Drones, Tactical Concepts

A New Kind of Drone War: UCAV vs UCLASS

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This article was originally posted by with our partners at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI’s) The Strategist.

The Australian government recently approved the acquisition of a fleet of US Navy Triton surveillance drones to patrol our oceans. Australia has mostly used Israeli drones to date, such as the Herons in Afghanistan. So as we dip our toes into the American UAV market, it’s worth taking note of a recent development that might be threatening US primacy in this area.

While the Predator and Reaper laid the groundwork for the use of armed drones in warfare, a question remains about the survivability of the technology against modern air defences. Developing a stealthy long-range drone with a decent weapons payload that could go beyond missions in Yemen and Pakistan appeared to be the next order of business for the US, especially in the future Asia-Pacific theatre. Projects like the demonstrator X-47B unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) have shown promise in achieving those missions. But for now the US Navy has decided to go for an unmanned carrier-launched surveillance and strike (UCLASS) system that won’t have the stealth or payload to penetrate air defences.

The UCLASS system will be designed to provide Navy carriers with long-range surveillance and strike capabilities to target terrorists in much the same way as the Air Force’s drones are currently doing from bases around the world. The capacity to carry out those missions without relying on foreign bases is driving this decision, along with lower costs. But the UCLASS system will only operate over states that have limited air defences (because of UCLASS vulnerability) or have provided the US permission to conduct strikes. Al-Qaeda affiliates are on the rise in Syria, where the Assad regime is both hostile toward the US and has the capability to deny drones. This raises the question of how many states will fit this category.

Consequently, at a program cost of US$3.7 billion, the UCLASS won’t provide the degree of innovation the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review (PDF) advocated. This would be money better spent on more research and development (R&D) into a UCAV, which could potentially have greater impact in the future strategic environment. Moreover, the UCLASS would be mostly redundant in Asia, the most strategically important future region for the US. UCAVs, on the other hand, could have an impact in, for example, a future conflict with China. According to Mark Gunzinger and Bryan Clark at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), a UCAV with a range of 2,000kms, broadband stealth, a payload to rival the manned F-35C combat aircraft, and a capacity for aerial refuelling, is achievable. Developing a UCAV that’s survivable is no mean feat, but the US has a good start in terms of support systems and personnel established over the past few decades.

UCAVs would be capable of rapid deployment from carriers, which could stay out of the range of anti-access threats. A persistent surveillance capability that could also strike vital command and control and air defence sites if required could open the way for follow-on operations by manned aircraft. A UCAV would form a valuable part of the US deep strike suite, a key feature of AirSea Battle (PDF). And while losing platforms is never good, drastically reducing risk to personnel is a major incentive, especially early on in a conflict.

China’s an active player in drone development, and the PLA’s R&D investments are another good reason for the US to think carefully about holding off on UCAV development. China’s Sharp Sword UCAV, which was flight-tested in 2013, shows the PLA’s commitment to creating a mix of manned and unmanned combat aircraft. The growing Chinese defence budget (with a reported increase of a 12% this year) could lead to rapid advances in this area.

Funding the UCAV is the big question considering the cuts to the US defence budget; its price-tag would be heftier than the UCLASS. Proponents of the UCAV such as CSBA and the Center for New American Security (CNAS) (PDF), argue that the money could come from decommissioning two (or possibly more) carrier groups. Budget pressures have already seen cuts and deferrals to the carrier force and it would be a big step to cut two more. What’s important in these perspectives, however, is that the UCAV’s stand-off capacity and flexibility could make each carrier more effective. As Michael O’Hanlon pointed out on The Strategist last month, capability should be the metric of adequacy, not dollars or hull numbers.

The UCLASS could be redundant by the time it enters service in 2020, even in the targeted killing missions it’s designed to carry-out. A UCAV, on the other hand, would stretch the envelope in relation to advanced technologies, which would contribute to sustaining US strategic advantage. It would enhance a carrier group’s capability to respond to anti-access threats and it could also be versatile enough to respond to terror threats globally. Unmanned systems show no signs of fading into the background, and even in a tight fiscal environment represent a potentially high payoff for R&D funds.

Rosalyn Turner is an intern at ASPI.

History

The Ram: A 19th-Century Naval Warfare Dead End

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CSS Virginia rams USS Cumberland

By Steven Wills

The following is part of Dead Ends Week at CIMSEC, where we pick apart past experiments and initiatives in the hopes of learning something from those that just didn’t quite pan out. See the rest of the posts here. 

Most naval enthusiasts are familiar with the groundbreaking 19th century warship innovations that have influenced warship design down to the present day. The revolving turret, the iron and later steel hull, armor plate, the mine and the self-propelled torpedo and steam propulsion are all familiar signposts on the way to the fleets of the 20th and 21st century. One such innovation (or retrograde feature) in warship design did not survive to see duty beyond the first four years of the 20th century despite being a prominent feature on every major capital warship from the 1860’s to 1904. The Ram bow was once considered more lethal in ship-killing than either the gun or the nascent torpedo and mine. Thanks to its accidental success in the American Civil War and in the 1866 battle of Lissa between Austrian and Italian fleets, the ram acquired a fearsome reputation not seen since ancient times. Despite it supposed potential, the ram claimed many more victims in peacetime accident than it did in war. The British, French, and even the American navies built expensive rams that wasted valuable resources and never saw combat.

Incidents such as the sinking of the USS Cumberland by the CSS Virginia in 1862 and the spectacular loss of the Italian flagship Re D’ Italia when rammed by it’s Austrian opposite number Ferdinand Max in the 1866 Austro-Prussian (and Italian) war convinced many ship designers that the ram was now a preeminent weapon in war at sea. In the words of the late British naval designer D. K. Brown, the ram was the key piece of naval technology to overcome the new iron hull and armor in place of naval guns which often failed in this endeavor.

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HMS Victoria sinks with propellers still spinning

The majority of capital ships after 1866 started to go to sea with rams, but their victims were nearly always friends and not the foes imagined. The British armored frigate HMS Iron Duke sank her sister ship HMS Vanguard in August 1875 as both ships blundered about in heavy fog. In May 1878, the German armored frigate SMS Konig Wilhelm rammed and sank the armored turret ship SMS Grosser Kurfurst in a maneuvering accident in clear weather. Finally, in a spectacular and terrible incident in 1893, the battleship HMS Camperdown rammed and sank the flagship of the British Mediterranean fleet HMS Victoria, who took 358 men and the commanding Admiral of the fleet Sir George Tryon to the bottom off Beirut, Lebanon.

While most rams were mere add-ons to capital ships, some were purpose built with no other combat function. HMS Polyphemus was built in the late 1870’s for over 170,000 pounds sterling. Although she was the first British warship to have an electric light and be painted a gr250px-PolyphemusShipay color for camouflage, Polyphemus was an expensive experiment soon overtaken by the technology of rapid fire guns. While the Polyphemus also had torpedoes as a weapon, the USS Katahdin,commissioned in 1893 at a cost of over $900,000 was a pure ram with only light weapons. Painted green to camouflage herself in coastal waters, Katahdin was a harbor defense weapon against invading enemy fleets seeking to shell U.S. cities.  Although briefly in commission for the Spanish American war, Katahdin saw no combat and little active service before being sunk as a target off the mouth of the Rappahannock river in 1909.

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USS Katahdin

The ram is another example of a so-called “transformative” weapon that in reality was a retrograde feature in warship construction. The steady march of conventional weapon technology in the form of accurate, long range, director-fired guns and faster, longer-range torpedoes eventually overcame any potential held by the ram. Most importantly, the ram bow was a tactical misconception that was rarely tested in peace or evaluated in wartime use, but remained an integral and expensive element of warship design for nearly 50 years. In an ironic twist of fate, the first modern battleship without a ram bow, the famous HMS Dreadnought, actually rammed and sank a German U boat in March 1915. It was an even more bizarre event in that the commander of the rammed submarine was Kapitanleutant Otto Weddigen, who in 1914 helped to inaugurate the modern era of naval warfare by sinking 3 British cruisers by submarine torpedoes in the space of an hour.

Steve Wills is a retired surface warfare officer and a PhD student in military history at Ohio University. His focus areas are modern U.S. naval and military reorganization efforts and British naval strategy and policy from 1889-1941. He posts here at CIMSEC, sailorbob.com and at informationdissemination.org under the pen name of “Lazarus.”

Long Reads

CIMSEC’s Longreads – April 1st, 2014

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We missed this weekend’s LongReads (editor’s note: my fault, MRH), so instead we thought on the day everyone is playing jokes we’d bring you some articles to read while the rest of the office plays dumb pranks and gets nothing done. Knowledge is power, so when you’re reading this after Barry has super-glued your butt to the toilet seat, remember his victory is temporary. You’ll make him pay… one day.

Immigrants from the future -The Economist Rise of the Robots Special Report

The Economist – 13 min (2529 words) [Four Additional Articles in section]

The Economist examines the promises and pitfalls of contemporary robotics through the lens of the recent DARPA Robotic Challenge.

 

Tailored Coercion: Competition and Risk in Maritime Asia

CNAS – 1 hr 4 min (12k words)

The Center for New American Security assesses ongoing tensions in the East Asian Littorals, and suggest paths forward for US and regional policy makers.

Mr. Selden’s Map of China: Decoding the Secrets of a Vanished Cartographer

 Timothy Brook – 9-12 hrs (240 page)                                                              [Book Review – Telegraph – 5 min (1k words)]

Timothy Brook writes a compelling work, using the story of one improbably obtained map, to help illustrate the origins of maritime law,  while exploring the unlikely connections, riveting anecdotes, and intriguing characters which led the map on its journey from the South China Sea, to Oxford in 1659.

Austin Price is an Army Cadet studying at George Mason University, with a healthy interest in East Asia and an unhealthy appetite for Sichuan Hotpot.  

Fostering the Discussion on Securing the Seas.