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The use of naval saboteurs, able to float in and °ut of the sea mists at times and places of their 0wn choosing, siphons off enemy manpower into c°astal defense. Guerrilla warfare on and from (he sea has many other potential applications limited only by the imagination. But so far,
IT- S. imagination has been very limited.
Oince World War II, big-ticket items—nuclear ^carriers, sophisticated aircraft, and nuclear submarines—have dominated our naval priorities. ^ere is strong justification, but if we place all emphasis on the technology-intensive “big guns" and 'Snore valuable “small guns” such as irregular naval derations, we are committing a grave error. Unconventional warfare afloat is not a substitute for he current plan of naval defense; it is a complement 0 lhat plan. We court disaster with a single-dimen- S|°ned outlook.
Analogy Ashore—Singapore: Before World ar II, Singapore was viewed as impregnable. Its ®[pnt fixed guns—aimed seaward—outclassed any ..!P afloat. Fortress Singapore, bastion of an em- Plre, did have a few gaps in its northern defenses, ut those would be easily plugged by the seemingly thmited supply of shipboard guns.
, Occasionally, someone suggested training resi- ..ent garrisons in jungle warfare and recruiting na- 'Ve Malays into irregular units. But such measures ^'§ht have appeared admissions that Fortress Singapore was not invincible and that the single-minded r'tish program could not adequately handle every 'Nation. Guerrilla warfare was a waste of re- ,^urces; the high command had already arrived at e answer to the defense of Singapore—big guns. On 8 December 1941, a Japanese invasion force landed 400 miles north of Singapore. Its bicycle- mounted infantry and few tanks worked slowly down the Malay Peninsula. Four hundred miles of jungle proved a formidable barrier. It was a barrier buttressed by British Army forces learning jungle warfare on the job. A local militia had never been raised, because there had not been time to train them as regular soldiers, and no one in authority had seen any use in simply training them as guerrillas. The Japanese force gradually pushed through the barrier. Fixed as they were, the big guns of Singapore could not be brought to bear. Moreover, the fleet never arrived to fill the gaps, because it was fighting elsewhere. Finally, the Japanese force stood at the Johore Strait, spent, outnumbered, and down to the last of its ammunition. Nevertheless, in ignorance that Singapore was impregnable, the exhausted force, in one last headlong assault, captured it. All British resources had been blindly committed to the big-gun school of warfare when even the barest minimum of guerrilla warfare training and recruiting would have been sufficient for defense against the overextended Japanese force.
Unconventional Warfare Afloat: Historically, guerrilla warfare has been most common in its land warfare manifestations. By some definitions which demand there be an indigenous population to be won over, guerrilla operations cannot exist at sea at all. However, this type of combat is more correctly characterized as simply hit-and-run, small-scale, limited-action warfare fought by highly mobile independent units. In this light, guerrilla warfare afloat is as old as naval warfare itself.
Those characteristics which identify the guerrilla—avoidance of superior force, reliance on the element of surprise, extensive use of subterfuge and concealment—though conspicuous in many naval operations, have never been applied in a coordinated campaign using the full gamut of seagoing applications. Only the Italian Decima Flottiglia Mas in World War II neared a mature understanding of guerrilla warfare afloat. It used frogmen, pocket submarines, conventional submarines, and occasionally
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•ngs / November 1981
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merchant profile warships to grind down the superior numbers of the British Navy in the Mediterranean. But even this imaginative Italian strategy was flawed, because it failed to coordinate its small-gun successes with big-gun movements.
Four basic applications of seagoing guerrilla warfare bear careful examination:
► Naval Saboteurs. The frogman or naval commando, melting in and out of the sea mist at will, is in essence a coastal guerrilla as he harries enemy forces and attenuates enemy manpower. With his great mobility, he exacts from the enemy a disproportionate price for any safe refuge.
Historically, however, only two nations have made extensive use of the saboteur in naval warfare. In their harbor raids on Bordeaux in October 1942 and Singapore in September 1943, the British derived great benefit from the incredible morale value and tactical efficiency of naval saboteurs using kayaks and limpet mines. In these two small raids, they sank 13 merchant ships. The Italians showed an even greater appreciation for the uses of naval saboteurs. Their “Gamma” group, frogmen trained in merchant marine practices and disguised as merchant seaman, infiltrated several Allied harbors. There they slipped over the sides of ships or off piers to fix limpet mines to enemy hulls. The mines detonated at a preset time or when the vessels had travelled a certain distance. By the 1943 armistice, Italian frogmen, using various stratagems, had sunk
nearly a quarter of a million tons of Allied shippin?'
In addition, naval saboteurs can destroy objec' tives ashore, seize or rescue prisoners, aid or dis* courage the provisioning of land forces, and gather valuable intelligence. Still, their value is greatertha1! the sum total of their successful missions. Even 1 they fail in these missions, their actions benefit tn overall naval force by siphoning valuable enemy manpower into coastal defense. It is the siniste potential of naval sabotage that drives ships to an chor amidst costly layers of booms, nets, and Pa trols. Such measures wear on enemy morale an hamper its ships' ability to sortie. ,
► Pocket Submarines. Small submersibles are va^ uable because they can extend the naval saboteur range. Pocket submarines, such as the British craft which knocked the German battleship Ti’rP' and the Japanese heavy cruiser Takao out of1 war, have multiplied the opportunities for navalsa otage and are potent threats in themselves. may seem vulnerable now, but antisubmarine ^ fare is geared to the full-sized submarine and c rently lacks the sensitivity to detect pocket s marines in everyday practice. On the rare occas>° when they are detected, they exhibit signatures si ilar to large fish. j,
In its earliest years, the pocket submarine, s ,, as the Italian "maiale” or the British “charm^ was little more than a frogman-controlled modi torpedo, yet even then the impact was greaj" su- December 1941, Britain held a tenuous nava jer periority over Italy in the Mediterranean. In °r, a to alter this situation, the Italian Navy assigne ,j conventional submarine to transport three m ^ within a few miles of Alexandria Harbor. There ^ three pocket submarines deployed and with sive charges sank the battleships Valiant and Elizabeth and a large fleet tanker. This single
shifted the balance, gun-for-gun, in Italy’s favor. Premier Benito Mussolini, however, refused to believe his frogmen had been so overwhelmingly successful and consequently did not let the Italian fleet sortie. Three 20-foot pocket submarines in attacking capital ships lay the groundwork for what might have been a conclusive action, but for an inadequate battle damage assessment.
Pocket submarines are Goliath-killing Davids, ar*d technological advances have increased their Potential uses. The United States and the Soviet Union both have diesel submarines equipped to support and clandestinely launch pocket submarines. New explosives assure their warship-sinking ability, and only the imagination limits how they can be brought within striking range. They can be launched ‘r°m land vehicles, ships disguised as fishing trawlers (a technique employed by the Italian Navy late la World War II), or even dropped with parachutes, furthermore, they are capable of performing duties "'hich will prevent the hazarding of full-sized submarines. Their potential is growing, and it seems realistic to surmise that with the rapid advances in miniaturization, pocket submarines may become effective against moving, as well as sitting, targets.
The pocket submarine is another small gun with 8feat destructive capacity. It is one means of waging mierrilla warfare afloat which has not yet ap- Pfoached its full potential.
The Trojan (Sea) Horse. Warships with merchant br°files finessed numerous successful surprise at- ^cks in both World Wars. In World War I, the mitish Navy used “Q-ships” to lure German submarines out of hiding. Through this defensive use °* merchant profiles, they were able to destroy the jmemy submarines with concealed naval guns. The
erman Navy, on the other hand, used the auxiliary Cfuiser as an offensive weapon whose harmless ap- ^arance allowed her within range of Allied mer- cbant vessels. It had been German Government
practice, from as early as the 1890s, to provide subsidies to merchant lines which strengthened their ships for the mounting of guns.
In the two wars, German merchant profile warships sank or captured 1.2 million tons of Allied shipping. This was an even more extraordinary accomplishment when one considers that they were manned primarily by merchant officers and crew. This was one of the few offensive uses of these skilled seamen in this century. To compare commerce raiding capacities, the top German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis sank 145,968 tons of shipping while the top U. S. submarine—a vessel with a comparable mission—the Flasher (SS-249) sank only 100,231 tons of shipping. Advances in communications and the growth of air power have altered the prospects for wholesale use of merchant profile warships; however, “one-shot” Trojan seahorses still merit a role in naval warfare.
The mounting potency of mines and man-portable, armor-piercing weapons can convert virtually any vessel afloat into a warship able to sow widespread destruction. Two extreme examples: a recoilless rifle firing a pyronol projectile from a dinghy could set a supertanker ablaze, or several TOWs (tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided missiles) fired from a sampan could render a nuclear submarine unable to dive. Nor is it beyond imagining for a normally harmless fishing fleet to suddenly turn the Dardanelles or the Strait of Gibraltar into a not-easily-run gauntlet. A provisional fleet of these vessels—drawn from whatever caiques, junks, or dhows ply the enemy’s coast—would require an incredible effort to police.
As for a deep-water program, the applications are more limited and defensive in nature. Compact modules capable of firing light missiles or deck-launched torpedoes, placed aboard genuine merchant ships, would permit those ships to defend themselves in many situations, without extensive refitting. Such modules could prevent boardings by terrorists or pirates or in situations similar to the 1975 seizure of the Mayaguez by Cambodians. The boarding and sinking of the British collier Nellie M by Irish Republican Army gunmen on 7 February 1981 is a forewarning of a new and growing threat.
Finally, the merchant profile warship can be used to extend the range of naval saboteurs and pocket submarines. Junks brought kayaking naval saboteurs from Australia to within range of Singapore
39
Two-man Italian submarines proved surprisingly effective in World War II—so surprising that Mussolini refused to believe, or take advantage of, what they had achieved.
in 1943. The Italians used fishing trawlers to transport maiali throughout the Mediterranean.
The merchant profile warship may never duplicate her former record of success, but the principle is not outdated. She simply requires a revised doctrine which will allow her to be quickly concealed or abandoned after a naval engagement. The ship’s probability of success rests firmly on the guerrilla warfare tenets of surprise and concealment, and those tenets still apply.
► Diesel Boats Forever. Though the U. S. Navy has remained generally orthodox in its approach to sea power, its submarine campaign against Japan’s merchant marine in World War II was a classic guerre de course application of hit-and-run, small- scale, limited-action methods.
Prior to the war, U. S. doctrine designated warships as the submarine’s prime targets. Eventually- as a result of the phenomenal successes of German U-boats, the United States realized that the submarine was more effectively used as an independent subsurface raider engaged in the age-old guerrilla pursuit of cutting supply lines in the enemy’s rear-
Sadly, the U. S. submarine service has since come to rely almost exclusively on nuclear power- Not that nuclear power in itself is detrimental, but nuclear submarines are so expensive to build and so intrinsically tied to nuclear deterrence that the
Up to now, the use of midget submarines in wartime has been limited to foreign navies. But the U. S. Navy has done some experimentation with small undersea craft. Shown on the opposite page is the USS X-l alongside the USS Bergall (SS-320) during the 1950s.
guerre de course role has been lost. No r*uC e(0 submarine is going to risk disclosing her position sink a merchant ship worth a small fraction 0ye| submarine's strategic and monetary value , someone must be available to sink merchant sb for they continue to be the most efficient way transporting large amounts of cargo. ,
40
Proceedings / Nosenit[1]
At present, our naval order of battle is marre an uncomfortable vacuum. Only four diesel o ^ remain to press unconventional warfare afloat ‘ <j to support their smaller, previously menti° brothers. Clearly, the diesel submarine--lesS ^ stricted than nuclear submarines in the navi?
^ers available to her—is well suited for applica- '°n to guerrilla warfare at sea. (None of the current Iteration of deep-draft nuclear submarines could, 0r instance, duplicate the 0-47'% highly successful Penetration of the anchorage at Scapa Flow in Oc- °ber 1939 to attack the Royal Oak.) Four to six *®Sel boats can be built for the cost of one nuclear Pbmarine, and with less specialized knowledge. ^ e Soviet “Foxtrot” diesel, for example, can be JJ'lt in 90 days by relatively unskilled labor. A fleet . Diesel submarines is a mobile minefield which can arass enemy supply lines.
Conclusion: In the past, unconventional warfare <l|'oat has been mounted reluctantly and on a stop- ^aP basis. No one has ever undertaken a thoroughly ^°ordinated campaign using the full range of sea- °°ing guerrilla warfare options. It is time we preaped a program and established the mechanisms to it wofk.
s- ^ur current approach is dangerously one-dimen- *°nal. Surface ships are growing increasingly vul- trerable, yet our nonnuclear capability seems inex- c 'cably wedded to a mere 13 big guns—13 aircraft ,rpiers. Those 13 aircraft carriers are a very narrow i-gSe uPon which to rest an entire defense. They Present a high material and manpower investment which will be difficult to replace or augment, in the way it was difficult to replace or augment regular soldiers at Singapore. A complementary irregular force would grant the breathing room needed to replace losses among the conventional fleet.
We must shake loose from this fascination with the big guns and develop a balanced defense which understands the value of all the small guns, not only those of unconventional warfare. Unless we broaden our options, we may find we have drawn false hope from a floating Maginot Line—a seagoing Singapore defense—and the realization will have come too late. *
[1] Lieutenant Commander Crossland was commis- HR| sioned at the Columbia University NROTC unit ■ in 1970 (B.A. in American history) and holds a 1977 J.D. from Fordham. As a member of SEAL Team One, he was engaged in naval unconventional warfare in Vietnam and subsequently instructed the ROK UDT on irregular tactics while in Korea. He then served with UDT 12 in Coronado, California, and the Western Pacific. Now an in-house corporate attorney, he resides in Fairfield, Connecticut, and drills with a Naval Special Warfare reserve unit in Little Creek, Virginia. He has written several articles and comments for U. S. and foreign publications on unconventional warfare including “Rusty Hand of Steel: The Naval Raid” which appeared in the December 1979 issue of the Proceedings.