The Influence of Politics and Requirements on Seapower

It was actually Secretary of the Navy Knox who suggested the crazy acquisition scheme to George Washington. Few Americans realize that the first debt stimulus plan of the United States was for shipbuilding, indeed I doubt most Americans realize that spending government money on shipbuilding is the most common form of government stimulus you will find throughout our nations history - including most recently in the 1930s and the 1980s.

George Washington was unknowingly practicing classical Keynesian economics when, in order to gain the maximum level of support by the Congress, the President informed Congress that the Navy would build six frigates in six different shipyards in six different states. The early economy of the United States was one of massive debt and high unemployment. The nation was taking in limited tax revenue and intended to spend it on the Navy to the maximum benefit of the economy. The President and Secretary Knox both understood the economic benefits of shipbuilding; an industry that came with a dedicated supply chain, and George Washington understood the distributed approach would be appealing to Congress. Ironically, while the inefficient government spending did stimulate the economy, that same inefficiency was also a primary feature of the nations first shipbuilding program.

Joshua Humphreys was appointed Master Constructor of those early frigates and like most ship designers in US Navy history, he had gold-plated designs in mind. He insisted that the framing for the frigates would use southern live oak, which was going to be cut down off the coastal region in Georgia and delivered to the shipyards. Gathering the live oak became seriously problematic though, and drove the costs up substantially. The swamp land area where the oak was cut made transportation of the heavy wood very difficult, and sickness plagued the men who did the work - killing many men during that time. The delays and cost overruns became so bad that Congress eventually canceled 3 of the frigates, but the program continued and eventually the first three frigates were delivered. As real world events like piracy and trade disputes with European powers began to pressure the young United States, Congress eventually built all six frigates.

In the end, Joshua Humphreys insistence on using live oak paid off. The frigates carried 44 guns with three masts. When sailed by competent officers and crews, the ships consistently proved superior to frigates in service of the Europeans.

The requirements process in the US Navy has never been perfect, and it has never been used with efficiency in mind. Dating back to the very first six frigates, Naval tactics and ship quality has driven the requirements process for US Navy ships, and those requirements are often directly related to the primary missions of the ships.

The decision by the US Navy to build two versions of the Littoral Combat Ship in two shipyards in two different parts of the country may not work under the Rumsfeld enterprise model for DoD efficiency, but it is certainly a very American way of building Navy ships and also fits neatly in the historically inefficient distributed economic model for American shipbuilding programs.

The decision by the US Navy to emphasize tactical speed with the Littoral Combat Ship is also very American. The Oliver Hazard Perry frigate used turbines to insure that the ship could get up to higher speeds quickly, despite creating a readiness problem for the Navy at the time as most of the fleet that would operate at the 20 knot speed of the Perry frigates was still deisel powered. Live oak drove the requirements in the design of the first six frigates even though live oak only provided a very slight advantage to other types of wood, and despite how it directly contributed to higher cost both in construction and in maintenance of those early ships. Those frigates were fast though, and at that time, speed was a major tactical advantage.

I don't like the speed requirement of LCS, never have, but I do respect that the speed requirement for LCS is a legitimate tactical capability that directly influences a primary mission of the LCS - the small boat swarm threat. Few people truly understand small boat swarm threats, and most observers are snarky about it. Here are three things I find common on the topic of small boat swarms:

• Few people seem to understand the tactics used by small boat swarms
• Few people seem to understand the tactics used to defend from small boat swarms
• Few people realize the very real and serious threat of small boat swarms

Why does speed matter to the LCS? Because small boat swarm tactics are precision attacks that are time sensitive. A small boat swarm is primarily not a multi-directional attack as the "swarm" description would suggest. Tactically the swarm approaches a target from a single attack vector in mass for defensive purposes. The defense of the small boat swarm must be created by the swarm itself, because independently small boats can be picked off easily.

In the case of Iran small boat swarms, the Iranians use 107mm rockets that begin firing at regular 2-3 second intervals starting at around 8 miles out. They intentionally target the water in front of the clustered small boat swarm because those large seawater splashes from the 107mm rockets create line-of-sight barriers between the swarm and the target. If the speedy small boat swarm is not impeded before the swarm reaches the target, the swarm will arrive in firing range with plenty of firepower to mission kill any ship - including and especially large warships. The line-of-sight disruption created by the small boat swarm with huge splashes from the 107mm rockets directly influences the detection and targeting of nearly all short range anti-ship weapon capabilities used by modern naval forces. Radars can't lock on, automatic defensive weapons have trouble holding detection and lock for firing accuracy, and crew served weapons are typically short range and expose the crews to rockets strikes close to or on the hull.

The importance of aviation support against a small boat swarm cannot be overstated. The availability of rapidly deployed UAVs offer defenders the capability to look over the splashes, but concerns about MPADS in the swarm still exist. It is often suggested that the first sign of a small boat swarm attack will be when the defenders helicopter splashes in the water. Every good RW pilot will argue against that point, cautiously.

Special requirements are built into the Littoral Combat Ship to counter this primary mission threat. There is a reason the guns are loaded into module bays at the highest available point on both versions of the LCS. There is also a reason why it is a very good thing the ship is able to create a big wake. Those uninformed about naval tactics (like small boat swarm tactics) seem to think the big wake is some kind of joke tactical capability, but they simply haven't truly studied the tactical value.

Consider what you might do if you are in a boghammer going 50 knots over a wake created by LCS-1 going 45 knots. Both versions of the LCS are too big to be disrupted by the wake, as is almost any vessel the LCS is protecting, but small boats are not. A boghammer at 50 knots hitting a big wake off LCS-1 is going to drink sea water, potentially enough to crash or mission kill the boghammer. The speed on LCS creates significant problems to the timing of tactics used in small boat swarms, because it forces the swarm to slow down around the LCS wake - which completely disrupts the timing of a small boat swarm attack by craft with limited armament. If you think speed is a simply a clever joke of a capability for the US Navy against small boats, drive your sports car over a serious speed bump at 55mph a few times and see if you or your vehicle likes the effect. On water the boghammer driver will be lucky to maintain control of his boat.

Disrupting the timing and coordination of the small boat swarm is the single most important tactical objective towards defeating the swarm, and the combined capabilities of rapid fires and speed provided by the LCS gives the defender a legitimate advantage. I am not particularly happy the Navy has invested so much of the LCS design on a single primary mission capability, but tactical speed on a large ship does make a lot of tactical sense if the primary mission threat is small boat swarms.

If the internet existed in 1800, every single informed, rational American would have been outraged that Joshua Humphreys insisted on using live oak due to how that single requirement had such an adverse impact to the six frigate program. Our luxury in today's information environment to be informed on consequences of and complain about the speed requirement for LCS did not exist in 1800s, indeed few truly understood how the single Navy shipbuilding requirement of live oak consumed a significant portion of the nations entire annual budget for a couple of YEARS, never mind the cost of lives to folks trying to gather the live oak.

Ironically, the decision to build those six frigates with live oak is praised today, indeed we attribute the nickname "Old Ironsides" in part to the live oak on USS Constitution. We have no idea what the tactical impact of speed may have on a 3000 ton Navy ship except that we know it will positively contribute to the primary mission of the LCS. Speed is just as likely to be great thing for LCS as it is to be bad thing. Only time or clairvoyant fortune telling critics will tell us for sure.