Tag Archives: Littoral Combat Ship

Beans Boots Bullets, Strategic Outlook

Quantity over Quality

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This article is part of our “Sacred Cows Week.”

As articles and blog posts often point out, US naval forces have been largely unchallenged at sea since World War II. Today we face the largest danger since 1945, in the form of severe budgetary cutbacks and fiscal austerity that affect our manning and readiness. After nonnegotiable items like paychecks and food supplies, there is little leftover for R&D, systems upgrades, or the planned expansion to 300 vessels in the next decade.

We face a paradox: while the Navy’s budget is downsizing, its mission requirements are expanding. With the rebalance to the Pacific, there is a lot of ocean that the Navy has to cover—64 million square miles in fact. Our forces are occupied daily from maintaining ballistic missile defense off the coast of North Korea to aiding efforts in Japan after the nuclear disaster at Fukushima to monitoring territorial disputes in the East China Sea to conducting counter-piracy operations among the Indonesian archipelagos. In the words of Admiral Greenert, Chief of Naval Operations, “Presence is our mandate. We have to be where it matters. We need to be there when it matters. And we need to be ready when it matters.” How can we be there, from the Strait of Malacca to the Second Thomas Shoal, when we’re $14 billion dollars short?

It requires the reversal of an adage, a sacred value we pride ourselves on and indeed have executed expertly: “Quality over Quantity!” If we are to achieve Forward Presence and Power Projection, we must instead turn to the new values of “Quantity and Distribution.” We are accustomed to having the highest quality maritime assets on the seas. But in the current times, and for the foreseeable future, the US Navy cannot finance these types of assets in the quantity necessary to maintain a presence across the world’s oceans.

Instead we need smaller and simpler vessels that are relatively inexpensive to produce and maintain. What they sacrifice in capability, such ships gain in speed and affordability—speed to respond quickly, affordability to be mass-distributed. Such a fleet would promote regional stability and establish a forward US Navy presence everywhere they are deployed. If a situation requires bigger guns, the Navy’s more capable (and accordingly more expensive) assets can be dispatched as backup. Smaller ships also offer the advantage of reducing vulnerability. Expensive gray-hulls are single high value targets compared to a dispersed group of low-cost vessels.

130214-N-IC228-003What platform would fill this role exactly? Perhaps a new program is needed, or perhaps an existing program can be adapted such as the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) or the Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV). One thing is for sure, it won’t be the DDG1000 or the Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier. The Mobile Landing Platform (MLP) and its variant, the Afloat Forward Staging Base (AFSB), are promising programs. John Glenn, the second in this line produced by General Dynamics, was just floated in San Diego this past September. Essentially a modified oil tanker, these 840-foot vessels offer a plethora of storage space, a large open deck, and ballast tanks capable of flooding parts of the deck to take on hovercraft. MLPs may not be the quality of technological superiority that we are used to; but at a mere $500 million a copy, they bring capability for a price at which we can afford the quantity.

As the US continues to shift from large-scale conventional wars to geographically diverse low-intensity conflicts, the Navy’s forces must be tailored with the current financial hardships in mind. With changing times come changing values, and it is finally time to shelf the demand for quality and instead favor quantity.

References:

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/dfad249c4dfc

http://www.seapowermagazine.org/stories/20131025-cno.html

Podcast

Sea Control 7: Defense Knitting Circle

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Sea-ControlGrant Greenwell and Chris Barber join us for the 7th edition of Sea Control. We careen around the road, covering with particular attention intelligence collection, the DDG-1000, and force planning for Amphibious Operations. Join us for Episode 7, the Defense Knitting Circle (Download).

Sea Control comes out every Monday. Don’t forget to subscribe on Xbox Music or Itunes!

Capability Analysis

Patos, Logos, Etos and the LCS Design Trap

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Not the Prince of Survivability
Prince of Wales: Victim of survibability or the changing operational environment?

Bloomberg News recently again raised the issue of LCS survivability. Survivability is justifiably important as it is one of the key characteristics that differentiates warships from commercial vessels. Yet there is something wrong with the debate about LCS survivability. In general, the arguments fall into one of three broad categories — patos, logos, or etos. These Greek words refer to our emotions, rational mind, and values. In discussing LCS survivability patos dominates over logos. When there is strong disagreement on a specific issue, it is sometimes useful to state the reasoning carried to its extreme in order to mark the boundaries of common sense. This lets us reconsider the validity of the initial assumptions and is a loose variation of the reductio ad absurdum method. We can say also that this is an emotional way of applying logic, justified in cases when pure logic is viewed does not satisfy emotional positions.

Consider whether the following statement is TRUE or FALSE:

“Level 3 ships are NOT survivable.”

It is always the possible to offer examples to support a TRUE assertion. An aircraft carrier will hardly survive the explosion of a nuclear torpedo under her keel. A more realistic and historical case is discussed in D. K. Brown’s “Nelson to Vanguard“, in which the battleship Prince of Wales – designed to withstand 1,000 lb. explosives – was sunk by aerial, light torpedoes with 330 lb. warheads. Nonetheless we consider ships designed according to the best contemporary practices as “survivable.” This simply demonstrates that survivability cannot be determined without defining the predicted level of threat. It is stated both in OPNAVINST 9070.1A and its predecessor. I find especially useful the threat- and conflict-level classification proposed by Rear Admiral Richard Hill (RN) in his paper Medium Power Strategy Revisited. Normal conditions with operations like constabulary work, disaster relief, and presence

  • Low intensity operations when “escort by surface combatants may be required.” “Cover by high-capability forces may be required, to deter or if necessary counter escalation.” These operations “are subject to the international law of self-defense, often include sporadic acts of violence by both sides, and have objectives that are predominantly political in nature”.
  • Higher level operations with combat at the far end of the continuum. “The definition of ‘higher level’ includes ‘use of major weapon systems’, that is to say combat aircraft, major surface units, submarines, and extensive mining; missiles from air, surface and subsurface can be employed.”

Sail frigates and later cruisers were designed to be a scouts and to operate on commerce shipping lines, but were never intended to survive a clash with an enemy’s battle fleet. Royal Navy WWII destroyers were surely designed according to naval rules, but in the 1st year of the war they were exposed to a threat level unimaginable a few years earlier and suffered a loss of 124 ships sunk or damaged out of the 136 in service at the outbreak of war.

I also offer this statement for consideration:

“It is possible to design and construct 300-ton Fast Attack Craft with Level 3 survivability.”

Theoretically the statement is TRUE, but it is enough to recall the transformation of HMMWVs into MRAPs, which could be described as improving Level 1 survivability to Level 2, to understand the technical and economic limitations to such an endeavor. There was an interesting paper presented last year to the Royal Institution of Naval Architects – Balancing Survivability, Operability and Cost for a Corvette Design. It offers interesting insights into unavoidable compromises, and a not-so-surprising conclusion that the best way to increase survivability is to increase the length of the ship. From this point of view both LCS are of good design, but LCS also falls into a design trap. Longer and bigger ships lead to criticism of being underarmed. Up-arming the ship would lead to higher costs and reduced affordability. This in turn means a smaller fleet and an increased gap between force-structure requirements and reality. Such a gap leads to questions of whether it can be filled by smaller ships. But these are in turn “not survivable”. Vicious circle closed.

Ship survivability is a complex issue, including such things as the probability of being hit, tolerance to damage, and recoverability. I cannot judge whether LCS is survivable or not. The better question to ask is if it is survivable enough – taking into account its size, mission, and the projected threat level in its intended operating environment. Such a discussion is vital to every class of ships and calls for carefully balanced patos and logos.

Przemek Krajewski alias Viribus Unitis is a blogger In Poland.  His area of interest is broad context of purpose and structure of Navy and promoting discussions on these subjects In his country

Strategic Outlook

The Greenert Gambit: Playing Moneyball with the Pivot to the Pacific

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CNO’s 30-Year Shipbuilding Strategy Reflects Lessons of his Favorite Book

Sometimes you need a Brad Pitt, sometimes you need a Jonah Hill.
Sometimes you need a Brad Pitt, sometimes you need a Jonah Hill.

Armchair Admirals and defense analysts alike lit up the blogosphere when President Obama first announced the strategic “Pivot” from Mid-East counterinsurgency operations to the Pacific, with visions of Surface Action Groups, Carrier Battle Groups, and Amphibious Task Forces the like of which haven’t been seen since former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman’s 600 Ship Navy.  Alas, the CNO’s vision of that Pivot leaves many feeling like the victims of a Jedi Mind Trick: “This isn’t the Fleet you’re looking for.” 

Afloat Forward Staging Bases (AFSBs), Joint High Speed Vessels (JHSVs), Mobile Logistics Platforms (MLPs), and Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) will never be mistaken for surface combatants; however, they represent the product of a refined understanding of what wars we are likely to fight in the future, and a “sabermetric analysis” of what it takes to win the peace in the Pacific—presence, lift, and command and control (C2).  While facing significant fiscal constraint, by focusing acquisitions on affordable platforms capable of persistent presence in uncontested waters and afloat forward basing of expeditionary / special operations forces, Admiral Greenert is on the cusp of successfully employing strategic Moneyball in his 30-year shipbuilding plan.

According to National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, the purpose of the Pivot is:

“…strengthening alliances; deepening partnerships with emerging powers; building a stable, productive, and constructive relationship with China; empowering regional institutions; and helping to build a regional economic architecture that can sustain shared prosperity.” 

Key to achieving these strategic aims is regional stability—a stability that can only be maintained with the confidence of regional power brokers that the status quo is acceptable and not threatened.  The U.S. supports freedom of navigation and defense of its allies against rogue actors such as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) through deployment of conventional naval forces such as Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD)-cruisers and destroyers.  However, these ships do not provide an optimal platform for two of our largest mission sets in strengthening alliances and partnerships: Theater Security Cooperation and Humanitarian Assistance / Disaster Response (HA/DR).  Relatively low-cost, an ability to embark disparate and substantive payloads, and a capability to access littoral waters make JHSV, MLP, and LCS the optimal platforms for these missions.

In his recent book, Invisible Armies, Max Boot notes that the most prolific type of war throughout history is the insurgency.  Indeed, the last true state vs state war took place over the course of a few weeks in 2008 between Georgia and the Russian Federation, while formal insurgencies continue on every continent save Antarctica and Australia.  Since 1945 and the information/media revolutions, insurgent victory rates have increased from 29% to 40% (with caveats).  As the ability to access and broadcast information increases and fractures to different mediums, Boot hypothesizes that insurgent success rates will continue to grow; with it, insurgencies will proliferate.  The United States has spent the past decade refining our doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership, personnel, and facilities (DOTMLPF) to successfully implement counterinsurgency.  Having sacrificed this capability and capacity many times in the past to refocus on building large, conventional forces to engage in rare conventional combat, the Department of Defense has the chance to make a historic deviation and retain some of that urgently needed competence.  Bottom line: insurgencies aren’t going away anytime soon, and neither should naval ability to support counterinsurgency operations.

There exists a myth of “credible presence” in some corners of naval strategy.  This myth devalues the “sabermetrics” of presence, lift, and C2 for more traditional metrics of large-caliber guns, vertical launch cells, and radar dB.  Purveyors of the myth believe that absent a Mahanian armada capable of intimidating the People’s Liberation Army (Navy) to never leave their inshore territorial waters, our presence operations aren’t ultimately successful.  The myth operates under the false portrayal of the People’s Republic of China as a monolith, the same fallacy with regards some of our recent adversaries—Ba’athists, Islamists, and Communists.  The PRC and the U.S. conduct over $500 billion in trade annually, much of that through PLA and PLA(N) companies that would stand to lose their financial backing should a shooting war break out between the U.S. and PRC—an undesirable outcome despite the testy rhetoric of select PLA generals and colonels.  The question is not how to win a war with the PRC—I am confident that we can do that, albeit painfully.  The question that should drive our acquisitions in the Pivot is “how do we win the peace?”

The capability and capacity of JHSVs, MLPs, and LCSs to successfully conduct afloat forward staging and presence operations has been demonstrated by their respective ship class predecessors both operationally (Philippines, Africa Partnership Station, Southern Partnership Station, Somalia) and in exercises (Bold Alligator, Cobra Cold).  By focusing acquisitions on these platforms, we stand a greater chance of building on both our presence and afloat forward-staging capability/capacity.  While the Air-Sea Battle and its high-end carriers, cruisers, destroyers, and amphibious task forces is an essential strategy to deter armed aggression by China, the CNO is playing Moneyball to win the peace at a bargain price.
 
Nicolas di Leonardo is a member of the Expeditionary Warfare Division on the OPNAV Staff and a graduate student of the U.S. Naval War College.  The views expressed by this author are his alone and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the Expeditionary Warfare Division, the Naval War College, or the United States Navy