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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Potential Missions for Future PLA Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

I recently came across a 2013 Project 2049 Institute monograph detailing PLA efforts to research and develop UAV technologies. Ian Easton’s and Russell Hsiao’s report pieces together the PLA organizations, academic institutions, and industrial activities involved in Chinese UAV work; this is no small open source achievement. More importantly, though, it taps Chinese-language sources to outline concepts from each of the PLA’s services regarding potential future uses for UAVs. Many of these concepts unsurprisingly mirror a number of those under consideration by the U.S. armed services:

• Long-range autonomous strike
• “Wingman” duties for manned aircraft
• Localized communications relay
• Anti-ship scouting and targeting
• Ground combat scouting and targeting
• Wide-area surveillance

They make an additional key observation regarding the possibility that expanded PLA UAV capabilities might incentivize increased Chinese brinksmanship, and possibly the use of force, in a crisis:

“There could be a sense that because human pilot lives are not at stake, operators can push farther than they otherwise might. It is also not clear how nations would react to isolated UAV attacks in times of crisis, especially if these were blamed on mechanical or technical failure, or even on cyber hackers. In the future, PRC decision-makers might feel compelled to order “plausibly deniable” UAV attacks as a means of sending a political signal only to inadvertently wind up escalating tensions.” (Pg 13)

This dovetails closely to some of my own observations on unmanned systems and escalation management. The main difference is that whereas I proposed that an opponent’s unmanned scouts should be considered fair game for attacks during a crisis depending upon the circumstances at hand, it is entirely possible that an opponent might go further and use its unmanned vehicles to conduct limited attacks on traditional targets for coercive effect. The authors don’t argue that the PLA is considering use of UAVs for this kind of purpose, but they are correct that the PLA or any other UAV-operating military might.  The implications for crisis management deserve systematic examination through war-gaming.

Some of their most interesting but in no way surprising observations concern Chinese writings regarding the potential uses of UAVs to support anti-ship attacks. One such use proposed in the source writings is for UAVs to simulate inbound raiders, with the intent being to lure an opponent’s screening aircraft and surface combatants into wasting long-range anti-air missiles against these decoys. Other UAVs might perform electronic attacks against radars and communications systems. All this represents a longstanding and well-understood set of tactics. The requisite technical, tactical, and doctrinal countermeasures are similarly well-understood: multi-phenomenology outer-layer sensors that can classify contacts with high confidence, robust combat training to psychologically condition crews for the possibility of hostile deception, deep defensive ordnance inventories, and embracing tactical flexibility/seizing the tactical initiative. The only question is the defender’s will to invest in these kinds of countermeasures—both materially and culturally.

Easton and Hsiao also note that Chinese writers have proposed that some UAVs might perform direct ‘suicidal’ attacks against radars or warships (and in doing so fully blur the line between UAV and cruise missile). The Chinese sources additionally suggest that UAVs could replace manned aircraft as anti-ship missile-armed raiders, though I would argue this presumes the requisite artificial intelligence technologies for conducting attacks against ‘uncooperative’ targets in an ambiguous and dynamic tactical environment reach maturity.

Lastly, Easton and Hsiao’s sources suggest UAVs could serve as communications relay nodes that support anti-ship attacker—and perhaps in-flight missiles as well. For example, a scout UAV could conceivably provide targeting-quality cues to an over-the-horizon “shooter” via a relay UAV, and then provide periodic targeting data updates to the in-flight missiles thereafter. Or the relay UAV might enable direct communications between “shooters” within a given area. It might even enable direct coordination between in-flight missiles approaching on different axes. The use of highly-directional line-of-sight communications pathways or low probability of intercept transmission techniques would make this a particularly vexing threat. Clearly, naval battleforces will need means of detecting and classifying relay UAVs (not to mention scout UAVs) lurking in their vicinity.  

Easton and Hsiao observe that even though the sources they reviewed for their monograph wrote relatively little about using UAVs in the aforementioned ways for land-attack or ground warfare missions, there are no fundamental factors that prevent them from being extensible beyond the anti-ship mission. They’re absolutely correct on that point, and that’s something that all the U.S. armed services should be thinking about for the future.

--Updated 7/16/15 10:54PM EDT to fix first link in post--

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 Weapon’s Range is not the Whole Story

Illustration of U.S. and threat anti-ship missile ranges from Bryan Clark's CSBA monograph "Commanding the Seas: A Plan to Reinvigorate U.S. Navy Surface Warfare" (pg 13).

The U.S. Navy is clearly at a deficit relative to its competitors regarding anti-ship missile range. This is thankfully changing regardless of whether we’re talking about LRASM, a Tomahawk-derived system, or other possible solutions.

It should be noted, though, that a weapon’s range on its own is not a sufficient measure of its utility. This is especially important when comparing our arsenal to those possessed by potential adversaries. A weapon cannot be evaluated outside the context of the surveillance and reconnaissance apparatus that supports its employment and the overall size of its inventory.

Here’s an example I set up in the endnotes of my article on maritime deception and concealment regarding effective first strike/salvo range at the opening of a conflict:

Optimal first-strike range is not necessarily the same as the maximum physical reach of the longest-ranged weapon system effective against a given target type (i.e., the combined range of the firing platform and the weapon it carries). Rather, it is defined by trade-offs in surveillance and reconnaissance effectiveness and in the number of weapons employable in a short time as the target’s distance from the firing platform’s starting position increases. This means that a potential adversary with a weapon system that can reach distance D from the homeland’s border but can achieve timely and high-confidence peacetime cueing or targeting only within a radius of 0.75D has an optimal first-strike range of 0.75D. It follows that if, for technical, operational, or logistical reasons, the adversary can fire only a few D-range weapons within a defined short period of time, and if his doctrine therefore calls for using D-range weapons in coordination with far more plentiful weapons of range 0.5D, the optimal first-strike range decreases to 0.5D. This does not reduce the dangers faced by the defender at distance D but does offer more flexibility in using force-level doctrine, posture, plans, and capabilities to manage risks.(Pg. 113-114)

The same logic applies following the first strike/salvo, except that the victim of that attack will enjoy much more relaxed rules of engagement for countering the opponent’s surveillance and reconnaissance efforts. In this case, let’s say that Blue possesses a long-range weapon with maximum physical reach of R. Let’s also say that both sides’ anti-scouting efforts inside a given area have neutralized or destroyed surveillance and reconnaissance sensors, not to mention disrupted or degraded sensor-to-network connectivity. Let’s stipulate that Blue’s fraction of R that is covered by high confidence surveillance and reconnaissance is x, and Red’s equivalent fraction of D is y. All other factors being equal, the basic advantage consequently goes to which multiple is greater: Blue’s xR or Red’s yD. Note that if either side's confident surveillance/reconnaissance coverage exceeds their weapons' maximum physical ranges, then that full range can be realized (x or y = 1.0).

The qualities and quantities of sensors, and the architecture and counter-detectability of the (electromagnetic through the air and space, acoustic under the water) data pathways they use to relay their measurements to ‘consumers’ matter just as much as weapon range. Under intense anti-scouting opposition, they arguably matter even more. Remember Wayne Hughes’s maxim: attack effectively first.

Now throw in the inventory-size and salvo-rate considerations on top of the sensing competition. Assuming inventory survivability against attacks is held equal for both sides, if one belligerent has many times more of its long-range weapon than the other belligerent has of its long-range weapon, the former may gain considerable campaign-level advantages over the latter such as greater operational flexibility or greater tolerance for taking operational risks. If one belligerent can salvo off more of its long-range weapon within a short period of time than the other can, then obvious tactical advantages can accrue there as well.

The bottom line is that the question of striking clout is far more complicated than a comparison of range alone. Surveillance/reconnaissance quality and weapons inventory quantity are just as important. The full picture must always be considered.

--Updated 2/26/15 10:32PM based on comments--

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 Large-Deck Carrier: Part 4

For previous installments, see Parts I, II, and III

Carriers and Power Projection

Naval conventional land-attack strikes that must be launched from a contested zone’s inner sections early in a war will probably be performed by guided missile-armed submarines because of their stealth and survivability. Strikes that can be launched from the contested zone’s outer sections likewise can be primarily performed at relatively low risk by guided missile-armed surface combatants. As noted in my Tuesday post, however, the U.S. Navy presently lacks the technical and logistical capabilities needed to reload submarine and surface combatant launchers underway or otherwise in ad hoc locations such as defended anchorages. The need for forward-deployed missile-armed units to cycle through unthreatened friendly ports for pierside reload, combined with this contingent’s relatively small size prior to reinforcement by units sortied from rearward bases in-theater, transferred from other theaters, or mobilized from the homeland, will create significant challenges in sustaining friendly operational tempo.[i]  

Urgently developing the capabilities to overcome this campaign-critical limitation is imperative, but it must be understood that doing so may only mitigate potential operational tempo impacts—not eliminate them. It follows that one must be careful when asserting how an underway/ad hoc launcher reload capability should inform force structure. For example, it has been argued that surface combatants could become decisively more efficient than carriers in the strike role if the former’s vertical launchers could be reloaded underway, and that increasing surface combatant force structure at the expense of carrier force structure would accordingly be warranted.[ii] A key concern with this argument is that it is not clear how it factors in the specifics of launcher reload operations at sea. The nominal duration of a reloading event, the minimum distance the forward reloading area must be from the enemy’s effective reach to execute the event at acceptable risk, and the combat logistics force’s capacity for cycling ammunition ships between rear bases and forward reloading areas all must be explicitly accounted for. It therefore is difficult to tell whether such a concept of operations would be sustainable indefinitely or only during short ‘surge’ periods throughout a protracted conflict.

Even if launcher reload operations could be structured such that they would minimally perturb missile-armed SAGs’ operational tempos, one must not overlook the carrier air wing’s previously-discussed roles providing forward surface combatants with sea control support. Indeed, there might be a breakpoint below which any marginal decrease in carrier force structure to afford increases in surface combatant force structure might not yield any operational tempo benefits—and might actually decrease this tempo while increasing campaign-level risks. With fewer carriers, there would be fewer air wings available at any one time to support SAG operations within a contested zone. Against a near-peer foe with robust theater-wide maritime denial capabilities, this could severely curtail SAGs’ operational tempos—and the overall friendly force’s campaign tempo—in its own right. Neither this nor the launcher reload logistics issue automatically repudiates analysis suggesting surface combatants’ advantages in the strike role, but they do highlight how additional operational analysis and fleet experimentation is necessary to validate such assertions. 

As an alternative, one might argue land-based long-range strike aircraft could assume a large share of the strike tasks presently held by the carrier air wing. If a war was brief, this arrangement might be sustainable. If a war became protracted, though, standoff-range strike missile inventories’ depletion and the likely limited quantities of long-range penetrating bombers suggests large-deck carriers’ operational maneuver and power projection capabilities might become increasingly useful to the theater commander. The advanced ordnance inventory management issue is hardly new to U.S. Navy campaign planning and strategy development. For example, during the early 1980s the Navy estimated there were only enough torpedoes in shore-based stockpiles to rearm 30% of the fleet’s submarines in the event of a major conventional war with the Soviet Union.[iii] As the Royal Navy’s 1982 shipboard weapons, sonobuoy, and missile decoy expenditures in the Falklands unequivocally demonstrated, this particular problem is a core characteristic of modern maritime war. It is entirely possible that ordnance consumption rates might be far higher in practice than what is expected within standing contingency plans.[iv]

The same would be true if the operational tempo needed to prevent an aggressor from attaining its political objectives was so intense or the target sets that must be struck—especially to support frontline defenders—were so expansive that the theater commander simply could not avoid leaning heavily upon large-deck carriers’ strike capabilities.[v] Finding where all the above ordnance inventory management and operational tempo thresholds might lie over the course of a protracted campaign, as well as evaluating their potential severities, will be a crucial operational analysis and war gaming task.

Assuming large-deck carriers will be asked to shoulder however much of the Joint power projection load is necessary at a given time, a paramount campaign-level objective of Joint kinetic and non-kinetic strikes early in a war must therefore be to temporarily disrupt if not permanently attrite an adversary’s wide-area oceanic surveillance-reconnaissance-strike capabilities. When these supporting fires are combined with effective battleforce-level deception and concealment tactics, brief power projection (and sea control/denial) operations by dispersed multi-carrier task forces from the contested zone’s outer sections may be viable even during a major war’s initial phases.[vi] Indeed, the high lifecycle costs and considerable vulnerabilities of potential adversaries’ maritime surveillance/reconnaissance systems-of-systems are generally overlooked in arguments contrasting the large-deck carrier’s lifecycle costs and tactical efficacy relative to individual network-dependent weapons.[vii] The key point is that not all strikes necessarily need to be able to reach, let alone penetrate deep within, an aggressor’s homeland on a war’s third let alone three-hundredth day to be strategically valuable. Just as important to preventing an aggressor’s fait accompli may be strikes that challenge the aggressor’s sea control in certain areas, or that otherwise create conditions supporting eventual friendly sea control in the approaches to isolated friendly territories within the contested zone.

The extent to which the large-deck carrier can thusly contribute is a function of the air wing and its ordnance, not the ship. If the air wing possesses medium-range strike aircraft and organic aerial refueling capabilities, Joint forward forces gain an important tool for launching strikes from a contested zone’s outer periphery in support of defenders fighting within the zone’s middle sections. The frequency and responsiveness of these kinds of strikes would increase as the adversary’s maritime surveillance-reconnaissance-strike capabilities are worn down. Should the air wing’s fighters carry longer-range standoff weaponry and be supported by high-confidence cueing, strike footprints could increase by several hundred additional miles and potentially bring the contested zone’s inner reaches into play fairly early in a war, albeit with a lower number of carried weapons the further the aircraft must fly. In fact, evolved longer-range variants of existing strike weapons could offer ‘gapfiller’ capabilities along these lines at reasonable cost and risk while the long-range, autonomous, unmanned naval strike aircraft technologies that will eventually be needed due to potential contested zones’ anticipated continual peacetime expansions are matured.[viii] As noted previously, though, inventories of such weapons will likely not be large enough to permit protracted standoff-range strike operations. The most logical use of these weapons, therefore, would be to poke holes in an adversary’s defenses (however localized and temporary) that other friendly units armed with more plentiful shorter-range weapons could then exploit. It is also important to point out that not all of these weapons will be kinetic, whether they are long or short-range. Some of the most campaign-critical carrier air wing weapons will be electronic attack systems that must be physically brought within line-of-sight of an adversary’s distributed surveillance/reconnaissance sensors and their supporting data networks’ RF relay nodes.

As alluded to in the previous paragraph, large-deck carrier power projection’s other and often unrecognized aspect is Joint forward aerial refueling. Long-range, high capacity, carrier-based aerial refueling was a most unfortunate post-Cold War budgetary casualty.[ix] The same permissive environments that allowed fixed-location carrier strike operations over the past twenty years also permitted the air wing to fall back upon U.S. Air Force theater-range aerial refueling resources. Unfortunately, the theater-range conventionally-armed missiles potential adversaries now use to hold forward friendly airbases at risk increasingly threaten those resources. The carrier air wing’s maximal offensive as well as defensive employment depends upon assured access to timely aerial refueling at range, and this means a carrier-organic capability must be restored since ‘buddy stores’ on shorter-range fighters is insufficient.

There is a Joint angle, however, in that carrier-based long-range aerial refueling can also support Air Force operations when forward airbases for the latter’s refueling aircraft are unavailable or in maritime areas where they ought not to be risked. Based closer in relative terms to the contested zone, carrier-based refueling aircraft can also step in when Joint forward operational tempo rises beyond what Air Force refueling aircraft can support alone. This same logic would apply to the air wing’s screening, AEW, and electronic warfare support of Air Force operations within the contested zone.[x] Carriers’ inherent mobility can additionally be used to position over-ocean aerial refueling rendezvous that enable the Air Force’s use of unpredictable or unanticipated routes for penetrating as well as retiring from opposed areas. 

Tomorrow, a concluding look at how the air wing's capabilities and composition will determine carriers' future doctrinal roles

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[i] Van Tol, 40, 46-47, 56, 78, 90.

[ii] CDR Phillip E. Pournelle, USN. “The Rise of the Missile Carriers.” Naval Institute Proceedings 139, No. 5 (May 2013): 32-33.

[iii] RADN William J. Holland, Jr., USN (Ret). “Strategy and Submarines.” Naval Institute Proceedings 139, No. 12 (December 2013), 52.

[iv] See 1. “Lessons of the Falklands.” (Washington, D.C.: Office of Program Appraisal, Department of the Navy, February 1983), 3, 11, 34, 36; 2. ADM Sandy Woodward, RN. One Hundred Days: The Memoirs of the Falklands Battle Group Commander. (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997), 12, 97, 176-177.

[v] For another take on the campaign-level ordnance management dilemma as related to carriers, see Robert C. Rubel. “National Policy and the Post-Systemic Navy.” Naval War College Review 66, No. 4 (Autumn 2013): 26.

[vi] Solomon, 88-94, 99-103.

[vii] A more accurate comparison would count the lifecycle costs and consider the relative limitations and vulnerabilities of the various sensors and network infrastructure necessary for the adversary to effectively use such a weapon. For instance, the lifecycle costs of the satellite(s) relaying targeting data from a reconnaissance scout, any sensor-equipped satellites cueing the scout or supporting weapons targeting, and the navigational satellites providing the positioning data this entire enterprise depends upon are neither inexpensive nor without serious vulnerabilities. Several generations of these satellites will also have to be procured over a carrier’s lifetime. It would not be surprising if the carrier’s lifecycle costs still exceed the surveillance-reconnaissance-strike system’s lifecycle costs, but they would likely be much closer than popularly thought. It follows that one must holistically examine what is actually obtained with those expenditures, as one cannot properly pass judgment on the former’s tactical efficacy and survivability relative to the latter without comprehensively examining the latter’s tactical efficacy and survivability when subjected to protracted withering, combined arms attacks by friendly forces across multiple warfare domains.

[viii] For a strong argument in favor of such unmanned systems, see Thomas P. Ehrhard and Robert O. Work. “Range, Persistence, Stealth, and Networking: The Case for a Carrier-Based Unmanned Combat Air System.” Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2008.

[ix] See discussion of KA-6 Intruder in Norman Polmar. U.S. Naval Institute Guide to the Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet, 16^th Ed. (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997), 367.

[x] Van Tol, p. 27, 45.