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By John F. Morton
On 27 September, President George Bush announced a nuclear reduction plan that would remove all tactical nuclear weapons from Navy surface ships and attack submarines and all nuclear weapons associated with naval aircraft. In effect, that announcement was the watershed event of the year. It laid to rest a Navy posture focused on its readiness to fight a global thermonuclear war with the former Soviet Union. In so doing, it set the stage for a Navy prepared to use maritime force for anything from diplomatic and humanitarian operations to high-intensity warfighting in regional conflicts—all of which happened in 1991.
Responding as well to the accelerating budget reductions and their impact on force structure, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Frank B. Kelso II said that the Navy will now spread its forces around the world, wherever the United States has an interest, but it will maintain the capability to respond anywhere within about a week. So says Vice Admiral Leighton Smith, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, Plans, Policy, and Operations (OP-06). “What that means is that we’re looking at force packages, as opposed to the standard battle force that used to go forward with its Cold War armor wrapped around it,” Vice Admiral Smith explains. “What we’re looking at is task- organized force packages that go where we—the CinCs (Commanders-in-Chief), the Joint Staff, and the National Command Authority—think that our presence can do the most good.” Vice Admiral Smith indicates that under routine peacetime conditions, “flexible presence” could mean that a carrier will not always be present in the Mediterranean, as has been the practice since World War II. Instead, a smaller force might well be able to satisfy that requirement by using a carrier, or other naval assets, located either in or within a specified number of steaming days from the Mediterranean, depending on the world situation.
Under Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell’s Base Force Concept, the Navy is planning for a 450-ship service. Though it must revise its diminishing force structure to meet all the different national commitments in the new era, “the 12-carrier force is in the best interest of the country,” says Vice Admiral James Williams, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Naval Warfare (OP-07). The carrier battle group (CVBG) of the present, however, is not the same CVBG of the past, the primary threat then being Soviet carrier-based aviation and submarines.
Today’s CVBG, says Vice Admiral Williams, will have a varied makeup of surface combatants, amphibious ships, and submarines, depending on the regional contingency. The one most likely configuration will include a CVBG with an amphibious ready group (ARG), the centerpiece of which will be general-purpose and multipurpose “big deck” assault ships (LHAs and LHDs, respectively) with an embarked special-operations-ca- pable Marine Expeditionary Unit. These forward-deployed ARGs—with their complement of Marines, helicopters, assault vehicles, air cushion landing craft (LCACs), and Harrier AV-8B jets—provide unique capabilities, such as noncombatant evacuation, humanitarian assistance, and hostage rescue. They have proved to be the most flexible and capable force for immediate response to any crisis.
Rumors circulated late last year that during the fiscal year 1993 future years defense plan budget drills. Pentagon officials wanted to reduce the Navy CVBG force to ten or even eight. One report said that the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) were pushing a plan for 12 ARGs that would require construction of two additional Wasp (LHD-l)-class assault ships. The Navy plan late last year was for continuous deployment of an ARG in the Mediterranean and a second either in the Pacific or in the Indian Ocean. Using a third ARG, the Navy could routinely deploy simultaneously in both. The report said that if the JCS forced 12 ARGs on the Navy, the planned buy of five multipurpose LHD assault ships would have to return to seven. The Navy currently has five of the general-purpose LHAs.
The reported JCS position on amphibious ready groups, together with the turmoil in naval aviation following the controversial cancellation of the A-12 attack aircraft and the perception that the Air Force outperformed the Navy in Operation Desert Storm, have had a deleterious effect on the rationale behind the CVBG. The situation last year prompted a number of naval officers to say privately their feeling that the funds for the next nuclear-powered carrier (CVN-76) were not secure. The fiscal year 1993 Navy request included $832.2 million in iong-lead funding for the CVN-76, and Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, in his January budget announcement, indicated a commitment to the Navy plan for 12 deployable carriers and one training carrier. According to Vice Admiral Williams, “In a major crisis, you still need the carrier battle group to project power with overwhelming superiority and thereby solve it with minimum loss of life, which is now a national priority.” Such a crisis could involve powerful regional adversaries such as North Korea, Iraq, Iran, or even a hard-line dictatorial regime in Russia, some of which could pose a tactical nuclear threat.
Last year, Vice Admiral William Owens, Commander of the Sixth Fleet, experimented with new force configurations based on traditional task group concepts, using an amphibious “big deck” ship, two surface combatant escorts, and a submarine. Such an action group could conduct anything from surveillance to blockade or even interception operations. In an era where nuclear-proliferation threats are multiplying, says one senior naval officer, a specially configured task group could have the capability to insert special operations forces onto merchantmen to disable illegally transferred ballistic missiles, for example.
The importance that the office of the CNO (OpNav) attaches to Vice Admiral Owens’s Sixth Fleet exercises illustrates how the Navy’s view of the Atlantic and NATO has changed with the end of the Cold War. Vice Admiral Williams says that the Navy’s role in NATO will increase as the geographic emphasis shifts from the Central Front to the Mediterranean and the Southern Region. According to him, NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEur) Army General John Galvin has said that the NATO navies in the Southern Region, including components of the Sixth Fleet.
In 1991, missions ran the gamut from regional war in the Persian Gulf to humanitarian and evacuation operations—here, volcano refugees in the Philippines board the Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) in June—setting the stage for the Navy’s role in the future.
will assume more importance as the number of U.S. land forces continues to decline in Europe.
Vice Admiral Williams also emphasizes that this CVBG/ARG force illustrates how the Navy/Marine Corps link will become much closer in the new era. “The Navy/Marine Corps team may be able to handle crises initially before becoming the enabling force for the Army and Air Force,” he says. Vice Admiral Williams cites the Somalia and Liberia evacuations, the earlier Lebanon hostage crisis operations, and humanitarian operations such as Operation Provide Comfort (during which the Marines provided initial security for the Kurds) and the Navy’s effort to help in the Philippines after the Mt. Pinatubo eruption as recent examples of how to use such a reconfigured carrier/am- phibious group. “No other force can do these things,” says Vice Admiral Williams.
The Navy is also studying ways to counter the tactical ballistic missile (TBM) in a littoral environment. Some 15 Third World countries now have TBMs, with several more expected to have them in the near future. By 2010, as many as 40 nations could have them. China is reportedly helping Iran to develop the missile, and North Korea is selling it to Syria and Iran. Libya has the Scud missile, made infamous by the Gulf War. With the proliferation of TBMs and weapons of mass destruction, perhaps including nuclear warheads, the Navy says that it is critical to develop both a tactical or area defense and a theater defense. Although no known Third World TBMs now threaten ships, concentrated amphibious assault forces do face a minor threat. And an anti-TBM on board a ship will probably be the only defense available in littoral warfare, until the Army arrives with its Patriot batteries.
Jointness
In 1990 when General Powell announced the Base Force Concept, he indicated that Navy and Air Force strategic forces would consolidate under a new joint Strategic Command (StratCom). At the time, the Navy was skeptical of placing its nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) under a joint command. Since then, it has not only embraced StratCom. but jointness in general. “I fully support the creation of the Strategic Command,” says Vice Admiral Roger Bacon, Assistant Chief of Naval Operations for Undersea Warfare (OP-02). “It is time for one command to enter into policy and requirements rather than having the Air Force and Navy making decisions separately for their own strategic forces.”
[Editor’s Note: For a detailed discussion of the strategic command, see pages 75-77 in this issue.]
Last year’s presidential strategic arms reduction proposals called for the Navy to inactivate its Poseidon fleet of 11 Poseidon C-3 and 12 Poseidon C-4 SSBNs. According to Vice Admiral Bacon, the Navy will build six more Trident subs, bringing the total SSBN force to 18. The United States will also decrease warhead requirements bilaterally and unilaterally.
It is no secret that the Navy has been traditionally the most reluctant of all the services to commit wholeheartedly to joint duty, training, and operations. Today, however, says Vice Admiral Williams, it is “really pushing joint more than any other service.” He says that the CNO is implementing jointness from the top down and that the Navy is now putting its best people in joint duty assignments. “Those who do not have the word haven’t been listening very carefully. But they will get it,” he says.
Operationally, according to Vice Admiral Smith, the Navy has already become involved in more joint exercises and operations. All CinCs now have contingency joint task forces with air, land, and sea commanders. Based on which would be the preponderant force in the scenario, he says, the CinC determines who will be the joint task force commander. Vice Admiral Smith says that in a hypothetical scenario, where maritime forces are the enabling force and the United States has no ground-based access, the joint task force commander’s flag could fly on board a Navy ship, because Navy and Marine forces will predominate. As forces move ashore, the shift of command and control will remain “seamless, from deep water, to shallow water, to over land,” he says. Should the Army enter with ground forces and become the predominant U.S. force, the CinC will make the decision whether and when to shift command ashore.
The Navy routinely conducts joint and combined exercises to improve its grasp of the Joint Force Air Component Commander concept. Several exercises, including one recently conducted by Vice Admiral Jerry Unruh, Commander, Third Fleet, have had the further refinement of this concept as one of their objectives. The two services want to write the concept into joint doctrine. Vice Admiral Smith says that further input is coming from Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic Fleet, the Tactical Air Command, Forces Command, and the 2d Marine Air Wing.
Vice Admiral Smith sits with his Air Force counterpart, Lieutenant General Michael Nelson, Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Operations, on the Navy/Air Force Board, established in September. The board is looking at a number of Navy-Air Force cooperative issues, such as land-based tanker support, increasing tanker ports to handle Navy aircraft, and the establishment of standardized links for weather data and link architecture for airborne early warning, electronic warfare, ships, and ground forces. Vice Admiral Smith says that it is also addressing acquisition issues, such as the fielding of common night-vision devices and the
Exerting “greater political clout,” coalition naval operations—here, the U.S. -built Saudi corvette Hitteen excercises in the Arabian Sea with the U.S. guided-missile cruiser Bainbridge (CGN-25), the nuclear-powered carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69), and the Aegis cruiser Ticonderoga (CG-47)—proved especially effective in Desert Storm.
possibility of a future aviation fuel that satisfies the requirements of both the Navy and the Air Force.
The two services also agreed in December to a joint direct attack program that cancels the Navy’s advanced bomb family and the Air Force’s adverse weather precision-guided munitions programs in favor of a retrofit of existing 2,000- and 500-pound gravity bombs. The Navy will also lead a joint standoff weapon program that continues development of the advanced interdiction weapon system and incorporates the Air Force’s sensor-fused weapon program.
Last year, Vice Admiral Jerry Tuttle’s Office of Space and Electronic Warfare (SEW, or OP-094) announced the testing of the joint over-the-horizon-targeting concept. A Mediterranean exercise, Dragon Hammer, demonstrated the ability of the airborne warning and control system (AWACS) to provide such data to Tomahawk and Harpoon shooters. According to the SEW office, AWACS provided real-time positions on non-emitting background shipping to facilitate Tomahawk and Harpoon engagement planning. A follow-on test during FleetEx 4-91 in the Caribbean refined procedures and addressed lessons learned. In the latter exercise, said SEW officials, the USS Atlanta (SSN-712) fired a live Tomahawk against a target hulk, using AW ACS as the primary targeting source.
The SEW office also announced last year that the numbered fleet and Middle East Force flagships and all further deploying carriers will have super high-frequency communications and the Air Force computer-assisted force management system installed. This management system provides strike planners afloat the ability to nominate aircraft and cruise missile missions and targets to the Joint Force Air Component Commander, which significantly improves the timeliness in receiving the air tasking order.
In view of the Navy’s much publicized connectivity shortcomings with the Air Force during Operation Desert Storm, the SEW effort is significant. While saying that the Air Force computer-assisted system is a “bandaid,” SEW officials said, “we are working closely with the Air Force to field a system that integrates air tasking order data on launch time, target, weapons, etc. with the Naval Intelligence Processing System afloat, giving workstations immediate access to the data. This interactive computer link with the Joint Force Air Component Commander will get the Navy’s input into the system from the initial planning phase through execution.”
Combined Operations
Last year, Admiral Kelso said that the Navy must anticipate more scenarios involving coalition warfighting, as was the case in Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm. An advantage of coalition warfighting is the “greater political clout,” says Vice Admiral Smith.
As such, the Navy is conducting more operations with foreign navies. In 1991, the Navy conducted 288 exercises with 60 countries and visited 73 more.
Combined exercises, says Vice Admiral Smith, enable navies to determine each other’s capabilities to ensure that the right navy and the right ship are the ones optimally capable of sailing into harm’s way. During Desert Shield/Desert Storm,
19 navies participated in the Multinational Interdiction Force that is still enforcing the United Nations embargo of Iraq. All of these navies, except Poland’s, have exercised with the U.S. Navy. Only the most capable ships from navies whose national executives were giving the most aggressive support operated in the North- em Persian Gulf, for example. As of early 1992, the interdiction force had intercepted 12,937 vessels, boarded 3,504, and ; diverted 222. The Navy also conducted Gulf minesweeping with the Royal Navy, the Japanese Maritime Defense Force, and navies from other countries. The last U.S. minesweeper left the Gulf on 15 January 1992. Altogether, multinational minesweeping forces cleared more than 1,250 mines.
Although Desert Shield/Desert Storm was not a NATO operation, the coalition used NATO protocols and security procedures throughout. Some senior naval officers say that exercises will be perhaps the most important NATO function in the future to ensure that NATO procedures are in place for such ad hoc coalition warfighting.
Combined exercises are important in I the Pacific as well, where they tend to be bilateral. Nevertheless, the exercises gen- I erate warfighting publications very sirn- ilar to NATO’s, e.g., the most recent standard operating procedures publication that the U.S. Navy has established with Japan. The bilateral arrangements with Australia are another example. The 1988 RimPac exercise included the Republic of Korea. More recently, the Navy has exercised with Malaysia.
System Implications
Although the Navy may not have to plan and exercise for global thermonuclear war, regional conflicts can most definitely materialize, as Desert Storm proved. High-technology weaponry is proliferating in Third World arsenals. The 1992 Joint Military Net Assessment illustrates how world military expenditures in developed countries are projected to remain flat into the next century, but defense spending in the lesser-developed countries is rising.
The system implications for the Navy are important, especially for those serving overland antiair warfare, shallow- water antisubmarine warfare and mine countermeasures, amphibious operations, and conventional ordnance and gunnery. In addition, the Navy will pay more attention to damage control systems that can mitigate threats from small arms, mines, and antiship missile systems common in littoral environments.
Damage control was relatively meaningless for some combatants in blue-water scenarios involving large antiship missiles such as the AS-6 Kingfish with a nuclear or 1,000-kilogram high-explosive warhead. The Third World threat is from the much smaller Exocet or Silkworm, the latter having a high-explosive warhead in the 450-kilogram range. This lower level of threat means that a commanding officer can expect to take hits and still fight his ship.
Aviation
Vice Admiral Richard Dunleavy, Assistant Chief of Naval Operations for Air Warfare (OP-05), says that 1993 will be a “pivotal year” to decide on a downsizing strategy to support a 12-carrier/l- training carrier force.
[Editor’s Note: The issues important to naval aviation are addresseed in detail ln the following articles in this issue: "A- J2 Loss Haunts Naval Aviation, ” pp. 92-95; U.S. Naval Aircraft and Weapon Developments in 1991, pp. 169-177.]
Undersea Warfare
During the Cold War era, the primary focus of submarines was deterrence. The submarine was either a strategic platform or a hunter-killer designed to eliminate the Soviet nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs). Into the next century, the Navy’s downsized SSBN force may be shouldering most of the burden of strategic deterrence, but its nuclear attack submarines (SSNs) will shift their focus to roles in support of regional
U.S. attack submarines will continue to support regional contingencies, as one did from the distant eastern Mediterranean during Desert Storm. Here, one of 12 submarine-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles earmarked for Iraq splits the periscopic field of the USS Pittsburgh (SSN-720).
contingencies.
Last year, the much-publicized Tomahawk submarine launchings during Desert Storm demonstrated the SSN’s precision strike capability that serves one of a number of newly defined roles for the submarine. Two Los Angeles (SSN- 688)-class submarines, the Louisville (SSN-724), operating in the Red Sea, and the Pittsburgh (SSN-720), in the Eastern Mediterranean, fired 12 Tomahawks during Desert Storm. According to Vice Admiral Bacon, submarines will be heavily involved in regional crisis response.
An 18 January 1992 OP-02 white paper states that the future submarine roles are peacetime engagement, surveillance, deterrence, regional sea denial, precision strike, task group support, and ground warfare support. Peacetime engagement, the paper states, includes port visits, deployments, combined exercises and operations, and military-to-military relations.
The surveillance role, says Vice Admiral Bacon, is best exemplified by the British use in 1982 of attack submarines off Argentina’s air bases and use of electronic equipment, sonar, and visual sighting to report aircraft sorties toward the Falkland Islands. Nuclear-powered attack submarines could also fulfill the surveillance requirement by shadowing merchant vessels suspected of arms smuggling to identify smuggling patterns.
In its deterrent role, the attack submarine will continue to hold threatening SSBNs at risk. As for sea denial, the paper says that it “is a prerequisite to sea superiority,” giving the use of covert offensive mining operations as an example.
In performing its precision strike role, a submarine can launch Tomahawks against targets such as offensive missile facilities, command-and-control facilities, electrical power generation stations, nuclear, biological, or chemical warfare facilities, air defenses, and early- warning and communications facilities within 650 miles of the coast. For performing task group support, a submarine would provide over-the-horizon targeting for antiship missiles. In ground warfare support, submarines could insert special operations forces for collection of tactical intelligence or reconnoitering. The white paper concludes that “use of submarines might eliminate the need for Air Force assets to fly extended ranges to arrive in the attack area.”
Vice Admiral Bacon says that a submarine’s stealthiness gives it an advantage over air defense and command, control, communications, computer, and intelligence systems thus complicating a threat’s coastal defense. It is also invulnerable to patrol boats and sea-skimmer missiles. The stealth capability inherent in submarines also “provides the National Command Authorities with the option of being provocative or nonprovocative.”
Referring to the nuclear versus diesel propulsion debate. Vice Admiral Bacon says that the shallow-water issue for nukes is a “myth.” In the last decade, nuclear submarines have logged more than 14,000 days in water shallower than 600 feet, he says. In addition to the AN/BSY-1 active sonar system, SSNs will also use passive sonar to “hold [any diesel sub] at length outside his weapons range.” says Vice Admiral Bacon.
Although the fiscal year 1993 budget cancelled the Seawolf {SSN-2\) program.
cluding that the Navy did not need a stand-off Sealance or a Tomahawk ASW variant. The study said that both were too expensive and supported continued work on the vertical launch antisubmarine (VLA) rocket. The VLA was originally intended as an interim system for Sealance, and Vice Admiral Kihune says that the its Mark 46 warhead completes operational evaluation this year.
Vice Admiral Kihune is also happy with the new Mine Warfare Master Plan. He is very pleased with the mine countermeasures (MCM) capability today and notes specifically the SQ-32 sonar and the mine neutralization system built around an underwater remotely operated vehicle. While both systems are effective in deep and shallow water, says Vice Admiral Kihune, they have problems in very shallow water, 40 feet from the beach. That weakness has implications for the viability of amphibious operations, and the admiral says that the plan includes several programs in research and development, with very shallow water systems as a “primary focus.” Sophisticated systems, however, may not be able to sift through the clutter and detect mines fast enough for use in an amphibious operation, he warns. Thus, the Navy may have to rely on “brute force” systems, such as explosive arrays, some of which, Vice Admiral Kihune says, are still very good in shallow water.
In December, the CNO approved the plan that also supported the concept of an MCM command-and-control support ship. The ship will deploy to support surface ships, mine-hunting helicopters, and explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) teams. It also could lift mine countermeasure vessels and minesweepers to the area of operations. During Desert Storm, the Tripoli (LPH-10) and New Orleans (LPH-11) served as a mine countermeasures support ships.
Among the lessons learned during Desert Storm, the Navy concluded that it must train the disparate units of the MCM community together. Likewise, it determined the need for armed escort for the MH-53E helos. During the operation, Marine AH-1W Sea Cobras provided cover.
Logistics Transmission
Vice Admiral Bacon still says that it “is the best submarine ever built.” The ten years of research and development in the technology “will not be wasted,” he says, adding that the quieting and payload, which includes 50 cruise missiles, will be useful in the next design—the Centurion.
Surface Warfare
In the fiscal year 1993 budget, the Navy’s major ship construction program, the Arieigh Burke (DDG-5 l)-class Aegis destroyer, continues with a four-ship, $3.4 billion request that essentially validated last year’s planned fiscal 1993 buy. The DDG-51 has long been the Navy’s centerpiece battle force combatant. Now that the Pentagon’s Base Force Concept has put the service on a path toward a 450- ship Navy, however, the leadership has had to rethink how to fit the original DDG-51 acquisition plan into the context of a reduced funding profile.
In 1990, the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) had forced the Navy to revise its plan for the DDG-51 in the Pentagon’s major warship review. In the fiscal 1991 budget, the Navy was planning to build at least five DDG-5 Is each year. In the fiscal yearl992 budget scrub, however, OSD told the Navy to reduce the planned buy to fewer than four per year through fiscal year 1997.
The Base Force Concept called for 150 surface combatants, meaning that the service would have to buy five combatants a year to sustain those numbers in the fleet, as older destroyer and cruiser classes retire. With a projected DDG-51 unit cost of $860 million per copy, however, the Navy concluded that it could not sustain that rate of procurement.
Early last year, the Navy contemplated building a so-called destroyer variant (DDV) in three versions for strike, ASW, and AAW, with only the AAW variant having the Aegis air-defense system. In April, it put together a study group under Vice Admiral Robert Kihune, Assistant Chief of Naval Operations for Surface Warfare (OP-03), to define the DDV. The study group included representatives from industry (Bath Iron Works, Ingalls Shipbuilding, and the Aegis vendors), the Naval Sea Systems Command, OpNav, the Center for Naval Analyses, the Applied Physics Laboratory, the David Taylor Research Center, and a number of retired flag officers.
Says Vice Admiral Kihune, the CNO directed him to reduce the cost of the DDG-51 without reducing capability, unless that capability was no longer required in the new threat picture. The CNO’s guidance also stated that the DDV would not be a follow-on ship with a new hull. Instead, he wanted a complete study that would start “with an analysis of the mission of the ship including scenarios,” says Vice Admiral Kihune.
In December, the group completed the study and presented recommendations to the CNO. Members agreed on one DDV design, which they called the DDG-51 Flight IIA. Reportedly, each Flight IIA will run $745 million. The study “reconfirmed,” says Kihune, “that the DDG-51 hull is the way to go.” He says that all parties also agreed on the necessity of a helicopter hangar, originally planned for the DDG-51 Flight III version.
Although the hangar recommendation adds another requirement to a ship that already has a reduced capability, the group gave strong support to the concept of an “armed helicopter,” says Vice Admiral Kihune. He says that armed helicopters provide an “eye over the horizon.” Although the Navy has not yet resolved the weapon system alternatives for the armed helicopter, the impact on the Flight IIA will be on the design aspect for the magazine capacity.
Last year, OP-05 began tackling the helicopter weapon system issue by funding an Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) study on air-to-ground missiles for 8H-60 helicopters. IDA is looking at the Norwegian Penguin antiship missile, an air-to-ground version of the Stinger, the Hellfire, and the British Sea Skua, which saw action in Desert Storm on board Royal Navy Lynx helicopters. During the operation, some Navy frigates and destroyers deployed with U.S. Army OH-58D Kiowa helicopters armed with Hellfires.
The Penguin is the leading system, although the missile is expensive at $1 million per copy. One report last year said that the Navy wants 200 Penguins, and 42 reportedly are in the fiscal year 1992 budget. Initial funding for the armed helicopter program is in the fiscal year 1994 budget plan that envisions a force of 6080 helos for any regional contingency.
With AAW, littoral operations must also consider the targeting problem of distinguishing threats from commercial air traffic over land. The other two main factors driving AAW assumptions and decisions on the Standard and Harpoon, for example, are the lessons learned from Desert Storm and the ongoing revolution in maritime warfighting—the result of rapidly emerging technologies in software, sensors, and data fusion.
As for stand-off ASW weapon systems, Navy Acquisition Chief Gerald Cann last year completed a study, con
Communication for logistics was very important during Operation Desert Storm. According to Vice Admiral Stephen Lof- tus, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Logistics (OP-04), ten reservists working at the Aviation Supply Office developed the streamlined alternative logistics transmission system (SALTS)—using off- the-shelf personal computers and soft-
The USS Arleigh Burke (DDG-51)-class guided-missile destroyer is still the centerpiece of the U.S. surface fleet— here, Admirals Arleigh Burke himself and Frank B. Kelso, Chief of Naval Operations, take part in the commissioning ceremony in July. To fit the ship into the new budget scheme, the Navy came up with a destroyer variant, using the DDG-51 hull, the one used in the John Paul Jones (DDG-52) being launched here in October.
ware—to allow requisition of supplies using digitized, compressed, and encrypted data on the commercial international maritime satellite (InMarSat) system, super high frequency, or landline. The system allowed parts to be shipped within the day.
The reservists developed and deployed SALTS in theater in 13 days. Because InMarSat use can be very costly, the compressed and digitized data meant that 48 typewritten pages translated into a minute-long burst at a cost of $7.20. Large ships can transmit in the same manner for $55 a day. Hardware/software equipment costs were $5,000 and the satellite link was $50,000, making for a relatively inexpensive system. As of February, 40 Navy shore stations, 57 afloat units, and 42 Marine commands and units Were using SALTS.
Mobility Study
In January, the Secretary of Defense °rwarded Volume 1 of the congression- mandated Mobility Requirements Study (MRS) Final Report to Congress, he MRS recommends the construction
and/or conversion of two types of roll-on/roll-off (RO/RO) sealift ships: prepositioning and surge. The recommendations have refined those of the earlier MRS Interim Response forwarded to Congress last April. Vice Admiral Loftus stated that the Joint Staff, not the Navy, “controlled” the study and focused on more than just sealift issues. The study looked at every step of the deployment from “fort to foxhole.” Input on the two kinds of ships came from the Navy staff (OP-04), the Military Sealift Command, and the Naval Sea Systems Command, as well as conceptual designs from nine U.S. shipyards.
The prime candidate for prepositioning and surge is a large, 24-knot RO/RO ship. A smaller, 20-knot RO/RO for military and commercial use is the second type candidate. Acquisition of the smaller RO/RO through a build-and-charter program that will help both the shipbuilding industrial base and the Merchant Marine is under consideration as an alternative to the expansion of the Ready Reserve Force. “All ships will be built in U.S. yards and fly a U.S. flag,” says Vice Admiral Loftus. Input is coming from the MSC, the Maritime Administration, industry, and the largest user of sealift, the Army, on the design and capabilities of the new sealift assets.
The mobility study recommends that the Navy should acquire 20 large.
medium-speed RO/ROs through either new construction or conversion for prepositioning and surge requirements, and the Army should lease two container ships for prepositioning. The approximate delivery schedule for these ships will mean two leased container ships and four RO/ROs in 1994 (conversions), four new- construction RO/ROs in 1996 and one in 1997 for prepositioning. The four conversions will be replaced by two new construction RO/ROs in 1996 and two in 1997. After replacement, they will be placed in reduced operating status with the additional new-construction RO/ROs; three in 1997 and four in 1998 and the existing eight Fast Sealift Ships to support the rapid deployment of the initial Army divisions from the United States. This will bring the 1998 total to 19 surge ships under Military Sealift Command control.
The Secretary of the Navy has forwarded a legislative package to the Secretary of Defense to establish a National Defense Sealift Fund to capitalize the $1.8 billion in sealift appropriations as a revolving fund to provide management efficiency, flexibility, and cost savings. According to Vice Admiral Loftus, the sealift fund will also receive prepositioning contributions from allies, build- and-charter receipts, and scrapping revenues. The Navy will use the fund to supplement costs of sealift ship construction and acquisition.
Base Closure
As the Navy’s force structure decreases, so will its infrastructure. Vice
Admiral Loftus hopes that the shore support downsizing will proceed in a balanced way. The Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission meets only every other year, forcing Navy planning to conform to this two-year cycle. Unlike other services, the Navy does not have a one-to-one correspondence of forces and facilities, says Vice Admiral Loftus. “At any one time, one-third of the fleet is at sea; therefore, closure and realignment for the Navy is not a linear, but a step function,” he says. “In addition, most bases provide mixed support functions and therefore do not afford the opportunity for a clean kill.”
In the case of its shipyards, the Navy has been working a number of capacity studies. Ironically, says Vice Admiral Loftus, as Navy force structure reduces, and centers of planning. Says Loftus, the air command’s capacity studies have discovered that under the reorganization, its facilities can now compete “very favorably” for defense business with both private and other services’ facilities. Both the sea and the air commands’ facilities all function now under the commission.
Vice Admiral Loftus says that the Navy is affected by the OSD’s establishment of a Defense Depot Maintenance Council that will manage the downsizing in the maintenance arena. Another area of downsizing mentioned by Vice Admiral Loftus is linked to the consolidation of physical distribution functions at the Navy Supply Center within the Defense Logistics Agency. Thirty DoD supply depots will consolidate in 1992 with approximately 50% of the people in the
York (Staten Island), Mobile, Alabama, and Ingleside, Texas. Other ships are also being assigned to these homeports and to the new naval station at Pascagoula, Mississippi. According to Vice Admiral Loftus, “our plan concentrates the majority of mine warfare forces at Naval Station Ingleside, which will enable us to focus our surface mine hunting and mine clearing force to achieve the training, maintenance, and interoperability benefits that could not be realized if the ships were dispersed.” Loftus emphasized that this mine warfare center of excellence is especially critical to meet the future challenges of shallow-water mining as evidenced during Desert Storm. Ships will begin arriving at these new homeports during fiscal year 1992. Nonetheless, as required by the Defense Base Closure and
U.S. NAVY (J. BOLIVIA)
The future U.S. surface fleet will be sharply reduced in frigates. The Oliver Hazard Perry (FFG-7 (-class guided missile frigate will maintain its current numbers through 2000, but the Knox (FF-1052) class will phase out of the active fleet by fiscal year 1994. Here, the Wadsworth (FFG-9) and the Robert E. Peary (FF-1073) pass at the entrance to Pearl Harbor.
docking and projected workload in the short-term will increase to handle deactivations. When the commission recommends a closure, that facility must start closing within two years and finish closing within six years. This time frame is important for the controversial case of the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, for Vice Admiral Loftus says that the Forrestal (CV-59) and John F. Kennedy (CV-67) overhauls will still be able to complete prior to closure.
The Naval Air Systems Command first established a hub structure based on the naval aviation depots system under which it has designated centers of excellence
Navy’s supply depots transferring to the Defense Logistics Agency.
Faced with the overall downsizing of the defense industrial base, Loftus says that the Navy will use the procurement process to prioritize critical capabilities to be preserved for force reconstitution. It will also use the base closure and realignment process to identify critical skills and how best to manage them and to plan. In so doing, the Navy will also consider training in terms of maintaining those skills and review how mothballing can serve reconstitution. As it begins to define what reconstitution means, the Navy is building its reorganization plan in concert with industry, he says.
Homeporting
In October, the Navy began transferring 40 Knox (FF-1052)-class frigates to the Naval Reserve. Under the Innovative Naval Reserve Concept, eight of those ships will become training platforms for reserve crews, which will be maintained in mobilization status. These training ships will be assigned to the Navy’s newest homeports; Naval Stations New
Realignment Act of 1990, even these new homeports will come under review during future base closure rounds in 1993 and 1995.
Nuclear Propulsion Industrial Base
The Pentagon cancellation of Seawolf is threatening to constrict the Navy’s nuclear propulsion industrial base that could have an effect on carrier programs. With the Seawolf cancellation, the Navy will have a four- to six-year gap before the next-generation submarine—the subject of the reduced-capability Centurion project—enters production in fiscal 1998 at the earliest. (Some reports, however, say that the Centurion project may have to accept a non-nuclear option.) An additional issue is the Navy’s need to accelerate the Centurion program in order to sustain the submarine industrial base threatened by the Seawolf decision.
As for the next nuclear-powered carrier (CVN-76), the Navy has wanted long-lead funding for a program with an estimated cost of $4.9 billion. (An SSN has one nuclear reactor; a carrier, two.) Service officials argued last year for $850
Moored here beside the cruiser Texas (CGN-39) are three of the mine warfare stars: the Guardian (MCM-5), the Leader (MSO-490), and the Adroit (MSO-509). With a multinational minesweeping force, they helped destroy approximately 1,250 Iraqi mines in the Persian Gulf.
million in long-lead funding for fiscal year 1993 that would begin the carrier construction in fiscal year 1995. The administration did allow $832.2 million for fiscal 1993, but a prebudget press release suggested that it was seeking to delay construction beyond fiscal year 1995. If true, reactor producer, Virginia-based Babcock and Wilcox could find its business in jeopardy and itself unable to continue until the carrier start, which in turn could sink the CVN-76, thus contributing to the worry over the security of the carrier funds.
Babcock and Wilcox is the only manufacturer of reactor cores for the Navy, but other nuclear firms could be equally affected by the Navy downturn. Tennessee-based Nuclear Fuel Services is the only provider of nuclear fuels. Only one manufacturer produces large reactor coolant pumps. Of the three companies that make the reactor vessels and steam generators, one could leave the business and two are at the brink of leaving, the Navy said last year. The shakiness of the nuclear propulsion industrial base could force the Navy to think about abandoning nuclear power in future ship designs, which in the case of the carrier could mean a radical rethink of Navy force structure, so long geared around the carrier battle group.
Navy nuclear propulsion is getting squeezed from another quarter as the result of the base-closure process. Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) has the General Accounting Office (GAO) doing a study with the Navy on the costs of maintaining nuclear ships, which will include the costs of disposing nuclear waste, a major cost consideration. Specter is suspicious that the Navy nuclear community pressured the service to move to close the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in order to save its six nuclear shipyards. The Pentagon’s Base Closure and Realignment Commission recommended that the Navy close the Philadelphia yard in 1995. Philadelphia and Long Beach are the only two shipyards that are not nuclear capable. The GAO report is due on 1 July.
The industrial base aspect to nuclear propulsion is critical to the Navy. According to the “Carrier-21” study, “Nothing in recent experience suggests that non-nuclear power for a new generation of large ships of the aircraft carrier (CV) class should be preferred; indeed, future sustainability considerations would suggest using nuclear power for more ships if the initial costs are deemed supportable.”
Space and Electronic Warfare
In August, The Office of Space and Electronic Warfare (SEW) reported that 84 U.S. ships at three fleet training sites had installed the JOTS II systems. British, Canadian, French, Australian, and Dutch ships had installations as well. Another 11 Tactical Force Command Center productions installations were under way and by December, and additional 64 JOTS II production systems were to be installed.
With Copernicus, space and electronic warfare established its ASW command, control, and communication global information exchange system by November, with implementation by February. Naples, Italy, became the first command- and-control center.
As for carrier battle group/amphibious ready group connectivity with amphibious forces ashore, the Marine position location reporting system provides three- dimension own-force locating data. The system comprises up to 400 airborne, surface, and manpack units supported by a single master station. The team will jointly develop a downsized master station. The SEW command plans to have the DTC-II position location reporting system master station ready for initial testing in the Wasp (LHD-1) when she returns from deployment.
At last year’s International Seapower Symposium at the Naval War College, 51 navies attended to discuss, among other things, command and control. Vice Admiral Williams says that the navies were interested in “coordinating through the War College to improve interoperability.” At the conference, Vice Admiral Williams stressed the expanded use of InMarSat for “immediate interoper-
On 11 February 1992, the nuclear-powered attack submarine Baton Rouge (SSN-689) had an accidental “scrape" with a Russian Sierra-class nuclear-powered attack submarine just off Kildin Island in the Barents Sea. Here, the Baton Rouge, which sustained minor gashes to a port ballast tank, arrives at Norfolk, Virginia, for repairs.
ability for communications.” The Navy has decided to put more emphasis on InMarSat to improve basic communications. Vice Admiral Williams says that the need to make “comm” easier was his major lesson learned as a Sixth Fleet commander involved in combined NATO operations.
Highlights of 1991 ►The Navy decommissioned 43 ships in 1991, a U.S. record. Among them were the training aircraft carrier Lexington (AVT-16), the nuclear- powered ballistic missile submarine Lewis and Clark (SSBN-644), and the battleships New Jersey (BB-62) and Wisconsin (BB-64). The last of the old dreadnoughts, the Missouri (BB-63) completed her last cruise, a Pacific voyage to Pearl Harbor for the 50th Anniversary commemoration of the 1941 Japanese attack. She, too, was decommissioned at the end of March 1992.
►A few new ships came on the Navy scene, as well. On 4 July in Norfolk, Virginia, Bath Iron Works hosted the commissioning of the new guided missile destroyer Arleigh Burke (DDG-51), with the ship’s namesake on hand for the festivities. She also test fired her first Tomahawk land- attack missile in 1991.
►Mines were still on everyone’s mind in the Persian Gulf. In efforts to protect Kuwaiti shipping, a multinational team of minesweepers joined the U.S. mine warfare ships Guardian (MCM-5), Adroit (MSO-509), Impervious (MSO-449), and Leader (MSO-490) to sweep the northern Gulf for Iraqi mines. These ships remained on station as the Avenger (MCM-1), the first of the Navy’s new mine countermeasures vessels, returned home to Charleston, South Carolina, after nearly 11 months in the Persian Gulf. By midyear, the multinational force had destroyed nearly 1,250 Iraqi mines.
►In July, Navy and Marine Corps Task Force 138 participated in a five-day visit to Cartagena, Colombia, after a series of antisubmarine warfare exercises with the Colombian frigates Independiente and
Caldas. The U.S. ships O’Bannon (DD- 987), Dahlgren (DDG-43), Aylwin (FF- 1081), Barnstable County (LST-1097), and Sand Lance (SSN-660) anchored at Cartagena Bay for the UNITAS visit— because of the terrorism threat, the first by U.S. forces since 1988.
►For the first time in 17 years, the carrier Midway (CV-41) returned to a U.S. port. From Operation Frequent Wind, evacuating 3,000 people from Saigon in 1975, through its workhorse performance during Operations Desert Storm and Fiery Vigil, the old carrier is now mothballed after 46 years’ service.
►The Defense Base Closure and Realignment commission recommended to President George Bush that 17 Navy and Marine Corps facilities be closed, and 16 others realigned. The Secretary of the Navy also approved a consolidation plan to restructure Navy Research, Development. Testing, and Evaluation Engineering and Fleet Support Activities, which calls for consolidation under one of four full spectrum warfare centers or the streamlined Navy Corporate Research Laboratory by the end of fiscal 1995. ►Ending a long tradition of recruiting native Filipinos, the Navy has suspended the program as of the end of fiscal 1992 in conjunction with the closure of its
Subic Bay facility. Historically, Filipinos have served with distinction in the Navy since President William McKinley authorized 500 enlistees in 1901 to serve in the U.S. Insular Force.
►Commander Deborah Gernes, U.S. Navy, became the second woman to assume command of a ship. On 22 November she took command of the fleet oiler Cimarron (AO-177) during ceremonies at Avondale Shipyard. Louisiana. ►For the first time in history, the U.S. Navy participated in an exercise with a former Warsaw Pact navy. In November.
the Aegis cruiser York- town executed several communication, navigation, and seamanship drills with six Bulgarian ships in the Black Sea. ►After two years of investigation, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Frank B. Kelso II announced that “the exact cause cannot be determined” as to how the turret two explosion occurred on board the USS Iowa (BB-61) on 19 April 1989. Kelso apologized to the families of the crew killed in the explosion, including family members of Clayton M. Hartwig, the gunner’s mate originally blamed by the Navy for the explosion. The admiral also stated that the evidence and analyses continue to support the original finding that the cause of the explosion was not accidental.
►In February 1992. the USS Baton Rouge (SSN-689) collided in the Barents Sea with a Sierra-class Russian submarine near the ports of Severomorsk and Murmansk. According to Russian reports, the collision damaged its conning tower and upper deck. The Baton Rouge and her crew of 135 emerged with only minor damage to one of the boat's port ballast tanks.
►This was the year of humanitarian aid from the U.S. Navy, which participated in six major evacuation and assistance operations.
[Editor's Note: For detailed reports on these operations, see pages 96-119 and pages 157-163. |
Mr. Morton is a defense writer and editor based in Washington, D.C.