Shooting for the Middle
(See C. Schlise, pp. 64–67, April 2012 Proceedings)
Captain Anthony Cowden, U.S. Navy—Lieutenant Commander Schlise has made an important and valuable contribution to the discussion of what ails U.S. Navy surface-shipbuilding. I would take his general suggestion for a new class of frigate that minimizes new design requirements (i.e., sunk costs) as literally as possible and dust off the Perry-class design. Its weapon and combat systems should be updated (replace the Mk13 missile launcher with a 16–24 cell Mk41 vertical-launch system, for example), but other hull, mechanical, and electrical system changes should be minimized unless they reduce manning requirements (i.e., recurring costs). Another advantage to this approach is making use of all of the logistic and training infrastructure that exists for this class (more sunk costs).
With regard to the littoral combat ship (LCS), the Government Accountability Office recently released a report showing that each hull alone for the current acquisition will cost $597 million, not including each (not-yet-completed) mission module (www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-400SP, pp. 107–10). The cost of a new multimission frigate must be well below this cost, and my recommendation is to limit as much as possible the LCS-class acquisition as being unaffordable.
Unleashing the MH-60S Knighthawk
(See B. Armstrong, pp. 78–79, April 2012 Proceedings)
Commander Jeffrey B. Barta, U.S. Navy—Lieutenant Commander Armstrong’s argument in favor of deployed helicopter gunships is spot-on with regard to the need. However, despite their superb sensor suites, neither variant of the -60 series (MH-60S or MH-60R) will fit the bill. Airframe limitations on the helicopters’ pitch, roll, air-speed, and stabilator systems, built-in stability-augmentation systems, and the sheer size and weight of the -60, not to mention the $28 million dollar price tag, prevent them from being adequate gunship platforms for anything other than supporting visit/board/search-and-seizure operations, radar-scouting missions, or forward-looking-infrared cuing for other platforms. No strike-group commander would dare risk using his helo assets in any other way. I saw it while serving as an SH-60B pilot and helo-detachment officer in charge, and most recently as a planner at NAVCENT/5th Fleet.
Ironically, while advocating for the use of the -60, Lieutenant Commander Armstrong overlooks the platform that he bases his argument on—the UH-1E from the Vietnam-era Helicopter Attack Light squadrons, and the lessons they left behind. Those aircraft were cheaper, smaller, lighter, and more maneuverable than any -60 could hope to be, and carried weapons that were far more suited for the nautical/littoral battlefield than the -60’s Hellfire missile systems.
A reading of history shows that during the “tanker wars” of the 1980s and Operations Desert Shield/Storm of the early ’90s, hunter-killer teams of Navy -60s and small, inexpensive, highly maneuverable Army helos of Hughes AH-6 “Little Bird” and Bell “Kiowa” variants performed admirably. If the Navy and the helicopter community are going to be serious about using rotary-wing platforms in a weapon-delivery role, it is time to take a hard look at these past lessons and redevelop a proven capability. Until then, especially given the price tag of the -60 variants, the helo community will be stuck in the utility missions it has been wallowing in for decades.
There’s a Lot in a Name
(See N. Polmar, pp. 88–89, April 2012 Proceedings)
Captain Edward W. Molzan, U.S. Navy (Retired)—Your readers may not be aware that there was an earlier class of 130 Navy LCSs—not littoral combat ships, but landing-craft support ships—that were involved in World War II combat operations from New Guinea and Borneo to the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. Those LCSs had the greatest firepower per ton of any ship ever built for the U.S. Navy.
Twenty-six of them were sunk or damaged in battle, earning their crews Presidential Unit Citations, Navy Unit Citations, Silver Stars, Bronze Stars, Purple Hearts, and Navy Commendations. And the commanding officer of LCS-122, Lieutenant Richard McCool, was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Harry S. Truman in December 1945.
With a new class of LCSs being built and introduced to the Fleet, one would be deserving of the Richard McCool name. His Medal of Honor acknowledges extraordinary bravery and resolve while participating in rescue operations under attack, taking on survivors from the stricken and sinking destroyer USS Porter (DD-579). In the face of a kamikaze attack that heavily damaged and burned his ship and killed or wounded half the crew, Lieutenant McCool, despite his own serious burns, managed to save his ship, his surviving crew, and the Porter survivors.
It also would be fitting and honorable for the Secretary of the Navy to recognize Mrs. Carole Elaine McCool. Mrs. McCool may be the last surviving spouse of a Navy World War II Medal of Honor recipient.
Honoring Lieutenant McCool with a ship bearing his name would be in the highest Navy tradition of remembering its heroes.
Captain Walt Spangenberg, U.S. Navy (Retired)—It has done a lot for my morale, both on active duty and subsequently, to have always served in ships whose names I am proud of. In one case, however, it led to an amusing incident.
I was a member of the air group deployed in the USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14), and we were enjoying a port visit in Hong Kong in the late 1950s. I happened to be in the ready room when a call came from the officer of the day asking if we could supply a guide for a tour of the ship for some British visitors.
I decided to do it myself and met them on the quarterdeck, a British army major and his family, as it turned out. I gave them what I thought was a suitable tour of the ship, during the course of which the major inquired about the origin of the ship’s name.
Trying too hard perhaps to be diplomatic, I told them that it was an American Indian name.
Upon leaving the ship, they invited me to dinner at their flat and said, “Bring a friend, too, if you like.” I took my wingman along, and over cocktails the major remarked, “By the way, I’ve done a bit of research on your ship’s name, and I find that it comes from a time when we were not so friendly as we are now!” We had a good laugh over that and a very enjoyable evening.
Renaissance of the Russian Navy?
(See T. R. Fedyszyn, pp 30–35, March 2012 Proceedings)
Rear Admiral Thomas A. Brooks, U.S. Navy (Retired)—Congratulations to Captain Fedyszyn for reminding us that all the attention currently being paid to the Chinese navy may have caused us to forget that the Russian navy is still there, still possesses a sea-based deterrent capable of a devastating nuclear attack, and is beginning to make moves—although slow and sometimes faltering—to expand and upgrade its high-seas surface force.
There really is little that should be surprising about this. Throughout Russian and Soviet (and now, again Russian) history, when land borders were secure, the economy healthy, and a strong tsar was in power, Russia has looked outward and has built a high-seas navy. The opposite pattern is equally apparent: When threatened on land or faced with a weak economy, the navy has been relegated to defensive ships and missions.
This pattern goes back to the beginnings of modern Russia. In the early 18th century, Peter the Great built the first real Russian high-seas navy and used it to wrest the Baltic from Sweden. For almost 50 years after his death, the navy languished under weak tsars. Catherine the Great revived it during the 1765–90 period. Her successors, Paul I and Alexander I, allowed the navy to decline, but Nicholas I revived it and used it to gain control of the Black Sea from the Turks. The Crimean War spelled the end of that navy.
Alexander III, a strong tsar, rebuilt the navy with the stated goal to “sink perfidious Albion.” His navy went down to defeat at the hands of the Japanese in 1904 and 1905, but his son, Nicholas II, commenced another building program. The combination of World War I, the Russian Revolution and civil war, and the 1921 Kronstadt Uprising put an end to those plans, and early Soviet five-year plans allowed for only a defensive, submarine-centered navy.
But Joseph Stalin, again the strong tsar, authorized the building of battleships, heavy cruisers, and aircraft carriers in the 1937 plan and again in his 1950 plan. After his death in 1953, his successors reverted to the defensive doctrine of the early five-year plans, but within ten short years, Admiral Sergey Gorshkov succeeded in obtaining funding for carriers, nuclear-powered battle cruisers, and a large high-seas fleet of guided-missile cruisers and destroyers. His navy faded away with the demise of the Soviet Union.
But now 20 years have passed. Russia’s borders are secure, and its economy is strong. The recent election of Vladimir Putin has assured the country of a strong “tsar”—probably for the next dozen years. Throughout history, this has meant that Russia will build a high-seas fleet.
Wait and see!
Inside the New Defense Strategy
(See N. Friedman, pp. 50–55, March 2012 Proceedings)
Colonel Charles D. McFetridge, U.S. Army (Retired)—As a member of the Naval Institute for more than 40 years, I have been stimulated, educated, and sometimes inspired by the workings of my sister service as related in Proceedings. It remains the premier service journal, and I have read each issue throughout my 30-year Army career and now in retirement. Dr. Friedman has been a favorite author of mine, so I turned quickly to his article on the New Defense Strategy. He articulates the Obama administration’s “new” strategy, a replay of the one that Donald Rumsfeld championed a decade ago—rely on air and sea power and drastically reduce resources from the land-power component (Army and Marines).
I found Dr. Friedman’s views balanced and thoughtful until I reached the section “What Stalin Knew.” He correctly states that the Eisenhower administration “took a meat-ax to the U.S. Army.” Lacking credible ground power, the United States had no realistic military options to counter communist military challenges as the Soviets and their proxies seized power in Eastern Europe, Asia, and moved aggressively in what we then called the Third World. America’s overwhelming naval and air dominance between 1945 and 1960 was ineffectual unless opponents chose to play to our strengths. They rarely did. During those years our only counter to military aggression and subversion was to drop bombs. With a few exceptions, the United States had few viable military options other than total war.
I was appalled to read Dr. Friedman’s assertion that President John F. Kennedy’s rebuilding of the Army “offered the nation a unilateral option in Vietnam.” This is simply wrong. The United States had about as many treaty allies fighting in Vietnam (South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, and Thailand) as it had in the Korean War and many more than in the Pacific in World War II. The reason defense was a centerpiece of the 1960 election was precisely because we had lost sight of the essential truth that America’s defense must be a balance of land, sea, and air power. Overreliance on one or two of these at the expense of the other simply puts our vulnerabilities on display.
To maintain that “large armies get governments into trouble by offering possibilities that are easy to enter but very difficult to exit” is, with all due respect, oxymoronic. To follow this logic, the weaker the defense capabilities are the less likely governments are to get into situations that are difficult to exit; ergo, we should adopt unilateral disarmament. Then we would never be tempted to use military force because we couldn’t. We call this preemptive capitulation. Armies (or fleets or air forces) do not “get governments into trouble.” Rather it is the U.S. government that commits its military forces to achieve strategic policy objectives. When those forces are too weak to achieve the objectives set by the government, then and only then does it becomes difficult to get out.
So Much Strategy, So Little Strategic Direction
(See M. Junge, pp. 46–50, February 2012; M. Cancian, p. 9, March 2012; and M. Klopfer, p. 84, April 2012 Proceedings)
Commander John T. Kuehn, U.S. Navy (Retired), associate professor of military history, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth—Commander Junge’s thoughtful and ambitious piece should be seriously considered by those making policy and who have influence that can be used to change the institutional culture of the Navy—for this is precisely what Junge is asking. The “budgets are not strategy” argument has been made many times in the past, but obviously it needs to be repeated on a regular basis. Recommendations are needed for professional military education aimed at moving the Navy away from what seems a rather stagnant intellectual culture that values engineering and the hard sciences more than the humanities. It does this at least until officers get to the point where Goldwater-Nichols forces the Navy via the Officer Professional Military Education Program (the OPMEP) to get some mandatory humanities education.
Commander Junge’s recommendations for the U.S. Naval Academy and accession programs are nothing new, many of us have been arguing for a better balance in those areas for years.
Nothing ticks me off more than to hear senior officers tell our majors at the Command and General Staff Officer College, where I teach, “It’s only a lot of reading if you do it.” The Navy culture has been telling its officer corps this about the humanities, including naval history, since the end of World War II, and it is time to change this paradigm and re-institute a cultural ethos that values comprehensive intellectual development, not just the ability to use the manual to solve differential equations. If the Navy is to have a meaningful strategic culture, that is, one that can effectively educate and execute the process called “strategy,” then it must again value the humanities. As C. P. Snow famously wrote in The Two Cultures: “Education isn’t the total solution to this problem: but without education the West can’t even begin to cope.” The same might be said of the U.S. Navy.
The Emerging Arctic Frontier
(See R. J. Papp Jr., pp. 16–21, February 2012, and H. N. Boyer, pp. 9,84, March 2012 Proceedings)
Seppo I. Hurme—I would like to add the following to Admiral Papp’s article and Mr. Boyer’s comments. Both stress the importance of the Arctic in light of the climate change that is making navigation and exploration for natural resources much more feasible than ever before. Those in Congress pushing for search and exploration of oil and gas apparently have given little thought to how we can protect those resources. Once again, the commercial sector seems to be taking the lead. Shell Offshore has leased two Finnish multipurpose icebreakers that also can be used to service the oil platforms and in fighting any spills that may occur. For the next three seasons, they will serve in the Arctic during summer, returning to icebreaking duties in Finland for the winter. They also will be used to ensure that Arctic ice does not threaten the drilling rigs.
These ships are truly state-of-the-art, as the Finnish company Aker Arctic has neatly solved the problem as to what to do with icebreakers when the winter is over. Environmentally, they are also superlative. The main engines will be fitted with catalysts in the exhaust system to allow them to burn ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel. Its emissions will meet all EPA requirements.
Unfortunately, the Coast Guard will not be able to purchase similar ships from Finland, because American law requires domestic bottoms. However, the Canadians have found a solution that could be used by the Coast Guard. Aker Arctic Technology has been chosen to join a team led by STX Canada Marine to design the Canadian Coast Guard’s future flagship, the CCGS John G. Diefenbaker. The design work is expected to take 18–24 months, and the ship will be built by Vancouver Shipyards Co. Ltd. It will be capable of accommodating 100 personnel, with space for an additional 25 people. The ship will be able to break through eight feet of ice at three knots. The delivery of the John G. Diefenbaker will coincide with the decommissioning of the current flagship, the CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent, in 2017.