Some Observations about Network-Enabled Over-the-Horizon Attacks

Norman Friedman’s 2009 book Network Centric Warfare is one of the principal influences upon my thinking about 21^st Century maritime combat. It is a seminal recounting of the evolution of modern maritime warfare systems, the ‘systems of systems’ they fit in to, and the doctrines developed for employing them. It also serves as a core reference for researchers seeking to discover the fine (declassified) technical and operational details of the Cold War competition between U.S. and Soviet maritime ‘battle networks.’

One of Friedman’s most interesting observations in the book pertains to network-enabled attacks, especially from ‘over-the-horizon.’ A ship targeted using remote surveillance sensors, for example, might not realize it had been targeted until it detected inbound weapons. Friedman notes that the multi-source Soviet Ocean Surveillance System (SOSS) couldn’t enable true surprise attacks because Soviet anti-ship missile doctrine was predicated on the use of ‘pathfinder’ and ‘tattletale’ scouts for visual confirmation and classification of targets. Detection of these scouts by U.S. Navy or NATO battleforces (or theater/national surveillance systems) would provide the defenders warning that Soviet anti-ship missile platforms were nearby or that a raid was inbound. (Pg. 217-239)

In contrast, the U.S. Navy of the late 1970s and early 1980s sought to use its Ocean Surveillance Information System (OSIS) network of signals intelligence sensors and fusion centers to provide targeting cues to Tomahawk Anti-Ship Missile (TASM)-armed submarines via an effort dubbed Outlaw Shark. Since its advent a decade earlier, OSIS had been used to detect, classify, and develop “track histories” for Soviet ships in support of Navy operational-level planning. The experimental Outlaw Shark targeting capability stemmed from using OSIS’s track histories to dead-reckon Soviet ships’ geolocations at future times, then transmitting those cues to patrolling submarines. Unlike SOSS, though, OSIS did not use active surveillance or reconnaissance sensors to supplement its passive ones. As a result, Outlaw Shark targeting would have been unavailable if Soviet ships maintained disciplined Emissions Control (EMCON). (Pg. 206-209)

In the event of exploitable Soviet EMCON indiscipline, however, Friedman observes that Outlaw Shark targeting would in theory have denied a Soviet surface force any warning of an impending U.S. anti-ship attack. This is because the OSIS-TASM tandem’s lack of a scout meant that there would have been no discernable U.S. Navy ‘behavior’ to tip Soviet ships off that they had been targeted. Friedman concludes with the thought that even if a TASM attack had landed no blows, it nevertheless might have disrupted a Soviet surface force’s plans or driven it to take rash actions that could have been exploited offensively or defensively by other U.S. or NATO forces. (Pg. 210)

The obvious limitations of relying almost entirely upon non-real-time signals intelligence for over-the-horizon targeting contributed greatly to the Navy shelving its TASM ambitions during the early 1980s. The Navy’s own mid-to-late Cold War countertargeting doctrine and tactics made great use of EMCON and deceptive emissions against SOSS, so there was no fundamental reason why the Soviets could not have returned the favor against OSIS. Moreover, TASM employment depended upon a Soviet ship maintaining roughly the same course and speed it was on at time of an OSIS-generated targeting cue. If the targeted Soviet ship maneuvered such that it would not be within the TASM’s preset ‘search basket’ at the anticipated time, then the TASM would miss. Nor could Navy shooters have been sure that the TASM would have locked on to a valid and desirable Soviet ship vice a lesser Soviet ship, a Soviet decoy ship, or even a non-combatant third-party’s ship.

Friedman’s point remains, though: a network-enabled attack that results in a physical miss could nevertheless theoretically produce significant tactically-exploitable psychological effects. This concept has long been used to forestall attacks by newly-detected nearby hostile submarines, even when the submarine’s precise position is not known. An anti-submarine weapon launched towards the submarine’s vicinity at minimum complicates the latter’s tactical situation and potentially forces it into a reactive and defensive posture. This can buy time for more effective anti-submarine measures including better-aimed attacks.

It therefore might be reasonable to use some longer-ranged weapons to “shock” an opponent’s forces along the lines Friedman outlines, even if the weapons’ hit probabilities are not high, if it is deemed likely that the targeted forces will react in ways that friendly forces armed with more plentiful and producible weapons could exploit. For example, an opponent’s force might light off its air defense radars upon detecting the attacker’s weapons’ own homing radars. Or perhaps the opponent’s units might distinguish themselves from non-combatant vehicles/aircraft/ships in the battlespace by virtue of their maneuvers once they detect inbound weapons. Either reaction might provide the attacker with definitive localization and classification of the opponent’s platforms, which in turn could be used to provide more accurate targeting support for follow-on attacks. Depending on the circumstances, expenditure of a few advanced weapons to ‘flush’ an opponent’s forces in these ways might be well worth it even if none hit.

But would doing so really be the best use of such weapons in most cases? We must bear in mind the advanced ordnance inventory management dilemma: higher-capability (and especially longer-range) guided weapons expended during a conflict likely will not be replaced in the attacker’s arsenal in a timely manner unless they are readily and affordably wartime-producible. Nor will weapons launched from surface ships’ or submarines’ launchers be quickly reloadable, as these platforms will have to retire from the contested zone and expend several days of transit time cycling through a rearward base for rearmament. The force-level operational tempo effects of this cycle time will not be insignificant. A compelling argument can be made that advanced weapons should be husbanded for attacks in which higher-confidence targeting is available…unless of course the responsible commander assesses that the situation at hand justifies firing based on lower-confidence targeting.

There is another option, however. Instead of expending irreplaceable advanced weapons, a network-enabled attacker might instead use decoy weapons that simulate actual weapons’ trajectories, behaviors, and emissions in order to psychologically jar an opponent’s forces or otherwise entice them to react in exploitable ways. This would be especially useful when the attacker‘s confidence in his targeting picture is fairly low. SCATHE MEAN comes to mind in this respect. This is probably more practical for aircraft and their deep munitions inventories in aircraft carriers or at land bases. Still, it might be worth exploring how a small number of decoy weapons sprinkled within a Surface Action Group or amongst some submarines might trade operationally and tactically against using those launcher spots for actual weapons.

As for the defender, there are four principal ways to immunize against (but not decisively counter) the use of actual or decoy weapons for network-enabled ‘shock or disrupt’ attacks:

• Distribute multi-phenomenology sensors within a defense’s outer layers in order to detect and discriminate decoy platforms or weapons at the earliest opportunity. The sensors must be able to communicate with their operators using means that are highly resistant to detection and exploitation by the attacker.

• Institute routine, realistic, and robust training regimes that condition crews psychologically and tactically for sudden shocks such as inbound weapons “out of nowhere” or deception. This might also lead to development of tactics or operating concepts in which some or all of the defender’s units gain the ability to maintain restrictive emissions, maneuvering, and firing discipline even when an adversary’s inbound weapons are detected unless certain criteria are met.

• Field deep (and properly positioned) defensive ordnance inventories. Note that this ordnance does not just include guns and missiles, but also electronic warfare systems and techniques.

• Embrace tactical flexibility and seize the tactical initiative, or in other words take actions that make it far harder for an adversary to attack first. A force’s possession of preplanned branching actions that cover scenarios in which it is prematurely localized or detected by an adversary can help greatly in this regard.

Friedman’s observations regarding the psychological angles of network-enabled targeting are subtle as they require thinking about how the technological aspects of a tactical scenario might interplay with its human aspects. We tend to fixate on the former and overlook the latter. That’s an intellectual habit we’re going to need to break if we’re going to restore the capacity and conditioning we possessed just a quarter century ago for fighting a great power adversary’s networked forces.

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.

Sea Lanes Protection Between the First and Second Island Chains in a Notional Sino-American War

On Tuesday, I summarized China’s potential wartime anti-ship capabilities between the First and Second Island Chains. It stands to reason that the U.S. and allied ability to avoid or parry any PLA attacks in these waters would depend upon the margin of temporary localized maritime superiority—or sea control, if you will—that could be extended around a transiting convoy, replenishment group, or naval battleforce.[i] This margin would likely be highest in the waters that could be persistently covered by fighters, Airborne Early Warning (AEW) aircraft, and wide-area anti-submarine aircraft operating from the Marianas, Japanese home islands, or the central/southern Philippines.

As this sea control coverage thinned out with range, PLA forces would in theory gain more operational flexibility. This might be offset, however, through the intelligent use of the one or two U.S. Navy aircraft carriers available in theater during a war’s opening weeks. I’ve previously noted how these carriers ought to be used to provide situation-dependent sea control support to Surface Action Groups (SAG) operating further forward, and alluded to their utility in providing situation-dependent tactical support to defenders in embattled First Island Chain territories like the Ryukyus. The positioning required for those tasks could also allow their fighters and AEW aircraft to screen CLF groups, military sealift convoys, and prioritized commercial vessels transiting outside effective land-based air coverage. With two carriers working together, it might even be possible to occasionally use actual or simulated shipping as ‘bait’ for luring Chinese strike aircraft raids into aerial ambushes.

It additionally should be noted that the U.S. and allied ability to delay or prevent the Chinese Ocean Surveillance System (COSS) from locating and correctly classifying transiting ships would severely complicate the PLA’s ability to cue effective anti-ship attacks. Emissions control, operational and tactical deception, and physical as well as electronic attacks against COSS assets would be essential aspects of any U.S. and allied sea lanes protection campaign. Emissions control and tactical deception would also greatly complicate PLA strike aircraft and submarines’ job of locating, correctly classifying, and targeting protected shipping. The use of “decoy groups,” perhaps using a mix of unmanned systems and actual manned low campaign-value platforms that together simulated a convoy or naval battleforce, might induce PLA attackers to waste precious time and weapons inventories engaging false targets. Better yet, it might cause them to move out of positions from which they could detect and intercept actual shipping. Attacking decoys would be particularly harmful to PLAN submarines, as every weapon wasted (and in the case of AIP boats, fuel burned moving into attack position and then "breaking datum") would eat into the amount of time the boat could remain on patrol before needing to head home for replenishment, and the time spent "breaking datum" would be time the boat would not be able to hunt effectively. Effective deception and concealment would likely have detrimental psychological effects on PLAAF and PLAN crews; over time these effects might become debilitating—and highly exploitable by U.S. and allied forces in their own right.

Lastly, U.S. political leadership might opt to selectively strike PLAAF airbases, PLAN submarine bases, and related PLA infrastructure on the Chinese mainland with long-range guided munitions in order to suppress PLA operational tempo. This would be especially likely if the PLA had set the escalation precedent of striking allied territories first at the opening of the war. Such strikes would have to be highly bounded and selective in terms of their targets in order to mitigate escalation risks. U.S. Navy submarines and U.S. Air Force intercontinental-range strike aircraft would probably perform these strikes, with additional strikes launched from Aegis combatants operating as offensive SAGs. Reducing the PLA’s ability to cycle anti-ship attackers into the Western Pacific would be of immeasurable help to the sea lanes protection effort.

With all these combined arms contributions in mind, the principal screening challenge from a surface combatant standpoint would be defending convoys and CLF ships against “leaker” anti-ship missiles fired by PLA strike aircraft and "pop-up” missile or torpedo attacks by PLAN submarines. The density of the PLA threat in a given area arguably would determine an escort’s necessary capabilities. Aegis combatants’ area air defense capabilities would probably be highly desirable for escort missions in the vicinity of the Ryukyus, Taiwan, and Luzon given the proximity to the Chinese mainland. It’s important to remember, though, that the U.S. only has nine Aegis combatants permanently homeported in Japan (with two more coming by 2017), and these warships would probably be charged with escorting the Navy’s Japan-homeported carrier, protecting the Navy’s Japan-homeported amphibious warships, executing offensive SAG missions, and performing ballistic missile defense tasks. The Navy has thirty-eight other Aegis combatants homeported in the Pacific, eleven of which are homeported in Pearl Harbor. However, not all would be surgeable due to the inter-deployment maintenance and training cycle (and this says nothing of the surge-readiness impacts stemming from the 2011 Budget Control Act). We might theorize that of the five West Coast-based carrier battleforces, the first might already be forward deployed in or near the Western Pacific as a crisis peaked, the second and third might be surgeable for arrival forward within 30 days, the fourth might be surgeable within 90 days, and the fifth would have to complete its ships’ (abbreviated) overhauls and pre-deployment workups before surging. Some of these Aegis combatants would not be detachable from their carrier battleforces, and those that were detachable might be needed more for offensive SAG operations.

Not all of the Aegis combatants would necessarily deploy with carriers, though. If we assume that two-thirds of the Pearl Harbor contingent surged as a crisis peaked, we might have seven Aegis combatants available for tasking along the First Island Chain. These warships would be well-placed for protecting shipping to the Ryukyus, Luzon, or eastern Taiwan. Even so, their use for these missions would trade against their use in offensive SAG operations.

The story would be similar with respect to the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s (JMSDF) Aegis contingent. Japan fields six Aegis DDGs and plans to build two more by 2020. Nevertheless, their principal mission of homeland ballistic missile defense would prevent some number of them from performing sea lanes defense operations. The South Korean Navy’s three Aegis DDGs are not counted in this analysis as it is unlikely they would be offered up for operations that did not involve direct defense of their country’s sea lanes.

It should be clear that Aegis combatants’ use for direct protection of shipping would trade against a large number of other high-priority missions. Moreover, Aegis combatants would generally be tethered to the western half of the waters between the two island chain lines. This would hardly preclude their use for sea lanes and CLF protection, for example as a forward screening layer by virtue of their positions, but they probably wouldn’t be able to closely escort shipping all the way from port to port.

Therein lies the logic of a small surface combatant possessing medium-range anti-air and anti-submarine capabilities. Such a combatant would be entirely sufficient for close escort within waters in which air defense is provided by friendly AEW and fighter aircraft supported by aerial refueling aircraft. Closer to the Ryukyus-Taiwan-Luzon line, this kind of combatant would backstop Aegis combatants’ defensive coverage of a convoy.

The proposed LCS-derived frigate will possess the towed active and passive sonar arrays as well as helicopter capabilities needed for effective anti-submarine warfare. CSBA’s Bryan Clark has also outlined how it could receive the requisite anti-air capabilities for shipping escort.[ii] These improvements would not allow the LCS-derived frigate to detect a submarine-launched sea-skimming anti-ship cruise missile raid beyond effective shipboard radar coverage, though. Land or sea-based AEW support via the Navy Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air capability would be crucial to that end.

Bryan has additionally proposed a longer-range shipboard anti-submarine missile than the legacy Vertical Launch Anti-Submarine Rocket; such a weapon could be very effective in disrupting a PLAN submarine’s attack preparations.[iii] It’s worth pointing out that if COSS could not provide a PLAN submarine with a targeting-quality tactical picture to support firing anti-ship cruise missiles from over-the-horizon, the PLAN submarine would have to close within the range of its onboard sensors. If we assume the primary use of sonar for this purpose, that range might be one to two convergence zones from a target (perhaps 30 nautical miles in the first case and 60 nautical miles in the second case). A shipboard “rocket-thrown torpedo” able to quickly reach out to the first convergence zone and ideally also the second would thus be highly useful.

It’s important to note that the JMSDF already fields two light destroyer/heavy frigate classes that would anchor shipping protection in the approaches to the Japanese home islands and Ryukyus.[iv] As I noted earlier, though, there might not be enough of them to fully carry the shipping escort load within the waters Japan was primarily responsible for protecting. This suggests the utility of the LCS-derived frigate gaining medium-range anti-air capabilities.

One final point is that there would be a demand for LCS-derived frigates to participate in offensive SAGs. It would accordingly be desirable to backfit as much of the LCS-derived frigates’ anti-surface and anti-submarine capabilities as possible into legacy LCS hulls in order to free up as many of the frigates as possible for shipping protection tasks. The logic for using backfit LCSs instead of the frigates in forward-operating SAGs is simple: since the frigates are not presently slotted to receive medium-range air defense capabilities, and since Aegis combatants would be principally responsible for SAG air defense anyway, then the inclusion of backfit-improved LCSs instead of air defense-capable frigates in the SAGs would not alter the existing concept of operations.

The bottom line is that protection of shipping, including the CLF, would likely be far more resource-intensive than is often assumed in the strategy debates. Sea lanes protection would be absolutely critical to the U.S. prevailing in the war, and as such merits extensive study and analysis. I will note that I have never participated in campaign analysis of these questions, nor have I ever been “read into” any such analyses that might have been conducted. Detailed quantitative analysis may very well prove that some of my key assumptions and conclusions are incorrect. Even so, my errors almost certainly center on the specifics of the threat and not on its general nature or the needed seriousness of the offsetting response.

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] The discussion that follows is heavily influenced by CAPT William J. Toti, USN (Retired). “The Hunt for Full-Spectrum ASW.” Naval Institute Proceedings 140, No. 6, June 2014. Toti’s article is seminal on modern anti-submarine warfare and should be read in its entirety in parallel to this post.

[ii] See Bryan Clark. “Commanding the Seas: A Plan to Reinvigorate U.S. Navy Surface Warfare.” (Washington, D.C., Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2014), 27, 50-51.

[iii] Ibid; 27.

[iv] A third similarly-capable JMSDF destroyer class exists but would generally be tied to providing air defense support to Kongo-class DDGs on ballistic missile defense patrols.