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By Lieutenant Brian R. Galvin, U.S. Navy
Naval aspects of warfare are repeatedly played out thousands of times in military classrooms, ship wardrooms, and squadron ready rooms around the world. When the real thing comes along—here, in a French cruiser’s command information center during Desert Storm—the simple tactical models of old still seem to work.
The pioneering efforts of Lieutenant J. V. Chase at the Naval War College mark the apex of what has been called the Golden Age of tactical thought (1890-1914). And one of the greatest essays on the topic was the Naval Institute’s 1905 General Prize Essay written by then-Commander Bradley Fiske on “American Naval Policy.” Both employed very simple models that could be grasped easily by most officers and thus could serve to stimulate fruitful tactical thought. This was crucial at the time because of the dramatic technological changes that had taken place since the last naval wars. New tactics had to be developed:
“Probably so much was written about battle because so few battles were fought. In a time of technological ferment that rivals even our own as to tactical consequences, naval officers debated the implications of the ram, torpedoes, better fire control, steam, wireless, and the race between guns and armor. As a result, when World War I came there were very few tactical surprises, and in fact, most of the surprises wrought by naval technology were in the field of strategy: the distant blockade, the virtual end of the surface raider, and the rise of the U-Boat as a war winning threat, for example.1”
In the Golden Age, naval officers themselves developed the models and conducted the debate. Since World War II, however, naval tactical models had become the domain of the operations analysts and computer specialists, with simplicity giving way to complexity in a drive for more realism and completeness. Fortunately, recent resurgence of effective yet simple modeling can now be used by officers in any naval wardroom as a vehicle for discussions and serious tactical thought.
The leader in this renaissance of back-of-the-envelope modeling is unquestionably Captain Wayne Hughes, U.S. Navy (Retired), now a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School. In his seminal work, Fleet Tactics (a must-read item for all naval tacticians), Captain Hughes presents the famous Lanchester equations, which were used to describe naval combat of the battleship era (and which were actu* ally developed by Lieutenant Chase, who had the mi sfor* tune of his work being overly classified). These equations) which modeled naval conflict as a force-on-force engage* ment characterized by continuous attrition, resulted in a square law relationship2 which demonstrated that, if one side started an engagement with a numerical advan* tage, that advantage would grow as the battle progressed) as the weaker side s forces would decline at a more rapid rate.
Equation 1_____________________________________
a{Al - A,2) = b(Bl - Bj)
a — Individual unit striking power of side A b = Individual unit striking power of side B A0 = Starting size of force A (ships)
At = Final size of force A B0 = Initial size of force B Bt = Final size of force B
Captain Hughes showed in his book how this model ade* quately represented the general nature of naval battle throughout the age of fighting sail and World War I.
Beginning with the advent of carrier air power, though, this model breaks down.3 The reason, as described by Captain Hughes, is that each side became capable of delivering crippling firepower in a concentrated pulse. Thus, instead of thinking about how much damage can be done by a side in a unit of time, which was the implied method in the squared law model that described “grind ’em down” battle, we are encouraged to think of the damage done by a side per salvo. This fundamental shift made the
role of scouting equally important to that of shooting. An inferior force—if he finds and engages the enemy before the enemy finds him—can prevail, or at least even the odds. An obvious case is the Battle of Midway.
Battleships could not have won such a battle, because we would have had to close the enemy force to apply firepower. In so doing, we would have given up our advantage of surprise and been forced to submit to the simultaneous and far more crippling firepower of the enemy. Captain Hughes applies this pulsed power model of salvo warfare equally to combat in today’s missile age, thus bridging the vast technological gap between naval warfare as Chase knew it and modeled it in 1900 and naval warfare as we know it in 1991. In making this extension of the Chase model, Hughes gave us a simple model capable of filling the intellectual “thought kernel” role that the earlier models did.
Hughes and his student, Lieutenant Jeffrey Cares, U.S. Navy, extended his salvo warfare model beyond Fleet Tactics and codified it to “finally allow naval professionals and military operations analysts to put rudders over and steer a common course.”4 Unable to resist the temptation to make an image-rich comparison between warfare and thermodynamics, Cares formulated three Laws of Salvo Warfare:
- Salvo exchanges are interactions of pulses of combat power and therefore event-stepped phenomena rather than continuous processes of attrition.
- Effective combat power is the attacker’s pulse minus the defender’s actions, inflicting damage proportional to the ratio of effective combat power to staying power.
- Combat power is measured in units of hits, staying power in units of hits per ship, and combat potential and damage in units of ships.5
Expressed mathematically, Cares’s Second Law can be written as Equation 2.
Equation 2____________________________________
AAA = ~
a\A
SB = Force B’s scouting effectiveness (0 to 1) b3 = Force B’s offensive combat strength per units a2 = Force A’s defensive combat strength per unit Da = Force A’s defensive preparedness (0 to 1) ai = Force A’s staying power
Of particular concern is the fact that, in this model, historically supported by study of World War II carrier battles, when a side has lost half of its ships, it has lost exactly half of its defensive firepower. In the sense of area defense, or mutually supportive defense, this is quite true. However, soft-kill systems, such as chaff and active electronic countermeasures, do not follow this rule at all. In fact, since each missile of the attacking force is assumed to be targeted on one and only one defending ship, the likelihood of its being defeated by a soft kill is independent of the number of ships remaining in the defending force. This consideration is important, because with proper intelli' gence, leading to proper doctrine, and supported by proper training and equipment, soft-kill systems can achieve a high kill rate against many types of enemy missiles, as shown by the British in the Falklands Conflict. It is impC' tant to note also that soft-kill systems are not as easily saturated as hard-kill systems, so that as attrition works against the defending force, the effectiveness of soft-kih systems remains constant, or nearly so. Mathematically- this different characteristic of point defense soft-kill systems could be expressed by multiplying the Cares’s second law by a soft-kill factor (SKF).
Equation 3___________________________________
AA SBb3B - DAa2A
— =------------------------------ —1 *SKF
A a,A
SKF = 1 - kill probability of one ship’s soft-kill systems
Thus, after the attacker’s effective shots are handled by area defense systems and other hard-kill systems (including close-in hard-kill systems, which are more easily saturated than soft-kill systems and so are not included in the soft-kill factor), the remaining missiles are subject to an additional fixed rate of attrition corresponding to soft-kill systems, assumed for simplicity to be unsaturated.
The Hughes-Cares model of salvo warfare, as modified, is a simple model that any officer in any wardroom can easily understand and discuss. In fact, it is well-suited as a straw man for wardroom discussions of tactics. But its simplicity leads to some limitations. While the model is simple, the actual assigning of values to the variables is a very complex and contentious task. The model assumes all ships to be alike, which is obviously not true. The model does not consider range effects; tacticians had better, or they won t fight twice. The model is not intended to apply to the predator-prey world of antisubmarine warfare, so tacticians had better also stay abreast of developments in that murky and difficult world. The effects of such factors as morale, training levels, and technological edge can only be crudely included as corrections to the raw numbers, should the numbers even be available. The list could go on, but the point is clear. One cannot predict the outcome of a battle or determine optimum spacing between ships using this model.
But, then, how can one make use of the model, which is at least elegant and approachable in its simplicity? The answer is exactly what Captain Hughes intended it to be: use the model to conceptualize more general issues of tactics, continuing from there to detailed considerations. To show the utility of this approach, consider the general question of whether or not to concentrate one’s ships, World War II-style, or to disperse them, as is sometimes done today. Further, consider the two war scenarios the U.S. Navy will most likely face. Let world events guide your thoughts. Will it be coalition warfare in Europe
THE PROCEEDINGS
OF THE
United States Naval Institute.
FLEET TACTICS
U. S. NAVAL INSTITUTE, ANNAPOLIS, MD. Prize Essay, January i, 1905.
AMERICAN NAVAL POLICY.
By Commander Bradley A. Fiske, U. S. N.
Motto: None—[The writer fi •ioni about many pointi among the men to whon adopted the plan of bei arguing directly from and allow no previouilj to unbiased conclusion: were that—
(1) The ships of oui a military standpoinL (a) The art and the (3) The administrati weight to military co These conclusions which caused them is h carefully. The small 1 vastness of the subject, outlined, not elaborated
NAVAL INSTITUTE COLLECTION
a§ainst the Soviet Union, or war against a moderately sophisticated Third World navy equipped with ship-killing missiles?
Scenario One. In the context of a more general war a§ainst NATO, the Soviet Union has made attacks on the Northern Cape of Norway, and intelligence sources indiCate a major amphibious assault planned in the Narvik area. You are on board a cruiser steaming with Carrier Striking Force Atlantic, and you know that naval opposi- tlon is being considered against such a move. Your force is Currently in the southwestern Norwegian Sea, and your CaPtain is about to head over to the carrier for a conference is antiair warfare commander.) Being an enlightened CaPtain who seeks to encourage tactical thought in his "'ardroom, and one who hopes to glean an additional idea 0r two to mull over before leaving, he asks you to chair a r°undtable discussion in the wardroom, specifically to disCuss the question of optimum force disposition.
Being equally enlightened as well, you start off the feting by refreshing the wardroom’s memory of the Hughes-Cares model (suitably modified, of course), 't'hich your colleagues have discussed before in wardroom Gaining and general bull sessions. You further ask that the ^jscussion start by considering what insights the model gives before discussing details. Immediately, the engineer Pipes up and states that, unfortunately, his farsighted emphasis on training for nuclear defense will be useful now. After all, the Soviets have always considered nuclear Weapons as merely artillery with a bigger bang, and they "dll be confident that, should they use nuclear weapons at sea to even the odds, we will not really retaliate against the Kola Peninsula. Therefore, any force disposition must be based on the presumption that the Soviets will use nuclear Weapons.
The combat systems officer weighs in here, pointing out lhat the use of nukes will make point defense systems much less useful, since shooting down a nuke at point defense range does not necessarily stop the warhead from killing the ship. Therefore, some degree of concentration would be desirable so that all ships can stay under the Aegis surface-to-air missile umbrella, while remaining far enough apart to prevent more than one kill per weapon. Such massing would increase the value of A in Equation 3, since A counts only ships that are defending together against the same salvo. At this point, all are satisfied, and discussion quickly shifts to how we should maximize our defensive posture. You point out that, with adequate indications and warning from shore-based air defenses and the E-2s, the value of DA should be one. The damage control assistant, always looking for a devious way to use deceptive lighting and structures fabricated by his hull technicians, suggests that there are many ways to lower the value of SB. The point here is clear.
Scenario Two. Having tried to resolve a major crisis in its relations with B, a developing nation with a small but extremely well-equipped ndvy, the United States has decided to launch an amphibious assault. You are tactical action officer on a Spruance (DD-963)-class destroyer, which is part of the battleship battle group assigned to aid the assault. While most U.S. air power available has been assigned to support the actual assault, a small number of AV-8B Harriers have been assigned to the antiair defense role (B has also a small but capable air force, although it is inexperienced in war at sea strikes). The combatants in the group, with the exception of the battleship, have been directed to keep the B fleet bottled up in its base 100 miles to the north. Your captain asks you what your recommendation would be if he had to deploy the forces— concentrate or disperse? You and the captain have spent a few quiet hours during the transit discussing various general tactical issues using the Hughes-Cares model of salvo warfare, so you naturally slip into that framework as you reply. Offensively, you note, dispersal would cover more of the coastal areas; after all, the likely threat is a fast missile craft trying to slip by using the coast to his advantage. Since the mission virtually mandates that the search be active rather than passive (to preclude the enemy’s use of electromagnetic emissions control to get through), dispersal also would mean that his crude electronic surveillance measures capabilities would only give him information on one ship at a time, while we could concentrate our attack once contact is made. The captain acknowledges your point but feels that the advantage of massing defensive firepower outweighs your considerations, since it would make our force nearly invulnerable to the low intensity of attack he is able to muster. After all, the captain says, this is precisely the kind of situation Hughes talks about in chapter ten of Fleet Tactics, siding finally with the defense. You at this point respectfully remind him of some intelligence recently received that suggests the enemy has been equipped secretly with the next-to-latest version of Exocet missiles, against which our mutual defense is very weak. Why not disperse—the soft-kill factor does not change—and thereby gain both scouting and antiscouting advantages while sacrificing nothing? Their use of Exocet reduces a2 to nearly 0. The captain furrows his brow. ...
These two scenarios, while somewhat fanciful, as indeed all such scenarios must be, show how such a simple model of naval warfare as given in Equation 3 can be very useful in the discussion of very real tactical questions. All of the ideas suggested in the two scenarios would have to be followed up by detail work, since the model is greatly limited in its predictive value. Nevertheless, familiarity with this model and inclusion of it and its variables in the everyday tactical language of naval officers would be of great value. Further, the modification to the Hughes-Cares model to account for soft-kill systems is critical, for it highlights the very real fact that, as sea-skimming missiles become more and more common to naval warfare between states of all sizes, soft-kill and point defense systems will be effective. This is especially true when one realizes that against sea skimmers, Aegis is virtually a point defense system, and dispersal is strongly suggested as a means to increase the difficulty of the enemy’s scouting problem.
Finally, thinking about tactics in the framework of such a simple model can occasionally bring home some imp°r' tant lessons that may not be widely appreciated. The model immediately emphasizes soft-kill systems, which are a potent hedge against hard-kill system saturation. Yd soft-kill systems are exceedingly reliant on operator training and tactical skill. What seldom is, but must be included in this concept of tactical skill is the ability to innovate by adapting existing systems to new threats at the shipboard level, since you may not have time to wait f°r fleet guidance. This reality of modern missile warfare when cast in the light of this model, should force up011 every officer the fundamental importance of electronic warfare and the need for thorough knowledge of the field by all tactical officers. At the same time, prudent office^ must appreciate the value of hard-kill systems both in the area defense role and as hedges against new soft-kill countermeasures. Both factors of defensive capability are vital and must be maximized. Some of this can occur in the systems command and tactical training establishment ashore, the rest must come from seagoing personnel. M°" tivation can come from the consideration of simple tactical models, which break complex warfare into manageable' conceptual chunks.
Wayne P. Hughes, Jr.. 'On the Integration of Naval Tactics and Maritime Strategy, delivered to conference on "Maritime Strategy: Issues and Perspectives • Center for Naval Warfare Studies, U.S. Naval War College, Newport Rhode Island, 15-17 May 1985, p. 16. F ’
2J. V. Chase, A Mathematical Investigation of the Effect of Superiority of Force i" Combats Upon the Sea, Naval War College Archives, RG8, Box'109, XTAV (1902), cited in Jeffrey R. Cares, The Fundamentals of Salvo Warfare M S. Thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, 1990, p. 5. ’
Wayne P. Hughes, Jr., Fleet Tactics (Annapolis, Maryland. Naval Institute Press. 1986), pp. 85-110.
4Chase, op. cit., p. 42.
Hbid., pp. 7-11.
Wayne P. Hughes, Jr., remarks made before class on Maritime Strategy, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, 13 November 1990.
Lieutenant Galvin is prospective engineer officer of the USS California (CGN-36). He is a graduate of Department Head School and the Naval I ostgraduate School with a degree in underwater acoustics and has held engineering billets in the USS Bagley (FF-1069), White Plains (AFS-4). and the South Carolina (CGN-37). He also served as tactical action offi" cer on board the South Carolina.
------------------------------------------------------------------- False Teeth for Fido________________________________
On or about 0200 on 10 July 1990 an intruder was spotted in the area of the MSSG-45 Armory at Twenty-Nine Palms, California. The next day a Marine Corporal who was sleeping under a trailer wokernp to find his upper/lower dentures missing. He had placed the dentures in his cover next to him. The intruder was later identified as a beagle dog who had been befriended by Motor-T. The whereabouts of the dentures is unknown. The beagle is suspected of thinking these may have been a bone and possibly burying them in the desert. Mainside dental clinic was alerted to the problem and suggested that the Marine make out a personal property loss report with the Provost Marshal’s 011 ice. Appropriate documentation was entered in the dental record.
John M. Hood