Finally! Crazy Ideas Aren't So Crazy After All, It Seems

About 18 million years ago - no, it was more recent than that - around December 2008, I believe, I put a post on the USNI blog about a cheaper way to spread lethality in the fleet, Psst.Psst. Wanna Distribute Your Lethality on the Cheap?. All along I expressed these thoughts:

1. Take $250 million dollars and put it aside;
2. Of that $250 million, use $100 million to buy or lease 50 to 100 offshore crew
   
   boats as currently used in the offshore oil industry (many of them are reaching the end of their expected useful life in the industry - you might be able to pick up some bargains).
3. Invest $50 million in refurbishing the boats and in getting weapons for their decks. Turn them into "navalized" vessels. Make 22 knots the minimum acceptable speed.
   
4. Do not try to make these low cost littoral combat ships into battleships for all conditions. Talk to the LCDRs who will be squadron commanders and the LTs who will be the commanding officers about what they would need to provide a presence, fight in a low threat environment against modestly armed pirates and the like, support occasional missions ashore and interdict drug smuggler semi-submersibles. Give them what they need in terms of state of the art comms using COTS (heck, load put a communication van on board if so that no time is wasted trying to rewire the little ships more than needed). Put in some comfortable berthing suited for the sea states in which these things (I call them Special Purpose Vessels or SPVs) will operate.
5. Under no cirmcumstance should the total U.S. Navy investment in any single SPV exceed $2 million, excluding the cost of adding weapons systems (adding a M-1 Abrams, for example) and the personnel costs.
   
6. Make the project a 12 month "emergency" - and kill the bureacracy that would ordinarily take on this job - find a hard charging Captain, make him or her report directly to SecNav and tell them what the mission and the budget will be. Then get out of the way except for monthly status reports.
7. Find a group of O-3s who are ready for command and who can think for themselves and train the heck out of them by letting them go to sea in the type of ships that you are acquiring, let them learn from the masters of current offshore supply and crew vessels. Find some O-4s who can take hold of the idea of being a squadron commander of a 5 ship squadron and train them in mission like that being conducted by the Africa station.
   
8. Borrow some Army Rangers or fleet Marines and train them in the ship boardings, small boat ops, shipboard firefighting and ship defense. Treat them like the Marines of old. Stress people skills appropriate for counterterrorism work.
9. Lease some ships to be used as "tenders" for the SPVs - small container ships on which the containers can be shops, supply warehouses, refrigerator units, etc. Bladders for fuel. Use the Arapaho concept to set up a flight deck for helo ops.
10. Be generous with UAV assets - use the small "not recoverable" types.
    
11. Don't limit the small boat assets to RHIBs. Experiment with M-ships, small go-fasts captured from drug dealers, whatever. The idea is to have boats that can operate in one sea state worse than the pirates, drug smugglers, etc.
12. Use the MIUW van concept for adding some sonar capability. TIS/VIS is a necessity.
    

Start with a couple of squadrons, tell your O-6 that you want them ready in 6 months for operational testing. Unleash the budget dollars. For op testing, send one squadron off to the coast of Somalia for anti-pirate work. Send the other off Iraq. Put those expensive great big cruisers and destroyers currently in the area to work doing blue water stuff.

Paint Coast Guard like stripe on the hull of the SPVs - but make it Navy blue. If the Coasties want to join in, give them a boat and paint the stripe orange. Make the SPVs highly visible. Nothing deters crime like a visible cop on the beat. (edited the quote because, Army Rangers? What was I thinking? That's Marine work, that is.)

Well, times goes by, technologies improve, but basic concepts endure - and now we have David Larter writing about "5 things you should know about the US Navy’s plans for autonomous missile boats" , which mentioned prototyping for those "autonomous missile boats" in this way:

1. What exactly is the Navy buying in 2020? The Navy, spearheaded by Capt. Pete Small of the Program Executive Office Unmanned and Small Combatants, plans to buy two commercial fast-supply vessels, or FSV, which are used by the oil and gas industry to support offshore infrastructure. Those boats will be added to two similar boats procured by the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Strategic Capabilities Office for its Ghost Fleet Overlord program.

Ghost Fleet Overlord converted two FSVs into unmanned surface vessels and demonstrated “autonomy system integration; demonstration of navigational autonomy; and hull, mechanical and electrical system reliability upgrades,” according to an October news release from Small’s office.

Wait, what? Here's a look at what the PEO Unmanned and Small Combatants is converting:

DoD photo

Looks sorta like that vessel at the top of this post, which was from 2008.

But here's my favorite quote from the Larter piece:

Essentially the Navy is looking for a cheaper way to increase the number of vertical launch tubes in the fleet without, as Chief of Naval Operations Michael Gilday put it last year, wrapping a $2 billion destroyer hull around 96 missile tubes.

To which I say, "Finally!" and "Faster, please!"

I had other thoughts at CIMSEC about operations with "drone mother ships" at CHEAPER CORVETTES: COOP AND STUFT LIKE THAT:

If the answer to the Navy’s future is robotics, then Admiral Greenert’s July 2012 U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings piece, “Payloads Over Platforms, Charting a New Course” opens up a whole new world of possibilities for using existing small ship platforms as “trucks” to deliver large numbers of modern weapons platforms to areas of interest.

As former Under Secretary of the Navy Bob Work emphasized during his recent appearance on MIDRATS, the Littoral Combat Ship is such a truck–a vehicle for delivering unmanned weapons system.

This post is meant to take that concept and cheapen it.
***
It occurs to me that we need to take the thinking that developed the WWII escort aircraft carrier (CVE) and model it down to a ship that is a “drone” carrier (and by “drone” I mean unmanned vessels of any type- surface, subsurface and aerial) – like the LCS only in the smaller economy version.

After all, if the real weapons systems toted by the LCS are its drones, then virtually any vessel capable of lowering said drones into the water or into the air and hosting their command and control system can be a “drone carrier,” too. Such a ship becomes a “mother ship” for the drones.

Are drone carriers are really “war ships?” Remember, “payload over platform.”

Suppose we take a hull like an offshore oil platform supply “boats” outfitted with a “surface warfare module” (yes, like that designed for the LCS) and four davits designed to lower four USVs into the water.

If the USVs are outfitted with torpedoes or missiles like those discussed here, and if you deploy them in the face of a threat, you now have a ship with capable weapons systems out there.

Unmanned is good, unmanned means humans are less at risk, and operations are less complex without crew sustainment issues on USVs.

Oh, that Aerostat vessel? If you are going to operate without GIS/Satellites, might be tool to use to coordinate your USV missile boats, just saying.

Not Sexy But Important: "IG launches review of Military Sealift Command readiness problems"

Logistics, logistics, logistics. The ability to sustain a fleet at sea and to deliver and sustain forces in the field is a vital need of any navy, but especially for the U.S. Navy. Recent reports indicate that that "not sexy but important role" has some glitches as reported by the Navy Times J.D. Simkins in IG launches review of Military Sealift Command readiness problems

The Defense Department’s Inspector General will be taking a close look at the glaring readiness shortcomings at Military Sealift Command that were the subject of another government report last summer.

citing this GAO report:

GAO Report on Navy Readiness: Actions Needed to Maintain Viable Surge Sealift and Combat Logistics Fleets by lawofsea on Scribd

No surprises really, given that maintaining the combatant fleet has also suffered from insufficient funding for years that the "unsexy" logistics force would also suffer. However, not being surprised is not the same as being prepared . . .

Higfhlights:

The capability to rearm, refuel, and re-provision Navy ships at sea is critical to the

USNS Arctic (T-AOE 8)

Navy’s ability to project warfighting power from the sea. MSC’s combat logistics force consists of 29 auxiliary ships that provide logistics resupply to Navy combatant ships—aircraft carriers, destroyers, and amphibious ships, among others—at sea during underway replenishments. Doing so enables Navy combatant ships to stay at sea as long as needed during both peacetime and wartime, rather than requiring the ship to pull into port to refuel and resupply. The combat logistics force provides virtually everything that Navy ships need, including fuel, food, ordnance, dry cargo, spare parts, mail, and other supplies. According to MSC, in 2015, combat logistics force ships transferred more than 8.2 million barrels of petroleum products and over 90,000 pallets of dry cargo and ordnance during underway replenishments.
***
The readiness of the surge sealift and combat logistics fleets has trended downward since 2012. We found that mission-limiting equipment casualties—incidents of degraded or out-of-service equipment—have increased over the past five years, and maintenance periods are running longer than planned, indicating declining materiel readiness across both fleets.
***
We found that the readiness of the combat logistics force, like that of the surge sealift fleet, has trended downward in fiscal years 2012 through 2016. Specifically,
• Operational availability has declined: Operational availability measures the amount of time that a ship can get underway and execute a mission as required. MSC’s goal is for each combat logistics ship to be available for missions 270 days a year, devoting the rest of its time largely to maintenance and training. However, the fast combat support ship (T-AOE) and the fleet replenishment oiler (TAO) ship classes are not meeting this target and have seen declines in annual operational availability from 289 to 267 days (8 percent) and from 253 to 212 days (16 percent), respectively, over the past 5 years.32 These declines were due primarily to increases in unscheduled maintenance, according to MSC officials.
***
The Navy has not assessed the effect that implementing widely distributed operations will have on the number and type of combat logistics ships required to support the fleet. As early as January 2015, senior Navy leaders outlined a new warfighting concept calling for widely distributed operations, referred to by the Navy as “distributed lethality.” In January 2017, the Navy released its new surface strategy, Surface Force Strategy: Return to Sea Control, which includes concepts for more widely distributed operations through distributed lethality. According to the strategy, the security interests of the United States are increasingly challenged by near-peer competitors, among others, and the Navy must adjust to this changing security environment. Implementing the distributed lethality concept is critical to maintaining the Navy’s maritime superiority and requires employing its fleet in dispersed formations across a wider expanse of territory to increase both the offensive and defensive capabilities of surface forces. According to the Navy, these concepts complicate enemy targeting by dispersing larger numbers of platforms capable of offensive action over a wide geographic area. According to Navy and MSC officials, a greater reliance on distributed operations and the lethality provided by a widely distributed fleet will require resupplying ships that are

USNS Big Horn (T-AO 198)

farther apart and generally increase the demand on the combat logistics force. This stands in contrast to the Navy’s traditional concept of operations, in which Navy combatant ships operate in task group formations—such as carrier strike groups or amphibious ready groups—and, to support these formations, combat logistics force ships transit with them and replenish them with supplies as needed.  In June 2016, the Center for Naval Analyses’ modeling found that spreading combatant ships, such as carrier strike groups, out over larger regions would put more stress on the combat logistics force, because additional ships would be needed as the groups spread out and also because distributing supplies to the individual ships would take longer.  Additionally, combat logistics force ships might need to operate independently in small groups—or even alone—which could put them at risk in contested environments, according to Navy officials. Another effect of widely distributed operations is that ships operating further from ports might require more underway replenishments (see fig. 6), which could affect the number and types of combat logistics force ships required to support the Navy fleet. Under current concepts, Navy carrier strike groups and other ships can typically stay at sea as long as needed, because they have the ability to be replenished either in port or while underway with fuel, ammunition, and stores transported by the combat logistics force. Under distributed operations, geographicallyseparated ships may not be able to be replenished in port during peacetime, or it may be too far or too dangerous in wartime for them to go into port, according to Navy officials. (footnotes omitted)

Really, you should read the report and consider the impact of a weak or too small logistics train on Navy operations, especially in contested water.

Unmentioned in the report but also vital is an adquate escort force for the logistics train. More on that topic later, along with look at the effect of the size of the U.S. flagged merchant shipping fleet on the U.S. role in the maritime world.

Psst.Psst. Wanna Distribute Your Lethality on the Cheap?

Ok. So over at CIMSEC they are have fun with Distributed Lethality Week, a topic which by some other names I have been plugging since Pluto was a pup or perhaps since back when Pluto was a planet.

You could go back to back to December 2008, when I posted Department of Crazy Ideas: How about a cheap inshore fleet? or you refer to CIMSEC piece I wrote, CHEAPER CORVETTES: COOP AND STUFT LIKE THAT which was also covered at this blog as Cheapening the Discussion of Corvettes (ships not cars) which contains a nice reference back to the CIMSEC piece. Life is a circle or some such thing.

And this resurrection of the 2008 piece with a reference to the CIMSEC post :

. .. in which I suggested that if "payloads" are the key to the future then the "platform" end of some naval force could allow for a different approach to getting drones of various types out to sea and, even more importantly, out to where the action might be. There is a nice follow on Non-Traditional Drone Motherships by NavalDrones.

And, of course a lengthy repeat of the 2008 post (I must have really liked that post).

The underlying goal, of course, was to suggest a way of getting lots more platforms out there - with lots more weapons and capabilities. Cheaper, faster, and, if not better, certainly "good enough." As I wrote somewhere,

If the answer to the Navy’s future is robotics, then Admiral Greenert’s July 2012 U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings piece, “Payloads Over Platforms, Charting a New Course” opens up a whole new world of possibilities for using existing small ship platforms as “trucks” to deliver large numbers of modern weapons platforms to areas of interest.

I brought the topic up again last month in A Blast from the Past - Department of The Expendable Ship Division : "How to Make the Navy Bigger, Sooner, Cheaper" Revisited where I wrote,

And don't worry that they are expendable. It's a feature, not a flaw.

Lately I've been sent links to a UK site (ThinkDefence with that obstinate Brit spelling of defense) covering the concept of using merchant hulls and turning them into warships of a sort as in A Ship that Still Isn’t a Frigate:

If one wants a Frigate (light or global) ask those nice chaps at BAE to design and build one for you.

So, why bother, the simple point, the whole raison d’être for this, is one of cost, trying to squeeze the maximum utility from the smallest pot of cash. A class of ships that fulfils a plethora of roles that are less than high-intensity combat, and might use some notional future budget for an Argus and Diligence replacement, and perhaps with a nod to future mine countermeasures and survey budgets.

These ships would be either a conversion of a second-hand civilian vessel, or largely based on a civilian design with minimal modifications during build.

Yeah, exactly.

I think it's a great idea and have been saying so for what - 7 years- that's what.

The ThinkDefence author says, "don’t take it too seriously" but I think we should take this concept very seriously indeed.

We need hulls on the water carrying weapons to distribute all that lethality stuff.

And we really don't need to spend a fortune - we just need to be smart enough to not always think in great big gray hulls.

Back in the day they had Naval Trawlers:

A naval trawler is a vessel built along the lines of a fishing trawler but fitted out for naval purposes. Naval trawlers were widely used during the First and Second World Wars. Fishing trawlers were particularly suited for many naval requirements because they were robust boats designed to work heavy trawls in all types of weather and had large clear working decks. One could create a mine sweeper simply by replacing the trawl with a mine sweep. Adding depth charge racks on the deck, ASDIC below, and a 3-inch (76 mm) or 4-inch (102 mm) gun in the bow equipped the trawler for anti-submarine duties.

ASW drones, UAVs, USVs - the trawler model works today, too.

Remember Arapaho. And see here.

Nice oilfield boat conversions at Shadow Marine. It would be nice to have helo deck to help with part of the delivery of lethal stuff.

Everything old is new again. That circle thing.

Distributed Lethality Week at CIMSEC

If you are reading my blog right now, I suggest a better use of your time is to go over to the CIMSEC blog for Distributed Lethality Week, because there is much good stuff over there -

This week CIMSEC is hosting articles exploring the US Navy’s Distributed Lethality concept. The US Navy is investigating distributed lethality as a potentially game changing approach for the conduct of naval warfare.

Game changing? Decide for yourself.

It is a hot topic.

Surface Forces: Distributed Lethality

A video from Naval Surface Force U.S. Pacific Fleet:



Update: And a brief from VADM Rowden on "Tomorrow's Surface Forces Lethal and Distributed":



Yes, it includes the first video, but you can move past that.