It's time for our regularly-scheduled open thread. Talk about anything that's not culture war.
A couple of reminders. First, we have the meetup at Iowa in September. Please RSVP if you plan to attend.
Second, I'm still interested in guest reviews of various museum ships. This Friday begins the 2-month barrage of reviews from New England, but once that's done, I'd be interested in expanding the range of ships I've been able to cover myself. The process that I did with DismalPseudscience was basically him writing up his review in the style I use (which is pretty broad) and sending it to me with pictures. I put it into a blog post, added links and made some editing suggestions, and sent him an account so he could see it.
Comments
How does modern C3I/ISR tech change the viability of convoys and blockades? Particularly with respect to the US and near peer enemies, it seems like finding the ships, and to a lesser extent shooting them, has been made a lot easier, because of the lowered cost and increased persistence of various surveillance technologies. Furthermore, cargo ships aren't naval ships, in terms of stealth, speed, or defensive capabilities, and their goal/operating path is relatively fixed. (i.e. they're all trying to end up in a given port or relatively small set of ports.* It's not like a carrier group where they can be equally effective anywhere in a four hundred mile radius.)
Also, over and above any operational/tactical considerations, I wonder what the strategic/political implications of a new embargo would be, and in what context waging a second Battle of the North Atlantic would be permissible.
*Though I wonder if maybe hitting the port infrastructure is a cheaper/easier way to accomplish the same thing?
The reason I ask is that most of our discussions, and indeed more broadly, have focused on future conflict between combatant ships and elements, but when we look back at past major conflicts it seems like counter-shipping is at least as important in practice, from the German submarine campaigns to mining Haiphong harbor. So, how does that play out today or in the near future?
What are the tactical/operational considerations, and what are the strategic/political considerations?
Norman Friedman identified the system that was developed to provide Tomahawk targeting data as a key component of the embargo during Desert Storm. It let the USN track all of the ships in the area, including those that might be trying to reach Iraq. More importantly, it was easy to put consoles aboard allied ships and give them the same data. So the C3/ISR improvements have made doing that easier. Not so sure on convoys. The problem with submarines has always been talking to them, so being able to locate the convoys more effectively only helps so much. Airplanes are a bit more complicated, but a convoy allows the defenders to concentrate, so it might well stay around despite any changes on that front.
@bean
Could they blind transmit the data via VLF? Obviously you then run into issues about blue on blue, or being lured into a trap, and perhaps some other issues besides, but it seems like the basic data is compact enough that VLF would work.
This makes sense. It definitely improves anti-air coverage, particularly for resource constrained combatants, but I wonder what the calculus is for missile attacks?
I'm not sure. Data rate on VLF is low, but I recently ran across a reference to someone using VLF to do exactly that. The big problem is that you need validation and anti-spoofing stuff in your codes, even if it's only a few dozen bits of actual data.
The alternative to a convoy is every ship for itself, which results in a single plane with a couple of harpoons being able to take it out. There's really no downside to concentrating in the face of those attacks. Even a ship with, say, four dozen SAMs raises the bar for a single hit from one plane to a dozen, and that's a big deal. Most countries will have a hard time putting a strike package that size together, and those are all missiles not hitting ships.
@bean
Does that hold as much for low data rate transmission? I'm no crypto expert, but it seems like the considerations for VLF would be a lot different from normal, higher rate transmissions. At the most basic, a one time pad with authenticator ahead of the message data seems like it would resist a lot of spoofing, and your biggest problems would be jamming and the noise floor. Generating and syncing keys for a few KBs of total data per patrol (at most) seems like a reasonable problem to solve.
I’ve been checking out what jobs (“ratings”) the US Navy is particularly keen to recruit for, based on what they are paying recruiting bonuses for. Here are the top 5:
AIRR-ATF (Air Rescue Swimmer) $15,000
CTI (Cryptologic Technician Interpretive) $15,000
EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) $15,000
ND (Navy Diver) $15,000
Nuke (Nuclear technicians) $16,000
SB (Special Warfare Boat Operator) $15,000
SO (Special Warfare Operator) $15,000
So that’s a mix of the intellectually demanding (CTI, Nuke), the physically demanding (AIRR, ND, SB, SO), and really dangerous (EOD). Pretty sensible, actually.
Source
@RedRover
I suspect there are fairly serious operational limitations, given the very limited use of VLF. But I don’t have enough hard information on the matter to be sure.
Edit: Modern Submarine Warfare suggests that one of the big limitations is that VLF doesn’t get below 50′ or so. That means you can’t go deep and fast and pick it up. The trailing-wire antennas used when the sub is deeper make noise if you go too fast. If you want to go deeper, you need ELF, and that means really slow transmission. VLF is apparently capable of about 450 words/min, while ELF is more like 15 minutes for a 3-letter code group. That book suggests that TACMO has ELF capability, but I’m not sure it can hold the antenna vertical long enough for that. And to do it from land was going to require turning much of Wisconsin into an antenna.
I’m a bit surprised they’re paying that much for SEALs. There are traditionally a lot of people who want to do that sort of thing. That said, the glamour may have worn off by now, or maybe they’re locked in a deadly struggle with MARSOC over men who want to be naval commandos. Also, I wonder how those bonuses get paid out, because some of those schools are really hard to get through.
I don't think it's the Marines. They aren't offering any recruiting bonuses for Recon or anything like it. Their top rate is for Electronics Maintenance. Real tip-of-the-spear stuff, that.
Interesting. I’m surprised that the USN is paying so much more than the Marines, particularly in the high-glamor occupations like SEALs. A big bonus for nukes is perfectly natural, and most of the others are also things which are going to be in high demand in civilian life. But they must be really desperate to fill the SOF ranks.
As one of the suggested readings in trying to come to terms with U.S. vulnerabilities to cyber attacks, I picked up Ghost Fleet by P.W. Singer. Now putting aside some of the cringe-worthy cardboard character development, how accurate in your opinion were the author's premises re. future Naval combat?
He was obviously throwing a lot into the mix so as to be descriptive, but as an air and landlubber some of it seemed to be quite legitimate food for thought. I defer however, to those of you who know your way around the nautical side.
I guess more specifically my question is that some areas of warfare change significantly whiles others do not. It is difficult to tease out one from another espcially in times of great technological leaps forward. Ideas re. warfare on the seas circa 2035 or 2040?
I will also add that of course I did not read this book in the expectation of it being an exhaustive treatment of the cyber threats we face. It was a fun think piece however. I am familiar with Singer's more serious work and his is a legitimate voice.
If I had to guess, the main reason the Navy has to fight hard to get SEALs is the combination of really high standards and a fairly large force. There are a couple of thousand SEAL operators, which is a lot for spec ops.
As far as I can tell, the reason the force needs to be so large is that the SEALs are called on to do a lot of operations that are not even vaguely sea-related. Think of all those ops in Afghanistan for example, a landlocked country. This is unfortunate, because in that setting all their sea-based training doesn't do much good.
It would probably be more cost effective to give that work to land-based elite infantry units, such as the Rangers or maybe the Green Berets.
De-lurking to say how much I like the site, and to ask a couple of questions.
My view of the the Royal Navy before and during WWI was formed by reading Marder in the mid-70's. My interest in the subject revived recently, and I was surprised to find his work has been challenged, and that there are now revisionists and post-revisionist schools. Do you have an opinion?
Also, can anyone recommend a book about US naval strategy in the Cold War which goes into the details of how it affected the design of ships and aircraft, and also isn't horribly expensive?
@Fred
In terms of actual content, I’m broadly in agreement with the revisionists. (I’ve read In Defense of Naval Supremacy twice, and there’s also a copy of Lambert within arm’s reach as I type this.) But I think they do him a disservice when they attack his methodology. I found an interesting article on that. That said, I haven’t read any of his work myself, although it’s on my Amazon list. I'd classify him with Samuel Eliot Morison, a great historian whose work is still valuable, even though it's dated.
This is what Norman Friedman is for, although attempting to assemble a complete collection will fail your last criterion in a big way (as my bank account can attest). The best single volume might be The Postwar Naval Revolution, which covers the US and Britain up through the early 60s, although if you want basic strategy, The US Maritime Strategy is also very good. Both are currently around $20 on Amazon, although they’re a bit dated. Unfortunately, after the mid-60s, his history splits out across at least half a dozen volumes, none of which are particularly cheap. Depending on where you are, it might be worth checking libraries, although his most common volume there is US Battleships. While a magnificent book, it's not what you're looking for. That said, I own all of them, and would be happy to answer specific questions.
@Neal
There was actually some discussion of this in the last Open Thread, and the general consensus was not good. I haven't read it myself, but I believe the central premise to be deeply flawed. Can't speak to the details of naval combat in the book.
The big upcoming question in naval warfare is the effectiveness of lasers. If they work well, missiles pretty much go away as a threat. (Actually, I could see the torpedo-missile beloved of commenters here becoming a thing in a laser-dominated world.) If they don't, they might still raise the bar for missiles somewhat. Railguns are unlikely to be quite such a game-changer, assuming they ever get the things to work. (I'm more skeptical on that than on lasers, because dealing with massive electrical explosions is hard.)
On the topic of commerce raiding and convoys, I wonder if surface raiders still make any sense? I'd had the idea that WW2 mostly put paid to that idea, but maybe the calculus is a bit different today? You certainly can't hide a surface raider, with satellite and long-range air reconnaissance, and you have major ammo concerns if using missiles rather than guns, but on the other hand, you don't necessarily have to get close to a convoy, it's easier to carry spotter drones than floatplanes, and a nuclear-powered ship could stay at sea, marauding, for a long while. (And, while you might be able to fit some of the merchant ships with softkill countermeasures and maybe even CIWS, that doesn't actually threaten a surface raider - it just makes its job a little harder.)
The flipside seems to me to be that anything a surface ship can do, a sub can do better in this context. (Even if the sub has to briefly surface to get new orders - that makes it vulnerable, but you still have to be close enough to it to exploit that vulnerability.)
I don't think there's much hope for a surface raider these days. Most of modern network-centric warfare techniques grew from Jackie Fisher's attempts to deal with surface raiders, and things have only gotten worse for them since then. As you rightly identify, airplanes and satellites make it fairly hard to hide, and a raider isn't going to be able to stand off a roving patrol the way a carrier group can. Not to mention the fact that it's much, much easier for merchies to signal that they're under attack these days.
On the other hand, commerce raiding is the only way I can make sense of the new German F125 frigates, so my opinion may not be universally shared. (This is not serious. I'm not really sure for the rationale behind the F125, but that's the Germans being non-aquatic mammals.)
And as you identify, the answer is submarines. They don't have to surface to communicate, quite. These days, it's common to use satellite antennas on the masts, and talk that way. It's not as good as remaining at depth, but it's also not screamingly obvious.
I recently finished re-reading Castles of Steel at about the same time I watched a couple Lindybeige videos about the Battle of the North Atlantic in WW2, and it got me to wondering about convoys and wolfpacks.
So wolfpacks were very effective in WW2 against convoys, but Germany in WW1 had no effective counter to convoys once Britain implemented them in the Atlantic in Dec 1917. Were there technical obstacles to Germany using something like wolfpacks in 1918, or was it just a matter of difficulty coming up with new doctrine on the fly (coming up with the idea, deciding it's worth implementing, refining it into a workable tactical doctrine, and training captains and crews to put it into action)?
My first guess would be radio. There was a fair bit of communication in wolfpack tactics, and naval radio in WWI was incredibly primitive. But I also think some of it was probably just time. Donitz had been thinking about submarine warfare for two decades at the start of WWII, and expecting that kind of innovation in a handful of months is not very realistic, particularly, as you point out, when it also needs to be put into action.
@Eric Rall said.
I'd dispute the notion that wolfpacks were very effective against convoys. Wolfpacks were more effective than the alternative, but most of their big successes were against convoys that were either poorly escorted or that made serious tactical mistakes.
Bean, if anything, understates the importance of radio. Submarines have a very limited search radius because they were relatively slow and very low to the water. A wolfpack concentrates the submarines, which dramatically limits the area they can search for targets. Without reliable radio, ww1 era wolfpacks would have had to have been very lucky to find targets.
It's also worth pointing out that the ww1 submarines came closer to victory than ww2. The 1917 losses were higher than the 1942, of a smaller fleet with less capacity for re-building and a much less powerful submarine force. wolfpacks were made necessary by convoys, but they were decidedly less good than what was achieved prior to them.
This seems much too harsh. First, any judgement of effectiveness carries with it an implicit "relative to the alternative". Wolfpacks were undeniably effective in the early days, and took a tremendous toll before countermeasures were developed. Second, poor escorts were the order of the day in the early days. They were very effective in the early-war environment, and I don't have the knowledge to hand to say exactly what the biggest factor in killing the concept off was. Third, I don't think it's necessarily fair to say that not having an effective countermeasure was "making a tactical mistake". Apart from rare cases like PQ17, the British were generally not particularly stupid.
The usual wolfpack tactic was to spread out for search, and then concentrate after someone found a target and radioed in. It worked fairly well, particular as merchant ships then were much slower than they are now. A Type VII could make close to 18 kts on the surface, while a typical convoy was more like a third of that. Between the need to maintain margins for station-keeping, stragglers, and zig-zagging, a submarine could run down a convoy without too much trouble.
For various reasons that weren't figured out until WWII (post on this coming eventually) convoys were effective even without escorts. Wolfpacks went some way to redressing this, but couldn't solve the problem entirely. But beating up on them implies a reasonable alternative, which you simply don't have.
It worked well enough with decent radios. It wouldn't have worked in 1917.
They got their biggest success in places where convoying was new, partially implemented, or both. Once the targets got their act together, efficacy dropped off pretty quickly.
I agree, which is why I said most of the victories, not all.
I also agree.
Granted, although there was so much going on in the Battle of the Atlantic that I'm reluctant to attribute victories to specific factors without more study. At about the same time they got their act together, they got more ships, better equipment, and reliable air cover. Which one contributed most to ending the wolfpack threat? Hard to say, but my money is on radar as making the biggest difference.
If you had to look at one element of current US defense posture, and say "this is what we'll look back on in a hundred years and wonder WTF?", what do you think that would be?
To me, there are a few strong candidates, though not all of the are strictly defense posture: -procurement stretching to be a career length project for some systems -lack of strategic clarity being covered for by tactical awesomeness
However, at the more discrete level that I'm thinking of, it seems like we're broadly doing pretty well. Nonetheless, the combined emphasis on persistent aerial dominance and C3I seems like the biggest potential weakspot. Obviously, if you have it, it's great! Truly one of the most amazing force multipliers we have. However, we haven't really had to fight in a contested aerial environment since Korea, and jamming and so on have been similarly sparse in most recent conflicts. So, if we were to actually fight a near peer enemy without instantaneous high bandwidth communication and positioning, it seems like there would be a lot of degradation of combat efficiency, particularly for smaller land units.
I really hope we'll look back on this as a WTF thing, but I'm not sanguine about our chances. Some of this is because I expect the technical problems we're trying to solve to get harder. Each generation of weapons has to clear a higher bar, and that makes it longer and more expensive. More of it is red tape, much of which is in place to stop people from wasting money. The government only cares about wasting money if you're not supposed to be doing it. If you're wasting money monitoring for waste, they don't care, so waste away. Not to mention other forms of contracting stupidity....
(Yes, I might have had a bad experience with this at work recently. I've decided that I'm in favor of abolishing politicians.)
Radar, huff-duff, sonar, code-breaking, and escort carriers are the usual suspects I've heard for the Western Allies winning the Battle of the North Atlantic. The standard argument for the value of these over and above convoying is that U-Boats became a lot less effective right around when each of these got rolled out.
There were also some pretty huge refinements to convoy doctrine: convoys were originally organized as a counter to surface raiders and WW1-style individual subs, and early in WW2 they used tactics that weren't well-suited to countering wolfpacks, but they became a lot more effective as the Western Approaches command figured out details of wolfpack doctrines and developed counters. A couple examples I remember from Lindybeige's videos on the subject: * U-Boats would often surface in the middle of a convoy at night to get in position to start an attack, contrary to the Allied expectation that the u-boats would approach the convoy from ahead or off to the side to start an attack. Until they figured this out (and started looking out for it), the usual response when torpedoes started going off was for the escorts to spread out away from the convoy to look for subs, which was actively counterproductive to finding u-boats that were inside the convoy. * During wolfpack attacks, there would generally be one u-boat hanging around but not actively participating in the attack. It turned out that this was the sub that had originally spotted the convoy and shadowed it while the rest of the wolfpack assembled, and it was hanging back to coordinate the attack with the benefit of what they'd learned about the convoy while shadowing it. One the British figured this out, they started attacking the "passive" sub at a high priority (to sink it or force it to concentrate on evading so it couldn't keep coordinating the attack) rather than largely ignoring it.
The technical improvements usually get more credit than the tactical refinements, and I'm not sure whether that's an accurate judgement of relative contributions or a product of the technical improvements being sexier and better-known than the tactical.
@bean
NH90 seems like the worst offender here. 15 years to make what's basically an S-92 clone! The V-22 at 24ish years from drawing board to deployment is also bad, but at least that was a new type of aircraft.
Very much so. In fact, I wonder if the old dictum that "amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics" doesn't need to be updated. These days, amateurs study technology, and professionals have to divide their time between tactics and logistics.
Cyber attacks:
There are two questions which very little public policy time has been focused on: 1) What can they do? 2) How are we going to respond?
If the opponents can hack in but all they can do is read things, that might be embarrassing, but it's not really problematic. If the opponents can and will cause power grid failures, our civilization as we know it could collapse.
If we choose a doctrine that treats a cyber attack the way it treats a conventional military attack and respond accordingly, we have a deterrence. If instead we choose a doctrine of only responding in-kind or with sanctions, we are less likely to have an effective deterrent.
As always, different policies can influence both of these.
This is very Hollywood, and not a practical suggestion, but I wonder if it might lead to some interesting further thoughts from the rest of the readership. I was on a hike yesterday, and it occurred to me that the most obvious place to target a carrier, or at least the most likely place, is when it's in harbor or on shore liberty or something like that.
Per this Navy Times article, the carrier fleet spends about a third of its time deployed or otherwise offshore: https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2018/03/06/the-busiest-ships-subs-and-squadrons-whos-really-away-from-home-the-most/
Targeting ships at the dock is obviously not a new concept, having been at the center of Pearl Harbor and so on, but I wonder how a near peer enemy would go about taking advantage of that. My idea was that you drop CAPTOR like mines in the harbors beforehand, say off a passing freighter, and then find some way to activate them simultaneously.* Alternately, you could try mining some of the obvious choke points (Straights of Gibraltar, Red Sea, Straights of Malacca) This is obviously the kind of thing that would only work once at the outset of a surprise war, but nonetheless it seems like something that obviates a lot of the problems related to finding the carrier groups.
*One obvious problem is how do you target a stationary ship on standby. I think you could hard code a few routes in each mine/torpedo thing, if you knew where the mines were dropped and where the piers were with sufficient accuracy.
On the other hand, Chinese and Russian surveillance ships get reasonably close to US ports fairly often, so perhaps you just go for a Q-ship approach and launch the Eastern Bloc equivalent of a Harpoon and just assume the loss of the launch platform. However, this seems both somewhat more obvious, and also more likely to be countered by some errant destroyer that left its radar on.
You certainly aren't the first one to think of this. I believe the standard procedure is to do regular surveillance runs on those channels with a bottom-scanning sonar. Anything which shows up gets investigated. And keep in mind that these are not small things. You're looking at several hundred pounds each, which means that you're going to need a lot of effort to get them out covertly. Honestly, my thought would be a bunch of artillery rockets in the surrounding area. Probably unguided, although with modern tech, it might be possible to use GPS or image recognition. The objective isn't so much to sink ships as to put them out of action for a while. Hopefully, the war will be over before then.