Strait of Hormuz: U.S. Marines on Merchant Ships Providing Security

Reported as Marines Embark Merchant Vessel to Provide Security in Strait of Hormuz Transit:

STRAIT OF HORMUZ (NNS) -- Marines and Sailors deployed with

U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Tanner A. Gerst/Released)

Fleet Anti-Terrorism Security Team, Central Command (FASTCENT) Company, assigned to Naval Amphibious Force, Task Force 51/5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade (TF 51/5th MEB), embarked on a Military Sealift Command time chartered vessel in the Arabian Gulf to provide security during a Strait of Hormuz transit Oct. 21.

Task Force 51/5th MEB has a myriad of inherently maneuverable assets that offer commanders the ability to flexibly respond to a wide variety of missions and contingencies, and that are capable of being rapidly deployed. Specifically, FASTCENT Marines work with U.S. partners and allies to protect personnel and property while simultaneously ensuring freedom of navigation in international waterways.

"A strong U.S. presence in the Gulf region is both a deterrent to any potential adversaries who may have an interest in disrupting the maritime domain or using the seas for nefarious purposes, as well as a force to reassure allies, and partners of the United States' commitment to ensuring the free flow of commerce throughout the region," said Brigadier Gen. Matthew Trollinger, Commander of Task Force 51/5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade.

Marines with FASTCENT Company have a history of performing a wide variety of missions and contingencies related to deterring, detecting, mitigating, and defending vital naval and national assets against terrorism since its activation in 1986.

"The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps has and will continue to protect U.S. forces and interests in the region. This includes routine escorting and embarking on U.S. flagged vessels transiting through the region," said Vice Adm. Jim Malloy, Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command/Commander, U.S. 5th Fleet.

TF 51/5th MEB is entrusted with rapidly aggregating crisis response capabilities and positioning Navy and Marine Corps forces throughout the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility to ensure command and control of forces at sea, from the sea, and ashore.

"We are focused on maintaining strong defenses and exposing nefarious actors. We are not seeking conflict, but we will be prepared to defend ourselves and respond to attacks on U.S. forces and our interests," said Malloy.

Protecting the Military Sea Logistics Stream

In an important but largely overlooked speech back in November 2017, the head of  U. S. Transportation Command discussed some of the real problems facing USTRANSCOM in its sealift role, as reported in SEAPOWER Magazine Online:

Military Sealift Command (MSC) is sailing in “contested waters” today and the military needs to consider changing the way it operates, such as relearning how to conduct armed escort missions as it did in World War II, the commander of the U.S. Transportation Command (TransCom) said Nov. 15.

TransCom also is in discussions with the Navy on how it could replace the badly aged ships in the sealift and prepositioning fleets, possibly by buying low-cost used merchant ships, Air Force Gen. Darren McDew said.

Damage to UAE operated vessel Swift after missile attack off Yemen

Speaking at an Air Force Association breakfast at the Capitol Hill Club, McDew was asked about the concerns of Vice Adm. Dee Mewbourne, commander of MSC — which is part of TransCom — that the growing threats from potential adversaries, such as China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, means that his ships will be sailing into “contested waters.”

“They doing that now,” McDew said, possibly referring to the missile attacks against two MSC ships operating off of Yemen earlier this year.

And the contested environment “doesn’t start when they get under way. It starts before they leave port,” he added, repeating his earlier warnings about the threat all of his command faces from cyber attacks and disruption of the space-based navigation systems.
***
McDew compared the potential threat to the MSC vessels to the horrific losses inflicted

"Armed Escort" FFGs in 1982

by German submarines on the Merchant Mariners crossing the Atlantic in World War II. Those civilian seaman “died at the highest rate of any U.S. force” in the war he said.

To help counter that threat, “in World War II, we had armed convoys,” he noted. “We haven’t had to worry about that since then. Maybe we have to look at what armed escort looks like.”

The general suggested that today’s cyber threats could equal the danger from World War II submarines.

The military will have to think differently because “those lines of communications will be contested.”
***
Asked about Mewbourne’s concerns about the advanced age of his sealift and prepositioning ships, McDew said he was in discussions with the Navy on how to modernize the sealift fleets.

He said the National Defense Authorization Act, which may be approved by Congress by the end of the month, has language that “would allow us to buy used vessels. There are ships on the market now that would cost one-half or one-third as much as new ships, and are available for pennies on the dollar.”

Those ships could be modernized and modified in U.S. shipyards, so “everyone wins,” he said.
McDew noted that he is “the largest owner of steam ships in the world,” but does not want that distinction, adding that virtually all the world’s commercial vessels have diesel engines, which are cheaper and require fewer Sailors.

Okay, let's look at the issues:

1.  The threat environment has changed so that, at the very least, near shore sealift shipping is threatened by both state and non-state actors. This is true because of the proliferation of anti-shipping cruise missiles that can be transported by truck and operated with ease (see War Is Boring To Threaten Ships, the Houthis Improvised a Missile Strike Force ). While the most recent example is that of the cited missile attacks off Yemen, the issue has been very ripe since 2006 when Hezbollah, apparently aided by Iran, fired a C-802 missile at an Israeli warship. The threat of such missile attacks by state actors has, of course, been around much longer  (also Iran: Silkworm on the Hormuz).
2.  The "sealift fleet" is old and too small. See Not Sexy But Important: "IG launches review of Military Sealift Command readiness problems".While it may be possible to modernize the sealift fleet by buying more modern used ships and refurbishing them for military use, there are issues in protecting those newer (and the current) ships both from cyber and sea-going threats. General McDew notes the need for "armed escorts." The U. S. Navy retired its last "designed to convoy" escort Perry-class FFG-7 frigates without replacements in 2015. Now the Navy is looking for a new FFX to fill the gap - and in seeming recognition that the Littoral Combat Ship is not a suitable vessel for the task - which it was never intended to perform.
3. Underlying all of the above is the sound recognition that "sea control" in today's world is far more complex than it was in the time of a couple of near peer navies. With the land-based anti-ship cruise missiles, the safe haven of being "offshore" has moved much further from land than it used to be. Using a putative fisherman having a hand-held GPS and a radio, or using small drones flown from the beach, the targeting of shipping offshore does not really require expensive shore based or aerial targeting radars to launch missiles with their own target seeking capabilities.
4. As a result, all those "chokepoints" so vital to sea lines of communication are threatened as never before. While the U. S. has long relied on "out-teching" adversaries, the speed with which technology changes to counter such tech is worrisome and requires both more hardware both of a counter-battery nature and defense to be spread to more vessels, including to those combat logistics force ships now operated by MSC as unarmed, mostly civilian manned units. It may be time, under the rules that govern arming such ships to return to the day when mnay such ships were manned by Navy officers and sailors, or at least to return to the days of "Navy Armed Guards" but with very modern weaponry to counter these threats. 

The most important point is to start now to address these issues. It is apparent that General McDew "gets it" - and the the Navy is moving to act - but Congress needs to understand th problems and find funding for the needed fixes now, before it's too late. 

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.

Sea Power Logistics: Fourth Arm of Defense:Sealift and Maritime Logistics in the Vietnam War by Salvatore R. Mercogliano

Free pdf download of a short book by Salvatore R. Mercogliano at Naval History and Heritage Command Fourth Arm of Defense

Fourth Arm of Defense describes the role of America’s Navy and the U.S. Merchant Marine in the logistics support of the conflict in Southeast Asia. The Fourth Arm of Defense details the deployment of Army and allied troops to the combat theater by the Navy’s Military Sea Transportation Service (later Military Sealift Command); development of port facilities and cargo-handling procedures in South Vietnam; the dangerous and sometimes deadly effort to deliver ammunition, fuel, and other supplies to Saigon and other ports far upriver; maintenance of the 5,000-mile logistics pipeline across the vast Pacific Ocean; employment of revolutionary cargo container and roll on/roll off ships; and the maritime evacuations from South Vietnam and Cambodia. The work describes the service and sacrifice of American sailors and the men of the U.S. Merchant Marine and many other countries who braved tempestuous seas and ports and rivers subject to attack by mine-laden Viet Cong ambushes. The work is amply illustrated with more than 80 photographs, maps, and a list of suggested readings. This publication will be of interest and value to those scholars, veterans, and students of the Vietnam War and the role of the Navy and the U.S. merchant marine in that conflict.

This is a valuable update to the list set out in If You Grow the Fleet, Who Is "Optimizing the US Navy's combat logistics force?"

Our 2014 interview with Professor Mercogliano on Midrats:


You might also find "Logistics Week" from 2016 interesting - at theses posts:

Logistics Week at EagleSpeak Begins with a Plan;

Logistics Week at EagleSpeak: Naval Logistics Defined and Implemented;

Logistics Week at EagleSpeak: Prepositioned Ships;


Friday Films: USNS Jack Lummus Offloading Marine Gear and "Land the Landing Force" (1967);

Logistics Week at EagleSpeak: "Sealift Program".

The Hidden Side of the U.S. Navy: Military Sealift Command

On Sunday 20 July 2014, we had a discussion on Midrats with Salvatore R. Mercogliano, Ph.D. about the "Military Sealift Command - Past, Present and Future." Many of you may have heard of MSC, but not know all that much about it. So, if you missed the show, here's a chance to catch up:

Online Military Radio at Blog Talk Radio with Midrats on BlogTalkRadio

Professor Sal also sent along this PowerPoint presentation that helps further the discussion:

MSC Background

Professionals talk logistics.

Because tactics and strategy are driven by it.

Future of the U.S. Navy: Bigger Role for Its Military Sealift Command?

A glimpse into possible future steps of the U.S. Navy in Steven Beardsley's Stars and Stripes article, "With Navy strained, Sealift Command crews eye greater military role"

. . . Navy has handed over . . . much of its workload to the Military Sealift Command over the past 65 years, freeing up sailors to man destroyers, aircraft carriers and other warships.
***
“I see the ‘M’ in military Sealift Command growing,” Rear Adm. T.K. Shannon, commander of MSC, said in a recent interview. “And when I say the ‘M,’ I don’t mean doubling the number of active-duty naval officers on our staff. I see the type of work we are involved in growing in that military element.”
***

USNS Spearhead (JHSV-1) U.S. Navy photo by MC1 Phil Beaufort

The nature of recent U.S. operations has also played to MSC’s strengths. While international law prohibits auxiliary from participating in conflict with state forces, and MSC ships aren’t designed for warfare, the Pentagon has tapped civilian-crewed vessels for missions related to counterterrorism or piracy. The USNS GySgt. Fred W. Stockham, a roll-on, roll-off pre-positioning vessel, has anchored off the Philippines as part of a special operations task force. The USNS Lewis and Clark held captured Somali pirates on board in 2009.

As the article notes, there are lots of issues that may need to be resolved as this process expands.

Read the whole thing.

We had a discussion regarding a "MSC/USN dual crewed" ship with Captain Jon Rogers on "Midrats Episode 222:

Current Military Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Midrats on BlogTalkRadio

Hat tip to Lee.