Send the Sea Fighter to Somalia

This April Sea Fighter (FSF 1) is expected to emerge from the repair shop with a fresh suite of point defense weapons and other upgrades/repairs. According to some media reporting, including the Navy's own fact file on the ship on the official US Navy website, Sea Fighter (FSF 1) may be commissioned as a Navy ship. The $20 million dollar upgrade was an earmark from former California representative Duncan Hunter, who believed small, faster vessels will be important in the future fleet for dealing with irregular warfare challenges. For what has become a cost around $100 million dollars since construction, Sea Fighter (FSF 1) displaces around 950 tons, roughly three times smaller than its more capable cousins of the Littoral Combat Ship. $100 million dollars for a first in class ship? There is a catch, the ship was built to commercial standards as a technology demonstrator.

The High Speed Vessel model has proven very successful for humanitarian operations and other low intensity, non warfare related naval activity, but is being adopted in the form of the Littoral Combat Ship to begin addressing challenges for naval forces in the high intensity, complex environments of the littorals. The problem is, everything is still theory. With costs to the LCS program quickly approaching $30 billion and the LCS program giving the impression it could soon be a fast track acquisition process in the near future, $30 billion becomes expensive theory.

So why not send the prototype Sea Fighter (FSF 1), which is reportedly being commissioned into the US Navy anyway, to Somalia and attached to Task Force 151? There is no question the capabilities of Sea Fighter (FSF 1) are limited, apart from addressing very small boat operations this platform comes absent any high intensity warfare capability whatsoever. That isn't trivial, irregular warfare can rapidly and without warning evolve towards hybrid warfare, meaning conventional weapon systems can be introduced into a conflict scenario and create problems. The unexpected use of anti-ship missiles by Hezbollah in their war against Israel is an often cited example.

But there are also good reasons to do it. Sea Fighter can be useful in helping the Navy understand the logistics costs and requirements that they will need for our future littoral ships like LCS, and give some indication regarding the requirements and expectations regarding what a small crew, high speed vessel can do against irregular challenges like piracy.

Capabilities under and over the sea have advantages over capabilities on the sea in naval warfare, aircraft and submarines are simply more agile, more lethal, and are more difficult to counter than ships are in direct war confrontation. However, I believe that sustained presence on the sea will trump presence under or over the sea in dealing with irregular warfare challenges in the littorals where the Rule of Engagement becomes more restricted under the requirements to give more attention to detail in identification of friend and foe.

Combined Task Force 151 is currently made up of three ships:

USS San Antonio (LPD 17) - a 25,000 ton flexible air, sea, and land capable platform with 3 helicopters, several small boat crew, Marines, military police forces, Coast Guard detachments, and command and control capabilities that allow us to coordinate with international naval forces in the region.

USS Mahan (DDG 72) - a ~9,000 ton Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer capable of providing area air defense, land attack, major anti-shipping attacks, with an attached sonar but no helicopter facilities. 30+ knot speed allows this vessel to be very responsive in the convoy corridore that has been established by international partners for protecting shipping and has small boat detachments. The Arleigh Burke class is one of the most heavily armed warships in the world.

HMS Portland (F79) - a ~4900 ton Type 23 Royal Navy anti-submarine frigate that supports a single helicopter, has top speed greater than 28 knots, and has endurance for about 7800 nautical miles. The Royal Navy deploys boat teams from Type 23 frigates and the platform has a long history of sustaining long term operations in the littorals against drug runners and other smuggling activities.

The least expensive of the two US Navy platforms is actually the 25,000 ton LPD-17 which costs roughly $1.7 billion, compared to a new (but more capable than Mahan) Arleigh Burke class ship that costs $2.2+ billion dollars. Sea Fighter isn't perfect, it certainly can't carry the unmanned platform load of the larger LCS but it does have some capabilities for carrying equipment. Like they say with the LCS, the ship is built and we have it so why not use it. At most a slight redesign to build in NVR and the addition of something similar to the simple weapons suite of the LCS, Sea Fighter (FSF 1) would run somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 million dollars.

We intend to buy 8 Arleigh Burke class destroyers at a minimum of $2.2 billion each over the next 6 years. For the same money we could field 80 Sea Fighters (FSF 1) and 10 T-AKEs at $500 million each to support that force. We currently have 62 Arleigh Burke destroyers, is an investment for 8 more Arleigh Burke class destroyers really the right move for the high end heavy surface fleet today, or would the money be used more wisely to do something remotely similar to building 80 smaller platforms in the cost range of Sea Fighter and 10 additional T-AKE logistics ships to support such a force in addressing the irregular challenges emerging in the littorals?