Proactively “From the Sea”; an agent of change leveraging the littoral best practices for a paradigm breaking six-sigma best business case to synergize a consistent design in the global commons, rightsizing the core values supporting our mission statement via the 5-vector model through cultural diversity.
Anti-submarine warfare (ASW) is more than just a perishable skill, it is a needy skill. Four years later, Sweden’s defense establishment is finally hearing what those with knowledge of ASW have been yelling for years both inside and outside the SCIF.
In 2014, the Swedish Navy turned its painfully unsuccessful hunt for a "Russian submarine" into an international thriller. Today, Navy experts are blaming substandard maps of the challenging and difficult-to-navigate seascape for reducing the nation's submarine hunting capacity.
Poor measurement of the seabed poses extra problems for the country's Naval Forces, making it particularly challenging to discover naval mines or hostile submarines, the military magazine Officertidningen reported.
Have you been told or have told others that we are ready to find and kill submarines from the Baltic to the South China Sea?
Because the oceans are vast and the detection ranges are so relatively small, hunting submarines is a numbers game. It is also a game that requires a lot of different tools to play successfully and a bespoke set of kit with highly trained and focused specialists. It is not a pickup game. It is not something you can place in reserve to restart when war comes. It is something that can be helped with technology, but needs the human to make sense of what is found. It is something that needs a constantly evolving and updated support structure to ensure effectiveness. It is not cheap to do in peace, but it is less expensive than sunk warships you can’t replace at war. ASW requires a hunter’s instinct fused with a technologist’s intelligence. It isn’t a hunt where the hunter is going after prey; it is a hunt where the hunter is going after another hunter. The hunted knows that it is being hunted, and it knows that thing which is hunting it also knows it be being hunted in return. There is no rapid build-up to a dramatic engagement. It is a process put together bit-by-bit by multiple parties. It is hours, days, weeks, of mind-numbing ambient inconsequence suddenly broken by a clear, bright indication that something human is out there in the inhuman chaos … or is it? It is a game full of ghosts, tricks, phantoms, and futility. It is a game full of false paths, dead ends, lies, hidden truths, sleight of hand, wishful thinking, ignored solutions, and trusted mirages. It is not a game for amateurs or accountants. It is not the game for the easily bored or excitable. It is needy. It is jealous. It is expensive. It hates to be ignored or neglected - it has a mean streak. Its greatest enemy are its esoteric complications. Policy makers and warfare commanders have only a paper-thin understanding of the challenges – until they need to find the submarines that suddenly people are telling them are a danger to their entire enterprise. In every war in the last century where a belligerent had submarines, the same pattern emerges – the ability to locate, track, and attack enemy submarines that was promised in peace simply does not work at the war. WWI, WWII, Indo-Pakistan Wars, The Falkland Island War, all have similar patterns. There are not enough ASW capable units to effectively negate the threat; expenditures of search and kill-stores far exceed peace-time expectations. The advantage is with the submarines, causing surface ships to have less freedom of movement than expected. Of course, this was all known prior to the beginning of hostilities, but why the shock with the reality of war? Money and priorities. ASW is pricy, is not as “sexy” or career enhancing in peace as other areas. As such, it suffers. It is a hard sell, and that is part of the problem – decision makers do not have the patience or background to understand the unique nature of hunting submarines. It really isn’t their fault, they just have never had to ask. It is way too easy to conflate ASW with other kinds of warfare areas and as a result, feel that you have a handle on the challenges. You don’t, and here’s why; - Water: Water is not air. Though there are some sexy and not so sexy non-acoustic ways of finding submarines that we simply will not discuss here or on the comments section – ahem – for the vast majority of the world and in most tactical situations, you are looking at acoustic sensors, active and passive. Water, to a much greater extent than air, has density, temperature layers, and life that live in it. All impact how you can see what is there. Imagine that you were walking around town looking for a specific person and every few steps you took and each different direction you turn, the glasses you were wearing changed tint, had different polarization filters come and go, had mirrors and prisms slide in and out of view. Sound: Drive over to a friend’s house. Have them blindfold you and drive you to an open field a few hundred yards from a train track. Listen. In 5-min, 5-hrs, or 5-days a train comes by. By listening to it, I want you to tell me what direction it is heading to. How fast is it going? Where it is relative to you when it comes closest to you? What kind of train it is? What is the production number of that kind of train is this one? That was easy. Now I want you to have one ear with an ear-bud in it playing AM radio static. I also want you sitting in the back of a flat-bed truck that is driving up and down the dirt road in a thunder storm. Geography: Sure, the ocean looks smooth, but that is the trick it plays on you. Under the surface there are mountains and canyons that make those on land look like cute little models. There are ocean bottoms that soak up every bit of sound like a dry sponge does water. There are other ocean bottoms that do to sound what rooms of mirrors in funny houses do to light. There are walls, cliffs, dizzying drop off in to the actual abyss. There are forests as crowded and noisy as any terrestrial rain forest. People will ask you to drive a truck down a bike path. They will ask you if you can see things through mountains, to hear the whisper of a child over the roar of a waterfall.
Sensors: “Best if Used By” dates apply to more than just food. In addition to the intellectual limited shelf life and ongoing need to replenish and refurbish grey matter, especially on the air-ASW side of the house, sensors (sonobuoys) take up a lot of space and stocks deplete quickly when prosecutions are underway. How many days/weeks of stores do you have available on your ship/air station/AOR? Care and maintenance of surface/subsurface ASW sensors are as challenging as anything exposed to the sea for extended periods of time. Are your estimated usage rates based on exercise data, or what you expect in a wartime footing when nerves are touchy and the attitude is, “You can’t find a sub with a helo/MPR bird on the deck or a buoy in the tube. You can’t kill a submarine if a torp isn’t in the water.” Are your stocks instead based on what crumbs you’ve managed to collect at the edges of the POM?
Weapons: Ah yes, the toothy end of the kill chain. Let’s put the submarine’s MK-48 HWT to the side for a moment and focus on the surface and air side of the ASW house. What do you have to kill a submarine with? You only have one option, the LWT of the MK-46/50/54/Stingray/MU90 variety. Let me pose to you this question. You are a hunter responsible for feeding your family and your poor and slightly lazy neighbors. You are, unfortunately, only allowed one gun in one round. You have your ideas about what you need as you will be hunting everything from squirrels, to ducks, to quail, to deer, from deserts to leafy woodlands. However, you are not making that choice. Your Aunt Mable in town who runs the family accounts is making that call. You’re getting a single shot Stevens break open rifle in .22 short. It will work great for squirrels and moderately good for rabbits. You better be real lucky if anyone expects you to bring a bird to the table. You’re not sure how she expects you to take a deer at the other end of the bean field - but Parson Jones told her that a .22 is dangerous out to a mile – in theory – so a 200-yd shot shouldn’t be a problem. In theory with a shot through an eye socket you might be able to bring a deer home, but … well … you’ll just have to see what you can do. Does save money, in a fashion. You tried to be reasonable and asked that you could get by with a 20-ga and a .308. Didn’t have to be fancy, but … they wouldn’t hear of it. And so, that is what we have at the pointy end. You’re going on a trip to Kansas to hunt Pheasants and Montana to hunt Pronghorn next year. Make it happen. Would it be better to have a gun cabinet of .22, .243, 30-06, 6.5mm Creedmoor with a 20-ga over/under and 12-ga autoloader to choose from instead? If you wanted to be successful, yes. Is ASW doable? Sure it is. Ask the German Navy about late ‘43-45. Is ASW hard to convince people in peace how hard it is? Sure, ask the Royal Navy from 1939-42 and again in 82. Ask the Swedes today. Ask the VCNO next time you see him. He’d probably enjoy the question as a welcome distraction from what he is usually asked. If you’ve listened to him speak, you can detect a man who knows his ASW.
...and yes, I know. Sputnik News ... but it is in English and besides the defense industry ads, the source document is all in Swedish. Hat tip Bob Hein.
As the Islamic State Caliphate's territory in Syria is shrinking to just a few isolated pockets, rebel force opposing Assad lose more an more ground, and Kurdish led forces solidify lines, another chapter in the Syrian civil war is about to begin. Time will tell, but the Turkish move in to Afrin may have been the opening. What is Turkey trying to accomplish, and how does this complicate the interest of the Kurds and their American, French and other partners, Russians, Iranians, and the Syrians supporting Assad? For the full hour this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern our guest to examine this question and related issues will be Michael Goodyear. Michael is a law student at the University of Michigan Law School and holds degrees in History and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago. His research focuses on the history, culture, and politics of the Balkans and the northern Middle East. As a starting point for our conversation, we will reference his recent article in Small Wars Journal, Paradigm Shift in Syria After Afrin.
Boil down your duty to its essence. Not the rah, rah, kind of duty. Not the duty some preen to themselves about. No, duty. That duty that stands against every instinct you have for self-preservation. That instinct to flight. That duty that stands, calm and determined. Do you have faith in your duty? What about those next to you? What about those who count on your sense of duty?
After holding out for eight days and taking hundreds of casualties, the remaining British troops evacuated across the Rhine river before the Germans overran their positions.
Selfless Sgt Clarke passed up the chance to escape with them and instead remained at the aid station to carry on giving treatment and comfort to wounded and dying comrades.
In doing so he knew full well he would be taken prisoner.
Sgt Clarke, a glider pilot, spent the rest of the war in a PoW camp in Sagen, Poland, until February 1945 when the Russians advanced from the east.
That is a measure any man would hope to meet. Staff Sergeant Peter Clarke, OBE, British Army was that measure. He recently passed at age 96, a life well lived.
Sgt Clarke died on Tuesday at his home in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, following a short illness.
His wife Jean died in 2016 and he leaves two daughters.
Tributes flooded in yesterday (thu) for Sgt Clarke.
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Dr David Pasley, secretary of the society, added: "There were so many acts of heroism at Arnhem but Peter's was the one that stuck out for me.
"He didn't think it was special, he was just doing what was right.
The French get a fair bit of grief, some deserved, most not. Most of it has to due with some of the unpleasantness from WWII, but in a certain way it is because it takes one to know one. The French are more like Americans than either nation would be willing to admit. You can't take away the fact that they are one of the finest militaries in the world. When taken from a long view, they have an impressive military record in wars both large and small. Their national character - still dented from being bled white in WWI - is still there as it has been since Charles Martel. Especially in Africa, they have been critical players in the Long War. If you need a catch up, check out Michael Shurkin over at Politico.
There is a French way of warfare that reflects the French military’s lack of resources and its modest sense of what it can achieve. They specialize in carefully apportioned and usually small but lethal operations, ...
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Emblematic of the French approach was France’s military intervention in the Central African Republic in March 2007. To stop a rapidly moving rebel advance into the country from the Sudanese border, the French attacked using a single fighter plane and two waves of paratroopers totaling no more than a “few dozen” who dropped into the combat zone in the Central African town of Birao. In military terms, what the French did was a pinprick, yet it was sufficient to break the rebel advance like placing a rock in the path of a wave. It was, moreover, a risky thing to do: Airborne assaults are intrinsically dangerous, all the more so when one has little capacity to reinforce or withdraw the lightly armed soldiers in an emergency. The first wave of “less than 10” soldiers reportedly made a high-altitude drop. The French military, moreover, did all this quietly, with the French press only learning of the intervention a few weeks after the fact.
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France’s intervention in Mali in January 2013 also illustrated these attributes amply.
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They did so, moreover, with a scratch "pick-up team" consisting of bits and pieces of a diverse array of units cobbled together in great haste and on the fly. Some of these could be considered elite, but most were not. In addition, the French put this ad hoc force up against a dangerous enemy that was operating in the worst imaginable physical environment–all with barely enough supplies simply to keep French troops from dying of thirst and heat exhaustion. French soldiers’ boots literally fell apart because the glue holding them together melted from the heat. The French went places their enemies assumed they would never dare go, fighting hand-to-hand among caves and boulders deep in the desert.
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What makes the French way of war distinct from, say, the U.S. way of war has to do with scarcity. The French military is highly conscious of its small size and lack of resources.
Read the rest for the details. We could learn a lot from the French.
As we have covered here over the years, it seems that the institutional problem with long and often wrong IG investigations seem more about the process itself than anything else. You are treated guilty until your innocence is proves ... long after it even matters anymore. Another example over at USNIBlog.
A navy ship represents her nation. That is why throughout history, nations use their navy as diplomatic mediums to show the flag around the world as representatives of the nations they serve. There is a reason why the phrase "ship shape" means clean and orderly. It is what navy ships are supposed to be. Why? Because they represent the pride of their nation. A ship that is manned properly to maintain herself is also an indication that a ship is manned properly to fight and win at war. A nation's warship is often the only thing foreigners see of that nation. The condition, size, seamanship, and the behavior of the crew in peace and war are seen as indicators of their host nation nature and status. This is fair and it is usually accurate. But ... again ... we have to revisit this simple concept in light of the dog's breakfast that is LCS. In Monday's comments you sure looked like you were ready for an old school LCS post, so you're going to get it. The unstoppable rolling failure of LCS must be drawn out from under the pier and gibbetted for all to see on a regular basis. If Big Navy is going to tee up the ball, we might as well take a swing at it. Over and over and over. Unending until the last LCS is sunk towards the end of this century in a SINKEX. Let the entire class be examples to future naval professionals what not to do. Good googly moogly, just look at her! Your monthly reminder that the Little Crappy Ship really isn't that little, is quite crappy, and is one nasty looking ship. The even-hulls are bad in their own right, but here is your newly commissioned odd-hull, USS LITTLE ROCK (LCS 9) - most recently of ice princess fame, at last trying to escape the grip of the Dominion of Canada. Our friend Chris Cavas has a nice series of pics on her cruising through the mostly ice free St. Lawrence,
More photos of USS #LITTLE ROCK #LCS9 coming down the St Lawrence Sat after lvng #Montreal. Note virtually complete absence of ice - the reason the ship was "trapped" in LesHabsVille for 3 mos. Seen at Sorel (R Beauchamp), Trois Rivieres (J Gauthier), Lotbiniere (L Morissette), pic.twitter.com/lnVXUZxwvS
A decade after the commissioning of Hull-1, not only can we not decide what frack'n shade of grey we want to get underway with - we can't stick with the simple "dazzle" paint job that hides the horrible design of the exhausts. Again, just look at her. This tramp steamer sure sends a message about the USA to every port she sails in to, and it isn't what you want. What is there in this picture for any nation to take pride in? The poor officers and enlisted personnel assigned to these ships. This is not their fault. The design almost demands neglect. The manning concept is based on no one having time to do anything but their job and a bit of another person's job instead of sleeping. The Navy is so ossified that it cannot to this day ensure that what we know is going to be up front in the face of the world is something our friends can be proud of and our enemies see with respect. Stop kidding yourself. Enlarge the picture. Look at the soot. Relish the rust. Bask in the poorly patched seems in the superstructure. Zoom in and find them yourself. Behold the mighty superpower's Navy!
"I met a photographer from the Great White North,
Who said—“Three vast and dank smears of soot
Stand in the St. Lawrence. . . . Near them, on the water,
Half sunk in rust lies, whose anchor,
And ill-shaded fiberglass, and sneer of the minimally manned,
Tell that its program manager well those passions showed
Which yet survive, stamped on these dented things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the quarterdeck, these words appear:
My name is LCS, Princess of Ice;
Look on my Hull, ye PLAN, and despair!
Nothing beside can be made FMC. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level water stretch far away.”
As the end game – whatever that might wind of looking like – in Syria is getting closer, we are seeing a lot of tonal disconnect between what the world is, and what some people think it should be. Clear thinking is being side-stepped for The Narrative;all things that are not in aligned to The Narrative must be warped to fit in it. The source of much of the disconnect involves Russia. Russia, that wonderfully peculiar nation, once again finds itself being used by others in our crass and petty domestic politics, warping our international perspective and preventing clear understanding of what is in play. Even our best and brightest are caught up in an unnecessary lack of consensus and are strewing about a theme of a nation's natsec community embarrassingly lacking seriousness and continuity. I don't think Russia is that good, I just think we've become too petty. We’ve gone from the early Obama’s administration’s “Bush43 was unnecessarily rough on you Russia, we need a “reset” (nee overload) of our relationship…” to the mid-Obama collusion, “Tell Vladimir I will have more flexibility after the election” and "the 1980s called" silliness to the post 2016 “Ermergherd, Russia!” squid ink that is clouding everyone’s thinking in the beltway. Trump's Russia policy? The O2 is being soaked up in a failed probe and a pouting establishment to the point that serious people can't get airtime. We've turned a standard issue Russian INFO OPS campaign that they play during all democratic elections in my lifetime, in to something way out of proportion to what it actually is. As if we are actively trying to help the Russians, we've empowered their mischievousness way beyond their wildest exceptions ... mostly for petty domestic politics.
Sadly, our click-bait focused media isn't looking for serious people to come on and talk like adults. Instead we get the tin-foil types, partisanship-uber-alles types, and the unhinged. There is a group of people out there who do get it. Thankfully this fever isn’t impacting the professionals from all sides of the political aisle who kept an eye on Eternal Russia for decades. This group did not join the natsec cats chasing the latest fad's laser pointer while spewing buzzwords … but they are hard to find in the chaos. Our national dialog about Russia is clouded by the click-bait and cats, and it is not a benign clouding. It is birthing bad and dangerous ideas. Not an extreme case, but you can see the clouding in the response you can find to the Army University Press's Military Review, article by Michael Kofman and Matthew Rojansky. The authors have done good work here, but for some reason smart people think that if Russia gets a win, that is somehow bad for the USA. The authors are not really making that case, but some are taking it that way. You can get a vibe in the article of an ill-comfort with Russia possibly getting a win - but not that bad. It is enough for others to start to focus on that. Russia getting a "W" in Syria is not necessarily a bad thing for the USA.
No, not really. Look at all the possible outcomes of the Syrian Civil War. Rack and stack them. We actually are not in that bad of a spot in a sea of bad spots. In such a bloody civil war, our intervention has not cost us much blood, nor in relative terms, treasure. Russia has her own goals, we have ours. As long as we deconflict, we should be OK. Back to the article. Read it all, but here's what caught my eye;
While it is far from assured that any settlement acceptable to the principle domestic and international players can be struck, for now the main outcome of this war is that President Bashar al-Assad will stay, but the Syria that existed before the war is gone.
The natural question is whether Russia has, in fact, won a victory. The answer to that question depends first on what Moscow intended to achieve—in other words, how did and does Russia define victory in Syria, what are its continuing interests there, and have those interests been secured or advanced?
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In sum, Russia appears to have won at least a partial victory in Syria, and done so with impressive efficiency, flexibility, and coordination between military and political action. On the one hand, Russia’s embrace of the Assad regime and its Iranian allies, its relative indifference to civilian casualties, and its blanket hostility to antiregime opposition groups are fundamentally at odds with widely held U.S. views on Syria. On the other hand, Russia’s “lean” strategy, adaptable tactics, and coordination of military and diplomatic initiatives offer important lessons for the conduct of any military intervention in as complex and volatile an environment as the Middle East. More than a decade and a half into the U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, with ongoing fighting in Libya and Yemen, and countless other tinderboxes that could ignite wider regional conflict threatening U.S. interests, Washington should pay close attention to the Russian intervention and how Moscow achieved its objectives in Syria.
There is no reason why Russia can't call a "win" in Syria and at the same time the USA can't call a "win" in Syria. We had mostly different goals. As long as we respect each other's goals and don't get sucked in to undermining each other, we should be good to go. The Operational Center of Gravity for ISIS was their capital. We along with our allies (mostly Kurd) have taken that. ISIS's Strategic Center of Gravity is the religious foundation of their existence. Only the Muslim world will be able to take care of that - but taking care of this major operation is a critical step in that direction, and about all we can directly do. As we've outlined here for years, there is only one significant interest the USA has in Syria; the elimination of the Islamic State's caliphate and the extermination of as many of their fighters we find on the battlefield. We are almost there. Russia's goals overlap some of ours. Others we really shouldn't care about. Syria has never been in our sphere of influence. It actually has been in the Russian (nee Soviet) sphere of influence if anyone's (honorable mention to France & Turkey). Syria has never been a friend. With the exception of fighting along side of us during DESERT STORM, they have been a problem best managed to the side. Who does or does not run that mixed up chunk of land is of secondary importance to us. We have almost completely achieved what we need to achieve in Syria. As they provided the balance of the ground forces for us to achieve our goals, we need to make sure that whatever post-war settlement is made, the Kurds are respected. We have to do that or we may have trouble getting allies in the future. After killing a few hundred Russian mercenaries last month, I think we've made our point for Russia to stay on her side of the sandbox. The Turks, as is there nature, have complicated things recently. The French, to their great credit, have moved to block our mutual NATO ally to the NW, while we should help enforce the Kurd’s frontier to the center and south as we clean up what remains of Islamic State territory. From there, it is up to the warring parties to work out the post-war details. Lines are starting to stabilize. That is one of the requirements for parties to come to the table. Where can it go wrong? So many places, but the worst thing we can do is to feel that we can't call a win unless Russia has to call a loss, or the other way around. Nothing in Syria is worth a wider war. It makes no strategic sense, and the American people have no appetite for it. If you simply cannot see the nuance required to get a "good enough" in Syria, stop studying the Cold War and start watching Game of Thrones.
NB: If you have not already, click the "Syria" tab and review PLAN SALAMANDER and PLAN SALAMANDER Rev.(1).
