The Navy has unbalanced the carrier air group's support and force-protection capabilities in favor of decks jammed with strike aircraft, essentially duplicating the Air Force's role. If naval aviation is to survive, it must be able to perform unique missions with forces based entirely at sea.
Ask any naval aviator or naval flight officer (NFO) why the Navy bases its tactical aviation at sea, and he will tell you that Navy air is a vital and unique national capability. He will say that only carrier-based aviation can provide powerful combat power without the need for overseas airfields, basing rights, and overflight permissions, and regardless of the sensibilities of other nations. Navy aircrew will say that every aircraft carrier is little piece of sovereign U.S. territory from which the United States can defend its vital interests—with allies if desired; alone if required. Until very recently, the Navy pilot or NFO would have been right.
During my 12 years as a naval flight officer, I took great pride in the unique contribution of naval aviation. Navy air was the nation's enabling air arm. This unique capability arguably is no longer credible today, and will almost certainly become a paper tiger in the near future. Why? Because the leaders of naval aviation and the Navy as a whole have forgotten what the Navy is about. In the mad rush for dollars in an underfunded military, the leaders have neglected our core competencies, and grossly unbalanced support and force-protection capabilities to favor strike aircraft. The capabilities Navy air has retained are the same ones provided by Air Force tactical aircraft, and, to an extent, Army aviation and long-range artillery and missile forces. The capabilities the Navy has chosen to discard are those for which we alone are responsible. The once powerful enabling capability of naval aviation has become little more than a copy of an Air Force fighter wing. Today, like its Air Force counterpart, the carrier air wing (CVW) can no longer operate effectively without shore-based support.
The shift toward a littoral, land-attack focus was an appropriate response to the demise of the Cold War's open-ocean naval threat. In the rush to capture limited defense dollars by cashing in on power-projection funding, however, the Navy has effectively eliminated the battle group's ability to operate in a contested littoral without land-based support. This situation will become worse in the next decade, as current budget plans are followed and littoral area-denial threats continue to grow.
Consider the capabilities that today's carrier air wing struggles to bring into a littoral fight:
Antisubmarine Warfare (ASW). Littoral submarine threats are becoming stronger, and advanced automated systems are eliminating the Third World submariner's traditional weaknesses—lack of training and the need to expose a periscope to attack. The failure to respond to these trends applies to Navy aviation and to the Navy as a whole. Despite the fact that the problem is more difficult and the threat is becoming more dangerous, layered battle-group ASW capability is gone.
The S-3B Viking was the battle group's only air-ASW search platform, and it is being eliminated. In addition to a solid acoustic capability, the Viking had naval aviation's best non-acoustic sensor suite, and it was the only platform with the dash speed to investigate rapidly a contact more than a few miles away. Today, all acoustic ASW capability has been stripped from the S-3 community, and the aircraft will be decommissioned by 2008.1
In addition, the number of ASW-capable aircraft in carrier-based H-60 Seahawk squadrons has been cut in half. The special operations-configured HH-60 may be better suited for plane guard, passenger transfer, and other logistics functions, but it cannot prosecute a fleeting radar contact or flaming datum. Having an ASW-capable helo ready when needed will be a challenge in the face of other mission requirements, maintenance priorities, and flight-deck-spotting considerations.
Its aging avionics and airframe and vulnerability to littoral threats can justify retiring the S-3. But it is inexcusable that no replacement has been planned or even seriously considered. The common support aircraft (CSA), in theory the S-3's replacement, never has been more than a Power Point slide.2 Even if a new aircraft were made a priority today, it probably would not be operational in less than 10-15 years.
To make matters worse, the P-3 Orion maritime patrol (VP) community, which is supposed to assume the Navy's air-ASW mission, has been cut dramatically. The Orion is even more vulnerable than the Viking to littoral air and missile threats, and antisubmarine training and readiness have suffered because the Navy's emphasis has been on other missions. Many VP aircrews will admit freely that they have lost perishable ASW proficiency. Finally, even though the P-3 has long legs, the aircraft is slow and must be based near areas of operation to keep pace with dynamic situations.
Furthermore, the P-3 is an aging airframe that will need replacement in the near future. Despite increasing corrosion and fatigue problems that threaten the airworthiness of the Orion, the Navy simultaneously is postponing a replacement and cutting a service-life-extension program that would push the aircraft's service life to almost 40 years.3 The Navy is taking the same dead-end approach to the P-3s as it did with the S-3, despite the fact that studies have shown that building a new aircraft is the most cost-effective option.
The result of these programmatic decisions is that naval aviation will have almost no sea-based capability at a time when advanced submarine sensors, and fire-control and weapons technology will become widespread. The automation inherent in new submarine systems means that Third World submariners soon will be able to get off a good shot without extensive training or the need for a close approach. Battle-group capabilities for air-ASW search, mid- and long-range attack, and possibly the close-in reactive capability needed to exploit the typically fleeting and unexpected submarine contact, are rapidly disappearing. Meanwhile, land-based ASW aircraft will continue to be affected by diplomatic constraints and by survivability, numbers, training, and aircraft condition limitations. If land bases are not available, the situation becomes worse; if they are available, one must wonder why carrier aviation is needed.
Antisurface Warfare (ASUW). These programmatic decisions also will degrade the battle group's ASUW capability. The S-3B also was the battle group's best organic ASUW platform and remains the only CVW asset with an imaging radar. The Viking's endurance and multi-sensor suite made it the platform of choice to locate priority surface targets and coordinate war-at-sea strikes. The same factors that limit the P-3's ability to take up the ASW mission will limit its ASUW contribution.
The carrier's strike fighters will be increasingly needed to step into surface search, war-at-sea coordination, and birddog missions. Strike fighters can locate and identify surface contacts, but they are not well suited to extended low-altitude ASUW. Appropriately, strike fighter crews focus on air-to-air and air-to-ground power projection. There simply is not enough training time or resources for small fighter crews to become experts at everything, and my at-sea experience consistently showed they are not the best choice for surface search, identification, and surveillance.
Tanking. With the A-6 Intruder long gone, naval aviation lacks a sea-based mission-tanker capability. The only organic Navy tanker aircraft, the S-3B, is well suited for the recovery tanker role, but never had the speed and high-altitude performance for mission tanking. Though sometimes pressed into the mission-tanking role—usually because Air Force tankers are not available—the S-3 must be launched well ahead of the strike group. This exposes the vulnerable aircraft to enemy defenses and potentially alerts the adversary to an impending attack. In addition, strike aircraft must make significant deviations from preferred flight profiles to rendezvous with an S-3 tanker, decreasing the potential reach of the strike package. In practical terms, the Navy is wholly dependent on land-based Air Force tankers.
Given the recent emphasis on land attack, Navy air wings have made heavy use of mission tanking. These aircraft must come from foreign bases. They require diplomatic clearance and often they need overflight rights. Therefore, they may not be available when they are needed most.
Navy air is betting the farm on the ability of the F/A-18E/F to fill both the mission- and recovery-tanker roles. The program office promises great range, endurance, and resulting fuel off-load improvements over previous versions of the Hornet. There were similar high expectations for the early Hornets, an aircraft that is notoriously fuel critical. Without an organic mission tanker, the airwing cannot fill the enabling role; without reliable recovery tanking, the air wing cannot conduct flight operations safely at all. For Navy air, the stakes are immense.
Overland Surveillance. In the era of Navy power projection ashore, one would think that organic overland surveillance and strike support would benefit from strong programmatic support. The CVW, however, is dependent on shore-based aircraft.
Kosovo clearly showed that our strike forces lack the sensor capability to attack concealed, deceptive ground forces effectively. Precision weapons are great, but they require precision targeting that we just do not have for most mobile targets. Naval aviation has been slow to procure the multi-sensor capabilities needed to support modern, high-tempo strike operations. While the Air Force is developing a family of land-based unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) carrying a variety of sensor packages, the Navy UAV programs languish as backwater demonstration efforts that have not been integrated into air-wing operations. A handful of P-3s have been outfitted with advanced electro-optic and other sensors, but they are not sea-based and not survivable. Like other types of land-based support, these platforms may not be with the carriers when needed.
The Navy has retired the ES-3 Shadow, its only dedicated electronic surveillance aircraft. ES-3s made significant contributions to strike operations during both airwing strike training at NAS Fallon and real contingency operations. Beyond support for individual strike missions, day-to-day electronic surveillance is a key part of building knowledge of the enemy's electronic order of battle and pattern of operations. This knowledge, in turn, is the foundation for future strike planning. Today, this capability is resident only in shore-based aircraft.
Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD). In this area, at least, there is a very good tailhook aircraft. The EA-6B Prowler has a long and distinguished history of direct, integrated CVW strike support. Even so, the Prowler is now a national asset, not a Navy one—the community is considered to be "low density, high demand." It is generally accepted that strike aircraft will not fly opposed missions without EA-6B support, so dedicated Prowlers are an absolutely critical requirement. The nationalization of the Prowler fleet means that the Prowlers may not always be where the Navy needs them, and even if EA-6Bs remain with the air wing, very high-use rates will prematurely wear out the airframes. Though SEAD is not the critical shortfall the Navy faces in many other areas, it is an area that bears watching.
Command and Control. For the last decade, the Navy has advertised its ability to plan and execute enabling air operations from our forward-deployed, on-scene carrier battle groups. The Navy argued that it could support an enabling Joint Force Air Component Commander (JFACC) in the early phases of a crisis or conflict, and exercise command and control of air operations until the preponderance of air power shifted to the Air Force and this function shifted ashore. The Naval Warfare Publication on JFACC (NWP 3-56.1) articulated this capability, and this publication represented the Navy position in joint doctrine. Because the armed forces use joint doctrine to shape their operations, the Navy's doctrinal position on command and control of enabling air operations is a critical prerequisite for exercising this capability in the real world.
The Air Force has never accepted the Navy vision of a JFACC. Accustomed to operating out of sprawling land bases where limited shipboard space was never a problem, the Air Force argues that even a small JFACC must be a gargantuan organization. The Navy has long argued that JFACCs need not be so large or top heavy. In the Navy's view, a smaller sea-based JFACC could not only manage moderately sized air operations, it also would be more agile, responsive, and better able to deal with mobile and time critical targets.
The Navy, however, recently accepted the Air Force vision of JFACC, and conceded that it cannot plan or control significant air operations from forward-deployed carrier battle groups. According to the minutes of the Navy's JFACC Coordination Committee and the revised draft of NWP 3-56.1, a carrier can support only a "Maritime Air Tasking Order (ATO)." The maritime ATO is defined as the carrier's own normal flight operations, with perhaps that critical Air Force tanker thrown in to support Navy strike aircraft. According to these documents, a true sea-based JFACC requires a fleet command ship. Because command ships are not forward deployed with the battle groups, surging one from the United States could take weeks. Clearly, neither the maritime ATO nor a JFACC hosted on a command ship hosted is relevant for the command and control of enabling air operations.
Why Should We Buy Carriers?
The bottom line is that the naval aviation leadership's myopic dedication of strike capabilities has stripped the carrier air wing of critical support in virtually every other mission area. The recent reversal in Navy JFACC policy means that land bases will be required for command and control, even if they are not needed to support actual operational capabilities. The few bright spots are overwhelmed by the many gaps in essential capabilities.
While it true that the carrier may be able to position aircraft somewhat closer to an enemy's coastline, Air Force tanking (on which the Navy is also dependent) can ensure similar combat reach for land-based strike fighters. Even the supposed force-protection benefits of basing air power at sea are increasingly questionable, given the growth of area-denial threats and the Navy's reluctance to devote real resources to ASW, ASUW, overland sensing (to detect mobile missile launchers), or mine countermeasures. If putting the carrier air wing at sea provides no unique advantages, then why spend billions upon billions of dollars for aircraft carriers and specialized, tailhook-equipped aircraft?
The enabling air power that Navy air can provide is essential to the nation's security. I do not advocate disestablishing tactical naval aviation, but this is the path the Navy leadership has begun to follow. Navy air should do things that no one else can do—project air power without land bases.
Restoring naval aviation's enabling capability requires a dramatic and immediate change of focus—the balance in Navy core competencies must be restored. In the near term, the support aircraft capabilities that have been allowed to atrophy or vanish entirely must be restored. S-3B squadrons should be restored to eight fully mission-capable aircraft. At least some of these should be equipped with a synthetic aperture radar and the avionics to share these data with strike assets. In addition, chronically underfunded air ASW sensors should be assigned a higher priority. A carrier-based aircraft needs to be identified to fill the ES-3's electronic surveillance role. Perhaps some of these sensors could be carried by the S-3, E-2, or in UAVs.
Instead of accepting the Air Force definition of acceptable air operations command and control, the Navy should exploit information technology and incorporate distributed collaborative planning and its tradition of decentralization to the JFACC. Whether aircraft and capabilities are based at sea or ashore, we must be able to command air operations forward and without land bases to meet our enabling force commitments.
In the mid to long term, replacement airframes must be developed to replace aging support aircraft. The common support aircraft program must transition from sets of ill-defined view graphs into a real, funded, aircraft program. Naval aviation should exploit emerging UAV and sensor capabilities to field low-observable—and sea-based—land surveillance and targeting capabilities. This aircraft, or set of aircraft and/or UAVs, must correct the shortfalls in ASW, ASUW, overland surveillance, and strike support. This effort should be naval aviation's top priority, because without support, strike aircraft merely duplicate Air Force capabilities at much greater cost.
Such actions will not be cheap—taken together, they may be very expensive. Without them, however, Navy air becomes a redundant—even meaningless—force. The nation will lack the true enabling capability that it will some day need. Navy air is the foundation of Navy sea control and power projection. Therefore, the offsets required to make these changes happen should be found from across the spectrum of Navy programs. Given the long timelines for aircraft development, this work should start immediately. Only by making these changes now can we ensure that naval aviation remains a useful, relevant, and unique part of our nation's defense.
Commander Rowe was an S-3B naval flight officer, and served with the Naval Doctrine Command Staff. He currently works as a defense contractor, developing future naval concepts.
1. "Leaner and Meaner: The New Naval Aviation Plan," Navy Times, 6 March 2000, p. 18. back to article
2. Ibid. Rear Admiral J.B. Nathman (N88) officially announced that the CSA would not be developed in a February interview. His statement merely formalized the implicit decision by lack of a decision for the last few years. back to article
3. "Admiral: Cash Woes Preclude the Most Cost-Effective P-3 Patrol Plane." Inside the Navy, 6 March 2000, p. 14. Rear Admiral L.D. Newsome, Air Antisubmarine Warfare Program Executive Officer, recently announced that the Multi-Mission Maritime Aircraft is unaffordable, and that the sustained readiness program has been cut short. back to article