Podcast

Sea Control 496 – Naval Presence and the Interwar US Navy with BJ Armstrong

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By Jared Samuelson

CAPT Benjamin “BJ” Armstrong joins the program to discuss naval presence and the U.S. Navy in the interwar period. CAPT Benjamin “BJ” Armstrong, USN, is a former search and rescue helicopter pilot and associate professor of war studies and naval history at the U.S. Naval Academy.

Download Sea Control 496 – Naval Presence and the Interwar US Navy with BJ Armstrong

Links

1.  Naval Presence and the Interwar US Navy and Marine Corps, Forward Deployment, Crisis Response, and the Tyranny of History, by Benjamin Armstrong, Routledge, 2024.

2. Sea Control 239 – Things Done By Halves with Dr. BJ Armstrong, CIMSEC, April 11, 2021. 

3. Sea Control 311  – Developing the Naval Mind with BJ Armstrong and John Freymann, CIMSEC, January 20, 2022. 

4. Sea Control 209 – Learning War with Trent Hone and Sebastian Goldstein, CIMSEC, November 1, 2020. 

5. Military Innovation in the Interwar Period, by William Murray and Allan Reed Millett (eds), Cambridge University Press, August 13, 1998.

Jared Samuelson is Co-Host and Executive Producer of the Sea Control podcast. Contact him at Seacontrol@cimsec.org.

This episode was edited and produced by Andrew Frame.

Infrastructure

A Modest Proposal for Improving Shipyard Production and Repair Capacity

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By Ryan C. Walker

Popular history and historians in public service have encouraged the public to view the production capacity of the United States during as World War II (WWII) as a “miracle.”1 The production was recognized by the Allies as pivotal to victory and the first studies appear to have sought to understand the process behind the miracle. Academic interest in the subject dates at least to 1956, when Francis Walton wrote the book that likely coined the term, Miracle of World War II: How American Industry Made Victory Possible.2 Research did not end there, however, as Alan L. Gropman wrote a McNair Report in 1996, Mobilizing US Industry in World War II: Myth and Reality, which sought to dispel notions of a spontaneous miracle and identify how this process occurred. Gropman believed the importance of dispelling the “halo” surrounding the production was identifying the constituent causes as:

“…there were enormous governmental, supervisory, labor-management relations and domestic political frictions that hampered the effort—and there is no reason to think that these problems would not handicap future mobilization efforts. With enormous threats looming in the mid 1930s and increasing as Europe exploded into war at the end of the decade, the United States was in no way unified in its perception of the hazards, nor was there any unity in government or business about what to do about it.”3

Gropman identified one of his primary influences as Gary E. Weir.4 Weir has been one of the primary influences in identifying these processes specifically for shipyards and submarine production, with his focus on 1940-61.5 Weir argues the “wartime blend of naval, industrial, and scientific resources,” would eventually coalesce into what he termed the “naval-industrial complex,” which was a result of “[t]he wartime blend of naval, industrial, and scientific resources,” that constituted modern submarine construction.6 The previous focus of these studies has been macro-observations, centering primarily on the larger players, but the problems of today seem to match closely to the problems facing the USN in the 1930s, potentially offering insight into solutions of the present context.

The current production of ships, particularly submarines, has become a subject of interest as geopolitical circumstances become increasingly uncertain. Solutions to increase shipyard productivity, which include building new facilities in Lorain County, Ohio, are primarily long-term solutions that seek to reverse the post-Cold War atrophy of the defense industrial base and are hindered by the necessity of building supply chains for new Naval-Capital Towns.7 As investment has maintained a smaller industrial base since 1991, for the foreseeable future, the shipyards that are producing and repairing today are all that can be reasonably depended on in the short-term (3-5 years). The United States can do well by recognizing this fact and looking at alternative methods to increase production in existing areas, such as returning to shift work seven days a week on a modified Dupont schedule used in facilities requiring 24-hour support. The modification would be the shift work time availability and switching to a gold-blue crew working two 10-hour first and second shifts, on a four day on/four day off schedule, henceforth referred to as an 8-4-2-10 schedule (eight-day work week, four days per crew, two primary shifts working ten-hour days).

The Challenges to Navigate and Consider

A shipyard, particularly for submarines that fall under SUBSAFE requirements, is one of the most complex production environments. The shipyard worker is employed in a dynamic environment including challenges such as limited spaces; ventilation; exposure to the elements; or the heat and cold associated with an interior of a ship that does not have services to control atmosphere. Further, maritime industries are a relatively unknown niche that only directly or indirectly employed 393,390 people in the United States during 2020, of which 83.1 percent of the directly employed were concentrated in ten states.8 Due to the declining significance and lack of prestige associated with blue-collar work, shipyards that need workers such as General Dynamics Electric Boat have resorted to hiring on the spot and creating elaborate advertisement outreach campaigns. Thus, compounding the shipyard shortage is a shortage of laborers willing to work on a shipyard in any capacity (directly onsite or supporting).9

Creating any solution must be palatable to a variety of stakeholders, Federal, State and Local governments, business and organizational interests, and labor interests. For any radical departure from the status quo outlined in this work, concessions must be made to all stakeholders. For government and naval officials, this proposal would assume a higher expenditure for funds that are already tightly spread amongst the Department of the Navy. For business interests, the schedule will interrupt long-standing processes and require a new business environment, the type of overhaul that necessitates organizational unrest. Similarly, labor interests will have to change their normal work schedule of eight hours, five days a week, with a rigid weekday and weekend divide (which has come under recent pressure anyway). Recognizing these challenges and then designing collaborative strategies that find true win-wins among the stakeholders is a major goal of this article and is meant to be thought-provoking rather than a delineation of true guidelines.

The Miracle of Production was fuelled in no small part by hard work and coordination at all levels of production, from the apprentice standing a Firewatch to the Admirals who oversaw the programs, getting an increase in production today will likely require a similar level of shiftwork, dedication, and expense seen in the previous era. There is a defense industrial base to build on today, and the USN, private shipyards, and policymakers would do well to seek to maximize the current output in addition to planning new facilities. The shift work this article seeks to create is similar to the nearly around the clock production seen in World War II. It also maintains a period of third shift where evolutions that require minimal personnel presence or would be too costly to be effective, and the 8-4-2-10 schedule could be implemented to offer a sustainable long-term solution. First, though, it is important to understand why this would be more desirable/efficient than the current status quo.

Shift Work as Practiced Today

In 1920, then Rear Admiral Joseph R. DeFrees was approached by Thomas Edison on the “best ways to expedite construction.”10 With Edison’s input, Defrees recommended uninterrupted construction programs, increased uniformity in construction, improved labor and facilities, as well as devoting more hours to production, improving labor relations to reduce strikes, and encouraging more efficient utilization of skilled workers who could not do shift work.11 Similar issues, such as labor shortages, plagued submarine construction prior to WWII as well, but Weir notes the Commandant of Portsmouth Naval Shipyard adopted several of these recommendations, such as “employing shifts, permitting overtime, and hiring as many skilled workers as possible,” though the primary yards were stymied by a limited two-year construction program.12

While shift and weekend work is still practiced in many yards, the ability of the second and third shifts to match production is limited primarily by the structure of society emphasizing a five-day, 40-hour work week, primarily conducted between 0600-1700. The result of the slowdown in defense spending, the schedules have shifted to a ‘normal’ workweek that emphasizes much of the work is primarily done during first shift. Work conducted aboard a submarine is conducted in tight spaces, often falling prey to the Law of Diminishing Marginal Productivity, wherein adding labor units to a fixed space will increase productivity at a decreasing rate, until adding additional units becomes negative. Further, the difficulty of coordination in an environment with so many stakeholders means much of the time that could be spent for labor is often spent in meetings (which are important, but do represent an opportunity cost). Currently, shipyards are facing the issue of too much simultaneous work is conducted during first shift, increasing frustration for the work force.

Cutting corners in safety is not acceptable in the USA and is certainly not acceptable in a NAVSEA or NAVSEA-certified private facility producing SUBSAFE boats, reducing hours for any reason is likely not a tenable solution as each evolution has a purpose. If there has been a benefit in the slowdown in the past thirty years, it is that much of the waste associated with naval production has been identified and mitigated to the best of the respective facilities’ ability. In this case, the root cause is the reliance on one shift to do much of the current work in a limited space.

Figure 1: Potential outline of May 2023 if 8-4-2-10 modified Dupont schedule were to be adopted. (Author graphic)

In the recommended 8-4-2-10 modified Dupont schedule, the two ten-hour shifts will be equally divided in terms of personnel and workload. Assuming the actual labor time per shift can be increased to seven hours per 20 hours of effective labor availability per day, with the average extended across all seven days, would mean an effective 140 hours of potential production per week. This compares to the current (1.5 full shift capability, for 12 hours of potential production, five days a week) for 60 hours, which can be extended two more full shifts during the weekend for a likely peak efficiency at 76 hours per week. These hours are illustrative and substantiated only by the author’s personal experience in the naval facilities; they may not be accurate or paint the full picture for every shipyard or even each department. For best results, the best insight would be garnered by surveying each department if the 8-4-2-10 schedule is best for their work as the answer may be different depending on the type of work conducted.

The greatest potential increase comes from increased weekend work, but in the current five-day workweek, working overtime or weekend work in addition to a normal workweek could cause burnout and cause prospective personnel to shy away from the shipyard due to a reputation of burnout. To prevent that, creating a two-crew system that allows laborers to have four days off will preserve their well-being while also ensuring production continues. Overtime opportunities will still be present: if a person is ill or on vacation during their scheduled shift, two workers could be present to offer their time in six consecutive days of labor, while also ensuring two days of rest occur. If a pandemic such as COVID-19 occurred once again and a person on one shift were sick, this could ensure the further division of the labor force to ensure around-the-clock production continues. This is an incredibly desirable practice, which guarantees labor force happiness even during the upheaval associated with a dramatic organizational restructuring. The generous time off practice would become a beacon for employees seeking a more favorable work environment with better benefits and prevent a union, group, or laborers to argue they are being taken advantage of.

Having two primary shifts, first and second, that extend to be ten-hour swathes as opposed to eight, will keep the third shift in a steward/setup role. Manning a third shift as an equal shift would be impracticable, as it is an undesirable shift for many, thus spreading two hours that are traditionally third shift to the other shifts would assist in week-to-week work. Further it creates new opportunities for deckplate leaders, who coordinate with managers that oversee the transition and ensure work continues as the shift changes. The 8-4-2-10 also prevents the Law of Diminishing Marginal Productivity while also preventing the shortage of parking from which most naval facilities suffer, a quality-of-life improvement many desire. Further, it would offer more opportunities to build the workforce to avoid future shipyard labor shortages or expansion to new facilities like the production of submarines in the Manitowoc Shipyard in Wisconsin during WWII. While this is a future envisioned for shipyards, if executed successfully it could be replicated in essential programs within the DOD.

Returning to the Manitowoc example, should a potential conflict erupt, the shifts also build the available pool of experienced labor to act as advisors for yards who need to be rapidly stood up. As Don Walsh recalled:

“In early 1940 the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company was asked to build the most complex of ships: the submarine. This was a radical, almost unimaginable, proposal for a company of shipbuilders, many of whom had never set eyes on a submarine…In September 1940, the Navy awarded a contract for the initial run of ten subs. Teams of experts from the Electric Boat Company came to Manitowoc under contract to the yard to help with the early stages of this program. Manitowoc personnel, in turn, visited Electric Boat and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard to observe submarine construction that was under way at those sites. The first Manitowoc boat, the USS Peto (SS-265), was laid down in June 1941. She was launched in April 1942—228 days ahead of schedule—and went off to war just one year after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Early delivery of subs was to be a way of life for this fine shipyard. And as they got out into the Fleet, their crews even began to send back thank-you letters for the quality and strength of those boats. These satisfied ‘customers’ offered the best kind of praise for the Manitowoc employers, who earned Navy Department production “E” awards every year during the war.”13

The teams of Electric Boat advisors were pivotal to this rapid success, along with allowing the workers from those areas to observe production in existing sites. In an ideal world, the short-term solution would also be pursued simultaneously with longer-term solutions, each fueling the other’s success. As labor is at the center of each challenge, any solution that increases the available pool of labor should be considered.

Challenges Reconsidered

The ultimate question is whether or not the potential increase in production is worth it. Manning production around the clock will likely increase the cost of doing business in private or public yards. Are policy-makers and the USN willing to spend the money? Even if the plan received backing from leadership, where would that money come from? Would private and labor interests buy-in? Perhaps attempting this on a smaller scale, such as only shipyard trades or on a smaller project would be more palatable to start with. Once that is accomplished, larger projects can be attempted once actual production increases can be observed and measured as worth the expense. Further, there may be money to develop a new production site or to increase production; the former will likely be more efficient in the long-run and the latter for the short-run. Manitowoc was stood up, but experienced personnel from other yards helped the push, expanding the pool of experienced labor can only aid these long-term projects positively.

For naval officials, this program would likely cause questions of how to adequately supervise and maintain control over essential procedures, particularly those requiring approval and oversight. Changes to management structures to become a fulcrum between the two shifts, splitting their time equally between the two shifts, will be necessary. In some cases, stoppages are inevitable, but the goal in this schedule would be to resolve the issue discovered on one shift, before they return to work the next day, or at least make progress. Overall, the least amount of resistance is expected from naval officials, as this is a recognized and much discussed topic.

While the government will ultimately bear much of the cost, businesses will be required to spend more money on more laborers, particularly benefits for full-time employees. However, considering the potential “deal” laborers would receive, there likely would be no shortage and the production scheduling issues that have plagued them could be resolved without burning out the workforce. There is even the potential that reducing the amount spent on overtime labor will reduce costs and the shipyard itself would become increasingly resilient.

On the surface, one could look at this potential schedule and sense the laborers receive the greatest benefit and have no room to complain. This would ignore how fundamental the first shift, 40-hour work week has become for American society. Working 9 to 5 (or any other iteration of an eight-hour work day) is cherished by many and it would take a long time for towns to cater to the workers on different shifts. For a single person there is not much lost, but many who work have families. Adopting the 8-4-2-10 would be asking for a fundamental change in the work week, affecting availability for family events, dinners, sport events, and many other familial practices and commitments. A labor union, which many shipyards have, would have to sell that this is not only a good idea, but a benefit to the people they represent. The guarantee of four days off per 8-day work week and at least 15 days of paid time off (which seems to be the industry standard as is) would help sell this as a deal that cannot be refused: a win-win for all. Make no mistake, despite the benefits, the greatest burden will be carried by the labor force should this plan be enacted; and leaders should seek to empower and support their mission.

Conclusion

How to return to WWII production pace in an unsure geopolitical environment that requires ever more ships? The first step should not be asking where can we produce more and spending resources, but rather asking how can current facilities be operated at the maximum efficiency? This article forwards a proposal based on a return to around the clock production, modified to meet the needs of all stakeholders. The 8-2-4-10 modified Dupont schedule could increase shipyard productivity in the short-term to levels needed, once an adjustment period associated with an initial learning curve is overcome. The inspiration we should look for is not a “miracle,” but rather a slow progressive increase in production efficiency coupled with nurturing the labor force to ensure labor issues are also resolved. This is potentially a radical solution that may ultimately be unpalatable but should start the conversation in a direction that emphasizes reinforcing current production, rather than spending a generation waiting on another Miracle of Production.

Ryan C. Walker served in the United States Navy’s Submarine Force from 2014 to 2019, receiving an honorable discharge. He received his Bachelor of Arts in History from Southern New Hampshire University, he then received his Master of Arts in Naval History from the University of Portsmouth, receiving a Distinction. Walker has continued his studies at the University of Portsmouth as a PhD candidate, his current research interests are enlisted American submariners from 1915-40, British private men-of-war in the North Atlantic, and the development of American Naval-Capital-Towns. Walker has also held a variety of roles in the Defense Industry and is currently employed by General Dynamics Electric Boat as a Senior Test Engineer. The opinions and views expressed are those of the author alone and are presented in his private capacity.

Endnotes

1 The National WWII Museum, “Out-Producing the Enemy:’ American Production During WWII,” accessed May 5, 2023, https://www.nationalww2museum.org/sites/default/files/2017-07/mv-education-package.pdf; David Vergun, “During WWII, Industries Transitioned From Peacetime to Wartime Production,” accessed May 5, 2023, https://www.defense.gov/News/Feature-Stories/story/Article/2128446/during-wwii-industries-transitioned-from-peacetime-to-wartime-production/; National Parks Service, “World War II and the American Home Front,” accessed May 5, 2023, https://www.nps.gov/subjects/nationalhistoriclandmarks/upload/WWII_and_the_American_Home_Front-508.pdf. 

2 Francis Walton, Miracle of World War II: How American Industry Made Victory Possible, (New York: Macmillan, 1956).

3 Alan L. Gropman, Mobilizing US Industry in World War II: Myth and Reality. McNair Report No. 50, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, 1996, 2.

4 Gropman, Mobilizing US Industry, v.

5 Gary E. Weir, Forged in War: The Naval- Industrial Complex and American Submarine Construction,(Washington D.C.: Naval Historical Center Department of the Navy, 1993); Gary E. Weir, “The Search for an American Submarine Strategy and Design, 1916-1936.” Naval War College Review 44, no. 1 (1991): 34–48. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44637145.

6 Weir, Forged in War, 6.

7 Richard Payerchin, “Lorain: Submarines would Ride in Barges to get to Dry Dock,” accessed May 14, 2023, https://www.morningjournal.com/2022/02/14/lorain-submarines-would-ride-in-barges-to-get-to-dry-dock/; Megan Eckstein, Joe Gould and Bryant Harris, “How the US plans to Expand its Submarine Industrial Base for AUKUS,” accessed May 5, 2023, https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2023/03/15/how-the-us-plans-to-expand-its-submarine-industrial-base-for-aukus/; Sam LaGrone, “Navy Estimates 5 More Years for Virginia Attack Sub Production to Hit 2 Boats a Year,” accessed May 5, 2023, https://news.usni.org/2023/03/31/navy-estimates-5-more-years-for-virginia-attack-sub-production-to-hit-2-boats-a-year; Sam LaGrone, “Submarine Supply Chain Largest Barrier to Improving Virginia Attack Sub Schedule, Says Boykin,” accessed May 14, 2023, https://news.usni.org/2023/05/08/submarine-supply-chain-largest-barrier-to-improving-virginia-attack-sub-schedule-says-boykin.

8 Maritime Administration (MARAD), The Economic Importance of the U.S. Private Shipbuilding and Repairing Industry, Report, March 30, 2021. https://www.maritime.dot.gov/sites/marad.dot.gov/files/2021-06/Economic%20Contributions%20of%20U.S.%20Shipbuilding%20and%20Repairing%20Industry.pdf, 1, 8.

9 Dana Wilkie, “The Blue-Collar Drought: Why jobs that were once the backbone of the U.S. economy have grown increasingly hard to fill,” accessed May 14, 2023, https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/all-things-work/pages/the-blue-collar-drought.aspx; Brian Hallenbeck, “Electric Boat president can’t stress it enough: ‘We’re hiring!’” May 8, 2022, https://www.theday.com/local-news/20220121/electric-boat-president-cant-stress-it-enough-were-hiring/.

10 Weir, Forged in War, 14-15.

11 Weir, Forged in War, 15.

12 Weir, Forged in War, 15-16.

13 Walsh, “Those Stout Manitowoc Boats,” Website Reprint.

Featured Image: An October 2017 aerial view of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard located in Kittery on the southern boundary of Maine across from the city of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. (Photo via U.S. Library of Congress)

Interviews

Questioning the Carrier with Jeff Vandenengel

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By Dmitry Filipoff

Jeff Vandenengel spoke with CIMSEC about his new book, Questioning the Carrier: Opportunities in Fleet Design for the U.S. Navy. In this book, Jeff makes critical contributions to ongoing debates about what kind of fleet the Navy needs and how it can evolve beyond its carrier-centric force design. 

In this conversation, Jeff talks about the carrier’s liabilities, what opportunities can be seized with a new force structure, and the challenges of moving beyond the carrier.

Intense debates on the carrier have existed for as long as the platform itself. Why write a book on questioning the carrier, and why now?

Navies’ force designs are a function of both the era’s available technology and the fleet’s intended missions. To question the carrier requires an alternative answer, a realistic force structure that can better execute those missions.

For much of the aircraft carrier’s history, there was no alternative that could outperform the platform and its supporting force structure. Following World War II, the technology either did not exist or was not robust enough to support alternative force structures, and the carrier, despite its flaws, repeatedly proved itself the worthy flagship of the fleet. It defended the Pusan Perimeter in the Korean War, launched the majority of U.S. sorties in the Vietnam War, and was the right choice to lead the U.S. Navy against the Soviet Union in the Cold War.

Starting in the 1990s, the technology likely existed to improve on the carrier-centric model, but the mission did not. With the demise of the Soviet Union and the People’s Liberation Army Navy being a weak coastal force, there were no credible naval adversaries and so the U.S. Navy shifted its focus to power projection from uncontested seas, a mission the large nuclear-powered aircraft carrier excels at.

Today, we have both the technology and the mission to move past the carrier-centric fleet. The Navy, partnered with industry, has worked hard to develop the technologies that will enable such a change, including advanced sensors, communications, and missiles. At the same time, with the rise of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), there is a mission demanding a change in the fleet’s structure: sea control and contested power projection against a peer adversary.

Therefore I wrote this book to show that, with today’s technology and the Navy’s evolving missions, it is time to question the carrier’s centrality to the fleet’s structure. It will remain a key component of that fleet for decades to come, but today’s technologies provide better options to accomplish the Navy’s peacetime and combat missions.

The large nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the reason for our Navy’s success for so many years, is now holding us back from an ever better future.

In the book you say that, “The mission has become the protection of the carrier rather than attacking effectively first. Yet the perfect defense for a priceless platform has rarely if ever been possible in naval history.” Why does this tension exist between protecting the carrier and enabling more of the fleet to take on offensive roles? How is the carrier-centric model incurring an opportunity cost in fleet design, and forcing the Navy to focus on defending a single point of failure?

The large nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is the single most powerful surface warship in all naval history, in part because it concentrates a great deal of capabilities onto a single ship. When that ship can operate as intended, that concentration makes the carrier an efficient and flexible means of deterring adversaries and delivering firepower. However, if that ship is lost, all those impressive capabilities are lost at the same time.

More seriously, the sinking of a Ford- or Nimitz-class carrier would likely be catastrophic for the Navy and perhaps the nation. The destruction of a $12 billion ship serving as a symbol of American might would have unmatched military, diplomatic, and political consequences. The casualties could exceed those of previous momentous Navy losses such as USS Chesapeake, USS Maine, USS Arizona, USS Houston, USS Indianapolis, and USS Thresher—combined.

To prevent that from occurring, the Navy has little option but to devote great operational and financial resources to the ship’s defense, a task the Navy has excelled at—a U.S. aircraft carrier is the best defended ship in the world. However, that defense must operate to a different standard than that of every other warship – it must be perfect to avoid the unthinkable, the loss of an American supercarrier. There is little naval history to suggest we can generate such a perfect defense, and trends in scouting and weapons technology indicate that task is only getting harder. More importantly, within the Navy’s finite resources, every sailor, ship, and dollar focused on the defense of the aircraft carrier is not focused on “attacking effectively first,” which Captain Wayne Hughes showed to be the key to combat at sea.

For example, consider the Surface Force leadership’s 2015 introduction of the exciting idea of “Distributed Lethality,” which evolved to “Distributed Maritime Operations” today. They boldly outlined an initiative to distribute the surface fleet and better enable all ships to launch their own attacks, writing that “a shift to the offensive is necessary.” However, the Navy will always be limited in how many platforms it can distribute for offensive operations when so many of them are concentrated for the defense of eleven capital ships. The admirals even indirectly acknowledge that limitation in the opening paragraph of their work, writing, “The surface fleet will always defend the high-value and mission-essential units; that is in our core doctrine.”

For decades the centralization of resources and missions on the “high-value and mission-essential” carrier was a good thing, as it proved to be an effective and efficient means of accomplishing the Navy’s tasks. With no credible adversaries at sea, there was little risk of losing a carrier. There was no one to attack at sea, so there was no reason to focus on attacking effectively first.

Today the situation at sea has obviously changed. To effectively execute the sea control and contested power projection missions against a peer adversary, the fleet must be focused on attacking effectively first. It cannot do that while huge portions of that fleet are focused on the defense of eleven ships. To maximize the Navy’s readiness for combat against our adversaries, it is necessary to move past the carrier-centric model.

The effectiveness of a fleet force structure can be weighed through numerous factors and considerations. What are your criteria for valuing the peacetime utility and wartime combat power of fleet force structure?

A fleet should be judged by its ability to execute the Navy’s peacetime and wartime missions, within existing financial, technological, industrial, operational, and political constraints.

In peacetime, the U.S. Navy is responsible for the “promotion of the national security interests and prosperity of the United States,” as the recently amended Title 10 language directs. The Navy’s presence operations, or campaigning, can include deterring adversaries, reassuring allies, protecting trade, conducting exercises, and ensuring freedom of navigation. We are seeing the importance and value of those operations off Israel and in the Red Sea right now.

Part of that evaluation must be the quantity of platforms in the fleet, as ships can only be in one place at a time and, as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said, “A smaller military, no matter how superb, will be able to go fewer places and be able to do fewer things.” However, simply counting ships tells only part of the story, as they are not all equal in their ability to influence the nation’s allies and adversaries. Today, no single ship can match a Nimitz­- or Ford­-class aircraft carrier in presence value—but the correct metric is the fleet’s overall presence value, not that of a single ship.

In wartime, the force structure should be evaluated by its ability to conduct primary mission areas such as reconnaissance, anti-surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare, integrated air and missile defense, and strike warfare, all to gain sea control and project power ashore. Again, there are both quantitative and qualitative factors to that evaluation. Numerically, a fleet with more ships has better geographic coverage, better distributes its capabilities, is more difficult to track, and better retains its combat power after suffering losses. However, fleet capability is also a function of warship quality, accounting for their sensors, weapons, command and control systems, survivability, and logistics capabilities. Today there is no single more powerful surface warship than a large nuclear-powered aircraft carrier—but there are more powerful force structures than one centered on those carriers.

You propose an alternative fleet force structure called the Flex Fleet. How is this fleet different than the Navy’s current and proposed force structures, and how is it more competitive?

The primary purpose of the hypothetical Flex Fleet is to disprove the argument that we cannot do better than a fleet centered on the large nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. The Flex Fleet is designed to show that it is operationally, technologically, and financially possible to generate a force structure that outperforms today’s already impressive fleet. When the Navy decides to move past the limits of a fleet concentrated around the CVN, it can surely develop a force structure better than both the Flex Fleet and today’s force, drawing on its own staffs’ designs, the work of Captain Jeff Kline and his colleagues at the Naval Postgraduate School, and your “Fighting DMO” series, Dmitry.

The Flex Fleet is designed to attack effectively first, seeking to fulfill Captain Wayne Hughes’ tactical maxim, as described in Fleet Tactics. To do that, it seeks to capitalize on modern opportunities in fleet design, opportunities that the Navy has made great progress on but cannot fully benefit from while operating within the confines of the carrier-centric model. The Flex Fleet seeks to embrace the Age of the Missile, network the distributed fleet, and thus diversify the fleet’s kill chains. To do that, it adds missile corvettes, missile arsenal ships, and light carriers, and increases the number of planned Constellation-class frigates. To pay for that, it stops producing Ford-class carriers, reduces the number of planned new construction Arleigh Burke and follow-on DDGs, and cancels plans for conventionally armed Columbia-class SSGNs, as called for in the Navy’s most recent Thirty-Year Shipbuilding Plan.

The resulting Flex Fleet shifts the Navy from an all-capital ship structure to a better mix of large and small platforms. In peacetime, its improved platform numbers and combat credibility means the collective fleet can better conduct the Navy’s presence operations, even if no single ship in that fleet can match the CVN’s presence value. In combat, its distributed structure and large missile inventory means it is better at finding the enemy and attacking effectively first, can more effectively project power ashore from contested seas, and is better able to survive the inevitable losses of war.

The Flex Fleet, operating within existing financial and technological constraints, has more platforms launching more weapons from more vectors and from more domains than the Navy’s already formidable “program of record” fleet. It is a fleet focused on deterring a peer adversary, and if that fails, winning sea control and projecting power from contested seas.

The Flex Fleet does not do away completely with carriers, but rather narrows their mission set and distributes their capacities more broadly into CVL “lightning carriers.” How can these carriers and their roles offer a better alternative to the fleet?

Without a credible threat at sea, concentrating the fleet’s missions on the CVN is an efficient and effective method. However, against a peer adversary, there are certain missions that naval aviation is best suited for, and other missions that different platforms and weapons can perform more effectively.

As a result, the Flex Fleet seeks to alleviate the burden on today’s carrier force and shift some of its missions to the rest of the fleet, which would reduce the need for CVNs. Shifting to CVLs allows for the use of an increased number of carriers, allows for naval aviation to achieve improved geographic spread and a more distributed structure, and reduces the fleet-wide impact if one is lost.

Make no mistake, a CVL is less capable than a CVN. Furthermore, if all we do is take the money for CVNs and buy an increased number of CVLs, it will result in a weaker fleet overall. But, as then-Chief of Naval Operations Michael Gilday said in 2020, previous Pentagon carrier studies have tried to make an “an apples-to-apples comparison” that “lead to fait accompli that a smaller carrier just does not compete with a super carrier. I think that’s a false choice.”

The best comparison is not CVN versus CVL, but fleet versus fleet: the carrier-centric fleet versus an alternative force structure that benefits from carriers’ many attributes without being wholly dependent on them.

You dive extensively into the recent combat history and dynamics of the major warfare areas to understand how they may affect carrier capability and survivability. What aspects and trends of the undersea domain in particular, especially submarine and mine capability, most affect the future of the carrier?

One of the carrier’s greatest attributes is its ability to stay mobile to avoid targeting while accomplishing its tasking. Today, with over-the-horizon radars, satellite networks, cyber penetration tools, and networked communications, it is harder to hide the carrier than at any point in its history.

On the other hand, submarines’ improved quieting and elimination of historical vulnerabilities means undersea scouting is getting more difficult. For example, Admiral James Foggo III and Dr. Alaric Fritz wrote in 2016 that modern Russian submarines are “significantly quieter,” meaning “The clear advantage that we enjoyed in antisubmarine warfare during the Cold War is waning.”

The Falklands War demonstrated those diverging trends in scouting. The nuclear-powered submarine HMS Conqueror found the Argentinian cruiser ARA General Belgrano within 24 hours of receiving orders to do so. It stalked the ship and her escorts undetected for more than 24 hours while waiting for permission to attack, and then destroyed Belgrano and escaped without the escorts ever knowing the submarine’s location. As a result, the Argentinians withdrew their entire surface fleet to port for the remainder of the war. In the only case of a nuclear-powered submarine entering combat, it found and destroyed a single ship without ever being found—and defeated an entire navy in the process.

That is not to suggest that surface ships are suddenly obsolete. Submarines’ poor presence abilities, communications, and cargo capacity means they cannot perform many of the Navy’s missions. However, it does indicate that we can better capitalize on submarines’ potential while shifting away from a fleet structure that requires a perfect—and therefore unlikely—defense against the undersea threat.

Mines are just as problematic. While they are a threat to all warships, the nation’s low risk tolerance regarding CVNs means even an adversary’s press release about a supposed minefield could lead commanders to not commit their most powerful ship.

Numerous constituencies are heavily invested in continued carrier procurement. What will it take to make a major course change in fleet force structure?

There are many institutions and individuals with both the incentive and ability to influence the Navy’s force structure decisions to protect the carrier. This is not to argue that they are doing anything wrong—they are not. This is to argue that their strong connections to military leadership and Congress gives them the ability to affect the Navy’s shipbuilding decisions, and their valid financial, political, or organizational motivations give them a reason to exert that influence. As a result, a change away from the carrier-centric model will be one of the most difficult evolutions our Navy has ever faced.

Within the military, shifting away from the large nuclear-powered aircraft carrier would upset the balance of power between warfare communities, have huge implications for resource decisions, restrict aviators’ primary path to flag rank, eventually end the entire community of nuclear-trained Surface Warfare Officers (Nuke-SWOs), and constrain Naval Reactor’s influence to just the submarine force.

Within the defense industry, there are entire organizations that advocate for CVNs, such as the Aircraft Carrier Industrial Base Coalition representing thousands of companies. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of retired flag officers working for those companies. For example, Huntington Ingalls Industries employs a former Combatant Commander, a former Director of Naval Reactors, a former Naval Air Forces Commander, a former Naval Sea Systems Commander, and a former Chief of Legislative Affairs, all distinguished leaders who formerly oversaw the Navy’s financing, production, or operation of aircraft carriers, and now work for the sole producer of those carriers.

Finally, within Congress, approximately 96 percent of Senators and roughly two-thirds of Representatives have companies involved in carrier construction or maintenance in their district, meaning they have a very good reason (constituent jobs) to maintain the fleet’s structure. It will be impossible to evolve the fleet without earning buy-in from across the Department of Defense, defense industry, and Congress, a difficult task to say the least.

There are lots of organizations that can resist such a move if they choose to, but I believe only one has the knowledge, experience, and vision to lead it—OPNAV. The change is simply too large, too complex, and will take too many years to successfully accomplish without the Navy’s uniformed leadership driving it. As Admiral Sandy Winnefeld said, for the U.S. Navy to transform its fleet structure, “The real leader has to be a noisy, impatient, creative, courageous, and insistent military leadership.”

Fortunately, the Navy has faced similar challenges in the past and overcome them to improve itself. There is the story of obstructionist battleship admirals stuck in the past leading up to World War II, but that is a myth. In reality, the Navy made great progress developing naval aviation in the interwar period because of leaders like Admirals Joseph Reeves, William Moffett, and William Sims. They innovated with aircraft and ship designs, changed the personnel and training systems, and developed a new way of fighting. When a mission came along that required carrier aviation—the Pacific theater in World War II—the Navy was ready because of their pioneering work.

OPNAV continues that tradition of innovative and bold leadership today. Whenever they decide it is time to evolve the fleet, they will surely face a daunting challenge. However, whether or not we think we can transition away from the carrier-centric fleet, I believe the evidence is increasingly clear that we need to.

CDR Jeff Vandenengel is a naval officer with tours on three fast-attack submarines. Winner of the 2019 Admiral Willis Lent Award for tactical excellence at sea, he deployed to the Western Pacific three times and to the Atlantic at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These views are his alone and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or U.S. government.

Dmitry Filipoff is CIMSEC’s Director of Online Content. Contact him at Content@cimsec.org.

Featured Image: ATLANTIC OCEAN (March 26, 2022) The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) transits the Atlantic Ocean. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jackson Adkins)

Tactics and Warfighting

The Evolution of Soviet Views on Fleet Air Defense, Pt. 1

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The following originally appeared in the summer 1985 edition of the Naval War College Review and is republished with permission. Read it in its original form here.

By Floyd D. Kennedy Jr

“Air Defense of Naval Forces: a set of organizational measures and combat operations to repel the attack of an airborne enemy and protect groupings of naval forces at sea and in bases, and also to protect shore installations against air strikes. Naval air defense helps gain and keep air supremacy in certain regions of a theater of operations. Air defense is used in all types of combat and operations, during a sea crossing (of formations or independent ships), and in the daily combat activity of naval forces…” —Rear Admiral S.P. Teglev, Chief of Naval Air Defense, Soviet Military Encyclopedia, 1978.

The Soviet Navy is constantly changing, evolving from a coastal defense force to a blue water fleet able to show the red flag in the far reaches of the globe. This evolution is evident in Soviet shipbuilding programs and peacetime operations. But nowhere is it more evident than in Soviet naval literature. This literature, more than any other indicator, reflects the attitudes and concerns of high-ranking Soviet naval officers. In the 1980s one of the prime concerns of the Soviet Navy’s leadership appears to be the air defense (protivovozdushnaya oborona, or PVO) of naval forces. This phenomenon is a relatively recent one in the literature. The change portends a new Soviet intention to operate naval forces outside the protective umbrella of shore-based air defense forces and, perhaps, to use those forces more aggressively in areas distant from Russian shores outside the context of a NATO/Warsaw Pact war.

Air defense issues of particular importance to Soviet authors appear to center on the threat posed by antiship missiles (ASMs) and the best method of countering that threat. Among the leading ASM defensive measures discussed are electronic warfare (EW) systems, missiles, guns, directed energy weapons, and, the most controversial of all, carrier-based airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft and long-range interceptors. These Soviet views on fleet air defense require close examination if the West is to gain insight into the Soviet Navy of the late 1990s.

Early Views on Fleet PVO

One indicator of the attention a particular issue is receiving, or has recently received, at the higher levels of the Soviet naval command structure is the frequency with which it is discussed in the military literature. In the 1960s PVO at sea was a prime subject in only four articles from the available literature, and only two of those articles were devoted exclusively to fleet air defense.1 All four articles generally agreed that air defense could be broken down into two elements: combat against missiles and combat against missile launch platforms. Action against missiles was the responsibility of the antiaircraft guns, missiles, and electronic countermeasures on board surface ships. Action against launch platforms appeared to be the responsibility of the land-based interceptor aircraft of PVO Strany, the Soviets’ air defense force. The Soviet authors considered this division necessary because missiles could be fired from beyond the range of shipboard defenses. An unspoken but obvious corollary to this argument was that the Soviets did not then plan to employ their surface warships beyond the protective umbrella of land-based interceptors in wartime.

1990 – A port bow view of the Soviet Slava-class guided missile cruiser Chernova Ukraina underway en route to the Pacific Ocean from the Black Sea. (Photo via U.S. National Archives)

The literature of the early 1970s contained virtually no mention of fleet air defense. In an otherwise extremely comprehensive article entitled, “Some Trends in the Development of Naval Tactics,” Captain First Rank N. V’yunenko did not once mention PVO at sea, although he touched on almost every other naval subject imaginable.2 Because V’yunenko enjoyed then (1975) – as he does now – a close relationship with the Soviet Navy’s highest decision makers, his omission of PVO from his otherwise comprehensive article appears significant, reflecting either a lack of high-level concern about the subject or, more likely, a division of official opinion on the matter.

The ASM Threat

In the early 1970s the Soviet press began to discuss a significant new airborne threat, the ASM. The first article on this subject in their navy’s professional journal, Morskoy sbornik, was entitled “The First Combat Use of Ship-to-Ship Missiles and Their Development.” The author, a civilian named Shaskol’skiy, discussed the sinking of the Israeli destroyer Eilat in October 1967 and the Western reaction to that event in the form of ASM development and countermeasures. The magazine gave no prominence to the article – it was buried in the back pages, the author was a virtual unknown, and the events he was discussing were almost three years old.3 Yet the difficulties Shaskol’skiy described as bedeviling Western engineers in the development of ASM defense (ASMD) systems presaged similar Soviet problems.

In the mid-1970s Morskoy sbornik followed Western ASM developments fairly closely and reported their developmental milestones in the magazine’s section on “Foreign Navies: Reports and Facts,” a compilation of brief, newsworthy vignettes on foreign naval developments. The first complete article devoted exclusively to a single ASM appeared in the July 1977 Morskoy sbornik and inaugurated a spate of writing on the ASM and the problems of defending against it that has continued to the present day. This initial article was written by Captain First Rank B. Rodionov and Engineer N. Novichkov, who have become prolific writers on the problems of fleet air defense. Entitled simply, “The Tomahawk Cruise Missile,” it contained a basic description of the land attack and anti-ship variants of the missile, along with a mild polemic on their arms control implications.4

The following year Rodionov and Novichkov published a more analytical article entitled, “Is the Missile Defense Problem Solvable?” Crediting ”foreign military specialists” with most of the analysis, the two authors recommended recruiting helicopters into the ASMD role to improve a ship’s detection range against missiles and their launch platforms. In addition, the helicopters were to be equipped with electronic countermeasures (ECM) to foil the missiles’ seekers and air-to-air missiles to knock down the ASMs. The authors suggested other improvements, including the automation of information collection, processing, and weapons control on board ship to compensate for the short warning time afforded by sea-skimming anti-ship missiles. With regard to the question posed by the title of their article the authors concluded that there “is no unequivocal answer . . . at present,” adding “Many foreign specialists are far from optimistic when evaluating the capabilities of combating anti-ship cruise missiles.” The two Soviet writers reached this conclusion despite the fact that they had just finished describing the unqualified success of Israeli ASMD against Soviet-made anti-ship missiles in the 1973 Yom Kippur war.5 It would appear that their pessimism over ASMD capabilities was their own and not of Western origin.

Kuz’min also had described the 1973 Israeli successes in the previous edition of Morskoy sbornik, as out of 50 ASMs fired by the Egyptians not a single one hit an Israeli target. Kuz’min had a more important point to make, however,

“Reconnaissance support of the combat employment of anti-ship cruise missiles is linked directly with reconnaissance directed at combating cruise missiles. This fact has caused foreign military specialists to express grave concern about the difficulties of detecting missiles. . . . It might turn out that the warning about incoming missiles will be their detection on radar screens, which could already be too late for the employment of air defense missiles for their destruction.”

Like Rodionov and Novichkov, Kuz’min recommended, through his “foreign military specialist” surrogates, the employment of helicopters for detecting incoming ASMs and the automation of intelligence processing and distribution.6

The sixth volume of the authoritative Soviet military encyclopedia Sovetskaya Voyennaya Entsiklopediya was published at approximately the same time as the above two articles. This volume contained an entry by Rear Admiral S. P. Teglev, Chief of Naval Air Defense, on “Air Defense of Naval Forces,” the first two sentences of which are quoted at the head of this article. Teglev continued his entry by describing the forces committed to naval air defense:

“This [defense] is accomplished with the antiaircraft weapons of ships and naval bases and naval fighter aviation in coordination with the National Air Defense Forces and the ground forces. Outside the reach of the weapons of the National Air Defense and the air defense forces of the ground forces, only a ship’s own antiaircraft missile complexes, small and medium-caliber antiaircraft guns, ship-based fighter aircraft, and equipment for naval reconnaissance and electronic warfare are used.”7

Later, Teglev specifically described how capitalist countries conducted naval air defense, implying that the above quotation described the Soviet method of PVO. This point is curious, because the entry was sent to press almost five years before the only Soviet ship-based fighter, the vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) Forger, demonstrated an antiair warfare capability. This encyclopedia entry probably reflected Soviet naval planning, or even desire, rather than capabilities.

1986 – A Yak-36 Forger aircraft parked aboard the flight deck of the Soviet aircraft carrier Kiev. (Photo via U.S. National Archives)

ASM Defense

The Soviets published no major Soviet articles in 1979 on either fleet air defense or ASMs, although the ”Foreign Navies: Reports and Facts” section of Morskoy sbomik continued reporting on Western programs in both these fields. But the following year more than compensated for the lapse in 1979 with five major articles, four in Morskoy sbornik and one in Voyenno-storicheskiy zhurnal.

In February 1980 Captain First Rank Vasil’yev examined PVO at sea from the historical perspective. Vasil’yev asserted that in World War II fighter aircraft were “the most effective force in repelling an air attack,” but by the 1960s surface-to-air missiles had assumed “the first place among other air defense weapons.” At present and in the near future “aircraft and. . . winged missiles, which fly at very low altitudes, will effectively overcome the air defenses of ship formations.” The way to counter these systems, according to Vasil’yev, was with a deeply echeloned defense in four zones: “self-defense (up to 20 km), close-in (20-70 km), medium-range (70-180 km), and distant (more than 180 km).8 Probably not coincidentally, new Soviet SAM systems neatly fall into three of these zones: the SAM carried by the DDG Udaloy for self-defense, the SA-N-7 for close-in, and the SA-N-6 for medium range.9 All that remains is the distant zone, for which Vasil’yev implied – but never directly stated – ship-based fighter aviation would be the most suitable.

1987 – A port beam view of a Soviet Udaloy-class guided missile destroyer underway. (Photo via U.S. National Archives)

In the April 1980 Morskoy sbomik Captain First Rank-Engineer V. Grisenko published a detailed description of the American AN/ALQ-32 ECM system that was designed, according to the author, after a careful analysis of more than 50 variants of naval combat. The system ”embodies completely the basic views of the US Navy’s leadership with respect to the role of ECM equipment in the defense of surface ships against missiles, especially anti-ship missiles with radar homing systems.”10

In a general discussion of air supremacy in the July 1980 issue of the journal of military history, Voyenno-istoricheskiy zhumal, Major General of Aviation I. Tomokhovich included two paragraphs on air supremacy in sea and ocean theaters of operations, He made two points, the first being that carrier-based aircraft had played the chief role in World War II naval battles. This first point was tempered by his second,

“The great importance of carriers as floating airfields and, on the other hand, their vulnerability from the air, forced the command elements of the warring sides continuously to reinforce the air defense of carrier forces with fighter aircraft and air defense weapons. This fact is why the operations of carrier forces usually were accompanied by fierce air battles and engagements.”11

Thus, according to Tomokhovich, although carrier aircraft were essential to victory at sea in World War II, the ships on which they were based were extremely vulnerable to enemy action and needed enormous resources devoted to their protection. By inference the same logic could be applied to proposed Soviet carriers.

1985 – An aerial starboard bow view of the Soviet Kiev-class aircraft carrier Novorossiysk. (Photo via U.S. National Archives)

Rodionov and Novichkov appeared again in the August 1980 issue of Morskoy sbornik with a treatise on the employment of airships (dirigibles) as airborne early warning (AEW) platforms for naval formations. Ascribing support for such a concept to “US Navy specialists,” the authors presented a convincing argument for developing airships to provide non-carrier naval groupings’ early detection of anti-ship missiles and their launch platforms. They cited the tremendous endurance of airships, their ability to handle all the functions of E-2C Hawkeye aircraft, including control of interceptors, and their ability to provide over-the-horizon targeting support to ship-based ASMs. Again paraphrasing their unspecified American source, the authors provided the following scenario. ”Dirigibles perform surveillance and issue target designations; surface combatants serve as platforms for helicopters and as means of support, including fuel for the dirigibles; and coastal patrol aircraft and ship-based helicopters deliver attacks against targets detected by the dirigibles and lay sonobuoy fields over a large area.”12 This scenario seems more attuned to Soviet naval equipment and operational concepts than to American ones.

The final 1980 article on the subject of anti-ship missiles and anti-ship missile defense seemed to be an attempt to put the ASM threat in perspective and allay what may have been growing fears about those missiles within the Soviet Navy. Subtitled “‘Anti-ship Missiles: Strengths and Weaknesses,” the article by Captain First Rank A. Strokin described the warheads, performance, flight profiles, and platforms of Western ASMs. It then outlined their weaknesses, concentrating on their subsonic speed, vulnerability to shipboard fire, inadequate target selectivity, and susceptibility to ECM. He concluded with steps suggested by “NATO naval specialists” for improving ASMD. “Increase the range of detection of the missiles; reduce time required to convert all means of fire to full combat readiness; improve the performance characteristics of means of observation and destruction to the point of complete automation of all processes from detection to opening fire.13 Automation seems to be a key concept espoused by many Soviet authors for solving the ASMD problem.

1983 – An underside view of a U.S. Navy A-6A Intruder aircraft armed with four AGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missiles. (Photo via U.S. National Archives)

In 1981 Soviet authors produced one article in Zarubezhnoye voyennoye obozreniye (Poreign Military Review) on NATO ASMD capabilities,14 one in Morskoy sbornik on the operation of attack aircraft and fighters from carrier decks,15 and another in the same periodical on the general theory of the navy. This last is significant for the subject of this paper because of one comment by its author, Rear Admiral G. Kostev, “The winning of sea supremacy practically is not conceived without the winning of air superiority.”16 Although obvious to most Western naval analysts, this concept of sea supremacy and the attendant necessity for air superiority had not previously been mentioned in the available Soviet literature and its articulation by Kostev implied a Soviet recognition of the requirement for deck-based interceptors and fighter aviation.

In the May 1982 issue of Voyenno-istoricheskiy zhurnal Chief of Naval Air Defense Rear Admiral S. Teglev traced the history of fleet PVO in the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945). While Teglev did not attempt to relate the specific PVO lessons of that war directly to the present day, he did keep returning to the theme that fighter aviation was an invaluable component of fleet air defense. He concluded the article by saying, “The experience of the Great Patriotic War showed that fleet air defense is an important factor that exerts considerable influence on the success of combat operations of warships and units.”17

Colonel I. Inozemtsev expanded on Teglev’s theme in the August issue of the same journal. In his article, subtitled “Airborne Defense for the Northern Naval Lines of Communication,” Inozemtsev was less reticent than Teglev about advocating the use of naval fighter aviation for future conflicts. His basic point was that air defense of the SLOCs would be a naval responsibility in any future war just as it had been in World War II, and that naval fighter aviation, with assistance from other services, was necessary to fulfill that responsibility.18 Because Soviet Naval Aviation (SNA) in 1982 had in its inventory only a few obsolescent Su-17 Fitter attack aircraft and the Forger, considerable additions of fighter aircraft to the SNA would be necessary to implement Inozemtsev’s recommendations. Inozemtsev carried the argument still further by repeating Fleet Admiral Gorshkov’s claim that all other services operating in maritime theaters should be subordinated to naval control for better coordination.19

Rear Admiral N. V’yunenko, supposedly one of Fleet Admiral Gorshkov’s  ghost writers, turned to an entirely new topic in the August 1982 Morskoy sbornik and examined American development of directed energy weapons. After describing the technical characteristics of such weaponry, V’yunenko discussed its possible application to naval warfare, especially against anti-ship missiles. Key to the potential of directed energy weapons against ASMs was the speed at which they could strike the target: ‘”While a conventional missile closes with the target at a speed commensurate with a Mach number, the destructive energy of a particle beam moves at the speed oflight.” V’yunenko stopped short of recommending – or having foreign military surrogates recommend – general adoption of directed energy weapons for anti-ship missile defense, but his generally positive treatment of the subject suggested that such a course was being taken by the Soviet Navy.20

Read Part Two.

Commander Kennedy is a professional staff member of the Center for Naval Analyses and maritime editor for National Defense. He publishes widely on US and Soviet naval and aeronautical affairs.

Notes

1. V.S. Sysoyev and V.D. Smirnov, “Antiaircraft Defense for a Force of Surface Combatant Ships,” Morskoy sbornik, March 1966, pp. 32-38; I, Lyubimov, “Coordination of National Air Defense Troops with the Navy,” Voyennaya myst, March 1969.

2. N. V’yunenko, “Some Trends in the Development ofNaval Tactics,”‘ Morskoy sbomik, October 1975, pp. 21-26.

3. N.V. Shaskol’skiy, “The First Combat Use of Ship-co-Ship Missiles and Their Development,” Morskoy sbornik, May 1970, pp. 94-99.

4. B. Rodionov and N. Novichkov, “The rTomahawk Cruise Missile,” Morskoy sbornik, July 1977, pp. 86-91.

5. B. Rodionov and N. Novichkov, “Is the Missile Defense Problem Solvable?” Morskoy sbornik, May 1978, pp. 96-103.

6. I. Kuz’min, “Reconnaissance in Support of Cruise Missile Firings,” Morskoy sbornik, April 1978, pp. 96-101.

7. S.P. Teglev, “Air Defense of Naval Forces” Sovetskaya Voyennaya Entsiklopedia (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1978}, vol. 6, pp. 587-588.

8. V. Vasil’yev, “Developing the Antiaircraft Defense of Large Formations of Surface Ships,” Morskoy sbornik, February 1980, pp. 26-31.

9. See Jean Labayle-Couhat, ed., Combat Fleets of the World, 1984/85 (Aunapolis, Md.: Naval Insticute Press, 1984), p. 675 for unclassified descriptions of these systems.

10. V. Grisenko, “Shipboard ECM Equipment in the U.S. Navy,” Morskoy sbornik, April 1980, pp. 78-82.

11. [. Tomokhovich, “World War IT and the Postwar Period: The Character and Methods of the Struggle for Air Supremacy,”‘ Voyenno-istoricheskiy zhurnal, July 1980, pp. 26-34, trans. inJoint Publications Research Service (JPRS) 76824 (Washington: 14 November 1980).

12. B. Rodionov and N. Novichkov, “Dirigibles in the Defensive System of Task Forces,” Morskoy sbornik, August 1980, pp. 82-87.

13. A. Strokin, “Antiship Missiles: Strengths and Weaknesses, Morskoy ssbornik, November 1980, pp. 84-87,

14. V. Vostrov, “NATO Capabilities Against Antiship Missiles,”‘ Zarubezhnoye voyernoye obozreniye, January 1981, pp. 72-74, trans. in JPRS 78054 (Washington: 12 May 1981).

15. I. Beriyev and N. Naskanov, “Operating Tactics of Deck-Based Attack Aircraft and Fighters,” Morskoy sbornik, August 1981, pp. 80-89.

16. G. Kostev, “On Fundamentals of the Theory of the Navy,” Morskey sborrik, November 1981, p. 25.

17. S. Teglev, “Soviet Art of Warfare in the Great Patriotic War: Operational Art: Covering Fleets from Air Attacks,” Vopenno-istoricheskiy zhurnal, May 1982, pp. 27-33, trans. inJPRS 82628 (Washington: 12 January 1983}.

18. I. Inozentsev, “Soviet Art of Warfare in the Great Patriotic War: Airborne Defense for the Northern Naval Lines of Communication,” Voyentto-istoricheskiy zhurnal, August 1982, pp. 13-19, trans. In JPRS 82549 (Washington: 28 December 1982).

19. See Floyd D. Kennedy, Jr., “Soviet Doctrine for Mutual Cooperation: The Naval/Air Force Context,” Naval Intelligence Quarterly, December 1981.

20. N. Y’yunenko, “‘The U.S. Beam Weapon,” Morskoy sbornik, August 1982, pp. 81-85.

Featured Image: 1988 – An aerial port quarter view of the Soviet Kiev class VSTOL aircraft carrier BAKU (CVHG 103) underway. (Photo by LT P.J. Azzolina, via U.S. National Archives)

Fostering the Discussion on Securing the Seas.