“Admirals, due to recent losses to elements of two missile defense surface action groups, our surface forces can no longer operate without continuous ASuW [antisurface warfare] combat air patrol.” This message is fictional, but the Navy’s recent decision to cancel the offensive antisurface warfare (OASuW) rapid deployment capability (RDC) could result in a similar declaration if conflict came to the Pacific.
At the beginning of the 19th century, Britain’s Royal Navy was the size of the rest of the world’s navies combined and ruled supreme upon the seas. From 1793 to 1812, it lost only ten ships to the enemy’s 377. The Admiralty was so confident of continued success that they officially discouraged gunnery practice as a waste of shot and powder. For example, a 38-gun frigate was allotted a meager seven practice rounds per month during the first six months at sea.1 By the summer of 1812 the Royal Navy had become complacent, believing itself to be invincible. Six months later, after losing three straight actions to the larger and more heavily armed 44-gun frigates of the fledgling U.S. Navy, the Admiralty was forced to issue a “secret and confidential” order to all station chiefs, prohibiting single frigate engagements with the USS Constitution, President, or United States.2
Two-hundred years later, the U.S. Navy occupies a position similar to that of the Royal Navy in 1812. It is the world’s preeminent maritime force, able to deploy 40 warships at any one time. However, unlike the Royal Navy, the U.S. Navy hasn’t fought a near-peer competitor for almost 70 years. The last major ship-versus-ship surface action occurred in the Pacific near the end of World War II during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. (And although the U.S. Navy had committed 34 aircraft carriers—8 fleet, 8 light fleet, and 18 escort—to the operation, the Japanese managed to attack the invading force’s air support element with battleships and cruisers.)
Has the U.S. Navy unwittingly become complacent in recent decades from engaging in overland conflicts against adversaries with no real ability to threaten it? Or is the prospect of engagements without supporting air power so remote that the Navy can decide not to arm surface combatants with an organic and viable antisurface warfare capability?
Strategic Guidance and Operational Challenges
The 2012 Department of Defense Strategic Guidance states the DOD “will of necessity rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region.” To support this policy shift, the Navy plans a 20 percent increase in regional force structure (approximately 60 ships) by 2020, complemented by the deployment of the newest platforms in the service. As Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert wrote in Foreign Policy, the U.S. surface fleet will serve as a cornerstone of this enhanced presence by providing “the most versatile of the naval force . . . improving security in peacetime and transitioning to sea control and power projection in conflict.”3
In the face of this strategic realignment is the growing challenge posed by the development and deployment of modern antiship cruise missiles (ASCMs) by potential adversaries. Driven by the stinging lessons learned from the deployment of two U.S. carrier strike groups near Taiwan in 1996, China has been prolific in terms of advanced weapon development. A recent Congressional Research Service report highlights how the People’s Liberation Army Navy has invested heavily in advanced technologies, modern weapons, and new surface combatants.4 Indeed the majority of navies across the globe consider a maritime surface warfare missile a sine non qua for their combatants, be they patrol boats, frigates, or destroyers.
In stark contrast, the striking power of the U.S. surface fleet is dependent upon a force structure equipped with legacy weapons constrained in terms of range and targeting capabilities. While the Navy invests in multiple shipboard defensive systems, there is a growing disparity between the offensive capabilities of prospective future enemies and those of the U.S. surface fleet. Merely increasing regional force structure and deploying new platforms such as the littoral combat ship or joint high speed vessel to the region fails to address this disparity.
Potential Options
The Navy has recognized the ASCM challenge and undertaken several initiatives to enhance its OASuW capability. Potential solutions include an evolutionary upgrade of an existing ship-launched weapon as well as new air-launched based missiles incorporating advanced avionics and electronics capabilities. All options have unique strengths and weaknesses.
The most mature option is the combat-proven Tomahawk Block IV. Tomahawk has excellent range, a 1,000-pound warhead, and is integrated on board Aegis-equipped combatants. It is the only alternative that has both an integrated shipboard weapons planning system and a shipboard weapons control capability. Based on the missile’s performance in support of strike operations since the opening salvos of Operation Desert Storm, the Tomahawk Block IV was designed to be the Navy’s “kick the door down” weapon against modern air-defense networks. With the shortest time to initial operational capability (IOC) and the lowest assumed integration cost, a Tomahawk-based solution was selected to provide a near-term OASuW RDC in the 2015 and beyond time frame.
However, the Tomahawk Block IV requires upgrades, such as a new seeker and a network-enabled weapons (NEW) data link to support maritime strike operations. There are employment considerations to be addressed in light of modern surface combatants equipped with effective surface-to-air missile and point-defense systems. Employment from naval aviation platforms would require additional integration efforts.
The Long-Range Antiship Missile-A (LRASM-A) is a joint Navy-Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) demonstration program based on the adaptation of an air-launched weapon, the Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range (JASSM-ER). The JASSM baseline weapon began development in 1996 and entered service with the U.S. Air Force in 2009. JASSM-ER began development in 2002 and is expected to reach IOC in 2014. DARPA initiated LRASM in 2009 to “ensure that the United States leads technology advancement for best-in-world operational anti-surface warfare capability into the future.”5 It is envisioned to possess a range in excess of the OASuW requirement, a 1,000-pound warhead, and an enhanced level of survivability (compared to current weapons) against modern air defense systems. A maritime seeker and NEW data link will provide the necessary targeting capability.
As with any new weapon, LRASM-A faces some challenges. Platform-integration requirements may be substantial in terms of cost and time. The missile requires integration on aircraft, which is relatively easy, and surface combatants, which is relatively difficult. DARPA has acknowledged the JASSM-based airframe will require modification to be compatible with the vertical-launch system. From a mission planning standpoint, either the joint mission planning system would have to be incorporated into the shipboard environment, or Aegis or the Tactical Tomahawk Weapons Control System would need to be adapted to facilitate LRASM mission planning. And LRASM-A has some limitations compared to current weapons, including its range, which is roughly half that of a Tomahawk Block IV.
A newly designed ASuW weapon would have commonality across air- and surface-launched variants to include the seeker, wings, radar cross section, propulsion, NEW, etc. An advanced seeker to allow discrete aim-point selectivity and end game capabilities to counter modern point defense systems would also be included. The LRASM-B effort was one option envisioned to provide such capabilities. However, mindful of the high technical and programmatic risk posed by such efforts, the Navy and DARPA have instead consolidated investments to focus on advancing LRASM-A technologies to expedite delivery of better capability to the Fleet.
But what exactly does the Navy need in an upgraded OASuW capability? And perhaps more important, which approach delivers the needed capabilities in a timely and cost-effective manner?
Supporting the Maritime Kill Chain
Any OASuW weapon must integrate into the maritime kill chain (detect, identify, target, and engage). The weapon will be employed at range and therefore requires over-the-horizon support. The weapon’s extended time of flight drives the need for in-flight updates to support target acquisition. A complex operational environment demands the ability to discriminate among maritime objects such as neutral and merchant vessels. Finally, the warhead must be capable of disabling or destroying its intended target.
The Navy must avoid the tendency to require capabilities that exceed practical requirements and drive program cost, operational complexity and technical risk to unsustainable levels. Instead the service should address, as then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated, “the actual and prospective capabilities of known future adversaries vice what might be technologically feasible for a potential adversary given unlimited time and resources.”6 For example, the missile does not have to complete the kill chain singlehandedly. Rather, it should leverage current programs, such as the P-8A and RQ-4C Broad Area Maritime Surveillance to reduce seeker requirements, as those platforms are already required for kill chain completion, including initial targeting and post-strike assessment. The Navy needs a credible antisurface capability that a potential adversary must honor. This does not require a missile that combines the capabilities of a carrier air wing in a single weapon.
Given the budget environment, the Navy should commit resources where need is greatest. U.S. surface combatants may face their biggest challenge when operating independently in a hostile maritime environment. They have limited ASuW options that in many cases are inferior to those of a smaller class of combatant, let alone weapons of a modern destroyer or cruiser. As a result, they are often dependent on other naval forces to ensure freedom of action.
In contrast, naval aviation employs or has in development a range of weapons capable of antisurface warfare, including the Standoff Land Attack Missile Expanded Response, Joint Standoff Weapon C-1, Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile, and the Harpoon Block IC. Such weapons, when combined with survivable tactical air platforms such as the F-35 and F/A-18EF and the EA-18G with the Next Generation Jammer, provide the aviation community with a credible OASuW capability.
Acquisition Challenges: Cost and Schedule
The implementation of the Budget Control Act (BCA) brought the challenge of budget austerity into sharp focus. Sequestration removed $37 billion from the DOD budget, the largest single-year decline in six decades. This is in addition to reductions of $470 billion already planned. These cuts are only the beginning of a period of declining budgets across the five-year defense plan. Failure by Congress to lift the caps imposed by the BCA will lead to another round of indiscriminate cuts ($52 billion in reductions were predicted in the 2014 budget request) and decrease defense spending an additional $500 billion over the next decade.7 Tough choices must be made in terms of force structure, acquisitions, operations, and overhead.
In addition, the acquisition process continues to struggle to deliver promised performance on time and on budget. Despite numerous initiatives to reform the process, too often programs continue to take longer, cost more, and deliver less than initially planned. The timeline from conception to fielding for Acquisition Category One programs continues to increase and range from well over a decade to beyond 20 years.8 The Standard Missile 6 (SM-6) program, using a fielded weapon (SM-2) as the program baseline, still required approximately a decade from concept to fielding. Other programs, such as JASSM and JASSM-ER, took as long or longer, even in the midst of the post-9/11 “budget gusher.” The Navy and DARPA acknowledged the level of inherent risk in new program development by backing away from the LRASM-B concept. It remains to be seen if a new OASuW weapon can be developed and fielded on an accelerated timeline, especially when recent history shows otherwise.
No Ship-Based OASuW Capability?
With the current decision to “accept risk” and not pursue the RDC option, the Navy may be headed down a path away from a shipboard OASuW capability. While the RDC cancellation may provide some near-term budget relief, it also removes a relatively inexpensive and near-term (i.e., 2015 and beyond) surface-launched option. Meanwhile, development of the air-launched version of LRASM–A progresses with the DARPA $71 million award for continued development and risk reduction. The Navy is also starting a formal OASuW program to provide an “offensive weapon system or systems solution that can be air and/or surface launched” with a competitive solicitation that was initially expected in late 2013 or early 2014.9 However, congressional scrutiny over the proposed acquisition strategy and the recommendation of substantial funding reductions, combined with the overall sequestration budget turmoil, seems to have slowed the program’s timeline for the immediate future.10
Putting aside current funding issues, how then may the acquisition scenario play out if the selected OASuW concept is based on an existing air-launched weapon? One can expect the cost and time to integrate the weapon onto the ship to be initially underestimated. This has historically been the case due to multiple factors, including the need to propose a cost-competitive program and the absence of comprehensive and detailed system engineering at program outset. As shipboard integration is more closely examined, perhaps sometime in the lead-up to Milestone B, the costs may well grow beyond the budget of the resource sponsors and program managers. At this point the decision could be made to halt the development of a surface-launched capability and to “accept risk,” again, by only pursuing the air-launched capability.
Such a scenario, when combined with the Navy’s current decision not to pursue the RDC effort, will result in no long-range surface force OASuW weapon. Is the development of additional air-launched capability the optimum path when the aviation community already has multiple options for the maritime strike mission—especially in an austere budget environment? If the decision to not pursue an RDC remains in effect, perhaps the Navy should establish the ship-launched capability as the Threshold/Increment One requirement and look to an aviation-based capability as an Objective/Increment Two requirement. Such a path would likely lessen near-term integration risk and cost, and provide the capability where most needed.
Sea Control and Power Projection
The carrier air wing and the submarine force are currently assumed to do the primary “heavy lifting” in support of sea-control and power-projection operations in the most stressful operational environments. Yet the finite number of carrier strike groups and competing mission requirements levied on the submarine force question the validity of such assumptions. A long-range, ship-launched OASuW weapon empowers surface combatants in operational scenarios where the carrier is not available. Such a weapon serves to enable surface forces to operate as part an integrated maritime strike “triad,” complementing aviation and submarine weapons while leveraging third-party targeting and electronic attack capabilities. Finally, a long-range ship-launched OSAuW capability allows surface combatants to independently conduct sea-control operations across a range of scenarios.
The U.S. Navy needs a long-range ship-launched antiship weapon. And the demand for the capability is pressing and immediate.
1. Stephen Budiansky, Perilous Fight: America’s Intrepid War with Britain on the High Seas, 1812-1815 (New York: Vintage Books, 2012), 129–133.
2. Ian Toll, Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006), 383.
3. ADM Jonathan Greenert, “Sea Change,” Foreign Policy, 14 November 2012, www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/11/14/sea_change.
4. Ronald O’Rourke, China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities—Background and Issues for Congress, Congressional Research Service, March 2013.
5. DARPA TTO LRASM program description, www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/TTO/Programs/Long_Range_Antiship_Missile_(LRASM).aspx
6. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Defense Budget Recommendation Statement, 6 April 2009.
7. Congressional Budget Office, Long-Term Implications of the 2014 Future Years Defense Program, November 2013; Tryone Marshall, “Kendall: Sequestration Will Make Hollow Force Inevitable,” American Forces Press Service, 7 November 2013.
8. Otto Kreisher, “Service Chiefs: Budget Cuts Create Crisis, Opportunity,” Sea Power Expo Online, April 2013.
9. DOD FY2014 President’s Budget Submission, Navy RDT&E Budget Activity 4, 863-870.
10. Ronald O’Rourke, Chinal Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities—Background and Issues for Congress, 30 September 2013.
Lieutenant Commander Morrison is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. His service career was marked by a combination of operational and programmatic experience and included tours as a surface warfare officer, F-14 radar intercept officer, EP-3E senior evaluator, and National Reconnaissance Office liaison officer. He is a graduate of the Air Command and Staff College and holds a master’s degree in military history from the University of Alabama.