Compass Points - That Sinking Feeling
Missiles to deter the PLA Navy
Compass Points - That Sinking Feeling
Missiles to deter the PLA Navy
October 16, 2024
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It has been said for decades that a tank on the battlefield should have three key capabilities: great speed, great armor, and great firepower. Unfortunately, military forces were forced to select which two were most important to them because it was impossible to have all three.
In a similar way, the US in the Pacific has long needed a ship killer missile that was powerful enough to destroy even the largest Chinese warships. The ship killer missile needed to be mobile, stealthy, and inexpensive. Current ship killer weapons do not have all three characteristics. Until now.
To deter PLA Navy ships in the Pacific the US needs a missile that could destroy even the largest Chinese warships. The missile would need to be powerful, mobile, and difficult for China to find and target beforehand. Most importantly the missile should be inexpensive and plentiful so the US could hold a large inventory of the ship killers.
The US currently has long range missiles that can be launched from platforms in the air, ground, sea, and undersea. But current US long-range missiles such as cruise missiles and others are expensive and in short supply.
In the Pacific today, the US Air Force, Navy, and now Army all have operational missile units equipped with long range missiles. The Marine Corps has spent the last five years working on a plan to place small Marine missile units on islands in the Pacific, but the Marine Corps units would have only a few short-range missiles. One primary reason no Marine missile units are currently in place and operational on Pacific islands is the Marine units as planned would be too easy to target in advance and too difficult to move. The Marine Corps has never solved the small missile units’ many logistical issues. None of the Marine Corps missile units are in place and operational today.
But there is a new development in the search for a true ship killer that is mobile, stealthy, and inexpensive. The Air Force has created the Quicksink program. Quicksink is a powerful new weapon in the Pacific, a true ship killer, that can deter and defeat China’s warships.
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Despite having 11 aircraft carriers, the United States cannot commit all its naval resources to the Indo-Pacific. Other regions, such as the Middle East and Eastern Europe, also require attention, a reality that China is counting on. To counter this, U.S. military planners are looking for ways to inflict disproportionate harm on Chinese forces with fewer resources. Quicksink is one of these force multipliers — a low-cost weapon capable of sinking enormous ships swiftly.
The Quicksink program was designed to modify existing U.S. military weapons for anti-ship purposes. It uses a modified version of the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bomb, a 2,000-pound Mark 84 bomb fitted with a Quicksink kit. This kit includes advanced GPS-guided tail fins and new radar seekers to direct the bomb toward its target. Additionally, infrared imaging allows it to identify a ship’s hull and strike just below the waterline for maximum impact, creating an effect similar to a heavy torpedo.
--The Military Show
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The Quicksink is a leap ahead solution to destroying China’s warships in the Pacific.
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Using a modular, open-architecture design based on existing technology, Quicksink is able to deliver the lethality of a torpedo at a cost of only US$300,000 per round. Using a stealth fighter or bomber to deliver it as a standoff weapon, it can strike more targets over a greater range than any submarine can.
-- David Szondy
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Best of all, the Quicksink is not a theoretical idea. It is operational today. The Quicksink program can quickly modify and enhance any existing JDAM into a Quicksink. The Quicksink has proven its abilities in exercises.
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During July's RIMPAC SINKEX in the Gulf of Mexico, a B-1 bomber sank the junked MV Monarch Countess with a Quicksink munition, bringing us the remarkable footage above. This is not the first time Quicksink has been demonstrated, but the exercise saw it being tested against other anti-ship weapons and in collaboration with participants from Australia, Malaysia, the Netherlands, the Republic of Korea, and the US Air Force, Army and Navy.
-- David Szondy
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Compass Points salutes the new Quicksink program. The Quicksink is a powerful enhancement of the US arsenal of weapons that can deter and defeat China’s Pacific fleet. The Air Force, Navy, and Army are pushing forward to find new and better ways to target China’s Pacific fleet.
Where does this leave the Marine Corps and its five-year struggle to deploy small missile units of its own on Pacific islands? Quicksink is an opportunity for the Marine Corps to step back from its focus on Marine missile units. It is a simple truth that the Marine Corps can never do as well what the other services already do better. But it is also true that the other services can never do as well what the Marine Corps does best.
The Quicksink program is an amazing new tool for deterrence in the Pacific. But as powerful as the Quicksink is, it can never perform worldwide crisis response. The Quicksink can never arrive off the coast of a troubled shore ready to deter, assist, or fight. Only the US Marines, the Nation’s 9-1-1 force, can do that. It is time for the Marine Corps to go to Congress and get the resources needed to upgrade, enhance, and restore the Marine Corps’ global, combined arms, crisis response MAGTF.
The US faces challenges all around the globe and needs to have answers for every type of challenge in every location. Watch out China, the Quicksink is coming for you. And for any other foe lurking in the Middle East, eastern Europe, Africa, South America, the Korean peninsula, watch out, beware, check behind you, and look just off your coast. The US Marines, the world’s premier combined arms, crisis response force is coming for you.
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The Military Show - 10/02/2024
New U.S. Bomb Can Turn Any Chinese Ship into a Submarine
www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5kY3ypUpT8
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New Atlas - 08/20/2024
Watch: USAF's Quicksink weapon tears a ship in half in seconds
By David Szondy
https://newatlas.com/military/quicksink-modular-strap-on-kit-smart-bomb/
The more one studies Force Design, the worse it looks. One's imagination is truly boggled by the incompetence that created this disaster. One's faith is tested by the arrogance that perpetuates it.
“Want a new idea, read an old book (or paper)”
In August 1993, Col Gary Anderson, a frequent critic of FD2030, published a Naval War College paper entitled: “Beyond Mahan: Proposal for the Naval Strategy in the Twenty First”. https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/usnwc-newport-papers/6/. This paper first recognizes the importance and need for a Naval “Littoral” Strategy. He discusses the topics of “Forward Presence” and “Crisis Response” in relation to the key idea of the US Navy’s (and US Marine Corps) need to shift from a “Mahan” Strategy to a regional “Littoral” Strategy.
IMHO a war with the CCP will be a global war, however, that war will be fought not only in the littoral areas of the Pacific but also multiple littoral regions across the globe. Read this: https://www.csis.org/analysis/chinas-maritime-silk-road-strategic-and-economic-implications-indo-pacific-region The CCP’s BRI recognizes their important need to access SLOCs in order to feed their population and keep their people working. Currently, the only shipping moving through the Red Sea is oil tankers sailing to CCP Ports. https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2024/08/21/greek-tanker-drifting-ablaze-after-suspected-houthi-attacks-in-red-sea/?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dfn-dnr To think that the CCP has not added this scenario to their warfighting bag of tricks is naive. The CCP has watched and taken note that the US has striped forces from the Pacific in order to sit in CENTCOM’s AOA to watch Hamas, Hizballah, the Houthis, and Iran to shoot missiles at Israel.
Col Anderson’s paper was written after Desert Shield/Storm, the Soviet Union collapse and before the emergence CCP threat in the Pacific. His discussion on the expanding and contracting of “The Littoral Battle Space Control Area (LBCA)” (p.19) is very insightful and definitely turns on a “light bulb” or two. He also breaks down Littoral Operations into Phases. Phase 1 is “Achieving Superiority In the Littoral Battle Space Control Area” establishing control of the land. sea, air, and space areas. Phase II is “Probing for the Seams” where we probe multiple points with the “LCAC-LAV-helicopter” (LLH) teams to find a seam to land “where the enemy is not”. “The LLH team becomes the moral equivalent of the swift German reconnaissance forces that made the blitzkrieg so successful by finding and exploiting seams in enemy defenses in order to allow forces to flow through in what Liddle Hart called the raging torrent”. Phase III “Seizing the Lodgment” fits nicely into existing amphibious doctrine. Phase VI “The Joint Raging Torrent” is the introduction of Army and Air Force packages providing the “hammer to end the conflict”. Phase V “Turning Out the Lights and Closing the Door” closes the operation where the Naval Forces are the last out.
Remarkably, Col Anderson makes no recommendations to change FMF Force structure. We cannot say the same for General Smith’s continued support and experimentation of the MLR. Col Anderson keeps the flexibility, adaptability and combat power of the Marine Corps MAGTF. His recommended changes are directed at C&C and Doctrine. His strategy is a Naval “Littoral Strategy” but can support the national military strategy addressing the CCP threat. In addition, Col Anderson’s paper is something that should have been studied and WAR GAMED before we embarked on FD2030. I salute Col Anderson for a forgotten but a job well done. His paper helps me with my “sinking feeling”. If there was a Marine Corps Hall of Fame, I would save Col Anderson a spot next to LtCol “Pete” Ellis. Semper Fi Brother.