Surface warfare leaders met at the Little Creek, Virginia, Naval Amphibious Base early this summer to find new ways to speed up procurement of fast, high-performance combat craft that they say are critical to meeting the Navy's role in fighting against irregular warfare tactics that the Fleet will face in the future.
Acquisition officials, such as Naval Surface Warfare Command commander Rear Admiral James J. Shannon, speaking at the Multi-Agency Craft Conference, pointed out that new enemies are working continuously to counter current U.S. technologies and tactics. Shannon said the attack on the USS Cole (DDG-67) in October 2000 carried out from a small boat, displayed the enemy's ability to innovate to counter U.S. technology and firepower.
"Innovation is the key," he added, saying that the Navy is working on effective ways to get the designers of combatant craft in the boatbuilding industry and Fleet operators, including Navy special warfare units, to work more closely together.
For the special warfare units, operating in the new environment translates as an urgent need for more effective, more versatile combatant craft, while countering the perennial perception that the special boat community-according to some special warfare leaders-is considered by the Navy to be a minor league compared to the design, systems engineering, and construction of frontline blue-water surface combatants.
The new urgencies of special warfare have overturned that perception, officials say. Navy special warfare leaders point out that their teams are participating in collaborative activities with 24 partners, including nations in East and West Africa and Latin America, engaging in regional conflicts and operations with traditional U.S. allies, providing security force assistance, partner-nation capability building, and maritime training.
Officials stress that the Navy is working on tactics to fight against the irregular warfare experienced in Iraq and Afghanistan and expected in future hostile environments. The Navy Expeditionary Combat Command stood up in January 2006 to oversee all aspects of Navy/Marine Corps expeditionary warfare, ranging from combat riverine operations to salvage, logistics, and security. The Office of Naval Research is studying a new approach to irregular warfare tactics called "Operational Adaptation," aimed at helping U.S. forces to "out-adapt" and "out-tempo" irregular forces through better understanding of the human, social, cultural, and behavioral factors that shape tactics for "overseas contingency operations"-formerly referred to as the global war on terrorism.
The Program Executive Office for Ships (PEO Ships), which manages procurement of combatant craft, says that the PEO's Office for Auxiliary Ships/Small Boats and Craft has ordered 36 combatant craft, 27 of which have been delivered: 18 riverine patrol boats, 8 riverine assault boats, and 1 riverine command boat, with the other 9 planned for delivery through 2010. Some 2,500 boats are in the Navy's inventory.
The Navy's Fiscal Year 2010 budget calls for 48 craft in FY 2009 and 77 for FY 2010, ranging from 24-foot rigid inflatable boats to riverine multi-mission craft, command-and-control craft, and special warfare support craft, among others.
Naval Special Warfare Command leaders and advisers cite a range of urgent technologies and capabilities for new combatant craft, among them intuitive control systems, lightweight weapons, hybrid power and fuel-cell power generation, high-power density gas-turbine engines, lightweight composite materials for hulls and armor, synthetic vision head-up displays, and active multi-spectral signature-reduction technologies.
Other needs are enhanced satellite communications capability for "SATCOM on the move," improved intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems, virtual training simulators, and integrated bridge systems.
A critical requirement is effective ride-control systems aimed at "speed with good ride." Naval special warfare and the rest of the small boat community note that SEALs and other special operations personnel sometimes must ride in combat craft for hours at high speeds through high sea states, risking spinal compression and other injuries.
PEO Ships stresses the transformation of procurement practices for boat builders. The Navy buys all its boats-mostly from small companies-through General Services Administration procurements. Navy solicitations are posted on the GSA Web site. Boatbuilders must get on the GSA schedule to do business with the Navy, procurement managers say. "If they don't, the Navy won't buy their boats."