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By Captain Victor A. Meyer, U.S. Naval Reserve
“This need for small, fast versatile, strongly armed vessels does not wane.
Kt fact it may increase in these troubled times when operations requiring just these capabilities are the most Ukely of those which may confront us."
John F. Kennedy
The nation and the Navy are in the midst of dramatic changes resulting from world events. But while the bipolar superpower confrontation is being transformed to one based on multipolar relationships dominated by economic competition, greater disparity between the “have” and the “have-not” nations of the world is likely to occur. Areas such as Central and South America, southern Africa, and Southwest and Southeast Asia will continue to lag behind the more developed nations, and Will be more likely to resort to force to redress perceived grievances. Since these Third World nations have mostly small or irregular forces and coastal navies, the probability of low-intensity conflict will increase. U.S. involvement, however reluctant, may be necessary to protect U.S. citizens and interests. The question of how this will he done is critical to the success or failure of U.S. foreign policy.
One possibility rests with the Naval Reserve and its historic involvement in fast patrol boats such as the patrol torpedo (PT) boats of World War 11 and more recently patrol gunboats that support special warfare units. Reservists comprised 98% of the PT boat crews and today account for 66% of the special boat units.
The value of patrol boats has always been difficult to quantify because they have been used primarily to support amphibious and special warfare operations or in coastal interdiction roles. They generally went out in pairs at night to avoid air attack and to interdict barge and lighter traffic operating in inshore waters. Operating around island groups and in choke points, they enjoyed marked success against troop and supply barges and in intelligence probing and antisurface screening operations.1 More recently, in the Persian Gulf, combatant craft escorted oil tankers being threatened by armed speedboats and naval mines. Once again they proved to be a cost-effective alternative to frigates, which could not match the speed and maneuverability of the speedboats and were vulnerable to naval mines. Only when Army helicopters began operating from the flight deck of the Navy frigates against the Iranian speedboats was the frigate s utility restored.
This flexibility and adaptability (some would say expendability) of fast patrol boats in undertaking risky missions would seem to be exactly the attributes the U.S. Navy would seek as it tries to restore balance to the fleet in the area of low-intensity conflict. Patrol boats have not found favor in the U.S. Navy, however. In this attitude the U.S. Navy stands alone; other navies of the world have developed fast patrol boats. The only U.S. patrol boats currently operational are the six hydrofoils (PHMs) of the Pegasus (PHM-1) class, which were developed in the 1970s and only procured by the Navy under heavy pressure from Congress, and the 18 patrol boat (PB) Mk Ills, which were developed for the Vietnam War and delivered in the early 1970s. Although these craft have served useful roles, most notably the PBs in escorting tankers in the Persian Gulf and the PHMs in interdicting drug traffickers in the Caribbean, the PBs’ age and the exotic PHMs’ support costs limit their utility in the future.
The reasons for the lack of U.S. Navy interest are subtle, and range
from competition for a limited amount of shipbuilding funds to the specious argument that if the U.S. Navy needs patrol boats its allies will provide them. More basically, however, patrol boats have always been viewed as a product of an inferior navy—an anathema to the Mahanian concept of “sweeping the enemy from the seas by virtue of a superior battle fleet.” Naval officers from the time they are midshipmen are told that the real Navy lies in big, multi warfare ships that can go “in harm’s way.” Patrol boats have been left to the reserves to be used only in war.
Properly used, patrol boats would complement, not compete with, larger ships. The Navy needs to restore balance to its force structure in the area of low-intensity conflict through the use of patrol boats operated in part by the Naval Reserve. The reserve should play an important role in any decision to build a fast patrol boat for the U.S. Navy.
Technologically, patrol boats have benefited from the missile and electronic revolution of the past 40 years. Systems such as precision navigation, automated controls, and lightweight diesel propulsion have enabled the craft to support the dramatic advancements in sensors and weapons. Today, modem fast patrol boats have greater firepower and sensor capability than frigates of a generation earlier.
A new class of patrol boat that can operate effectively in low-intensity conflicts is needed. To be useful, it should be able to operate overseas as well as in U.S. coastal waters. This poses a fundamental dilemma in the U.S.
Navy, which has almost never permitted boats less than 165 feet to sail independently.2 Consequently, there has been a notable gap between 90 feet, which is the maximum practical limit for transporting craft in a well deck, and 165 feet, which is the minimum length considered seaworthy.
Logic would argue for the larger boat, since well-deck transportability places restrictions on the smaller boat and the availability of well decks is always at issue. Unfortunately, an effort in 1986 to procure a larger boat, called the PXM, resulted in price estimates of $200-300 million, depending on the design selected. Since Oliver Hazard Perry (FFG-7)-class frigates were being procured at that time for about the same cost, the Navy decided that the PXM was not cost effective.
This leads one to consider the smaller boat. Three things favor its development:
The Mark-Ill patrol boats successfully monitored small boats in the Persian Gulf in 1988, but their out- of-date weapons, sensors, and seakeeping abilities limited their effectiveness. More modern patrol boats are needed.
- The development and procurement costs are substantially less.
- There have been enormous technological improvements in small sensors and weapons that can be used directly or adapted to the smaller boat.
- The most immediate threat is from drug traffickers in the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, and waters off southern California, where the smaller boat could be effectively employed.
A final consideration is simply that once the smaller boat is put into operation, it will become a model for determining the requirements for the larger boat. The option always remains, of course, to transport the smaller boat by any of several available means for use in overseas operations.
The small patrol boat would have many missions. First, patrol boats are needed in peacetime here in the United States to help interdict drug traffickers. The President and Secretary of Defense have committed the armed forces to the war on drugs and already surveillance aircraft, special operations forces, and the command, control, communications, and intelligence infrastructure have swung into action. The Navy dispatched the USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) and USS Virginia (CGN-38) to patrol the waters north of Colombia, but therein lay the rub. The Colombians did not want help from that highly visible symbol of U.S. strength. They protested vigorously and the Kennedy was promptly withdrawn.
Patrol boats would have been much better suited to this operation. Operating from the Canal Zone, Roosevelt Roads (Puerto Rico), or even Guantanamo Bay (Cuba), patrol boats would have been much more compatible with Colombia’s naval forces and would not have raised the specter of Yankee imperialism. They can operate in very shallow waters and board and search other vessels without assistance. It goes without saying that they could operate at a fraction of the cost of a carrier battle group. While patrol boats do not have the seakeeping ability of a large ship, advancements such as fin stabilization and surface-effect (air cushion) technology have greatly improved their ability to operate in heavy seas. On balance, the full spectrum of capability needed to counter drugs being transported to the United States by sea seems to lie with the unglamorous but more cost-effective patrol boat.
Numbers are important in this mission; once again the advantage appears to favor the patrol boat. Four squadrons of eight patrol boats each (32 boats total) could provide continuous 24-hour coverage of the four channels that lead from South America to the United States.3 Operating from U.S. bases close to these natural choke points, the patrol boat squadrons would cover thousands of square miles of ocean that might otherwise require four separate carrier groups.
Second, patrol boats’ compatability with Third World navies makes them ideal for joint training exercises and for “showing the flag” in smaller ports. They have neither the interoperability nor the logistics problems associated with large ships and can be integrated easily into operations that benefit both parties. They may also be most useful in evacuating U.S. nationals from trouble spots. (General Douglas Mac Arthur's evacuation from Corregidor by Lieutenant John D. Bulkley in the PT-41 was perhaps the most famous.) Here they have the demonstrated advantage of speed, maneuverability, shallow draft, and a low physical as well as diplomatic profile. Clearly, they are the proper choice in situations where it is too risky to use larger ships.
Third, in war, fast patrol boats could be employed against many of the threats we have seen in the past decade. The threat of attack by highspeed gunboats such as the Iranian Boghammer would have been much more easily handled if a modern fast patrol boat capability had been available. Such boats could have been used as a surface screening force in the restricted, mine-infested waters of the Persian Gulf. At the very moment the decision was being made to fire the fateful missile that downed the Iranian
Patrol Boats and LICs
To analyze the naval requirements associated with low- intensity conflict, one may look at some recent examples in the Persian Gulf (1987-88), Central America (Panama,
El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras), and Grenada. In each the United States was involved in a limited way in terms of its political objectives, military resources, and the length of time its forces could be involved without violating the War Powers Resolution. These lactors placed stringent rules of engagement on naval commanders that considerably reduced the combat initiative and the defense in depth of the naval forces assigned to the region.
Each of these conflicts also imposed unique geographical constraints. The shallow, restricted waters of the Persian Gulf kept the carrier battle group operating well to the east of the Straits of Hormuz, in the Gull of Oman. Fighter air cover was an hour away on call. While air superiority was not an issue in either Grenada or Central America, there are vast regions of extremely shallow and uncharted water on the Nicaraguan shell and in the Caribbean surrounding Grenada. If, as was once proposed, an arms blockade had been imposed between Cuba and either of these two countries, search-and-seizure operations in the shallow-water areas could only have been possible with patrol boats.
In each of these three low-intensity conflicts the naval threat to U.S. forces was limited to coastal naval forces of the states involved. These consisted mostly of patrol boats, plus, in the case of Iran, a few corvettes and frigates of limited capability. In pitched battle, most notably the 18 April 1988 engagement of Iranian forces on sortie from Bandar Abbas, the Iranian surface forces were no match for U.S. surface-launched missiles and tactical aircraft, which promptly sunk the Iranian frigate Sahand and the fast attack craft Joshan and severely damaged the Irig- ate Sabalan. Nevertheless, for many months preceding that engagement, Iranian Boghammer speedboats armed with 40-mm. grenade launchers and minor-caliber guns harassed and set fire to over 200 tankers. The Iranians also used modified landing craft to sow floating mines that proved lethal to the USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) and inflicted serious damage on several tankers, including the Bridgeton on her first voyage as a reflagged U.S. ship.
Low-intensity conflict provides a resourcelul enemy with many opportunities to exploit U.S. vulnerabilities. This can be a particularly serious problem for the United States because of the asymmetry ot the torccs involved. Simply stated, the United States incurs tremendous risk
when major Beet assets such as aircralt carriers, cruiseis, destroyers, and frigates arc arrayed against much smaller, less expensive coastal forces. Weapons as diverse as naval mines, missile-armed patrol boats, coastal submarines, and shore-launched antiship missiles (such as the Silkworm) can be used in such a way as to take advantage of the vulnerabilities of larger U.S. ships in these restricted situations. Under these circumstances, the United Slates, with its large ships, is placed at a military disadvantage relative to the risks involved. In the highly charged political atmosphere surrounding low-intensity conflict, the loss of a single ship can take on the dimensions of a national disaster (witness President Ronald Reagan s reactions to the USS Stark [FFG-311 incident).
Finally, the rules of engagement that constrain the superior capabilities of U.S. forces are olten used to the advantage of Third World navies involved in low-intensity conflict. The need to ascertain belligerency and to classily positively the threat in regions where neutral or allied forces are free to operate shrinks the battle space and reduces reaction time. Thus engagements often occur at short range well inside the primary defense envelopes ot larger ships, making them particularly vulnerable. 1 he dilemma of the USS Vincennes (CG-49) in shooting down the Iranian airliner highlights the problem faced by Captain Will Rogers, who had to choose in seconds between defending his ship and attacking an unknown target.
The sinking of the Israeli destroyer Elath in 1967 by a Styx antiship missile launched from an Egyptian Komar- class patrol boat moored in Port Said harbor demonstrated the enormous striking power contained in modern patrol boats equipped with missiles. This watershed event in naval warfare ushered in an era of strategic deployments that has seen the Soviet Union export Komar class and follow-on O.s’a-class patrol boats to some 27 Third World states around the world. Many of these countries Libya, Cuba, South Yemen, and North Korea, to name a few arc situated within close striking distance of major sea lines of communication. These patrol boats, armed with four improved SS-N-2C Styx missiles, can launch surprise attacks against warships from a range of 30 miles, or attack tankers and merchant ships using missiles, torpedoes, and guns. This represents a worldwide threat that could be used unexpectedly against U.S. warships or merchantmen in low-intensity conflicts.
Capt. V. A. Meyer, U.S. Naval Reserve
airbus, the Vincennes (CG-49) was Under attack by Boghammers and she had to execute a hard turn to bring her after gun to bear when the forward mount jammed. The outcome might have been different if patrol boats had been available to screen or engage the Boghammers so the Vincennes could devote her full attention to the antiair warfare problem.
Wartime missions for patrol boats are almost too numerous to list, but cer
tainly the historical ones of reconnaissance and screening, coastal patrol, choke point interdiction, and defense of the amphibious landing force ships have been well documented. With the introduction of compact autonomous missiles and torpedoes, surface strike and shore fire support may be added to the list. The shoulder-fired Stinger missile has been adapted to at least one lightweight naval mount, thereby providing an excellent antiair warfare point
defense capability to patrol boats. Finally, with more development, patrol boats could perform an antisubmarine warfare role similar to that of a LAMPS helicopter. Operating in pairs, they could use off-board distributed arrays or sonobuoys to gain a submarine contact, a dipping sonar or an autonomous vehicle to localize, and a lightweight torpedo such as the Mk 50 to engage.
All of this may seem too ambitious
for the Naval Reserves; however, experience has shown that the best Naval Reserve units are the hardware units. Crew requirements for fast patrol boats are low—two officers and six petty officers for the smaller patrol boat.
Eight crews per boat would provide four or five days a week at sea for each crew during a two-month period, a schedule that could be supported under the new more flexible training guidelines. An active-duty Training and Administration of Reserves crew of about four petty officers would probably be needed to perform long-term maintenance and to sortie the boat in emergencies or on high-priority missions when a reserve crew was unavailable. Under way, the smaller patrol boat could be operated easily at patrol readiness with four watchstanders: two lookouts forward and aft who would control gun mounts for quick reaction threats, a sensor operator/communicator who would search for contacts, and an officer-of-the-deck who would operate the helm, engines, and boat control systems (navigation, stabilizers, autopilot, etc.). Although this watch section is slightly smaller than found on today’s PB, it is consistent with the state of the art in modern fast patrol boats and is an essential requirement for this concept to succeed. Obviously, during periods of higher readiness such as stop-and-search operations, all hands would be available to crew weapons, sensors, and contingency watch stations.
The reserves would respond to this mission enthusiastically. The chance to operate a fast patrol boat on missions of national importance is a strong motivator. Many reservists already have small-boat experience of one type or another. Incentives such as 60 paid drills (already standard in many hardware units), more special active duty, and high potential for promotion would foster cohesion and readiness.
Given good boats and adequate support, Naval Reservists would welcome the opportunity to abandon the drill hall for the pulsating deck of a fast patrol boat. We have trained manpower, a rich heritage in fast patrol boats, and an urgent, unfulfilled mission.
'R. J. Bulkley, Jr. At Close Quarters, PT Boats I" The United States Navy. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1962, pp. 128-135.
2The 165-foot PG-class went to Vietnam on its own bottom as did some of the 87-foot PT boats in World War II.
3Yucatan, Windward, Mona, and east of Puerto Rico.
Captain Meyer is the commanding officer of the Assistant Chief of Naval Operations (Op-02) Detachment 106. Washington, D.C. He is a naval analyst at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahl- gren, Virginia. He originated the special warfare craft medium program in 1982 and was recalled to active duty to manage the program during its start-up. He was also the senior officer during the NATO sea trials of the SES-200 in 1986.
TARs Should Be All Wet
By Lieutenant Jim Nugent, U.S. Naval Reserve
“The [TAR] community should not be any different from the regular Navy community, except for its reserve program specialization.”
One of the most misunderstood officer communities is the Training and Administration of Reserves (TAR). Misconceptions abound and outright prejudice often rears its head in the regular active-duty community when it is discovered that a TAR is soon to come on board a regular (not a Naval Reserve Force [NRF]) ship. While problems once existed within the TAR community, the community has made efforts to change its professional image. The new generation of TAR officers think of themselves as reserve program specialists who are otherwise like any other line officers.
TARs are reserve line officers who work with reservists and reserve programs. Officers currently coming into the program are warfare qualified or are in the pipeline for warfare qualification. Junior TARs (lieutenant to lieutenant commander) are assigned to Navy Reserve Centers (NRCs), Navy and Marine Corps Reserve Centers (NMCRCs), or to Readiness Commands (RedComs).
One advantage a TAR has over his regular Navy counterpart is the greater number of available shore billets in areas where the Navy may not otherwise have a large presence. Another is that the available shore billet will carry a great deal of responsibility; it is not uncommon for a lieutenant to be the commanding officer of an NRC where 200 or more reservists drill or an executive officer of an NMCRC where 500 or more reservists drill. The responsibilities associated with these positions range from handling the administration of the command and the reserve personnel, to developing training programs and acquiring training assets to maintaining the facility and fostering positive community relations. One finds oneself working with reservists who are more senior and often successful business or professional men and women. The role of a CO or XO fosters a well-earned sense of pride. All in all, there are many aspects of the TAR challenge that, if handled successfully, result in capable, well-rounded, and experienced naval officers who will go
on to become successful shipboard department heads, XOs, or COs, whether on an NRF or a regular platform.
There are “wet” and “dry” TARs, and herein lies one of the problems that this community has labored to correct. “Wet” TARs are line officers who are also reserve specialists. They plan to go to sea or to an air squadron and follow the normal career path for their warfare specialty. Every TAR should be “wet.” But one finds “dry” TARs, who have been away from ships or air squadrons for anywhere from five to ten years (sometimes longer). They have gone from their department-head tours to an NMCRC, on to a RedCom, then to New Orleans or Washington, and then possibly to a larger NMCRC. Each shore tour is for a three-year hitch. In the final analysis, it is not unheard of to see an individual who has 20 years of service working with reservists who have 4 to 6 years active-duty and 16 to 20 years reserve time, and who have had more sea or flight time than the TAR officer. Such TAR officers cannot be useful because they lack the fleet experience to share with their reserve counterparts; they only serve as examples of beached naval officers whose expertise is in reserve administration and not naval warfare. This is not the image the TAR