Let's Have "Missile Barges" (and More) Now

A few years ago I noted that someone had proposed missile barges to accompany fleet ships Let's Talk Arsenal Ships and Missile Barges

Perhaps we should call it a self-propelled arsenal barge. SNAFU! has this image of a towed missile barge, the source of which is hard to track, but the caption on the picture indicates this is Russian design using a Sovremennyy-class destroyer as a towing ship*

There is this U.S. Navy image of what appears to be a JHSV pulling what appears to be a high speed missile barge:
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In the meantime, there is this 2005 article by Cmdr. John B. Perkins from the Armed Forces Journal, "Surface ship, submarine missions are coalescing" to ponder:

Andrew F. Krepinevich, director of the U.S. Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), alluded to this trend 10 years ago.

“Just as bombers are becoming relatively less important than the ordnance they carry,” he said, “so too might surface warships, which could evolve to become “barges” (with some perhaps operating below the surface) for advanced conventional munitions that can strike pre-designated targets at extended ranges.”

This concept makes the case that barges would be ideal as strike platforms of the future. The reference to the barges “operating below the surface” is the first precursor toward the idea of larger systems operating underwater.
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One of Krepinevich’s associates at CSBA put it this way: “This type of basic anti-navy architecture could be made more effective by incorporating increasingly sophisticated mines, active and passive sea-based sensor networks and quiet-attack submarines. Such architectures would have far lower barriers to entry (cost and learning) than carrier battle group operations, potentially enabling those competitors to leapfrog the carrier era and become major maritime competitors, at least in littoral waters. Absent a revolutionary breakthrough in ASW[anti-submarine warfare], naval power-projection operations could be driven sub surface.”
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This reference brings the point home in stark fashion: Technologies meant to find and destroy objects will become inexpensive and plentiful. The world’s strongest navy should not build anything but ships that employ the best covering tactics available. The CSBA suggested that the capital ship of the fleet in 2020 might be an arsenal ship — a missile-firing submersible armed with cruise and conventional ballistic missiles — and that such ships might be armed with a few hundred to a thousand missiles.

A distributed power projection navy might include several classes of arsenal ships and other submersible power projection forces in the fleet.

Recently, the DoD's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced the concept of a "Sea Train":

The Sea Train vessels independently depart a port under their own power to reach a sortie point notionally 15 [nautical miles, or nmi] from the pier. The four independent vessels then begin the Sea Train mission by assembling in Sea Train configuration and completing a notional 6,500 nmi transit through varied sea state conditions that might require re-routing to optimize travel times or vessel seakeeping. The Sea Train then arrives at a disaggregation point, where the four vessels begin independent yet collaborative operations consisting of transits, loiters, and sprints in varied sea state conditions. The vessels then arrive at a sortie point to begin the aggregation process and conduct a Sea Train sprint from the operational area. The Sea Train then returns to normal transit speed for the remainder of the transit in varied sea state conditions, disaggregates outside of port and the vessels self-navigate to a pier.

There has been research in this area as set out here (pdf) in a paper by Igor Mizine and Gabor Karafiath:

A sea train is an arrangement of multiple hulls connected together to form a longer assembly of vessels. The sea train configuration takes advantage of fundamental hydrodynamic principles to reduce the drag of the assembled train below that of the individual components proceeding separately. In some circumstances the sea train arrangement can also offer operational advantages.

WHAT IF?

What if we develop large numbers of these "sea train" modules, including several loaded with generators, sensors, and "missiles in a box," they can serve as "accompanying assets" to a battle force. Such vessels, arriving in an area of interest could decouple, spread themselves out over a wide area and allow for a very wide distribution of lethality. 

Other "Sea Trains" may be equipped with machine shops, cranes, additive manufacturing equipment, or replenishment munitions or fuel. These units could be held in "safe havens" and brought to the fleet as needed. None of them need be manned which makes them far less expensive to construct. Each could carry sufficient habitability containers to provide comfort for technicians or oother personnel needed to operate equipment at their needed destination. 

 The larger the number of sea train modules, the great the the likelihood of needed components reaching the fleets on a timely basis. With enough units, even the expanse of the Pacific can be "shrunk."

As with WWII merchant shipping, some elements of a sea train could contain self-defense detection and weaponry, remotely monitored, but capable of self protection when authorized by a "human in the loop." Such equipment might include ASW-capable drones, or ASuW assets. 

Further, the use of unmanned but armed surface and subsurface could take the place of manned convoying ships.

COMMUNICATIONS

A key issue in discussing using unmanned vessels in the manner described above is communicating with those vessels to direct their positioning and, in the case of combat. controlling their weaponry. 

Obviously, with the towed missile barge such communications could be done through a cable connection piggy-backing on the tow line. 

With vessels within line of sight of the controller ship, the comms may be done through lasers or line of sight radios.  It is also conceivable that light weight fiber optic lines could connect units even several miles distant.

In certain environments, satellite links may be available. If those are blocked, manned or unmanned aircraft may serve as relay platforms. Indeed, the concept of solar powered high-altitude communications air systems placed to create an continuous link along the projected sea routes is not far-fetched. AeroVironment, among others, has been working along these lines for almost four decades. 

Explained in their video concerning their HAPS project - which could obviously be modified for military use, if needed:

The point is that we currently have the technology to distribute lethality at a much lower cost than the cost of new ships. We just need to get moving on experimenting with these technologies to find the right mix to provide the tools needed by our Navy and Marine Corps. 

*What SNAFU! wrote in 2012 to accompany those images was:

Worried about saturation attacks by anti-ship missiles?  Tow a couple of these behind a Burke loaded with about 1000 plus quad packed SM3's.  Want to savage a coast line?  Fill the other half with about 500 tomahawk land attack missiles.

UPDATE: DARPA "Sea Train" concept image:

DARPA offers up contract bid info here:

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Tactical Technology Office (TTO) seeks to enable extended transoceanic transit and long range naval operations by exploiting the efficiencies of a system of connected vessels (Sea Train). The Sea Train will demonstrate long range deployment capabilities for a distributed fleet of tactical Unmanned Surface Vessels (USVs).

U.S. Navy and Marines: It's Payloads, Not Platforms (Again)

A flat spot on a deck and an ampphibious ship becomes a missile platform capable of supporting operations ashore, as set in this PACOM and Expiditionary Group 3 press release

Anchorage Conducts High Mobility Artillery Rocket System Shoot during DB17 by PO3 Abigail Rader:

U.S. Navy Photo by PO2 Matthew Dickinson

The High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) was fired from the flight deck of the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship USS Anchorage (LPD 23) during Dawn Blitz 2017, Oct. 22.

The HIMARS is a weapons system made up of the M142, five-ton chassis vehicle and can carry either a launcher pod of six rockets or one MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS).

It enables Marines to engage targets within minutes after firing and features an advanced targeting system that strikes with an extremely high accuracy rate. The system also features a greater range than traditional artillery, allowing smaller units to cover a larger area.

The demonstration on Anchorage consisted of HIMARS engaging a land-based target with a Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System Unitary (GMLRS-U).

“We had two training objectives for today’s shoot,” said Army Maj. Adam Ropelewski, I Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF), lead planner for sea-based expeditionary fires. "The first training objective was demonstrating this capability, and second, we wanted to have good effects on the target. We achieved both objectives. We destroyed the target at 70 kilometers while at sea."

Developing sea-based fires alternatives such as the HIMARS afloat and proving them to be effective provides an opportunity for our Navy and Marine Corps team to evaluate, refine, and improve processes to be ready for the future fight.

“In an environment where we are operating in contested waters, we are finding a way to be able to support the land force with deeper strike capabilities,” said Capt. AJ Kowaleuski, an artillery officer with I MEF.

This ability provides flexibility while the Navy and Marine Corps are supporting each other in combined operations.

This portion of Dawn Blitz validated the commander’s ability to integrate HIMARS with ships to conduct a sea-based strike.

“What we demonstrated not only was its capability, but we further demonstrated capabilities from the blue-green team and Amphibious Force Three,” said Ropelewski. “They performed very well, and were able to come together and work hard to make the mission successful.”
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While offered up in a slightly different context, this post from 9 years ago is relevant about getting creative in doing what our Navy is supposed to do or so it seems to me. I've edited it slightly:

Ain't no need for a Navy if it can't do the job.

If you don't have the resources, send a couple of fleet lieutenants and some crusty old

The "Whatever It Takes" Fleet

chiefs on a mission to "kludge" the pirates. (insert "build a strong enough presence force")

Don't send a "clean hands" Lieutenant - send that guy who hates the bureaucracy and his buddy.

The kind of LT who uses cans of coffee to smooth shipyard wheels- if you get my drift. (Here's another hint - if he offers to do a Power Point presentation- he's the wrong guy...)

Send a supply guy along with a check book and a willingness to stretch a few rules. Don't ask too many questions, just tell them to "stop the d*mn pirates!" (insert "payloads, not plaforms")

They''ll find a way.

If they ask, tell the Washington crowd that operational conditions mandate "thinking outside the box." Or, perhaps, tell them you are :

Leveraging the littoral best practices for a paradigm breaking six-sigma best business case in the global commons, rightsizing the core values supporting our mission statement via the 5-vector model.

To steal a phrase.

Deterring lightly armed pirates in small boat (insert "bullies") is not that tough. But you have to quit thinking like a cruiser skipper and start thinking like a pirate. If I were a pirate (insert "bully") I would hate to see lots of armed fast support vessels escorting ships (insert "hanging around/training local forces").

Of course, I reckon duty on "pirate patrol" in the escort  (insert "the micro") fleet I envision probably won't punch the important SWO tickets. It would just get the job done, unlike tying up a half dozen expensive gray hulls watching a captured ship from a safe distance.

And it would help the Navy do its mission of keeping those sea lanes open. You know that mission from the new Maritime Strategy that Charlie Dragonette quoted:

"The creation and maintenance of security at sea is essential to mitigating threats short of war, including piracy."

See also Department of Crazy Ideas: How about a cheap inshore fleet?, Psst.Psst. Wanna Distribute Your Lethality on the Cheap?, A Blast from the Past - Department of The Expendable Ship Division : "How to Make the Navy Bigger, Sooner, Cheaper" Revisited, CHEAPER CORVETTES: COOP AND STUFT LIKE THAT, Micro Force: Small Combatants for the Littorals

Dear Big Navy: Take a Hint from the Air Force

Yes, it might have had a little prompting from Senator McCain, but someone at the Air Force seems to have seen the light - not every job requires the most expensive weapon in the tool box or, as Aviation Week puts it, U.S. Air Force Chief Backs Idea Of Low-Cost Fighter Fleet

The U.S. Air Force chief of staff endorses the idea of buying 300 low-cost, light-attack fighters for counterterrorism missions as a “great idea.”
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In a white paper out this week, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, suggested that in addition to using the A-10 for close air support, the Air Force should buy 300 light-attack fighters. They could help perform close air support and other missions where air defenses are not a problem and help bring pilots up to speed. “The Air Force could procure the first 200 of these aircraft by fiscal year 2022,” the paper says.

I would suggest moving faster.

Payloads and flexibility.

Now, Navy how about Trump's Gunboats?:

Instead of continuing to use the wrong tool for the job, it is logical to

develop a diverse force of smaller naval ships to handle numerous, smaller missions, leaving the blue water navy to pursue the larger, vital warfighting role that it was designed to do. Smaller navy vessels working in squadrons may be more cost-effective in responding to global maritime incidents, patrolling coasts, and deterring similar forces. While the threat of Somali piracy has diminished the destabilization of other economies and nations could cause new threats to shipping to emerge as off Venezuela. Larger threats continue to loom as small Iranian boats swarm U.S. Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz and China’s maritime militia in the South China Sea have harassed ships in the past. Rather than offering larger, single targets of opportunity, dispersed squadrons of smaller vessels provide greater opportunities to counter asymmetric operations.

Building a Temporary Larger Fleet While Waiting for New Construction Ships (A Reanimation of an Old Post)

There is a great deal of brilliant discussion of how to build the 350 ship Navy called for by President-elect Trump see Jerry Hendrix's 12 Carriers and 350 Ships: A Strategic Path Forward from President Elect Donald Trump and Bryan McGrath's Quick Hit: Small Surface Combatants and the 350-Ship Navy for what the smart kids in the room are saying.

And, if you need to ask why we need a Navy - well, I respectfully suggest you listen to the Midrats show with Bryan McGrath:


On the other hand, there is that part of me that keeps reverting to being smart in how we spend our money and still increase our striking power while waiting for a host of new construction ships to join the fleet.

Some of this lies in the world of "distributed lethality" in which we spread advanced weapons to platforms that have, historically, been under-armed for a world in which combat may come sooner and in places where it might be less expected. While "DL" is a good idea, it does not increase the number of ships in our fleets. As I have often said in these posts, even the most capable ship can only cover so much ocean.

Numbers matter.

So does assigning the right ship to the right mission - should a multi-billion dollar cruiser/destroyer be assigned to chase pirates in speed boats? Or to show the flag off some limited threat shore?

I have said "No" in the past - see Department of Cheaper Pirate Fighting and the links therein for earlier thoughts.

In keeping with this theme, I offer up a post from 2008, which, if not as smart as those of Hendrix and McGrath, may prompt some cost-effective short-term Navy expansion:

In the September 2008 issue of the United States Naval Institute's magazine Proceedings, the Secretary of the Navy looked at the issue of "An Affordable Naval Presence." It has a sub-head of "We need a more cost-effective Fleet."

The piece lays out the requirements imposed by our maritime nature:

Our nation's maritime strategy reaffirms the use of sea power to influence actions and activities at sea and ashore, including the need for our naval forces to support humanitarian operations, counter piracy, and assist in capacity building and training of partner nations. The requirement to support these missions moves us to adopt persistent global presence as a key tenet of our strategy. The increasing desire for U.S. Navy presence is one of the driving factors behind our decisions on Fleet size and composition.

The value of presence is under-appreciated by many, for they fail to recognize the role of maritime security in support of the world economy to protect it against the vulnerabilities that terrorism and rogue nations pose. Clearly, most would agree that the world is far more connected and interdependent than in years past. Nations have moved away from the idea that they must possess economic self-sufficiency and have largely recognized the value of trade and specialization.

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The more dispersed nature of today's world trade patterns has major implications for our view of maritime security . . .

Ah, there's the rub. Too much ocean, too many shorelines, too many needs, too few ships. What's a navy to do?

Secretary Winter wants analysis of the right ships to build and a more efficient process to build them. All of which is fine, but - there is a faster, cheaper path to get bigger, sooner at lower cost - putting hulls in the water while awaiting that analysis.

Here's my modest proposal:

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 squardron 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 "net 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.

Show the flag.

But wait, there's more! For only "shipping and handling" you can call these cheap ships "corvettes" and go really additive - as I set out in Cheaper Corvettes: COOP and STUFT Like That:

Looks like sea-going trucks to me

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.

Now, I know that "Big Navy" like large platforms, but I assert that large platforms are mostly big targets.

Conversely, a fleet of small, well-armed. fast, expendable - and cheap - "platforms" is a smart, asymmetric response to the threats that exist now.

After all, one of our jobs is to make a potential enemy's task harder - and more fighting hulls in the water sooner works to that end.

See also The Small Ship Navy: Numerous and Expendable? Why not?