Counting Warships
(See N. Polmar, pp. 158–159, May 2014 Proceedings)
Vice Admiral Barry McCullough, U.S. Navy (Retired); Vice President of Business Strategy for Mission Systems and Training, Lockheed Martin Corporation—Mr. Polmar has been one of the sharpest and most persistent critics of the U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program. It was therefore quite a surprise to read his statement, “Up-gunning the current LCS is a favorable approach” to providing the Navy with a frigate-like warship that “could greatly impact the ship-numbers game.” Mr. Polmar is right: Up-gunning the current LCS designs is the most practical of the three options under consideration to satisfy Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel’s desire for “a capable and lethal small surface combatant, generally consistent with the capabilities of a frigate.” Why?
First, based on more than seven years of engineering studies and designs, Lockheed Martin Corporation (prime contractor for the Freedom-class LCS) has developed detailed engineering plans that would dramatically transform the Freedom LCS into a most formidable, multimission small surface combatant: an Aegis radar, Mk-41 vertical-launching-system cells, enhanced offensive and defensive weapons, and electronic-warfare upgrades.
Second, the up-gunned Freedom could be constructed and delivered in less than four years after contract award. Contrast that with Admiral Sam Locklear’s observation at the January 2014 Surface Navy Symposium that development of a new frigate design, obtaining approval from the Navy Systems Commands, Joint Staff, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the U.S. Congress typically takes more than 12 years . . . or longer!
And last, the up-gunned Freedom is the most affordable of the three options under consideration—less than $800 million for the initial delivery of the “lead” warship. A “refreshed” Oliver Hazard Perry (FFG-7) design as well as any brand-new design frigate would cost well more than $1 billion.
As Mr. Polmar understands, an up-gunned, affordable LCS could be helpful in relieving the “numbers” pressure confronting the Navy, forcing it to deploy Aegis cruisers and destroyers to conduct missions more suited to frigates. An up-gunned Freedom-class LCS is the right cost-effective solution at the right time.
Influence Squadrons Are Here, But Will We Use Them?
(See H. J. Hendrix, pp. 54–59, May 2014 Proceedings)
Remo Salta—Captain Hendrix stated, “That all of these capabilities . . . can be purchased so cheaply so as to enable the Navy to buy these platforms in numbers sufficient to meet forward-presence requirements renders the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) as an impressive maritime architectural design achievement.”
Cheaply? The base cost of the LCS is roughly $400 to $500 million each, depending on the version, and weapons, electronics, and mission modules bring the price tag per ship to about $600 million. That’s a far cry from the $220 million corvette the Navy originally wanted to buy. The LCS now costs almost as much as a fully equipped multi-role frigate and is anything but “cheap.”
Captain Hendrix then said that many nations have “expressed an interest in purchasing the LCS for their own fleets.” Well, maybe they have “expressed an interest,” but to date there are no buyers. On the international market, most nations would rather have a fully equipped frigate than an LCS.
The article goes on to say that we “overawe” our allies with our technology. Overawe? I would hope that we overawe both our allies and our enemies with our technology. Which do you think would impress and intimidate an adversary more, a Ticonderoga-class cruiser or an LCS? We should want everyone to be impressed with our capabilities. This in turn should discourage our enemies from even attempting to confront our Navy.
Captain Hendrix also stated, “Most foreign navies count coastal security and resource protection among their leading missions. Blue-water sea control or power projection are simply not on most nations’ list of things to do.” Well, bully for them. Just because most navies only require glorified coast guards doesn’t mean that we have to tailor our Navy to mirror their needs by buying a lot of littoral combat ships. We should be building warships that fit our needs and our strategic objectives, not because it makes our allies feel good about themselves.
We need to get the biggest bang for our buck when it comes to warships. We need vessels that intimidate our enemies and make our allies feel secure in the knowledge that the U.S. Navy is working with them. And what we certainly don’t need is a global Coast Guard. We need to project power, and a lot of it. And we do not need a lot of smaller, overpriced warships that do many jobs poorly. To date not a single LCS has been equipped with these much-vaunted mission modules. We don’t even know if they will prove to be a colossal and expensive failure. And how many years are we into this program and we still don’t know if the mission modules will work?
The LCS was based on the Danish StanFlex Flyvefisken-class patrol boats. But Denmark also designed the excellent Absalon-class frigates, which would make outstanding LCSs. It’s about time we start admitting what the Danish navy has already found out—that bigger is better.
Where Have All the Memoirs Gone?
(See C. Nelson, p. 18, May 2014 Proceedings)
Commander David F. Winkler, U.S. Navy Reserve (Retired)— Lieutenant Commander Nelson’s column interested me as the manager of the Naval Historical Foundation’s flag biography and oral history programs. The flag biography program, instituted by former NHF president Vice Admiral Robert F. Dunn, sends out requests to retired flag officers requesting detailed billet-by-billet overviews that provide far greater detail than the two-paragraph career summaries typically found online. The biographies are subsequently deposited with the Navy Department Library, accessible to researchers. By no means can these be considered memoirs.
The naval-memoir landscape is not as stark as Nelson portrays. Zumwalt’s successor, Admiral James L. Holloway III, published the autobiographical Aircraft Carriers At War with the Naval Institute Press in 2007. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral William J. Crowe Jr. published The Line of Fire with Simon & Schuster in 1993 and subsequently did a partial oral history with the NHF before passing away in 2007. Command of the Seas by Secretary of the Navy John F. Lehman Jr. was published in 1988 by Charles Scribner’s Sons. As part of the Naval Institute’s oral history program, Paul Stillwell recorded the life story of two of Zumwalt’s successors as CNO: Admirals Thomas B. Hayward and Frank B. Kelso II. Naval Institute works in progress include Admirals Paul David Miller and J. Paul Reason.
Nelson’s assertion that more recently retired naval leaders have not been as quick to recount their stories has validity for the reasons he states, such as an abhorrence of “a kiss-and-tell military culture.” Let’s not be too judgmental, though. In the end-of-tour interview conducted by the then–Naval Historical Center interviewer (me) with then–Chief of Legislative Affairs Rear Admiral Gary Roughead, I asked him what politicians in Congress were the most difficult with which to work. Roughead wisely ducked the question. A frank response could have been awkward a few years later when he was called up to the Hill to testify in his capacity as CNO. In contrast, Naval Historical Foundation biographical oral histories with Admiral Gus Kinnear and Vice Admiral Thomas Kilcline recorded after their tours as Chiefs of Legislative Affairs offer very blunt appraisals of the different personalities they dealt with in conjunction with their duties.
So hope may not be lost! However, a broader outreach effort is needed to foster encouragement and support for retired senior naval officials to get their stories recorded. The U.S. Naval Institute and Naval Historical Foundation, backed by generous financial contributions, will work toward this objective but cannot do it alone. It should be a priority of service professional-development organizations to assist in the identification of key retired leaders and encourage them to write memoirs or participate in an oral history program—and help identify funding to do so.
It also should be emphasized that memoirs are not an elitist prerogative. Every month the Naval Historical Foundation receives self-published manuscripts for distribution to Navy research libraries from retired naval personnel who reviewed “How to Write Your Memoir” guidelines posted on the Naval History and Heritage Command’s website. (See www.navyhistory.org/programs/oral-histories/ for the link.)
The Rebalancing Requires Brains, Not Just Brawn
(See T. N. Pham, pp. 22–25, April 2014 Proceedings)
Captain Chris Siegle, U.S. Navy Reserve—Commander Pham describes the need for enhancing the “asymmetric advantage” of Navy personnel and their intellectual capacity. His description of the Asia-Pacific Hands program now under way is insightful. What may be overlooked, but mentioned nonetheless, is training that is undertaken by the reserve force Operational Level of War (OLW) enterprise and the opportunity to leverage these reserve-component members as assets in the “rebalance.”
Accessing resources mentioned in the article such as the Naval Postgraduate School, the Naval War College, and other educational institutions, reserve units affiliated with combatant commanders, Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet and Commander, U.S. 3rd Fleet/Commander U.S. 7th Fleet host an annual series of weekend and extended training events. Mid-grade and senior officers meet an OLW enterprise “soft” requirement that all officers have completed Joint Professional Military Education through the Naval War College, Army War College, Marine Corps War College, or the Air War College as part of enterprise expectations. Through those formal educational endeavors, reserve officers are familiar with the Pacific region and regional-security assessments as well as the process around their development.
For many reserve personnel, Pacific-theater knowledge from the OLW perspective grows with successive tours. The opportunity to focus on the Pacific theater for successive reserve tours within the OLW enterprise, and participate in training events as well as multiple annual theater-level exercises, leads to the IQ explained in the article. In addition, the knowledge and appreciation for the politics, culture, and history of allies and partners, gained by opportunities to visit Seoul, Chinhae, Daegu, Taiwan, Australia, Tokyo, and other locations are resident in the reserve component. Harnessing reserve-component resources within the OLW enterprise in this way increases the asymmetric advantage posited by Commander Pham. We leverage these resources continually in my unit, NR Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet JFMCC Planning Unit 502.
‘All the Training in the World’
(See J. Murphy, p. 14, April 2014 Proceedings)
Lieutenant Commander Eric A. Coop, U.S. Navy—While I agree with Senior Chief Murphy’s position that the answer to the sexual assault/harassment problem resides in deckplate “leadership at all levels,” I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the value of training. We all know the problem has received a lot of attention in recent years, and we’ve all been required to attend a plethora of training. The format of sexual-assault prevention-and-response (SAPR) training has been varied. We’ve received training as part of the annual General Military Training (GMT). We’ve seen the four levels of SAPR training in 2013 (SAPR-Triad, SAPR-Leadership, SAPR-Fleet, and SAPR-Civilian). There is also the “No Zebras, No Excuses” training, which is provided by a mobile training team.
The format has varied, from clickable computer-based training to a combination of film and facilitated discussion to live instructors. While much of the subject material is common (e.g., that sexual assault is a problem and is not tolerated), some training objectives are specific to each session.
In the case of SAPR-T/L/F/C and “No Zebras,” most of the emphasis was placed on culture, climate, and the high standard of behavior expected of sailors (and Navy civilians in the case of SAPR-C). The objective, as I perceived it, is to emphasize that the kind of insensitive behavior that might be acceptable in high school or in a college locker room (e.g., jokes or inappropriate touching and gestures) has no place in a professional military environment and that leadership at all levels enables or combats bad behavior. While accession sources provide the Navy with sailors who are indoctrinated to a certain baseline (i.e., a basic understanding of equal opportunity and SAPR), leadership at all levels within commands are collectively charged with developing our newest sailors into the consummate professionals our country expects and requires.
To achieve this, we must train our sailors and maintain that proficiency. As with proficiency in any mission area, sailors first learn the mission and then receive periodic training to maintain that proficiency. A command that lacks proficiency in SAPR climate and culture can simply not be expected to excel in any other mission. Remember, we are sailors 24/7, culture is what we do, and the climate either encourages or deters sailors from doing the right thing. If we expect our sailors to take care of their shipmates, make bystander intervention a natural response, or encourage reporting of misconduct, all hands must be periodically reminded of their responsibilities and obligation. Deckplate leadership requires training. Training is necessary to tackle sexual assault or any other leadership/culture/climate problem.
Strategy and Submarine
(See W. J. Holland Jr., pp. 48–53, December 2013; N. Polmar, pp. 9, 82, February 2014; S. Ragsdale, p. 85, April 2014; and N. Polmar, p. 15, May 2014 Proceedings)
STSCS(SS) Scott Ragsdale, U.S. Navy (Retired)—I read with interest Mr. Polmar’s response to my commentary on his article and am even more skeptical of the information shared—particularly considering the source. The fact remains that all engineering claims and any data shown to Mr. Polmar remain suspect unless it can be proven (and in this case it may never be). While I can only imagine the privilege and the thrill of seeing some of the information the Russians shared with Mr. Polmar, it simply does not pass muster. In fact, experience has shown that it has been the tendency of the Russians to embellish and be overly optimistic about their capabilities, especially when it comes to comparisons with the United States and the rest of the West.
While the Russians are certainly capable engineers, their ability to deliver the goods at the shipyard is very suspect. This is evidenced by poor workmanship, poor quality control, poor maintenance practices, and a propensity for reactor-related accidents. The Russians have had a number of engineering and other casualties that have forced boats to return home broken or far worse. Also well-known and documented is their struggle with vibration issues. Some classes (both surface and submerged) were limited in shaft revolutions per minute and because of this became notorious with fleet sonar operators.
Regarding time lines, the United States and Russia both suffered setbacks and construction delays. While the collapse of the Soviet Union took its toll on the Severodvinsk class, delays can also be attributed to issues they were having with the sensor suite. Not having the final size and configuration of this critical system directly affected the design and added to the delay of the ship. The weapon suite was also modified after the Russians observed the effectiveness of our vertical-launching-system submarines and opted for more of a multi-role boat. The Yury Dolgorukiy’s construction began well after the collapse and is actually a design compromise; however, the primary reason she was delayed was due to missile design and redesign issues more than anything else.
Seawolf construction was not as straightforward as Mr. Polmar alludes to. I would invite him to review GAO/NSIAD-94-201BR, which documents some of the issues that the ship faced—initially going from 29 to 12 hulls, a reduction brought about by the Soviet Union’s collapse, followed by the George H. W. Bush administration announcing plans to cancel the program after the initial boat. However, Public Law 102-298 (Fiscal Year 1992) explicitly rejected that proposal and restored funding for the the Seawolf-class submarine USS Connecticut (SSN-22). Appendix I of the report also specifically addresses the various delays that the program encountered such as Late Design Data, Erosion of Vendor Industrial Base, Late Material, and Understaffing. These all came together to cause a year or better of delays to the Seawolf program.