The Future of Naval Warfare is Swarming, or… Distribute Everything

A few weeks ago, two esteemed navalists debated the future of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier at the U.S. Naval Academy. To provide an overly-simplistic summation of this debate, retired Navy Captain and think-tank fellow Jerry Hendrix believes that the days of super carriers should be numbered in favor of more (affordable) platforms, such as large-deck amphibious ships, missile carrying submarines, and future semi-submersibles embarking unmanned vehicles. But fellow ID poster Bryan McGrath argues that supercarriers - more (capable) platforms - will continue to provide value and versatility in future conflicts. They were both correct - to an extent.  CVNs have proven their value in war and peace since their inception and will continue to serve the fleet proudly for decades.  But they are expensive, and getting more unaffordable with every iteration.  Bryan notes that despite its extravagant cost, a carrier represents a mere rounding error in the overall federal budget.  Though true, this wishful thinking doesn't make a larger fleet any closer reality than it has been since the heady days of the (almost) 600 ship navy.  

Our super-carrier fleet has shrunk from 14 to essentially 10 over the course of a quarter-century. Nuclear carriers, the centerpiece of today’s fleet, can only be in one place at one time.  Fewer carriers means less forward deployed presence.  Jerry has favored a fleet of more numerous and affordable "Fords" over pricier "Ferraris" for years now, and it is his vision that more closely matches the direction of future war at sea - distributed operations and swarming. 

I first wrote about swarms here about three years ago. My thinking on this concept has evolved as the U.S. Navy has now begun research and development on unmanned air and surface swarming technology in earnest.  Increasing portions of the research portfolios at DARPA, ONR, and the Naval Postgraduate school are focused on autonomy and swarming.

Defining the New Swarm
First, some history is order.  In some respects, the aircraft carrier was the platform that originally brought swarming to modern naval warfare - though one could look back somewhat further to the triremes of antiquity for tactics that somewhat resemble swarming. In World War II, dozens of U.S. and Japanese fleet carriers operated across the Western Pacific, carrying hundreds of aircraft that swarmed to attack and defend enemy surface ships and island bases. Future swarming will occur at both the tactical and operational levels. Though with projected force structure, surging three, maybe four carriers at any time to a given theater is going to be a challenge. Discounting casualties (a big assumption), maintaining them forward deployed over the course of a protracted naval campaign would be virtually impossible.  So how will tomorrow's smaller fleet be able to project power - both ashore and at sea across battle areas spanning millions of square miles in a major war?

Japan’s kamikaze attacks were another early form of naval swarming.   By some estimates, the Divine Wind suicide attacks accounted for up to 80 percent of U.S. Navy losses in the final phase of the Pacific war.  Although they were lethally effective, the lives of thousands of pilots sacrificed to execute these attacks accelerated the attrition of the Japanese war machine that ultimately led to its defeat.                                            

In the past decade, the Iranian fast attack craft swarming threat has driven significant discussion in U.S. Navy circles, ranging from grave concern to outright dismissal.  To address these sorts of threats, the Navy has acquired and deployed various countermeasures, such the LCS/FF surface package and USS Ponce’s laser system.  Developing hardware to counter swarming isn’t enough.  Iran’s multi-pronged sea denial threat illustrates some of the aspects of future naval swarms that will be emulated by other potential adversaries and friendly navies alike.  

Despite our best attempts, future enemies and conflict drivers are difficult to predict. But it is likely that increasingly affordable and numerous autonomous systems will make swarming a common tactic in the future, employed by both state and non-state maritime powers.  I strongly recommend Paul Scharre's work to understand the nature of military swarms and how they might be employed. What follows are some thoughts on how swarms might work in the naval milieu. 

Naval swarms require numbers.

A swarm is designed to overwhelm targeting systems and magazine capacity with its size.  Unlike the Japanese kamikazes, low cost, unmanned autonomous platforms will alleviate any qualms about mass human casualties on the side of the swarmers.  

By employing distributed maritime operations, a single surface platform with embarked unmanned vehicles can operate over a wider area than one without.  Using a multi-tiered hub-and-spoke concept, a large surface ship should be capable of simultaneously operating dozens of air, surface, and sub-surface vessels. So while a traditional surface ship might operate a boat or two and the same number of helicopters, using unmanned vehicles, that same platform can deploy numerous sensors and weapons at a considerable distance from the ship across all maritime domains.

Naval swarms will be multi-domain.  Manned and unmanned platforms will coordinate in the air, under, and on the sea.  The cyber and space domains are already integral to naval warfare and will remain so.  Investments in these areas will remain viable, but agility and upgradeability should be the hallmark attributes for future cyber and space programs.

Herd. Defend. Distract. Attack.

Naval swarms will be multi-dimensional.  Swarms will not simply attack, they will deceive, distract, and defend.  Multi-dimensional platforms - dissimilar and similar, will collaborate autonomously to disable command networks, insert malicious code into control systems, and yes, destroy enemy vessels.  As Scharre notes, swarming is not the same as network-centric warfare. Controlling data-links will be not necessary when autonomy, local visual or acoustic sensors, and insect (or fish-like) intelligence enable tiny platforms to collaborate.

So what sort of platforms will compose future naval swarms? Increasingly, miniaturization and unmanned systems will allow smaller platforms to enjoy the the plug-and-play payload versatility that Bryan rightly argues make the super-carrier so valuable. Somewhere between today's high end fleet and tomorrow's nano-swarms are distributed naval operations.   

Existing and planned surface combatants
Though high in quality, today's fleet is smaller in quantity than needed for future distributed operations. Although a "thousand ship" multi-national navy has possible utility in peacetime, what happens in time of war, when partners go wobbly? I have advocated for distributed operations at sea to include distributed firepower for about five years now.  So it warmed my heart to see surface warfare leadership take an interest in distributed lethality in a recent Proceedings article and in subsequent public comments. 

Future warfare will require more than just a new generation of weapons onboard planned combatants. The LCS/FF and SSC, warts and all, will be critically important, given their numbers and versatility at carrying various payloads. By adapting smaller unmanned payloads, each ship will be able to launch a mini-swarm.  These platforms will aggregate and disperse as the tactical situation dictates.  Of course, carriers and large deck amphibious ships will remain valuable for the foreseeable future, simply because of their massive capacity to carry smaller vehicles.  Additionally, the vision of long range, persistent, even armed UAVs embarked on every surface combatant is slowly edging closer to reality with research programs such as DARPA’s TERN. Realizing the full potential of distributed warfare at sea will require will a variety of vessels to augment the conventional fleet, which is unlikely to grow much at all. 

Non-traditional naval platforms

Military Sealift Command Ships embarking adaptive force packages, such as the JHSV and MLP, will by virtue of their payload capacity, speed, and numbers, become a component of the distributed swarm. Does it make more sense for a $3 billion destroyer or a naval auxiliary costing a tenth that amount to sit in mod-loc for weeks at a time as a host platform for an ISR UAV? If the LCS/FF can host offboard mine-countermeasures systems, then why can't the JHSV? Should amphibious ships continue to perform nine and ten month deployments when we have equally spacious USNS ships with flight decks sitting in reduced operating status? The legal issues raised with employing USNS ships in combat situations can, and should be overcome with some creative lawyering.  

Expeditionary Swarming

Swarming gets even more chaotic where the sea meets the land and increasingly dense urban populations reside. David Kilcullen has laid out a future of swarming maneuver doctrine already embraced by many urban guerrillas.                            

Ever since J.F.C. Fuller, in 1918, the foundational concept of maneuver doctrine for the 20th century is not to fight the enemy bit by bit, but to find his headquarters and put a pistol shot into the brain. Fuller talks about finding and killing the enemy headquarters, putting a deep penetration armored unit behind the frontline looking for the enemy headquarters to kill it. That is on what blitzkrieg is based on, it’s what Russian maneuver warfare is based on, it is a fundamental guiding idea for Liddell Hart or Guderian. The scary thing that Black Hawk down tells you is that because of how these guys operate-- with tactics completely emergent within a self synchronizing swarm-- there is actually no headquarters in the Western sense. The guy I sat with, a Somali brigade commander, didn’t have a bunch of guys with radios in a command and control center. What he had, it was walkie talkie and a larger truck than everybody else, carrying a reserve of fighters and ammo. He just listened on the radio and drove around the battlefield to where the fighting was heaviest. He didn’t need to give an order for the attack because the self-synchronizing tactical system didn’t require that. The scary thing that Black Hawk Down tells you is that if the Rangers were able to capture Aidid, it might not have any effect at all. They were going after a headquarters that didn’t exist.

American special operations forces are already doing distributed warfare.  Several SOC-Forward headquarters are deployed across the globe, each one composed of very small teams of multidisciplinary operators and enablers conducting training, information operations, civil affairs, and direct action.   The Marine Corps is also experimenting with distributing smaller units of action, both ashore and afloat.                  

Unconventional players

A small sample of the largest surrogate fleet in the world...

Naval swarms will not consist solely of naval combatants. What I call naval unconventional warfare - essentially the use of maritime surrogates to achieve naval objectives - will feature prominently in future swarm warfare at sea.  China’s massive fishing fleets are already demonstrating a form of surrogate swarming in the South China Sea.  

These non-state maritime actors - some working at the behest of nation states and others on their own accord - will complicate rules of engagement, entice overreaction, disrupt surface movement, and in some some cases, attack as swarms.

On the air side, commercial drones, of which 32,000 are estimated to be flying in the next decade (most not in the U.S.), along with of hundreds thousands of personal drones, will be pulled into this unconventional swarming threat. Currently light-weight and short-ranged, civilian UAVs will expand in capability more rapidly than their military counter-parts.

Physics Gets a Vote

A solid argument against this vision is that smaller platforms, be they a combatant ship, unmanned underwater vehicle, or unmanned air vehicle, are limited in range and payload capacity.  Notionally, shorter-legged vehicles dispersed over hundreds or thousands of miles require more frequent resupply and refueling (or recharging).  However, innovative ways of resupply will mitigate some of these concerns. Along these lines, the Navy’s recent choice of the V-22 as a carrier onboard delivery (COD) aircraft will greatly enhance the fleet’s distributed logistics capabilities.  The COD will move parts and people not only for the single deployed carrier and its air-wing, but for amphibious ships and smaller combatants (via vertrep) within hundreds of miles of the carrier.  Commonality with Marine Corps and Air Force Special Operations Command Ospreys will bring operational, maintenance, and training efficiencies.  

Unmanned vehicles operating at the edge of the battlespace will require new concepts in afloat logistics.  Moored undersea docking stations to recharge the batteries of long range UUVs should be designed for air or surface deployment.  Unmanned air vehicles flying from surface ships will also support vertical resupply of distributed sea and ground elements operating hundreds of miles from their motherships.  This concept has been demonstrated successfully ashore with the K-MAX rotary wing vehicle which flew more than 17,000 sorties in Afghanistan, delivering over four million pounds of supplies to Marines in remote forward operating bases. Even small patrol vessels operating alone and unafraid could be partially refueled by air, using blivets (from drones, of course) or conceivably, a reverse helicopter in-flight refueling (HIFR) system from the V-22.  Moreover, surface ships with shallower drafts, such as the FF and JHSV can pull into more austere and remote ports for upkeep than their deep draft counter-parts. 

The Future is Clear as Mud

It’s possible that this future is unrealistic, and large combatants - including the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier - will reign the seas for decades, if not centuries to come.  But given the changing rate of technology, an entirely different scenario is not implausible.  In Peter Diamandis' new book BOLD, futurist Ray Kurzweil portrays a future dominated by nanosystems, artificial intelligence, and yes, singularity.  Diamandis discusses some of these astounding (and somewhat scary) predictions for the not too far out future:

By the 2020s, most diseases will go away as nanobots become smarter than current medical technology. Normal human eating can be replaced by nanosystems. The Turing test begins to be passable. Self-driving cars begin to take over the roads, and people won’t be allowed to drive on highways.

By the 2030s, virtual reality will begin to feel 100% real. We will be able to upload our mind/consciousness by the end of the decade.

By the 2040s, non-biological intelligence will be a billion times more capable than biological intelligence (a.k.a. us). Nanotech foglets will be able to make food out of thin air and create any object in physical world at a whim.

By 2045, we will multiply our intelligence a billionfold by linking wirelessly from our neocortex to a synthetic neocortex in the cloud.

Extrapolating just a few of these trends into naval warfare, one begins to see a very different future emerge than one dominated by a handful of $15 billion capital ships.  Thousands of autonomously navigating civilian and military unmanned surface vessels, such as the “Sea Hunter” prototype currently undergoing testing, will share the seas with manned vessels.  These vessels will be large, small, and very small, and much cheaper to operate than their manned equivalents.  

If Kurzweil is even partially accurate, nanobots will eventually become naval weapons in their own right.  Dispersed from the air prior to hostilities, they will float dormant like plankton in shipping lanes until they recognize an enemy ship. They will then swarm the vessel’s seawater intakes, disable engines, sensors, and perhaps even crew.  Airborne nano-bots floating in the trade winds will be attracted to electromagnetic emissions and disable radar array faces. 

Far-fetched? Perhaps, but then again, twenty five years ago, how many of us expected to always carry a pocket-sized device that responds to voice commands enabling us access to most of the world’s information wirelessly? Kurzweil did.

Because the only certainty is that disruptive technological change will continue to accelerate apace, investments in extremely expensive singular-unit force structure (both air and naval) must be viewed with circumspect.  Simply put - if we don't figure out naval swarming, the democratization of technology today means somebody else will. America's traditional battle force fleet can - and should - be expanded as the fiscal and political environment dictates. But careful investments in an alternative portfolio emphasizing distributed naval operations and swarming will hedge future uncertainty that is sure to result from coming technological disruption.

 The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Defense or any of its agencies.

AQAP's Continuing Seapower Strategy

A civil war in Syria, nuke deals with Iran, and a Chinese air defense zone have dominated the attention of national security watchers and policy makers.  Even so, al Qaeda's network continues to quietly operate and plot terror in its multiple safe havens dotted across Africa  and the Middle East.


Balhaf Terminal exports up to 12.5 billion cubic meters of gas per year. 

A few years ago, I wrote about how al Qaeda has deliberately employed sea power as part of its strategy against the West.  In short, this unwritten strategy contains three elements: 1) facilitating the movement of men, money, and munitions in support of AQ's operations; 2) earning revenue to sustain operations via taxation of ports; 3) disrupting SLOCs and oil infrastructure in order to raise the cost of energy and hurt the global economy.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and its predecessors in Yemen have operationalized this strategy more than any other affiliate, with sea-borne attacks on USS COLE and MV LIMBERG, maritime facilitation to supply Somalia's al Shabaab, and a couple of amphibious-like operations along Yemen's southern coast.

Last week, AQAP again went to sea in support of the third line of operations when they attempted an attack against the Balhalf liquefied natural gas terminal, apparently foiled by Yemen's small navy.  Completed in 2010, the $4.5 billion Balhaf Liquified Natural Gas terminal exports gas from the Marib field to the coast via 320km of pipeline. The terminal and its surrounding pipelines have been the focus of a number of attacks the past few years, but this is perhaps the first water-borne attempt.

These activities may seem like small potatoes in the greater naval spectrum - and they are to a certain extent.  But taken with other irregular maritime threats proliferating globally, they represent vacuums in sea power that when filled with non-state actors have greater implications for modern navies. Is protecting oil infrastructure and defeating pirates a job for a handful of multi-billion dollar warships, or flotillas of more numerous, more affordable small combatants?  Might distributed maritime operations using both manned and unmanned vessels be a better force construct against irregular threats than CSGs and ARGs?  What is the best way for Marine Corps, joint SOF, and Navy teams to get after these rogue maritime elements in a discrete footprint, politically palatable manner?  How can naval aviation detect, track, and engage threats that blend in with local fishing and commercial traffic? When does it make sense for the US to unilaterally and quickly deal with these threats versus enabling our partners or deferring to our allies?

The views in this post are those of the author alone, presented in his personal capacity.

Some Thoughts on the Coastal Riverine Force

Even the smallest economy-of-force programs aren’t immune to Navy budget cuts and accordingly, numerous reductions to NECC force structure were submitted for POM 13. The Navy’s Riverine and Maritime Expeditionary Security Force (MESF) units make up a significant and important part of this community, and comprise the majority of the Navy’s combatant craft outside of Naval Special Warfare. Following the decommissioning of six MSRONs over the next few years, the resulting force structure will consolidate to seven combined Coastal/Riverine Squadrons (CRF) Squadrons for a total of about 4,400 active and reserve Sailors. “The primary mission of CRF is to conduct maritime security operations across all phases of military operations by defending high value assets, critical maritime infrastructure, ports and harbors both inland and on coastal waterways against enemies and when commanded conduct offensive combat operations.” As these changes are enacted, it’s worthwhile to look at where this leaner expeditionary force has come from and where it might go in the future.

A Bit of History

Fighting in inland and coastal waters has been a regular occurrence throughout the U.S. Navy’s history, with notable campaigns in North America, China, and of course, Vietnam. Following the Vietnam War, the navy’s riverine force was largely disestablished and by the 1990s, the sole capability remained in one NSW unit.  The 21st Century riverine force, assembled a few years after the Navy Staff realized that Operation Iraqi Freedom wasn’t just a ground war, now consists of three squadrons of highly trained Sailors with boats and kit sufficient to conduct their missions globally. During OIF, the RIVRONs protected the Haditha Dam and performed hundreds of combat patrols in support of ground forces along Iraqi rivers. The RIVRONs also were equipped with the RCB, a very capable troop carrying boat based on the Swedish CB-90. These boats have been recently used for coastal missions, but are not optimized for extended operations in heavier seas.



 RPBs and RCB in USS Oak Hill (LSD 51) U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication
Specialist 2nd Class Michael R. Hinchcliffe

The arguably less well known Maritime Expeditionary Security Force originated out of the Inshore Undersea Warfare units that defended harbors and other inshore areas against Viet Cong sappers. In the 1970s, the IUW community reverted to the reserve force, added new equipment and missions such as electronic and acoustic surveillance. MIUWs and IBUs performed landward and seaward security roles for amphibious and JLOTs operations, with some units mobilized for Operation Desert Storm. Following the October 2000 attack on USS COLE, the then-called Naval Coastal Warfare community gradually shifted to a boat-centric force, added active force structure, and changed its name to MESF, to reflect the increased emphasis on anti-terrorism/force protection. Throughout the last decade,  thousands of MSRON Sailors have deployed globally to austere locations and successfully deterred new terrorist attacks on critical maritime infrastructure. They have escorted thousands of naval and civilian ships, defended dozens of different ports, and lived for months at a time on Iraq’s rusty OPLATS - all thankless, but vitally important missions.  Interestingly, the new CRF is not the first time that the Navy has combined coastal and riverine units.

On boats

The MK VI will be the newest addition to NECC’s fleet (see Chuck Hill’s post here) and provide a much needed augmentation to the smaller MESF and RIVRON craft. There is room to debate whether the MK VI will be the right vessel for coastal NECC missions. Certainly, the ability to embark a boarding team and better sea-keeping and endurance will make the MK VI a tremendously more capable platform than the MESF’s current 34’ PBs. But one the thing to keep in mind is that combatant craft are small, inexpensive relative to every other surface (and air) platform, and designed to have a short life span. Therefore, if the initial buy of six vessels doesn’t prove ideal for CRF, then OPNAV shouldn’t dwell on what amounts to rounding errors in the larger acquisition budget and move quickly to another design.

That said, it should be understood that the MK VI does not meet the requirement for a green water Cyclone PC replacement which would be more properly classified as an offshore patrol vessel or offshore support craft. The MK VI just doesn’t have the legs and payload for that mission set and requires either a near-by land base or sea-basing as seen in the above photo of well deck testing last year. Ostensibly, LCS was going to take on the offshore patrol role, along with the missions for apparently every other ship class smaller than a DDG. Time will tell how that idea works out.

Some Future Opportunities

Along with continuing to conduct NECC’s mainstay riverine, force protection, and security force assistance missions, the CRF has the opportunity to expand into new mission sets. As the combined CRF stands up next week, it’s heartening to hear one of the MESG Commodores recognize the offensive potential of these units. “Although Coastal Riverine Force will predominantly perform force protection type missions, when required it will be capable of conducting offensive operations which will enhance mission effectiveness throughout the force.”  These operations will require new equipment, training, and tactics.

Although the MK VI is not heavily armed or armored, it does appear to have a remotely operated MK 38 Mod 2 (25mm) on the bow. The Israelis have similar mounts on their fast attack craft that include coaxial Spike ER laser guided missiles (8 km range). One hopes that NAVSEA CCD is planning on installing at least an equivalent capability on the MK VI to add to CRF’s offensive punch. I recently was aboard a similar sized vessel capable of carrying 16 griffin missiles in a VLS-type launcher, so this sort of firepower not out of the question for 20-30 meter fast attack craft. Furthermore, by becoming targeting nodes in a distributed naval fires network, these small vessels could fight above their weight class.


MIUWU 114 Mobile Operations Center on Khawr Abd Allah River
Iraq, April 2003 (author’s photo)

 Similarly, the MESF’s land-based sensor detachments have the potential to improve targeting in the littorals. A primarily defensive force since COLE, MESF’s 90s-era equipment is in need of a radical facelift, with the addition of lighter and more numerous fixed, mobile, and disposable sensors. In the IUW era, the MIUWUs routinely deployed and listened to sonobuoys in support of coastal ASW.  Today, a myriad of air and sea droppable sensor packages with various combinations of EO, signals, acoustic, and METOC collection capabilities are readily available. These smaller, smarter, and cheaper sensors can rapidly disseminate their data globally via a number of means, and along with small tactical UAVs, should become a staple of the CRF.

The Navy must sustain traditional brown and green water MSO missions, but new technology will also make it possible for NECC units to become an integral component of distributed maritime operations in higher intensity warfare.

******
Thanks to Lee Wahler, a frequent commenter on ID, and other hard core boat guys for helping with ideas and research on this article.

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense, the US Navy, or any other agency.

Experimenting with Distributed Maritime Operations

Observing the lethality and effectiveness of modern distributed special operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere gives one an appreciation for the potential benefits these types of ISR-leveraged, economy of force operations may someday bring to the maritime realm. Over a series of posts, I’ve attempted to articulate this operational concept. Here are some thoughts on decentralized warfare in the littorals.  Next, a discussion on one of the ways these operations could be employed in an irregular warfare setting. And here, some ideas on how distributed firepower could enable small ships to become a force multiplier in big wars. Finally, a post arguing that adequate bandwidth at sea is critical to tie all of these concepts together.



Sea-launched RQ-7 Shadow

 The proliferation of small remotely provided vehicles is going to provide unique opportunities to test some of these operational concepts. For example, the Marine Corps and Army will soon have more than 400 RQ-7 Shadows in their inventories.  This interesting article discusses the utility of these 100lb payload class platforms to drop Shadow Hawk precision guided munitions. Yes, these platforms are small, and their lethal payloads are even smaller. Though there is significant tactical value in being able to provide very precise yet low yield munitions from a small persistent drone, that isn't the point. This platform is ideal for relatively low cost experimentation on concepts of distributed operations at sea. Following pending draw-downs of Army and Marine Corps forces in Afghanistan, these assets will be available for other tasking, and conducting a series of naval experiments on distributed operations would maximize the post-war utility of these platforms. Some of the goals of these battle exercises would be to:

• Test the ability to embark, support, and employ dozens (if not 100+) of small UAVs from large deck amphibious ships. Determine maximum sortie rates/ISR lines achievable, C2 and bandwidth requirements, manning and maintenance needs, and the best ratios of manned rotary wing to unmanned ISR/strike aircraft.  An LHA/LHD would be an ideal platform for this testing, not only due to deck and hangar space, but because of available bandwidth, staff planning/C2 spaces, and the ability to reserve some deck space for manned aircraft used to move the various ground forces involved.
• Develop concepts to support persistent armed overwatch to more lightly armed small ground units and ships and combatant craft at hundreds of miles away from the mother ship. This concept has been proven time and again on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, reducing the risks to small remotely operating troop elements and giving these elements the ability to see and sometimes engage the threat over the next ridgeline. Lightly armed vessels operating independently such as mine countermeasures, logistics ships, and yes, LCS, would benefit from having a 24x7 eye in the sky extending the ship's organic sensors, and dealing with low end threats, while allowing embarked manned helicopters to conduct higher value missions.
• Test over-the-horizon cooperative targeting and engagement between these same formations against surface and ground threats.
• Explore new lightweight payloads that would exploit the capabilities of large numbers of small persistent drones. These might include jammers, improvised expeditionary communication networks as an alternative to satellite communications, ASW sensors, and the ability to deploy remote unattended ground and ocean sensors. 
• Develop ways to employ smaller ships as forward arming, refueling, and communications relays for these aircraft. 
• Assess the ability to bring large formations of these aircraft together into cohesive swarms to defeat boat swarms in the littorals or complex insurgent attacks in an urban environment. Model the use of these massed formations of low cost UAS to penetrate air defenses and attack larger ground and surface targets. A few dozen 11 pound munitions would not sink a large naval combatant, but employed creatively they might achieve a mission kill rendering that vessel's sensors and weapons systems inoperable. Use the results of these tests to develop artificial intelligence algorithms that will reduce the manning necessary to control such a large fleet of remotely piloted aircraft. 
• Employ the above concepts with various deployed nodes of special operations forces, Marine, and NECC elements, in an effort to understand the capabilities and limitations each of these units brings to the distributed littoral fight. 
• Test all of the above concepts in electronically-challenged environments. Naysayers of network-centric warfare are quick to point out the difficulties of fighting in an environment where jamming is present. The thing about distributed operations from the sea is that since the platforms are always moving, fixing them and relocating jammers to be effective is more challenging than it would be in a static environment. Many critics have rightfully pointed out the liability that LCS speed requirements have produced to payload, range, and overall platform cost, but in an EW environment, her speed becomes an asset. Jammers have limited ranges and small more numerous platforms able to relocate faster than the enemy's jammers will be able to mitigate some of those issues.

RQ-7B with Shadow Hawk munition

Though distributed operations with small units are certainly not new in our Navy's history (Vietnam small boat ops come to mind), the proliferation of persistent armed and networked remotely piloted vehicles adds a whole new dynamic.  The concept has applicability across the spectrum of conflict, but especially in the irregular wars in which we increasingly find ourselves engaged. The upcoming few years will provide an excellent time for experimentation on operational concepts such as distributed maritime operations and the higher end AirSea Battle. The mistakes made and lessons learned will pay dividends the next time our Navy/Marine Corps is called to war.

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense, the US Navy, or any other agency.

Making the Most of Small Ships: Leveraging Distributed Firepower

There appears to be a slow, but growing recognition in the defense establishment of present fiscal realities and the problems with continuing to procure exquisitely capable and expensive platforms. In the words of the VCJCS, “wake up, you’re not going to have 300, 500 ships...” Inevitably, if the US Navy is to remain our country’s premier armed force for projecting power globally while maintaining a wide variety of dispersed theater engagement missions, it will have to build a larger quantity of less expensive surface vessels to complement high end platforms such as destroyers and cruisers. [LCS cost vs. capability has been covered extensively in other places, so I won't go there...]

Coastal patrol vessels are ideal for working closely and persistently with smaller navies and coast guards - much more so than a multibillion dollar destroyer. Some will argue these ships are fine for today’s irregular conflicts but will be helpless in a major naval battle. Most advocates of this sort of force structure have accepted that reality, but counter that small ships are still necessary for today’s operations. However, we shouldn't have to take conventional wisdom at face value. In other words, we can give coastal ships (think Cyclone Class+) utility across the spectrum of operations from theater security cooperation with developing coastal nations, to maritime security operations, to support of major combat operations against the naval forces of a regional power. How could a balanced USN force structure employ numerous green water vessels against an ostensibly more powerful naval force?

The answer is to leverage distributed firepower. Special operations forces get this concept, probably more so than any other military community. I’ve heard special forces friends say they’d rather fight with a laser than a gun; meaning that they can engage the enemy at longer (i.e., safer) ranges and apply more firepower by laser designating targets for destruction by air than they can using their organic team weapons. Early in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, widely dispersed, small teams of SOF destroyed vastly larger ground forces, including mechanized armor and heavily entrenched ground formations, by controlling air power. JTACs were a valuable, but scarce commodity for ground forces, especially conventional forces. Today, they are more common, but still in short supply. Outside of ANGLICO and NSW, navy JTACs are virtually non-existent. Yes, larger combatants have personnel trained to control aircraft, but they don’t have the capability or training to visually designate surface and ground targets for destruction by airpower.

Although smaller and more numerous surface vessels will be essential to future littoral operations, air power and other fires called in from over the horizon will be the critical enabler of success. Smaller surface ships and combat craft must have the ability to designate and control air power to destroy targets. This airpower need not be limited to tacair from carriers or land bases, but should include larger numbers of sea and land based armed UAVs. Additionally, over the horizon, ship (or even sub) based surface to surface missiles could be employed in this manner. Along those lines, DARPA has programmed RTD&E money for the LRASM-B missile with an IOC of FY15. In addition to closing an expanding sea control gap, this VLS-launched, supersonic, stealthy, 200 km missile could be further enhanced by enabling OTH targeting from forward-engaged green water combatants. Pairing several green water vessels patrolling near shore with a large surface combatant 100 miles in the rear would create an extremely powerful tool for littoral combat.

Fleets of small, fast patrol craft and larger coastal patrol vessels leveraging fire power from distant air and surface forces would greatly complicate an enemy’s targeting problem. That said, ships without air defense systems are clearly more vulnerable to enemy air power than an aegis combatant. However, speed, size, and maneuverability will assist in avoiding enemy airpower while larger numbers of coastal craft can operate under the umbrella of air defense provided by an aegis combatant operating over the horizon. SOF use a system called ROVER to view real time imagery from manned and unmanned aircraft, share data, and designate targets. Introducing this system and complementary laser designators to the fleet would exponentially amplify the USN’s ability to engage hostile vessels, from FACs to frigates.

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Defense or any of its agencies.