Compass Points - Save Our Ships!

The future of naval maneuver

Compass Points - Save Our Ships!

The future of naval maneuver

December 9, 2024

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There was shocking testimony on 20 August before a special subcommittee of the Congressional Military Affairs Committee, when an expert on air power said that Navy ships were obsolete

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. . . we can carry the war to such an extent in the air as to almost make navies useless on the surface of the waters.

-- Billy Mitchell

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Billy Mitchell was perhaps the first but certainly not the last to predict that advances in air power had made surface ships obsolete. Of course, US Army Colonel, William Lendrum "Billy" Mitchell was not testifying before a current Congressional committee but gave his testimony to the 66th Congress in 1919.

It has been more than one-hundred years and the proponents of air power are still predicting the end of the navy. But the predictions never come true. Today, some claim that precision missiles and drones mean the end of offensive operations by the surface navy. Once, again, however, reports of the end of US Navy ships are very much exaggerated.

Recently, three military experts, John C. Harvey Jr, Paul Van Riper, and Gary Anderson, provided their own online symposium on the continuing importance and power of US Naval operations, even under the threat of precision munitions.

Writing in Real Clear Defense, author and Marine, Gary Anderson asks, "Amphibious Warfare Dead, or Is It?"

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Amphibious operations were declared dead one-hundred years ago after the failed triple entente landings at Gallipoli early in the first World War. The amphibious assaults at places like Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, and Normandy during World War II disproved that theory but were soon left in the shadow of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

. . . The Battle of Inchon reinvigorated military amphibious warfare doctrine until just a few years ago. This time it wasn’t the President of the United States, but rather the Commandant of the Marine Corps that sought to end the Marine Corps reign as the masters of amphibious warfare and ability to conduct large scale combat operations. By 2019, Marine commandant General David Berger concluded that, once again, defensive technology had made traditional amphibious operations obsolete.

General Berger instead conceived of a new mission for the Corps, that by employing defensive technology in the form of anti-ship missiles along China’s first island chain with small, dispersed Marine teams known as stand-in-forces (SIFs).

. . . Hypersonic weapons, all-seeing drones, and anti-tank systems have created new challenges on the modern battlefield but have not been decisive. As a maritime power, the United States needs to project power from the sea in a decisive manner rather than remain in a boxer's crouch and hope the enemy gets tired.

-- Gary Anderson, Real Clear Defense

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John C. Harvey, Jr and Paul Van Riper recently shared their own views in a back-and-forth discussion on the continuing importance of offensive naval operations, particularly Navy and Marine Corps operations.

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The events of the past few years in the Western Pacific, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East have made it crystal clear that it is in our nation's best interests to have three forward deployed ARG/MEUs ready at all times to respond to a wide range of missions, from presence and theater-specific security operations to non-combatant evacuations to full-on combat operations.

To sustain these forward deployed ARG/MEUs 365/24/7, the Navy requires a force of 12 LHA/LHDs and 24 LPD/LSDs. A force of 36 amphibious ships, properly manned, trained and equipped, can support the AEG/MEU forward deployed requirements as well as enable the non-deployed force to conduct thorough pre-deployment training and maintenance and provide a 60 - 90 day surge capacity should one be required.

LHAs and LPDs are currently under construction and a multi-ship buy has recently been awarded for 3 LPD 17 Flight IIs and 1 LHA Flight II. It is vital to maintain this shipbuilding momentum and accelerate getting our amphibious fleet to where it needs to be with the right number of well-maintained ships, the right number of well-trained Sailors to man those ships and an expeditionary mindset shared with the Marine Corps that will provide a force built from the keel up to move fast, hit hard and stay in the fight as long as necessary.

-- John C. Harvey, Jr, commenting on Compass Points - GAO Hit & Miss

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In a related comment, Paul Van Riper provided his view of the lessons learned across the years about the continuing importance of worldwide naval operations.

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Lesson 1:

If the United States wants to project a full range of military power and maintain that military power in a hostile environment it must do it by sea, there is no other option. As one example, to support Desert Storm 90 percent of cargo went by sea as did 38 percent of the troops. We simply could not build and maintain the number of aircraft needed to move the cargo and troops required for a major overseas operation. Moreover, there are few regions in the world that could handle the influx of aircraft in a reasonable time. In short, we need ships including amphibious ships and lots more of them.

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Lesson 2:

The United States used ships to deploy troops overseas in World War I, World War II, and Korea. It used amphibious ships in the latter two wars and in the Vietnam War and Operation Desert Storm. In the first three wars there were enemy threats equal to and perhaps greater than that posed by modern missiles. In World War I it was German submarines. In World War II it was German and Japanese submarines, mines, surface combatants, and aircraft. In the case of the Japanese there was the additional threat of Kamikaze aircraft, a threat not unlike today’s guided missiles. In the Korean War it was mines. The U.S. military took actions to protect those ships in all cases. Such protection included the use of convoys, mine sweepers, surface combatants detailed to provide air defenses over these ships, especially amphibious ships, and often air-cover. I have no doubt US forces would provide the same types of protection today.

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Lesson 3:

US Navy ships are built to “survivability standards,” which means they are designed and constructed to survive modern weapons. There are three levels, with amphibious warships built to level 2 (moderate). Modern Navy ships are surprisingly difficult to sink. Of note, no US aircraft carrier has ever been sunk by enemy action since the Navy begin to build (not convert) carriers from the keel up. The first class was the Essex. In exercises (SINCEXs) intended to test antiship weapons against Navy ships it has taken multiple weapons and considerable time to sink them. In 2005 it took four weeks to sink the USS America (CV-66)! Finally, it had to be scuttled with explosives placed in its interior. Granted, there were constraints on the weapons used so that the ship would remain afloat long enough to test a variety of torpedoes, bombs, and missiles but at the same time there were no sailors aboard to undertake damage control.

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Lesson 4:

The US Navy’s surface combatants have proven quite capable of withstanding multiple missile and drone attacks by the Houthi rebels. Obviously, these attacks are less sophisticated than what we would expect from the Chinese military, but they give us a good indication that the Navy can operate inside of a weapons engagement zone (despite the 38th Commandant’s assertion otherwise).

-- Paul Van Riper, commenting on Compass Points - GAO Hit & Miss

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The discussion then concluded with remarks from Admiral Harvey on the threat from China and the ongoing need for a strong Navy and Marine Corps team.

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Lt Gen Van Riper has certainly covered many of the critical issues dealing with the defense of our ships at sea from capable anti-ship missiles in his response to you. And I share your concern regarding our ability to provide that defense in order to maintain the operational viability of our Navy/Marine team today and into the future.

I have a couple of additional thoughts for your consideration.

First, I give the Chinese credit for many of the decisions they have made regarding the force structure/Fleet architecture they require to achieve their goals with respect to dominating the Western Pacific from the Straits of Malacca to the La Perouse Strait and potentially invading and subduing Taiwan.

One of the biggest and most consequential decisions the Chinese have made is to develop, build and deploy a significant naval force composed primarily of large surface combatants, amphibious assault ships and aircraft carriers. The Chinese are certainly aware of the capabilities of our air and surface launched anti-ship cruise missiles and our attack submarines (and those of our allies), yet despite these capabilities, they continue to make an enormous investment in large surface combatants - why?

I believe the Chinese have employed a rationale similar to ours - while these ships are indeed at risk, they can be successfully defended by means of a well-integrated system of hard and soft kill defenses that have been proven to be effective under actual combat conditions. Our ships, large and small, can be defended by well-trained teams operating a variety of currently fielded, effective weapons systems under the command of operationally competent leaders.

A second important point to consider - the current mission set for today's ARG/MEU goes far beyond the classic amphibious assault you mention. Here's the current mission set for the 31st MEU:

Prior to deployment each MEU is thoroughly trained in 10 Mission Essential Tasks (METS), ranging from humanitarian assistance to traditional amphibious assaults:

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-- Amphibious Raids (Small Boat, Combat Rubber Raiding Craft)

-- Mechanized Amphibious Assaults (Assault Amphibious Vehicles)

-- Security, Stability, Transition and Reconstruction Operations

-- Support Theater Security Cooperation Activities

-- Humanitarian Assistance (HA)

-- Noncombatant Evacuation Operations (NEO)

-- Tactical Recovery of Aircraft, Equipment, Personnel (TRAP)

-- Airfield Operations from Expeditionary Sea or Shore Based Sites

-- Airfield and/or Port Seizure Operations

-- Joint and Combined Operations

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As capable as our submarine force is today, they are clearly not the force of choice for the missions listed above and neither would be a collection of various small or unmanned ships.

These missions are not the stuff of imagination, but real world missions that the Navy and Marine Corps have been called upon, repeatedly, to accomplish in the past.

In today's world, the pace of change is incredibly rapid both in terms of events on the ground (witness the fall of the Assad regime) and the impact of technology on military operations (witness the explosion of drone-related operations in the Russo-Ukraine war).

A "one-trick pony" Navy and Marine Corps team strikes me as woefully inadequate to deal with the challenges this extraordinary pace of change we are now experiencing, and will surely continue to experience, will place before us. We must be more than a large force of unmanned missile shooters, focused on a single mission. There is certainly a place in our Navy for small corvettes (ex, the exceptionally capable Sa'ar class) and autonomous platforms capable of performing the "dirty and dangerous" missions in a very high-threat environment, but the Navy's and Marine Corps' needs do not end there.

Accordingly, I am still a firm believer in a "balanced" and inherently expeditionary Fleet possessing a wide range of capabilities and capable of delivering rapid, effective and powerful responses to a broad array of threats and operational challenges, both the ones we can anticipate and, perhaps more importantly, the ones we can't.

-- John C. Harvey, Jr, commenting on Compass Points - GAO Hit & Miss

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Billy Mitchell said that Navy ships were obsolete. More than one-hundred years have gone by. Billy Mitchell is long gone but the US Navy still sails the seas conducting crucial offensive operations around the globe. The US Navy and Marine Corps will continue to help defend the United States for at least the next one-hundred years.

Compass Points salutes authors John C. Harvey Jr, Paul Van Riper, and Gary Anderson for their service and for their insights on the continuing power and importance of US naval operations.

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Real Clear Defense - 12/09/2024

Amphibious Warfare Dead, or Is It?

By Gary Anderson

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/12/09/amphibious_warfare_in_dead_or_is_it_1077312.html

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USNI Naval History Magazine - September 2013, Vol 27, #5

Billy Mitchell Takes on the Navy

By Thomas Wildenberg

https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2013/september/billy-mitchell-takes-navy

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Compass Points - GAO Hit & Miss

Rebuilding the Navy & Marine Corps team

Marine Corps Compass Points

Dec 05, 2024

https://marinecorpscompasspoints.substack.com/p/compass-points-gao-hit-and-miss