The recent success in demonstrating a new antisurface warfare (ASUW) capability within the Tomahawk weapon system and the Standard Missile 6 (SM-6) was exciting, and former destroyermen are thrilled to see that initiative succeed and eager to see all the cruiser/destroyer (CruDes) team does with it. But sailors supporting the Ship Self-Defense System (SSDS) should be far more excited by its implication that another capability is lurking within our existing missile systems: the similar SUW capability of the Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM) Block 1 (and potentially the future Block 2 version under development).
The increase in ASUW capability among CruDes units is impressive, but we have an opportunity to realize even greater distributed lethality by transforming every ship into a threat to the enemy. The U.S. Navy should make big-deck amphibious ships—(LHAs, LHDs, LSDs, and the next generation amphibs (LX[R]s)—into ASUW platforms that complement their critical mission of delivering Marines ashore and launching aircraft. At the very least, adding ESSM would extend their lethal defensive capability beyond the short-range guns with which they are currently expected to engage surface threats.
LHAs/LHDs and CVNs all carry the current version of the NATO Sea Sparrow Missile System (NSSMS). Once they receive the SSDS Mk2 system, they will also be capable of launching the ESSM. At the moment the SSDS is a rapid-reaction self-defense system designed to counter antiship cruise missiles, but it has within its code an untested, though not optimized, offensive ASUW capability. This is a remnant from the days of the Advanced Combat Direction System (ACDS) and a stand-alone NATO Sea Sparrow system, which was fully integrated by way of the AN/SWY 2/3 and Target Acquisition System (TAS). Several tests on board the USS Harry S Truman (CVN-75), USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6), and USS Boxer (LHD-4) a decade ago, using the RIM-7 version of the Sea Sparrow, showed great success against several types of surface threats. How much more success could we find in an enhanced ASUW capability based around the ESSM? While possessing only a fraction of the range and carrying one-third the warhead of the SM-6, this missile is nonetheless fast, maneuverable, and it could mission kill an enemy surface combatant.
Testing a decade ago did not continue long enough to characterize the performance or enter any developmental or operational testing regime because of one missing critical element: a documented requirement. It would be easy now, however, under the auspices of distributed lethality to justify a requirement and see multiple potential benefits.
Benefit Number One: Decreased need for Aegis escort of high-value assets. It is common during war gaming and requirements analysis exercises to assume that a high-value unit (HVU) such an aircraft carrier, large-deck amphibious assault ship, landing helicopter dock ship, or combat logistics force ship (T-AKE, T-AO, T-AOE) will have an Aegis cruiser or destroyer assigned as protection from antiship cruise missiles. The following is a list of HVUs, all of which are operationally significant. Major damage to any one would adversely affect the ongoing and ensuing campaigns:
• Carrier strike group (1 CVN, 1- T-AKE, 1 T-AO)
• Amphibious Ready Group/Marine Expeditionary Unit (1 LHD/LHA, 1 LPD-17, 1 LSD or eventually LX[R])
• Underway replenishment group (1 T-AKE, 1 T-AO)
• Maritime Prepositioning Ship/Marine Expeditionary Brigade (3–4 large, medium-speed roll-on/roll-off ships (LMSRs) and 1 mobile landing platform [MLP])
Increasing the number of HVUs in theater multiplies the need for escorts, especially in situations that require a dedicated asset unable to protect multiple ships. Assigning an Aegis destroyer to escort each HVU would unacceptably deplete the number of ships available for offensive action. We cannot expect to have this number of Aegis ships during any action against a near-peer competitor. The required colocation of Aegis ships with HVUs would inhibit those destroyers from conducting any other missions unless we plan to operate the carrier inside the Tomahawk-missile launch baskets or Ballistic Missile Operating Areas. Finally, using destroyers as escorts effectively removes the “distributed” part of distributed lethality.
If, however, an SSDS-equipped HVU had its own ASUW capability, when an enemy combatant appeared on the horizon, the HVU could counter that ship herself, instead of retreating to safer waters or diverting her aircraft from their critical missions. The ship would simply take care of the enemy and continue with the critical mission at hand, reducing the demand for escorts.
Benefit Number 2: Expansion of the ASUW assets of the surface fleet. Of the Navy’s current surface combatants, only 84 have or may receive any ASUW capability. An enemy would probably know which ones those are and would track them with higher priority than the others. Expanding the number of combatants an adversary must track is a key part of distributed lethality. Adding every CVN (10), LHA/LHD (9), and possibly LSD (12), LPD (9), and LX[R] (12) to the traditional CruDes surface combatants increases the number of ASUW platforms by more than a third. Adding T-AKE (14) and T-AOX (11) would further increase the number of Navy ships with an offensive ASUW punch.
If every LSD, LPD or LX(R) were armed with an NSSM or ESSM launcher, those ships would instantly be more relevant and could be employed offensively before and after they delivered Marines ashore. This is the exciting implication of distributed lethality taken to its logical conclusion.
Issues and Challenges
In order for every Navy ship to be an ASUW threat, there are challenges to overcome.
The inventory of ESSMs is not an insurmountable challenge, but it is unlikely the program office has budgeted for or contracted for the high number of missiles this concept would require. There is a huge difference in the number of missiles needed to provide the current SSDS fleet with a self-defensive loadout, and that required for a combined offensive/defensive loadout of a larger number of NSSM-capable platforms. Missiles must be procured and must be reloadable at sea if a ship is to remain under way during a conflict. In addition, a large number of new launchers must also be acquired. The foreign military sales aspect of the ESSM program may be able to offset acquisition costs through increased co-production with other member nations.
Commanding officers of amphibious warfare and logistics ships will need to learn the risks of expending ordnance and make trade-offs that maximize offensive action while maintaining adequate reserves to accomplish their entire mission. This would be a new concept to these classes of ships, but every Aegis commanding officer identifies in his or her battle orders the time when the tactical action officer is directed to alter firing doctrine based on maintaining a reserve of ordnance. The concept needed here is analogous and will vary by ship class according to loadout, ships in company, and operating area.
Fielding an ASUW Capability in SSDS
The engineering effort necessary to optimize the design, change the code, certify, and field this capability can leverage lessons learned from development of Aegis combat systems’ use of SM-2 and SM-6 in ASUW mode. But ASUW capabilities cannot simply be bolted to a ship with integration planned for a later date. Fully incorporating new ASUW capability requires an integrated effort from start to finish and may delay other enhancements already planned within the program of record. The presence of the preexisting nucleus of SSDS capability within the system provides a huge advantage to the development of the final product.
While incorporating new ASUW capabilities, it may be beneficial to include more of the latest advances in Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air to provide greater over-the-horizon targeting and further extend the battlespace around newly ASUW-capable combatants out to the range of the ESSM. Many of these enhancements already are in the planning or development stages, but they may need to be refocused to enhance the ASUW capability. In general, the required data links and data will be present in the command nodes of LHD/LHA and LPD/LX(R) already, as part of the distributed engagement system. Exploiting the data within the SSDS combat system will require work.
Manpower/Training and Certification
Amphibious operations are inherently complex and challenging, requiring special training of the entire Navy crew and Marine Corps team. While sometimes described as “only one” warfare area, it nonetheless takes an entire training cycle to complete the current necessary training and certification for the ships and sailors of the ARG. Where then should new ASUW capabilities be inserted into an overstuffed training bag? Adding new ASUW capabilities to these ships points toward the need for something like the Aegis Training Center, into which similar SSDS training could be embedded.
An amphibious ship with the SSDS ASUW capability probably would require an augmentation team of enlisted specialists to operate this capability, which may require changing the Navy enlisted classifications of some operations specialists and other rates as well. In a perfect world, an augmentation team would come in the form of additional bodies, but with naval personnel already stretched thin this seems unlikely. Leaders must question the value of any new capability: would the addition of ASUW capabilities be worth the offsets required?
The Combat Systems Ship Qualifications Trials, Composite Training Unit Exercise, and Joint Task Force Exercise scenarios would have to incorporate events demonstrating ASUW proficiency by the amphibious warfare and logistics ships’ crews. Offensive ASUW, as the CruDes fleet knows well, is not simple and requires focused training proportional to the maximum distance to the enemy. Over-the-horizon targeting is an order of magnitude greater challenge than line-of-sight ASUW, especially in the presence of white shipping. Fortunately, there is a large repository of qualification guides for CruDes certification that can be adapted for use by the amphibious community.
Give the Defense an Offensive Punch
CruDes sailors already lean in to the offensive nature of naval warfare. Battle orders on a cruiser or destroyer guide combat teams to aggressively engage the enemy at every opportunity in all warfare areas. Students of history know the value of taking full advantage of a momentary gap in the enemy’s lines, and of keeping your offensive forces on the offensive, using cruisers and destroyers to take the fight to the enemy.
The Navy should put as much combat power as possible on all of our ships by immediately reestablishing, testing, validating, characterizing, optimizing, and delivering new ASUW capabilities within SSDS to the fleet. We can build on the solid successes of the legacy and new capabilities of both SSDS and ESSM to demonstrate distributed lethality in its purest form, creating new capabilities where none existed before.
Commander Lukacs is serving as the Ship Self-Defense Department Officer at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division, and is responsible for in-service engineering support for aircraft carriers and amphibious ships, underway replenishment systems, and surveillance radars.