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Capability Analysis

Modern Naval Mines: Not Your Grandfather’s Weapons That Wait

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By Scott C. Truver

Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael M. Gilday has good reason to recall the morning of 18 February 1991. In support of Operation Desert Storm, the Aegis guided-missile cruiser USS Princeton (CG-59) was patrolling off Failaka Island in the northern Persian Gulf, with a young Lieutenant Gilday serving as the tactical action officer (TAO). At 0715 local time, two Italian-made MN103 MANTA multiple-influence bottom mines, each loaded with 325 pounds of TNT/PXBN explosive, fired.1

MANTA mine: A multi-influence shallow-water sea mine effective against landing craft, small-mid-tonnage vessels, and the occasional major surface combatant, MANTA can be laid by surface vessels, helicopters, and fixed-wing aircraft. The mine’s unique shape and low target strength and magnetic signature make it very difficult to detect. (RWM Italia SPA image / All Rights Reserved / Fair Use)

The first MANTA detonated directly under the warship’s port rudder in shallow water, and the second some 200 yards off the starboard bow, a sympathetic explosion that did no damage. The first, however, injured three crewmembers, cracked the superstructure, buckled the hull at three frames, jammed the port rudder, damaged the starboard propeller shaft, and flooded the Number 3 switchboard room from chill-water pipe cracks that shut down combat systems for 90 minutes—a dead-in-the-water “mission kill” that rendered missiles and guns aft inoperable.

A close-up view of a crack in the hull of the Aegis-guided missile cruiser USS Princeton (CG-59), part of the damage sustained when the warship detonated an Iraqi MANTA mine while on patrol in the Persian Gulf on 18 February 1991 in support of Operation Desert Storm. (U.S. Navy Photo by CW02 BAILEY / DN-ST-91-05715 / Released)

Four hours earlier, the USS Tripoli (LPH-10) had struck an Iraqi LUGM contact mine, ripping a 25’x25’ hole in her starboard hull. Ironically, Tripoli embarked aircraft of the Navy’s MH-53E airborne mine-countermeasures (AMCM) MH-14 helicopter squadron. Because the damage was limited only to hull voids, skillful ship-handing and ballasting kept Tripoli’s AMCM helos operating for another six days.

Captain Bruce McEwen, USN, (in khakis and white hard hat), commanding officer of the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli (LPH-10), and repair crews inspect the 23-foot by 25-foot hole “mine event” when the ship struck an Iraqi contact mine on February 18 while serving as a mine-sweeping command ship in the northern Persian Gulf during Desert Storm. The ship was able to continue operations after damage control crews stopped the flooding caused by the explosion. (U.S. Navy Photo by JO1 Gawlowicz / DN-SC-91-08076 / Released)

These mine events underscored the lessons that any ship can be a mine-sweeper, once, and a single mine cannot only ruin a skipper’s day but can also frustrate overall strategy, planning, and operations. Almost immediately following the Princeton and Tripoli mine strikes, the multinational coalition shelved plans to liberate Kuwait from the sea.

In 2021 the threat is worldwide: some 30 countries manufacture mines for their navies, and about 20 of these will sell to anyone with cash in hand.

Potential U.S. adversaries—from China and Russia to violent extremists—take advantage of the asymmetric value of mines, some quite sophisticated and lethal and others unsophisticated but still quite lethal. The global threat includes: Russia, anywhere from 125,000 to a million mines; upwards of 80,000 are in Chinese inventories; as many as 10,000 enhance North Korea’s navy; Iran has about 6,000; and unknown numbers are in terrorist hands. In June 2021, for example, Houthi rebels warned about “some hundreds of sea mines” laid in Red Sea and Arabian Sea ports and waterways.2

In comparison, the U.S. Navy has stockpiled fewer than 10,000 dedicated mines—including a “handful” of Mk-67 Submarine-Launched Mobile Mines (SLMMs­) that can be deployed only on the remaining Improved Los Angeles-class (I688) attack submarine, and “Quickstrike” (QS) mine-conversion kits for general-purpose bombs.3

SOUDA BAY, Greece (June 22, 2021) Sailors aboard the Los Angeles-class submarine USS Montpelier (SSN 765) conduct an expeditionary ordnance on-load in Souda Bay, Greece, exercising the capability to load the MK 67 submarine launched mobile mine June 22, 2021. (U.S. Navy photo by Joel Diller/ 210622-N-UR565-0303 / Released)

While there looks to be a faint light at the end of the naval mining tunnel, Big Navy has not embraced incorporating offensive and defensive mine capabilities into strategic thinking, other than half-hearted mollifying. For example, the 2020 tri-service maritime strategy mentions mine warfare only twice, first in the context of “Alliances and partnerships are true force multipliers in times of crisis. Partner and ally deployments . . . also provide specialty capabilities, such as mine warfare and antisubmarine warfare.”4 “Mine warfare” in this instance is code for “mine countermeasures.”

A slide on mine warfare capabilities. Click to expand. (U.S. Navy graphic by PEO USC and PMS 495 — Mine Warfare)

The 2020 strategy also promises to “expand mine warfare capabilities” as components of undersea warfare, clearly a reference to mines and mining. But hope can be fickle. The last time the Navy put a new-design dedicated mine into service was 1983, and today’s U.S. in-service  mines and mining capabilities are obsolescent, with questionable value in crises and conflicts.

Comprehensive mine warfare visions and strategies have been sporadic for at least ten years, and dynamics internal and external to the Navy’s mine warfare community have kept MIW in its place. Visions and strategies never see the light of day; the Navy continues to relegate mine warfare—mines, mining, and mine countermeasures—to a strategic, operational, and budgetary backwater.5

While hope is not a strategy, tomorrow’s naval mines/mining technologies, systems, concepts of operations, and operational planning tools could energize these weapons that wait by what they might bring to the fight—and how they will get there. Moreover, these initiatives and programs could shape our understanding of what constitutes a mine. That said, rhetoric needs to be channeled into reality.

For example, the Navy is upgrading the Mk-65 2,300-pound shallow-water dedicated thin-wall bottom mines and the Mk-62 500-pound and Mk-63 1,000-pound Quickstrike bomb-conversion multi-influence bottom mines with the state-of-the-art Mk-71 target-detection-device firing mechanism.6 It senses magnetic, acoustic, seismic, and pressure signatures and can be programmed with target-processing and counter-countermeasures algorithms. The Navy’s miners now can optimize mining performance against many different targets. But it took nearly 20 years to transition the Mk-71 from an engineering concept to fleet introduction.

A developmental 2,000-pound version of the Joint Direct-Attack Munition/Quickstrike Extended-Range (JDAM/QS-ER) earned the Office of the Secretary of Defense 2020 Joint Capability Technology Demonstration program-of-the-year award. Program officials note they are also developing a propulsion pack for a power-glide version of the ER (QS-P), perhaps leading to very extended-standoffs and highly precise/accurate “cruise-missile mines.” Sufficient and stable funding for this capability, however, looks to be frustrated, at best. Indeed, it could see funding zeroed in fiscal year 22.7

https://gfycat.com/mammothleadinghyracotherium

A Quickstrike-ER (QS-ER) naval mine drops toward the Pacific Ocean during an operational demonstration on 30 May 2019. (Video by Petty Officer 1st Class Robin Peak, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command)

In addition to aerial mining options, efforts are ongoing to expand near-term undersea-delivered mining capabilities. The Navy is repurposing excess Mk 67 SLMM warheads to develop Clandestine Delivered Mines (CDMs) delivered by Orca unmanned vehicles.

Another concept envisions using networked “encapsulated effectors” similar to the out-of-service moored Cold War Mk 60 CAPTOR (enCAPsulated TORpedo) to carry out numerous vital seabed warfare activities. The new “Hammerhead” device could also support Marine Corps expeditionary advance base operations antisubmarine warfare efforts, as well as other offensive and defensive mining functions.8 Indeed, future U.S. mines could be important elements of expeditionary distributed lethality, contributing to forward-area operational objectives and overall warfighting effects.

The U.S. Navy’s existing and new mine capabilities could provide an additional layer of defense around strategic assets like naval bases, ports, or even surrounding temporary outposts or forces deployed on small islands like those that  dot the Mediterranean or the Pacific. Mines have long been a major component of denying access to certain areas or deterring amphibious landings, for instance. Most importantly, the use of standoff mines or those covertly emplaced by a submarine could prevent adversaries from projecting their own forces, including even leaving their harbors, during a time of war.9

So, CNO: Remember your 18 February 1991 introduction to naval mine warfare. Thirty years on, the Navy’s mines and mining objective must make America’s adversaries worry about the threat of mines and seabed warfare systems more than their weapons concern the United States and its allies and partners.

Finding the scarce resources to fund these programs will be an increasingly daunting proposition, however. The reality is since the 1991 Persian Gulf mine debacles USN mine warfare has received each year and average of about 0.75% of Navy total obligational authority. And most of that focused on remedial mine countermeasures.

Damn the “torpedoes” indeed!

Dr. Truver is Manager, Naval and Maritime Program, Gryphon Technologies LC ([email protected]). He has supported U.S. mine warfare strategies, policies, programs, and operations since 1979, including the Navy’s first post-Cold War Mine Warfare Strategic Plan (OP03/372, January 1992). And he is the co-author of Weapons that Wait: Mine Warfare in the U.S. Navy (Naval Institute Press 1991 second edition).

An earlier version of this manuscript was published in the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings/Naval Review, May 2021, Vol.147/5/1,419, “Need to Know” commentary: https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2021/may/not-your-grandfathers-weapons-wait. It is used by permission of Proceedings.

End Notes

1. Scott C. Truver, “Lessons from the Princeton Incident,” International Defense Review, 7/1991. Also, MANTA Anti landing Shallow Water Mine, RWM Italia SPA, Rheinmetall Defence, www.rwm-italia.com, 2012.

2. Arie Egozi, “Houthis Lay Sea Mines in Red Sea; Coalition Boasts Few Minesweepers, Breaking Defense, 14 June 2021, https://breakingdefense.com/2021/06/houthis-lay-sea-mines-in-red-sea-coalition-boasts-few-minesweepers/

3. Brett Tingley, “Navy Offers Gimps of its Submarine-Launched Capabilities in the Mediterranean,” The WarZone, 28 June 2021, https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/41309/navy-offers-glimpse-of-its-submarine-launched-mine-capabilities-in-the-mediterranean

4. Advantage at Sea: Prevailing with Integrated All-domain Naval Power, December 2020, pp. 13 and 22.

5. In June 2009 the Program Executive Office for Littoral and Mine Warfare (PEO LMW) and the Expeditionary Warfare Directorate (N85) published what came to be regarded as the “MIW Primer’:  21st Century U.S. Navy Mine Warfare: Ensuring Global Access and Commerce. The 3,500 copies were soon depleted, but it remains on the Internet: https://www.scribd.com/document/329688556/21st-Century-u-s-Navy-Mine-Warfare

6. Captain Hans Lynch USN/N952) and Scott Truver, “Toward a 21st-Century US Navy Mining Force,” Defense One, https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2018/08/toward-21st-century-us-navy-mining-force/150709/

7. Tyler Rogoway, “B-52 Tested 2,000 Quickstrike-ER Winged Standoff Naval Mines during Valiant Shield,” The WarZone, 20 September 2018, https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/23705/b-52-tested-2000lb-quickstrike-er-winged-standoff-naval-mines-during-valiant-shield

8. “Tentative Manual for Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations,” Headquarters United States Marine Corps, 8 February 2021

9. Tyler Rogoway, op.cit.

Feature Image: PACIFIC OCEAN (March 16, 2009) Aviation Ordnancemen inspect MK-62 mines on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) in preparation for loading onto aircraft as part of Exercise Foal Eagle 2009. Foal Eagle is a defense-oriented annual training exercise with the Republic of Korea demonstrating U.S. commitment to regional peace and stability. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ronda Spaulding/Released)

Capability Analysis

Seabed Mining: The Coast Guard’s Deep Future

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By Kyle Cregge

What if the final frontier is much closer to home? From SpaceX to Space Force, many groups are seeking to dominate space in an era of Great Power Competition and commercialization. Yet for all the time humans have looked up, a far murkier domain below remains largely unexplored. The deep-sea and seabed remain less understood than our near abroad in space and yet contain myriad natural resources which have yet to be tapped. Beyond the familiar reserves of hydrocarbons, there are metallic nodules and crusts spread across the seabed, resting beneath national exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and claimed continental shelves, as well as below the high seas.

China, meanwhile, maintains a near-monopoly on the rare-earth metals that sustain the modern global economy and regularly leverages these key resources through coercive bilateral sanctions. Amidst these challenges, the private sector and public investment of many other nations will likely turn to the seabed to diversify their supply chains.  Environmental risks, scientific opportunities, and assent to untested international law remain open questions in these extractive ventures, but seabed mining is coming regardless. The US Coast Guard’s similar and enduring missions around maritime resource extraction make it well-suited to enforce domestic and international law in this expanding industry. The service should prepare for seabed mining by engaging with allies and partners and by supporting scientific research and environmental protection.

The Opportunity of Seabed Mining

Deep seabed mining is generally defined as extracting resources below a depth of 200 meters, such as the deep-sea polymetallic nodules first recorded by the HMS Challenger Expedition of 1872-1876.1 Private citizens and companies have intermittently attempted to capitalize on the potato-sized concretions over the past 150 years. These ambitions even served as the elaborate cover story between Howard Hughes and the CIA for the ship Glomar Explorer and the plan to recover the sunken Soviet submarine K-129 off the coast of Hawaii in 1974.2 More recently, the multinational firm Nautilus Minerals went bankrupt in 2019 following a decade’s worth of planning and investment to drill off the coast of Papua New Guinea for copper, gold, silver, and zinc contained within seafloor massive sulfide (SMS) deposits.3 Despite the legal and financial trouble Nautilus Minerals encountered, the bounty from mining the seabed will continue to encourage innovation and investment. While estimates vary, proposals have put the potential annual contributions of the deep-sea mining industry to the US economy at up to $1 trillion, and the value of all gold deposits alone worth up to $150 trillion.4 Compared to the value of US commercial fisheries – $5.6 billion in 2018 – seabed mining could be orders of magnitude more profitable.5

As part of its coercive economic diplomacy, China has selectively complicated foreign supply chains through export restrictions on rare earth metals.6  Long a recognized strength for China, former leader Deng Xiaoping stated in 1992, “The Middle East has oil. China has rare earths,” and his assessment has only continued to bear out to today. The communist nation currently supplies 95% of the global rare earths output and has used its virtual monopoly as a thinly-veiled economic weapon during diplomatic disputes with Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines in the last decade.7  The US imports up to 80% of its rare earths from China. Those resources feed into critical defense systems like guided missiles, lasers, and fighters like the F-35 Lightning II, which requires up to 920 pounds of rare earths during the production of each aircraft.8 The F-35 is currently in use or on order by fifteen countries that are currently European or Indo-Pacific partners or allies of the United States.9 Expanding beyond the single aircraft system, deliberately reduced rare earth exports could threaten each of these nation’s military modernizations. Whether for profit or supply chain preservation, America and its allies will likely look to the seabed to help meet these demands.

Why the Coast Guard?

Seabed mining requires a coordinated surface support infrastructure akin to hydrocarbon exploration and extraction, which is an oversight role the Coast Guard knows well. Robot tractors, unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), and other seafloor collectors will mine from seamounts or collect nodules deep below,10 feeding those resources up through a flexible riser pipe for refinement and processing, while a return pipe feeds the non-desired sediment and waste back to the seafloor.11 Barges and bulk carriers will then receive the collected seabed resources from the production support vessel and transfer them back to a port of call for further use. Additional remotely-operated vehicles (ROVs) will be launched from commercial ships on the surface to provide seabed surveillance, conduct scientific research, and monitor environmental impacts as part of the broader operation.

Just like the Coast Guard’s presence missions for domestic fisheries, cutters will represent US mining interests within and beyond the nation’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), though some national rights to seabed resources reach out to the extended continental shelf (ECS).  As the Vision to Combat Illegal, Unregulated, or Unlawful (IUU) Fishing states:

The U.S. Coast Guard has been the lead agency in the United States for at-sea enforcement of living marine resource laws for more than 150 years. As the only agency with the infrastructure and authority to project a law enforcement presence throughout the 3.36 million square mile U.S. EEZ and in key areas of the high seas, the U.S. Coast Guard is uniquely positioned to combat IUU fishing and uphold the rule of law at sea.12

While seabed resources are not living, domestic and international law similarly govern their extraction – and mining will require the same sort of maritime regulation. American domestic justification follows from the 1980 Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resource Act (DSHMRA), which claimed the right of the US to mine the seabed in international waters, and specifically identifies the Coast Guard as responsible for enforcement.13

International Law and Engagement

Internationally, the Coast Guard will face the same problem the US Navy does with its freedom of navigation operations in places like the South China Sea. Through the presence of its surface vessels, the services seek to reinforce the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) as reflecting customary international law, while the US is not itself a party to the treaty. The US Senate has thus far avoided treaty ratification to avoid potentially surrendering sovereignty around seabed mining regulation to the International Seabed Authority (ISA), based in Kingston, Jamaica.14, 15

Formed in 1994, the organization retains responsibility under the United Nations for administering “The Area,” of the seabed beyond any nation’s EEZ.16  Because the US is a non-party state to UNCLOS and an observer, vice member, of the ISA, US companies must either pursue mining operations through another sponsor state under the ISA regime or operate outside the ISA’s purview based on US domestic law interpreted within the framework of UNCLOS. These complications are not the Coast Guard’s fault, nor is the service responsible to necessarily fix them. But given the intersection of maritime law enforcement, commercial resource extraction, and the desire for non-military engagement, the Coast Guard is far better suited than the US Navy in a “seabed maritime presence” role.   

The seabed is likely the next domain for competition over a “free and open Indo-Pacific,” and a “rules-based international order.” Among the most challenging in a future seabed competition would be China and Russia, states that have already used lawfare in the South China Sea and Arctic regions respectively to pursue their territorial gains. The two great powers may use the same playbook in the deep sea both in practice and through the ISA. The ISA has authorized 30 total contracts for exploration in The Area, and 16 are within the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ). The CCZ is a vast plain spanning over 3,000 miles of the central Pacific Ocean southeast of Hawaii which contains a vast supply of polymetallic nodules. Two separate Chinese and Russian companies have each received 15-year contracts from the ISA for 75,000 square kilometer areas for future exploration, in addition to areas on the Southwest Indian Ridge and Western Pacific for China specifically.17  No nation has yet indicated a serious move to begin commercial exploitation in The Area, but as the technology matures, China may seek to extend its rare earths monopoly and start mining throughout the Indo-Pacific.

While the US has claimed four tracks within the CCZ under its domestic law, it too has not yet begun commercial exploration.18 Yet there are numerous opportunities for theater engagement and for ensuring seabed mining practices are in accordance with international regulations. The Coast Guard’s enduring support to allies and partners for fisheries enforcement should naturally be mirrored to the seabed – particularly for Pacific nations. Many of the same island nations and territories working on IUU fishing are evaluating deep-sea mining ventures to stimulate their economies within their EEZs and out into the CCZ. 

The Pacific island nations Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, and the Cook Islands all have active seabed licenses to explore within their EEZs. For US allies and partners, six of the top nine largest national EEZs are western or democratic nations, with a total area larger than the continent of Asia.19 This presents a vast potential bounty for seabed mining.  With its long history working with international coastal forces, the Coast Guard remains the most capable service to demonstrate American commitment to a rules-based international order across various future seabed mining ventures.

Preserving the Seabed Environment

The Coast Guard’s responsibility to support and enforce proper seabed mining will also be a natural outgrowth of its other enduring missions to support scientific research and environmental protection. As it has done with polar icebreaker missions, the Coast Guard routinely explores new domains with scientists and experts on board.20 The seabed requires further study, as a mere 20% of the global ocean has been mapped at better than a kilometer grid resolution, and the previous administration specifically directed the White House’s Ocean Policy Committee to develop a strategy to map the remaining 60% of unmapped American EEZ.21, 22 From what has been mapped, the seabed’s biodiversity is immense. Of the estimated 0.01% of the explored area of the CCZ, scientists have collected more than 1,000 animal species, of which 90% are believed to be new or undescribed. This tally does not account for over 100,000 potential microbe species.23 The Coast Guard can both support this research from its cutters and support its enduring statutory mission of Environmental Protection as well.24

Early studies have proposed immense risks to seabed environments from mining. Habitat loss, sediment smothering of seabed animals following resource processing, and issues of light, noise, or other vibrations are all significant concerns for unique resources and animals which have evolved over millions of years. If calls for an international moratorium on mining are ultimately ignored, the US should not leave China or Russia to shape the best practices for seabed mining.25 The US Coast Guard can be present and use its cutters or even onboard UUVs to monitor that mining practices are in accord with any standing international agreements to best preserve the environment.

A Deep Future for the Coast Guard

The Coast Guard has time to critically analyze its role in future seabed mining ventures but must consider the development of new service capabilities and build inter-agency bridges. Force structure assessments could partner with the Navy on multiple capability areas. UUVs operating at various depths could serve ongoing submarine force objectives while supporting Coast Guard mining monitoring requirements. If the Coast Guard determined it needed a larger platform for sustained presence and multi-helo or UUV deployment at a mining site, the Expeditionary Staging Base (ESB) could serve as a cheaper, known option from which to iterate. Regardless of platform, operations in the CCZ or broader Pacific would present a taxing operational requirement, given its distance from Hawaii and the necessary logistics train, compared to the service’s more common littoral missions.

To meet this demand signal, civilian policymakers must ensure that any profits associated with domestic commercial seabed mining would be taxed with a sufficient funding line to support the shipbuilding, logistics, command and control, and research and development in support of the Coast Guard seabed presence mission.

The Coast Guard must also strive to build its inter-agency relationships around seabed mining. The service is already a member of the State Department’s Extended Continental Shelf (ECS) Task Force, an inter-agency government body that already focuses on seabed issues.26 But the ECS Task Force is primarily focused on identifying the limits of the US Continental Shelf through geological survey and legal analysis; projections of national seabed mining objectives must go further. Beyond the interagency and joint force, the Coast Guard should liaise with academia, non-governmental and international organizations, and the private sector to contextualize the service’s future role. Each will have their initiatives and interests, but collectively they will better prepare the Coast Guard to engage with the seabed.

The Coast Guard has yet to be tasked to support presence, international maritime law enforcement, scientific research, or environmental protection with respect to seabed mining. Yet it has done those same types of missions on the surface for hundreds of years. While the commercial industry is developing its technologies and processes, the Coast Guard should project its role into the deep domain given its historic missions and requirements. Challenges abound, from international economic drivers to future science and environmental research. Working collaboratively, the Coast Guard can lead a network of partners to strengthen economic and maritime security around seabed mining, thereby promoting the rules-based international order and a free and open Indo-Pacific. Looking forward, the Coast Guard must look deeper to win on the seabed and in the future.

Lieutenant Kyle Cregge is a surface warfare officer. He served on a destroyer, cruiser, and aircraft carrier as an air defense liaison officer. He was selected by Carrier Strike Group 9 for the 2019 Junior Officer Award for Excellence in Tactics. He currently is a master’s degree candidate at the University of California San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy.

Endnotes

1. Scarminach, Shaine. 2019. “Diving Into The History Of Seabed Mining – Edge Effects”. Edge Effects. https://edgeeffects.net/seabed-mining/.

2. “The Secret On The Ocean Floor”. 2021. Bbc.Co.Uk. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/deep_sea_mining.

3. “Nautilus Minerals Officially Sinks, Shares Still Trading”. 2019. MINING.COM. https://www.mining.com/nautilus-minerals-officially-sinks-shares-still-trading/.

4. “Deep-Sea Mining Could Provide Access To A Wealth Of Valuable Minerals”. 2021. Theneweconomy.Com. https://www.theneweconomy.com/energy/deep-sea-mining-could-provide-access-to-a-wealth-of-valuable-minerals.

5. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (2020, February 21) Fisheries of the United States, 2018. Retrieved
from NOAA Fisheries: www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/fisheries-united-states-2018

6. Vekasi, Kristin. 2021. “Will China Weaponise Its Rare Earth Edge? | East Asia Forum”. East Asia Forum. https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2021/03/25/will-china-weaponise-its-rare-earth-edge/.

7. Tiezzi, Shannon. 2021. “Is China Ready To Take Its Economic Coercion Into The Open?”. Thediplomat.Com. https://thediplomat.com/2019/05/is-china-ready-to-take-its-economic-coercion-into-the-open/.

8. Narayan, Pratish and Deaux, Joe. ” U.S. Fighter Jets and Missiles Are in China’s Rare-Earth Firing Line”. 2021. Bloomberg.Com. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-29/u-s-fighter-jets-and-missiles-in-china-s-rare-earth-firing-line.

9. Pawlyk, Oriana. 2021. “Switzerland Becomes Latest Nation To Choose F-35 For Its Next Fighter Jet”. Military.Com. https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/06/30/switzerland-becomes-latest-nation-choose-f-35-its-next-fighter-jet.html.

10. “Deep-Sea Mining”. 2018. IUCN. https://www.iucn.org/resources/issues-briefs/deep-sea-mining.

11. Ibid.

12. Admiral Karl L. Schultz. “The United States Coast Guard’s Vision to Combat IUU Fishing”. September 2020. https://www.uscg.mil/Portals/0/Images/iuu/IUU_Strategic_Outlook_2020_FINAL.pdf

13. “30 U.S. Code Chapter 26 – DEEP SEABED HARD MINERAL RESOURCES”. 2021. LII / Legal Information Institute. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/30/chapter-26.

14. Ibid.

15. Verma, Aditya Singh. “A Case For The United States’ Ratification Of UNCLOS”. 2020. Diplomatist. https://diplomatist.com/2020/05/02/a-case-for-the-united-states-ratification-of-unclos/.

16. “About ISA | International Seabed Authority”. 2021. Isa.Org.Jm. https://www.isa.org.jm/about-isa.

17. “Minerals: Polymetallic Nodules | International Seabed Authority”. 2021. Isa.Org.Jm. https://www.isa.org.jm/exploration-contracts/polymetallic-nodules.

18. Groves, Steven. “The U.S. Can Mine The Deep Seabed Without Joining The U.N. Convention On The Law Of The Sea”. 2021. The Heritage Foundation. https://www.heritage.org/report/the-us-can-mine-the-deep-seabed-without-joining-the-un-convention-the-law-the-sea.

19. Migiro, Geoffrey, World Facts, Countries Zones, All Continents, North America, Central America, and South America et al. 2018. “Countries With The Largest Exclusive Economic Zones”. Worldatlas. https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-the-largest-exclusive-economic-zones.html.

20. Ensign Evan Twarog and Lieutenant (J.G.) Cody Williamson, “Polar Security Cutters Will Face An Evolving Arctic”. 2021. U.S. Naval Institute. https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2021/january/polar-security-cutters-will-face-evolving-arctic.

21. Amos, Jonathan. “One-Fifth Of Earth’s Ocean Floor Is Now Mapped”. 2020. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53119686.

22. Cornwall, Warren. “Trump Plan To Push Seafloor Mapping Wins Warm Reception”. 2019. Science | AAAS. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/11/trump-plan-push-seafloor-mapping-wins-warm-reception.

23. Heffernan, Olive. “Seabed Mining Is Coming — Bringing Mineral Riches And Fears Of Epic Extinctions”. Nature.Com. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02242-y.

24. Commander Sharon Russell and Lieutenant James Stevens. “The Coast Guard Can Take On DoD Environmental Response Duties”. 2020. U.S. Naval Institute. https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2020/february/coast-guard-can-take-dod-environmental-response-duties.

25. Rosane, Olivia. “Major Companies Join Call for Deep-Sea Mining Moratorium”. 2021. https://www.ecowatch.com/deep-sea-mining-moratorium-corporations-2651368554.html

26. “About The U.S. Extended Continental Shelf Project – United States Department Of State”. 2021. United States Department Of State. https://www.state.gov/about-the-u-s-extended-continental-shelf-project/.

Featured Image: ROV Deep Discoverer investigates a diverse deep sea coral habitat on Retriever Seamount. (NOAA photo)

Capability Analysis

Is the Moskva-class Helicopter Cruiser the Best Naval Design for the Drone Era?

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By Przemysław Ziemacki

A variety of factors, including the long range capabilities of modern artillery, the evolution of drones and missiles, together with the need for stand-off and distributed lethality, have combined to make space in the world’s navies for a great comeback of helicopter cruisers.

Cold War Cruiser Redux

In the mid-part of the Cold War, helicopter cruisers became a quite popular ship design. This trend was less noticeable in the US Navy, which concentrated on full-size carriers during that period, but a few other navies decided to operate such naval vessels. In the 1960’s, the French Navy commissioned the Jeanne d’Arc, the Italian Navy – Andrea Doria, Caio Duilio and Vittorio Veneto, and the Soviet Navy – Moskva and Leningrad. All of these ships were either heavily armed or could easily increase their armament, while also providing relatively large flight decks and hangars. The helicopter cruisers responded to the increasing threat and role of submarines in naval warfare. The air wings on each ship class consisted of four or more ASW helicopters.

The most representative among these designs is the Moskva class helicopter cruiser. Although 12 hulls were originally planned, only two vessels were built. The Moskva class had a length of 189 meters (620 feet) and 19,200 tons full displacement – a bit smaller than a San Antonio-class amphibious warfare ship. The aft hangar and flight deck of the ASW cruiser was designed to carry 18 medium helicopters, such as the Kamov Ka 25 Hormone; its bow and midship section included 2 medium caliber (57mm) guns and 3 missiles launchers for 48 anti-aircraft and 24 anti-submarine missiles.

The helicopter cruisers quickly assumed roles beyond ASW, even as improvements in ship-mounted sonar and the need to operate fixed-wing aircraft curtailed further development of ASW cruisers. Successors of the ships mentioned above were mostly full-length flight deck vessels.

Today, as full-size aircraft carriers are increasingly vulnerable due to long-range and land based anti-ship missiles, the Moskva class design could emerge from the shadow of history. A ship design inspired by this cruiser would have both enough space for stand-off weapons and for an air wing composed of vertical lift drones and helicopters. The promise of greater range artillery, such as high velocity projectile (HVP) ammunition for existing 5” naval guns, could redefine the role of artillery in war at sea. These developments would allow a couple of 5” Mk45 guns to replace standard range anti-ship missiles (like Harpoon or NSM) and to complement anti-aircraft missiles in local defense. In the near future, long range anti-ship missiles will assume the strike and attack roles long held by fixed-wing manned naval aircraft. A design inspired by the Moskva-class could be equipped with 96 VLS cells – or more – that would allow for carrying a mix of at least 32 long range anti-ship missiles and various air defense missiles.

Naturally, the key point of choosing a helicopter carrier is to use helicopters. This proposed solution concentrates on replacing the platform’s original ASW helicopters with a mix of manned airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) heavy helicopters and vertical lift reconnaissance UAVs.

The hangar space would probably need to be divided between a flight deck level hangar for the larger, heavier helicopters and a lower hangar for smaller drones. This arrangement might limit the AEW&C helicopters to only four, but this would nevertheless equal the number of E2D Hawkeyes frequently embarked on a full-size aircraft carrier. Moreover, one should not forget the potential for tiltrotor manned aircraft for AEW&C missions, which would effect better range and operational time than helicopters. Projects like DARPA’s Tern promise compact reconnaissance UAVs that have the range of a fixed-wing UAV but can still take off and land like a helicopter.

The vessel’s strong armament and the vertical lift air wing would make it a self-dependent unit, harkening back to the reconnaissance-strike roots of early carrier-based aircraft. In this context, a vessel inspired by the Moskva-class helicopter carrier and upgraded with stealth lines seems to be a ready solution for distributed lethality and stand-off tactics.

Tactical Employment

A wartime task group would include two of the proposed helicopter carriers and at least 3 ASW frigates, which also could provide additional long range anti-ship missiles, extra naval guns, and organic ASW helicopters.

The areas where such task groups would be the most effective include waters of the South-West Pacific Ocean and the triangle of the Norwegian Sea, the Greenland Sea and the Barents Sea. These waters are key zones for global business and security during peacetime while also being characterized by great air- and land-based missile threat during conflict. A potential enemy has high anti-access/area denial (A2AD) capabilities in these areas, which makes traditional air-sea battle tactics too risky. The proposed helicopter cruiser task groups could execute distributed lethality tactics, as they would be less expensive and more numerous than the carrier task groups.

The main aim of the proposed task groups is to create their own sea denial capabilities, in other words, to prevent enemies’ activity in the circle of about 200 nautical mile (Nm) against the air targets and about 500 Nm against the surface targets from the task group. The air wing of the new Moskva-class should be able to provide long-range, over-the-horizon reconnaissance and closer early warning of both surface and air threats.

The AEW&C helicopters carried by the proposed task groups would allow the ships in the task group to turn off their ships’ radars and minimize their electro-magnetic signature. Because of their self-dependence, these ships could easily employ lone wolf tactics, for example sortieing out against enemy task groups. They could also be used for taking control of choke points, or they could prevent enemy forces from landing on allied islands – especially with submarine support.

Many assert that submarines are the right tool to operate near the enemy coast during hostilities – for example, within the first island chain. The problem, however, is that submarines remain vulnerable to enemy ASW forces. Deploying the proposed task group behind own submarines, in a supporting role, would allow the destruction of enemy ASW surface vessels before they could fulfill their mission. Naturally, in more favorable and less threatening circumstances the proposed helicopter cruisers could join a carrier strike group or support forward-deployed Marine Corps operations. Conversely, if full-size carriers are in high demand within a given theater, these vessels could perform presence operations elsewhere.

The new Moskva-class design provokes reflection about the Zumwalt-class destroyer. If we make the Zumwalt-class a bit bigger and a bit less high tech, we will get a vessel that would be very similar to the proposed helicopter carrier but probably much more cost effective and flexible. In the Cold War there was a plan to create a helicopter destroyer (DDH) as a modified Spruance-class destroyer. The DDH was believed not to cost much more to build than a standard Spruance-class destroyer in the condition of series production – as they say, “steel is cheap and air is free.” It is fair to assume that the cost of the helicopter cruiser in relation to a cruiser (or a big destroyer – the difference between these two types is diminishing) could be attractive today as well.

There is also another naval design close to the helicopter cruiser – a landing platform dock (LPD). Most LPDs have enough space and adequate designs for being equipped in AESA radars, missiles, MCGs, helicopters and UAVs. Naturally, a LPD design would need to be adapted for both speed and hull survivability of DDGs. However, it would be very important to remember that the proposed helicopter cruiser is not an arsenal ship. There must exist a balanced quantity of missiles per warship, adequate to the distributed lethality concept. If naval combat requires more missiles, navies should rather look for new concepts of external floating storage rather than concentrating great amounts of scarce and expensive weapons in a single hull – a valuable sitting duck.   

After WWII there were very few naval battles and very many non-war naval operations which favored vessels with maximal aircraft capability and a lot of cargo-like space. A helicopter cruiser would have these qualities in far greater measure than typical cruisers and destroyers. The key advantage of the proposed helicopter cruiser is the flight deck, which enables at least two helicopters to take off or land at the same time. It would be easy to replace the AEW&C helicopters with other platforms and cargo, supporting special forces, humanitarian assistance, mine countermeasures, ASW, and many other missions. The history of the Jeanne d’Arc helicopter cruiser proves this flexibility well.

A design evolved from the Moskva-class could provide high AAW and ASuW self-sufficiency as well as it could be a very flexible platform for many additional tasks. The key assumption of this concept is to consider the proposed vessel as an expendable destroyer/cruiser rather than a distributed carrier. This is why the term “sea control ship” has not been mentioned above – it is a sea denial ship. In the face of the great missile threat and unmanned revolution the air sea battle concept needs to evolve and incorporate new solutions. In spite of strong criticism, full size carriers still provide capabilities and inherent flexibility that other warships cannot match. By adding the proposed air wing to a DDG or CG, the US Navy might get an additional class of capital ships that could act in parallel to CVNs – making the whole fleet architecture both less vulnerable and more diversified.

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; this article is his first foreign publication on the subject.

Feature photo: A port beam view of the Soviet Moskva-class helicopter cruiser Leningrad underway. Photo Credit: U.S. Department of Defense.

Capability Analysis

Service Squadron Ten and the Great Western Base

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By LCDR Ryan Hilger, USN

USS Houston (CL 81), in a hard turn with her underside exposed, felt the torpedo explosion across the ship. Commander William Behrens recalled “that all propulsive power and steering control was immediately lost. The ship took a list to starboard of 16 degrees. All main electrical power was immediately lost.” The tactical situation was still perilous, and with Houston “rolling sluggishly in the trough of the sea… her main deck [dipping] under at frequent intervals,” Behrens ordered Houston abandoned, save key personnel and damage control parties. USS Boston (CA 69) took Houston under tow for the next 43 hours, until another Japanese torpedo hit Houston again on the starboard side. Most of the preceding shoring and dewatering efforts were undone and Houston risked foundering again. Over the next two weeks, the crew, assisted by the fleet tugs USS Pawnee (ATF 74), USS Zuni (ATF 95), and other ships managed to limp more than 1200 miles to Ulithi. 

That Houston, and many other ships during World War II, survived such attacks and returned home was due in part to the heroics of the crew, but equally to the unsung heroes of Service Squadron Ten, who allowed the Navy to conduct prompt and sustained combat operations continuously for almost two years without returning to port. Service Squadron Ten kept the fleet supplied, fed, fueled, repaired, and happy during that time. The ability to generate combat power so continuously for half the war was a decisive advantage for the United States in the Pacific. 

The Service Squadrons played a pivotal role in sustaining the Fleet as it fought across the Central Pacific. It is a largely unknown history, but one worth relearning with the reemerging possibility of war between major powers. That experience highlights the need to make forward deployed logistics and repair capabilities both robust and mobile to better support the Fleet. Battle fatigued sailors and battle damaged ships simply cannot afford the five thousand mile journey from the South China Sea to Pearl Harbor. Nor can they count on facilities in East Asia for support, just as their predecessors realized during the interwar period when developing War Plan Orange on the game floors of the Naval War College in the development of War Plan Orange. 

Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Gilday mandated in FRAGO [fragmentary order] 01/2019 that the Navy and Marine Corps must make naval logistics more agile and resilient to support distributed maritime operations, generate greater readiness, and support the increasing numbers of unmanned systems that will enter the Fleet in this decade. The Navy should take a page from Admiral Nimitz’s playbook and re-establish the Service Squadrons with aircraft carriers as their core. Combined with the other assets, modern Service Squadrons would enable distributed maritime operations, expeditionary advanced base operations for the Marine Corps, and accelerate the deployment of unmanned systems. The history of Service Squadron Ten affords the opportunity to replicate the magic of the Central Pacific campaign in the modern era. 

The Great Western Base

Strategic thought at the turn of the 20th century required the Navy to accomplish one of two objectives: to gain, in peacetime, a strongly fortified base in the Western Pacific or to rapidly establish a major alternative land base in the Western Pacific early in the war. Most timetables required seizure of islands within months after the outbreak of hostilities. 

By the early 1920s, war games and diplomatic failures to secure the “Great Western Base” in the Philippines had forced even the most conservative admirals to reconsider these core tenets of naval doctrine and start innovating around them. The Navy began developing larger colliers, auxiliaries to service ships at sea, fleet oilers, floating drydocks, and more. By 1923, the need for mobile basing had become sufficiently accepted that it became an appendix in War Plan Orange. These advances paved the way for the Navy to unhesitatingly reject Great Britain’s request in 1941 that the U.S. take over one of the finest bases in the Western Pacific: Singapore.1 The doctrine of fixed bases had completely given way to strategic mobility. 

During the interwar period, admirals and planners shifted to a mobile strategy when the basing problems in the War Plan Orange games proved so intractable and unsatisfying to the objectives for the drive across the Central Pacific. These revelations must have been unnerving, “yet they were steps along the path to a formula for victory because planners learned from their frustration to distinguish viable programs from evanescent dreams.”2 A career of preparation, for all the officers involved, allowed them to rapidly adapt to the conditions on the ground and effectively establish the concept of operations for Service Squadron Ten.

American bases in the Western Pacific today—Japan, Guam, Okinawa, Korea, and Singapore—provide vital operational command, logistics, and repair services for U.S. and allied navies, but will be untenable in wartime based on the reach of Chinese weapons. The U.S. military must prepare to fight the war from a sustained position at sea. Hawaii is too far removed from the theater to effectively exercise command and control (C2) in the digital age, with contested electromagnetic, cyber, and information domains, or efficiently sustain forward-deployed combat operations. It is fitting that during World War II, most fleet commanders exercised their authority primarily from the repair ships—USS Argonne (AS 10) being a favorite.

Current U.S. naval doctrine holds fast to carrier warfare, the supremacy of US technology, and the rapid victories that naturally follow. Assurances that American strike groups could operate with impunity in the South China Sea must be rebuked, and the Fleet, from its commanders down to the deckplates, must be re-trained to fight truly from the sea. The Navy must seek to permanently shift operational C2 arrangements down to aircraft carriers or Zumwalt-class destroyers. Aircraft carriers already provide many of the C2 spaces that a fleet commander would need to prosecute the war and offensive capabilities to protect the mobile service squadron. 

If We’ve Got it, You Can Have it

In September 1943, Admiral Nimitz ordered two service squadrons established to provide for fleet logistics and repair in preparation for the drive across the Central Pacific. After a bloody battle on Tarawa in November 1943, Service Squadron Ten moved forward to Funafuti to establish a fleet anchorage there. Several hundred miles closer than the United States’ western most base at the time, Espirtu Santo in Vanuatu, Funafuti provided a closer location to attend to the fleet and provide for repairs should the Japanese Navy decide to offer battle near the Gilbert Island chain. 

Admiral Nimitz gave Service Squadron Ten the responsibility to “furnish logistic support, including general stores, provisions, fuel, ammunition, maintenance, repair, salvage, and such other services as necessity may dictate in the support of an advanced major fleet anchorage in the Central Pacific Area.”3 The squadron would fall under operational control of Admiral Spruance, now in overall command of naval forces driving across the Central Pacific, and service anything that floated, along with Marine Corps and Army units to the maximum extent possible, in keeping with their motto: “If we’ve got it, you can have it.”4 

Admiral Spruance began his bombardment of Kwajalien and Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands, operating from the anchorage provided by Service Squadron Ten at Funafuti. The aerial bombardment lasted two months, and Service Squadron Ten’s reputation built by the day. The sailors of Service Squadron Ten often worked around the clock, despite being undermanned, to get the Fleet back to sea. A listing of various messages to the squadron shows the daily breadth of work that they did: 

REQUEST BOILER REPAIRS X 

WHERE CAN WE OBTAIN FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS GROUND COFFEE X

REQUEST CRANE BARGE REMOVE BULWARKS X

EMERGENCY TRANSFER OF FROZEN MEAT WHICH WILL SPOIL IF NOT MOVED X

WE NEED PROVISIONS X WATER X FUEL X REPAIRS X5

There were certainly shortages of food, fresh water, ammunition, supplies, and even fuel at times, but the squadron distributed what they had equitably to all the units. 

By January 1944, Admiral Spruance realized the value that Service Squadron Ten provided, and insisted on a major change to the upcoming Operation Flintlock to take the Marshall Islands: the Marine Corps needed to first seize Majuro, the easternmost island in the Marshalls, to establish a forward fleet anchorage before executing the landings at Kwajalein and Eniwetok.6 Doing so would allow the Squadron to service the carriers so that they would not have to withdraw out of range to replenish, thereby leaving the Marines to face the Japanese airfields on the other islands alone.7 Admiral Nimitz and the Chiefs of Staff in Washington immediately approved the plan, and the result was significantly higher combat readiness and operational tempo for the Fleet.

After Flintlock, the Fleet remained at sea for the duration of the war, with Service Squadron Ten supporting it. At the Squadron’s commissioning on 15 January 1944, the squadron consisted of thirteen ships, from an original request of 100, consisting of tenders, tugs, repair ships, survey vessels, and barges. By the end of the war, Service Squadron Ten had grown to more than 600 ships, and the entire Service Force consisted of 2,930 ships and more than 500,000 sailors and officers—a third more than the entire active duty navy today.8 

Repairing the Fleet

It took years during the interwar period for the various Navy Bureaus and shipyards to believe that a repair ship or tender could provide any service of consequence beyond minor repairs.9 Actual combat and sailor ingenuity proved otherwise. In December, 1942, the predecessor to Service Squadron Ten fitted USS New Orleans (CA 32) with a temporary bow made of coconut logs after her bow was blown off at the Battle of Tassafaronga, enabling her to make the transit, stern first, to Sydney, Australia for further repairs. 

Naval battles mean hurt ships and sailors. “Ships had their bows blown off, their sterns blasted away, huge holes torn in their hulls by torpedoes whose explosions created a chaos that had to be seen at the time to be fully realized.”10 The closer the help, the better off the ship and crew were—the Houston never would have made it to Pearl Harbor, nor would hundreds of other ships and their crews no matter how heroic their efforts. Service Squadron Ten enabled the Fleet to keep the Japanese from realizing operational gains from damaging U.S. ships.

For Service Squadron Ten, floating drydocks, repair ships, tenders, crane barges, and a myriad of other assets allowed them to make major repairs to battle damaged ships. Service Squadron Ten made similar repairs throughout the war, and floating drydocks were critical in restoring ships to seaworthy and operative conditions. Their drydocks could easily dock an aircraft carrier or battleship. In February 1945, for example, the repair work of the squadron “varied from such big jobs as rebuilding 60 feet of flight deck on the carrier Randolph in 18 days and new bows on blasted ships, to replacing guns and electrical equipment. In that month 52 vessels were repaired in floating drydocks.”11 The pace of repair operations even began to cause problems back home: “The amount of repairs and the hours worked would have caused peacetime navy yards to throw up their hands in despair. As a matter of fact it was reported that one wartime yard complained that Service Squadron Ten was taking away its work.”12

Becoming Truly Expeditionary

From late 1943 on, the Fleet remained at sea conducting prompt and sustained combat operations. The planning for the campaign required the Navy to consider more than just keeping the Fleet supplied with food, fuel, and ammunition. Ships needed deep maintenance that could not be deferred, Marine companies needed replacements, carriers needed replacement planes and pilots, and sailors needed to rotate back to the States—all without the Fleet returning to Pearl Harbor. How did they do it?

Service Squadron Ten had carried the theme of mobile basing beyond its original conclusions: the Squadron was the Great Western Base. The myriad of repair ships, tenders, oilers, concrete barges, tugs, and other small boats rendered extensive land bases unnecessary. The Squadron simply moved with the Fleet, recalling the remnants of its rearmost bases forward. Escort carriers, usually remembered today for their heroic stand off Samar Island in October 1944 or hunting U-boats in the Atlantic, provided many of the third-order services that the Fleet needed to maintain sustained operations. A few weeks in the life of USS Copahee (CVE 12), is representative: 

“On 17 April, 2 months before D-day for the Marianas, the Copahee left Pearl with 86 aircraft, 390 passengers, and 196 cases of equipment. On the 23d she unloaded her planes at the Majuro air station for further transfer to the fleet, or for use as combat air patrols. Reloading, she took aboard 23 damaged planes, 2 aircraft engines, and 312 passengers, leaving on the 26th for Pearl. Back at Majuro again 12 May, she unloaded 58 planes, 20 of which she catapulted, and 7 cases of airplane parts. The next day she was underway once more for Pearl…”13

The escort carriers played a vital role in keeping the Fleet supplied with ready combat power. While the Fleet had been refueling at sea for some time now, replenishment by aircraft carrier was entirely new, and perfected by Service Squadron Ten and the Service Force later in the war. 

21st Century Service Squadrons

Today’s fleet train will be woefully inadequate in wartime. Two aging submarine tenders, both at risk in Guam, a few floating drydocks, two hospital ships, and the small combat logistics force are all that is available to service a battle force of nearly 300 ships. With most maintenance done ashore in contractor facilities, sailors have lost the ability to conduct the deep maintenance and repair that their predecessors did as a matter of course. 

The Navy has started to procure new auxiliaries, but the penchant for making a ship a jack-of-all-trades has driven the Common Hull Auxiliary Multimission Platform to a price tag of more than $1.3 billion per ship. The Office of Management and Budget sent the Navy back to the drawing board. Ships take a long time to procure. The Navy would do well to buy more floating drydocks and a flight of the new National Security Multimission Vessels, a training platform for merchant marine academies, and integrate them into fleet logistics and repair operations now. With space for a thousand personnel, a helicopter pad, roll on/off capabilities, and container storage, they are flexible platforms that could provide a myriad of services. 

The aircraft carrier should form the core of a modern Service Squadron Ten to meet the CNO’s call in FRAGO 01/2019 for more agile and resilient naval logistics. Combat Logistics Forces require significant protection and must remain mobile to allow Navy and Marine Corps forces to conduct expeditionary operations in the Western Pacific. Sustaining distributed, far forward operations requires the Navy and Marine Corps to rethink how they supply , maintain , and repair forces in a true threat environment. Like the escort carriers that enabled logistics in World War II, the aircraft carrier must shift its role from generating strike aircraft to becoming the sustainment and C2 hub needed to run the war. With it, the air wing must change from primarily strike aircraft to mostly CV-22s. This would provide the requisite lift capabilities needed to support distributed operations while allowing for combat aircraft to deploy forward on expeditionary bases ashore or amphibious ships. 

The rest of the service squadron forms around the modern misfits: expeditionary staging bases (T-ESBs), staging docks (T-ESDs), expeditionary fast transports (T-EPFs), assorted supply ships, hospital ships, floating drydocks, tenders, and a host of combatants, ranging from littoral combat ships to amphibious ships to cruisers. This arrangement keeps the historical responsibilities of Service Squadron Ten alive by generating greater operational availability for combat forces and giving damaged ships an improved chance at survival. The mix of ships in the service squadron would allow for detachments to:

The combinations are limited only by the number of ships on hand. Establishing a rotation of combat forces from combat duty to lighter duty assigned to the service squadron would give crews a much needed respite from arduous combat patrols and to conduct deeper maintenance without having to return to Hawaii or the East Coast. 

Change the Operational Narrative

The best innovations in warfare do not result simply from deploying new technology, but from using technology differently than the adversaries expect . The linking of technology with doctrine enables revolutionary advances in how the Navy fights. Given that China has spent two decades optimizing its national forces to counter American carrier strike groups, the U.S. Navy has the opportunity to change the character of that fight in a single stroke by leveraging its history. Service Squadron Ten provided Admiral Nimitz and his commanders with the necessary facilities, capabilities, and logistics, to keep the press on the Japanese through sustained combat operations at sea. As Admiral Carter noted in Beans, Bullets, and Black Oil, 

“Daring initiative has been a characteristic of American operations in both strategy and tactics. Our enemies have known the book doctrines as well as we, but they could not throw the book overboard and try something new as freely as we. Thus at times we have had the advantage of projecting moves that they did not anticipate.”14

The Chief of Naval Operations should throw the book overboard today. 

Lieutenant Commander Ryan Hilger is a Navy Engineering Duty Officer stationed in Washington D.C. He has served onboard USS Maine (SSBN 741), as Chief Engineer of USS Springfield (SSN 761), and ashore at the CNO Strategic Studies Group XXXIII and OPNAV N97. He holds a Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School. His views are his own and do not represent the official views or policies of the Department of Defense or the Department of the Navy.

Endnotes

[1] Edward Miller. War Plan Orange: The U.S. Strategy to Defeat Japan, 1897-1945. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1991, pp. 75-76.

[2] Ibid, p. 62.

[3] Carter, p. 95.

[4] Ibid, p. 122.

[5] Ibid, pp. 221-222.

[6] Ibid, p. 91.

[7] E.B. Potter. Nimitz. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1976, p. 265-266.

[8] Carter, p. 8.
“Status of the Navy.” United States Navy. April 29, 2020. https://www.navy.mil/navydata/nav_legacy.asp?id=146

[9] Carter, p. 1.

[10] Ibid, p. 55.

[11] Ibid, p. 291.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid, p. 145.

[14] Carter, p. 331.

Featured image: USS Iowa (BB-61) in a floating drydock at Manus Island, Admiralty Islands, 28 December 1944. (U.S. Navy photo via Wikimedia Commons.)