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.

Is the Carrier as Obsolete as the battleship?

Scrapping the battleship
ex-USS West Virginia in the 1950's

The former UK carrier Ark Royal
being scrapped more recently in Turkey
Will US CV's soon follow?

     During last Friday’s great aircraft carrier debate hosted by the Naval Academy Museum, one of the debaters, Dr. Jerry Hendrix, said that the day of the carrier was drawing to a close primarily due to their vulnerability. He further compared the coming demise of the big flattop to that of the battleship. These assertions are at odds with the opinions of many in the history and analysis communities. The battleship had reached its evolutionary limits by the mid 1940’s while the carrier continues to evolve as a platform in the present. The battleship disappeared from the world’s naval inventories at the end of World War 2 for reasons of cost and firepower analysis, not vulnerability. Finally, the carrier has generally been viewed as more vulnerable than the battleships it replaced. Its air wing, rather than the physical platform of the ship, is the source of both its offensive and defensive capabilities. Both Dr Hendrix and his debate partner Bryan McGrath rightly addressed shortfalls in the present carrier air wing.

Pioneering battleship HMS Devastation
(1873)

HMS Dreadnought (1906)

     The battleship evolved as a platform, beginning with its first recognizable incarnation, HMS Devastation, which appeared in 1873. Over the next 70 years, as gun size and effectiveness increased, both the armament and the armor required to protect the battleship from such ordnance swelled in both size and cost. Combat ranges increased parallel to these developments. Captain Wayne Hughes suggests that battleship effective gunnery ranges increased a matter of tenfold from 1898 to 1948. Engineering plants grew as well in order to propel the battlewagon at appropriate tactical and operational speeds. These factors combined to gradually increase battleship size. The  limited battle experience of the period indicated that bigger guns fired at longer ranges were decisive. Battleship designers responded and the all-big gun HMS Dreadnought of 1906 further accelerated the growth of the platform in order to accommodate more long range ordnance.  Further advances such as lighter-weight Krupp armor, turbine engines, and director-firing of naval guns allowed for continued battleship construction at reasonable size and cost through the 1920’s, but by the early 1940’s this process reached the physical and financial limits of effectiveness. Battleship guns of 18 and 20 inch size required hulls in excess of 80,000 tons displacement to mount a tactically useful battery of such weapons. The armor required to provide protection from similar ordnance and the engineering plants necessary to propel these behemoths resulted in warships like the Japanese Yamato class battleships by the early 1940’s.

IJN Yamato (1943)

HMS Glorious

     The problem, however, with these armored titans was that their ability to deliver sustained ordnance at long range over time had approached an apogee in technological development. Further battleship growth was no longer a cost-effective solution to the problem of mass-delivery or ordnance at range over time. The aircraft carrier that emerged during the First World War offered much more potential to deliver high volumes of ordnance at much longer ranges than the battleship gun. This condition developed as the range and weapon capacity of carrier aircraft increased. Carriers remained vulnerable to surface ship attack, especially before the widespread introduction of radar and in the absence of strong escort. The British carrier HMS Glorious was sunk by the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau under such conditions in June 1940. Unlike the British, the U.S. and Japanese Navies developed larger, longer-ranged and more capable carrier aircraft. Their efforts were fully developed by 1942, when according to Hughes, the weight of a carrier airstrike was sufficient to destroy capital ships without risking the carrier to counterattack by gunships under cover of darkness. The battleship, by contrast, could not improve beyond the range of its guns. This inefficiency, combined with their large crews and high rate of fuel consumption, made the battleship less desirable as the principal means of large ordnance delivery at sea or against shore-based targets. The revolution in antiaircraft provided by the proximity-fused shell had restored the battleship's survivability against air threats but was not enough to save the big ships from their logistical and financial limitations. When the surviving world navies downsized at the conclusion of the Second World War, the battleships were one of the first platforms to be retired.

     The carrier, despite its obvious greater vulnerability, was retained and continued to evolve as an ordnance-delivery system. Like the battleship, the carrier grew in response to technological change and war experience. Before the war, the two prevailing carrier designs were the British closed and armored carrier and the American/Japanese open/unarmored hanger design. The British version accepted a lower number of aircraft in exchange for greater protection of their aircraft from both attack and the elements. The British also expected to fight largely in littoral regions and believed their small carrier air wings would be supplemented by land-based aircraft. The Americans and Japanese, by contrast, expected to fight in the blue water spaces of the Pacific where the relatively warmer weather and absence of land-based aviation support both supported and demanded a carrier with a large, open hangar where its much larger airdrop could warm-up in preparation for launch.

USS Midway

     The U.S. decided on a combination of these two formulas with the 1945 Midway class carriers. These ships grew substantially compared with the proceeding Essex class in order to support both armor protection for the hangar and a large air group. This need to protect the air group, as well as the advent of nuclear weapons, the fuel economy factor offered by nuclear propulsion and increasing size of jet aircraft rapidly drove increases in carrier size in order to maintain an ideal large air group. Smaller carriers have been considered by the U.S. and other navies since 1945, but most have determined that it is more cost-effective over the long term to take a larger airdrop to sea. The late British naval constructor and historian D.K. Brown said, “it is wasteful to provide all of the workshop and store facilities (on a carrier) for only a few aircraft.” This problem condemned many British small carrier designs until the advent of the Harrier aircraft allowed for a moderately respectable air group to be embarked. While small carriers have continued utility in littoral areas during the 21st century, independent operations without the support of land-based aircraft demand larger carriers with more comprehensive air wings. The British experience in the Falklands Islands campaign of 1982 illustrates both the advantages of sea-based aviation in remote areas, and the limits imposed through the use of smaller carriers with reduced air complements. 

     Despite increasing physical threats to the carrier as a platform in the last decade, the evolutionary development of the ship remains open and vibrant. Both Dr. Hendrix and Bryan McGrath discussed the limitations of the present, post-Cold War carrier air wing in comparison with its longer-ranged late Cold War counterpart. In the period 1990-2010 there seemed little need for a long range carrier strike aircraft. Most conflicts were associated with areas along the vast Eurasian littoral where land-based air assets were also in support alongside sea-based aviation. An Indo-Pacific conflict with limited land-based air support again demands longer-ranged aircraft operating from carrier decks. Development of a replacement manned or unmanned carrier strike aircraft would restore the carrier’s long range strike potential. 

     D.K. Brown eminently describes the battleship’s replacement by the carrier. He stated, “it is often said that the battleship died because it was vulnerable. This is incorrect; it was replaced by the fleet carrier which was much more vulnerable. The battleship died because it was far less capable than the carrier of inflicting damage on the enemy.” The carrier needs a similar well-defined successor in order to be similarly superseded as the principal naval platform. This could be the nuclear-powered guided missile submarine (SSGN), but it does not exist in sufficient numbers to equal a carrier’s strike capability. A mass launch of missiles from submerged platforms might also convince a would-be adversary that a nuclear weapon attack is underway. Such a situation could trigger a nuclear response from that opponent. A mass of surface ships has also been proposed as a potential carrier successor, but issues of logistical support necessary to keep a large number of small combatants on station, as well as weather could complicate such an effort. By at least Brown’s standard, the aircraft carrier has yet to be replaced as the principal naval combatant.  Other navies seem to accept this condition, as the People’s Republic of China, Russia, France, India, and Great Britain have continued to purchase or build large aircraft carriers. Small carriers are operated by Italy and Spain. Japan and Australia’s new amphibious assault ships have the potential to be carriers. The carrier remains in many ways as vulnerable as it was when first introduced at the end of the First World War. It continues, however, to be an as yet unequaled flexible and re-configurable strike and naval warfare asset. Discussions on the carrier's future should continue, but the platform is by no means obsolete and its vulnerability remains an acceptable risk in light of its many capabilities.

DOD Wants the Marines in Spain

This is what happens when we abandon the Mediterranean as an operational hub.  Sing with me, friends--3 hubs, 12 Carrier Strike Groups, 12 Amphibious Ready Groups.

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. 

The Carrier Debate

The following contribution is from Claude Berube, Director, USNA Museum.

“Why is the Naval Academy Museum hosting a debate on the future of aircraft carriers?”

It’s a question I was asked earlier this week about the debate between Jerry Hendrix and Bryan McGrath at USNA’s historic Mahan Auditorium.  So let’s break down that question and answer it.

First, why is the Museum hosting this?  Part of the Naval Academy Museum’s mission is to educate Midshipmen and the general public on the history of the Navy.  While this debate is about the future of aircraft carriers, both debaters and the moderator are extremely well versed in the utility of carriers for much of the past century.  In addition, the event was promulgated with additional information about the historical debate on aircraft carriers from the pages of Naval Institute Proceedings since 1922.  In conjunction with the debate, the museum also has a special exhibit during January on the history of aircraft carriers.  We’ve also produced through LTjg Christopher O’Keefe, the History of the Navy in 100 Objects which includes many videos on aircraft carriers. Our mission also includes demonstrating to the public the contributions of Academy graduates.  It would be difficult to imagine today’s utility of aircraft carriers without the contributions of graduates such as Admirals Halsey, Mitscher, and others during World War II or nuclear propulsion guided by Admiral Rickover.  This debate is open to the public.

Second, why a debate format?  That’s simple.  We are very fortunate at the Naval Academy to host a number of informed and recognized guest speakers and lecturers.  The Museum, for examples, has a regular lecture series throughout the academic year. Although it may have happened in my ten years teaching at the Academy, I don’t recall a debate about a national security issue.  It’s a great format to get to issues a single presenter might not.  And, historically, there’s a real periodic tradition of debating naval issues among officers and civilians at least as far back as the Naval Lyceum and Naval Magazine in the 1830s.  Both Jerry Hendrix and Bryan McGrath are well-versed in our naval history, articulate, and serious informed navalists whose voices are important in our greater concepts about national security.  I, for one, look forward to learning from each side.

Third, why is the Museum involved in a debate on the future?  That’s simple.  We’re a teaching museum.  Ideas about the future, whether they’re about operations, platforms, or strategies, simply don’t occur out of a vacuum.  As they say, you can’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been.  At the museum we’re trying to bridge the gap between our naval heritage and the future.  For example, we try to integrate our artifacts in applied history projects with the midshipmen such as with the recently-acquired Mount Suribachi field glasses.  In addition, our moderator is Captain CC Felker, USN, Chair of the History Department at the Naval Academy.  He’s the author of “Testing American Sea Power”  and holds a doctorate in history.

Finally, I owe mention to our partnership with the United States Naval Institute on this event.  For those interested and unable to attend, the United States Naval Institute is livestreaming the event.  The Museum and the Institute have a long history going back to when Preble Hall was built in 1939 and housed both the Museum and USNI.  USNI left the building in 1999 for Beach Hall at Hospital Point but we have an excellent working relationship.  We rely heavily on their photographic archives for some of our exhibits and they take photos of some of our collection for their book catalogues and Naval History Magazine.

Members of the Naval Institute will be familiar with the phrase for "To provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write.”  Now it’s time to debate.  We hope you’ll listen and join in on the discussion in the pages of Proceedings, elsewhere, or on Twitter (#CarrierDebate).


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Claude Berube is Director of the Naval Academy Museum and teaches in the History Department.  He is the immediate past chair of Naval Institute Proceedings.  The views expressed are his alone and not those of the Naval Academy or the Navy.