World Naval Developments

The USCGC Mellon (WHEC-717) fired a Harpoon missile on 16 January 1990 and became the Coast Guard’s first missile-launching cutter. All of the ser­vice’s 378-foot high-endurance cutters will carry Harpoons.

Mellon Fires Harpoon

Here We Go Again

In January, the Defense Department released its fiscal year 1991 bud­get, calling for the mothballing of two of the four battleships, USS Iowa (BB-61) and New Jersey (BB-62). The Iowa suffered a turret explosion, and she is to be repaired before entering reserve; the New Jersey was the first of the battleships to be reactivated, and thus the least modem. She is to be brought up to date before entering the reserve fleet. The decision was taken so that sufficient funds would remain to maintain a force of 14 aircraft carriers.

Such a choice is difficult at best. The United States has not yet formu­lated new long-term strategic assumptions; the current budget was hur­riedly assembled to meet fiscal, rather than military, requirements. Even so, the broad outlines of a new strategy are probably emerging. It seems to have been accepted that, a least for the present, the direct Soviet threat is declining. The problems of the Third World will be, if anything, more intractable, particularly if the Soviets no longer maintain much influence there. In the past, the Soviets could restrain their client states in order to maintain tolerable relations with the United States and its allies. That did not always happen, but the dominance of the Soviet Union could have positive effects for the West. Now, the client states must often fend for themselves, and that may make them much more aggressive.

All of that is likely to make for more foreign policy surprises for the United States; U.S. naval forces, capable of threatening or projecting power across the world, are the main instrument for dealing with such surprises. The battleships are particularly attractive in this role. Their main weapon, the heavy gun, is unanswerable by any defensive weapon available in the Third World. They are difficult to damage, let alone sink- They also consume much less manpower than a carrier. Against that,³ battleship must come within about twenty miles of her objectives; other­wise she is limited to a few long-range cruise missiles.

When the battleships were recommissioned, one of their advantages was that they could be deployed into the Third World, reducing the pressure on the carriers. The carriers could then operate in something more closely approaching tactically viable multi-carrier formations- There was also some hope that, with more ships suitable for deployment to crisis spots, carriers would no longer be tied quite so closely to partic­ular geographical theatres. After all, there is no line drawn in the ocean between the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific. Tying carriers to particular deployment areas reduces their flexibility and makes them more vulnerable since their movements become predictable. Such as­signment also makes it much more difficult for carriers to operate m sufficient numbers to realize their potential. For example, the ideal war­time carrier formation is probably a force of four. In peacetime, it ^lS difficult enough for two to exercise together, although three did concen­trate to execute the strikes on Libya in 1986.

The retirement of the battleships is particularly unfortunate in that it seems to confirm the old criticism that the battleships were obsolete and that they were being revived out of a misguided nostalgia. In fact the battleships were revived, not as capital ships designed to sink other capi­tal ships (i.e., as classical battleships), but rather as highly capable fi** support ships with a valuable additional antiship and strategic strike role- They were worthwhile precisely because they were relatively inexpen­sive, both to modernize and to operate, and because their loss (which would have cost an enemy a great deal to arrange) would not have been anything like as damaging as the loss of a real capital ship, a carrier- They could, therefore, be risked in unstable areas.

At present, the battleships represent by far the bulk of U.S. naval f>^re support capability, a capability that ensures that the Marines can execute opposed landings. The other fire support assets are 5-inch guns on valua­ble destroyers and cruisers, ships which, moreover, cannot sustain very much damage without being put out of action. In many cases, too, ³ cruiser or destroyer owes her survivability entirely to her ability to shoo¹ down any approaching airplane or missile. They may well suffice in a hot war. In the ambiguous Third World, however, it may be impossible to say whether an approaching airplane, or even an approaching speedboat, is neutral or hostile. The more survivable the ship, the less the pressure to take early positive action. The Vincennes (CG-49) incident is a case tⁿ point. In that situation, there was no possibility of using a battleship instead, because no battleship has the cruiser’s air surveillance capability (which was why the Vincennes was present). However, it would seem fat better to risk a battleship in shore bombardment than to risk a highly capable antiair warfare cruiser.

The retirement of the USS Iowa is particularly unfortunate in that sh^e was the 16-inch gun development ship. For example, she is unique if having been fitted with a SPQ-9A gunnery radar (in the radome on hej foremast). The SPQ-9A can duplicate the functions of the World War I Mk 13 at the masthead, but, unlike the older radar, is not a uniq^ue emitter that might reveal the presence of a battleship, as compared to ³ destroyer or cruiser.

The budget shows continued investment in the new strategic weapons such as the B-2 bomber and mobile intercontinental ballistic missile³' and also in strategic defense; both can be justified on strategic ground*- The offensive weapons are insurance against some suddenly hostile slm by the Soviets; although Mr. Gorbachev currently seems the soul ⁰ friendliness, his views (and his person) can hardly be considered imm°^r' tal. Continued investment in strategic defense is justified by the fear th³*

Third World states, such as Iraq, may invest in primitive strategic strike weapons of their own, and thus negate the U.S. capacity to project power into their territories. Of course, there will be disagreement as to the extent to which either element of national insurance is required, and as this column is written is seems certain that the B-2, one of the two mobile strategic missiles, and the strategic defense program will all suffer con­siderable reductions at the hands of Congress. The administration will presumably argue that it will be unable to obtain treaty cuts in the Soviet strategic forces unless it has sufficient bargaining chips to offer.

Sea Lance Cancelled

The new budget also calls for the cancellation of the Sea Lance anti­submarine missile, a somewhat surprising step. Sea Lance was to have replaced both the submarine rocket and the vertical-launch version of the surface ship ASROC. It would have carried a Mk-50 torpedo; an alterna­tive version might have been developed later to carry a nuclear depth bomb.

In its submarine form, Sea Lance was very attractive as a deterrent to noise-making by a hostile quiet submarine. Since the two most likely sources of noise would have been high-speed running and sonar pinging, the Sea Lance threat would, at least in theory, have slowed enemy sub­marines and also denied them active sonar operation against U.S. subma­rines. In a conflict with the Soviets, such negation would have been extremely valuable, particularly as the Soviet submarine fleet became quieter. It is difficult to reconcile the cancellation with the call, in recent years, for counters to quiet Soviet submarines. Nor does it seem likely that the administration has decided that the Soviet threat is altogether to be disregarded for the future.

Sea Lance also would have had a valuable role in the Third World. Many Third World navies operate diesel submarines, and surface ships require some form of stand-off weapon. Here the advantage of Sea Lance was its very long range. A shipboard helicopter could, at least in theory, detect a submarine and then call for Sea Lances to be fired at the point of detection. Sea Lance was so fast that the time lag between firing and water entry would have been short enough to disregard. This mode of operation seems to be envisaged for the Franco-Italian Milas missile.

What will happen now is not clear. Public references to possible adap­tation of the Mk-50 torpedo suggest that the missile was cancelled in error, on the assumption that (as originally planned) it was primarily a carrier of the nuclear depth bomb, rather than (as now) the Mk-50. There also has been a suggestion that the Tomahawk cruise missile might be adapted instead, with vertical launch ASROC (VLA) chosen as an in­terim surface ship weapon. The latter has nothing like the range planned for Sea Lance. In theory, a cruise missile carrying a torpedo would offer a surface ship about the same advantages as Sea Lance, provided that it had a data link for position update after launch. As for submarines, the much lower speed of the Tomahawk would probably reduce effective range since effective range is determined by the time lag within which the submarine target can still be acquired and engaged by the Mk-50 torpedo. The slower the missile, the shorter the range to which it can fly before it is too late.

For surface ships, very long stand-off ranges become more attractive in the face of strong air opposition (as might be encountered in the Third World). In such a situation, a very tight formation is attractive because it maximizes the number of shots available against any attacker. Such a formation, however, makes submarine detection by the ships relatively difficult, because all of them are operating in a noisy environment. One way out of the impasse is to rely more heavily on helicopters or other fleet aircraft for submarine detection. The aircraft can carry maximum fuel and sensor loads if they are able to rely on long-range ASW weapons launched by the ships for their control. Sea Lance or an adapted Toma­hawk would seem to fit such a requirement, although the Tomahawk would require guidance updates while in flight, which is not a considera­tion for a submarine-launched weapon.

British Deploy Laser Weapons

In January, the Royal Navy admitted that it had deployed a laser weapon, in this case designed to dazzle, and thus to confuse and to drive off the operators of approaching aircraft or boats. The weapon was first tested in 1981, and was deployed in the Falklands, where it may have contributed to several Argentine crashes. It was also deployed to the Persian Gulf, but apparently was no_t fired there. The British device is extremely simple, consisting of a laser, presumably continuous wave, with binoculars for pointing. Typically it is mounted on a tripod abaft and above the bridge of a destroyer or frigate.

The French may have deployed a comparable device aboard their own warships in the Gulf, but details are not available.

Laser dazzlers have been discussed for some years; in 1986 the crew of a U.S. P-3 suffered temporary eye damage when a Soviet ship illumi­nated their aircraft with its laser. After that incident, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed not to use such devices against each other in peacetime. It was not clear, at the time, whether the Soviet device was a weapon or an unusual application of a standard laser designator or radar.

From a military point of view, the advantage of a dazzler is that it can scan very rapidly and engage numerous targets in quick succession. It >^s relatively easy to arrange a laser to detect optics—the amount of re­flected light changes sharply—and then to fire more strongly at a de­tected optical device; such a weapon might, for example, be used against submarine periscopes. Dazzlers were rejected officially in the past as inhumane, although supporters argue that it is far kinder to blind a man (in many cases, temporarily) than to blow him to pieces. On the other hand, countermeasures may be relatively simple. The British also have developed special silvered goggles which can protect against just the sort of dazzler they have deployed.

European “Peace Tax?”

With politicians in the United States clamoring for a "peace divi­dend,” it would appear that the Europeans will find themselves paying ^a special peace tax. Early in February the West German government an­nounced that it would pay 70-80% of the cost of rebuilding East Ger­many. It expected its European Community partners to pay the rest. At the same time, some members of the West German government an­nounced that East Germany was on the verge of bankruptcy, a fate that could be prevented only by placing the country’s economy under the control of the West German government bank, the Bundesbank—one West German paper ran the headline “DDR [East Germany] Kaputt."

Although this rather blatant maneuver seems to have failed, reunifica­tion is at hand, and the peace tax is a very real issue. The European Community has already come very close to bankruptcy because of the high cost of agricultural protection in the form of the Common Agricul­tural Policy. The community has been able to accomodate impoverished members, like Greece, but they have not demanded sufficient investment to bring them up to the level of the richest member state, West Germany- Yet that is precisely what the West Germans now envisage for East Ger­many. They are in a very uncomfortable position, since an impoverished East Germany, either reunified or feeding refugees into their territory, will drain their own economy through their relatively generous social programs.

The peace tax will have to be paid out of military programs. West Germany has already withdrawn from several multi-national programs, such as the NATO frigate, and it seems likely that it will also abandon the very expensive European Fighter Aircraft.

For other countries, the prospect of a much-reduced Soviet threat seems to imply reorientation. Reports in the British press suggest deep cuts in the army and in the Royal Air Force; the Royal Navy will suffe^f very lightly because its overseas role will continue. There has been some talk of cancelling the fourth Trident submarine, but the terms of the contract for its construction were such that cancellation will save little if anything. It seems much more likely that the British will pull out of the European Fighter Aircraft program, and perhaps also that the new main battle tank will be cancelled. Some British defense writers have sug­gested that the reorientation will be an opportunity to convert the army into a rapid deployment force better adapted to Third World contingent' cies, and that the main future role of the RAF should be the strategy transport of army units to foreign trouble spots. If such writing accurately reflects official thinking, then British policy is turning back toward the overseas concerns of the late 1950s and early 1960s, a time when aircraft carriers were much more valued than they are now. Will Soviet posses­sion of a full-deck conventional carrier inspire renewed interest in such ships in Britain?