New Fleet Tech Requires Thoughtful Integration

We go out of our way here to describe tools of naval war in the context of the mission profiles they are best suited to conduct. This is particularly true of emerging technologies, specifically unmanned systems. We try to emphasize as often as possible that unmanned systems, primarily used for scouting roles today, will evolve, but as they evolve they will only evolve for warfighter roles within the US Navy. We believe understanding this is critical to strategy, because we do not believe the Navy operates under this theory.

This is why we are trying to warn the Navy that the LCS, a mini-mothership for unmanned vehicles, will ultimately be a very poor peacemaker platform for the US Navy, ultimately denying the Navy exactly what the surface combatant force needs for a peacetime maritime strategy. We have long believed there is a lesson in Iraq for the Navy that is going largely ignored, despite individual augmentee's who remind us the lesson plain as day. Peacemaking requires manpower. Without sailors the Navy cannot be a peacetime force, cannot engage on the personal level for all of the various peacemaker roles that simply cannot be done without human beings.

That does not mean unmanned systems do not have a critical role in the future, in fact we believe investment and development of unmanned systems by the Navy to date has been very well done. There are roles today that unmanned systems can help with, warfighter roles on the front lines today where lack of availability alone prevents them from making a major contribution. This is a great example.

Closer to Doha, Rear Admiral Robert Cooling, Assistant Chief of Naval Staff, UK Royal Navy (RN), spoke about the need to protect critical infrastructure such as Iraq’s two major oil distribution platforms. That task is currently being undertaken by a coalition warship, most recently the RN's Type 22 frigate HMS Campbeltown.

It is the kind of task that UMV manufacturers believe they can assist in, using UUVs or USVs as close protection and reconnaissance assets that could be deployed to protect areas leaving a warship to pursue activities, but close enough to provide assistance if something were to happen.

If UUVs, in particular, are to break out of the small ocean survey and mine counter measure niches that they have carved for themselves it will be in areas such as inshore maritime security and infrastructure protection that speakers believe opportunities will arise.

This is a physical security role, the primary warfighter requirement of the US Navy today for the war in Iraq. The article also notes Singapore's use of unmanned vehicles. What is interesting about that is that the only unmanned vehicle my chief has ever seen was deployed from a LST in the Singapore Navy. There is something to be said for an unmanned boat with a 30mm gun designed for precision accuracy to rain death on target. These can and perhaps will be game changers in a firefight against small boat swarms.

You know how many are intended to operate from a LCS in the future? One, maybe...two, and only from the ASuW module version of the LCS. Terrible strategy.

Again, this is why we believe the Large Mothership will be in the 21st century what the Aircraft Carrier was in the 20th century, and in fact motherships will become the High Value Units on the battle line of the future in many cases instead of the large deck aircraft carrier as the center of a strike group. It is not a replacement for the aircraft carrier, motherships bring a completely different function to the total battle force, but they represent those warfighter requirements of the fleet that are required, but not easily handled otherwise.

I almost never talk about the results of our wargames, but I'm starting to wonder if we should more often. James Dunnigan has given open source gamers more than almost any previous military historian and gamer in history for the development of simulations and wargames for the purposes of independent evaluation of systems, CONOPs, and in fact usability of technology, and all that prevents regular folks from utilizing his tools is effort and study. Leveraging both our personal and professional gaming experience, we have spent the last several years studying the lessons available in his publishings and available in the open source, and combined with our industry experience both in gaming and simulation, including the crews experience in developing war games at places like the NWC, we believe our simulations are as credible as any.

We recently ran 3 excellent simulations all of which leveraged the LCS, and did so for three different geographic locations facing three very different enemies. In all three examples we find the same pattern emerges, a pattern that the Navy simply must be ignoring, because it is impossible to miss how obvious it is in simulation.

In wartime simulations, as the Littoral Combat Ship suffers battle attrition, even as the high value units survive attacks, the scouting capacity and capability of the total battle force continuously diminishes because the primary scouting assets, unmanned vehicles, are in fact primarily concentrated to the flotilla and not the battle line.

This would seem to be a glaring tactical weakness from a total force perspective. It is counter to WWII when scout planes were resources of the battle line (larger, survivable warships) and even going back to the age of sail, it was the supporting nature of the battle line that enabled the flotilla to do its scouting work. The concentration of scouting systems (unmanned systems) to the flotilla appears to put the most enabling network components for scouting on the ships most likely to suffer attrition.

The Navy appears to desire a fleet of only battleships, basically the highest rated warships of our era, and rather than a supporting fleet of cruisers (frigates) and a flotilla, the US Navy has decided the entire flotilla will instead be a mini-mothership and cruisers (frigates) are no longer needed. We find it stunning the Navy is ignoring the tactical disadvantages to this approach. We have attempted to reach out to a number of people we respect who might shed light on this decision process, none have responded to defend the Navy in this regard.

This is a revolutionary change in maritime strategy, at least from a historical perspective up to and as recently as the Falklands War. HMS Sheffield (D 80), HMS Ardent (F 184), and a number of other escorts remind us that in war, the primary role of escorts remains to protect high value units, and as tragic as it is that the British took tremendous damage during that conflict, those escorts conducted their role successfully.

What evidence exists that technology has advanced so far as to suggest Navies no longer require frigates (cruiser role vessels as per the age of sail)? Is it smart strategy to build the flotilla to be a mini-mothership? Our observation is that new technologies are arriving on the scene rapidly, both for warfighter and peacemaker roles. The Navy is attempting to field these technologies rapidly, as they should, but they should also recognize and study where and how these technologies get incorporated into the fleet, because strictly from a historical, tactical, technical, and strategic perspective I cannot find a single retired Admiral, a single active duty Captain, a single Naval Professor, a single naval historian, a single naval author, or a single naval technologist who will debate in defense of the Navy.

Not a single one. Does that person exist? Is so, who and where? If not, why continue down this road, why are we wasting time and money?