Much has been written recently about the transition from the Cold War to littoral warfare. Nowhere has this transition been more dramatic than in surface warfare, where several factors have converged.
The littoral has unique characteristics that challenge our blue-water, open-ocean thinking of the past. Shallow water inhibits maneuverability, and the acoustics spectrum affects our ability to use active or passive sonars for detection and tracking. High shipping densities, land masking, man-made platforms like oil rigs, and weather-related phenomena degrade all sensors. Collectively, the result is poor visibility. Unlike airspace, there is no universal waterspace management system with the equivalent of flight plans and terminal-control authorities. Choke points are more abundant and are easily defended by an adversary using a variety of weapons. In fact, geography normally favors the defender.
Our previous mission was to deter the Soviet Union in a global scenario and defeat the Soviet Union if deterrence failed. Anything else was secondary. Today, we no longer face national annihilation and are more often involved in regional conflicts in a peace-keeping or peace-making role. Deterring the Soviet Union was clearly in our national interest and the only real debate was how best to do that. Today’s missions counter questionable threats to our national interest and generate considerable public debate about the wisdom of our involvement. Somalia and Bosnia are recent examples. Many would argue that an outraged reporter on Cable News Network can influence public opinion and our tasking more than a dispassionate study of national interests.
Where once we dealt with a superpower, today we deal with Third World countries or—more likely—ethnic and religious factions. Even though the Soviet Union was described as the “evil empire,” it had a well-established and generally predictable political structure. The Cuban crisis was an example of the Soviets’ ability to make value judgments that fit our thinking. Today the leadership, political structure, and decision making body of a Third World adversary is often vaguely understood, its value system is much different from ours, and our ability to choose an effective deterrent is often doubtful. Our effectiveness in deterring the Soviets was in our military strength and, to some degree, our shared values. Our effectiveness in the Third World is more often in formal or informal coalitions where the ethnic or religious affiliations of a coalition partner may influence the final outcome more than our military strength alone.
Rules of engagement (ROEs) have changed with the mission. In the Cold War, ROEs were as codified as the Ten Commandments. Collateral damage and fratricide were unfortunate, but expected and accepted consequences of global confrontations. In today’s more limited conflicts, the U.S. public will not accept fratricide. Extraordinary measures, with concomitant ROEs, are in place to prevent it. In Desert Storm we may well have taken casualties from the enemy rather than risk a blue-on-blue engagement. Similarly, collateral damage would have a devastating effect on our relations with allies, not to mention the news media, with the potential to destroy coalitions. In Bosnia, many potential targets were off the table because of the potential for collateral damage. We also were confronted by multiple versions of ROEs in place simultaneously: one for U.S. forces, one or more for the coalition, and often a different set for each coalition partner.
The ramifications associated with U.S. troops becoming prisoners of war is another aspect of this new era. Our values give an adversary huge leverage over us if any of our soldiers are captured, thereby degrading our ability to influence world events. The American people want no re-runs of Jesse Jackson negotiating with the Syrians for the release of a downed U.S. flyer, and we will expend significant resources to prevent losses or rescue prisoners.
Finally, cost has taken on a new dimension. With a well-understood and agreed-upon threat, there was some predictability in budget requirements and legislative history to support it. Not true today. Contingency operations are often undertaken on short notice with little concept of total cost or financing. Without consensus on national interest. Congress is reluctant to appropriate funds in advance, and we are forced to reprogram money from other commitments in the hope of later reimbursement. Minimizing the cost of the operation has taken on a new, higher priority.
We have moved from a relatively sparse, open-water environment to a much more dense coastal-water one. Potential threats are now smaller and more generic. While a Kirov-class cruiser is rather distinctive and menacing, the local fishing craft or Boghammers are not. Detecting and recognizing a threat has become much more difficult. We can find ourselves in a dilemma: never take damage from a primitive adversary, yet never engage a neutral or a friend.
The challenge is to detect threats, evaluate them correctly, and engage them effectively before they can inflict damage on friendly or protected forces—and do it at minimum cost with minimal chance of fratricide, collateral damage, and damage or loss of the attacking aircraft or ship. Innovations such as the Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (ISAR) and forward looking infrared (FLIR) sensors have improved our discrimination of targets at longer ranges and in reduced visibility; higher capacity data links and encrypted communications have improved our force-wide command and control capabilities and information fusion. We can coordinate more forces with better information and have considerable flexibility in our force mix for any given task. Technology has enhanced our ability to identify surface contacts at greater range, but—because we cannot afford to be wrong—it often remains necessary to identify the target visually.
The helicopter has emerged as the best weapon system for this task. As noted in the 1995 edition of Jane's Fighting Ships, “Regardless of attempts at role specialization, the modern warship’s usage over its full life means that the ubiquitous helicopter receives more operational tasking than any other weapon system.” Helicopters provide the presence, flexibility, and capability that act as deterrents in the pre-hostilities phase and the full range of capability to regain the initiative should deterrence fail. The LAMPS I (SH-2F) Sea Sprite became the first real surface-warfare work horse by providing target identification and targeting data for the ship-launched Harpoon.
The SH-60 LAMPS III brought improved sensors, a dedicated data link, and now the Penguin air-to-surface missile. In Desert Storm, Army observation and attack helicopters with guns, rockets, and the Hellfire missile added additional capabilities, including the ability to attack targets ashore. Army helicopters flying from surface combatants and guided by LAMPS Ills and surface ships provided an attack capability over large areas of the littoral.
Costs have become increasingly important. Starting with Operation Earnest Will reflagging in the Persian Gulf, LAMPS Ills used their radar and data link to maintain a continuous surface surveillance picture around the force at a cost significantly less than that of E-2Cs. Even today the SH-60 costs about half as much to operate as an E-2C or S-3B:
- SH-60B: $1,134/hour
- E-2C: $2,417/hour
- S-3B: $2,448/hour1
In addition, Penguin-equipped SH-60s will provide needed kill capability at nearly one-third of the operating cost of F/A-18s, whose flight hour costs are $3,274/hour. More important, the SH-60 releases E-2Cs, S-3s, and F/A-18s for other, more appropriate tasks.
The development of the SH-60R armed helicopter will provide the full range of capabilities needed for littoral surface warfare. The armed helicopter remains particularly adept in this role given its speed (slow, not fast), agility, and ability to loiter until the target’s identity has been determined and ROEs satisfied. It is an effective, low-cost option for the detect-and-identify role.
Nevertheless, the problem of achieving a positive identification (ID)—including nationality—while remaining outside the potential weapons range of the target, remains the critical employment factor. As we fully develop armed helicopters, we need more emphasis on an all-weather, non-cooperative, positive identification capability at a safe range, and we must ensure that the weapons suite gets in to kill the target.
The questions for the future are:
- What are the minimum acceptable ranges for achieving a positive, all- weather, non-cooperative ID in the littoral in which we can expect to operate?
- Can we differentiate between adversary and neutral shipping and comply with likely rules of engagement?
- How long must we operate at this range to be certain of target identification?
- What new or adapted technologies will provide this capability?
- Will they be available in time, and can we afford them (cost, weight, space)?
- Will our weapons suite provide the single-shot, discrete-selective kill capability from the identification range?
To meet the challenge, we need the skill and agility of a surgeon more than the force of Goliath. But, unlike a surgeon, we must be prepared to operate in a crowded and dirty arena on the world stage, often with one hand tied behind our back—and remain affordable.
The military surgeon is the armed helicopter. With improved sensors, weapons, and command and control it will meet the challenge of surface warfare in the new era.
1 Fiscal year 1996 Navy Comptroller budget exhibit OP-20 for U.S. Atlantic Fleet. Includes fuel, organizational and intermediate maintenance, and aviation depot-level repairables.
Rear Admiral Walsh is the vice-president of Sonalysts, Inc. He commanded the USS Ticonderoga (CG-47) while on active duty. Captain Buzzell is president, International Division, Technology Strategies & Alliances (TSA); he wrote “Helicopter Rambos—A Fatal Combination,” Proceedings, April 1996, pp. 89-91.