Surface warfare is comprised of five core capabilities: antisubmarine warfare, mine warfare, antisurface warfare, amphibious warfare, and combat logistics. From this foundation, we will continue to contribute to defining the future joint battlefield, primarily through the twin missions of theater air dominance and land attack.
We are performing theater air dominance and land attack today, but as technology advances, these missions are continuing to evolve. This, of course, is a double-edged sword: rapid technological changes help us to improve the systems we buy and field, but they also give our adversaries an asymmetric threat advantage.
Another challenge that lies ahead is the fact—almost a cliche—that we are operating in a time of austere budgets. Our force structure, set by the last Quadrennial Defense Review, has dropped to just 116 surface combatants. Just as important, we are constrained in what we can do by what we have to pay in operational costs to maintain today’s surface fleet.
Fortunately, we can harness those same rapid technological changes to leverage our present forces and ensure our entree into the 21st-century battlespace. The concept we are pursuing is network-centric warfare—essentially a battlefield information grid that will give us the ability to assimilate and share data quickly among our forces. All sensors and shooters will be plugged into the network, contributing to a single, accurate, integrated picture of the battlefield. This will change fundamentally the way we do business, both ashore and—more important—at sea.
An excellent example of a key by-product of network-centric warfare is the development and maintenance of a single integrated air picture (SIAP). As noted in the Joint Theater Air and Missile Defense Organization’s (JTAMDO’s) master plan, this picture is “the product of fused, common, continuous, unambiguous tracks of all airborne objects in the surveillance area. Each object within the SIAP has one, and only one, track number s and set of associated characteristics. . . . The SIAP is the critical enabler that will provide the war fighter the ability to perform effective, efficient, and integrated theater air and missile defense.” The SIAP will fuse data from near-real and real-time networks, such as the Joint Data Network and Joint Composite Tracking Network, respectively. Today, the Joint Data Network consists of data links (e.g., Links 11 and 16), and the Joint Composite Tracking Network will use data from the Cooperative I Engagement Capability (CEC) or a CEC-like system.
Revolutionary changes must be made in the way we receive and transfer data if we are to reap the benefits and efficiencies of network centricity. But because the concept still is developing, and we are operating in a fiscally constrained environment, the plan to achieve this desired end-state must be affordable and realistic. We have developed, therefore, a surface combatant and mission transition strategy that bridges our present surface force to the future surface force by leveraging our current investment.
Our Road Map
The first requirement of network centricity is that old barriers must be broken down, so we can get beyond platform capabilities and limitations, and think beyond traditional demarcations of air, surface, and submarine communities. Organizational structures, operational concepts, and doctrine are changing, to ensure that our tactics match the technologies and combat systems capabilities being brought to the waterfront.
Our resources and requirements are being realigned to enhance those things that will allow the Navy to influence events ashore directly and decisively from the sea. In theater air dominance and land attack, we are moving away from a platform-centered surface Navy to a network-centric one. The combination of the near-term evolution of a new generation of ships and a far-term revolution in the capabilities of these platforms to achieve full-spectrum dominance from the sea is unparalleled in naval history.
In all communities, joint command, control, and targeting capabilities will migrate toward the realization of direct sensor-to-shooter connectivity. Seamless coverage of the joint battlefield will be achieved by overhead sensors. Information superiority will be gained, and maintained, by increased use of space-based sensors and connectivity. Long-range sensor suites, joint connectivity with theater and national systems, and long-range precision munitions will give air, surface, and submarine platforms— operating independently or with a battle group—the ability to attack throughout the battlespace.
The Navy has not yet realized the single integrated air picture as envisioned in JTAMDO’s master plan, but we are far enough along to realize that this is an achievable goal and that the payoff will be significant. We also know that the SIAP cannot be built without fully integrating and leveraging the formidable capabilities of the other services—joint interoperability is paramount.
Joint interoperability and the SIAP will allow surface combatants to extend protection against overland cruise missiles to forces ashore. Using Standard missiles directed in the terminal phase by airborne fire-control radars, surface ships will be able to provide defense in depth and 360-degree coverage critical to defended assets ashore. Attaining this air-directed surface-to-air capability will be a true measure of network-centric warfare.
Surface combatants also will employ advanced guns with guided and ballistic munitions, cruise missiles, and fast-response missiles to execute such land-attack missions as strategic attack, interdiction, suppression of enemy air defenses, fire support, suppression of coastal defenses, and self-defense. To accomplish these missions, these ships will exploit national, theater, and tactical sensors (both remote and organic) and employ guns and missiles to attack fixed, relocatable, and moving targets.
Much of what will evolve still is to be determined, but whatever platforms eventually put to sea as replacements for today’s force structure, we know that they will be revolutionary rather than evolutionary in design. Combat systems will be developed with open architectures, permitting on-line upgrades via software, as opposed to hardware, changes. New modular construction techniques will change dramatically the way capabilities can be added to platforms and will maximize flexibility and combat capabilities specifically tailored to the mission.
Near Term: DDG-51-Class Construction & Cruiser Conversion
There already exists a solid base from which to strengthen the world’s most capable sea-based combat capability: our Aegis cruisers and destroyers. The focus of near-term efforts, then, is to make evolutionary changes in current force structure and to meld the fundamental precepts of the Navy’s operational concept with the Marine Corps’ operational maneuver from the sea (OMFTS).
Sea-based theater ballistic missile defense (TBMD) systems and strong land-attack capabilities are superb examples of 21st-century technologies that are being developed. As full partners with the Marine Corps in implementing OMFTS, surface combatants with greatly enhanced land-attack systems will provide much of the sea-based fire support required to enable operational maneuver from the sea. Naval defensive capabilities, such as theater air and missile defense systems, will be networked and integrated with joint systems for maximum protection of the joint force. The sea-based defensive umbrella of our Aegis-equipped, TBMD-capable surface combatants will complement land-based systems and in some situations may be the only U.S. capabilities readily available, particularly in the early stages of a campaign.
We recently commissioned the 23rd of 57 Arleigh Burke (DDG-51)-class destroyers. Timely completion of this program remains essential to our near-term strategy. We will introduce enhanced land-attack capabilities starting with DDG-81, and with the commissioning of DDG-85 in fiscal year 2002, these multifaceted ships will be fully adapted for both littoral missions of land attack and theater ballistic missile defense. In addition, our cruiser conversion plan addresses the near-term requirements of responsive, precise naval surface fire support for the Marine Corps and the threat of continuing theater ballistic missile development by potential adversaries by installing TBMD and land-attack capabilities in the 22 vertical- launch-system-configured units of this class. This plan permits us to leverage the Aegis success story and defer the requirement for a successor cruiser building program until the full rate production of the 21st-century land-attack destroyer is completed.
This conversion plan incorporates a major mission change for our Aegis cruisers—from blue-water, air defense, and antisubmarine warfare to littoral warfare. In addition, 12 of the 22 cruisers will be equipped to serve as area air defense commanders, which will allow for an afloat air defense planning cell from which the joint force commander can orchestrate the air war. The plan also will provide “Smart Ship” core control systems technology, which will improve survivability, reduce crew size, and decrease life-cycle costs. Also important, this plan lays the foundation for the advanced computing architecture needed for the Navy Theater Wide, upper tier ballistic missile defense system.
Theater Air Defense & Navy Area Ballistic Missile Defense
Deploying ballistic missile defenses at sea provides a dramatic deterrent and war-winning capability. Because we can position our ships near anticipated launch points, the same radar capability and theater ballistic missile interceptor performance that provide tens of thousands of square kilometers of terminal defense from shore-based TBMD forces now will provide hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of defended area from ships at sea.
Forward-deployed Navy TBMD forces, therefore, offer substantial political and military leverage. Surface combatants can arrive on the scene early and immediately begin to influence events. They are combat ready upon arrival and can sustain themselves for weeks or months, independent of host-nation support. They are highly survivable and can be either visible or unobtrusive as they carry out such enduring naval missions as protection of air and sealift forces, air intercept control. Tomahawk launches, naval surface fire support, submarine neutralization, and maritime interdiction— while simultaneously providing theater ballistic missile defense.
In support of forcible entry and sustained ground combat operations, Navy TBMD forces provide the earliest capability, at a time when missile attack intensity is most likely to be the heaviest, and when other systems still are en route or are present in-theater only in small number. The proven ability to surge additional surface combatants rapidly to augment forward deployed forces already on scene will allow the same swift buildup of Navy TBMD force protection.
With the maturation of the network-centric concept, TBMD ships will be capable of accepting and using cueing data from a variety of sources. The number of Navy Area-capable assets deployed initially will determine the amount of coverage provided. Accordingly, Global Naval Force Presence Policy levels for Area-capable Aegis cruisers and destroyers will have to be revised.
Mid Term: DD-21 & Navy Theater Wide
As joint warfighting capabilities shift toward networkcentric architectures, and the precepts of offensive distributed firepower are further realized, the surface Navy will introduce DD-21, a multimission destroyer with advanced systems throughout, focused on land attack.
The land-attack destroyer will signal a significant technological leap and major change in ship design. Like today’s Arleigh Burke class, it will be a multimission destroyer, meeting the forward presence and deterrence requirements of the combatant commanders-in-chief. DD- 21 will operate as an integral part of naval, joint, and combined maritime forces, contributing to joint and combined battlespace dominance in littoral operations.
But unlike today’s destroyers, the 21st-century land-attack destroyer will have as its primary focus an advanced land-attack capability in support of the ground campaign. In naval surface fire support, we are developing capabilities to satisfy the Marine Corps’ OMFTS requirements in terms of responsiveness, lethality, and range.
Land Attack
At the heart of naval capabilities in the littoral operating environment will be the mission of land attack throughout the battlespace. In detailing how we will operate future surface combatants and what capabilities they will bring to bear, we have set out four tenets of land attack:
►Land attack will be offensive, integrated, network centered, and sea based. In conjunction with maneuver, it will be a primary means to engage an adversary.
►Firepower will be allocated dynamically from a network-based architecture, rather than preplanned through the traditional allocation of platforms.
►Dynamic battle management will support precise and scaleable massed fires.
►Land attack will be executed at all levels of war (strategic, operational, and tactical) and at the lowest possible echelon.
Providing for these tenets and meeting the requirements of OMFTS mandate that our surface combatants break out of a four-decades-old 12-mile range limitation on providing naval surface fires in support of forces ashore. We are, therefore, developing a variety of weapon systems that can provide the required range, lethality, accuracy, and responsiveness to support land forces. The 5-inch/62- caliber gun system will be capable of delivering global positioning system/inertial navigation system-guided rocket-assisted projectiles (known as the extended-range guided munition or ERGM) to an objective range of 63 nautical miles. The 5-inch/62-caliber gun with ERGM currently is planned for installation in Aegis cruisers (CG-52-73) and destroyers (DDG-81 and beyond). The cruiser installations will occur via the cruiser conversion plan, with destroyer guns installed principally as forward fit during new construction. The result will be 22 cruisers and 29 destroyers—totaling 73 ERGM guns—at sea in support of the land campaign.
The advanced gun system (AGS) will be a fully integrated gun weapon system that meets the Marine Corps' requirement of increased range, improved lethality, and volume fires. Synchronized with development of DD-21, AGS will be capable of providing rocket-assisted projectiles to a range of 100 nautical miles in support of both Marine Corps and Army land forces. To extend naval fires beyond 100 nautical miles, efforts are nearing completion to find an affordable, supersonic land-attack missile to meet responsiveness, lethality, and range requirements.
Providing even greater range and improved responsiveness over its predecessor, a tactical variant of Tomahawk is being developed. It will have loiter and flexible, in-flight retargeting capabilities. Its maximum fly-out range will be 1,600 nautical miles. Additional warhead variants are being explored for the Tactical Tomahawk, to include the capability of carrying anti-armor submunitions and a hard-target penetrator.
Navy Theater Wide Ballistic Missile Defense
The Navy Theater Wide (NTW) program builds on the modifications to the Aegis combat system that provide Navy Area system capability, but offers fundamentally different capabilities. Specifically, it is capable of exo-atmospheric and ascent phase intercepts and has a much larger defended footprint. This Theater Wide capability will enable Aegis ships operating near launch areas to exploit their mobility, endurance, and forward presence to defend U.S. forces or allies in key regions of the world.
The large defended operational areas afforded by NTW give the CinC great flexibility in accomplishing theater ballistic missile defense. A few ships can protect many critical assets in the theater of operations, as well as provide defense against longer ranged missiles fired elsewhere. The NTW system provides a defensive overlay for Navy Area and land-based TBMD systems, which affords the CinC the opportunity to use layered defense for high- value assets and target areas that are critical to achieving his objectives. This results in a high cumulative kill probability where it is needed most and the flexibility to provide significant protection over much of the theater. When forces move out from under the less mobile land- based TBMD umbrella, this is especially important.
Where geography or threat capabilities preclude forward placement of ships, external cueing from space assets or ground-based radars enable the employment of NTW over large operational areas. Engagements are possible with midcourse ship locations and terminal ship locations. For longer threat ranges, ships must be located closer to the defended areas. Even in these locations, however, NTW yields shoot-look-shoot opportunities when supported by Navy Area or ground-based TBMD systems.
Capital Ships
Navy surface combatants remain forward deployed, on station, shaping the security environment favorably toward U.S. interests. Quite simply, we have “been there and done that.” The investment in these combatants, coupled with their increased roles and missions, certainly qualifies them as capital ships. By redefining the missions of land attack and theater air dominance, we ensure the nation’s continued maritime dominance in the littorals.
There is much to do as we build an interoperable surface force that will remain a full participant in the joint battlefield and continue to secure the peace. Never has the opportunity to promote surface warfare's enduring and evolving contributions to our national defense been brighter.