US Navy's new 'Naval Operational Concept'

From DefenseNews

U.S. Navy Drafting 'Naval Operational Concept'

By christopher p. cavas

Published: 21 Oct 19:34 EDT (23:34 GMT)

Deploying U.S. naval forces must be more flexible, able to split up and re-form in different combinations as situations require. The fleet still needs 11 aircraft carriers to meet its missions but more amphibious ships are required to support new missions. The number of formal and informal maritime partnerships will continue to grow. Even when mine-hunting Littoral Combat Ships come into service, a gap will remain in the Navy's ability to combat the undersea threat. Ballistic missile defense is increasingly seen as a basic naval capability.

Those are some of the issues addressed in a working draft of the Naval Operations Concept (NOC) 2008, another in a series of documents meant to describe how, when and where U.S. naval forces will prevent conflict and prevail in war.

Draft copies dating from late September were obtained by Defense News, along with a less-mature annex dubbed the "Force Structure Data Sheet."

A Navy official declined to comment on specific items in the document.

"It's now in draft form and still being reviewed by senior authorities," Cmdr. Cappy Surette, a Navy spokesman at the Pentagon, said Oct. 20.

The NOC, explained Surette, is part of "a family of documents - the Maritime Cooperative Strategy - describing how we will utilize seapower" and intended to "operationalize the Maritime Strategy" completed a year ago by the Navy. Like the Maritime Strategy, the NOC combines the seapower strategies of the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard into one maritime strategic view.

"NOC 08 is not designed for a cursory reading," reads the draft NOC's preface. "It is a publication intended for serious study by professionals who must ponder and creatively apply these ideas."

The document, reads its introduction, is to serve as a precursor to develop both tactics and doctrine. Much of the draft NOC restates current policy as explained in the Maritime Strategy, but certain passages could indicate areas of emphasis for future decisions and operations.

The Navy has declined to say when the NOC will be completed and made public.

"It's expected to be ready for release in the next few months," said Surette. "When it's ready it will be released and given a wide distribution."

Among the highlights of the draft document, broken down by chapters:

Forward Presence

■ Deployed carrier and expeditionary strike groups will "periodically" be formed into expeditionary strike forces.

■ Global Fleet Stations will be established in southwest and southeast Asia, Central America, the Caribbean Basin and in Africa.

■ Increasingly, naval forces will be deployed "for specific exercises and operations of limited duration"

■ Deployed forces will "re-aggregate" into adaptive force packages "and eliminate geographical and service seams based on mission requirements.

■ Cooperative engagement and maritime security operations will most likely occur in and around Africa, the Mediterranean and Black Seas, Arabian Gulf, Southeast Asia, Central America and the Caribbean Basin. Forward presence for deterrence purposes will occur predominantly in the western Pacific and Southwest Asia.

■ Naval forces will be positioned for increased roles in combating terrorism.

■ A "persistent naval presence" will be re-established in the Mediterranean region.

No description of this presence was given, but the document notes it would "provide immediate crisis response there and in the surrounding littorals" and rapidly reinforce naval forces in the Indian Ocean and the west coast of Africa. Likely tasks include maritime security, noncombatant evacuation operations, humanitarian assistance and disaster response and maritime ballistic missile defense.

Maritime Security

The draft NOC restates the U.S. commitment to Global Maritime Partnerships, the concepts of Maritime Operational Threat Response and the National Fleet, and U.S. participation in the International Maritime Organization. "We will increase our participation in a wider range of formal and informal global maritime partnerships, continue to conduct combined training with our partners and expeditiously transfer maritime domain information," it says.

Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response

■ Resources and training programs will be revised "to reflect the ascendance of humanitarian assistance and disaster response activities."

■ Critical relief supplies will be staged at key forward locations around the world to reduce response times. Some supplies will be loaded onto select ships, possibly as Landing Force Operational Reserve Material.

Sea Control

■ Challenges include the potential emergence of a blue-water peer competitor (no specific country is named); the danger of mines; the potential anti-access capability of non-state actors such as Hezbollah; and technological threats that target command, control, computer, intelligence and satellite systems.

■ The Draft NOC declares that "few threats exist in the current security environment that can effectively challenge the transit of our naval forces through blue water," but "next generation threats will attempt to deny our ability to carry out blue water transit." Future weapon and sensor technology must outpace and overmatch potential blue water peer competitors.

■ Assured Access challenges include Iranian use of small boats to threaten U.S. warships. The document considered the Iranian use of such craft in the Strait of Hormuz earlier this year as an example of an attempts to test U.S. Navy tactics, technology and rules of engagement.

Needed Warfare Advantages

■ Warfare systems overmatch in all key warfare areas including air and missile defense, mine warfare and anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare.

■ Redundant communications, navigation, intelligence, reconnaissance and targeting systems to overcome degradations to satellite or computer networks.

■ More ships and aircraft.

Power Projection

"We will look for innovative ways to increase the lethality and diversity of power projection capabilities," the document says. "Potential options might include modifying surface combatants and amphibious ships. For example, the addition of offensive missiles, aircraft or unmanned vehicles to amphibious ships would expand capability and capacity to conduct strike missions. Similarly, the addition of Marines, assault support aircraft and landing craft to surface combatants would broaden our ability for direct action, raids, non-combatant evacuations, personnel recovery, reconnaissance, and advance force operations to conduct certain amphibious missions. The recent conversion of ballistic missile submarines into guided missile boats capable of supporting naval special warfare operations is an example of this approach, as is the establishment of a Marine component within U.S. Special Operations Command."

Exploration of these options, it says, "may ultimately result in design and procurement of multi-faceted platforms capable of conducting air and/or missile strikes, amphibious operations, and sea-based support and sustainment of joint forces."

Deterrence

The draft NOC restates the value of the current fleet of ballistic submarines, but also advocates for a conventional global strike weapon and foresees an expansion of ballistic missile defense missions:

■ "Development of a sea-based conventional missile capable of prompt global strike is an example of an enhancement with applicability against the range of current and potential adversaries;"

■ "Our naval forces have developed a defensive capability that neutralizes ballistic missiles before they enter friendly airspace or become point defense challenges," reads the document. This "capability will be employed in the Pacific, Middle East and European theaters. When expanded to more units, this can shift from a regional capability to a globally-deployable capability that can be surged as threats ebb and flow."

Force Structure

The Force Structure Data Sheet appears to link numbers of certain ship types with requirements as stated in the draft NOC, but contains a number of areas where information is incomplete. Among its highlights:

■ Aircraft carriers. "The unconstrained requirement for aircraft carriers is 11," the document reads, but also asks for a description of the risk of less than 11 flattops and an assessment of the potential for that happening.

■ The ideal Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) to transport a Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) is four ships: a big-deck assault ship (LHA or LHD), a dock landing ship (LSD) and two amphibious transport dock ships (LPD) - one with enhanced command and control capabilities. This is an expansion of the 3-ship formation that has been used over the past decade. The four-ship ARG would "support split operations by a two-section ARG/MEU" and "provide the ability to more widely disperse the platforms that carry the Marines and the ability to embark more capability on the smaller, dispersed entities." To meet this need, the amphibious ship requirement would need to be raised from the current 32 ships to 36. The use of amphibious ships to support special operations forces and mine countermeasures forces also pushes the requirement to 36 ships, the document said.

■ The value of using amphibious ships to support the five Global Fleet Stations locations further pushes the number of "gators;" assuming that at any time two ships would be deployed on GFS missions and ten percent of the force would be in maintenance, a fleet of 42 amphibs is needed.

■ The document raises the number of attack submarines in service from 48 to 50.

■ The draft NOC asks what systems and capabilities might be added to the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), including Marine capabilities.

■ The document also asks for numbers to filled in for cruisers, destroyers, frigates, Coast Guard cutters, patrol boats and icebreakers.