Observations on CS-21R

It’s taken me a few weeks to find the time to finish reading CS-21R and write up my thoughts. Overall I believe the document does an excellent job articulating how the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard intend to ‘man, train, and equip’ in this era of uneasy international peace, increasingly revisionist and adversarial great powers, dramatic technological change, and American self-imposed fiscal paralysis. The signals CS-21R sends regarding the importance of being prepared both materially and intellectually for waging major maritime war are exemplary, especially in the sense that our prospects for preventing such a war depend greatly upon that exact preparation. Likewise, CS-21R’s discussions of how the cyber and electromagnetic domains are central to modern warfare—and what steps the sea services will take to ensure their readiness to fight in those domains—are simply outstanding.

Strengths

Here are the items I found particularly commendable:

• Continues 2007 CS-21’s emphasis on international maritime security cooperation. Restates importance of working with longstanding allies, building new partnerships with formally non-aligned states, and even cooperating with competitors where possible on enhancing the security of the global maritime commons. Recognizes allies would play essential roles in major maritime combat, and that further interoperability enhancements are therefore required.

• Cements ADM Greenert’s maxim of “Warfighting First.” Sends unambiguous message that fleet design, operating concept development, platform and system procurement, and force-wide training are to be focused on developing the capabilities needed for waging major maritime war.

• Strong emphasis on maintaining peacetime forward naval presence. Details specific forces that will be deployed (whether permanently or rotationally) in specific regions for certain peacetime missions.

• Addresses the global strategic changes since 2007 CS-21. Chinese and Russian behavior called out as major influences on CS-21R. Chinese and Russian maritime warfare capabilities are clear factors (to those versed in modern maritime warfare concepts, emerging defense technologies, competitors’ orders of battle, etc.) driving the required Navy capabilities and competencies outlined in the document.

• Clearly informed by the Joint Operational Access Concept (JOAC) and Air-Sea Battle/Joint Concept for Access and Maneuver in the Global Commons (JAM-GC). Heavy attention to measures for establishing/restoring/maintaining access to theaters of interest whether during peacetime or war. Advances idea that holistic ‘All Domain Access’ is a core Navy function on par with deterrence, sea control, power projection, and maritime security. Whether one agrees with it being a Navy function or not, it unmistakably indicates that Navy leadership is prioritizing development of capabilities, competencies, and operating concepts that will help overcome access challenges.

• Underscores expectation that future combat (especially in the event of major war) will occur under conditions of intense cyber-electromagnetic opposition. Articulates roles of cyberspace operations, electronic warfare, and command and control warfare in obtaining operational access as well as in defeating adversary forces.

• Articulates the minimum overall fleet size as well as the minimum inventories of major power projection combatant types needed to execute the Maritime Strategy (and by implication national grand strategy) in peacetime and war. Note, though, that this force structure is—by definition—likely right up against the strategic “tipping point” as defined in CNA’s March 2010 study of the same name. James Holmes thoroughly dissects exactly this point in an excellent piece at Real Clear Defense this week.

• Strategic deterrence emphasized as a principal Navy mission.

• Recognizes that projection of power ashore can represent all forms of national power; it is not just physical strikes or amphibious assaults.

• Recognizes that sea control is a precondition for performing power projection tasks.

• Expands details regarding how Marine Corps and Coast Guard will be employed to execute the vision as compared to 2007 CS-21.

“Must” Statements

It is quite revealing to look at what CS-21R lists as imperatives. Unlike “Will” statements that pronounce intentions, a “Must” statement implies requirements imposed on the sea services. Of the five “Musts” in the document, three are directly related to cyberspace operations and electromagnetic warfare:

• “Naval forces must have the resilience to operate under the most hostile cyber and EM conditions.” (Pg. 8)

•  “…we must become more comprehensive in our offensive capability to defeat the system rather than countering individual weapons.” (refers to adversary long-range maritime strike systems, Pg. 21)

• “…the Navy and Marine Corps must maintain a fleet of more than 300 ships, including 11 aircraft carriers, 14 ballistic missile submarines (replaced by 12 Ohio Replacement Program SSBN(X)), and 33 amphibious ships, while the Coast Guard must maintain a fleet of 91 National Security, Offshore Patrol, and Fast Response Cutters.” (Pg. 27)

• “[Naval combatants] “must be complemented by reconfigurable platforms such as the Joint High Speed Vessel, National Security Cutter, and auxiliaries including Large, Medium-Speed Roll-on/Roll-off (LMSR) ships, Dry Cargo/Ammunition (T-AKE) ships, Mobile Landing Platforms (MLP), and the Afloat Forward Staging Base (AFSB).” (Pg. 28)

• “The electromagnetic-cyber environment is now so fundamental to military operations and so critical to our national interests that we must treat it as a warfighting domain on par with sea, air, land, and space.” (Pg. 33)

Concerns

There are countless views on what CS-21R should or should not have contained, should or should not have said, and so forth. You can’t fully satisfy everyone all of the time, myself included.

In his comments on Bryan McGrath’s ID post on CS-21R, John McLain (formerly of OPNAV N51) talks about the numerous revisions that occurred while routing the draft document up the chain and across organizations for review. I’ve done my share of document development and routing, and I fully appreciate John’s point: consensus generally requires tradeoffs and compromises on content. He’s also quite correct that the process for developing a strategy, tracking its implementation, communicating its ideas, and adapting it over time as the strategic environment changes and lessons are learned is just as important as what the product document actually says.

In hopes of contributing to the next iteration of this process, I’ve listed my main critiques of CS-21R below:

• CS-21R seems to assume the reader already agrees with the assertion that forward naval presence is of vital importance to U.S. grand strategy. Though the document summarizes major benefits that flow from presence, it surprisingly does not go to the lengths previous publicly-released U.S. Maritime Strategies did to underscore the case. The 1986 publicly-released Maritime Strategy document was remarkably specific in explaining conventional deterrence’s dependence upon forward presence (examples: limited time available for mobilization, sheer distances to reach theaters of interest, immediate and short-term military balances in theater with emphasis on warfighting capabilities, and need for broad escalation management options). 2007 CS-21 did so as well, albeit to a lesser degree given the strategic environment of the time. The question of whether or not CS-21R should have been more detailed on this topic is not academic, as it is clear that many of America’s political leaders and opinion elites either do not appreciate what is at risk as forward naval presence (and domestic Coast Guard coverage) declines—or loudly refute these risks exist. I would argue that no good opportunity to increase the visibility of one’s case to those open to being convinced (especially by countering critics’ arguments) should ever be rejected. 

• Despite exceptional discussions of how forward presence will be achieved despite insufficient force structure to meet full Combatant Commander demands, there is limited discussion of how this presence will trade against the rest of the fleet’s surge readiness (even if the 2011 Budget Control Act ceilings are repealed). The Optimized Fleet Response Plan is explained, but the issues it mitigates are alluded to rather than spelled out. A non-navalist reader might come away with the incorrect impression that there were no serious trades between forward presence and fleet readiness/reset.

• On that note, there is no discussion of the steps or resources needed to reset the fleet from the maintenance/manning shortfalls of the past decade and the more recent optempo crisis. This is one of the highest priority issues articulated in Navy leadership’s Congressional testimony as well as public statements, but it is surprisingly not addressed in CS-21R.

• CS-21R acknowledges conventional deterrence has requirements, variables, and implications that are distinct from those concerning nuclear deterrence. But unlike the publicly-released 1986 document or 2007 CS-21, CS-21R doesn’t connect how everything else it articulates is informed by basic conventional deterrence principles or otherwise promotes deterrence credibility. The discussions of how naval combatants support conventional deterrence is implicitly power projection-centric; the wording creates an impression that conventional deterrence centers on strike capabilities (and land-attack at that). The importance of sea control to deterrence by denial (examples: war at sea operations, protection of vital sea lanes for allies economic sustenance as well as reinforcement of our and their forward defenses) is overlooked. Additionally, CS-21R does not explain how the forces allocated to each theater of interest will support deterrence beyond simply ‘showing the flag;’ their latent warfighting roles within a theater deterrent are left implicit.

• Beyond platforms supporting strategic deterrence (SSBNs) or heavy conventional power projection (e.g. carriers, amphibious warships), it is left unclear how the rest of the fleet’s platforms trade against each other. SSN and LCS-FF acquisitions are arguably the Navy’s highest priority non-capital combatant programs right now per Navy leadership talking point emphasis, but neither is mentioned explicitly in that context. Nor is there any allusion to what will be sacrificed or what risks will be accepted to make those procurements possible. These considerations will become increasingly important in preparing U.S. maritime strategy for the fiscal pressures that will emerge during the final years of this decade and stretch into the 2020s…regardless of whether the 2011 Budget Control Act ceilings are lifted.

• CS-21R’s discussion of sea control recognizes that the condition reflects local margin of superiority, but it does not note that this condition is generally temporary. It also does not note that sea control is not something sought in and of itself, but rather is sought for discrete operational purposes.

•  Strategic sealift is mentioned but its criticality is not underlined. America’s ability to wage war overseas depends on strategic sealift; this message should not be left implicit.

• Standing peacetime European maritime security and deterrence is clearly being left to European militaries, with contributions from the four BMD-capable DDGs in Rota and forces transiting through EUCOM en route to other theaters. This may be all that is possible given the U.S. Navy’s fleet size and the operational demands in East/Southeast/Southwest Asia. It is also likely consistent with current Defense Planning Guidance. It strikes me as odd, though, for this to be the case in the theater in which the risk of major war is presently highest and conventional deterrence credibility is accordingly most needed. In this light, it is even odder that the section defining how and why the Navy will achieve presence in the European theater does not mention the Russian threat at all (especially when Russian revanchism was mentioned in the global security environment section). Europe is primarily referred to as a bridge for projecting power into other theaters or as a locus for maritime security efforts; in other words a means to an end rather than a set of allies (and a representation of values) that we are committed to defend. Given the fact that European militaries (and especially navies) are struggling for funding and are already far less capable than the U.S. Navy, it is questionable whether this element of CS-21R will endure long if Russian coercion against NATO continues to increase. If this is the case, then there is a gap in CS-21R regarding how trades with presence/operational requirements in other theaters will be managed.

•  The 1986 publicly-released Maritime Strategy was a product of the pre-Goldwater/Nichols era, and so its discussion of how the Navy would move pieces around on the global chessboard in a general war does not carry over into the Combatant Commander-dominant era in which CS-21R resides. But the 1986 document also explained how the Navy’s basic operating concepts provided specific means for achieving strategic ends in a generic major war. It outlined how each element of the fleet would operate together (as well as with Joint and allied forces) within combined arms campaign constructs. That’s still germane today under ‘man-train-equip,’ and it can be argued that it’s a crucial missing piece for justifying the force structure articulated by CS-21R as well as explaining to non-experts (and especially some critics) how a modern combined arms maritime force works.

o   Example: strike is the single explicitly articulated mission for aircraft carriers in CS-21R, even though their roles supporting sea control are arguably just as important. The caption addressing the E-2D Hawkeye’s role in the Navy Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air concept (pg. 20) speaks indirectly to the carrier’s central sea control roles; it is surprising that this was not echoed in the document’s main body narrative.

o   Example: very limited discussion of how the sea services are supported by the Air Force (beyond aerial refueling and intelligence/surveillance/reconnaissance) and the Army (beyond Integrated Air and Missile Defense), or how the Navy supports those services (beyond kinetic and non-kinetic fires, plus intelligence/surveillance/reconnaissance). This could have been used to further connect how CS-21R connects with JOAC and JAM-GC.

My critiques should not be interpreted to detract from the exceptional work done by the CS-21R development team. They have powerfully communicated the message that readiness to deter—and if necessary wage—major war is once again America’s sea services’ paramount priority. They have heralded the idea that 21^st Century seapower will depend in great part on the ability to fight in the cyber and electromagnetic domains. They have upheld the notion that maritime security cooperation remains central to the functioning of the international system.

Job well done.

 

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.

A Taxonomy of Forward Naval Presence

Robert Rubel has an excellent article in this month’s Proceedings on the challenges of balancing the overseas naval presence necessary for executing America’s post-Second World War forward defense strategy with the need to restore and preserve the readiness of our war-winning surge forces. As Deputy Secretary of Defense Work observed last November, the mismatch between the strategic demand signal for peacetime presence and our supply of combat-ready deployable forces has passed the threshold of unsustainability. New strategic solutions are necessary.

There will be no ‘silver bullets,’ however. Each potential option will come with tradeoffs regarding deterrence utility, war-waging capability, peacetime operating tempo and readiness, political supportability (both here and in allied/partner nations hosting our forces), and so on.

It is therefore absolutely necessary to have precise terminology that characterizes how a given degree of forward naval presence in a given region inherently affects our approaches to deterrence and defense in that region. Robert has supplied exactly that with his article.

Robert’s taxonomy, from maximum to minimum:

·         War-winning power forward, or rather the standing presence necessary to defeat a given adversary quickly and decisively.

·         Assured defense, or rather a standing presence sufficient to successfully defend an embattled ally but not necessarily defeat the adversary.

·         Delay/Disruption, or rather the standing presence necessary to prevent a fait accompli or otherwise ‘hold the line’ in defense of an ally until war-winning surge forces arrive in theater.

·         Trip Wire, or rather a standing presence designed specifically to incur a (presumably assured) American intervention using surge forces but not to credibly achieve defensive tasks on its own.

·         Virtual Presence, or in other words the use of U.S. political or treaty commitments to surge forces in the event of a conflict in lieu of any standing forward-positioned forces to perform deterrence or defense tasks.

·         Random Deployment, or in other words the use of unpredictable deployment locations and durations to elevate potential adversaries’ uncertainties regarding opportunities for aggression.

Let’s be clear: a ‘war-winning power forward’ presence is only achievable against the weakest of opponents. Even then, the U.S. has never possessed sufficient naval forces to sustain this degree of presence for long periods of time without severe disruptions in presence or rotational deployment durations in other regions.

Assured defense and delay/disruption are consistent with our post-Second World War forward strategy. As the Navy’s force structure declines, however, maintaining sufficient presence for assured defense against a reasonably strong opponent will likely come at the expense of the presence for assured defense against opponents in other regions. We will likely find ourselves relying more on delay/disruption to succeed. This is a manageable problem, but it requires sober thinking about campaign design, operating concepts, force positioning and postures during peacetime and crises, force structure, and the like.

It should be obvious that Robert’s taxonomy is relevant not only to naval forces, but also to the land-based services. I sincerely hope that his article is used as a starting point for the much-needed tradeoff analyses regarding how our Joint forces will achieve standing presence in our many overseas regions of interest.

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. 

DEPSECDEF Work on the Increasingly Severe Tradeoffs Between Forward Presence and Forcewide Readiness

Back on 30 September, Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work gave a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations. His discussion of the way-forward for the U.S. military’s Asia-Pacific rebalance and the status of operations against ISIL is what garnered the most press attention. I wasn’t even aware of the speech until late last week when a colleague cued me to the fact that Work's main topic was actually about how the present U.S. global force posture model is no longer sustainable given the country’s fiscal policies. Suffice to say that this issue is well known to Information Dissemination’s readers. What makes the DEPSECDEF’s speech so noteworthy, however, is that it represents some of the most detailed disclosures I’ve seen thus far regarding the strategic policy changes being explored at the Defense Department’s highest levels.

Below are excerpts from some of the speech's key passages.

On the difficult balance between maintaining sizable forward presence forces (e.g., those that are either permanently forward-stationed in a host country or rotationally forward deployed from the U.S.) and the combat readiness (with particular emphasis on training and material condition) of the between-deployment forces that would be surged forward from the U.S. in the event of a war:

“And the important goal that we're trying to wrestle with right now under intense budget pressure is to get the proper mix between the forces that are forward presence forces and those based in the United States and our U.S. territories, which are our surge forces. That's what we're trying to do…

…So simply put, something has to give. Maintaining our military at such high tempo in this resource-constrained environment is simply no longer sustainable. Period. End of story. It prevents us from properly preparing for future contingencies across the full spectrum of conflict. Now, that is what wakes me up at night, because ultimately preparing the joint force to win wars is what the department does. It is what we are charged to do.

And as we come out more than a decade of fighting irregular warfare campaigns and our potential adversaries across the world continue to advance their inventories of advanced weapons and capabilities, our commanders are saying, hey, I need to have more fight tonight forces, so I need to have more forces forward in theater.

But that just can't happen without us balancing the readiness of the surge forces. It really, really is a tough problem, because we have to take time and money to reset, repair worn-out war equipment, upgrade our weaponry, and train for some very demanding scenarios.

So as we adopt our post-Afghanistan and post-sequestration global posture, we now have to keep an eye focused much more on the surge forces. We've always kept an eye focused on the forward-deployed, ready -- high-ready forces, but now we have to really take a look at it the other way…

…Now, let me be very clear here. We are still going to maintain a robust forward-deployed forces where the strategic rationale is compelling and where our priorities tell us we must do, but our forces won't be large enough to give our combatant commanders all the forces they would want to have in theater at every single moment to be prepared for any regional contingency, because for far too long, as I've said, we've chosen to sacrifice readiness of the surge force or of the base force, instead of reallocating forces that were already out in theaters across combatant commander areas of responsibility.

Now, in the past, we've had sufficient slack in funding and force structure and flexibility to do this. But I have to tell you, based on the fiscal turbulence we face today, our forces are shrinking without question and our flexibility is under pressure, so we can't continue the way we've been doing things for the last twenty years.

So one of the key principles moving forward is that we're going to reprioritize our limited assets and develop innovative ways of maintaining forward presence as we rebuild our readiness. We think we're in a readiness crisis, a readiness trough for two or three or four years, as we try to build out. All of our program says we try to get back to full spectrum readiness at the end of the five-year defense plan. In the meantime, we have to think creatively of how and when to utilize our precious force availability to maximize our strategic imbalance.”

Work then lists several deployment policies such as increasing the forward basing of key presence-maintaining units as practicable, as well as rotational forward deployments of tailored, disaggregated force packages. However, he follows this by indicating a potentially major shift in how U.S. forces will be globally deployed and how conventional deterrence postures in critical regions will be maintained:

“Another way of innovating is what Chairman Dempsey calls dynamic presence. Now, what would happen is normally what we'd do is we'd push all of our forces forward, every single bit of ready forces that we'd have, we'd push forward. And once they got into a COCOM's -- a combatant commander's area of responsibility, you could shift them across borders -- excuse me, the lines of responsibility -- but it was difficult. It took time. We had to go through laborious discussion processes.

What we're trying to do is to try to figure out what is the minimum deterrent force that you might need in a theater and then have the rest of the force being more dynamically used across the world. This is a tough, tough problem, because it's a different way of doing.

If I could say it this way, we are going from a demand side model, where the COCOMs demand forces and we provide them everything that we possibly can, to a supply side model in which we are setting forces out that keeps the balance between readiness and the surge and forward presence and then dynamically tasking it across the world.”

This is remarkable in that it suggests a completely different paradigm for how the COCOMs will be apportioned deployable forces, with the implication that fewer forces on the margins will be deployed at any one time. This touches directly upon the issues regarding sizing and positioning of a conventional deterrent I recently wrote about. There is no way to do what the DEPSECDEF is outlining without taking on greater deterrence risk. The challenge will be in developing new force architectures (e.g capabilities, quantities, positioning, and posture) as well as doctrine for employing such forces that are sufficiently credible to maintain deterrence effectiveness. I will be exploring this in more detail with respect to East Asia in a few weeks.

For now, I urge you to read and think about his prepared remarks in their entirety.

Pushing the Fleet to the Breaking Point, For What Exactly?

US Navy Photo

This is not how we should be celebrating the early retirement of the USS Enterprise (CVN 65). Bold emphasis by me.

The Navy will deploy the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis and its strike group four months early and shift its destination to the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, DOD officials said here today.

The deployment late this summer is in response to Central Command’s requirement for an extended carrier presence, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said. The move affects 5,500 sailors aboard the Stennis and the Aegis cruiser USS Mobile Bay.

Last week, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta approved a request from Central Command commander Marine Corps General James N. Mattis to accelerate Stennis’ deployment. “The decision will help support existing naval force requirements in the Middle East and reduce the gap caused by the upcoming departure of the USS Enterprise Strike Group,” Little said. “It is in keeping with our long-standing commitments to the region.”

Aircraft carrier strike groups provide commanders with ample and flexible air assets to enhance interoperability with partner nations and maintain strong military-to-military relations as well as respond to a wide variety of contingencies, Little said.

The Bremerton, Wash.-based Stennis strike group was due to deploy at the end of the year to U.S. Pacific Command. The group returned from duty in the Middle East in March.

The accelerated deployment to the Central Command area of responsibility is not aimed at any specific threat. “In keeping with Centcom’s requirements, this is a very important region for our defense strategy,” Little said. “We’ve had a presence in the region for decades and we have a range of interests that this extension of our capabilities will support.”

Nor, he said, is the deployment a direct response to tensions with Iran. The U.S. military is “always mindful of the challenges posed by Iran, but … this is not a decision based solely on the challenges posed by Iran,” Little said.

Currently the USS Enterprise and USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike groups are deployed to U.S. Central Command. The USS Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group is due to relieve the Lincoln group shortly. The Stennis group will relieve Enterprise.

The Navy continues to operate at a high operational tempo in order to meet U.S. security needs around the world,. “Our deployment strain is as great as or greater today than it has been at any time in the past 10 years,” a Navy official said.

Sailors and their families have been informed of the change, Little said. Navy officials looked at a wide range of options to ensure Navy commitments and combatant commander mission requirements are met and to lessen the impact of schedule changes.

The carrier strike group will be ready to deploy even given the accelerated timeline, Little said. “The U.S. Navy is well-equipped to ensure our sailors are trained and ready for this deployment,” he said.

Navy leaders understand the operational and personnel impacts this accelerated deployment will have. These include training cycle adjustments, crew and family uncertainty and reductions to quality of life port visits.

As more information becomes available, the Navy will release it, officials said, noting defense leaders are “committed to keeping sailors and their families informed about current and future deployments to the best of our ability.”

The Stennis will be deployed for eight months, meaning the original 6 month Western Pacific deployment scheduled for later this fall is now an eight month deployment in the Middle East only a few weeks away. And for a reason the DoD can't explain, except to say it's not specific to Iran, Navy families get screwed over yet again. If it really is not specific to Iran, something is very wrong.

The Kearsarge deployment last year was eight months. The Bataan deployment last year was eleven months. The Lincoln, to be relieved any day now, departed Naval Station Everett on December 7, 2011, and won't arrive in Norfolk until mid-August; eight months. Eisenhower, which will relieve Lincoln, is on a nine month deployment. Now Stennis, leaving four months early will be on an eight month deployment. I'm sure I forgot a few long deployments among those...

Someone needs to tell the President no, or maybe the President needs to tell General Mattis no. The very real issue is, if the United States is not about to fight a war with Iran, the US Navy is going to wear out their equipment pretending to fight Iran, and the toll on people is very real.We are reducing the number of carriers and amphibious ships at a time we are clearly pushing them at an operational tempo higher than at anytime ever, including the cold war? WTF? The Bataan, which returned in February, has the second longest deployment by a US Navy ship since World War II!

Hey Congress, wake up! That's a red flag!

What exactly is the Navy killing itself for? If these long deployments aren't a domestic political agenda to avoid a public spat between the President and General Mattis, then the answer must be these deployments are intended to prevent war with Iran. There really is no middle ground here, because there really can't be any other justification for this type of persistent operational tempo where Admirals are constantly bitching in public (rightfully, good for them!) about the high operational tempo - but when it comes time to just get back to a normal operational tempo, those same Admirals refuse to stand up to someone and push the fleet further down the dark path.

Bottom line, those Admirals are only saying yes for one of two reasons: either because the need for the CVN is a legitimate reason of state specific to the prevention of war, or the reason is specific for the sake of their own job - in other words they lack the guts to say no to a politician, and that probably goes double in an election year where saying no would have a political amplification impact. I guess it's better the sailors and their families bend over backwards so Admirals don't have to strain themselves, or something like that.

Or maybe we really are legitimately on the brink of war with Iran, and General Mattis is keeping the peace in the Middle East one extended aircraft carrier deployment at a time. I suppose it's possible - color me a skeptic, but that is scary if true. Either way, at what point are the tens of thousands of Navy sailors going to find a single DC reporter with the guts to ask a tough question?

FFs, LSDs, and PCs - OH My!

The excellent reporting in Inside The Navy (subscription only) has once again created the daily buzz, this time by quoting some comments by Gene Taylor during the QDR hearing on Feb 4th. Apparently Gene Taylor isn't happy that after 30 years of service, the Perry class FFs are going to be retired. These are the noteworthy comments.

“Expect language from this committee that says for every surface combatant you want to retire, you had best have two new ones in the budget,” Taylor said Feb. 4. “Because if you won’t do what is a logical thing to do on your own, then it’s going to take a congressional mandate to do it.”

The frigates slated for decommissioning are still usable, he noted.

“If those frigates are good enough to give to another nation, why aren’t they good enough to keep in the fleet for a few more years, particularly for a mission like piracy off of Somalia or keeping the small boats away from our ships as they transit off of Iran?” he said. “I would think they would be ideally suited. So why does it make sense to take a ship that’s good enough to give to an ally and retire it today if we need bodies out in the sea?”

I think it is a good idea to have a discussion in Congress on the Perry class frigates, because they represent an opportunity to address something that deserves more Congressional examination. Let me begin from the top.

Right Direction

I fully support the Navy's decision to retire the FFs once they turn 30 years old, which most of them will over the next decade. With that said, we have a bunch of ships that are over their half-life and in my opinion, the FFs represent an excellent opportunity to evaluate how effective a job the Navy is doing in maintenance. Let me explain.

Gene Taylor is advocating the FFs from the perspective that we should be using them in the 5th Fleet area of operations, half way around the world. The Perry class has not been built or upgraded significantly in the United States in years. I think Congress should have the Navy, under oath, give the Chairman a detailed walk step by step through the process of what happens when something breaks on a Perry class while deployed halfway around the world.

For example, lets pretend the USS Nicholas (FFG-47) is somewhere in the Indian Ocean and is having a serious engine problem. How many layers of "sea enterprise" does it take to identify the problem, get the part shipped out, and the part installed to resolve the problem - you know, without a tender or serious base support structure? Over how many days given the time difference does this process take? How many emails does it take because there is no bandwidth to use live video? How many people in Washington have to fill out forms for "reach back?" And when it is all said and done, how much does this process cost - before we pay for the part?

I ask these questions because I heard something recently that surprised me, and I'd be interested to hear what people think. If there is a problem in a deployed Burke anywhere in the world, it usually takes less than a week to resolve the problem even if they have to reach back to the original designer or contractor in the US through the reach back process, and the cost is usually relatively inexpensive, usually in the thousands.

But for a Perry class, I hear the cost of the same process is sometimes much greater. I'd like to know if that is true, and if so... why?

How expensive is it to operate Perry class FFs forward, because I'm curious if it is prohibitively expensive to the point we can explain why Perry's have not been utilized to any real degree for protecting shipping against attack - the primary mission the ship class was built in the first place.

Gene Taylor picks a hobby horse issue at the beginning of every budget year, and this year it is the frigates. I'm OK with that, but can he put Eric Labs or someone at GAO on the issue to dive into the cost of operating and maintaining FFs in the Indian Ocean so we can all work with some good information? It would be an important exercise, after all, isn't the longevity of the existing fleet of Burkes the most important issue for the Navy right now? Why not use the Perry class FFs to examine existing processes for maintaining ships to see if there is anything Congress should be looking closer at in regards to the Burkes. Older ship classes don't come along often as a good case study, and I think everyone would be interested to know how FF operating costs compare to say, estimated LCS operating costs?

Multiple Targets

I don't know what exactly has Gene Taylor focused on the FFs, but I think Gene Taylor is missing a real opportunity to beat on the Navy with the facts on behalf of his district.

Just in case you are wondering who the hardest working sailors in the Navy are, they currently serve on USS Bataan (LHD 5) and USS Fort McHenry (LSD 43). I would love to know how many days since February 3rd, 2009 those two ships have been to sea, because I bet that number is very close to 300 days. If you think about COMPUTEX in Feb 09, CERTEX in March 09, deployment from May 13, 2024 - December 8, 2009, then back to sea on Jan 14, 2024 through today in Haiti - both ships may be over 7000 hours underway over the last 53 weeks. As an editors note, when considering the recent leadership changes on USS Fort McHenry (LSD 43), what the crew of that ship has been through over the last year makes problems on other ships throughout the fleet look really silly.

Consider the following. In 2008 there were seventeen ships from Atlantic fleet with more than 4,000 hours underway. I have not seen the numbers yet for 2009, so I am using the most recent I have. Lets consider a moment the ships:

USS San Jacinto (CG 56)
USS Hue City (CG 66)
USS Carney (DDG 64)
USS Gonzalez (DDG 66)
USS Oscar Austin (DDG 79)
USS Winston S. Churchill (DDG 81)
USS McInerney (FFG 8)
USS Boone (FFG 28)
USS Dewert (FFG 45)
USS Simpson (FFG 56)
USS Whidbey Island (LSD 41)
USS Oak Hill (LSD 51)
USS Typhoon (PC 5)
USS Sirocco (PC 6)
USS Chinook (PC 9)
USS Firebolt (PC 10)
USS Whirlwind (PC 11)

• Two of ten Atlantic Fleet cruisers - 20%
• Four of twenty-five Atlantic Fleet destroyers - 16%
• Four of eighteen Atlantic Fleet frigates - 22%
• Two of six Atlantic Fleet LSDs - 33%
• Five of nine Atlantic Fleet PCs - 55%

For ships over 3000 hours underway in FY 2008, the breakdown is as follows:

• Five of ten Atlantic Fleet cruisers - 50%
• Thirteen of twenty-five Atlantic Fleet destroyers - 52%
• Nine of eighteen Atlantic Fleet frigates - 50%
• Three of five Atlantic Fleet large deck amphibious ships - 60%
• One of four Atlantic Fleet LPDs - 25%
• Three of six Atlantic Fleet LSDs - 50%
• Five of nine Atlantic Fleet PCs - 55%

In 2007 there were nineteen ships from Atlantic fleet with more than 4,000 hours underway. Lets examine them for comparison:

USS Anzio (CG 68)
USS Vella Gulf (CG 72)
USS Mitscher (DDG 57)
USS Ramage (DDG 61)
USS Mason (DDG 87)
USS Nitze (DDG 94
USS Bainbridge (DDG 96)
USS McInerney (FFG 8)
USS Underwood (FFG 36)
USS Klakring (FFG 42)
USS R G Bradley (FFG 49)
USS Hawes (FFG 53)
USS Bataan (LHD 5)
USS Shreveport (LPD 12)
USS Ashland (LSD 48)
USS Carter Hall (LSD 50)
USS Oak Hill (LSD 51)
USS Chinook (PC 9)
USS Firebolt (PC 10)

• Two of eleven Atlantic Fleet cruisers - 18%
• Five of twenty-five Atlantic Fleet destroyers - 20%
• Five of eighteen Atlantic Fleet frigates - 28%
• One of six Atlantic Fleet large deck amphibious ships - 17%
• One of five Atlantic Fleet LPDs - 20%
• Three of six Atlantic Fleet LSDs - 50%
• Two of eight Atlantic Fleet PCs - 25%

For ships over 3000 hours underway in FY 2007, the breakdown is as follows:

• Six of eleven Atlantic Fleet cruisers - 55%
• Eleven of twenty-five Atlantic Fleet destroyers - 44%
• Ten of eighteen Atlantic Fleet frigates - 56%
• One of six Atlantic Fleet large deck amphibious ships - 17%
• One of five Atlantic Fleet LPDs - 20%
• Four of six Atlantic Fleet LSDs - 67%
• Five of eight Atlantic Fleet PCs - 63%

For ships over 3000 hours underway in FY 2006, the breakdown is as follows:

• Seven of twelve Atlantic Fleet cruisers - 58%
• Twelve of nineteen Atlantic Fleet destroyers - 63%
• Seven of eighteen Atlantic Fleet frigates - 39%
• Two of six Atlantic Fleet large deck amphibious ships - 33%
• Three of six Atlantic Fleet LPDs - 50%
• Three of seven Atlantic Fleet LSDs - 50%*
• Three of eight Atlantic Fleet PCs - 38%

*USS Fort McHenry (LSD 43) plus USS Tortuga (LSD 46) adds up over 3000

For ships over 3000 hours underway in FY 2005, the breakdown is as follows:

• Four of thirteen Atlantic Fleet cruisers - 31%
• Six of twenty five Atlantic Fleet destroyers - 24%
• Eight of eighteen Atlantic Fleet frigates - 45%
• Two of six Atlantic Fleet large deck amphibious ships - 33%
• Two of five Atlantic Fleet LPDs - 40%
• Two of six Atlantic Fleet LSDs - 33%
• Four of seven Atlantic Fleet PCs - 57%

I think it is fair to say that there is a relationship between the number of hours a ship class is at sea and the demand for that capability. If someone believes this is an unfair assumption, please explain in the comments.

Now that we have some data, here are some questions for Gene Taylor to add to his FF concerns:

We have all heard about the problems with the San Antonio class LPDs. The USS New York (LPD 21) crew heard something that didn't sound right in the engine, and didn't know they were supposed to simply turn the engine off (not shutting the engine off caused a bigger problem on that ship). Why? How did virtual training as opposed to time working on an actual engine factor into this becoming a bigger problem? Is the Navy training our mechanics correctly? Is the Navy prepared to deal with problems when automation fails?

SUPSHIPS inspected and approved welds on the LPD-17 class, but we didn't hear about problems until many months later. Why? Why is it that when the Navy announced the LPD-17 problems, it was only the Program Manager of the LPD-17 program with reporters? When an entire class has problems, the best the Navy can do is send a Captain out to get shot at by the press? Where was VADM McCoy on this issue? Where was Allison Stiller? How extensive is the problem on DDGs anyway? This LPD-17 situation smells of either a cover-up or a cluster-fuck.

Allison Stiller has testified in front of the House Seapower committee many times claiming the problems in shipbuilding related to issues just like what has specifically occurred with LPD-17 over the last few months are being addressed - in fact she has made the same testimony for at least the last few years. How can she be so inaccurate in testimony on this issue for more than two years in a row? Why should anyone believe the Navy has fixed the problems 'this time?'

The LPD-17 program, built in Gene Taylor's district, has taken an enormous reputation hit because of repeated problems - several of which are not the fault of the shipbuilder. As a coincidence, the Navy is making several decisions that avoid building ships in his district - like pushing way out Command Ship replacements (which would use LPD-17 hulls) and limiting the number of amphibious ships to the bare minimum (and those are also built in his district).

At the same time, over the past several years (and I expect 2009 to be very similar) the frigates, LSDs, and PCs are consistently disproportionately at sea more often than cruisers and destroyers, and yet the Navy is looking to retire the frigates, build as few amphibious ships as possible, and has decided not to replace the PC rather just SLEP them. If new PCs are not a worthy investment in the future Navy, why is the Navy clearly using the hell out of the PCs in the current inventory?

Why is the Navy building Burkes for BMD if this is a temporary problem anyway, and there are better ways to address the issue. The Burke run from FY11-FY15 is cost neutral to the previously proposed DDG-1000 purchase, so there are no savings. They create less work for the yards, so there is no advantage to the industry. The ships will be fielded to the fleet too late to be part of the BMD system being developed - which is the ground based SM-3 system. They have no new technologies, so it isn't like a new capability is being gained. Modernization of existing DDG-51s is a quicker and less expensive approach to BMD. My point in asking these questions is to highlight that R&D investment for the Burkes is more important than actual construction right now, because if we expect these ships to be the future in FY16 and beyond, we have to find a way to get DDG-1000 technologies like integrated power into that hull. Failure to do that makes building the Burke the biggest waste of money in the DoD, and that is saying something.

The plan, based on my read of the FY 2011 budget, is to replace the high demand for the frigates and LSDs with Littoral Combat Ships and Joint High Speed Vessels. Is this a square peg and round hole approach, because on paper it looks like the Navy is giving up a lot of capabilities - not to mention survivability - in trade for the added capability of... tactical speed? What is the compelling argument to bet the farm on an unmanned systems capability that is tiny in the Navy today, and will run on a current sea based network that has extremely limited bandwidth even before the enemy adds extra tensions in wartime.

While Gene Taylor is worried about the aging and clearly heavily utilized FFs, he should expand his questioning to at minimum include amphibious ships and PCs, although there are so many questions for the Navy right now he could hold hearings until summer and still be short all the needed questions.

It is my hope that as part of his support for frigates he gets someone in the Navy to explain why the Perry frigates, built for merchant ship protection duty, are not out fighting pirates that are threatening merchant ships off Somalia. I have a feeling the answer is maintenance, and my hope is if Congress takes a closer look there they will see what an expensive mess it is to work within this top down managers logistics dream but operational level logistical nightmare - a serious problem that needs to be examined as the rest of the fleet ages.

More LANTFLT Underway Data

A while back, we had a quick look at the underway hours for LANTFLT courtesy of a small avian. Here is some more data from the same helpful source to give us a sense of trends - we have some aggregate class underway hours data for the same classes of ships for LANTFLT 2005-2008, now, and (for comparison) some PACFLT data for 2008. I'm sorry for the image; blogger still doesn't like tables, and thus table images are much saner to look at (if not so good for page layout). Click on the tables to get a full-size version that's easier to read.



The most important trend for our arguments from last time is that indeed we see hull hours creeping upwards.

The LSDs move from 2295 hrs in 2005, steadily up to 3454 hours in 2008. Although the LSD force took a 1-hull bump to 7 in 2006, one of those hulls had a mere 540 or so underway hours...meaning that the average is somewhat misleadingly low for the class that year. The LANTFLT LHA force seems to be dropping in terms of hours, but it's also gone from a 2-ship to 1-ship force. Looking at its numbers, it seems to be maximally committed for a single hull.

ASuW hull hours go up also - CG hull averages rise as the force size drops. DDG hull hours rise as the force size increases, indicating both higher workload and transfer of tasking from the remnants of the DD force, 3 hulls which go offline in the 2006 timeframe and aren't captured here. FFG workload goes up for an unchanging force size.

Amphib hulls are in high demand on both oceans, looking at 2008. Mine Countermeasures are relatively flat, which is interesting given that the entire modern MHC class was stricken and disposed of in 2006-2007 (12 hulls) which indicates that either they weren't being tasked at all near their end of life, or that demands for mine countermeasure time are not being driven by external conditions but by fleet training and testing needs.

We can be fairly sure, looking at even these rudimentary numbers, that shipbuilding plans which emphasize fewer and more capable hulls will swiftly run up against combatant commanders' demands for additional hulls to perform tasking. The fact that the more versatile DDGs see their underway hours increasing as they replace less-versatile DD hulls is an indication that versatility is not a good measure for ship utility - something the LCS proponents will need to keep in mind. As the FFG-7s begin leaving the fleet in large numbers, what will take their place? If the LCS is seen to be capable of doing some or all of their job with the proper mission modules in place, that's fine, but then what will do the other jobs those hulls were meant to do?

Remember, there are only 8760 hours in the year total. Ships showing underway times of 3-4 Khours are running a duty cycle of nearly 1:1 or 0.4-0.5, depending on how you count it. Include in those hours transit times to get on station, which is (for one example) roughly a 14-17 day underway time (336-408 hours) from Norfolk to the Persian Gulf, so 772-816 hours round trip, and we're left with just over 8000 hours available in the year for everything else assuming one round-trip deployment transit. These totals, just like last time, are for hours spent actually underway. Time spent stationary but running generators for hotel load is not included.

LANTFLT racking up the hours

Neptune's helpers have sent us here at ID some interesting information which is relevant to our discussion of strategy, current operating conditions, and ship type allocation. It consists of a detailed list of ship operations of LANTFLT's non-nuclear vessels for FY2008, and offers one metric we're most concerned with: Underway Hours (UH) for each ship.

None of this information is marked for classification in any way. Still, since we're not positive of the position of LANTFLT on its distribution, ID won't post the information in full. We're going to ask you to trust us, just as we trust the information, for the purposes of argument. In any case, here are some highlights. More nuggets as we dig through them.

Of the top five ships listed by underway hours, there are two LSD, two DDG and one PC. The ship with the most underway hours is an LSD, by a margin of over 200 hours, with a total underway time of 5,097 hours (out of a total of 8,766 hours/year!) Note that this specifically does not include non-underway time on the boilers; that is accounted for separately. The PC has an underway time of 4,711 hours. As for averages by ship type, we get the following (UH = underway hours):


As Galrahn and others have been maintaining, it's the amphibs and the coastal workers which are going to get whipped from pillar to post in a soft power, littorals-focused operating environment, and that's what we see. The LHA number is slightly disingenuous as an average, as it consists of a single-ship class (USS Nassau, LHA-4) but that datapoint is still valid. It should also be pointed out that two of the nine PCs had underway times under a thousand hours, and one had a time of only 40 hours, which has a definite impact on the average time; the other seven are notably higher. The underway time for the PC and FFG are quite high - but their projected replacement the LCS is being sold as an MCM replacement with a steel hull, an FFG replacement without organic blue-water weapon systems, and a 3,000 ton instead of 330-ton PC with the same speed.

One piece of information I don't presently have is the expected duty cycle of these warships at design time, as distinct from expected life; I'll see if I can dig that up.

(Picture of the USS Whidbey Island LSD-41 - the vessel with the most hours in FY2008. Image from Wikipedia.)