over simpler, less expensive ones. For example, Poland has only 3 vessels of the project 660M (NATO code: Sassnitz-class) fast attack craft. Sweden, which is far wealthier, has a longer coastline, and more focused on naval matters than Poland, has only 5 Visby-class corvettes. They are far from sufficient in wartime. The Baltic States only have mine and patrol vessels.

In these conditions, designing a small naval vessel several roles is an attractive proposition. The basic question is what roles are essential and which of them could be put together in a single small hull that can satisfy the various required operational capabilities. Although major NATO navies have largely abandoned small surface combatants, often called fast attack craft, these vessels remain popular on a global scale because they are simple to construct, inexpensive to build and operate, and have a relatively good size-to-weapon power ratio. Of course, they have many disadvantages, including poor seakeeping and limited sensor suites, but these are not crucial for operations in coastal waters while protected by a land-based air force and receiving off-board targeting data.

However, such combatants have one particular feature that is problematic for countries that share land borders with their main potential enemies. The lack of land attack capability means that these vessels could be entirely useless, or useful only as a “fleet in being” during the most critical phases of a potential war. Although most of the modern ship-launched surface-to-surface missiles (SSMs) have a land attack mode, this use is generally sub-optimal because it wastes the expensive and complex anti-ship targeting capabilities and specialized anti-ship warhead to hit a fixed land target. A better solution would be to use containerized versions of missiles, and more carefully pair the missile type with the target. Rather than a dedicated launcher fixed onboard the vessel with one kind of anti-ship missile, containerized missiles launchers in the form of standard 20- or 40-foot containers would allow them to be deployed and launched from nearly any surface platform. There are many simulations and concepts showing how such system could work on the deck of a cargo ship or an ocean-going patrol vessel, but deploying one or more of such containers on a ship-to-shore connector with an open cargo hold would be even simpler. 

Moreover, some of these vessels could also deploy with self-propelled coastal defense missile or rocket artillery systems, rather than craned-aboard containerized missile launchers, allowing this class of vessels to distribute and support mobile long-range fires in addition to launching its own missiles. Although the U.S. Marine Corp’s Expeditionary Advance Base Operations (EABO) concept for stand-in forces is mainly envisioned for the Pacific theater, it also could also have application in the Baltic and other confined seas.

The Multi-Role Landing Craft

The concept of using a ship-to-shore connector as a missile launching platform suggests an evolution into a multirole vessel based on the hull of a medium landing craft – a vessel with obvious utility for small coastal states outside of combat operations. Such a multirole vessel should have enough space and displacement for a single main battle tank or 3 – 4 lighter vehicles, or at least two 40 foot containers, along with permanently installed weapon systems, passive decoys, and sensors adequate for basic self defense. Conceptually, this means a single light naval gun, short-range self-defense missiles, and a light rotary 3D radar system. With that in mind, the hull should be on the larger side of ship-to-shore connectors, around 130 – 170 feet, or 40 – 50 meters long, have shoal draft, high speed, moderate range (as compared to a fast attack craft) and moderate seakeeping. The proposed multirole vessel could fulfill three main missions:

  • Tactical landing and transport operations
  • Surface attacks with standard container versions of both anti-ship and land attack missiles, including rocket artillery
  • Mine laying

A landing craft-based vessel would be capable of refueling and reloading from unprepared beaches and navigating rivers.

Traditional displacement-type landing craft are not known for their speed. However, recent shipbuilding trends suggests a suitable approach for the proposed vessel, called a surface effect ship (SES), or less often, a sidewall hovercraft. Such a vessel is a mix of a hovercraft and a catamaran, forming an air cushion between twin hulls to minimize resistance. The most famous naval design is the Skjold-class corvette, but with the full displacement of 274 tons and remarkable speed, this design is better classified as a fast attack craft. With its speed of 60+ knots, draft of 1 m, a range of 800 Nautical miles at 40 knots, and relatively wide beam, the Skjold-class corvette is an attractive basis to design the proposed multirole vessel. Moreover, it has an option of transporting 50 combat-equipped soldiers instead of missiles. Norway also has two older SES naval designs, the Alta-class and Oksoy-class minesweepers. Any of these vessels would lend a promising basis upon which to design the proposed vessel, but the civilian Aircat 35 Combi, designed for offshore service sector, would be even better. Although it is a civilian design and it is slightly shorter than the envisioned design, it shares the most valuable features – speed, range and draft – with the Skjold-class corvette and also has a large cargo space on a near-waterline level deck. A militarized variant could be easily adapted from it.

The proposed SES concept – essentially a landing craft upgraded with self-defense capabilities and offensive options, so call it a fast multirole craft – would be an attractive solution for most Baltic and Black Sea navies. Sweden and Finland have many islands that require fast deployment of high mobility troops between them as well as capable and flexible anti-ship capabilities to counter enemy landing operations. The concept would also incorporate minelaying capabilities, which is strong emphasized in Finnish naval strategy. For the Baltic States, the proposal for small naval vessels with survivable and long-range land attack capabilities could provide strong fiscal justification for acquiring vessels beyond inshore patrol and mine warfare vessels – vessels which would provide Baltic navies with significant combat capabilities.

Unfortunately, the geopolitical situation of certain Baltic Sea states may also require a reverse landing operation, or evacuation, which is yet another factor in favor of a fast landing craft. In Poland there is an opinion that mobile land batteries of anti-ship cruise missiles are more optimal than shipborne ones because of the exposed seacoast where a fast attack craft does not have many places to hide. However, the proposed fast multirole craft moves faster than a truck, but is always ready to launch a missile. Landing capabilities may be required by the Polish Navy to support its Baltic Allies if Russia captured the Suwalki Gap or otherwise interdicted land lines of communication with the Baltic States. In such case, moving troops across the south east part of the Baltic Sea would be much more risky in the large, slow Lublin-class (project 767) landing ships, which the Polish Navy operates today, than in a numerous flotilla of small and very fast vessels. Poland, Romania, and Ukraine could use such flexible vessels on their big rivers – Vistula, Odra, Dnieper, and Danube. Finally, these vessels would be well-suited for inland seas.

Bigger Applications for Small Craft

Bigger navies could also deploy these vessels in green and brown waters as well – either by transporting them in amphibious warfare ships or permanently forward-deploying them in-theater. Although the U.S. Navy, needs more true blue water warships, it should be remembered that during WWII the U.S. Navy had large numbers of motor torpedo boats and all sizes of landing craft – including those equipped for shore bombardment with rocket artillery. A future war would likely require a similarly large, dispersed, and hard-hitting force. As previously proposed on CIMSEC, missile-equipped SES landing craft would bring the perfect mix of speed and flexibility.

Of course, not all of these small, fast, and heavily armed vessels would necessarily be manned. The proposed vessels could be easily designed as optionally manned and become incorporated into the U.S. Navy’s fleet architecture plan. The US Navy’s need of fast attack craft was discussed in the June 2019 USNI Proceedings article, which proposed a very interesting concept of using LHDs and LPDs as corvette-carrier mother-ships for Skjold-class-like vessels.

Both China and Russia, the main potential enemies of the United States and its Allies, invest in fast attack craft and small landing craft, for example the Houbei-class and the Dyugon-class. Now especially the PLAN has great numbers of true blue waters vessels as well as the fast attack craft. To counter these threats, the United States and its Allies may need both kinds of vessels as well. The SES design seem to meet the needs of numerous green and brown waters flotillas nearly perfectly.

In 1982 none other than Tom Clancy himself proposed firing strategic nuclear missiles from hovercraft – repurposed ship-to-shore connectors that could scatter on alert. The vessel concept described above is not revolutionary or even wholly novel, but an evolutionary case of form following function. 

Przemysław Ziemacki is a freelancer journalist and photographer from Poland. He currently writes for Polityka, one of the largest Polish weeklies. He previously worked for the local press and has also published in National Geographic Poland. He has a long-standing avocational interest in naval matters as reflected in his first CIMSEC piece, “Is the Moskva-class Helicopter Cruiser the Best Naval Design for the Drone Era?”

Featured Image: Skjold-class fast attack craft KNM Storm of the Royal Norwegian Navy (Wikimedia Commons)