By Captain R. Robinson Harris, USN (ret.)

Introduction

39 years ago, in the October 1985 issue of USNI Proceedings, then-LCDR Joe Benkert and I questioned how the Navy structured the relationship between the carrier force and the surface fleet:

“Do non-carrier surface warships have any strategic significance? To listen to discussions of maritime strategy and naval force structure in the public arena, one would think that the only general-purpose naval forces with strategic significance in their own right are carrier-launched aircraft and nuclear-powered attack submarines, and that surface combatants are simply integral parts of larger, carrier-dominated structures. Reminiscent of Peggy Lee’s song, ‘Is that all there is?” Are surface combatants simply supporting players, or do they have a larger strategic role?”…the Maritime strategy suggests that naval forces would move forward as early as possible to take decisive, offensive action to neutralize the Soviet Navy and pressure the Soviet flanks. This strategy envi­sions the Soviet fleet being neutralized mostly by attack submarines and carrier-based aviation. The principal role for surface combatants in this task lies in providing de­fense for aircraft carriers.”

Is that still all there is? Fast forward to 2024 where we may be witnessing a role reversal. Are we reaching a point in which the surface fleet, with the long-range Maritime Strike Tomahawk missile, will become the preferred platform-weapon combination for U.S. anti-ship warfare? Could this subsequently shift the role of the aircraft carrier and its air wing to being the supporting platforms rather than the supported?

The looming introduction of VLS-capable anti-ship missiles across a wide range of untapped force structure within the Navy and the joint force deserves to trigger a rethink of the fleet’s combined arms doctrine, especially between the surface fleet and the carriers. The U.S. Navy is about to experience a historic firepower revolution, and it needs to think deeply about the implications.

Making Sense of the Firepower Revolution

CDR Jeff Vandenengel argues in his recently published book, Questioning the Carrier: Opportunities in Fleet Design for the U.S. Navy, that aircraft carriers are too vulnerable in certain threat environments to take on the strike warfare role, and that the surface fleet’s offensive potential has been hamstrung by traditional doctrinal roles that relegated it to supporting the carrier defensively. Vandenengel and others have argued that the age of the carrier has been surpassed by the age of the missile, which has become the principally dominant weapon in modern naval warfare. The question is whether the combined arms doctrine that integrates the various naval communities into a fleet has adapted to make the most of the principal weapon of the era.

The lethality of the anti-ship missile has greatly exacerbated the intense attrition that has long characterized naval combat and set it apart from other warfare domains. As Captain Wayne Hughes argued,

“It is demonstrable both by history and theory that not only has a small net advantage in force often been decisive in naval battles, but the slightly inferior force tends to lose with very little to show… every strategist must know the relative fighting value of his navy – so carefully nurtured and expensive to build and maintain in peacetime. When committed in battle, the heart of a fleet can be cut out in an afternoon.”

In war at sea, a slight tactical disadvantage in striking power can quickly snowball into major losses, strongly encouraging navies to make the absolute most of the dominant weapons of their era. As Dmitry Filipoff has argued:

“…no other service needs to be more invested in tactical superiority and solid warfighting doctrine than navies. If a carrier strike group falls prey to a single missile salvo, that’s about seven thousand lives and $20 billion dollars that is lost in a matter of minutes. By comparison, those numbers would get you about 2,000 tanks, but there is no plausible combat scenario where two thousand tanks are destroyed in a couple minutes. Modern naval warfare is an absolutely brutal form of combat, and because of that, nobody stands to lose so much so quicky from their tactical shortfalls than navies. In naval warfare especially, tactical shortfalls can rapidly escalate into strategic liabilities…”¹

Accordingly, the Navy’s warfighting concept of DMO should be developing a better understanding of how fleet warfare is evolving with respect to the wide proliferation of long-range anti-ship firepower across both the force structure of the U.S. military and its rivals. Lying at the core of this transformation is the point that the Maritime Strike Tomahawk possesses a combination of traits that are especially suited for mass anti-ship fires – long range, broad platform compatibility, and eventually steep inventory depth. While several other new anti-ship missiles are also joining the joint force, including SM-6 and the Naval Strike Missile, no other anti-ship missile in the U.S. inventory fields this specific combination of mass firing traits to the same degree as MST. And arguably no other community will field this decisive weapon to the same extent as the surface fleet. This historic evolution in the U.S. Navy’s striking power should have major effects on the roles and missions of the aircraft carrier, its air wing, and the fleet as a whole.

Evolving Firepower, Evolving Roles

The air wing has a range of limits, including the range of its aircraft, the range of its anti-ship missiles, the wide scope of missions the air wing may have to perform simultaneously, the time it takes to arm and launch sizeable strike packages, and of course the risk that can be reasonably tolerated by putting carriers within reach of certain high-end targets. Long-range anti-ship missiles based on the surface force offer a useful alternative for circumventing some of these limits and risks, and providing a much more expansive array of options for fighting enemy fleets.

But the carrier will still be needed to leverage this wide scope of new firepower. An alternative combined arms relationship is offered in Filipoff’s “Fighting DMO” series. The carrier air wing can serve as a force multiplier to this potent mass firing capability by fulfilling the information demands required to take full advantage of the long range of these weapons and their broad scope of distribution across a theater. Carrier aircraft such as the F-35 can take the lead in penetrating the contested battlespace and facilitating the striking power of entire fleets. As Filipoff has argued: “aircraft are going to be very critical for managing the breadth of the offensive kill chain. This can go from scouting for targets, cueing fires against them, maneuvering those fires, and assessing those fires’ effectiveness.” As carrier aircraft call in anti-ship fires from across the joint force, they can be postured to provide crucial retargeting updates to in-flight salvos based on the dynamic awareness offered by sensor fusion, and allow aircraft to shepherd anti-ship missiles into cohesive volumes of fire against enemy fleets.

The ability of the carrier air wing to provide offensive information support for the maritime fires killchain is significantly enhanced by the sensor fusion and networking capabilities possessed by 5^th generation F-35 aircraft. F-35 fighters possess multiple datalink options to share data with dissimilar platforms, such as F/A-18s and E-2Ds. These datalinks could also be used to dynamically command anti-ship missiles to fly various waypoints, flying formations, and sensor postures to maximize effectiveness in a complex battlespace. The P-8 community can also provide valuable command and control functions for the maritime fires process, and offer aerial C2 options that are not tethered to the location or risk profile of a carrier.

Aircraft can be empowered with the command-and-control of significant amounts of anti-ship firepower in the moments that could decide fleet battles. It is through these roles that the carrier can still very much serve as a decisive capital ship by focusing on the critical currency of modern warfare – information advantage.

Conclusion

Given the range advantage of surface fleet-based missiles, the range limitations of the carrier air wing, and the vulnerability of the carrier in certain threat environments, the role of the carrier and its air wing should evolve in tandem with the U.S. Navy’s changing firepower. The carrier and its air wing should serve as the force quarterback that scouts wide spaces, cues surface ship fires against targets, and provides crucial in-flight retargeting support to those salvos on their way through a contested battlespace. In this method, the air wing can be empowered to deliver much more than the force of the carrier – it can deliver the force of entire fleets.

This is only one possible concept of operations for harnessing the new possibilities that are on the horizon. The fundamental issue at hand is whether the Navy will truly recognize it is in the midst of one of the most sweeping transformations in offensive anti-ship firepower in its history, and whether it will give serious consideration to shifting the combined arms doctrine that has long defined how the fleet intends to fight. The U.S. Navy’s warfighting concepts, including DMO, should be the driving force behind experimenting with these alternatives and eventually articulating what these new combined arms roles should be. The firepower revolution and the DMO concept are also happening in the context of the Navy’s growing emphasis on fleet-level warfare and Maritime Operations Centers. All of these elements must be thoughtfully integrated, especially with respect to reforming combined arms relations to maximize the fleet’s overall striking power. That is the ultimate end, not elevating one platform’s primacy or another’s.

Captain R. Robinson “Robby” Harris commanded USS Conolly (DD-979) and Destroyer Squadron 32. Ashore he served as Executive Director of the CNO Executive Panel. He was a CNO Fellow in CNO Strategic Studies Group XII.

References

1. This quote is from a presentation delivered by Filipoff to the Strategy Discussion Group (SDG) and used here with permission.

Featured Image: PACIFIC OCEAN (June 13, 2021) Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Dewey (DDG 105), front, and Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) transit the Pacific Ocean. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Olympia O. McCoy)

This piece was originally written and submitted as part of an essay contest in September 2023.

By Trevor Phillips-Levine and Andrew Tenbusch

A large Japanese force emerged from the San Bernadino Strait, comprised of battleships and heavy cruisers, including the flagship Yamato. All that stood between them and the vulnerable U.S. landings at Leyte were the escort carriers, destroyers, and destroyer escorts of Seventh Fleet. Admiral Halsey’s Task Force 34 was ostensibly tasked to guard the San Bernardino Strait, a strategic approach north of the amphibious landings. But Halsey was then hundreds of miles away, steaming northward in dogged pursuit of a decoy Japanese carrier force. Urgent radio traffic from Commander Seventh Fleet did little to throw Halsey from pursuing the Japanese carriers until he received a pointed inquiry from Admiral Nimitz, Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet and Pacific Ocean Areas.^1,2 The Japanese fleet successfully deceived Halsey and obfuscated their actual center of gravity for the operation by offering up some of their most prized assets as bait.

In chess, “The Queen Sacrifice” is well-known. The queen is one of the most important pieces and possesses wide mobility. In a queen sacrifice, a player risks their queen to gain a key advantage later, leveraging the perceived importance of the piece with their opponent.³ The U.S. Navy viewed its carrier forces as its center of gravity. If given the opportunity, the Japanese predicted that the U.S. Navy would pursue their aircraft carriers because the Navy would assume them to be similarly vital to the Japanese. Like chess, the battlefield is becoming an arena of persistent observation from robust satellite constellations.⁴ In a world of near-perfect information, deception becomes crucial, and the more believable the ruse, the higher the chances of success. Ruses can be made more believable by capitalizing on an adversary’s cognitive biases, such as their perceptions on what platforms are especially crucial to naval operations.

China already possesses the world’s largest navy, and the U.S. is unlikely to match China’s industrial capacity and speed in shipbuilding.⁵ Therefore, deterring and, if necessary, defeating China in naval combat will require deception to minimize U.S. vulnerability to the heavy attrition that can be quickly inflicted in a war at sea. For deception to be effective, the U.S. Navy must first be aware of how its enemies perceive its centers of gravity and then possess the willingness to use its prized assets in unconventional ways. Rather than try to force a traditional use case of the carrier onto an unprecedented threat environment, the Navy should consider novel approaches to carrier employment. Based on the currently limited reach of the Navy’s air wings, the carrier’s best use may be as a decoy force.⁶ 

Enduring Truths 

Since Fleet Problem IX in early 1929, the U.S. aircraft carrier has been recognized as an invaluable asset. However, surprise encounters with submarines and surface combatants revealed its vulnerabilities. The short range of the carrier air wings required the aircraft carrier to maneuver perilously close to the objective.⁷ Much depended upon accurate intelligence, the boldness of commanders, and luck. Some naval leaders remained unconvinced by tactics that placed the aircraft carrier at great risk. Others felt that the risk and loss of the carriers were completely justified if in the pursuit of “decisive” results.⁸

Fleet Problem IX and subsequent Fleet Problem exercises informed the development of U.S. carrier tactics for World War II. It also reinforced the desire among commanders to eliminate the enemy carriers first.⁹ Carriers remained vulnerable to shore-based air and susceptible to submarine attack. The debut of the missile age by the Kamikaze showcased the carriers’ vulnerabilities when forced within range of shore-based air and the difficulty of defending against guided munitions.¹⁰ By the war’s end, the U.S. had lost three escort carriers to Kamikazes and nine fleet carriers had taken Kamikaze hits. However, the fleet experienced greater losses among support and picket ships as they were often the first ships Kamikaze pilots would encounter.¹¹

Submarines continued to be a persistent threat. During World War II, the Japanese lost eight carriers to submarines.¹² The British lost five, while the U.S. lost four.^13,14 Decades later, during the 1980s Falklands Campaign, the British deployed 11 destroyers, six submarines, and 25 helicopters to hunt down an obsolete Argentine submarine threatening its carrier task force.¹⁵ That Argentine submarine still managed to fire torpedoes against the British fleet and survive the war. Submarines present an asymmetric threat and are costly to defend against, requiring great resources to find and track. Over the years, the Navy hollowed out the carrier’s organic anti-submarine warfare capability, leaving the air wing dependent on inorganic assets like the P-8A Poseidon to find lurking submarines across wide areas. Yet these are assets that may not be able to follow the carriers into heavily contested seas, and and the effects of climate change will likely increasingly constrain detection ranges.¹⁶

The threats to aircraft carriers are enduring and intensifying with technological advances. The necessity for carriers to maneuver within enemy weapon engagement zones to deploy offensive combat power has remained true for much of history, except in some recent regional wars. What has changed is that the carrier is less equipped to defend itself than in the past, and there is a perceived lack of willingness by U.S. leadership to stomach the loss of an aircraft carrier for the sake of employing its air wing.¹⁷

Neutering the Aircraft Carrier

Symbols of American power projection, U.S. aircraft carriers prominently featured as American options for political messaging and de-escalation. President Bill Clinton dispatched two carrier strike groups to “monitor” saber-rattling after the U.S. approved a visa for Taiwan’s leader in 1996, during the “Third Taiwan Strait Crisis.”¹⁸ The dispatched U.S. carrier strike groups were to reassure allies and bolster regional credibility. At the time, a broad consensus existed that the People’s Liberation Army was “not in a position to take Taiwan.”¹⁹ The carriers’ successful interference in China’s campaign of intimidation against Taiwan during the crisis marked a seminal moment for the PLA. Since then, China has substantially improved its area denial capabilities, joint force integration, amphibious capability, and ocean surveillance. Today, analysts acknowledge that the People’s Republic of China is better positioned to mount an invasion – and threaten carriers – than at any other time in its modern history.²⁰

The People’s Liberation Army emphasizes neutering U.S. power projection capabilities by fielding precision weapons like the Dong Feng-21D and Dong Feng-26 ballistic missiles. Besides conventional strike capabilities for infrastructure targets (i.e., airfields or ports), the Dong Feng series of weapons also possesses maritime strike capabilities to target warships.²¹ The ranges of these weapons exceed the striking range of a carrier’s current embarked air wing.²² If the carrier is to utilize its striking power in a Pacific scenario, it must close to well within range of powerful shore-based capabilities.

The accuracy of long-range precision weapons depends upon extensive, over-the-horizon cueing networks and mid-flight retargeting capabilities.²³ China’s long-range weapons are credible because of their supporting targeting infrastructure, including over-the-horizon radars, terrestrial and aerial surveillance assets, and satellite constellations.^{24, 25} The vastness of the Pacific theater and the number of ships plying the ocean at any given time impart data processing delays, where analysis must sift through benign data and isolate contacts of interest. The speed of a decision cycle is referred to as the “OODA” loop, where a speed advantage relative to the adversary is a critical component of victory.²⁶ Accelerating decision cycles will likely drive artificial intelligence integration, which can sift copious amounts of data at speeds and accuracy exceeding human analyses.²⁷ China desires to lead in artificial intelligence, and reporting indicates that its military is heavily involved in its development. The PLA views artificial intelligence as key in “intelligentized” warfare environments and disrupting the decision-making pace of adversaries.²⁸ Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that China will likely mate its extensive ocean surveillance capabilities with artificial intelligence to sift through benign noise to find carriers and other warships.

Artificial intelligence may also be used to determine operational strategies. Some algorithm training sets use historical data. Historical data composed of human decision-making and behavior are imbued with human biases. These use cases can impart latent bias to the algorithm and, in the case of the U.S. carriers, potentially cause those algorithms to inherit an affinity for carriers’ centrality to U.S. naval operations.^{29, 30} In fact, biases may manifest more significantly in algorithms, and humans’ trust in their output permanently skew their perceptions in future decision-making.³¹ Indeed, carriers played a central role in Japan’s naval campaigns before the Leyte operations, much as they did in the interwar period during the Fleet Problem exercises, reinforcing perceptions of their continued importance to Halsey.³² Artificial intelligence that learns from training data from the past 80 years of U.S. naval operations could develop similar perceptions and become self-reinforcing for human users.

Naval Deception

At the tactical level, paint schemes during both world wars on Allied shipping were designed to break up outlines, making identification and targeting by the enemy more challenging.³³ New paint schemes on Russia’s Black Sea fleet may be an attempt to thwart target recognition algorithms and image-processing seeker heads.³⁴ Other historical tactical deceptions took on more elaborate forms, as with Britain’s Q-ships during World War I. Masquerading as merchant ships to lure submarines to the surface, submarines were then ambushed by their not-so-helpless prey.³⁵

Today, arguments for the U.S. Navy to reintroduce decoys to divert attention and complicate surveillance are gaining favor.³⁶ While China’s surveillance apparatus is formidable, it is finite, and each diversion or false target saps resources from finding the true one. The PLA’s weapon allocations are impacted by this uncertainty by tying down warheads. A weapon must be reserved for a perceived threat, eliminating it as an option for striking a different target. As such, fleets-in-being require considerable diversions of resources and capabilities kept in reserve, whether those fleets are a direct participant in an operation or not. For example, Ukrainian forces were forced to divert precious resources to monitor troop concentrations in Belarus and a Russian amphibious fleet in the Black Sea, despite the unlikelihood of either force launching a successful attack.³⁷ Forcing China’s military to expend attention and munitions on ghost fleets and attractive diversions will be an essential element of operational art during conflict.

Magruder’s Principle is a concept in deception that states it is “easier to exploit the enemy’s beliefs than to alter those beliefs.”³⁸ An enemy may be completely blinded by target fixation and confirmation bias if the deception is adequate. When Halsey pressed his attack against Japan’s carrier force, there were signs it was a diversion. Navy carrier scout planes reported empty flight decks and little fighter cover over the Japanese carriers, an anomaly that should have raised many red flags. But convinced of their importance, likely influenced by the carrier’s importance to him, Halsey continued his pursuit. And despite increasingly desperate radio traffic from the commander of Seventh Fleet, he remained convinced that the destruction of Japan’s carrier force took priority over all other efforts.

Japan’s desire to use the carriers as a decoy force may have stemmed from how their air wings were previously decimated in the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot” in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. There Admiral Spruance made a different calculation than Halsey, opting to shape the deployment of his task force in such a way as to give priority to protecting the beachhead rather than fully committing to a chase against Japanese carriers. The Japanese sent hundreds of their carrier aircraft into the teeth of American fleet defenses only to inflict negligible damage against U.S. capital ships. Unknown to the Americans, the massive losses they inflicted against Japanese aircraft removed Japan’s carriers as a credible force for the foreseeable future. When Japan opted to use its flattops as decoys, they were good for little else.

While there has been much contemporary debate on the survivability of the carrier, the Navy should also consider how the survivability of the air wing may affect future roles for flattops. An aircraft carrier is most vulnerable during aircraft launch and recovery operations when forced on predictable headings. To find a beehive, one needs only to find a bee to follow, a tactic Kamikazes used well by following returning Navy fighters.³⁹ Unknown surface contacts that are launching and recovering multiple jet aircraft may strongly stand out against the backdrop of maritime traffic to an adversary’s ocean surveillance network. However, an aircraft carrier unburdened with flight operations is free to use a variety of frustrating tactics against the enemy. In either case, a diversion requires the devotion of more surveillance for increased scrutiny by the enemy, slowing their decision processes and diverting attention.

Overcoming the Institutional Barriers

Using the carrier in non-traditional ways, like a diversion in a deception campaign, will probably meet strong resistance within the Navy. The aircraft carrier remains one of the prominent symbols of American power and prestige. Despite the occasional essay questioning the value proposition of carriers in robust peer environments or advocating unconventional uses, the U.S. Navy overwhelmingly views its carrier fleet as its crown jewels.^{40, 41} These viewpoints ossified after the end of World War II as the battleship’s fate had been sealed and the aircraft carrier took its place as the world’s premier capital ship. Over the decades, carrier aviators pervaded the Navy’s ranks and the halls of industry and government, cementing a strong advocacy network into place.

In 2015, former Navy captain and strategist Jerry Hendrix pointed out that some planners and leaders appear focused on protecting a traditional use case for the aircraft carrier and are not invested in war-winning strategies.⁴² Discussions and efforts to change the naval force through carrier reductions to fund alternative and likely more relevant and effective capabilities, like submarines, are met with stiff political resistance.⁴³ If an adversary is aware of the herculean efforts the Navy will undertake to protect its most prized assets, then it has identified an exploitable vulnerability. Their assumptions and investments in fielding anti-carrier systems are correct and will always be cheaper and easier to deploy than the platform they target.

In chess, the objective is to capture the opponent’s King, not protect its queen at all costs. But there is evidence that is exactly what is occurring.⁴⁴ Naval planners appear unwilling to consider a role for the carrier as anything other than the main effort of any naval campaign.⁴⁵ Such closed-mindedness is unlikely to result in lucky outcomes, but rather short-sighted and costly sacrifices.

Japan’s decision to use its carriers as diversions was in accordance with Magruder’s Principle and preyed directly upon Halsey’s psyche. Before discovering the Japanese carriers, Halsey remarked, “If this was to be an all-out attack by the Japanese fleet [referring to attempts to disrupt the Leyte landings], there was one piece missing from the puzzle – the carriers.”⁴⁶ While Campaign Plan Granite and Nimitz’s orders prioritized the destruction of the Japanese fleet, Halsey, ultimately pursued because these were important pieces – important because carriers were important to him.⁴⁷ Admiral Kurita ultimately made the same mistake and shifted his focus toward the escort carriers that were near the path to his main objective because he mistook them for fleet carriers. Subsequently entranced by his own carrier target fixation, even when there was abundant evidence that he was not facing fleet carriers, Kurita wasted his opportunity to exploit the decisive opening the Japanese decoy carriers had created for him.

Winning is the main objective, not forcing a use case that does not conform to reality. To outsmart your opponent, one must first know how that opponent perceives your centers of gravity. U.S. narratives, writings, and real-world operations extolling the importance of aircraft carriers do much to reinforce the perception that these queens are the U.S. Navy’s prized possessions and that they will be the main effort for any coming maritime war. Navy commanders should be ready to exercise a break with precedent to exploit this narrative by entertaining the idea that the carrier might be better suited for other roles, especially as a decoy force. If not, they risk falling victim to their own mythology.

References

[1] Nimitz’s Gray Book. Pg. 2246. Messages from CTF 77 began coming in on October 24^th at 2207. At 2235, messages grew more desperate, “Under attack.” By 2239, CTF 77 made a desperate plea to Halsey, “Fast battleships are urgently needed immediately at Leyte Gulf.” At 2329, CTF 77 once again radioed Halsey, “My situation is critical.” At 0044, Nimitz sends Halsey the fateful message, “Where is task force 34?”

[2] C. Vann Woodward. “The Battle for Leyte Gulf,” Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. 2017.

[3] No Author. “Chess Terms: Queen Sacrifice,” Chess.com, No date. (Accessed May 19^th, 2023)

[4] Gerry Doyle & Blake Herzinger. “Carrier Killer: China’s Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles and Theater of Operations in early 21^st Century,” 2022. Pg. 39.

[5] Brad Lendon and Haley Britzky. “US can’t keep up with China’s warship building, Navy Secretary says,” CNN Online. February 22, 2023. (Accessed May 19^th, 2023)

[6] Dr. Jerry Hendrix. “Retreat from Range: The Rise and Fall of Carrier Aviation,” Center for a New American Security, October 2015. Pg. 51.

[7] I Cutis Utz. “Fleet Problem IX: January 1929,” Naval History and Heritage Command, no date. (Accessed May 20^th, 2023)

[8] Ibid.

[9] Scot MacDonald. “Evolution of Aircraft Carriers: The last of the Fleet Problems,” National Museum of the U.S. Navy, accessed August 28^th, 2023. (history.navy.mil) Pg. 36

[10] Thomas G. Mahnken. “The Cruise Missile Challenge,” Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis, 2005. Pg. 12-13.

[11] No Author. “Loss of USS Wasp,” “Loss of the USS Block Island,” “USS Yorktown,” “The Sinking of the USS Liscome Bay,” National Museum of the U.S. Navy, accessed August 6^th, 2023. (https://www.history.navy.mil)

[12] William P. Gruner. “U.S. Pacific Submarines in World War II,” Reprinted by the San Francisco Maritime National Park Association, Accessed August 6^th, 2023. (https://maritime.org/doc/subsinpacific.php#pg6)

[13] No Author. “Naval-History.Net,” Accessed August 6^th, 2023. (https://www.naval-history.net/WW2aBritishLosses02CV.htm)

[14] No Author. “Loss of USS Bismarck Sea,” “Loss of the USS St. Lo,” “USS Ommaney Bay,” National Museum of the U.S. Navy, accessed August 6^th, 2023. (https://www.history.navy.mil)

[15] Chris Hobson and Andrew Noble, Falklands Air War (Hinckley, UK: Midland Publishing, 2002), 157–58; John Lehmann, “Reflections on the Special Relationship,” Naval History 26, no. 5 (September 2012).

[16] Andrea Gilli, Mauro Gilli, Antonio Ricchi, Aniello Russo, and Sandro Carniel. “Climate Change and Military Power: Hunting for Submarines in the Warming Ocean,” Texas National Security Review 7, no. 2 (Spring 2024): 16-41. https://doi.org/10.26153/tsw/52240.

[17] Craig Hooper. “The Navy Is Ill-Equipped to Come to the Rescue,” Forbes, February 28^th, 2023. https://www.forbes.com/sites/craighooper/2023/02/28/when-an-american-carrier-needs-help-what-will-us-navy-do/

[18] Dana Priest & Judith Havemann. “Second Group of U.S. Ships Sent to Taiwan,” The Washington Post, March 11^th, 1996.

[19] Kristen Gunness and Phillips C. Saunders. “Averting Escalation and Avoiding War: Lessons from the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis,” China Strategic Perspectives, December 2022. Pg. 23.

[20] David Lague & Maryanne Murray. “War Games T-Day: The Battle for Taiwan,” Reuters, November 5^th, 2021.

[21] Gerry Doyle & Blake Herzinger. “Carrier Killer: China’s Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles and Theater of Operations in early 21^st Century,” 2022. Pg. 12, 29, & 35.

[22] Dr. Jerry Hendrix. “Retreat from Range: The Rise and Fall of Carrier Aviation,” Center for a New American Security, October 2015. Pg. 51.

[23] Gerry Doyle & Blake Herzinger. “Carrier Killer: China’s Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles and Theater of Operations in early 21^st Century,” 2022. Pg. 35.

[24] Henk H.F. Smid. “An Analysis of Chinese Remote Sensing Satellites,” The Space Review, September 26^th, 2022. https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4453/1

[25] No author. “Project 2319 Tianbo [Sky Wave] Over-the-Horizon Backscatter Radar [OTH-B],” Global Security Organization, No Date. (Accessed May 24^th, 2023) https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/china/oth-b.htm

[26] Alastair Luft. “The OODA Loop and the Half-Beat,” The Strategy Bridge, March 17^th, 2020. https://thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2020/3/17/the-ooda-loop-and-the-half-beat

[27] Alex Hern. “Computers now better than humans at recognizing and sorting images,” Guardian, May 13^th, 2015.

[28] Yuan-Chou Jing. “How Does China Aim to Use AI in Warfare,” The Diplomat, December 28^th, 2021. https://thediplomat.com/2021/12/how-does-china-aim-to-use-ai-in-warfare/

[29] Based on an interview with Laruen Kahn, an artificial intelligence researcher and a policy advisor at Force Development and Emerging Capabilities at the Department of Defense.

[30] Annie Brown. “Biased Algorithms Learn From Biased Data: 3 Kinds of Biases Found in AI Datasets,” Forbes, February 7^th, 2020. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2020/02/07/biased-algorithms/?sh=19897ab76fc5).

[31] Lauren Leffer. “Humans Absorb Bias from AI – And Keep It after They Stop Using the Algorithm,” Scientific American, October 26^th, 2023. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-absorb-bias-from-ai-and-keep-it-after-they-stop-using-the-algorithm/#:~:text=She%20cites%20a%20recent%20assessment,tools%20than%20to%20other%20sources.

[32] The Battle of the Philippine Sea devastated the Imperial Japanese Navy’s pilot cadre. Unable to train pilots fast enough, the decision was made to use the Japanese carriers as diversions, and carrier aircraft would be flown off to be land-based. Meanwhile, US commanders were frustrated that Japan’s carrier force was left relatively intact after the battle and still assumed them to be threats.

[33] Sam LaGrone. “Camouflaged Ships: An Illustrated History,” U.S. Naval Institute News, March 1^st, 2013.

[34] Mia Jankowicz. “Russia is painting dark strikes on its warships to make them look smaller and confuse Ukrainian drones, says expert,” Business Insider, July 5^th, 2023. (https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-warships-paint-camouflage-confuse-ukrainian-drones-usvs-2023-7)

[35] Miriam Bibby. “Britain’s WWI Mystery Q-Ships,” The History and Heritage Accommodation Guide, No date. (Accessed May 28^th, 2023)

[36] Gary Anderson. “How Navy Decoy Drones Could Thwart China’s War Strategy in the Pacific,” Military.com, September 6^th, 2022.

[37] Andrew Higgins, “Russian Troops in Belarus Spur Debate Over the Threat to Ukraine,” New York Times, October 21, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/21/world/europe/ukraine-belarus-russian-troops.html

[38] Donald P. Wright. “Deception in the Desert: Deceiving Iraq in Operation DESERT STORM,” Army University Press, 2018.

[39] Trent Hone. “Countering the Kamikaze,” Naval History Magazine Vol. 34, No. 5, October 2020.

[40] Lieutenant Commander Jeff Vandenengel, USN. “100,000 Tons of Inertia,” Proceedings Vol. 146/5/1407, May 2020.

[41] Lieutenant Commanders Collin Fox & Dylan Phillips-Levine, USN. “Launch Big Missiles from Big Ships,” Proceedings Vol. 149/1/1439, January 2023.

[42] Jerry Hendrix. “The U.S. Navy Needs to Radically Reassess How it Projects Power,” The National Review, April 23^rd, 2015. https://www.nationalreview.com/2015/04/age-aircraft-carrier-over-jerry-hendrix/

[43] David Axe. “This U.S. Navy Aircraft Carrier Won’t Be Headed to the Scrapper,” The National Interest, March 3^rd, 2019.

[44] Gerry Doyle & Blake Herzinger. “Carrier Killer: China’s Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles and Theater of Operations in early 21^st Century,” 2022. Pg. 10.

[45] Dr. R. B. Watts. “The Wrong Lessons from a Century of Conflict,” Modern War Institute, February 15, 2022.

[46] C. Vann Woodward. “The Battle for Leyte Gulf,” Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. 2017. Pg. 41.

[47] No Author. “Campaign Plan Granite,” Pg. 2.

Featured Image: South China Sea (Oct. 9, 2019) Multiple aircraft from Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 5 fly in formation over the Navy’s forward-deployed aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76). (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kaila V. Peters/Released)

By George Galdorisi

At no time since the end of World War II have so many nations fielded blue water navies that have roamed the globe. Navies from Australia, China, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States have regional and worldwide commitments. Whether it is reinforcing or challenging rules-based order at sea, showing resolve to reassure allies and deter rivals, or exercising with other navies, these fleet also recognize that they must be prepared for high-end war at sea. Comparative naval advantage has returned as a critical unit of measure in great power competition.

But despite growing threats, navies have become accustomed to traversing the oceans and littorals with near impunity. This ability is now being increasingly jeopardized, and not necessarily by conventional high-end threats. For centuries, sea mines have presented an affordable and effective option in naval warfare. That threat is increasing today. The number of countries with mines, mining assets, mine manufacturing capabilities, and the intention to export mines has grown dramatically over the past several decades. More than fifty countries possess mines and mining capability. Of these, thirty countries have demonstrated an indigenous mine production capability and twenty have attempted to export these weapons. Additionally, non-state actors have used these cheap and plentiful weapons to hazard commercial vessels and disrupt commerce on the oceans.

When policymakers, military leaders, and analysts compare the qualities of various navies, they typically think in terms of numbers of ships, submarines, aircraft, and other conventional assets. However, considering the growing threat of sea mines worldwide, the capability to employ and defeat mines forms another core consideration in gauging the balance of naval advantage. Navies must consider how to field affordable and risk-worthy unmanned systems at scale to meet the mine threat.

A Centuries Old Challenge

Mine warfare is not new. Precursors to naval mines were first invented by innovators of Imperial China. The first plan for a sea mine in the West was drawn up by Ralph Rabbards, who presented his design to Queen Elizabeth I of England in 1574. Since the invention of the Bushnell Keg in 1776 (a watertight keg filled with gunpowder that was floated toward the enemy, detonated by a sparking mechanism if it struck a ship), mine warfare has been an important element of naval warfare.¹ While the first attempt to deliver the Bushnell Keg from America’s first combat submarine, the Turtle, against a British warship in 1776 failed, subsequent attempts to employ these early mines were successful.²

Over 150 years ago, Admiral David Farragut became famous for “damning torpedoes” (which were actually mines) at the entrance to Mobile Bay during the Civil War.³ Indeed, in the early stages of the Civil War, Admiral Farragut wrote to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles about the sea mine threat posed by the Confederacy, stating, “I have always deemed it unworthy of a chivalrous nation, but it does not do to give your enemy such a decided superiority over you.” Farragut’s warning was eerily prescient. ⁴

The use of sea mines and countermeasures to these weapons have figured significantly in every major war and nearly every regional conflict in which the United States has been involved since the Revolutionary War. Indeed, the naval mine has been a mainstay of modern warfare. The North Sea Mine Barrage, a large minefield laid by the U.S. Navy and Royal Navy between Scotland and Norway during World War I, inhibited the movement of the German U-boat fleet. During World War I more than one thousand merchant ships and warships were lost because of the 230,000 mines used.⁵ NATO navies continue to clear these mines to this day.⁶

Mines released by U.S. Navy submarines and dropped by U.S. Army Air Force B-29 bombers in the Western Pacific during World War II sank hundreds of Japanese warships, merchant ships, and smaller vessels. During World War II 2,665 ships were lost or damaged by 100,000 offensive mines.⁷

In Korea during the early 1950s, the Soviets provided North Korea with thousands of sea mines. These were used to defend key harbors and multiple U.S. warships struck mines. During the Vietnam War, over 300,000 American naval mines were used. In 1972 Haiphong Harbor was seeded with 11,000 destructor mines and was shut down completely for months, and it took years to clear out all the American mines.⁸

In the past several decades, rogue states have indiscriminately employed sea mines. Libya used mines to disrupt commerce in the Gulf of Suez and the Strait of Bab el Mandeb. In the 1980s Iran laid mines to hazard military and commercial traffic in the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, leading to the devastating mine strike against USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG 58). During Operation Desert Storm in 1990-1991, the threat of mines precluded the effective use of the Navy and Marine Corps expeditionary task force off Kuwait and hazarded all U.S. and coalition forces operating in the Arabian Gulf. Indeed, Operation Desert Storm highlighted the importance of mine warfare with the heavy damage dealt to USS Princeton (CG 59) and USS Tripoli (LPH 10). The U.S. Navy has an abundant history of employing mines and striking them, but it remains unclear what the U.S. Navy’s mine strategy is for modern naval warfare.

Today’s Ongoing Mine Challenge

Mine warfare remains a critical element of naval capability. In terms of availability, variety, affordability, ease of deployment, and potential impact on naval operations, mines are some of the most attractive weapons available.

Sea mines are hard to find, difficult to neutralize, and can present a deadly hazard to any vessel—especially those ships specifically designed to hunt them. They can also heavily shape behavior and weigh on the operational calculus of commanders, making them a source of potent psychological effects in the battlespace. 

Great power rivals are likely to employ mines in any conflict with the United States. Scott Truver highlighted the danger posed by China’s mine warfare capabilities, as well as those of other potentially hostile nations:

“The mine warfare experiences of America and other nations are not lost on the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). Chinese naval analysts and historians understand the asymmetric potential for mine warfare to baffle the enemy, and thus achieve exceptional combat results.’ Mines provide what some have described as affordable security via asymmetric means.”⁹

Seth Cropsey echoed similar challenges and highlighted the mining capabilities China and Russia would bring to the fight. He focused primarily on the threat from China, noting:

“One of the top global mine threats comes from China. It has been estimated that Beijing has as many as 100,000 such weapons. Those range from the old-fashioned moored contact mine to include mines that have rocket-propelled weapons and target detection systems. In the event of a conflict with China, the United States is unlikely to approach warfare from the land. That leaves us with the seas as the place where conflict is most likely to play out.

Beijing would likely concentrate on creating choke points in areas such as the archipelagos that separate East Asia from the Middle East and the South China Sea. That means that sea control and navigating around China’s anti-access and area denial capabilities will be crucial. It’s reasonable to expect that the Chinese would use mines there, and reasonable to expect that they would use mines if they decided to use force against Taiwan. Moving through those straits is crucial and being able to clear them of mines is equally important.”¹⁰

The danger of naval mines being employed short of major war is acute in the Middle East. In October 2020, a Maltese-flagged tanker was damaged by a mine while taking on crude oil the Yemeni port of Bir Ali. MV Syra reportedly suffered significant damage, resulting in an oil spill.¹¹ Shortly after this event, in November 2020, a mine in the Red Sea exploded and damaged a Greek oil tanker.¹² In December 2020, a Singapore-flagged tanker berthed at the Saudi Arabian port city of Jeddah was damaged by a mine, with Houthi militia from Yemen strongly linked to this attack.¹³ In January 2021, an oil tanker off the coast of Iraq discovered a mine attached to its hull.¹⁴ Regional navies, assisted by U.S. and U.K. navies, have stepped up mine countermeasures exercises in the Arabian Gulf.¹⁵ Most recently, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States conducted the Artemis Trident MCM Exercise in Arabian Gulf.¹⁶

As part of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia mined the waters off the Crimean Peninsula. Some of those mines either broke loose or were cut loose and drifted into shipping lanes used by Ukrainian and NATO ships.¹⁷ Russia has continued to use sea mines extensively during the conflict in Ukraine. One of the most prominent examples involved Russian forces laying mines along the Dnieper River to the north of Kherson city to make it harder for the Ukrainians to cross.¹⁸

Other incidents have included Russian drifting mines that have been found along the coasts of Turkey and Romania, as well as elsewhere in the Black Sea. An Estonian cargo ship in the Black Sea was sunk by a Russian mine during this war.¹⁹ More recently, in February 2023, Turkish media claimed that a drifting sea mine exploded near Agva on the Black Sea coast.²⁰

The ability of the U.S. Navy to deal with the growing threat of sea mines is not getting better, it is getting worse. The platforms that embody the U.S. Navy’s primary mine countermeasures (MCM) capability—the MH-53E AMCM aircraft and the Avenger-class minesweeper—are scheduled to retire in the next few years, which will leave the totality of the Navy’s MCM capability in the discrete number of Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) to be outfitted with the Mine Countermeasures mission package, which has suffered multiple delays during testing and development.

This is not the MCM capability needed by a global navy facing a pervasive mine threat. Nor is it a solution that eliminates the extreme danger to Sailors who are forced to work in a minefield to accomplish their mission, especially when the minefield is overlayed with the advanced anti-ship and anti-air capabilities of a great power adversary. Fortunately, technology has advanced to the point that with the proper commitment the Navy can conduct MCM remotely by leveraging unmanned systems and take the Sailor out of the minefield.

Leveraging Unmanned Technologies to Defeat Deadly Sea Mines

For all navies, there is only one way to completely take the Sailor out of the minefield and that is to leverage unmanned technologies to hunt and destroy mines from a distance. While this principle is readily acknowledged, it is not a lack of need that has impeded the Navy’s efforts, but rather technological maturity. In the past, unmanned vehicle technologies were not mature enough to take on the complex task of mine hunting. But today, they are now capable enough. These capabilities are no longer based on concepts or early prototypes. Rather, every necessary component has been in the water and tested in operational environments. 

The following proposal is based on three subcomponent candidates that can deliver a single-sortie, autonomous mine countermeasures solution with autonomous target recognition. This design can also flexibly accommodate various towed sonars and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs).

The MARTAC Devil Ray T38 is intended as the autonomous platform for the package, and will host a communications and data transmission hub, in addition to above-water and underwater sensors.

The ThayerMahan Sea Scout Subsea Imaging System is specifically designed for missions such as mine hunting. The Sea Scout system is based on the in-production COTS Kraken Robotics Katfish-180 tow-body mounted synthetic aperture sonar. The system is designed to search for mine-like objects and is integrated by ThayerMahan’s remote operations and communications system.

The Pluto Gigas is an existing, standalone, third generation ROV with several systems deployed globally and with over 3,000 mines destroyed. The Pluto Gigas deploys an acoustically armed and detonated countermine charge that is low-cost both in production and in logistics and sustainment. Several charges can be loaded onto the T38 to enable single-sortie field clearance.

These three components can combine to deliver an effective mine hunting solution. The driving principle of this solution is to incorporate mature hardware that will minimize risk to the host platform during execution of the MCM mission. To that end, the weight and outside dimensions of the mission package are within a few inches of the dimensions of a common 11-meter RHIB. Launch and recovery should be easily accomplished using standard naval small craft handling procedures for the host vessel.

While this MCM solution is component agnostic, the leading commercial-off-the-shelf candidates for the initial solution were chosen based on their technical maturity, as well as their current use by various navies. Leveraging these commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) systems will enable this MCM solution to move forward at an accelerated pace to speedily deliver a fleet capability in the near term.

The Need to Take Action Today to Address the MCM Challenge 

Because ships and Sailors operate daily in harm’s way, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps—and by extension other allied navies—would be well-served to accelerate their efforts to deal with deadly sea mines. The essential components for such a system exist today, and a robust COTS MCM solution can reach fruition in the near-term.

While programs of record are developing next-generation technology, navies should invest in parallel-path solutions that leverage mature subsystems that are ready to provide capability today. It is time to put a speedy solution in the hands of Sailors.

To achieve victory, navies must get to the fight in the face of anti-access area denial capabilities of adversaries. Given the low cost, ease of deployment, and increasing proliferation of naval mines, the ability to find and clear these deadly mines makes for a major pacing challenge for navies. Developing and fielding mine countermeasures capabilities, overlooked for too long, should be a first order priority for navies today.

Captain George Galdorisi is a career naval aviator and national security professional. His 30-year career as a naval aviator culminated in 14 years of consecutive service as executive officer, commanding officer, commodore, and chief of staff. He enjoys writing, especially speculative fiction about the future of warfare. He is the author of 18 books, including four consecutive New York Times bestsellers. His latest book, published by the U.S. Naval Institute, is Algorithms of Armageddon: The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Future Wars.

References

[1] Tyler Rogoway, “The Revolutionary War Gave Birth to the Age of Naval Mine Warfare,” The War Zone, July 4, 2016, accessed at: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/4256/the-revolutionary-war-gave-birth-to-the-age-of-naval-mine-warfare.

[2] Christopher Hevey and Anthony Pollman, “Reimagine Offensive Mining, U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, January 2021.

[3] Farragut’s boldness is especially striking because in 1862 a Confederate mine sank USS Cairo in the Yazoo River.

[4] U.S. Navy Fact File, “U.S. Navy Mines,” accessed at: https://www.navy.mil/Resources/Fact-Files/Display-FactFiles/Article/2167942/us-navy-mines/.

[5] See, for example, Paul Ahn, “A Tale of Two Straits,” U.S. Naval Institute Naval History Magazine, December 2020 for a concise history of naval mine warfare.

[6] “NATO Forces Clear Mines off Port of Dieppe,” The Maritime Executive, April 9, 2020, accessed at: https://www.maritime-executive.com/editorials/royal-navy-clears-mines-off-port-of-dieppe.

[7] US Navy Fact File, “US Navy Mines,” accessed at https://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=2100&tid=1200&ct=2).

[8] “Surface Forces: Mines Revisited,” Strategy Page, March 13, 2020, accessed at: https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htsurf/articles/20200313.aspx

[9] Scott Truver, “Taking Mines Seriously: Mine Warfare in China’s Near Seas,” Naval War College Review, Spring 2012, accessed at:

https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1429&context=nwc-review.

[10] Yasmin Tadjdeh, “Navy Invests in New Mine Warfare Technology,” National Defense Magazine (online), April 6, 2020, accessed at: https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2020/4/6/navy-invests-in-new-mine-warfare-technology.

[11] Edward Lundquist, “Tanker Loading Crude Damaged by Floating Mine in Yemen,” Seapower, October 9, 2020, accessed at: https://seapowermagazine.org/tanker-loading-crude-damaged-by-floating-mine-in-yemen/.

[12] Ryan White, “Greek-Operated Tanker Damaged by Mine at Saudi Terminal,” Naval News, November 25, 2020, accessed at: https://navalnews.net/greek-operated-tanker-damaged-by-mine-at-saudi-terminal/.

[13] Sam Chambers, “Hafnia Tanker at Jeddah Becomes Latest Mine Victim,” Splash 247.com, December 14, 2020, accessed at: https://splash247.com/hafnia-tanker-at-jeddah-becomes-latest-mine-victim/.

[14] “Oil Tanker Near Iraq Finds Mine on Hull as Gulf Risks Mount,” Newsmax, January 4, 2021, accessed at: https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/cos-exe-gen-gov/2021/01/01/id/1003892/.

[15] “Saudi, UK, U.S. Naval Forces Conduct Mine Countermeasures Training,” Defense-Aerospace, November 29, 2020, accessed at: https://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/214552/saudi%2C-uk%2C-u.s.-naval-forces-conduct-mine-countermeasures-training.html.

[16] Naval News Staff, “U.S. France and UK Complete Artemis Trident MCM Exercise in Gulf,” Naval News, April 13, 2023.

[17] “Weapons: Naval Mines in The Black Sea,” Strategy Page, February 2, 2023, accessed at: https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htweap/articles/20230202.aspx.

[18] Gerrard Kaonga, “Russia Mines River as Soldiers Prepare Kherson Retreat: Kyiv,” Newsweek, October 25, 2002.

[19] Scott Savitz, “The Drifting Menace,” Real Clear Defense, (undated), accessed at: https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2022/11/16/the_drifting_menace_865111.html.

[20] Tayfun Ozberk, “Sea Mine Explodes on Turkey’s Black Sea Coast,” Naval News, February 14, 2023.

Featured Image: An unmanned surface vehicle is craned aboard the Independence-variant littoral combat ship USS Canberra (LCS 30), as a part of the first embarkation of the Mine Countermeasures (MCM) mission package. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Vance Hand)