NECC Tests With Amphibious Ship

Building on the post yesterday, the Navy is starting to test the concept of integrating Navy Expeditionary Combat Command (NECC) with Amphibious ships, in this case Riverine.

Tuesday, the Navy tested the ability to dock and secure the RCB and the smaller riverine patrol boat in the well deck of the anchored dock landing ship Oak Hill during a proof-of-concept test held at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.

Riverine force leaders gave the demonstration a thumbs-up. If senior Navy leaders agree, the riverine force could find itself with a new post-Iraq war mission set outside the green-water arena for which it is designed, and the Navy with yet another capability for the flexible and heavily deployed amphibious force.

“I think we had a successful test today,” said Capt. Chris Halton, commander of Riverine Group 1, during a high-speed ride on an RCB from Oak Hill back to Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story, where the ship and Halton’s parent command, Naval Expeditionary Combat Command, are based. “We showed that one, we can do it, and two, we’ve got some stuff to work on. But the bottom line is, I think our concept is sound.”

I highly recommend reading the entire article as it covers the challenges. This was a first step in testing, and there will be lessons to learn as the article makes clear.

There are several reasons why this type of integration is important. First, once integrated it will become part of the capability requirement for future Riverine equipment. That's important, because right now Riverine mostly uses some very old equipment. Second, once the offload and onload procedures are worked out, a culture of innovations that comes from actually using these forces from an amphibious ship will begin.

I suspect we will see creativity not only from the NECC side, but also from the Amphib side with the amphibious ship COs. One thing I've noticed being around the Navy for the past several years is that amphibious ship COs tend to take more risk than their cruiser and destroyer cousins, but that's probably a product of the promotion system that tends to trend heavily towards cruiser and destroyer captains vs SWOs of amphibious ships.

It may also have to do with some amphibious ship COs being aviators instead of SWOs, and looking for ways to stand out against the backdrop of Carrier officers in the aviator community. This isn't scientific by any means, just an impression I get based on observation.

I think the Navy will find tremendous value in the integration of NECC and amphibious ships, and I actually prefer this approach to building specialized ships for NECC. However, I also think there is an opportunity for the JHSV to be used in support of Naval Special Warfare assets.

Those of you familiar with leesea in the comments may know he has quite a background in both NECC and amphibious ships, and he has been pointing out for years how the JHSV, while not perfect, has the utility to provide the NECC with an afloat offshore staging base capable of fast response and logistical support. I think leesea will ultimately be proven correct on this once the JHSV and NECC get teamed up.

The key distinction between the JHSV and the MLP or amphibious ships (or LCS for that matter) is that the JSHV is designed with capacity in mind, where these other platforms considered in the context of modularity are designed with capability in mind. Capability minded design approaches end up leading to trade offs and sacrifices that ultimately reduce flexibility and add cost, but I will agree there are positives in the capabilities built into the design spec (sea state operational parameters and survivability are often cited examples). As the Navy ventures further down the road into modular vessels, I believe it is going to be important for NAVSEA to think about modular platforms in the context of capacity during initial design rather than capability, a subtle but important change early in new vessel concept design and development.

After all, the CVN is a great example where the Navy has long designed the platform with capacity in mind, instead of capability. That approach has been a winning design methodology, and if you look at the evolution of aircraft carriers you will note that the evolutions comes from systems capabilities added to improve upon the base large capacity platform which over time, gives the Navy the best of both capacity and capability on a Navy ship.

I am very excited to see the Navy testing Navy Expeditionary Combat Command integration with the surface fleet, and I truly believe good things will come from this. We will all know the Navy is really making progress with these concepts when we start seeing Marines involved and integrating into this mix of capabilities, although I also believe there is a real opportunity to get a Navy SOF RW unit up and running in support of these integrated capabilities as something like a Navy version of the Army's 160 SOAR (A), or put in a Navy context - the Top Gun of the RW side of aviation.

(this post was updated because the author screwed it up)