Bigger Fleets Win
In 1915, in an effort to break out of the grinding stalemate on the Western Front, First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill devised a plan to use a combined Anglo-French naval task force to break through the Dardanelles, enter the Sea of Marmara, and besiege the Ottoman capital of Constantinople with the goal of forcing an Ottoman exit from World War I. The plan had merit—the Royal and French Navies had numerical supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean and adjacent seas, and the task force that Churchill envisioned contained top-of-the-line British battleships.
But it was not to be. The Ottomans and their German advisors were able to cobble together a primordial antiaccess/area-denial (A2/AD) network along the Dardanelles using mobile howitzers, fixed coastal fortifications, and mines—some floated into the Dardanelles overnight after the British minesweepers had worked to clear existing minefields during the day.
The result was a disaster for the British and French, leading ultimately to the loss of half a dozen warships and Churchill’s resignation. If the lesson of Captain Tangredi’s article is that larger fleets beat small ones, the lesson of the Dardanelles campaign is that numerical advantage in hulls counts for very little if your adversary is able to maintain a robust A2/AD capability from the shore. This is the challenge the U.S. Navy faces in the western Pacific, the decisive theater of our era. China is unlikely to be foolish enough to allow us to draw its fleet into the eastern Pacific or the Indian Ocean in large numbers.
The other major argument for the largest fleet possible is the option it gives to conduct a distant maritime blockade of China. The strategic utility of such a blockade is questionable, however, when one considers the logistical capacity of China’s Eurasian trade networks and its increasingly close ties to fuel-exporting Russia. Therefore, the most likely place U.S. forces will engage Chinese ones is between Guam and mainland China, inside the second island chain, under the threat of Chinese long-range antiship fires.
We must remain tightly focused on developing the joint capabilities—particularly in space and cyber—that will enable us to attrite China’s A2/AD network above all other naval priorities. If we cannot address that challenge, adding 50 new hulls will not meaningfully impact the outcome of a war with China. A too narrow and parochial emphasis on “fleet size” as the primary metric for assessing national maritime power benefits neither the Navy nor
the nation.
—LCDR Shane Halton, USN
My Chief’s evaluation for 1993–94 included the phrase “as the Navy draws down.” Why, I asked, were we “drawing down”? One day the enemy was the Soviet Navy—the next, it was the Russian Navy. I don’t remember watching either surrender on TV.
While the United States has accelerated the decommissioning of warships and the release from active duty of thousands of sailors, the People’s Liberation Army Navy has expanded by the hundreds with the building of new warships. The U.S. Navy plans to decommission the remaining Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers plus half the littoral combat ships, with very few frigates and destroyers under construction.
Forward-deployed U.S. warships in Japan will, of course, be the first to engage the PLAN in a war. Reinforcements will have to fight their way across the Pacific just as our fleet did during World War II, while the PLAN will be backed up by China’s air and rocket forces.
A U.S. task group must include enough cruise missile–armed warships capable of surprising and overwhelming an enemy force with the first salvo. Superior numbers of individual ships with well-trained crews capable of operating as a task group will be required to make this happen.
The Navy must reverse its current policy and accelerate the construction of cruise missile–armed warships and the recruitment and training of sailors to man those ships.
—OSC(SW/AW) John M. Duffy, USN (Ret.)
Cyber Power Is a Key Element of Sea Power
I was sympathetic to Commander Bebber’s frustration. It is disappointing that the problems he describes are basically the same ones I observed in the mid-to-late 1990s. During that time, my colleagues and I learned some lessons that may be helpful today.
• Cyber and information warriors have a habit of creating incomprehensible jargon and hairsplitting definitions and then changing the jargon and definitions with infuriating frequency. The unrestricted line officers cannot keep up—and don’t want to. Be clear and jargon-free.
• Cyber advocates are perpetually sermonizing. The vulnerability of Navy networks and the potential of offensive cyber are perennial themes. Quit lecturing and take care of it.
• Fleet commanders did not want information and cyber personnel to add to their workload without meaningful benefit. The tools must create benefits they don’t otherwise have. Some things are as easily achieved with a JDAM as a hack—e.g., taking down an air defense system.
• The carrier strike group staffs were the focus of much effort, but the real center of gravity is the naval component commanders (NCCs). That is where the planning is done and where interaction with the combatant commanders and other components happens. Carrier groups are for execution; NCCs are for planning.
• Cyber warriors had a self-defeating practice of creating and developing expensive, overly classified tools but expecting somebody else to develop tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), rules of engagement (ROE), and training. Engineers can solve just about any technical challenge, but the real work is in creating TTPs, training up and down the chain of command, and establishing ROE to allow the implementation of the tool. This requires ongoing, close collaboration with fleet staffs throughout development.
The fleet wants the information and cyber community to be successful, but the fleet won’t do it for you. When I showed up with a functioning, tested system with training and TTPs I was greeted with enthusiasm. Before that, when I showed up with overly complex systems, limited TTPs, and nebulous ROE, I was rightly treated like a racquetball.
The Navy needs the cyber defense community to be successful. Unlike offensive cyber, which is episodic and deliberately planned, cyber defense never stops, and 100 percent effective is the only passing grade. Assuming their authority matches their responsibilities, community leaders need to exercise their authority to secure the networks with the seriousness the threat demands. In my day, innumerable, known insecurities were tolerated. I hope that is not the case today, but I suspect it is.
—Lee Cardwell
Launch Big Missiles from Big Ships
The Regulus program in the 1950s and 1960s was a focused effort to address concerns about delivering payloads over long distances without risking pilots by relying on tested systems (ballistic missiles, surface vessels, and submarines) in innovative combinations.
Deploying “Regulus III” as a catapult-launched system could have all the advantages the authors describe, as well as more survivability than vulnerable surface vessels during hostilities. A single hit to a vertical launch system could eliminate many tube-launched Tomahawks.
Employing sophisticated warehouse software and hardware capabilities to enable modular missile assembly in the ship’s weapons center can get the right systems deployed to the flight deck in short order, without having to disassemble and rearm existing systems.
Innovative missile systems will enhance the fleet’s effectiveness and survivability.
—Daniel E. Schwartz
There Is No Zero-Defect Mentality
Captain Beall argues that there is no “zero-defect” mentality in the Navy, but he is mistaken.
Like Captain Beall, I made plenty of mistakes in my milestone tour (I screened for executive officer–special mission but not command). During that tour, I had the pleasure of working with a really talented second class petty officer, hands-down the best technician in his division and one of the best in my department. This petty officer got into some trouble while on leave. In a display of integrity and character, he notified the chain of command. The petty officer ultimately was not charged, and the matter should have gone away.
When it was time for fitness evaluations, my master chief brought me the chiefs’ rankings. They wanted to drop him from “early promote” to “promotable.” I changed the ranking and had a discussion with my master chief and the petty officer’s chief because I personally do not condone the zero-defect mentality.
But I served with plenty of officers in my 20-plus years of commissioned service who were disciples of this mentality. This includes some of the commanding officers under whom I served. By tradition, custom, and regulation, it is assumed a commanding officer has been thoroughly vetted to be in command in the first place, though, as often noted, the screening boards “select records, not people.” This process effectively delegates the fate of a sailor’s career to the reporting senior’s comments and ranking.
The Navy is a large organization with thousands of people making career-impacting evaluations of their subordinates every day and with a selection board system based on records vice people. Because it provides only limited mechanisms for a sailor to challenge a reporting senior’s assessment of their fitness, it is bound to allow a significant amount of zero-defect mentality to exist at the unit level.
—CDR E. A. Coop, USN (Ret.)
Revamp Marine Corps Operational Medicine
I read Captain Hwang’s article with great interest. I concur with his premise that we “cannot fight tomorrow’s war with yesterday’s concepts.” That is why Navy Medicine has been aligned with supporting the concepts in Force Design 2030 and is modernizing to meet the operational requirements of a “fight now” posture.
The author proposes a health services support structure built on an increased number of physician assistants (PA) and independent duty corpsmen (IDC). This proposal conflicts with Marine Corps and Navy Medicine’s initiative to shift from general medical officers to operational medical officers and overlooks the fact that current IDC billets remain undermanned. Furthermore, the author’s recommended physician supervision for both IDCs and PAs does not take into consideration OpNavInst requirements governing the quality oversight of Navy Medicine’s operational medicine programs. As it stands, the author’s proposed model has the potential of compromising patient safety due to insufficient physician oversight.
The proposed OPMED-T model does not fully consider the Commandant’s Force Design guidance to become overall lighter, faster, and more adaptable. And the Navy’s concept of distributed maritime operations (DMO) and the Marine Corps’ concept of expeditionary advanced base operations (EABO) will require a more dispersed and integrated medical force with the capabilities, training, and skills to operate with greater autonomy for extended periods of time.
DMO and EABO do not lend themselves to the rapid evacuation to definitive care and forward resuscitative surgery near the point of injury that have been maintained in recent conflicts (frequently conceptualized and referenced as “the golden hour”). Smaller, agile, and modular medical units that are integrated with the operational forces can provide advanced medical capabilities without demanding a large amount of dedicated space or lift requirements. Thus, the ideas presented by the OPMED-T model simply require more analytical rigor coupled with operational risk analysis by both medical experts and operational commanders.
Navy Medicine’s support of the Marine Corps in future conflicts is focused on bringing definitive treatment closer to the fight. Better outcomes will occur from earlier stabilization and higher-level treatment before and during transport to a more robust treatment facility.
Marine Corps and Navy Medicine planners are currently modernizing and developing deliberate requirements for providing highly trained and equipped medical personnel across the future joint maritime environment. Efforts across every level of the Marine air-ground task force are taking place with the rigor needed to address future challenges.
I applaud the author for exploring innovative solutions for improving medical support in the future fight. It is clear that EABO and DMO demand a new medical paradigm. However, the proposed model eliminates the Medical Corps officer construct in favor of PAs and IDCs without due consideration of manning constraints, standards of practice, and operational requirements.
—CAPT Raymond R. Batz, USN, Deputy Medical Officer of the Marine Corps
USVs at Work in the Black Sea
Aerial Minefields Can Put the ‘Miss’ in Missiles
The articles in the December issue about unmanned vehicle threats and ways to defend ships suggest that the final, close defense will be some sailors with semiautomatic weapons who can “wing shoot” effectively to try to take out the unmanned craft that get past the other defense assets.
Perhaps it is also time to bring back the booms and antitorpedo nets of the early 20th century to protect vessels anchored or at piers.
—C. Henry Depew
Update ‘Anchors Aweigh’
Lieutenant Commander McLaughlin suggests that the Navy’s fight song should be changed to recognize the contributions of our women to our service and nation. We have not all been “boys” for some time! I agree the Navy fight song should be modernized—change the lyrics “my boys.”
Perhaps, however, a better word than “sailors” would be “shipmates.”
—CDR Robert F. Hartman, USNR (Ret.)
Responding to Drone Swarms at Sea
While I agree that drone swarms are a likely hazard in any future at-sea engagement, there are problems with the author’s scenarios.
Scenario A: It is unlikely that five of the six Chinese vessels would move away. More likely, they would move closer to harass the USS Dewey (DDG-105). It is also likely the six vessels would be joined by others with the goal of ultimately forcing the Dewey to stop to avoid a collision. Think of the worldwide publicity when photographs of a U.S. Navy warship dead in the water and surrounded by fishing boats are posted on social media.
Scenario B: Another reason for the five vessels not to sail away: They would want to remain close for signal strength to control the actions of the drones and recall them when they need to be refueled. It is unlikely that even inexpensive drones would be allowed to fall into the sea.
Scenario C: While it is reasonable that the Dewey might try to jam the drones’ control signal, it is highly unlikely the commanding officer would shoot down the drones unless they hazarded the ship. It is also extremely unlikely the drones would drop charges on the Dewey. Both could be considered by the other side as acts of war, and no commanding officer or fishing vessel captain would assume such huge responsibility.
New scenario: Rather than the very dangerous action of Scenario C, the drones might carry a pint or so of bright yellow paint to drop on the Dewey, as well as microchips that would broadcast the Dewey’s position or jam the Dewey’s communications and fire control. Think now of the worldwide reaction when photographs of a U.S. Navy warship splashed with yellow paint are posted on social media. Media around the world would love it and would show it for days. And, more important, no one will go to war over paint.
—Bob Gabbert, Life Member
Why Midshipmen Must Study History
As a plebe in 1975–76, I had the true privilege of being assigned to Professor E. B. Potter’s “History of Seapower” class. Not only had Potter cowritten our textbook (which I still have!) with Admiral Chester Nimitz, he imparted to me a love of history, and in particular naval history, that still affects me today.
When it came time to choose an academic major, I decided I could teach myself history, but I could not teach myself physics, so I chose the latter. While that decision put me on a trajectory over the course of my Navy and industry careers that proved I made the right call, today I no longer do physics. But I still “do” history and cohost a podcast titled “The Unauthorized History of the Pacific War.”
An understanding of history has informed nearly every professional decision I have made in my life. And while I support the broadening of history subjects that Mr. McCarthy describes, I hope the study of naval history has not been diluted in the process. There is no doubt that success as a national leader would benefit from an understanding of “The West in the Modern World,” but success in battle, arguably the most important Naval Academy mission, must be informed by an understanding of Nelson, Jones, Farragut, Togo, Halsey, Spruance, Nimitz, and King. There is much to be learned from each.
—CAPT William Toti, USN (Ret.)
What I Learned from Coach Niumatalolo
Reading Lieutenant Cregge’s piece filled me with pride, recognition—and trepidation. His testimonial about how Coach Ken Niumatalolo’s leadership continues to inform his life as a naval officer corroborates what Navy football players have told me over the past 19 years while I have taught at the Academy. Lieutenant Cregge’s polite, articulate discussion of the rude, untimely dismissal of Navy football’s winningest head coach made me proud to be associated with the Academy, but his description of Athletic Director Chet Gladchuk’s announcement of Niumatalolo’s firing made me fear for the Academy’s future.
During my job interview in December 2002, it became clear the Academy offered a chance to be a part of something much bigger than myself, more so than at most other academic institutions. The chance to help develop young people into leaders while having a full academic life added extra appeal to the job, and it was easy to say yes when the offer came.
Now in my 20th year, I have taught a wide spectrum of midshipmen—future Rhodes Scholars, athletes from varsity and club sports, future Navy physicians and dentists, academic superstars, and midshipmen just trying to graduate. I have taught them plenty about biology and biochemistry, but it has probably been a much better education for me. Their earnestness and desire to serve have taught me to give more of myself to those around me. Working with them has given me great hope for the future, despite a world beset with myriad problems.
However, over the past few years, I have noticed a form of mission creep—perhaps, more precisely, a creep away from the mission and toward more external validation. Outgoing Academic Provost Dr. Andrew Phillips spoke of an “escalator of expectations” on which, as research expectations increase, it becomes more difficult for faculty to meet their teaching and mentoring obligations. A few excel at all three parts of their jobs—teaching, research, and service. But for most of us, there is never enough time, and we are forced to prioritize continually.
Increased pressure for research can translate into less time for the critical interpersonal interactions that help shape character. In recognizing this problem, Provost Phillips posed a key question: What do we want to be? Do we want faculty to be focused on the Academy’s mission as embodied in its statement, or is it more important to be validated by external measures of academic success, such as publications, the impact of scholarship, and success in getting grants?
Chet Gladchuk listed very similar motivations at the press conference where he announced the firing of Coach Niumatalolo. This has again caused me to wonder if the drive to please others—who may be far less interested in the Naval Academy mission—is a sign of the Academy veering off course. The undertone in the press conference intimated that Coach Niumatalolo had not been living up to expectations.
But which expectations? Certainly not those of his team. Over the years, this coach has had an outsized positive impact on the lives of future officers who in turn will be responsible for many more lives. No doubt it is more fun to win, and to watch wins, but what is more important? Winning football games or helping shape better leaders?
Because I have never served in any armed service, I am not particularly well informed about the jobs that midshipmen leave the Academy to do. But I hope others with a better perspective will examine the Academy’s future direction. The goal of producing leaders for the naval service must not be compromised by an increased focus on external validation.
—Brian J. Rehill, USNA professor
Erratum
Because of an error in the original caption that accompanied the photograph on p. 41 of the January issue, the trailing aircraft is identified as a Douglas Skyraider. It is actually a Grumman Bearcat.
