Combined Arms Support to Submarine Operations

Last month in the conclusion to my series examining the Jeune École, I noted that Germany’s use of submarines in the Atlantic for theater denial and Guerre de Course during the two World Wars—while incredibly costly to the Allies in terms of blood and treasure—ultimately failed in large part because German surface combatants and land-based aircraft could not seriously offset Allied anti-submarine efforts.

German U-boats were on their own in the Atlantic during the First World War because their surface combatant brethren could not break through the Royal Navy’s North Sea blockade in numbers. Granted, a handful of German large and medium surface combatants were forward deployed when the war broke out, and a few Germany-based medium surface combatants and armed auxiliaries managed to access the Atlantic at various points over the war’s course. All of these warships, though, operated as commerce-raiders either by design or by default—and few managed to operate for longer than a handful of months before being neutralized. Allied anti-submarine forces, whether operating independently or (after April 1917) as convoy escorts, therefore only had to contend with their prey

Nor did U-boats receive substantive support from the Kriegsmarine’s surface forces during the Second World War. If anything, Germany was at an even steeper surface order of battle deficit relative to the Royal Navy than had been the case two decades earlier. As a result, and with the exception of the April-June 1940 Norwegian campaign, the Kriegsmarine once again principally used its larger surface combatants for commerce-raiding. Although the Kriegsmarine’s surface threat to Britain’s lines of communication with the Americas was peacemeal and limited to 1939-1941, the threat it posed to the allies’ lines to the Soviet Union through the Norwegian Sea was more serious and lasted until 1943. One could make the case that the Kriegsmarine’s large surface combatants based in Norway supported U-boats in the case of convoy PQ-17, but that stemmed from the British Admiralty erroneously ordering the convoy’s ships to scatter to their fates in the belief that German surface raiders including the Tirpitz were approaching (they were not). In any case, the sad story of PQ-17 was not repeated.

The advent of theater-range aircraft during the interwar years, however, meant that U-boats did receive some combined arms support. Specialized Luftwaffe bombers were fielded to provide surveillance and reconnaissance support to Kriegsmarine surface and submarine units. These bombers also conducted anti-ship raids of their own. The Luftwaffe was able to iteratively increase its oceanic reach throughout the war, established a dedicated command for maritime operations in the northeastern Atlantic, and introduced radio-controlled anti-ship weapons that permitted standoff attacks. The first combat use of one of these weapons, in fact, caused the allies to temporarily halt offensive anti-submarine Surface Action Group (SAG) operations in the Bay of Biscay; this provided U-boats based on the French Atlantic coast with a temporary window of opportunity for safer transits to and from the open ocean.

And yet, the Luftwaffe never operated enough aircraft to pose a persistent threat to allied convoys or offensive anti-submarine SAGs. Moreover, the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine never hammered out doctrine, communications protocols, or planning processes that could enable effective operational coordination. On-scene tactical coordination between aircraft and U-boats was sporadic; the occasional noteworthy successes that did occur did not translate into major campaign gains. Luftwaffe land-attack raids against major British ports, naval bases, and shipbuilding hubs to suppress convoy and SAG operations as well as new ship construction were sustained for only the first half of 1941, were largely ineffective in their operational purpose, and were ultimately discontinued. Most significantly, U-boats operating in the western and southern Atlantic were outside the Luftwaffe’s range—and thus were on their own.

The Soviet Union’s leading maritime strategist of the Cold War, Fleet Admiral Sergei Gorshkov, took note of all this. In his 1976 book The Sea Power of the State, Gorshkov observed that Germany’s Second World War U-boat operations ultimately failed to achieve their strategic objectives in part because they

“…did not have the support of other forces, notably, aircraft, which could have been an irreplaceable means of reconnaissance, to fulfill the tasks of destroying anti-submarine forces and also to act against the economy of the opponent, particularly his shipbuilding industry, and to inflict blows on cargo ships in the ocean.” (Pg 120)

Gorshkov then observed that while German U-boat operations were representative of the roles submarines should play in war, the Germans erred as

“Throughout the war not a single attempt was made to counter the anti-submarine forces of the Allies in an organized way from operating with total impunity.” (Pg 120-121)

Notwithstanding the irony that Soviet interests in the war were on the receiving end of the U-boat operations he lauded, Gorshkov appeared to be arguing that Soviet attack submarines should perform much the same roles in a notional conflict with the U.S. and NATO. He further seemed to argue that Soviet air forces should provide his submarines with the direct and indirect forms of support that he had outlined.

Whatever Gorshkov may have actually believed, his Navy’s planned use of submarines for barrier protection of the Soviet maritime periphery represented the polar opposite of what his book seemed to recommend. Part of this was due to the paramount Soviet military-strategic task of protecting the motherland from naval strikes, whether conventional or nuclear. Part of this was also due to Soviet leaders’ fears that their strategic nuclear reserve force—their SSBNs—might be subjected to wartime attrition via U.S. and NATO conventional offensive anti-submarine operations. If the U.S. and NATO could attain a superior ‘correlation of nuclear forces’ during the conventional fight, Soviet logic went, then the West would gain a major card to play in the bargaining over war termination. Soviet Naval Aviation, surface forces, and attack submarines were consequently tasked with preventing U.S. and NATO naval forces from attacking the SSBNs; comparatively few Soviet attack submarines were to be hurled at NATO’s trans-Atlantic lines of communication at the beginning of a war.

It follows that offensive strategic anti-submarine warfare was one of the primary reasons the 1980s U.S. Maritime Strategy emphasized forward operations within the Soviet oceanic periphery. The strategy suggested that if U.S. carrier battleforces in the Norwegian Sea and Northwest Pacific could weather or outright defeat Soviet anti-carrier forces’ onslaught early in a war, then U.S. and allied anti-submarine forces might gain more operational freedom to interdict older Soviet SSBNs (or any Soviet SSNs for that matter) attempting to break out through forward geographic chokepoints into the ‘world ocean.’ Moreover, U.S. naval airpower could also be theoretically used to suppress Soviet surface and airborne anti-submarine forces protecting the newer Soviet SSBNs’ bastion patrol boxes. If these Soviet anti-submarine forces could be suppressed, then U.S. and NATO SSNs operating against the bastions (or conducting land-attack cruise missile strikes into the Soviet Union, if so ordered) would only face opposition from their acoustically-inferior Soviet counterparts. In essence, the 1980s Maritime Strategy redirected Gorshkov’s logic regarding combined arms support of submarine operations against his own fleet.

The late Cold War is not the only example of U.S. combined arms support of submarine operations. Again, as I noted in my Jeune École series’ finale, U.S. offensive submarine operations against Japanese sea lines of communication during the Second World War benefitted indirectly from the Imperial Japanese Navy’s myopic fixation on fleet-on-fleet operations:

The U.S. Navy fast carrier task force’s advance across the Pacific arguably provided increasing amounts of indirect combined arms support to their submariner brethren over time by occupying the attention of Japanese naval resources that theoretically could have been assigned to convoy defenses or submarine-hunting groups. Although the Imperial Japanese Navy showed little interest in protecting convoys from submarines during the war, an absence of the U.S. Navy carrier threat in the Central Pacific after 1942 might have provided room for reallocating some Japanese fleet assets to anti-submarine tasks as Japanese merchant vessel losses mounted.

So what might these history lessons mean for future U.S. Navy doctrine and operating concepts?

For starters, it’s important to keep in mind that a submarine’s combat “invisibility” has never been absolute. If a submarine torpedoes a ship, then the other side’s anti-submarine forces gain a “flaming datum” to orient their search. If a submarine launches a missile or raises a periscope/ESM mast for too long within the other side’s effective radar (or visual) coverage and is detected, then the other side's hunters know precisely where to start their cordon and redetection efforts—or place quick-response weapons in the water. A submarine may be able to scan or shoot far enough away from an opponent’s anti-submarine aircraft or surface combatants to be able to “break datum” before the hunters can react effectively, but it cannot count on that favorable scenario always being available. And the closer a submarine operates to an adversary’s coast, the denser the coverage by the adversary’s anti-submarine sensors (whether seabed-mounted sonar arrays, ship and aircraft-mounted sonars/radars, or fishermen’s eyes) and platforms will be. These assets might not be able to find or shoot at the submarine, but their presence might unnecessarily complicate its mission. In some situations it might even delay or prevent the submarine from completing that mission.

In a major modern war, U.S. SSNs and SSGNs would be tasked with land-attack strikes, special forces insertion/extraction, and intelligence/surveillance/reconnaissance collection within a contested zone’s inner reaches. The SSNs would additionally be tasked with forward anti-submarine and anti-surface operations. Just as was the case in the 1980s Maritime Strategy, our submarines might situationally benefit from some external help from other U.S. or allied forces in suppressing the adversary’s ability to conduct effective anti-submarine operations.

This help might take the form of aircraft performing anti-ship missile raids against enemy anti-submarine SAGs inside a contested zone. It might take the form of offensive sweeps by fighters against the adversary’s maritime patrol aircraft. The mere fact that adversary anti-submarine forces were attacked in a particular area in a particular way might induce the adversary to limit or cease operations in that area while it figures out how to adapt; this could be exploited to great effect by U.S. submarines even if the ‘pause’ only lasted for a few days.

External forces might also provide submarines with deception and concealment support. This might consist of air or surface naval operations that have the primary or secondary purpose of distracting the adversary’s attention from a U.S. submarine’s operating area. Or perhaps air or surface forces might release submarine-simulating unmanned underwater systems at some standoff distance from the adversary’s coast; these decoys could then “swim” forward into designated areas to confuse or distract the adversary’s anti-submarine forces.

External support to forward submarine operations might additionally include surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft that report their surface pictures via interior lines of networking to a higher-echelon commander. The commander could then broadcast that information along with theater or national-level naval intelligence information “in the blind” for our submarines to receive and use for their purposes.

If authorized by U.S. political leadership, combined arms support to our submarines might even take the form of U.S. cruise missile strikes against the adversary’s naval and air bases supporting anti-submarine operations. As I’ve noted previously, it must be understood that a U.S. President’s decision-making on this question would be heavily—and perhaps decisively—affected by the escalatory precedents already set by the adversary (regardless of who that might be) in the conflict. 

These forms of external support would not be possible to all U.S. forward submarine operations due to asset availabilities. Nevertheless, air or surface operations could be sequenced or coordinated to support specifically prioritized submarine operations or operational periods.

The adversary’s ability to pose an excessively high threat to U.S./allied air or surface operations within a contested zone’s inner sections would also be a major limiting factor. Special assets such as very low observable aircraft might be needed to conduct attacks in support of submarine operations—or cue attacks by other forces armed with long-range weapons. These penetrating aircraft in turn might need to be supported via submarine-launched land-attack cruise missile strikes against an adversary’s wide-area air surveillance sensors or air defense systems. This is a great example of why mutual support between combat arms is so critical in modern warfare. Even so, it is quite likely that the further forward a submarine operates within a contested zone, the more likely external support (if any is possible) will be indirect.

None of this changes the fact that U.S. submarines will assuredly conduct high-risk independent operations deep within an adversary’s maritime periphery in a notional major war. That’s been a constant from the Second World War, through the Cold War, to today. U.S. direct and indirect support of submarine operations has also been a constant, whether it was inadvertent as in the Second World War or consciously planned for as in the 1980s Maritime Strategy. I’d argue that external combined arms support (as possible and relevant) can have much to offer our submarines in the present and future as well.

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I'll be on hiatus next week. I aim to resume posting the week of August 10th.

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not reflect the official positions of Systems Planning and Analysis, and to the author’s knowledge do not reflect the policies or positions of the U.S. Department of Defense, any U.S. armed service, or any other U.S. Government agency.

The Use of Land-Based Air Defenses to Screen Sea Lines of Communication

I’ve written in the past about the use of land-based air defense systems for pressuring adversary air forces’ wartime ability to fly through a maritime chokepoint. Though these systems would not be able to ‘shut the door’ completely against a capable adversary, they could still help reduce the number of adversary aircraft on the margins that could break through the chokepoint in any given raid. This would be of considerable value to a U.S. campaign to protect the sea lines of communication to its East Asian allies in the event of a war with China, or in some scenarios to protect NATO sea lines of communication within the Eastern Mediterranean in a war with Russia. As John Stillion and Bryan Clark point out in their new CSBA study investigating historical competitions between opposing battle networks, actions that disrupt an adversary’s plans or prevent him from achieving his objectives often generate far greater strategic gains than is possible via a singular focus on attriting the adversary’s forces. The latter is often very important to achieving the former; it just isn’t necessarily the only or the most achievable means to that end.   

It is clear, then, that land-based air defenses can be of considerable indirect value to the screening of friendly shipping. But could they also contribute more directly in that mission? Could they be used to substitute in part for escort combatants? The story’s much more mixed on that front.

The first limiting factor is air search radar coverage. A traditional radar can generally only search within its line of sight. The Earth’s curvature affects this the most; for example, a radar mounted 100 feet above sea level will generally be blind to an aircraft 200 miles away that descends below roughly 17,400 feet. Land terrain along the radar’s line of sight only reduces the searchable volume further; this will constrain where a land-based radar can be placed if seaward coverage is desired. And all this assumes the aircraft’s radar cross section is large enough to allow for detection.

These factors can be overcome somewhat by using a distributed fire control network. In theory, an AEW aircraft that detected an adversary’s aircraft (or cruise missile) could transmit fire control-quality radar data to a friendly land-based air defense system. Should the AEW aircraft and the land-based system use highly directional line-of-sight communications to exchange this data, the adversary would find it extremely difficult to intercept let alone exploit the networking pathway.

Even so, this feeds into the second and far more impactful limiting factor: the interceptor missile range and engagement geometry. Pick any U.S. longer-range surface-to-air missile: its maximum advertised range is generally not too much more than 200 miles or so. But this does not reflect the missile’s actual effective range against a particular target aircraft (or cruise missile) in a given scenario. An engagement geometry involving an interceptor flyout that’s more-or-less tangential to the target’s trajectory would have a much shorter maximum effective range than one in which the intercept is nearly head-on. A geometry in which the interceptor would have to overtake the target would have an even shorter maximum effective range. Even if kinematically possible, engageability opportunity windows might be very short based on the interceptor’s flyout distance at a given geometry. The bottom line is that a land-based surface-to-air missile would not be able to directly screen naval forces or protected shipping in waters outside the missile’s engagement envelopes.   

In theory, then, a land-based air defense system might at best be able to help screen shipping in the terminal approaches to a friendly coast. An adversary probably would not hazard its maritime strike aircraft in these waters if segments of the defender’s sea lines of communication lay outside that coverage. In contrast, the adversary might be very willing to use missile-armed submarines inside these waters. A high-speed anti-ship cruise missile fired by a submarine at a target 60 miles or less away (consistent with an attack from the second convergence zone, if one is available) would be very difficult to intercept unless an air defense system was positioned fairly close to the threat missile’s trajectory. It’s hard to see how a land-based air defense system, even if supported by distributed fire control from an AEW aircraft, could make that kind of intercept.

We can therefore see that direct protection of shipping at sea would depend predominantly upon the screening forces interposed between an adversary’s raiders and their targets. Ideally there would be an outer layer consisting of aircraft and an inner layer consisting of escort combatants. If the waters being traversed by a convoy or other protected shipping were outside the effective range of land-based aircraft, carrier-based aircraft might be usable in their place. If carrier support was unavailable, then area air and anti-ship missile defense would entirely depend upon the availability of Aegis combatants. If there were insufficient Aegis combatants to provide this coverage, then the escorts and their charges would be on their own. 

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not reflect the official positions of Systems Planning and Analysis, and to the author’s knowledge do not reflect the policies or positions of the U.S. Department of Defense, any U.S. armed service, or any other U.S. Government agency.

Distributed Lethality is About Far More Than Just Ships Shooting Ships

Much of the public commentary on the Surface Navy’s distributed lethality concept focuses almost exclusively on the offensive anti-surface warfare aspects. It’s true that a large portion of the concept is dedicated towards providing as many surface combatants as possible with modern over-the-horizon anti-ship capabilities in order to increase the threats confronting an adversary's surface operations and correspondingly complicate his surveillance and reconnaissance problems. Indeed, last fall’s launch of a Naval Strike Missile from USS Fort Worth and this January’s demonstration of a Tomahawk Block IV missile in an anti-ship role have been the Navy’s most widely-referenced efforts to date in demonstrating aspects of distributed lethality.

But distributed lethality in the surface fleet is not solely about shooting other ships. Let’s revisit the January ‘15 Proceedings article by VADM Rowden, RADM Gumataotao, and RADM Fanta. In the hypothetical scenario they used to illustrate distributed lethality, a U.S. Surface Action Group (SAG) was assigned offensive anti-surface and anti-submarine tasks during the first phase of an operation to secure an unoccupied island for use as an austere forward airbase. The SAG was further tasked with defeating any adversary attempt to insert ground forces on the island in advance of the arrival of a U.S. Marine force; if any adversary ground forces did manage to get ashore the SAG would no doubt be tasked with pinning them down or destroying them via naval bombardment. Lastly, the SAG was tasked with providing Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) for the U.S. Marine lodgment once it was established. While the aforementioned scenario was likely intended by the authors to illustrate a broad spectrum of tasks a SAG might be assigned in a war, they consistently asserted throughout the article that expanded ASW and land-attack strike capabilities are just as central to distributed lethality as expanded anti-surface capabilities. I would add expanded offensive anti-air capabilities to their list, as a SAG would have to see to its own outer layer defense against an adversary's scout, standoff jammer, and missile-armed strike aircraft during periods of time (or entire operations) in which fighter support from carriers or land-based air forces was limited or unavailable. I would further add that the deeper a future SAG might operate within a contested zone, the more the SAG might need to contend with an adversary's ballistic missiles (whether they are of the land-attack or anti-ship variety).

Distributed lethality, in other words, is really about expanding the surface fleet’s capacity for offensive operations in general. Not every SAG operation would involve ships trying to shoot other ships.

It is conceivable that an adversary might curtail his surface forces’ operations within hotly contested waters outside some distance from his own coast after suffering some painful initial losses. It is also conceivable that the threats posed by both sides’ air, submarine, and land-based missile forces to each other’s surface forces might bound the locations, timing, and durations of where each side operates SAGs. This in turn might drastically reduce the frequency of SAG versus SAG engagements (or prevent them entirely, at least for a time).

U.S. SAGs might find themselves principally performing offensive anti-submarine, anti-air, or land-attack tasks for much of a campaign. U.S. SAGs might just as easily find themselves performing defensive tasks in these warfare areas, not to mention ballistic missile defense, in support of offensive (or even defensive) operations by other friendly forces. Cost-efficient offensive and defensive capability improvements that promote distributed lethality would be crucial for performing each of these tasks.

None of this should be interpreted to mean that providing our surface force with longer-range anti-ship cruise missiles (as well as the requisite over-the-horizon targeting capabilities) is unnecessary. Those specific improvements are desperately needed for restoring the surface Navy’s offensive anti-ship clout—and buttressing its conventional deterrence credibility in turn. They just aren’t the only improvements necessary to make distributed lethality viable across all the missions SAGs would probably be tasked with in a major maritime war.

It’s also worth noting VADM Rowden’s observations earlier this month regarding the two aspects of distributed lethality concept development that require the most analytical attention going forward: how SAG operations will be logistically supported, and how they will be commanded and controlled. CIMSEC has published some great pieces exploring these two critical topics, and I hope others in the naval commentary community will join in as well.

I’d also argue that more analysis needs to be done on the doctrinal relationships between SAGs and land and carrier-based aircraft. It must be understood that, contrary to some commentators’ opinions, SAG distributed lethality is not indicative of the large-deck aircraft carrier’s declining relevance or obsolescence. While there are many circumstances in which a well-outfitted SAG would be able to sustain the margins of temporary localized sea control needed to operate within opposed waters at a tolerable degree of risk without external air support, there are also plenty of circumstances in which even the most powerful SAGs would need help from ‘outer layer’ fighter screens, Airborne Early Warning aircraft, or long-range scout aircraft. Distributed lethality reflects a return to how the Navy envisioned carriers and SAGs working together at the end of the Cold War. What’s needed now is more thought regarding the specifics of how those relationships ought to be doctrinally structured under contemporary conditions, and what that ought to mean to U.S. Navy operating concepts.

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not reflect the official positions of Systems Planning and Analysis, and to the author’s knowledge do not reflect the policies or positions of the U.S. Department of Defense, any U.S. armed service, or any other U.S. Government agency.

Full Spectrum Anti-Theater Missile Warfare

My recent post on how to counter Chinese anti-shipping capabilities between the First and Second Island Chains was heavily influenced by CAPT William Toti’s seminal article in last June’s Naval Institute Proceedings on the need to tackle anti-submarine warfare from a theater-wide, threat-tailored, combined arms campaign construct. If you haven’t read his article (which is outside the paywall), do so. It is a foundational work.

Toti observes that the dramatic sensor advantages that allowed the U.S. Navy to thoroughly dominate Soviet submarines throughout much of the Cold War no longer hold. Our ability to detect and attack an approaching adversary submarine before it can shoot first is uncertain at best. Yet, as Toti points out, “real ASW is not about detecting the submarine, it’s not about killing the submarine, it’s about defeating the submarine.”[i] The ability to win a close-in “knife fight” against a submarine, while important, represents just one of many opportunities to prevent the submarine from executing an effective attack. The submarine in wartime must, after all, have a safe haven in port for resupply, must break out of port, must transit through marginal seas or the open ocean to its patrol station, must be cued into patrol stations or intercept positions from which it would have the greatest opportunity for encountering prey, must detect and correctly classify a target (or receive targeting-quality cues from external surveillance and reconnaissance assets), must approach the target to weapons release range, and must land a blow with its weapon salvo. Most conceivable adversaries of the U.S. have the added geographical challenge of pushing their submarines through chokepoints such as straits in order to access the open ocean or return to port from patrol. Toti observes that there are exploitable vulnerabilities in each of these steps that can deny the submarine a chance to attack effectively and perhaps even lead to the submarine’s own destruction. Toti also notes that if a potential adversary’s leaders became convinced that the U.S. would be able to defang any submarine offensive, they might opt not to employ their submarines—or go to war—in the first place.

In rereading Toti’s article the other week, it occurred to me that there are remarkable parallels between what he suggests could be done to wage a wartime theater anti-submarine campaign and what could be done to wage a campaign to defeat an adversary’s wartime use of theater-range conventionally-armed ballistic and cruise missiles. His recounting of the Navy’s “full-spectrum ASW” doctrine provides an excellent model for tying together a combined arms “full-spectrum anti-theater missile campaign” concept along the lines of what Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work dubbed “raid breaker” earlier this year.[ii]

Just as ASW doesn’t depend entirely on destroying the submarine, theater missile defense doesn’t depend entirely on destroying the inbound theater missile. With this in mind, we see that each of Toti’s “ten threads of full-spectrum ASW” has an anti-theater missile analogue:

Full Spectrum ASW	Full Spectrum Anti-Theater Missile Warfare
Defeat submarines in port	Suppress missile-armed mobile platforms’ basing and logistical support infrastructure
Defeat the submarines’ shore-based command and control capability	Defeat the systems-of-systems that missile-armed mobile platforms rely upon to attack effectively
Defeat submarines near port, in denied areas	Defeat missile-armed mobile platforms as they break out of bases/garrisons towards their firing positions
Defeat submarines in choke points	Defeat missile-armed air and naval platforms in choke points
Defeat submarines in open ocean	Defeat missile-armed mobile platforms in their patrol or firing areas
Draw enemy submarines into ASW “kill boxes,” to a time and place of our choosing	Induce missile-armed mobile platforms to fire at false targets and perhaps expose themselves to attack
Mask our forces from submarine detection or classification	Mask our forces from the adversary’s local reconnaissance and targeting efforts
Defeat the submarine in close battle	Defeat missile-armed air and naval platforms in close battle
Defeat the incoming torpedo	Defeat the inbound missile
Create conditions where an adversary chooses not to employ submarines	Create conditions where an adversary chooses not to employ theater missiles

Let’s go through the anti-theater missile “threads” in turn. As we proceed, note that I implicitly discard the option of engaging in war-opening preemptive attacks against an adversary’s theater missile forces. With the exception of certain types of electronic or cyber operations, I work under the assumption that most of the below types of attacks would only be authorized by a U.S. President after a war has already started.   

Suppress Missile-Armed Mobile Platforms’ Basing and Logistical Support Infrastructure

Theater missile-firing platforms include aircraft, submarines, naval surface combatants, and Transporter Erector Launchers (TEL). All of these platforms require logistical support including rearmament, refueling (with the exception of SSNs, of course), replenishment of stores, corrective maintenance, and damage repair. In war, the bases in which they normally reside, receive servicing, and operate from can be attacked (assuming authorization from political leadership, which I’ll discuss in more detail below).

Nevertheless, not all of these platforms need to always return to a permanently-fixed base for all forms of servicing. For example, many missile-firing platforms can operate from and be serviced to some extent in austere locations such as seaports, airports, “satellite” airbases or ad hoc airstrips, or relocatable logistical depots. Some missile-firing platforms can have fuel, stores, repair parts, and even certain types of munitions brought to them in the field: replenishment ships can resupply surface combatants and sometimes submarines at sea, trucks or transport aircraft can resupply strike aircraft at austere airbases/airstrips, and trucks can resupply TEL units. All of these means for logistical support in the “field” can be directly attacked given sufficient intelligence, surveillance, or reconnaissance to know when and where to strike. Moreover, the depots and other fixed infrastructure that logistics forces inevitably pull from can also be identified and attacked. There’s an important caveat, though: the heavy wartime demands on U.S. strike-capable platforms and the finite size of their guided munitions inventories suggests that (politically authorized) targeting lists would have to be prioritized based on a particular logistical asset’s or site’s importance in the adversary’s combat logistics chain, plus the operational and tactical difficulties/risks in attacking that target. 

This leads to a key point: an intelligent adversary could employ many forms of deception and concealment to heavily complicate U.S. and allied targeting efforts against a logistical asset/site or the missile-armed platforms it was servicing. Nevertheless, many forms of concealment would require that the adversary reduce its missile forces’ operational tempos somewhat in order to reduce the risk of detection, classification, and attack. This might relieve some pressure on friendly air and missile defenses by suppressing the frequency and sizes of missile raids on the margins; this can have a significant effect on a given defense’s probability of annihilating a raid. In turn, this suppression might provide friendly forces increased temporary localized margins of operational freedom in a theater—not to mention possibly alleviate some margin of pressure on allied populations and their governments (and by extension on U.S political leaders).

Attacking an adversary’s theater missile forces’ bases along with much of their supporting logistical infrastructure would require strikes against the adversary’s home soil. U.S. political leaders would undoubtedly weigh the escalatory risks of such strikes against the consequences of allowing the adversary to enjoy operational sanctuary for its missile forces. Some critics suggest these escalatory risks would—and should—bar the U.S. from ever attacking a nuclear-armed adversary’s soil. Such critiques however do not recognize the high probability that if the adversary valued certain political objectives highly enough to opt for major war, those objectives would force him to commit the escalatory precedent of conventionally striking a treaty ally’s territory—and perhaps also sovereign U.S. territories—first. This is of immense strategic significance. For one thing, an adversary’s conventional first strike against U.S. or allied territories would almost certainly ignite the popular passions of the victims’ citizens.  The pressure on a U.S. President to retaliate in scope if not in kind would be intense. For another, the adversary’s first strike would allow the U.S. and its ally to invoke unassailable legal as well as moral justification for retaliation. These factors would not offset the nuclear risks of non-nuclear retaliation, but it should be noted that there is an enormous difference between selectively striking conventional forces that might carry theater nuclear weapons and striking distinct nuclear forces. In many cases, the bases and logistical infrastructure supporting conventional forces are distinct from those used by nuclear forces. For example, China’s theater nuclear forces (in the form of its DF-21 medium-range ballistic missile force) are distinct (and often geographically segregated) from its conventionally-armed short-range ballistic missile and long-range cruise missile forces.

None of this is meant to minimize questions of escalation risk facing a U.S. President, but they most certainly do not present a “checkmating” barrier that prevents operations to deny the adversary’s theater missile forces sanctuary. It bears observing that potential adversaries wouldn’t be investing heavily in integrated territorial air defenses, base hardening, and deception and concealment technologies to protect their conventional theater missile forces if they didn’t accept the reality that those forces might be attacked in war.[iii]

Defeat the systems-of-systems that missile-armed mobile platforms rely upon to attack effectively

I’ve previously written about these kinds of operations at length. Suffice to say, an adversary must be able to either provide correct targeting-quality tactical pictures to its firing units or be able to cue those “shooters” into positions from which they can use their own sensors to build local targeting pictures. The U.S. and its allies can use deception and concealment to prevent the adversary from being able to effectively attack protected mobile forces. This can also be done to some extent for fixed bases and military or civil infrastructure, as deception and concealment can be used to make unimportant sites look important and vice versa. Deception and concealment might additionally be used to induce the adversary to waste precious weapons (and expose firing platforms) in attacks against false or low-value targets. The U.S. might additionally attack the adversary’s surveillance and reconnaissance assets, precision navigation and time systems that allow the construction of an accurate situational picture, command and control sites where firing decisions are made, and data relay pathways that form the “backbone” of the entire apparatus. These attacks can be physical, but in many cases it might be more effective as well as carry less escalation risk to use electronic or (as technically plausible) cyber attacks. Nor do these attacks need to have permanent effects (though that would certainly be the ideal), as friendly forces could greatly capitalize on even temporary localized degradation of the adversary’s surveillance-reconnaissance-targeting infrastructure.

This “thread” would not prevent an adversary from using its conventionally-armed theater missiles in terror bombardment campaign against an American ally’s cities. Even so, history suggests such a campaign would be far more likely to further ignite the ally’s popular passions and deepen its resolve to prevail—and retaliate—than it would to than it would to coerce the ally into submission. In other words, it would be a strategically self-defeating move by the adversary.

Defeat missile-armed mobile platforms as they break out of bases/garrisons towards their firing positions

As Toti observes, this “thread” would largely occur within “denied” areas such as the adversary’s own soil, any friendly or neutral territories occupied by the adversary’s forces, the airspace above or adjacent to these territories, or the waterspace adjoining these territories. This would accordingly complicate offensive anti-air, anti-submarine, anti-surface combatant, and anti-TEL operations. Nevertheless, friendly submarines could lurk offshore to intercept the adversary’s submarines and surface combatants. Offensive sweeps by theater-range fighters might be used when and where feasible to attack the adversary’s outbound aircraft. Standoff strike aircraft cued by penetrating scouts might be used to attack the adversary’s surface combatants. If adequate air superiority is present, maritime patrol aircraft might be used to search for and attack adversary submarines. Special forces might be used to cue attacks using penetrating aircraft or long-range guided munitions against TELs (though if the First Gulf War is any indication, probably without a great deal of success). Destroying missile-firing platforms would of course be ideal, but the real goal of this “thread” would be to make breakout more time-consuming and resource-intensive than it might otherwise be for the adversary. This might result in further suppression of his operational tempo. It might also prevent him from seizing or maintaining the operational initiative.

 

Defeat missile-armed air and naval platforms in choke points

I covered this with respect to aircraft and submarines last week; the threats facing an adversary’s surface combatants would be even steeper. This forms part of the argument for deploying land-based anti-ship missiles alongside straits. Land-based surveillance assets bordering a strait can also cue anti-ship strikes by friendly aircraft operating from more distant bases. Similarly, these surveillance assets can provide other friendly forces with tactically-actionable indications and warning of a strike aircraft raid transiting through a choke point towards its targets or back to its airbases. Lastly, defensive minefields could be laid as geographically practical to complicate transits by the adversary’s surface combatants or submarines.

Defeat missile-armed mobile platforms in their patrol or firing areas

I also covered this with respect to aircraft and submarines last week. In the absence of persistent tactical air cover, an adversary’s surface combatants would not be able to hold out for long against U.S or allied anti-ship onslaughts.

TELs present the hardest target to engage in the adversary’s firing areas, bar none. They not only can hide within the broad expanse (and defense-in-depth) of the adversary’s territory, but can also blend into their surroundings on par with the quietest submarines at sea. They can shift quickly and frequently between prepared firing positions, or can hunker down heavily camouflaged for protracted periods. There is no existing or technically-plausible weapon system that could offer a high kill probability against TEL units that were smartly employing deception and concealment. Nor is there an existing or technically-plausible strike aircraft that could persistently perform TEL hunts deep within a capable adversary’s airspace unless the adversary’s territorial air defenses had been comprehensively rolled back. This does not mean that TEL hunting, if the tactical environment allows it, would be fruitless. The situation-dependent use of U.S. aircraft to hunt TELs using cheap weapons with low kill probabilities would still put TEL units on the defensive, which in turn might contribute to suppressing TEL firing rates and salvo sizes.

The most effective means of defeating ground-launched missile forces is to physically occupy the territory they are operating within. This is a principle that has been proven time and time again, from the allies’ Second World War efforts to defeat the German V-1 and V-2 bombardment campaign, to the Israelis’ efforts to break up Hezbollah and Hamas rocket bombardment campaigns over the past decade. It’s also the most costly in treasure and blood, as it requires the use of sizable ground forces. This is plausible and probably necessary if the adversary is operating TELs on the overrun soil of a U.S. ally; liberation of the ally’s territory would normally be a U.S. war objective in any case. It may also be plausible, albeit possibly far more costly, if a relatively small adversary country is operating TELs on its own soil. It is not plausible at all, whether militarily or politically, against TELs operated on the soil of a regional or great power. However, if a regional or great power is operating TELs relatively close to its border or coastal areas, and especially if those areas are somewhat geographically isolated, it might be plausible to dispatch special forces on brief raids aimed at destroying them directly, flushing them for attack by other friendly forces, or temporarily suppressing them by inducing them to go into hiding. Expeditionary forces might also be used to raid a regional power’s TELs in these kinds of areas; this would not be possible politically or militarily against a great power.

Induce missile-armed mobile platforms to fire at false targets and perhaps expose themselves to attack

I’ve written about this one extensively in the past as well. Every theater missile wasted is one less in the adversary’s finite inventory, with concomitant impacts on his campaign plans. This is especially true if a wasted missile cannot be readily replaced off the production line during wartime.

Similarly, an adversary platform or grouping that is seduced into attacking false targets will be incapable of attacking valid targets elsewhere at the same time. U.S. and allied forces can obviously exploit this operationally. At maximum, a submarine, surface combatant, or aircraft that shoots a theater missile gives away its general presence and sometimes even its approximate position. False targets might thus be used to set up reactive intercepts against the attackers, or perhaps even to lure them into prepared ambushes. It isn’t a stretch to imagine the kinds of enduring (and exploitable) psychological effects that might be imposed upon previously-overconfident adversary crews that wasted ordnance against decoys—or managed to survive an ambush.

 

Mask our forces from the adversary’s local reconnaissance and targeting efforts

This is another “thread” I’ve covered previously elsewhere. It is just as crucial to the use of false target tactics in the previous “thread” as it is to defending actual U.S. and allied forces from attack. The adversary must not be allowed to properly classify, let alone detect if at all practical, actual U.S. and allied forces until it is too late to matter. Toti hits the nail on the head in his piece when he notes “…it is about increasing the fog of war by making the real targets look like anything but a real target” and that it “must be a continuous process.”[iv]

Defeat missile-armed air and naval platforms in close battle

This is self-explanatory: destroy them or induce them to retreat before they can shoot at friendly forces. This demands either long-range weaponry that can be fired from the “inner zone” against the adversary’s inbound missile-armed platforms or the placement of persistent outer layer defenses in the adversary’s path. The latter is almost always preferable as the adversary can easily field strike missiles that outrange any weapon the defender might fire from the inner zone.

As its title makes clear, this “thread” is not applicable to TELs.

 

Defeat the inbound missile

This is also self-explanatory. Missile defense sensors, kinetic weapons, and electronic warfare systems all factor here. So does damage recoverability (e.g. use of redundant systems, rapid repair of damaged runways, hardening of a base’s critical infrastructure, shipboard damage control, etc). No single measure offers a panacea: some combination of active and passive measures is necessary to maximize defensive effectiveness.

A subtle variation of this “thread” involves the dispersal of forces not just to enhance their survivability, but also to force the adversary into an inventory management dilemma. The adversary could concentrate strikes over a specific period of time against a small number of force dispersal sites in order to overwhelm the missile defense systems protecting those sites, but that would leave the U.S. and allied forces positioned in other dispersal sites free to operate. The adversary could alternatively strike the maximum number of dispersal sites possible within a specific time period, but that would result in relatively few missiles attacking any single site—and thereby greatly simplify the jobs of each site’s missile defense systems. Also recall that theater missiles are not easily produced, especially in war. This means every missile fired would reduce the number available to the adversary for the duration of the conflict. As such, the adversary would probably have some threshold limit to the number of missiles he’d be willing to use in a concentrated or “spread” attack. U.S. and allied forces could adapt to capitalize on whichever attack type the adversary selected, and by doing so defeat the adversary’s theater missiles at the operational level of war.

 

Create conditions where an adversary chooses not to employ theater missiles

Full-spectrum anti-theater missile warfare signifies denying the adversary conventional escalation dominance in a crisis or war. The cumulative effect of convincing an opportunistic potential adversary that each of its “threads” are combat-credible—and that U.S. political leaders would be willing to deny the potential adversary’s forces operational sanctuary on their own soil if the adversary struck first—will generally be successful conventional deterrence.

The ideal state of deterrence would obviously be prevention of war outright, and Cold War-era theories regarding how this can be achieved between two competing nuclear-armed powers remain applicable. But even if a conventional war did erupt, the credibility of full-spectrum anti-theater missile warfare might help induce an adversary with modest political objectives to keep the conflict limited to a brief localized clash along a land border or at sea involving only the shortest-range missiles in both sides’ inventories. While tragic and hardly desirable, it would still be vastly preferable to a ruinous general war.

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[i] CAPT William J. Toti, USN (Retired). “The Hunt for Full-Spectrum ASW.” Naval Institute Proceedings 140, No. 6, June 2014, 39.

[ii] I define “theater missile” to include short and medium range ballistic and cruise missiles that can strike targets on land or at sea.

[iii] This point is made abundantly clear in Elbridge Colby. “Don’t Sweat Air Sea Battle.” The National Interest online, 13 July 2013, accessed 5/24/15, http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/dont-sweat-airsea-battle-8804?page=show

[iv] Toti, 43.

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not reflect the official positions of Systems Planning and Analysis, and to the author’s knowledge do not reflect the policies or positions of the U.S. Department of Defense, any U.S. armed service, or any other U.S. Government agency.

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[i] CAPT William J. Toti, USN (Retired). “The Hunt for Full-Spectrum ASW.” Naval Institute Proceedings 140, No. 6, June 2014, 39.

[ii] I define “theater missile” to include short and medium range ballistic and cruise missiles that can strike targets on land or at sea.

[iii] This point is made abundantly clear in Elbridge Colby. “Don’t Sweat Air Sea Battle.” The National Interest online, 13 July 2013, accessed 5/24/15, http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/dont-sweat-airsea-battle-8804?page=show

[iv] Toti, 43.