In April 2012, the Defense Department’s Director of Operational Test & Evaluation (DOT&E) dropped a bombshell, stating that the littoral combat ship (LCS) “is not expected to be survivable in that it is not expected to maintain mission capability after taking a significant hit in a hostile combat environment.”1 Immediately thereafter, then-Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert and Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus commenced damage-control actions to try and restore faith in the new platform.2 The backlash was intense, to say the least. But the heated discussions about the survivability of LCS represent the first significant, public discussions on surface-ship survivability since the Navy first adopted official survivability standards in 1988, and more presciently, since the instruction was updated and reissued in September 2012.
Those discussions should have happened within these pages periodically in the years since, but they are conspicuously absent. The platforms have slowly evolved, and the threats have changed radically. Most commentators in the survivability debates do not seem to display a firm grasp of how the Navy actually defines and implements survivability for surface ships, which muddies the water further and makes defending the Navy’s reputation and expertise that much more challenging. DOT&E reevaluated the LCS program in 2013 and the conclusions on survivability changed little, fanning the flames yet again.3
The Navy has responded with initiatives to increase the armor and armament of the LCS. That action needed to include a cogent discussion of how the Navy approaches survivability, but seemingly it did not. It is high time the Navy rethinks how it approaches surface-ship survivability, especially with the renewed discussion about the future surface combatant to replace the now-up-armored LCS program. The revised instruction was a start, but more needs to be done. A brief overview of the instructions pertaining to surface-ship survivability and a few historical notes will help frame a new, dynamic survivability paradigm.
The Instructions
Surface-ship survivability comprises a variety of instructions ranging from required damage-control equipment to nuclear hardening to shock resistance and more. Prior to 1978, the Navy did not have a formal standard for survivability, at least that this author could find. The requirements for such a standard came from Section 810 of Public Law 95–485, passed on 20 October 1978. It is worth quoting the section in its entirety here:
It is the policy of the United States to modernize the combatant forces of the United States Navy through the construction of advanced, versatile, survivable, and cost-effective combatant ships in sufficient numbers and having sufficient combat effectiveness to defend the United States against enemy attack and to carry out such other missions as may be assigned to the Navy by law. To achieve such policy, the Navy should develop plans and programs for the construction and deployment of weapon systems, including naval aviation platforms, that are more survivable, less costly, and more effective than those presently in the Navy inventory.4
Thus, Congress imposed a new requirement with no further amplification in the law. A decade later, in 1988, the Navy finally rolled out OPNAVINST 9070.1 as the formal program for surface-ship survivability.5 It references additional instructions as necessary for the specific referenced requirements, such as nuclear hardening or ship shock, and presents an interesting snapshot in time when its components and definitions are considered, defining survivability as “the capacity of a ship to absorb damage and maintain mission integrity.”6 The instruction focuses mainly on damage control, firefighting, nuclear hardening, shock resistance, and insensitive munitions. Most of the survivability-related components are set by the design of the ship and are generally not alterable following ship construction. These components, armor, shielding, signature reduction, and the other installed components comprise the minimum baseline of survivability. The instruction divides surface combatants into three broad categories of survivability:
• Level I: The least severe environment. Permissive and away from battle-group operations. Not expected to continue fighting after sustaining damage. This group includes minesweepers, patrol combatants, and most supply vessels.
• Level II: Operate with the battle group or in the general “war-at-sea” region. Continue fighting after taking hits. This group includes frigates, amphibious ships, and fleet supply vessels designed to steam with the battle group.
• Level III: The most severe environment. Must meet Level II requirements in addition to having the ability to handle the degrading effects of torpedoes, mines, and antiship cruise missiles. This group includes the major combatants: aircraft carriers, cruisers, and destroyers.
These levels correlate with the expected combat scenarios of the mid-1980s. The Navy expected to be fighting the Soviet Navy on the high seas, with submarines and antiship cruise missiles attacking higher-value targets, such as aircraft carriers and Aegis platforms, while all vessels would be undertaken by naval gunfire. The heavy emphasis on nuclear hardening and shock resistance fits this scenario as well.
Nearly a quarter-century later and following a profound shift in the international security environment, the Navy released OPNAVINST 9070.1A, revising the survivability standards. The initial-capabilities document, more commonly known by its acronym, ICD, and the concepts of operations (CONOPS) defined in it, now constitute the minimum baseline of survivability. The CONOPS detail the threat environments that the platform will be designed to operate in, which places the ship in one of three survivability levels retained from the 1988 instruction. However, as the threat environment evolved, so too did the Navy’s definition of survivability. The instruction breaks it into three principal disciplines: susceptibility, vulnerability, and recoverability.
• Susceptibility: The ability of the ship, her critical systems, and crew to avoid an attack in the first place through operational tactics, signature control, etc.
• Vulnerability: The ability of the ship, systems, and crew to absorb the damage from an attack and continue with the assigned missions. This includes preventing injury and death to the crew.
• Recoverability: The ability of the ship and crew, after the initial effects of the attack have passed (e.g., blast, shock) to prevent loss of the ship, minimize casualties, and restore mission capabilities.7
From this triad the broader definition of survivability is constructed, with a significant shift from characteristics designed into the ship to capabilities that the ship now possesses. Survivability is now defined as:
A measure of both the capability of the ship, mission critical systems, and crew to perform assigned warfare missions, and of the protection provided to the crew to prevent serious injury or death. Both of these capabilities are applicable whether in combat or in either combat- or non-combat-related accidents (e.g., groundings, collisions, fires).8
The revised instruction represents a great leap forward in considering the survivability of the ship. It acknowledges that the ship is not simply a single quantity, but rather is the summation of her parts: the physical structure of the ship, the systems needed to fight, and the crew to operate those systems. Remove any of those three components, and the ship cannot fulfill its mission.
Historical Reflections
The different historical evolutions in the survivability of the Navy’s primary warfighting units—surface ships, aircraft, and submarines—provide a unique lens with which surface-ship survivability can be analyzed. Beginning with World War II, surface ships were constructed to take hits from naval gunfire and continue fighting. Excerpts from the USS San Francisco’s (CA-38) battle-damage report following a night surface action at Guadalcanal on 13 November 1942 are instructive in this regard. In the span of an hour and a half, the cruiser took 45 separate shell hits from a superior Japanese force, including the battleship Kongo. Between an aborted torpedo-plane attack the previous day and the night action, the San Francisco took 224 casualties out of a crew of just over 700, more than 30 percent. The battle-damage report notes:
Although SAN FRANCISCO suffered heavy personnel casualties and extensive, though not vital, material damage . . . she continued in the battle to its conclusions. Two of her three turrets remained in operation. Five-inch AA guns No. 3, 4, and 5 were put out of action by damage from hits during the engagement. The other five guns, however, were operable although personnel casualties prevented their immediate use.9
Clearly, the ships could take a beating if designed to close with and engage an enemy. Naval aircraft at the time were designed to take damage from automatic weapons and continue flying. Though not a naval aircraft, the popular story of Louis Zamperini’s mission over Nauru in April 1943 saw his B-24 Liberator take 594 hits and continue flying.10
Submarines were designed to run on the surface, submerging only for an attack or to take evasive action. As such, the designs reflected much of the thought on surface-ship construction, with the boats having multiple watertight compartments. Indeed, on 24 October 1944, Commander Richard O’Kane launched the USS Tang’s (SS-308) 24th and final torpedo, which immediately began a circular run and struck the Tang in the after torpedo room. The boat sank almost immediately, but the construction of the ship and the training of the crew allowed ten men to escape after sinking.11 Most submarines were designed to withstand severe shock events from depth charges, and the literature recounts harrowing experiences where dozens of depth charges rained down on them, even denting the hulls at times.
‘Into the Jet and Missile Age’
Moving into the jet and missile age, the ships remained the same, but aircraft and submarines evolved to meet the new threats. Aircraft became more sophisticated and faster as missiles became the primary weapon. Aircraft designers shifted from reducing vulnerability, or continuing to fly after receiving damage, to reducing susceptibility and not taking the hit in the first place. Submarines followed suit as torpedoes became the primary threat.
Submarines reduced their compartmenting from as many as eight to two or three in order to save weight. Offensive and defensive measures to reduce susceptibility now reign supreme, and most submariners know that any breach of the pressure hull represents a grave situation, as the USS Thresher (SSN-593) likely experienced on 10 April 1963, when she was lost at sea during deep-diving tests in the North Atlantic.
Moving into the modern age, submarines and aircraft continued to develop measures to reduce susceptibility. Surface ships have made some strides, with newer designs to reduce radar cross-section, evolving point defenses, and efforts to engage a threat farther from the ship. However, the basic physical architecture of the ships has changed little. Attacks on warships in the past three decades have revealed that the Navy’s survivability standards may be a bit flawed. The USS Stark (FFG-31) and Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) both survived attacks in the late 1980s—from an antiship cruise missile and mine, respectively—that they were not intended to survive as Level II combatants. The USS Cole (DDG-67), a Level III combatant, nearly sank after an October 2000 terrorist attack in the Gulf of Aden with a weapon that can be easily compared to the blast of a contact torpedo.
These historical snippets suggest that survivability standards do not necessarily align with the most probable modes of damage. In the missile age, does the Navy truly expect the damage to come from naval gunfire and close-aboard shock events, the primary drivers of ship design and construction costs?
A New Paradigm
The promulgation of OPNAVINST 9070.1A makes great strides in redefining how the Navy thinks about surface-ship survivability. However, it includes a single sentence that essentially negates the progress, “[p]rior ship and system requirements and survivability levels established in the previous version of this instruction remain valid.”12 The entirety of the Navy’s present inventory is excluded from the new survivability standards. The ships Congress has already authorized for construction are from existing classes of combatants, meaning that the survivability standards will change little since the initial capabilities documents for an Arleigh Burke–class destroyer or the Gerald R. Ford–class aircraft carrier, for example, were signed prior to 2012. The first ships to fall under these new standards will be the next-generation amphibious ship and the combatant to replace the LCS.
Survivability cannot be a static concept. It must be as dynamic as the threats our ships face around the world. If a new threat emerges, the Navy should have some mechanism to ensure that ship survivability is reevaluated in light of that new threat. To do that, how we think about survivability must evolve once again. The minimum baseline of survivability cannot hinge on static requirements written prior to the construction of the first ship. Instead, it should be a holistic measurement of various aspects of the survivability triad with the addition of current CONOPS and the effects of tactical surprise.
The CONOPS would likely break down into independent steaming or task-group operations. It must be the result of an analysis of how the ship class has been used by combatant commanders over the past few decades. To best fulfill the Title X responsibilities of manning, training, equipping, and providing forces to the combatant commanders, it would be good to know how they intend to use them across the breadth of conflict.
Our major task groups are generally broken up and dispersed once they enter the theater of operations. Removing the layered defenses of the strike group by disaggregating instantly reduces the survivability of all ships, including the necessity of battle rescue for damaged ships. But that effect is not objectively considered in survivability planning.13 Indeed, nearly all recent cases of attacks against ships have come while they were sailing independently. Thus, survivability of a ship against the currently anticipated threats must be evaluated for aggregated and independent operations. Assessing each ship class for newly discovered threats allows the Navy to implement systems, even if they are ad hoc, to counter the threat and make the ship more survivable.
Despite having several classes of ships, each ship is slightly different due to various software and hardware configurations, test equipment, and more. The effects of maintenance on survivability components, such as shock mounting hardware, signature-reduction features, and more can be significant over the life of the ship. These differences between ships must be taken into account to ensure that each ship is survivable, not just the class.
Finally, the firm hold on survivability standards by the “shock mafia” must be broken in favor of a truly threat-based analysis. The underwater explosion events that drive shock standards can only result from torpedo, naval mine, or similar attacks. At present, only Level III combatants are required to be survivable against these events. The LCS, for example, is not designed to fight in major combat operations and thus is not expected to be in an environment where torpedoes and antiship cruise missiles are a threat. If it is, the combatant commander will likely have formed task groups for layered defense or pulled the ships out of harm’s way.
The Navy already has a suitable system in place that lends itself well to periodic analysis of a ship’s survivability: the Board of Inspection and Survey (INSURV). The fiscal and administrative costs of trying to keep up with survivability analyses and corrections every year would be prohibitive. However, with a five-year inspection cycle, the process becomes much more manageable, and class trends can be observed and corrected. The INSURV teams, partnered with squadrons and type commanders, have the ability to understand the overall survivability of the ship and assess trends in maintenance and readiness of the crew to fight the ship in the event of an attack.
Surface-ship survivability is a complex topic that evokes intense passion. Human lives are at stake. The myriad requirements to make a ship technically survivable directly add to the cost of the ship by making her more complex to design and build.14 But the framework from which the Navy determines how survivable a surface combatant is requires additional revision to keep pace with a dynamic threat environment and wide range of CONOPS. The new paradigm proposed here does not recommend specific technical or design changes, but rather attempts to start a proper conversation about how we design and build our ships. As ship costs become a key performance parameter in their own right, it is a discussion that must be had. In addition, an honest debate will help inform the Navy’s operational strategies to ensure that it provides the best possible forces to combatant commanders. In a rapidly changing threat environment, this is the least we can do.
1. Navy Programs: Littoral Combat Ship. Director, Operational Test & Evaluation, Department of Defense, 2012, www.dote.osd.mil/pub/reports/FY2012/pdf/navy/2012lcs.pdf.
2. Sydney Freedberg. “LCS Couldn’t Survive War With China, But It Could Help Prevent It: CNO,” Breaking Defense, 12 April 2012, http://breakingdefense.com/2012/04/cno-lcs-couldnt-survive-war-with-china-but-it-can-prevent-one/. Sydney Freedberg. “LCS Is too a Real Warship, Insists SecNav,” Breaking Defense, 17 April 2012, http://breakingdefense.com/2012/04/lcs-is-too-a-real-warship-insists-secnav/.
3. Navy Programs: Littoral Combat Ship. Director, Operational Test & Evaluation, Department of Defense, 2013, www.dote.osd.mil/pub/reports/FY2013/pdf/navy/2013lcs.pdf
4. “Department of Defense Appropriation Act, 1979.” (PL 95-485, 20 October 1978) United States Statutes at Large, 92 (1978), 1623.
5. The superseded instruction is not available as a ready reference. To obtain a copy, one must request the instruction from the Department of the Navy Issuances Office at http://doni.daps.dla.mil/default.aspx.
6. Surface Ship Survivability, OPNAVINST 9070.1, 23 September 1988.
7. Surface Ship Survivability, OPNAVINST 9070.1A, 13 September 2012, 4–5.
8. Ibid., 4.
9. “U.S.S. SAN FRANCISCO Gunfire Damage, November 12-13, 1942,” 5, http://ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/rep/WDR/U.S.S. SAN FRANCISCO (CA-38), GUNFIRE DAMAGE-Battle of Guadalcanal, November 13, 1942.pdf.
10. Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken, (New York: Random House, 2010), 103.
11. Richard O’Kane, Clear the Bridge! (New York: Presidio Press, 1977), 458.
12. Surface Ship Survivability, OPNAVINST 9070.1A, 13 September 2012, 4.
13. See CAPT Wayne Hughes, USN (Ret.), Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat, 2nd Edition, (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999), Chapter 12.
14. Mark Arena, Irv Blickstein, Obaid Younossi, and Clifford Grammich, Why Has the Cost of Navy Ships Risen? A Macroscopic Examination of the Trends in U.S. Naval Ship Costs Over the Past Several Decades (RAND: National Defense Research Institute, 2006), 22.
Lieutenant Commander Hilger is the engineer officer on the nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Springfield (SSN-761).