Zorching is the new surging

At yesterday's Pentagon press briefing, a great deal of time was dedicated to the subject of U.S. naval posture in the USCENTCOM AOR, specifically the Arabian Gulf. A number of journalists pressed Capt. Kirby and Mr. Little about whether the current two-carrier presence (STENNIS and VINSON) is an anomaly, a response to rising tensions in the region, or just coincidental business-as-usual. The spokesmen were slippery. Here's Kirby:

And that presence changes all the time.  It fluctuates based on needs and requirements set by the combatant commander and approved by the Joint Staff and the secretary of defense.  

And as you all know, I mean, to get an aircraft carrier strike group anywhere in the world takes time.  It takes a lot of planning and training.  Months of advance work is done.  It's not – I don't want to leave anybody with the impression that, you know, we're somehow zorching two carriers over there because we're concerned about what happened, you know, today in Iran.  It's just not the case. This is – this is just prudent force posture requirements set by the combatant commander.

I'm going to be frank with you here: I have no idea whether this is true or not. I don't know whether ships' movements in this case are responsive to political developments in the region; if anyone else does, I'd be very interested to see your comments.

What this brief interlude does remind us, though, is that it's still much simpler to go zorching carrier strike groups around the globe than land forces. Or something. So, uh, don't forget that.

Does the U.S. Navy really need diesel submarines?

Here's another post from my brother the naval officer, who I'm going to go ahead and start referring to here as Ramius, because it's hilarious to imagine his reaction to being nicknamed for a fictional Scots-Soviet sub-driver. He'd also like me to remind you that he, like the rest of us, is all disclaimered-up: he doesn't speak for his wife, his kids, other dudes who work in, on, or around water, and most especially not the U.S. Navy or any other part of the government. So there's that cleared up. Today he takes on the subject of diesel submarines and the U.S. fleet. Take it away, Ramius (LULZ)!

So I was all geared up to write about the Chinese aircraft carrier when I ran across this article in which the American Enterprise Institute’s Gary J. Schmitt and Richard Cleary argue that the United States needs to build diesel submarines. Submarines being a topic near and dear to my heart, I couldn’t help but dash off a few paragraphs about how they’re completely wrong.

First, their premise is faulty.

The U.S. Navy faces a fundamental dilemma: It needs more submarines, but the overall defense budget required to build those submarines is headed south.

The U.S. Navy doesn’t just need more submarines; it needs more of the type of submarines we’ve already got. Submarines perform a whole range of missions for the fleet and combatant commanders, including intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), battlespace preparation, sea control, and land attack. The CNO tells me that they’re critical to our ability to project power ashore in the face of area denial and anti-access weapons. So if all submarines are good at all these things, then more of any submarines = more good things, right? Well, no. What Mr. Schmitt and Mr. Cleary don’t tell you is the dirty little secret about diesel submarines: they’re really just mines that can move a little.

A little explanation is in order here. The great advantage of a nuclear submarine is its inexhaustible (in the short term) power supply. A nuclear reactor can provide all the electrical and propulsion power you need, and then some, for as long as you want it (well, for at least double-digit years between refuelings). So a nuclear submarine can run around at max speed all the time. A LOS ANGELES-class SSN can get underway from San Diego and run at 25 knots to the Taiwan Strait with nary a thought for fuel consumption. It has atmosphere control equipment that disposes of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide and makes oxygen from water; it can go weeks without exchanging its atmosphere. The submerged endurance of a nuclear submarine is limited only by how much food it can carry for the crew.

A diesel submarine, on the other hand, lacks the inexhaustible power supply provided by a nuclear reactor. It has two very different modes of operation: battery power and diesel engines. A diesel engine requires a continuous supply of air to operate; hence, the diesel SSK can only snorkel (operate its diesel engine) while surfaced or at periscope depth (submerged to just below the surface with a snorkel mast raised above the surface to supply air to the engine). When snorkeling, a modern diesel submarine typically uses the electrical power provided by the diesel generator to charge the battery and power electric motors for propulsion. While submerged below periscope depth, all electrical and propulsion power is provided by the ship’s battery. The battery can only be charged while snorkeling. Significant propulsion loads – i.e. going fast – discharges the battery terribly fast. A modern SSK may be able to spend a week at 2 knots on one battery charge but only hours at 20 knots. As a result, a prudently-operated diesel submarine will spend the vast majority of its time operating at very slow speeds – about the speed at which a man walks.

Yeah, yeah, I know: AIP. Air-independent propulsion does not make a diesel submarine into something else; it makes it better at being a diesel submarine. It allows the SSP to provide propulsion power from a source other than the battery while submerged, but the power capacity is so low that it is still limited to very slow speeds unless it disregards battery discharge rate.

American submarines spend much of their time forward-deployed, operating covertly. Instead of the two weeks required for an SSN to transit from the West Coast to the Western Pacific, a diesel submarine would take a month and a half. In a standard deployment cycle, in which a submarine spends six months out of every year and a half on deployment, less than three months would be available for operations. Diesel submarines do not lend themselves well to covert operations in opposition-held littoral areas; an SSK will typically run its diesel engine – rather a noisy evolution – daily during nighttime hours to recharge its batteries.

The authors claim that “diesel submarines are smaller, stealthier and more maneuverable in tight spaces than nuclear submarines.” I can’t argue with all of that. They are smaller. As for maneuverability in tight spaces… I’m not sure what that does for you. The ocean doesn’t have many tight spaces, and a nuclear submarine performs just as well in the shallow waters of a littoral environment as does a diesel boat. Regarding stealth, Mr. Scmitt and Mr. Cleary are once again laboring under a misapprehension. It is generally true that a diesel submarine operating on the battery is quieter than a nuclear submarine; the support systems required to be run continuously to keep a reactor operating generate some noise and a diesel submarine does not have similar equipment. However, effective incorporation of acoustic quieting technologies and sound silencing programs has minimized noise levels from American nuclear submarines. While the same cannot be said for many other countries’ SSNs, an SSK enjoys no stealth advantage over a LOS ANGELES- or VIRGINIA-class boat.

It is true that the U.S. Navy is struggling to improve its Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) capabilities. This problem isn’t confined to diesel submarines, though their low radiated noise levels do exacerbate the problem. Here’s the thing: finding a quiet submarine in a big ocean is hard. If that submarine can get up in your business and mix things up, it’s a hell of a lot harder. But an SSK really can’t do that. Because it will always suffer the speed limitations imposed by battery operations, a diesel submarine is little more than a mine with legs. It can park in a spot and wait for the good guys to drive by – and don’t get me wrong, that can be a hugely useful capability when you’re talking about choke points like the Straits or Hormuz, Malacca, or Luzon – but that’s about it. An SSK can’t charge from Hawaii to the South China Sea in days or chase an aircraft carrier in the open ocean. This is the fundamental problem with the suggestion that the U.S. should build diesel submarines. The diesel submarine is an outstanding weapon for its purpose. The diesel submarine is essentially an anti-access/area-denial technology. It’s a mine that can shoot an anti-ship cruise missile (ASCM) with a range of 100 nm instead of an encapsulated torpedo with a range of 1 nm. It’s a useful tool for the Chinese to keep our aircraft carriers out of the area east of Taiwan or to block the Luzon Strait, or for the Russians to choke the routes into their SSBN bastions and their territorial waters. It’s not useful for the things that the United States wants from its submarines.

On top of which, there’s logistical, manning, training, and industrial base concerns touched on nicely here, but after a rambling 1200 words I figure you deserve a break.

G: Little does he know I make you guys read about acquisition all the time...

Uh, sir, could you maybe think about using a different word?

My favorite unreadable anti-journalist and China hawk has an item today about this week's SASC Airland subommittee hearing on tactical aircraft. Unsurprisingly, his account focuses exclusively on a China angle.

Asked during the hearing what "keeps you up at night," Rear Adm. David L. Philman, Navy director of warfare integration, said: "Well, the China scenario is first and foremost, I believe, because they seem to be more advanced and they have the capability out there right now, and their ships at sea and their other anti-access capabilities."

The Pentagon refers to China's advanced weapons, including ballistic missiles that hit ships at sea, new submarines, anti-satellite weapons and cyberwarfare capabilities, as "anti-access and area denial" arms.

Adm. Philman said the J-20 rollout is a concern, but with 1,000 test hours on the F-35, the jet is a "far leap ahead from the Chinese fighter that's flown three times."

"But they will catch up. They understand. They're a smart and learning enemy, and if we don't keep our edge, then we will be behind, or at least lose our advantage," Adm. Philman said. [emphasis mine]

So, um, RADM Philman: any chance you could avoid describing the world's most populous country as an ENEMY? Considering the way that, you know, we're not actually at war with them or anything like that, and how in fact we actually have a gradually growing mil-to-mil relationship with them? I know it's just fighter-pilot lingo, and I know you're talking about the PLA more specifically, not the entire country, and I know we're talking about hypothetical future threats to U.S. air dominance and that in that context, it's reasonable to talk about us and "the enemy," even if only as a matter of the way forces are arrayed (as in friendly aircraft vs. enemy aircraft, etc.). But dude, come on.

Can we just go with something like "adaptive adversary"? It's less aggressively inflammatory, it connotes potential rather than actual threat, and it has the added benefit of being consistent with doctrine!

"Uh, we don't anticipate that"

I don't know how I missed it until now, and maybe you guys have already seen or heard about this, but I have to share a literally almost unbelievable story with you from the PACOM commander's testimony to the House Armed Services Committee earlier this week. The hijinks took place during a rather drawn-out series of questions from Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) about Guam's length and breadth and width, and then a zinger about the ability of Guam to apparently physically, literally support the presence of more U.S. personnel:

Addressing Adm. Robert Willard, who commands the Navy's Pacific Fleet [sic -- Willard was formerly at PacFleet, but now commands PACOM], Johnson made a tippy motion with his hands and said sternly, "My fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize."

Willard paused and said: "We don't anticipate that."

Like other islands, Guam is attached to the sea floor, which makes it extremely unlikely that it will tip over, even if there are lots and lots of people on it. Guam is 30 miles long and up to 9 miles wide in certain spots, with a population of 175,000 civilians. The military is proposing the addition of 8,000 U.S. servicemembers and their families.

Reached for comment, a spokesman for Johnson said the lawmaker had visited Guam, and his concern was that the influx of military personnel would overwhelm the island's infrastructure and ecosystem.

The spokesman's explanation makes little sense when you consider that Johnson led into the whole tip over and capsize thing by trying to pin down the island's precise dimensions. Apparently he thought Guam was just a rather large raft.

So, uh, yeah... we don't anticipate that.

Check out the video yourself. It boggles the mind. I honestly would have thought this was some sort of April Fools' thing if I hadn't seen it for myself.

Welcome to the party, David, even if you're like three years late

Did you know that America's global competitors are focusing on the development of anti-access technologies to counter U.S. power projection and expeditionary capabilities? Oh, you did? Yeah, me too. I heard from Andy Krepinevich like a year ago. And Bob Gates even before that. David Wood just caught on, apparently from "Pentagon strategists." But, I mean, that's cool -- keep getting the word out!

The United States, Pentagon strategists say, is quickly losing its ability to barge in without permission. Potential target countries and even some lukewarm allies are figuring out ingenious ways to blunt American power without trying to meet it head-on, using a combination of high-tech and low-tech jujitsu.

At the same time, U.S. naval and air forces have been shrinking under the weight of ever more expensive hardware. It's no longer the case that the United States can overwhelm clever defenses with sheer numbers.As Defense Secretary Robert Gates summed up the problem this month, countries in places where the United States has strategic interests -- including the Persian Gulf and the Pacific -- are building "sophisticated, new technologies to deny our forces access to the global commons of sea, air, space and cyberspace.''Those innocuous words spell trouble. While the U.S. military and strategy community is focused on Afghanistan and the fight in Marja, others – Iran and China, to name two – are chipping away at America's access to the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, the Persian Gulf and the increasingly critical extraterrestrial realms.

On the bright side, Wood links to Krepinevich's new study Why AirSea Battle?, which focuses on DoD's efforts to develop a counter-anti-access operational concept. It's worth a read. While you're at it, you might also take a look at Gunslinger's Document of the Week: The U.S. Navy's Vision for Confonting Irregular Challenges (or as Bernard Finel described it on Twitter, "fascinating document. Shows the power of the COIN/hybrid war junta inside the building." Um, right).

I probably wouldn't highlight this Wood piece on any other day, but I have a case of the redass about an appearance he made on the Diane Rehm Show the other night, in which he said some frankly idiotic things about what's going on in Afghanistan. (My favorite part is where he says that U.S. forces are pursuing "in essence a conventional, industrial-age strategy in Marja, not unlike one you saw in the American Civil War 150 years ago.") I would really encourage you not to listen.

I'm normally not a big fan of linking to things that I hate, but...

Seeing as we haven't gone into DADT too much beyond a string of comments in a mostly unrelated thread, I might as well link to somewhere else where they do.

If you want to get a taste for how many of the dinosaur breed of general officers and senior field-grades allow their political ideologies, religious beliefs, complete misunderstanding of the Constitution, and just genuine, literal, honest-to-goodness homophobia to shape the way they think about openly gay individuals serving in the armed forces, go check out UltimaRatioRegis's post on the U.S. Naval Institute's blog.

Those who hold religious or moral objections to homosexuality because of their faith are being swept aside and their views marginalized. Worse, such is being done (again) with taxpayers’ dollars. Those who hold that system of faith and values are having their own government undermine that system. No longer is it proper to believe that a category of behaviors does not equate to race or gender.

Other issues that have not been given anything close to serious discussion:

The “diversity industry” will ensure that the gay lifestyle will be advocated for and promoted. Despite those who find it offensive, such reminders will be purposefully omnipresent. This same industry that has made such hash of womens’ and minority issues by the advocating for discrimination and favoritism (doing great disservice to all they “advocate” for) will do the same with gays in the military. Gay advocacy and promotion will result in command-sponsored “gay pride” events, gay history months, and the glorification of a lifestyle a vast majority of Americans find objectionable.

The tolerance shown gay service members now serving under DADT may not translate into acceptance when open advocacy begins. The effects on morale and unit cohesion have the potential to be disastrous. Sexual tensions, unwanted advances, relationships within a chain of command, sexual assaults, all those things that plague current commanders with the integration of females, will likely be exacerbated. We consider all these currently to adversely affect combat readiness. Yet, we are advocating policies that will very likely give us more of those problems?

Also, one has to ask: What will be next? Transsexuals being allowed to serve? Gay quotas for promotion and command?

None of the above issues have been given serious consideration.

The commenters have covered most of what I'd like to say, and my efforts to engage with URR in the past -- you can always count on him for some good ol' big-war China hawkery! -- have been unsatisfactory, so I'm gonna leave it alone. But take a look if you dare.