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.

The P-8 Poseidon and Offensive Anti-Surface Warfare

Late last month, the CIMSEC NextWar blog carried an excellent post by LT Michael Glynn, a Naval Aviator from the Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance community, on the potential utility of introducing a long-range anti-ship missile capability in the new P-8 Poseidon. LT Glynn observes that though the P-8 is armed with the legacy Harpoon Block IC anti-ship cruise missile and slated to receive the Harpoon Block II, both weapons lack the range to provide the aircraft with much standoff distance from its prey. This standoff deficit is problematic, as a P-8 tasked with performing a Harpoon engagement would be placed at undue risk if it faced adversary ships that either carried long-range Surface to Air Missiles (SAM) or were operating under the defensive coverage provided by land-based SAMs or fighters.

LT Glynn also points out that the Navy already plans to use the P-8 to provide over-the-horizon targeting support to other anti-ship missile-armed platforms. This is logical, as the P-8’s onboard radar is capable of classifying a surface contact’s type from some distance away using its Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (ISAR) imaging mode.

LT Glynn therefore argues the Poseidon would serve as a superb platform for the Navy’s planned Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM). He notes that the P-8’s combat radius and endurance, speed, and potential ability to confound an adversary’s anti-airbase targeting apparatus by engaging in dispersed flight operations from developed auxiliary airbases would make it a formidable anti-ship asset if armed with the >200nm LRASM.

I have no personal position on whether any particular future anti-ship missile should be integrated with P-8; I'll leave the operational and technical analyses on that to the professionals. He is absolutely correct, though, that the P-8 could provide significant additional offensive airborne anti-surface capability to a theater commander. This would be especially true during periods in which the available aircraft carriers in theater (or long-range land-based bombers for that matter) are tasked with higher-priority missions. Of course, this assumes the U.S. could secure air superiority in P-8 operating areas.

I also want to point out that the P-8’s electro-optical sensors might be just as valuable as its radar for providing over-the-horizon targeting support to other platforms. I’ve long argued that visual classification of contacts will be necessary to have high confidence that scarce long-range guided weapons are not being wasted against decoys. Even ISAR can, in theory, be susceptible to electronic countermeasures. Consequently, the greater the range at which a P-8 can visually classify a contact under supportive environmental conditions, the higher the potential value of its targeting picture. This range would likely not be great enough for a P-8 to perform visual classification at a safe standoff range from a well-defended ship, however. As a result, the Poseidon would only be able to independently perform the task at low risk if the adversary’s defenses were either relatively short-ranged or could be readily suppressed. 

This highlights the need for visual-range targeting support by a fairly survivable (or expendable) scout further forward, especially in locations where the adversary possesses air superiority. Indeed, even a P-8 armed with an extended range anti-ship weapon would benefit from the tactical picture relayed by such a scout.

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 Surface Navy’s Concept for Offensive SAG Operations

The surface Navy’s own vision for expanding its offensive capacity is captured in an article by VADM Thomas Rowden (Commander Naval Surface Forces), RADM Peter Gumataotao (Commander Naval Surface Force Atlantic), and RADM Peter Fanta (Director, Surface Warfare OPNAV N96) in this month’s Proceedings. Generally speaking, the article’s messages are consistent with the surface Navy’s efforts over the past few years to refocus its procurement, concept development, and training efforts around the warfare competencies that underpin sea control. As I noted on Tuesday, its working definition of sea control is also excellent.

Many of the article’s ideas echo or expand upon those proposed by Bryan Clark in his CSBA monograph. Some of my observations will accordingly be similar to those I made in my post yesterday.

First, I want to comment on several impressive statements made in the article.

Increasing surface-force lethality—particularly in our offensive weapons and the concept of operations for surface action groups (SAGs)—will provide more strike options to joint-force commanders, provide another method to seize the initiative, and add battlespace complexity to an adversary’s calculus.
 

The objective is to cause the adversary to shift his own defenses to counter our thrusts. He will be forced to allocate critical and limited resources across a larger set of defended targets, thereby improving our operational advantage to exploit adversary forces. (Pg. 19)   

Well expressed. The use of SAGs in these ways can affect more than just the adversary’s defenses—however the latter are defined. It can affect the overall positioning, employment, and operational priorities of his maritime forces writ large. In other words, it can shape the adversary’s overall operational conduct in a war. It may also be able to contribute to peacetime deterrence by encouraging an opponent’s political and military leaders to perceive that a war would likely not be quick or cheap.

…the shift to the offensive responds to the development of increasingly capable A2/AD weapons and sensors designed specifically to deny U.S. naval forces the freedom of maneuver necessary to project power. (Pg.19)

Too often we fixate on the weapons of maritime warfare. I therefore appreciate the mention of sensors here (and by implication, the methods by which those sensors disseminate their data throughout a force), as without those systems the weapons cannot be effectively employed. It must be appreciated that the two sides’ scouting and anti-scouting efforts prior to a naval clash will often be a dominant factor in deciding which side emerges victorious.

…it is important to remember that as our interests lay thousands of miles from our own coastlines, sea-based power projection is both our main competitive advantage and an absolute necessity to retain influence and to exercise global leadership. Adversaries who counter this advantage diminish the deterrent value of forward-deployed forces and negatively impact the assurances we provide to friends and allies. A shift to the offensive is necessary to “spread the playing field,” providing a more complex targeting problem while creating more favorable conditions to project power where required. (Pg. 19)

Also well stated. Sea-based power projection is often interpreted to be synonymous with land-attack strike or expeditionary force insertion. Both are indeed forms of power projection, but they are not the only ones. Any means by which some form of national power is projected ashore from the sea qualifies, whether it is the mere presence of flagged combatants in nearby waters to convey national interests (and influence other countries’ leaders’ decision-making), the use of portcalls for diplomatic ends, the conduct of information operations (such as the broadcasting of messages into a territory, or interference with some of the territory’s communications systems), or the protection/interdiction of a country’s maritime commercial activities in order to affect that country’s economic health—just to name a few. All of the above are strategically useful—and sometimes crucial—tools for a maritime power.

Distributed lethality is the condition gained by increasing the offensive power of individual components of the surface force (cruisers, destroyers, littoral combat ships [LCSs], amphibious ships, and logistics ships) and then employing them in dispersed offensive formations known as “hunter-killer SAGs.” It is the motive force behind offensive sea control. Both parts of the definition are critical; raising the lethality of the force but operating it the same way sub-optimizes the investment. Operating hunter-killer SAGs without a resulting increase in offensive power creates unacceptable risk. (Pg. 20)         

This is absolutely correct, though I’m not sure what to make of the reference to increasing the offensive power of logistics ships. As I noted yesterday, there are legal considerations that might limit the types of combat tasks that ships partially manned by civilian mariners could perform. A better means of increasing logistics ships’ offensive power would be to provide them (and the combatants they support) with capabilities supporting at-sea Vertical Launcher reload. Either way, I’d be extremely hesitant to include logistics ships in SAGs operating deep within a contested zone. Replenishment ships have high campaign-value; the loss of just one could drastically suppress SAG or carrier battleforce operations in a theater for some time. Therefore, underway replenishments should not occur in areas where the possibility of adversary attack is high enough to place logistics ships and the combatants they are servicing at undue risk.

Hunter-killer SAGs seize maritime-operations areas for subsequent activities (including power projection), perform screening operations for larger formations, and hold adversary land targets at risk. Additionally, by distributing power across a larger number of more geographically spaced units, adversary targeting is complicated and attack density is diluted. Hunter-killer SAGS are capable of defending themselves against air and missile attack, and extend that protection to expeditionary forces conducting offensive operations of their own. These hunter-killer SAGs will be networked and integrated to support complex operations even when not supported by the carrier air wing and land-based patrol aircraft. (Pg.20-21)

Excellently stated; this nicely dovetails with the topics I discussed in my commentary yesterday on Bryan’s monograph.

The article next outlines a scenario in which a SAG is tasked with reconnoitering a small isolated island with airfield facilities that can be used as a short-term Forward Operating Base (FOB) for Marine Corps F-35Bs. Several enemy surface combatants and one enemy submarine are described as operating nearby. The SAG’s capabilities for locating and destroying these threats are then listed. All fine and good, but it nevertheless begs the question of the SAG’s combat endurance based on its ordnance inventories. If all the adversary can throw at the SAG during the entirety of this operation is what’s explicitly listed in the scenario, then the SAG probably has enough ordnance to carry through. If the adversary can reorient other forces (including aircraft and long-range missiles, which are not directly mentioned in the scenario) to repeatedly attack the SAG or the FOB upon realizing what the SAG is doing within the time scale of the operation, however, then there needs to be some thought about how to address the SAG’s ordnance depletion. In other words, the Joint Force Maritime Component Commander overseeing the SAG’s operation would face the question of how long the SAG could sustain local superiority above some minimum margin fully on its own. This leads into my observations yesterday about the possibility that a SAG might need sea control support from external forces at one or more points during an operation within a contested zone.

The article follows by alluding to a desire to increase the amphibious fleet’s offensive clout:

There is a strong argument to add offensive capability to the amphibious fleet, creating within it yet another planning nightmare for an adversary, who would face expeditionary forces packing organic offensive surface-to-surface missiles and land-attack capabilities. Adding offensive firepower to the amphibious force does not relieve the surface force from its role of protection, nor does it mean that the primary mission of those ships—projecting Marine Corps power ashore—must be compromised. It does mean, however, that we should think differently about these ships and consider the power of adding additional capability to them. (Pg. 22)

I’d be very curious to know what is meant here by surface-to-surface missiles, and whether they are to be employed by the amphibious warships or by their embarked Marines once ashore.

A bit later, the article reiterates Bryan Clark’s call for a new, long-ranged anti-submarine weapon that can disrupt attacks by adversary submarines out to at least 50 nautical miles. This is a sorely-needed capability, and I am glad to see it is receiving serious attention.

After that, the article discusses how SAG command and control would need to be exercised under cyber-electromagnetic opposition:

An important aspect of distributed lethality is the ability to confidently conduct dispersed operations apart from centralized command-and-control networks. Local combat-information networks are essential to achieving localized battlespace awareness. Those networks need to be more capable than those existing today and must be persistent in a satellite-denied or jamming-intensive environment. Whether current vertical-takeoff unmanned aerial systems have the persistence necessary to support dispersed offensive operations remains to be seen, but the potential for them to augment networking and information-sharing should be examined. The ability of hunter-killer SAGs to launch and recover fixed-wing or partially fixed-wing UAVs will be pivotal to employing UAVs in this role…

…We anticipate the electromagnetic spectrum to be challenged as a part of an adversary’s A2/AD tactics. Where we do not have equipment to counter and continue networking in such an environment, we must field such as part of the development of our next generation of ships and backfit that capability to existing ships. (Pg. 23)

The authors appear to be referring to operations on interior lines of networking, with SAG-organic unmanned aircraft of varying kinds being used as ‘middleman’ data relays between the surface combatants. This is an excellent idea, as the use of highly-directional line-of-sight communications paths within this kind of relay network would make an adversary’s ability to detect, jam, or otherwise exploit those communications extraordinarily difficult. However, the selected text seems to imply that the primary means supporting operations under cyber-electromagnetic opposition are technological. Improved sensors and analytical tools for monitoring the electromagnetic environment surrounding a SAG’s operating area, not to mention improved communications systems, are certainly central. All the same, doctrine and training are irreplaceable means for filling in the capability gaps; technology alone will not be sufficient. Command by negation doctrine based upon mission-type orders will be necessary for SAGs to operate under C2-degraded conditions. So will frequent and realistic training to prepare crews for these types of conditions. The development and institution of the requisite doctrine, tactics, and training does not need to—and must not—wait until the next generation of ships enter the fleet. Much can be done along these lines using the warships and systems we already have.

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 CSBA Monograph on U.S. Navy Surface Forces

Over the holiday I read Bryan Clark’s study on reinvigorating U.S. Navy’s surface forces’ abilities to perform sea control tasks. His commendable work casts a light on surface Navy issues that generally don’t receive much attention from the think tank community—and certainly not at such high levels of detail and fluency.

Bryan’s core argument is that the surface Navy is disproportionately organized and armed for reactive defense, and that this implicitly contradicts the maxim that the side that effectively employs its offensive weaponry first in naval battle is generally victorious. He also observes that the primary weapons the surface Navy uses for defense are often at a sizable cost-per-engagement disadvantage to the offensive weapons they counter. These considerations lead him to suggest the surface Navy should cede defensive depth against an adversary’s inbound weapons in exchange for a combination of increased offensive armaments capacity and increased inner-layer defensive density. By doing so, he argues, the surface Navy would be better able to disrupt or destroy adversary platforms before the latter could attack effectively, and any weapons the adversary did succeed in launching would have to contend with a deep (and cost-per-engagement advantageous) arsenal of multiple overlapping short/medium-range defensive systems. 

Bryan addresses quite a number of topics including fleet doctrine, top-level requirements for weapons, ideal characteristics for the LCS-derived Small Surface Combatant, and potential uses of U.S. Coast Guard and Military Sealift Command (MSC) ships to shoulder more of the overseas maritime security cooperation task load. Since several of his ideas relate closely to subjects I wrote about last fall, I will focus my commentary accordingly.

Sea Control, Campaign Design, and the Carrier-Surface Combatant Relationship

Bryan asserts that the Navy’s surface combatants must possess some capacity for attaining and then holding sea control (e.g., a temporary local margin of naval superiority) on their own in a notional major conflict because large-deck carriers’ air wings might not be available to contribute. I strongly agree, but my reasoning is different.

Bryan suggests the carriers’ unavailability might result from their being engaged in power projection operations elsewhere in theater. It seems unlikely, though, that conditions could be shaped to allow carrier battleforces to operate deep within a contested zone at a tolerable degree of risk relatively early in a conflict against a strong adversary. This would be especially true if the contested zone’s inner sections were adjacent to the adversary’s own borders. Furthermore, it normally takes a minimum of two carriers on scene to conduct sustained land-attack operations in even a lesser contingency, let alone to conduct operations of any kind inside a contested zone. Given that the presently-programmed 30-year carrier force structure means deployments of a single carrier within a given region will be the norm unless a crisis erupts, and given that the time lag for a second carrier to arrive on the periphery of a contested zone from elsewhere could be measured in weeks, there is a considerable chance that insufficient carriers would be on hand to perform early-phase land-attack strike tasks. For these reasons, the largest share of these early-phase tasks deep inside the contested zone would likely be allocated to missile-armed submarines and land-based long-range aircraft. Not only would these platforms be less vulnerable in such areas to the adversary’s attacks than carriers, but they would also be comparatively more available for this tasking.

Unlike the case with early-phase deep power projection, however, a battleforce containing a single carrier could contribute immensely to protecting situationally prioritized segments of the sea and air lines of communication that are necessary for U.S. military access to the combat theater as well as for embattled allies’ economic sustenance. A single-carrier battleforce operating from the contested zone’s periphery could similarly provide support to operations by Surface Action Groups (SAG) or other friendly forces further forward on a periodic basis. These would arguably be the most important—and in some cases, irreplaceable—roles for carriers during the early phases of a major maritime war.

This is where the doctrinal changes and capability enhancements Bryan recommends come into play. The in-theater carrier shortage means that mission-tailored U.S. Navy SAGs must be able to operate at some distance inside a contested zone for multi-day periods with limited to no external air support at a tolerable degree of risk. These operations might be offensive sweeps to draw out and then destroy adversary maritime forces. They might be reconnaissance missions or raids against adversary forward operating bases or expeditionary lodgments. They might be missions to provide friendly forces on the ‘frontline’ with supporting fires or defensive coverage. They might be convoy escort missions supporting the flow of supplies and reinforcements to these forces, or perhaps the flow of economic and basic humanitarian goods to embattled allied populations. They might even be operations to induce the adversary to react in ways that other friendly forces could then exploit.

The extent to which surface forces could perform any of these tasks at a particular distance inside a contested zone for a particular length of time would be determined by the margin of temporary local superiority they could sustain under such circumstances. It should be clear that the deeper an operating area might lie within the contested zone (and the closer that area was to the adversary’s homeland), the harder it would be for any SAG to persist in operating there. Bryan is thus absolutely correct in that the more offensive and defensive capacity that can be packed into existing surface combatants, the longer on the margins they would be able to operate more or less on their own at some distance inside a contested zone before their ordnance depletion reached the point that their margin of local superiority—and thus staying power—was all but gone. These considerations combined with the availability of carriers and other maritime forces to support SAG operations as deemed necessary would shape the sequence in which individual maritime operations were conducted a U.S. campaign. Precursor or parallel operations by other forces accordingly might be required to pave the way for a SAG’s operation.

This would not change dramatically as reinforcement carriers arrived in theater. Some would likely be tasked with extending greater protection over intra-theater maritime lines of communication. Others might be used to take on some share of Joint power projection tasks as submarines’ and long-range air forces’ standoff-range strike missile inventories became depleted. It should be noted, though, that these power projection operations could not be performed unless the carriers and their surface combatant escorts had already obtained the requisite sea control. As a matter of fact, a carrier battleforce’s tactical actions to seize and retain sea control could be just as consequential in a campaign context as the power projection tasks they might support. For instance, if a carrier battleforce could sustain a certain margin of temporary local superiority when clashing with the adversary’s maritime forces, its ability to inflict outsized damage or losses on the latter while absorbing tolerable damage or losses of its own would help erode the adversary’s probable advantages in the overall theater conventional military balance as well as arrest the adversary’s campaign progress. Likewise, the adversary’s allocation of maritime forces to fight a carrier battleforce (and any friendly forces supporting it) might result in fewer adversary forces available for operations elsewhere in theater during some period; this could be exploited by other friendly forces including independently-operating SAGs. The use of carriers in any of these ways should of course be governed by calculated risk, and precursor/parallel operations by other elements of the Joint force would very likely be necessary or desirable to create particularly advantageous margins of temporary local superiority.

The Airborne Early Warning Caveat

The greatest challenge facing SAGs operating without external air support would be their ability to detect and engage adversary platforms (or inbound threat weapons) at the most tactically advantageous distances. As I’ve previously noted, AEW is crucial to gaining and then holding sea control under intense opposition. Shipboard sensor ranges are limited by their height of eye relative to the earth’s curvature; an inbound air threat flying beneath or beyond this coverage will not be detected in the absence of offboard sensor support. It should also be pointed out that carrier-organic AEW is presently central to maximizing the effective range of the shipboard SM-6 interceptor missile via the Navy Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA) concept. While it would be possible for Air Force or allied AEW aircraft to support U.S. Navy SAGs, I am aware of no plans to develop capabilities for integrating either in NIFC-CA. Nor are there any plans I’m aware of to install the large aperture AEW radars necessary for long-range/wide-area surveillance on unmanned aircraft.[i] All of this drastically affects a surface combatant’s ability to engage an adversary aircraft before the latter can launch its own missiles.

SAGs can mitigate this somewhat by positioning their combatants so that the group’s fused sensor picture provides expanded coverage as well as engagement depth. Not all of these combatants need to employ their active sensors; it is perfectly valid for some to only search using passive sensors depending upon the tactical situation. Nevertheless, actively radiating SAG units expose themselves to counterdetection and targeting by adversary platforms operating outside the SAG’s sensor coverage. The same would also be true for the use of a SAG’s helicopters to perform AEW against inbound sea-skimming ASCMs, as the helicopters’ necessary proximity to SAG units to perform this task would cue the adversary’s reconnaissance and possibly targeting efforts. The risk that a SAG’s active sensor usage poses may remain entirely tolerable if the SAG possesses a sizable margin of temporary local superiority against the adversary’s forces. As this margin decreases, though, tactical (and operational) risk increases. Below some threshold margin, it very simply may not be possible for a SAG to operate at acceptable risk in some area for some span of time without carrier/land-based large AEW aircraft support. This further highlights the importance of a campaign’s operational sequence, particularly with respect to the role of precursor/parallel operations in helping a SAG gain and hold sea control.

Engagement Depth, Ordnance Inventories, and Targeting Confidence

Bryan correctly notes that shorter-range defensive weapons tend to be more affordable-per-engagement than longer-range defensive weapons, and that the latter tend to take up more shipboard space than the former. He consequently argues that by concentrating defensive firepower in a single inner layer with a roughly 30 miles radius, each surface combatant not only gains more favorable cost-per-salvo ratios relative to the adversary’s inbound weapons but also gains more opportunities to engage the adversary’s ‘archer’ aircraft with SM-6 before they can fire their ‘arrows.’

The implication here is that surface combatants are most likely to detect inbound Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles (ASCM) at the shipboard radar horizon. This is certainly true for sea-skimming ASCMs to a considerable degree, but not all ASCMs are pure sea-skimmers. For example, some spend a good portion of their flyout at high altitudes, and a few older types perform terminal dives on their targets. Shorter-ranged defensive interceptors can certainly be used against these threats, but it might be desirable to retain the option of situationally employing longer-ranged interceptor missiles (though not necessarily SM-6) against them as well. It should also be noted that an interceptor missile’s ability to intercept any particular inbound threat is often a factor of the ‘engagement geometry.’ Assuming sufficiently timely sensor detection and tracking of a given air threat, an interceptor missile’s effective range against that threat will be closer to its ‘advertised’ maximum range when the threat is headed more-or-less directly towards the interceptor’s firing unit than when the threat is crossing at a tangential distance to the firing unit. If SAG units are intended to mutually support each other within an inner zone defense, this means that the practical separation distance between those units will be less than the ‘advertised’ maximum reach of their shorter-range interceptor missiles; Bryan notes as much in his Footnote #51 (Pg 20). Many perfectly valid SAG tactics allow for minimal to no mutual kinetic defensive support. Greater separation between a SAG’s combatants might be desirable at other times, though, in order to expand the volume covered by the SAG’s sensors or to support concealment tactics. If either of these are the case, and if some degree of mutual kinetic defensive support is desired, then use of a somewhat longer-ranged interceptor becomes necessary. Lastly, it should be noted that if ‘archer’ aircraft could fire their ‘arrows’ from outside SM-6 range (which is well within the realm of the possible), SAG defenses would have to cope with a much larger inbound salvo. The preceding considerations lead me to conclude that Bryan’s call to rely predominantly on a dense inner zone defense is correct, but that some number of relatively affordable medium-range interceptors that can reach beyond 30 miles will still need to be carried in combatants’ vertical launchers for the reasons I’ve outlined.

Not all inner zone defenses need to be kinetic, however. Bryan correctly observes that Electronic Warfare (EW) systems can contribute greatly to defensive effectiveness. He also correctly observes that the short distances and timeframes involved during inner zone defense mean that even the most effective of shipboard EW systems will not allow a surface combatant to refrain from firing interceptor missiles against a given inbound threat. There are also physics-based limitations on the jamming techniques a shipboard EW system can employ. The same physics suggests the value of offboard EW systems, especially in circumstances where their placement can result in inbound threats never detecting or otherwise locking on to defended combatants.[ii]  With adequate separation between offboard EW systems and defended combatants, it becomes theoretically possible to cause a threat ASCM to commit itself early enough towards a harmless direction such that shipboard interceptor missiles can actually be withheld. Perhaps more significantly, the intelligent use of offboard EW systems can contribute enormously to an overall deception and concealment plan that prevents a SAG from being detected or correctly classified by the adversary in the first place. Consequently, I would add ship-launched offboard EW systems to Bryan’s list of future ‘ordnance’ that would be useful for expanding the surface Navy’s sea control capabilities.

All the same, nothing prevents the adversary from employing similar EW methods to defeat the surface Navy’s own offensive weapons. An adversary’s effective use of EW in tandem with other forms of deception could entice surface combatants into wasting their limited longer-range missile inventories against decoys. As I wrote last fall, the Navy faced this exact problem during the Cold War. Thus, from a purely technological perspective (i.e., excluding the non-material solutions I mentioned in a follow-on piece), the use of multi-phenomenology sensors (and often visual-range examination of contacts) is necessary to have high confidence in a long-range targeting picture. While SAG-organic scouts such as manned helicopters or unmanned aircraft can perform this role against distant surface contacts, it is less clear what organic tools a SAG could to perform it against distant air contacts. Shipboard radars could use non-cooperative target recognition techniques to perform some air contact classification, but their doing so could be subject to EW countermeasures by the adversary. Bryan’s call for improved inner layer defensive density resultantly gains additional importance, as it would provide a SAG’s only other recourse in the event an adversary’s deceptions defeat a SAG’s offensive use of ASCMs or SM-6.

In turn, this reemphasizes my earlier point that the location and length of a SAG operation within a contested zone must be predicated on its ability to sustain its margin of local temporary superiority above some threshold. If it cannot do so on its own, and if the operation in question cannot be delayed until circumstances are more favorable, then it will either need external air support at some stage (such as for detection and outer-layer visual-range identification of air contacts) or the theater commander will have to accept the elevated risks.

Other Thoughts

• One of Bryan’s most important observations was in his Footnote #39 (pg 14). In describing an adversary’s reliance on wide-area surveillance and data relay systems to cue attacks by Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles (ASBM), he suggests that “surface combatants would be more effective in targeting these enablers, rather than planning to attack mobile ASBM launchers themselves from 800 - 1,000 nm away.” This is absolutely correct. What’s more, these surveillance/reconnaissance 'systems of systems' are likely to be used to cue anti-ship attacks by other platforms such as submarines and land-based aircraft. Degrading or neutralizing these constituent sensor and communication systems—however locally or temporarily—using deception, concealment, or (as feasible) physical attack will be a critical prerequisite for sea control within a contested zone. Doing so essentially represents a 'mission-kill' against the adversary's ability to perform over-the-horizon targeting. At the campaign-level, these anti-scouting efforts will be central to rolling back the adversary’s offensive progress and eroding his military potential in theater. Surface forces will have major roles to play in this fight, but it will often require contributions from other Joint combined arms to be successful. 
• I agree with Bryan’s three desired design attributes for future shipboard missile development: offensive capability, multi-mission usability, and smaller physical size. I would also add wartime producibility to Bryan’s list. 
• I strongly support the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) concept for all the reasons Bryan articulates. Nevertheless, I believe more analytical attention needs to be paid to how it will be provided with high-confidence targeting cues at distances beyond the range of SAG-embarked aircraft or in hotly opposed areas where the MQ-4C Triton or P-8 Orion might not be risked. The Navy’s Outlaw Shark over-the-horizon targeting experiments of the late 1970s highlighted the extreme difficulties this situation presents, especially if missile cueing depends upon the adversary’s Emissions Control indiscipline.[iii] Visual-range confirmation of a target’s classification may be necessary for employing LRASM with high confidence. This may be a potential major role for the proposed Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) system. 
• Aircraft embarked in combatants will remain the most lethal means for time-sensitive attacks against a nearby adversary submarine in the absence of land-based anti-submarine aircraft support, but as Bryan observes there is a need to buy some time for the embarked aircraft to fly out to the threat. The existing Vertically-Launched Anti-Submarine Rocket (VLA) does not have sufficient range to disrupt attacks by adversary submarines that are solely using their organic sensors to target the protagonist’s battleforce. I therefore strongly agree with Bryan’s recommendation for a new, longer-ranged quick-reaction anti-submarine weapon.
• Bryan is entirely correct that the Navy’s programmed shortfall of Small Surface Combatants (SSC) capable of performing wartime convoy and combat logistics ship escort duties means these tasks would fall on the AEGIS cruiser and destroyer force, which itself would be heavily in demand during a conflict. He is also correct that the SSC shortfall in general is pulling cruisers and destroyers into performing peacetime security cooperation tasks that detract from their combat readiness. I agree with his recommendation that the sea services should find ways to use U.S. Coast Guard and MSC ships to take on some share of peacetime as well as wartime SSC missions. In particular, I think it would be worth examining whether the Coast Guard’s High Endurance Cutters could be outfitted and their crews regularly trained to take on some share of wartime escort duties in low to moderate threat environments (e.g. outside or on the periphery of a contested zone). With respect to MSC ships, though, I would note that their hypothetical combat activities may be constrained by international legal considerations. These need to be fully investigated when developing concepts for how they might be used to take on SSC-type tasks.
• The Navy’s proposed SSC solution is to modify the two existing LCS variants’ designs so that the FY19 and follow ships receive permanently-installed anti-submarine and long-range anti-ship capabilities as well as improved EW capabilities. Bryan reasonably recommended that they should also receive a medium-range air defense interceptor such as the Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM) that would allow them to protect escorted units, but this is not part of the proposed program of record. As a result, wartime convoys approaching a combat zone in which there is a considerable air (or submarine-launched ASCM) threat will likely need to be augmented by AEGIS combatants or external tactical air support. This will absolutely be the case if a convoy must traverse part of a contested zone. Convoy demands are likely to be high in a war against a great power adversary, and as such the availability of AEGIS combatants for offensive SAG operations may be limited by the demands on them for convoy protection.

Tomorrow, I will examine the surface Navy’s leadership’s article on SAG concepts in the January Proceedings.

--Updated 8:43PM 1/14/15 to clarify why longer-ranged interceptors might be needed by a SAG if the separation between its units is increased, and to delete a typo in the beginning of the 'Other Thoughts' subsection--

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 X-band AN/ZPY-3 radar on the MQ-4C Triton is a surface surveillance and ship classification sensor. It is not suited for long-range AEW.

[ii] See 1. Dave Adamy. “EW Against Modern Radars-Part 2: Radar Jamming Techniques.” Journal of

Electronic Defense 33, No. 1 (January 2010): 44-46; 2. Thomas W. Kimbrell. “Electronic Warfare in Ship Defense.” Technical Digest, Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division, (September 2004): 85-86; 3. Craig Payne. Principles of Naval Weapon Systems. (Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 2006), 91-92.

[iii] See Norman Friedman. Network-Centric Warfare: How Navies Learned to Fight Smarter Through Three World Wars. (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2009), 206-210.

Sea Control and Surface Forces: the Theoretical Foundation

This week I want to talk a bit about sea control and surface warfare. Late last year, Bryan Clark at CSBA published an excellent monograph on the subjects. More recently, the surface Navy’s leadership published an article in the January issue of Proceedings regarding potential uses of Surface Action Groups (SAG) to perform sea control tasks. I will be writing more about both of those pieces over the next few days.

In preparation, though, I think it’s important to review the nuances of classical sea control theory. Towards the end of Part II Chapter I of Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, Julian Corbett explained that:

If the object of the command of the sea is to control communications, it is obvious it may exist in various degrees. We may be able to control the whole of the common communications as the result either of great initial preponderance or of decisive victory. If we are not sufficiently strong to do this, we may still be able to control some of the communications; that is, our control may be general or local. Obvious as the point is, it needs emphasizing, because of a maxim that has become current that "the sea is all one." Like other maxims of the kind, it conveys a truth with a trail of error in its wake. The truth it contains seems to be simply this, that as a rule local control can only avail us temporarily, for so long as the enemy has a sufficient fleet anywhere, it is theoretically in his power to overthrow our control of any special sea area.(Pg. 103)

Per Corbett, then, “general” sea control by a navy is only possible when it possesses an exceptionally vast margin of superiority over its opponent(s) throughout “the whole of the common communications.” Yet, if even an enfeebled opponent typically retains some capacity for contesting the protagonist’s sea control in “any special sea area,” then “general” sea control becomes more an illustrative theoretical construct than something practically attainable. The obvious implication is that sea control is normally obtainable and exercisable only locally and temporarily, with the expanse of control determined by the protagonist’s margin of superiority within the area in question over some period. This means the act of obtaining and then exercising temporary localized sea control must have a discrete mission-centric purpose. After all, it would be illogical to expend such effort just to seek bounded sea control for its own sake.

Another question follows close behind: how much maritime power (e.g. aerospace forces, surface combatants, and submarines as well as the surveillance/reconnaissance apparatus that supports each of them) must be concentrated to achieve the necessary margin of temporary local superiority to perform some task? Against a relatively weak adversary, the answer is often ‘not much.’ As we witnessed during the twelve years of maritime interdiction operations within the Arabian Gulf following the first Gulf War, individual surface combatants (or sometimes small groupings of them) can be completely adequate for gaining and then exercising sea control under such conditions. The more maritime power that an adversary can concentrate against the protagonist in some sea area over some period, though, the more maritime power the protagonist must apply to sustain sea control. At some point, it becomes no longer feasible for the protagonist to ‘charge into the lion’s den’ or otherwise operate deep within a contested zone for an extended amount of time. There simply may not be enough weapons in a naval battleforce of any practical (let alone available) size to perform the requisite anti-air, anti-surface, anti-submarine, and anti-sensor/communications tasks of sea control during a particular period in a particular area.

The interactions between location, time, purpose, and attainable margin of superiority compel the protagonist theater-level commander to be judicious, then, in applying maritime power. In major war, the theater-level commander does this via sequential or cumulative campaigns consisting of individual operations that are designed to incrementally achieve some set of strategic objectives. If strategic objectives dictate that certain naval tasks be accomplished in some area, but the protagonist’s naval forces do not by default possess the requisite margin of superiority to do so at an acceptable degree of risk, then the protagonist must conduct one or more preliminary or parallel operations that create the conditions for achieving the main operation’s margin of superiority in space and time. This also says nothing of the fact that some strategic objectives are (or should be viewed as) more crucial to achieve earlier in a campaign than others. For instance, in the case of the United States, no application of military power in an overseas region to reinforce and defend an ally—or deter or compel an adversary—can succeed in the absence of secure sea and air lines of communication for conveying that power across the ocean and then distributing it within theater.

With all this in mind, let’s look at how the Navy’s apparent informal definition of sea control has evolved over the past five years. In Naval Operations Concept 2010, sea control was described as:

The employment of naval forces, supported by land and air forces as appropriate, in order to achieve military objectives in vital sea areas. Such operations include destruction of enemy naval forces, suppression of enemy sea commerce, protection of vital sea lanes, and establishment of local military superiority in areas of naval operations. (Pg. 52)

This is preceded in the text by the following key details:

Sea control is the essence of seapower—it allows naval forces to close within striking distance of land to neutralize land-based threats to maritime access, which in turn enhances freedom of action at sea and the resulting ability to project power ashore…The vastness of the world’s oceans makes it impossible for the Naval Service to achieve global sea control. The combatant commanders’ operational objectives, the strategic maritime geography, and the capabilities of potential adversaries drive the scale of forward naval presence and surge capability necessary to conduct effective local and regional sea control operations. (Pg. 51)

The 2010 definition thus addressed the fact that sea control is localized, purpose-based, and affected by the attainable margin of superiority. It did not, though, address sea control’s temporal aspect. As a result, the 2010 definition could not provide context for bounding any particular operation’s practical duration given the intensity of opposition in a particular local area. Nor could it provide context for informing when any particular operation should be conducted within a campaign’s operational sequence.

Contrast the 2010 definition with the implicit definition in this month’s Proceedings article by the surface Navy’s leadership; I have underlined portions for emphasis:

A new emphasis on sea control derives from the simple truth that navies cannot persistently project power from water space they do not control. Nor can navies guarantee the free movement of goods in the face of a power-seeking adversary whose objective is to limit the freedom of the maritime commons within their sphere of influence. Sea control is the necessary precondition for virtually everything else the Navy does, and its provision can no longer be assumed. Threats ranging from low-end piracy to the navies of high-end nation-states pose challenges that we must be prepared to counter—and ultimately defeat.

Sea control does not mean command of all the seas, all the time. Rather, it is the capability and capacity to impose localized sea control when and where it is required to enable other objectives to be met, holding it as long as is necessary to accomplish those objectives. We must begin to treat expanses of ocean the way we viewed islands during World War II—as areas to be seized for conducting follow-on power-projection operations. Additionally, we should recognize that the enemy gets a vote, and that all of the elements of the Navy’s Fleet architecture are unlikely to be available when the shooting starts. The day-to-day persistence of the surface force means that it must be prepared to immediately go on the offensive in order to create conditions for the success of follow-on forces. (Pg. 20)

This is simply excellent. Not only is the temporal aspect is captured here alongside localization and purpose, but the logic of increasing the attainable margins of sea control via sequential operations within a campaign’s context is made more explicit. What’s more, the implications for designing operating concepts, contingency campaign plans, and even force architecture are profound. I’ll be exploring some of these things in my next two posts.

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Beginning with this post, I am going to start applying the views disclaimer below. Although no one in my company’s leadership has asked me to do this, I believe it is important to make clear that the opinions I voice in my posts are mine alone. This disclaimer should be interpreted as also applying to all my previous posts; none of the topics I covered directly related to the work I do. In the event that I choose to write about a topic that is directly related to my work, I will disclose as much.

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.