Observing the Absence of the Navy's Expeditionary Ship

While big blue Navy sails the seas in peacetime, the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command has gone to war. Shipbuilding may get all the headlines, but the Navy needs only to point to its Medical Corps, NECC forces, and IA program to remind Congress the US Navy is not sitting idle on the sidelines. We have been observing the NECC over the last few weeks, specifically reading as much as we can regarding the participation of the NECC in both RIMPAC 2008 and Operation Brimstone, and it is easy to get excited.

We really like the way this story puts all the pieces we are observing together.

For the first time in a joint task force exercise (JTFX), the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command employed the adaptive force package (AFP) concept as part of "Operation Brimstone" July 21-28.

Capt. Anthony Krueger, commander of Navy Expeditionary Combat Task Group (NECTG) 955.6, said the concept of tailoring the right force to the right job proved itself during the exercise and helped prepare NECC forces to confront actual missions if required.

"If we have to do this for real, we now have a better idea of what it's going to take to make it work in a real-world operation," said Krueger, who also serves commodore of Riverine Group 1.

The NECTG 955.6 staff had task group coordination abilities and responsibilities during Operation Brimstone equal to USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) Strike Group or USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7) Expeditionary Group. NECTG directed about 750 Sailors of the expeditionary forces participating among the 15,000 service members from four nations in JTFEX.

Lets start bottom up, because we always start with leadership. Bringing the NECTG at an equal level with the strike group command staffs demonstrates a lot of wisdom in our opinion, because we see the value. We also really like the synergy of bringing three very different types of force packages together for exercises, and we think when one considers the 26th MEU as another force package within this capability set, one can start to see why we believe in the future the MEU, not the MEB, will be a supremely capable unit of action for war or peace from the sea. We recognize the limitations and ramifications of forwarding that position, and will discuss that topic in much more detail in the near future.

The Navy Expeditionary Combat Command adaptive force package (AFP) concept is something we look forward to learning more about, because without knowing about the specific concept at all it is an operational concept we have discussed the potential of on the blog. When we talk about motherships, we talk about them in the context of logistical enablers for manned and unmanned systems to execute naval expeditionary capabilities for war and peace, and in looking at the Littoral Combat Ship as a mothership for unmanned vehicles, it is easy to see that concept. What is less understood when we talk about the manned system is how the Mothership as a logistical support vessel for manned capabilities operates. Consider for a moment the forces in the NECC taking part in RIMPAC 2008.

More than 500 Sailors from Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 1 (EODGRU 1), Maritime Expeditionary Security Squadron 9, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit 11, Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit 1, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Operational Support Unit 7 and Navy Cargo Handling Battalion 12 are participating in the biennial exercise. Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 133 is also participating from the island of Guam...

During RIMPAC, these units will exercise their combat capabilities such as maritime security, explosive ordnance disposal, diving and salvage, expeditionary construction and logistics and maritime civil affairs.

As an adaptive force package (AFP) the capabilities listed in the last paragraph represents a number of applications where manpower can make a significant impact to the maritime domain in peacetime, but these forces also bring considerable enabling capabilities during wartime, specifically to the ESG. This is why we discuss the mothership as the 4th ship of the ESG. With the mothership, the Navy takes to war the tools necessary for the Marines to do their work, but we observe the same skill set used a different way brings with it considerable peacetime utility.

Consider for a moment the equipment requirements for NECC forces listed. Which platform can carry that equipment forward and self deploy it from the sea? From our point of view, that is where to start designing a mothership. Because we believe the mothership is a warship, specifically because it carries the unmanned scouting capabilities necessary for wartime information dominance, we believe the LPD-17 makes for an excellent choice to carry the bulk of the equipment being utilized by those NECC forces, and still have room for several unmanned mission modules. The manning requirements and capabilities also stack up well. It isn't the only platform that could do the job, rather we observe as an armed warship with low visibility the utility, size, and metrics of the LPD-17 fits the requirement set.

When we look at the maritime environment of the next two decades, we see the US Navy active in the littoral areas of the South Atlantic, South Pacific, Caribbean Sea, and Indian Ocean. With that in mind, for the execution of either war or peacetime strategy, would the Navy deploy a battleship or a mothership fully loaded with a NECC adaptive force package (AFP) to use Command of the Sea in those regions? The Navy has already answered that question, this blog is essentially the discussion of the solo deployments of Amphibious ships for Navy purposes, a trend that will continue next week when the USS Kearsarge (LHD 3) deploys without Marines

We think the mothership would forward the nations strategic interests much further than another large surface combatant would, and the deployment of existing amphibious ships for Navy specific, not Marine specific purposes over the last few years reinforces our argument.

One final thought. The NECC is the tremendous success story of the Navy over the last 2+ years. The Navy would be very wise never to forget the amazing job done by Rear Adm. Donald K. Bullard, he deserves tremendous credit for getting the NECC operational. When one considers how very little monetary resources the NECC gets compared to other aspects of the Navy, that 47% of the NECC is made up of reservists, and that the NECC has already gone to war in its short existence, Rear Adm. Donald K. Bullard, who retired back in January, can not be bestowed too many accolades praising the job he did with the NECC in our opinion.