The Great Green Vanity Project

When does a personal vanity project become policy? Simple, when you have the power to do so and the top-cover to let you have your way.

That is all you really need to know about how SECNAV Mabus got his farcical “Great Green Fleet” – a topic we’ve covered here over the years.

In the September issue of USNI’s Proceedings, Marc Cancian brings the whole sordid mess back in to view, stake and hammer in hand,

In 2011, then-Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced an initiative called the Great Green Fleet. Although wrapped in the mantle of warfighting, it was never really about the Navy. Instead, it was about pursuing a national energy agenda and using military money to create a biofuel industry. The Great Green Fleet became part of a broader set of initiatives designed to put the Navy on the front lines of the fight against climate change.

...and why not. It is only money;

The Great Green Fleet was the most egregious element of the former secretary’s energy initiatives. Biofuels—making fuel from biological matter rather than pumping it from the ground—were thought to be more environmentally friendly and a way to reduce dependence on foreign oil. The administration committed to a half-billion-dollar initiative to jump-start the industry, of which the Navy was responsible for $150 million.

How much depot level maintenance in WESTPAC would that have supported? Well, not as much press time and infinitely less virtue to signal - but priorities, Shipmate;

Although wrapped in the mantle of warfighting, it was never really about the Navy. Instead, it was about pursuing a national energy agenda and using military money to create a biofuel industry. The Great Green Fleet became part of a broader set of initiatives designed to put the Navy on the front lines of the fight against climate change. Although superficially plausible at the time when fuel prices were high, the Green Fleet is inappropriate, even counterproductive, at a time of booming U.S. energy production and Navy budget shortfalls. It is time to take a critical look at these energy initiatives, terminate those that do not directly help the Navy, subject others to cost-benefit analysis, but also look broadly at places where additional energy investments might help the Navy.
...
Creating new fuel sources was never necessary, but it is ludicrous now. Fracking and other technologies have skyrocketed U.S. production of oil and natural gas. The U.S. Energy Information Agency expects the United States to produce more crude oil in 2018 (9.9 million barrels per day) than it ever has in its history. The United States is now the largest hydrocarbon producer in the world, surpassing Russia and Saudi Arabia, having increased its production by 50 percent in the last decade. Global oil prices have plummeted, from $140 per barrel to about $50 per barrel.

Make sure to read it all, and I like his recommendations at the end; Terminate, Review, Continue, Examine, & Drop.

A Fleet in a Parallel Universe

The fleet a nation builds is not predestined; it develops over time based on the perceived security needs of a nation, its economic carrying capacity, combined with the will and vision of its leaders.

After those basic ingredients are set, then you have to have the right people with the right ideas to implement it. The fleet that results is not the result of a simple 1+1+1=3. Like three different chefs can come up with three very different dishes from the same basic ingredients, so too can different leaders build very different fleets to meet what they perceived best meets a nation’s requirements.

If you had different leaders at a point in time, you would have a very different fleet.

We have the fleet we have because of those in positions of power, uniformed and civilian, at important decision points.

There were alternatives to today’s present. There are alternative futures. The “what if” matrix is as complex as the personalities and philosophies that chose one path over another; one platform over another.

Navalists know most of the more recent decision points that led to the fleet we have today. We know those who led one school of thought or another – who won the argument, and who did not. Who got 80% of what they saw the future needed, who got 20%.

When you look at people with alternative designs from what we have today, one of the first people who comes to mind is Wayne Hughes, CAPT USN (Ret.). In June’s issue of Proceedings, he has an article, “Build a Green Water Fleet” that again raises the issue of what fleet we need as an alternative to the one we continue to build.

The article builds off the concepts I wrote about in JAN 2010 embedded in the decade old “New Navy Fighting Machine". It may be a decade old, but it is still fresh.

In my 2010 post, Reforming the Confederate Navy, I outlined the issue as I saw it,

The Confederate Navy … she threw her lot in with transformationalism. VIRGINIA and HUNLEY were wonderful ground breaking designs and concepts - built against tremendous odds - but in the end they were like the nation they served - beautiful losers destroyed by their own fatal conceits.

What was their conceit? They thought that a few high technological breakthroughs thrown into a few hulls and applied with a bit of tactical verve could triumph over the many primarily pushing sound fundamentals.

Yep, the South did win - it won the post Goldwater-Nichols Navy.

Let’s get back to Hughes’s latest;

The New Navy Fighting Machine Study described an affordable yet more numerous and complete U. S. fleet for the 21st century. By distinguishing smaller, single-purpose, green-water (coastal and littoral) combatants from the large, multipurpose, expensive, heavily manned blue-water (open-ocean) fleet, the study was able to restore a Navy of more than 600 vessels that could be sustained with an annual Ship Construction New (SCN) budget of $15 billion. [3] The fleet’s composition was tested by war games and studies conducted by faculty and students. Their efforts explored the value and limitations of the NNFM force against two first-class enemies, irregular warfare opponents, and for peacetime engagement with friendly states.

What kind of fleet for Green Water ops would he like?

The Navy needs small, lethal, fast, green-water ships and submarines to take the fight to the enemy in the littorals. The Mark VI patrol boat (top) and this HOSS X-1 concept submarine (designed by and copyright J. Scott Shipman of B.B. Hoss, Inc.) are examples of vessels recommended by the New Navy Fighting Machine Study.
…“Minuteman” class of missile combatants to comply with surface navy specifications that included eight antiship cruise missiles, a gun, a combat crew of 12, bunks for 30, and a cruising radius of 3,000 nm.

To get it, he is willing to trade some Blue Water capital;

… the existing 280-ship fleet its 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers (CVNs) took 46 percent of sea-going billets. By reducing the number of CVNs to six or seven and distributing the sea-based air capability more widely, the NNFM freed enough people to operate the new fighting fleet.

There are some who are questioning the math here, but even if you adjust 25%, the argument should not be dismissed out of hand.

…a light aircraft carrier (CVL), displacing 28,000 tons, that could carry 20 F-35B aircraft plus assorted helicopters and unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) for scouting and auxiliary functions. Weisser showed that in most scenarios two or three CVLs working together, or one operating in concert with a CVN, would be more adaptable and could deliver firepower more efficiently than sea-based air power operating from CVNs alone.
…16 non-nuclear submarines because littoral waters are where they will be most effective.

Of course, this does not fully address the Blue Water changes, but as the author mentioned, that can be addressed SEPCOR.

One final note from me, for any meaningful change to take place, we need to pull up Goldwater-Nichols root and branch and replace with a new construct. We need a wholesale, highly disruptive change in the bureaucratic structure and the accretions build up around it in the last 3+ decades. Better now in peace by choice, than at war when the decks are slick with blood and we are grasping for something more effective.

It is not a coincidence that we have not been able to field a successful surface combatant since Goldwater-Nichols. Remember, the money to cut steel on DDG-51 Hull-1 was in 1985, a year prior to Goldwater-Nichols.

Since then, we have put forward LCS & DDG-1000, aborted CG(X), cannot stop picking our belly button with DDG(X), and have a fairly good chance of having FFG(X) just be a reconfigured (spit) LCS.

When will the last Arleigh Burke DDG be commissioned, 2030? 2035? Heck, 2040? There is a pretty good chance that a DDG envisioned and first built at the height of the Cold War will almost see service in to the 22nd Century. 2085 at a minimum.

100 years. Almost like we were about to decommission the last of our TENNESSEE Class BB, designed and built after and during WWI.

The Slow Defeat of the Green Fleet?

Remember the heady days when Salamander and SECNAV Mabus skipped hand in hand through the verdant fields? From when I first found out his present job, to his speech ... and the fact that there are good odds we're related ... it was nice while it lasted.

Alas, then things went pear-shaped. Ship naming was one issue - but I think he really didn't like when I turned on him first with the swap at the whole "Green Fleet" boondoggle. Sad, I saw and still do see a generally nice and effective man - though one who IMAO is misallocating his intellectual and political capital.

He can't like some of the latest news. Are people intentionally blowing off the SECNAV's signature issue - a brave thing to do - or do the smart people see something going on in the background? Has SECNAV sent out messages ... or does the message speak for itself?

Germany is coming to terms with the fact that you can go broke wearing too much green - and we may have a little of that acknowledgement in the background - the Navy might be reaching an understanding as well.

The U.S. Navy’s high-profile program to draw half of its energy from alternative fuels by 2020 didn’t receive much attention during the opening day of the annual Sea-Air-Space conference.

The effort, dubbed the Great Green Fleet and championed by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, didn’t headline any of the panels. The topic of energy instead came up during an afternoon session that mostly centered on the Marine Corps’ small-scale use of portable solar panels in Afghanistan and during training exercises at stateside posts.

Solar=good. Gold plated fuel by the metric ton? Notsomuch.

If you are interested in digging a little deeper and are still feeling Kermit like - our friend Captain Ike Kiefer, USN has a nice primer.

Some prominent arguments appear almost daily in the media that biofuels will increase our domestic supply of transportation fuel, end our dependence on foreign oil, reduce military vulnerabilities on the battlefield, and generally improve national security. Biofuels are further touted to reduce fuel price volatility, polluting emissions, and green - house gases (GHG) and even stimulate the economy. These arguments all fall apart under scrutiny. The promise and curse of biofuels is that they are limited by the energy that living organisms harvest from the sun and suffer a fatal “catch-22”: uncultivated biofuel yields are far too small, diffuse, and infrequent to displace any meaningful fraction of US primary energy needs, and boosting yields through cultivation consumes more energy than it adds to the biomass. Furthermore, the harvested biomass requires large amounts of additional energy to convert it into the compact, energy-rich, liquid hydrocarbon form required for compatibility with the nation’s fuel infrastructure, transportation sector, and especially the military. The energy content of the final-product biofuel compared to the energy required to produce it proves to be a very poor investment, especially compared to other alternatives. In many cases, there is net loss of energy. When energy balance (energy output minus energy input) across the full fuel creation and combustion lifecycle is considered, cultivated liquid biofuels are revealed to be a modern-day attempt at perpetual motion that is doomed by the laws of thermodynamics and a fatal dependence on fossil fuel energy.

That got a rather lame response from DOD by Adam L. Rosenberg, Ph.D., Deputy Director for Technology Strategy - who has left to become a staffer on the Energy Subcommittee of the House Science, Space, Technology Committee. Follow the money ....

Well ... it makes sense. When the taxpayers are having their Blue Angels held back as DON has a major pout-fest because the peasants are not giving up their seed corn - paying exorbitant amounts per gallon for a quasi-socialist industrial policy on the back of the military budget just does not pass muster.

I think the tide must be turning. I really feel sorry for anyone who missed the turn, and sold a lot of personal capital by writing an obsequious suck-up "Mister, mister, look at me" article.  All that ... and you're left in the wake after corpen. Yea ... that would be sad to see.

The Great Green Vanity

Think about all the priorities you want your senior leadership focused on.

Think about all the talk over the years about not micro-managing our leaders.

Think about all the talk about removing excessive administrative burdens.

I've set the stage a bit. The rest you simply need to read yourself Para 5.D for all my friends.

Damning.

R 062011Z JAN 16 ZYB
FM COMNAVSURFOR SAN DIEGO CA
TO ALNAVSURFOR
INFO SECNAV WASHINGTON DC
CNO WASHINGTON DC
COMPACFLT PEARL HARBOR HI
COMUSFLTFORCOM NORFOLK VA
COMNAVSEASYSCOM WASHINGTON DC
COMTHIRDFLT
COMFOURTHFLT
COMFIFTHFLT
COMSIXTHFLT
COMSEVENTHFLT
CHINFO WASHINGTON DC
COMNAVSURFPAC SAN DIEGO CA
BT
UNCLAS
SECINFO/-/-//
MSGID/GENADMIN,USMTF,2008/COMNAVSURFPAC SAN DIEGO CA/-/DEC//
SUBJ/GREAT GREEN FLEET (GGF) ANNOUNCEMENT AND GUIDANCE//
REF/A/MSG/CNSP/072047ZDEC2015//
AMPN/REF A IS READRESSAL OF USFF GREAT GREEN FLEET 2016 EXORD//
POC/P. [redacted]/CIV/UNIT:COMNAVSURFPAC N43FCAS/NAME:SAN DIEGO/TEL:619-437-[redacted]/EMAIL:PHIL.[redacted](AT)NAVY.MIL//
POC/M. [redacted]/CTR/UNIT:COMNAVSURFPAC N43ENERGY/NAME:SAN DIEGO/TEL:619-556-[redacted]/EMAIL:JAMES.M.[redacted].CTR(AT)NAVY.MIL//
POC/DAVID [redacted]/CDR/UNIT:COMNAVSURFLANT N43C1/NAME:NORVA/TEL:757-444-[redacted]/EMAIL:DAVID.B.[redacted](AT)NAVY.MIL//
POC/VINCE [redacted]/CTR/UNIT:COMNAVSURFLANT N43ENERGY/NAME:NORVA
/TEL:757-444-[redacted]/EMAIL:VINCENT.[redacted].CTR(AT)NAVY.MIL//
GENTEXT/REMARKS/1. THIS MESSAGE IS CNSF GUIDANCE FOR SURFACE SHIP PARTICIPATION IN THE GGF AS OUTLINED IN REF A. MORE SPECIFICALLY, IT PROVIDES DIRECTION TO ISICS AND SHIPS REGARDING GGF IMPLEMENTATION AND REPORTING REQUIREMENTS.
2. BACKGROUND: THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY AND THE CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS HAVE STATED THAT 2016 IS TO BE THE YEAR OF THE GGF. THE GGF WILL COMPRISE A YEAR-LONG SERIES OF EVENTS, OPERATIONS, AND DEPLOYMENTS HIGHLIGHTING THE NAVY'S OPERATIONAL ENERGY AWARENESS, CONSERVATION CAPABILITIES, AND USE OF ALTERNATIVE FUELS (E.G., ADVANCED BIOFUELS, NUCLEAR). THE CNO'S GOALS TO REDUCE AFLOAT AND
SHORE ENERGY CONSUMPTION ARE INTENDED TO: INCREASE ENERGY SECURITY, EXPAND MISSION PERFORMANCE, AND EXTEND SHIP ENDURANCE. IN SHORT, ACHIEVING NAVY ENERGY CONSERVATION GOALS WILL IMPROVE WARFIGHTING EFFECTIVENESS. ACROSS THE NAVY, OVER FOUR-FIFTHS OF THE ENERGY CONSUMED IS FOR THE TACTICAL EMPLOYMENT OF OUR FORCES, WITH THE REMAINDER CONSUMED ASHORE. WITH OVER HALF OF THE NAVY'S FUEL CONSUMED BY SHIPS, THE GGF WILL PLAY A KEY ROLE IN MEETING NAVY ENERGY GOALS.
3. ACTION: IAW REF A, ALL SURFACE SHIPS SHALL MAKE EVERY EFFORT TO HAVE AT LEAST THREE ENERGY CONSERVATION MEASURES (ECM) OR OPERATIONAL PROCEDURES (OP) IN PLACE WHENEVER OPERATIONALLY FEASIBLE. ECMS ARE INSTALLED TECHNOLOGIES DESIGNED TO SAVE ENERGY SUCH AS STERN FLAPS, BOW MODIFICATIONS, LED LIGHTING, PROPELLER COATINGS, ENERGY DASHBOARDS, ETC. OP ARE WAYS IN WHICH SHIPS EFFICIENTLY OPERATE TO SAVE ENERGY. THEY INCLUDE:
A. TRAIL SHAFT: TRAIL ONE SHAFT WITH PROPELLER PITCH SET IAW EOP TO MINIMIZE DRAG.
B. STEADY STATE TRANSIT: CALCULATE AND TRANSIT AT OPTIMAL SPEED WHEN UNDERWAY.
C. SECURE PRAIRIE-MASKER SYSTEM: LIMIT USE OF BLEED AIR FOR PRAIRIE-MASKER APPLICATIONS TO THE MINIMUM REQUIRED TO MAINTAIN BELT CLEANLINESS AND SUPPORT ASW TRAINING OR OPERATIONS.
D. AUTOPILOT: UTILIZE AUTOPILOT SYSTEM DURING TRANSITS.
E. DRIFT OPERATIONS: SECURE MAIN PROPULSION ENGINES WHILE LOITERING IF QUICK RESTART CAPABILITY IS AVAILABLE.
F. BATTLE GROUP OPTIMAL SPEED CALCULATOR (BOSC): BATTLE GROUPS TRANSIT AT OPTIMAL TRANSIT SPEED AS CALCULATED BY STRIKE GROUP COMMANDER USING BOSC TOOL.
G. DUTY RADAR: WHEN TWO OR MORE AEGIS PLATFORMS ARE OPERATING IN THE SAME AREA, AIR WARFARE COMMANDER ALLOWS ONE SHIP TO OPERATE THEIR SYSTEM IN LOW POWER OR STANDBY.
H. LOW POWER SPY RADAR OPERATION: SHIPS OPERATE SPY RADAR IN LOW POWER WHEN FEASIBLE.
NOTE: AS ALWAYS, COMMANDING OFFICERS ARE EXPECTED TO USE OPERATIONAL RISK MANAGEMENT TO ENSURE THESE MEASURES DO NOT ENDANGER THEIR SHIP OR PLACE MISSION ACCOMPLISHMENT AT RISK. FOR EXAMPLE, ENERGY CONSERVATION MEASURES OR EQUIPMENT LINE-UPS THAT LIMIT PROPULSION ARE NOT APPROPRIATE WHEN OPERATING IN RESTRICTED MANEUVERING SITUATIONS. OF NOTE, SINGLE-GENERATOR OPERATION REMOVES ALL ELECTRIC PLANT REDUNDANCY AND IS NOT AN AUTHORIZED OPERATIONAL PROCEDURE.
4. REPORTING REQUIREMENTS: IAW REF A, SHIPS ARE REQUIRED TO REPORT THEIR GGF OP EMPLOYMENT HOURS DAILY VIA THE OPREP-5 BEGINNING 01JAN16. FORMAL DIRECTION TO BEGIN INCLUDING THIS DATA AND ITS FORMAT WILL BE GIVEN BY RESPECTIVE FLEET COMMANDERS SEPCOR. ADDITIONALLY, ISICS AND SHIPS ADCON TO CNSP/L SHALL CONSOLIDATE DAILY OP DATA AND PROVIDE A WEEKLY ROLL UP TO THE RESPECTIVE TYCOM POCS VIA SPREADSHEET (TEMPLATE PROVIDED SEPCOR).
5. INPORT ENERGY CONSERVATION INITIATIVES: THOUGH NOT STRICTLY SPEAKING AN ELEMENT OF THE GGF, INPORT ENERGY CONSERVATION IS AN IMPORTANT PART OF BROADER SECNAV/CNO/TYCOM EFFORTS TO SAVE ENERGY.
A. MONITORING. TYCOMS ARE NOW MONITORING INPORT ELECTRICAL CONSUMPTION THROUGH THE INSTALLATION OF AN ADVANCED METERING INFRASTRUCTURE (AMI) SYSTEM AT EACH PIER BERTH. THESE METERS PROVIDE A DETAILED BREAKDOWN OF PIERSIDE ENERGY CONSUMPTION. THIS INFORMATION IS FORWARDED MONTHLY TO ISICS AND SHIPS FOR AWARENESS, AND IS BEING USED TO DEVELOP SEASONAL BASELINES BY SHIP CLASS.
B. PROPER SPACE TEMPERATURE SETTINGS. ENSURE ALL THERMOSTATS ARE PROPERLY SET BASED ON THE SEASON, AS HIGH AS PRACTICAL IN THE WARM SEASON AND AS LOW AS PRACTICAL IN THE COOL SEASON.
C. LIGHTS. TURN OFF LIGHTS IN UNMANNED SPACES. SET DARKEN SHIP BETWEEN TAPS AND REVEILLE.
D. FLEET ENERGY MANAGERS (FEM). FEMS ARE CHARGED WITH TRAINING AND EDUCATING SHIPS ON THE NAVY'S ENERGY CONSERVATION PROGRAM. CONTACT YOUR RESPECTIVE TYCOM POC TO ARRANGE A VISIT.//
BT

Hat tip C.

SECNAV, When You've Lost ViceNews ....

This sad little vanity project is well known to the folks here on the Front Porch, but it appears that the smell could not be contained.

As reported by Justin Rohrlich at Vice;

In an October 2009 speech at the Naval Energy Forum, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, who had taken over the post six months before, unveiled five energy targets he wanted the Navy to hit over the course of the following decade.

"Energy reform is a strategic imperative," he said.

One of the targets involved the deployment, by 2016, of what he called the Great Green Fleet, a carrier strike group "composed of nuclear ships, surface combatants equipped with hybrid electric alternative power systems running biofuel, and aircraft flying only [on] biofuels."

Three years later, following a vicious battle with Republican legislators over the initiative, a 50/50 blend of chicken fat and conventional petroleum successfully powered two destroyers and a cruiser for two days during a month-long warfare exercise in Hawaii. The feat required 450,000 gallons of biofuel at a cost of $12 million;

We should all give credit to Rep. Duncan Hunter The Younger (R-CA) for his clarity on this topic;

For 2016, the Navy has purchased just under 80 million gallons of the 10/90 biofuel blend, about 6 percent of the 1.3 billion gallons of fuel the Navy uses annually. The Navy paid $2.05 per gallon, which is roughly in line with the cost of regular marine diesel thanks to robust biofuel subsidies from the US government, though that hasn't satisfied the program's detractors.

"There's more important shit to spend money on in the military, period," says US Representative Duncan Hunter, a Marine Corps veteran and Republican congressman from San Diego, principal homeport of the Navy's Pacific Fleet.

He describes the decision-makers behind the Great Green Fleet as "all the smartest guys that went to the John F. Kennedy School of Smart People," and calls their interest in biofuels "just stupid."

This adds no value to our Navy and actually is counter-productive;

A recent analysis by Transport & Environment, a European conservation group, found that biodiesel made from palm oil leads to three times the overall CO2 emissions of regular petroleum-based diesel. Therefore the biofuel the Navy took on in the Mediterranean earlier this year arguably enlarged its carbon footprint.
…
"The Department of Energy is investing a lot of money into algae-based fuels, which are promising, but often the greenest fuels are also the most expensive ones," says Emily Cassidy, a research analyst at the Washington, DC-based Environmental Working Group.

The Navy has paid as much as $424 a gallon for algae-based biofuel in the past…
…
Biofuels need to be created from something, and according to a report released last year by the nonpartisan World Resources Institute, a Washington, DC-based research group, meeting 20 percent of global energy demand using plant-based biofuels by 2050 "would require humanity to at least double the world's annual harvest of plant material in all its forms.... Therefore, the quest for bioenergy at a meaningful scale is both unrealistic and unsustainable."

In the end, this isn’t just a wasteful vanity project by the SECNAV, but embarrassing for all the good people whose professional lives are impacted by supporting it.

Somerville says that "the Navy is essentially doing, well, I don't really know what they're doing. I suppose they're making a statement that they want renewables."

Hunter's take is that a "green [Navy] sounds great to a large part of the population that votes a specific way."

And Heinberg says it's due to nothing short of an existential crisis.

"[Navy officials] see the future of oil as bleak, and without oil, how do they stay in business? There is no real answer," he says. "They've got to grasp at some straw or another, and this is the one that's nearest.... But just because people need something doesn't mean it exists."

What a boondoggle.

Gaggley Green Gobbledegook

The blessings of technology and geography have us heading in the direction of more oil production than Saudi Arabia inside of 7 years.

Our defense budget groans under the stress of recapitalizing after a decade of war, cuts & sequestration ... and yet - there is always time for vanity projects, it seems.

Solar instead of batteries, good idea ... but ....

The Pentagon increasingly sees this energy dependence as a military weakness and is trying to reduce it. The Navy is attempting to transition to biofuels for its ships and planes, and the Army and Marine Corps are exploring a host of initiatives, including using solar energy to power radio batteries.

"Every time some yahoo says 'I'm going to close the Strait of Hormuz' (the price of) oil spikes," Navy Secretary Ray Mabus told USA TODAY in an interview.

In the past, Iran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world's oil supply travels.

"Right now, we buy our oil from foreign sources, and some of those sources don't have our best interest at heart," Mabus said.

OK, let's check a few facts, shall we?

The United States relied on net imports (imports minus exports) for about 45% of the petroleum (crude oil and petroleum products) that we consumed in 2011. Just over half of these imports came from the Western Hemisphere. Our dependence on foreign petroleum has declined since peaking in 2005.

Join us in 2013 people! The economy blows, but otherwise the water is warm ... or changing ... whatever.

The United States isn’t quite as reliant on foreign oil as it used to be.

Imports of crude oil and other petroleum products are on pace to drop to 6 million barrels per day by 2014, according to new forecasts by the Energy Information Administration. That’s the lowest level since 1987. It’s also just half as much liquid fuel as the country was importing back in 2005, at 12.5 million barrels per day.

So what’s responsible for the drop? For starters, the United States is producing more of its own crude. New drilling techniques such as hydraulic fracturing for shale have helped companies access “tight oil” in places like North Dakota and Texas.

And the less-noticed flip side is that Americans are using less oil. Consumption of liquid fuels plummeted during the recession, and it isn’t expected to rebound anytime soon. The EIA projects that Americans will be driving slightly more over the next few years as the economy recovers, but that will be offset by more-efficient vehicles and the retirement of older cars and trucks:
...
Combine those two trends together, and U.S. imports are falling rapidly. By 2014, the EIA expects the country to import just 32 percent of its oil, down from 60 percent in 2005.

So, let's review.

We buy SOME of our oil from other nations, and the percentage is dropping. As of right now, half of that oil comes from countries in the Western Hemisphere. As far as I know, Canada and Mexico generally have our interests at heart, and Venezuela is a basket case.

Look to the right shipmates - which nations is the SECNAV referring to that don't have our best interests at heart?

Let's assume that the Western Hemisphere generally is "feh" to "meh" about the USA at the worst (post-Hugo Venezuela I'm talking to you).

Ditto for African sources of oil. They actually mostly like us.

That leaves the Persian Gulf. 12.9%. Who in the SECNAV's office wants to call the Saudi embassy and tell them that the SECNAV does not think that The Kingdom does not have the best interest at heart? 
Hey, I think honest people can debate that point ... but let's play Mr. Mumble Grumpypants and say they don't. That is 8.1%.  Kuwait? Bahrain? Qatar? UAE? I'm stretching here ... but no, they're mostly fine.

What if we just got rid of Persian Gulf oil at 12.9%.  And the economist in me says;

"Anybody who follows the oil industry will tell you that it doesn't make any difference where the oil comes from," says Keith Crane, an energy expert at RAND Corp.

Global oil markets are so intertwined, Crane says, that changes in any one part of the system can trigger effects elsewhere.

He points out that the U.S. has imposed sanctions on Iran and therefore does not import its oil. But "if Iranian oil goes off the [world] market, it still affects the price in the United States," Crane says.

Meanwhile, Iran has had no real problem selling its oil to Asian countries, though tougher sanctions are set to go into place this summer.

Now that the U.S. involvement in Iraq has wound down, Crane says, oil seems to be less of an American security concern.

"Do you need military might to preserve access to oil? I don't think there's a lot of evidence to say that's really important," he says.

OK. Another opinion, perhaps?

People have tended to exaggerate how much oil we imported from the Middle East. In the long term, it may look like a historical anomaly that the U.S. became so involved in the Persian Gulf.
- John Duffield, energy expert at Georgia State University

OK; get your political Vince Lombardi playing cards out.  Ace of Spades; "Who benefits?"

Let's review the project;

A centerpiece of Mabus' initiative was the Great Green Fleet, a demonstration last year of the Navy's ability to operate its ships and aircraft on biofuels.

During the demonstration, the Navy powered a carrier strike group, which consists of escort ships and aircraft, with 50% biofuels over a two-day exercise. The biofuels were made from a number of sources, including used cooking oil and algae.

The Green Fleet name is a reference to President Theodore Roosevelt's Great White Fleet, a battle group that circled the globe in a demonstration of American seapower in the early part of last century.

Critics saw the Great Green Fleet as a demonstration of wasted taxpayer money. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., has pointed out that the Navy spent $12 million for biofuels at $27 a gallon for the demonstration.

The Navy acknowledges it has paid a premium for biofuels, but insists it is for experimental and test purposes only until the price becomes competitive with conventional fuel.

The Navy's use of the Defense Production Act, designed to allow the military to support industries considered critical to national security, to invest in biofuel refineries has drawn criticism.

"The Navy wants to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in companies to create the market," Forbes says.

Mabus sees the investment in biofuels as a hedge against the vagaries of the world oil markets.

U.S. military aircraft and ships patrolling the Persian Gulf or in the far reaches of the Pacific are forced to purchase much of their fuel from foreign suppliers, where they are hostage to price fluctuations and vulnerable to supply disruptions by rogue states.

Mabus said the Navy has faced skeptics before.

"The Navy has always been on the forefront of changing energy use," Mabus says. He said there were skeptics when the Navy moved from wind to steam.

"Every single time, those naysayers were absolutely wrong," Mabus says. "If price had been the only consideration, we'd still be using sails."

I am all about experimentation, but this vanity project should stop there. The Navy should not be in the industrial energy policy business. The economics is wrong, the geo-political basis is wrong, the justifications are wrong ... and the spin simply cannot stand up to the follow-on question.

The last part of the pull quote is just insulting. The Navy went from sail to steam just as industry did. Ditto from coal to oil. When you look at the driver of sail to coal to oil, what was the big driver? Simple; energy density and economics of moving something further cheaper.

Biofuels - as the MPG on my FlexFuel truck tells me - is not as energy efficient as traditional oil. So, actually, the SECNAVs argument works against him. Not only are biofuels less efficient than normal fuels - they cost more. Pay more - get less.  That is 180deg policy lock-off if I have ever seen it.

I'm sorry - of all the things to expend political capital on - this is not it. 

Meanwhile ... 8-month deployments are being called the norm SECNAV. Please pivot.

---

UPDATE: The folks at CIMSEC are engaged in a little parallel play. Worth a read.

Grasping at the Fading Light

It's taken a week, but I think I've finally found a way to address a slightly bizarre article by Wyatt Olson in S&S on the soon to be outgoing SECNAV. It isn't the writing that is bizarre, it is the mess of the subject at hand, Ray Mabus.

After originally being a fan, I soured on Mabus when he started down the "Great Green Fleet" boondoggle, and I've never really seen a reason to come back. I wish I were wrong about him, but after going back to Olson's article, I've come to the conclusion that I was correct in keeping a tilted head. 

Mabus isn't "bad" as SECNAV, it is just that in so many things, his personal biases lead him to be wrong. If he focused on what a SECNAV should so, I think he would be an exceptionally solid SECNAV - but look at the strange items he invested professional capital on to satisfy personal agenda items. What a waste.

First, let's start with what Mabus has done well.

On the top of his to-do list was increasing the number of ships being built for the Navy, a goal Mabus has achieved.

“In 2001, the U.S. Navy had 316 ships,” Mabus said. “By 2008, seven years later, after one of the big military buildups in our history, we were down to 278 ships.” With the contracts in the pipeline, the Navy is on track to possess 308 ships by 2021, he said.

Looking to the previous administration, as his Chief of Staff put it;

Not blaming, just facts. 41 ships put under contract 01-08. 86 under contract 09-16.

One could push back a bit about being involved in two resource stretching land wars in Asia from 01-08, but the numbers are what they are. Mabus's fleet building was done with the opposition party in control of Congress for most of his years in office - so good on him and his team there.

Now, let's get to the part of Olson's review that led me to further believe in Mabus's detachment from what his other policies actually are and their consumption of professional capital. Just a few examples;

Mabus contends that the underlying motive for his changes has been to make sailors and Marines better warfighters.

Warfighters. OK. When someone uses, "warfigher" in this way; shields up.

Mabus also touts the success of moving the Navy and Marine Corps away from fossil fuels to renewables. He launched the Great Green Fleet initiative soon after becoming secretary, and earlier this year the first aircraft carrier group was deployed using a 50-50 blend of fossil and biofuels.

As of last year, Navy and Marine Corps bases were getting half their energy from renewable sources, such as solar, wind and geothermal, Mabus said. Renewables account for about 35 percent of the energy the Navy uses at sea – half of which is nuclear.

“We’re better warfighters today because of it,” he said. “We’re more expeditionary because of it. We’re less vulnerable because of it.”

Experiments are good, but paying exorbitant amounts of money for bespoke blends to try some Soviet style industrial policy for renewable energy (covered here over the years), all during the period that fracking turned the USA in to a net exporter of fuel? No. Then there is the abuse of the word "warfighter" - something we'll see again. There is zero evidence anything involving fuel from beef fat helped in the Long War. Zip, zero, nada.

When it comes to naming ships, Mabus said, “I know I’m not going to please everybody. But my job, as I see it, is to make sure that those ships connect to the American people.

“If you live in Wichita, you don’t have much connection to the Navy normally. But now that there’s a USS Wichita, there’s that connection.”

In defending his strange ship naming policies - I have to throw a flag here. Wichita is in Kansas. When you look where the Navy recruits from, on a per capita basis Kansas comes in at #27 of 54 USA States and territories measured. Kansas has more Navy to it than the SECNAV's home state Mississippi (#28), and some States where one would think the Navy's presence would have some impact on recruiting; New Hampshire (#46), Connecticut (#48), and Rhode Island (#50).

Is the SECNAV ill-informed or just grasping for excuses and distractions unmoored by facts in order to avoid discussing why he really picked the names he did? Hard to tell, but he owes our Sailors from Kansas an apology.

He should have stopped there.

Mabus’s predecessor instituted a namesake convention based on famous American explorers and pioneers for a new class of supply ships called T-AKEs. Mabus named ships after civil rights leaders Medgar Evers and Cesar Chavez because he regards them as pioneers.

“I got the name Cesar Chavez from the shipyard,” he said. “They were the ones who recommended it because 85 percent of the shipyard workers in San Diego are Hispanic.”

Yeah, read that again.

What does one do with this? Is this patronizing or just plain insulting? 

What an assumption he makes here wrapped in an acceptance and promotion of sectarian based naming of ships. I guess that was more important than the consideration that Chavez was openly negative about his time in the Navy and the Navy in general.

As for the numbers, here's a fun fact; San Diego is only 28.8% "Hispanic." Under Mabus's leadership, the Navy has spent tens of millions of dollars bleating on about making sure our Navy "looks like America" - yet - well - I'll let you take it from there, this isn't Thursday.

There is more in the article to chew on, but here is a quote to help you look forward;

How much of Mabus’ legacy, including contracting, renewable energy and gender equality, will survive the incoming administration is an open question since Republicans won control of Congress and the White House in the Nov. 8 election.

“It’s hard to roll back the stuff your predecessor did unless there’s some reason that it’s absolutely not working,” VanDiver said.

Of potential reversals, Mabus said, “If you go back, you make us a less effective warfighting force. I don’t know anybody who wants to do that.

“It shouldn’t be ideological. It shouldn’t be a matter of political correctness or anything like that. It’s what makes us better warfighters.”

That is whistling past the graveyard. That which can be created on the sand of personal whim can be removed via the same methods.

It is not that hard to roll things back, all it takes is will and leadership. Looking at who the team the Trump Administration is probably going to put together from, you will have a Navy team focused on 350 ships and little foolishness. 

There will be compromises that will need to be made, we'll have to dance with the programs we have in the first decade, and hard work will need to be done to get on that glidepath - but the focus will be on what a Navy is, not what social and political experiments can be done with it. 

To accelerate progress towards 350, the new team will require the stripping away of non-value added distractions and anything that slows efficiency down. As such, there will be ample opportunity to pack up some of the previous Administration's hobby horses and put them on the curve for pickup.

It will be a grand sight to see.

SECNAV Promotes an Official Religion

Under the prior Democratic administration, we saw seabags full of personal and institutional capital - not to mention a lot of actual capital - expended on the farcical "Great Green Fleet."

As it is with all non-value added political vanity projects (remember "Lean-In Circles"), the Navy doesn't keep them across administrations because they are just foolish and wasteful in addition to being just domestic policy objectives and personal positioning on the Navy's dime. With the Biden Administration, the Gaia cult has returned and sadly the present SECNAV feels that he needs to make another run with the same talking points supporting a neo-pagan doomsday cult that has been warning of impending doom for decades that is always right over the horizon but never arrives.

This unserious hobby is the real "existential threat." It is a distraction in time, money, focus, and institutional credibility. We have very real threats over the horizon and in our desire to pay homage to the cult, we are in the process of empowering our enemies with our foolishness.

Let's look at the maritime challenges facing our nation; an inadequate industrial base; an almost extinct merchant marine; an inability to design and build effective and affordable warships on a regular basis; Africa and Asia facing famine and instability do the the inability to get grain out of the Black Sea at market prices; a Chinese navy's steady rise to primacy in the Pacific. We could go on, yet in the summer of 2022, what is our SECNAV expending time on?

The climate crisis is a threat we know well at the U.S. Department of the Navy: It impacts our mission, our people, our platforms and our installations. As secretary of the Navy, I have three enduring priorities: strengthen our maritime dominance, empower our people and strengthen our strategic partnerships. These priorities serve a driving purpose in my comprehensive strategy “Climate Action 2030,” which I signed earlier this year.

The approach builds on the department’s history of leadership and partnership on climate and energy. It commits us to ambitious action across the entire enterprise to combat what both President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have identified as an “existential threat.” It is against this backdrop that I will visit the South Pacific and Oceania region this week.

As we sat fat, dumb, and distracted in DC, China island hopped through the Pacific making friends and bases in what was once our backyard. Were any of their gains made through climate change histrionics - even though China is the #1 producer of what Gaia's priests call "greenhouse gasses?"

No. Of course not. They are a serious nation with serious goals made by serious people with serious plan to secure them.

Us?

Additionally, the United States Naval Construction Battalions, better known as Seabees, are working with partners to adapt and build resilience throughout the region to buttress themselves against the climate crisis, helping to build renewable energy microgrids as well as shoreline and wetlands improvements. The Marine Corps, the nation’s crisis response force, trains all year to be prepared to respond to any disaster or threat anywhere around the world. 

This is all fine and well, but let us talk plainly with each other - even if Al Gore has always been right and speaks revealed truth through is chosen prophet John Kerry - will that counter the gains of China in any meaningful way?

No. No it won't. Just like the "Great Green Fleet" did nothing for the combat power of the US Navy and "Lean in Circles" did nothing to support women in the service, that isn't the goal. What is being done is using DON money, manpower, time, and reputation to provide fan service to domestic political constituencies for - in the end - civilian gain and profit.

Nothing else. 

If you care for the environment - as I do - then wouldn't you rather see this time and effort spent on ensuring when Sailors and Marines are deployed, their families have clean water, superfund sites on bases that are rapidly being cleaned up, base housing clear of mold and lead, health and child care best positioned to help those in need? Then, in those nations we help, help what they need; access to clean water, markets, waste management, and good governance. Much of that should come through the State Department, but ... well ... of course.

Nothing DON does will effect what the planet's ever changing climate does - but it can effect what the people in other nations think of us ... and what facilities we may or may not have access too when we need to sustain the fight west of Wake in the not-too-distant future.

Serious ideas and people are needed for a serious time.

Reforming the Confederate Navy

What characterized the Confederate Navy? Though many things - she was scrappy, inventive, and had some outstanding leaders - in line with many things in the Confederacy though, she suffered a fatal flaw that doomed her. In her case, the Confederate Navy placed her bet on a few grand ships to make the "transformational" break.

When we think of the Confederate Navy, we think of the CSS VIRGINIA, CSS HUNLEY, and at least I think of the CSS SHENANDOAH. Wonderful platforms, but in the end did little but absorb people and resources.

The Confederate Navy adapted where she could, but when faced with having to build a fleet from scratch - she threw her lot in with transformationalism. VIRGINIA and HUNLEY were wonderful ground breaking designs and concepts - built against tremendous odds - but in the end they were like the nation they served - beautiful losers destroyed by their own fatal conceits.

What was their conceit? They thought that a few high technological breakthroughs thrown into a few hulls and applied with a bit of tactical verve could triumph over the many primarily pushing sound fundamentals.

I think alternative history is a goofy subject when real history is so much more interesting, but if Sherman never made it through the Atlanta defensive lines and the Democrats won the '64 election - someone would have had the opportunity to look at the wartime record of the Confederate Navy and set about building a better, more balanced fleet based upon what worked.

Funny the things that will tangentially come into one's mind. When I got through looking over the PPT and PDF from the exceptionally poorly titled The New Navy Fighting Machine, what came to mind was the conceptual challenge of a post-war Confederate Navy.

Goofy, no? Well, work with me a bit; tell me if you see it.

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NPS Professor and retired CAPT Wayne P. Hughes, Jr. and his crew deserve congrats for a very good and thought provoking work - one that if not related, then at least that folds in well with the conversation CDR Henry J. Hendrix, Jr. brought forward in Buy Ford not Ferrari.

You could spend a few thousand words discussing in detail their work - which we don't have time for right now - but let me take some time to point out the good, bad and others.

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The good;
First of all, the PDF shows a great focus on China, and the China challenge influences a lot of their ideas. That intellectual honesty and clear headed view of the future makes the discussion in and from the document of much greater use than the 2/3 of our latest Maritime Strategy that I find so useless. As that touchstone, the China challenge is an important reference when looking at what they offer.

... we anticipate formidable Chinese sea-denial capabilities that will threaten to reduce American influence in East Asia.

Already taking place. I have called it the Porcupine Strategy. They don't have to be the biggest or most dangerous - they just need to make it look too painful to mess with.

Submarines in greater numbers are central to the maritime strategy, but within a constrained budget the larger force cannot be exclusively nuclear powered. We find that diesel submarines with air-independent propulsion not only allow twice as many submarines, but they also nicely complement the SSNs in the critical scenario.

That is for the USA - and I don't think you can buy and maintain twice as many SS as SSN - but perhaps close to 3 to 2. Still a sound concept. If an early 20th Century designed Type VII, then a 21st Century SS can handle a little transit time.

Perhaps most important of all, we emphasize maritime power as the foundation of present American influence and international prosperity. Sea power’s value is well appreciated by our friends around the world, but is taken too much for granted by the American public. The United States is a maritime nation and the United States Navy is its great manifestation.

That last sentence should be put on a bumper sticker and some JOPA DC DET types should put it on cars in all the nice parking spots at the Pentagon.

Concurrent with broad agreement on the new fighting machine’s characteristics, it is necessary to calculate whether its personnel costs will be more or less than the cost of manning, training, and supporting the 313-ship Navy. Our impression is that:
- In numbers, manning 650 mostly smaller ships will be about the same.
- In terms of individual, shipboard team and fleet tactical training, the cost will be somewhat less.
- The cost to support recruiting, assignment, and education will be determined by the outcome of the manning and training calculations.
Here and there we highlight the easier training to competencies for the smaller and more focused warships of the new fighting machine. But, in a different way, the training must be just as sophisticated. Examples are (1) the need to prepare junior commanding officers of patrol craft in the art of theater security and nation building; and (2) the return to professionalism in warships devoted to mine warfare, antisubmarine warfare, and countering swarms of small missile boats—as compared to the well-developed capability to deliver accurate strikes ashore. There is time to change the training as the new fleet is produced, but only if both the different tactics and new training are developed simultaneously with the new operational emphasis.

Manpower. That is the key - sell with sound work manpower considerations.

American nation needs a fleet that is more distributed for flexible presence, adjustable intensities, short and long durations, survival against surprise attack, and which is capable of fighting in tight corners and taking affordable losses. The new fighting machine incorporates many simpler and more single-purposed vessels so that the Fleet can respond more quickly in an unforeseeable direction to a particularly severe threat or rewarding opportunity—what has been called “a Black Swan.” We are arguing against a Navy with warships so hard-wired that an unforeseen surprise will be fatal, because our present fleet is an organization of long lived big warships, some programmed to last 40 years in order to amortize their construction costs.

We are not as hard-wired as we used to be. I think we are already moving in this direction - though we can do better.

Preserving the industrial base for an abrupt expansion is a DoD (Department of Defense) obligation. The industrial base does not appear explicitly in designing the new fighting machine, but an awareness of the need for competition and greater cost controls is implicit everywhere.

Of course, anyone who uses my favorite example of doing it right will always get a gold-star-happy-face. Seriously - this is a story that every officer should know by heart.

Here is an illustration of design experimentation with a happy ending. It is the story of the Treaty Cruisers built under terms of the 1921 Washington Naval Disarmament Treaty. During the 1920s and 1930s, heavy cruiser standard displacement of 10,000 tons was the limiting design factor instead of construction costs. Four classes were designed and built under the treaty, in 1925, 1927, 1929, and 1931-34, each successive class being obviously superior to the previous one. How much superior was a hotly debated question answered in World War II. The first two, supposedly much inferior, ships of the Pensacola class saw as much action as any cruisers, were repaired after battle damage, and survived the war. Looking at the 15 supposedly much improved later cruisers built under treaty limitations, seven—almost half—were sunk. Our impression is that the effectiveness of USS Pensacola and Salt Lake City was about 90% that of the culminating seven-ship USS Astoria class, three of which were destroyed in the Battle of Savo Island in about 15 minutes. Equally important, when the treaty terms were lifted in 1936, we were ready with the design for 17 more heavy cruisers of the magnificent USS Baltimore and Oregon City classes. All were ordered by July 1940 and commissioned before the end of the war. None were sunk.

The following suggestion/compromise about LCS needs to be acted on before we have a few dozen "test beds." As a face-saving move, it iss a good compromise as a chance to move forward with alternatives .... but there isn't much time left to act.

...LCS must not be regarded as a design failure, but as a technological, tactical, and training test bed. The fact that it is suited well neither as a blue water or green water combatant can be useful. On one hand, it can help to design a better armed, less costly blue water frigate. On the other, LCS shows what not to do to develop affordable green water designs to perform inshore patrol missions, clear mines, defeat small missile boats, and screen against coastal submarines.

In a discussion of Green Water, they discuss "Coastal Combatants" ... can we just be clear and call them Corvettes though?

The coastal combatant is not a patrol vessel for theater security operations. It is a small fighting vessel intended to “clear out the clutter” of enemy or neutral vessels in littoral waters. The afloat clutter may be swarms of enemy small craft, fast attack craft carrying surface-to-surface missiles such as the Chinese 220-ton Houbei class, and fishing boats and coastal traders that might serve as reconnaissance posts in a targeting system. Coastal combatants are heavily armed, but small enough to accept affordable losses. They should operate in tactical formations of two, four, eight, or twelve vessels. They carry no surveillance aircraft, so depend on CVLs or shore-based reconnaissance.

Well described, and there are designs already out there (Visby) that fit the bill (BZ to them from bringing up the losing but superior option for LCS). However, as an institution, everyone should stop references the b@st@rd stepchild of Bu11sh1t B1ngo that is Streetfighter and Sealance et al. That buzzword PPT spawn are part of the reason we are where we are in 2010. Use proper naval terms that sound like they are coming form a professional and less like some video game designer. It insults an officer's intelligence and drops everyone's IQ by half a standard deviation every time it goes in the ear.

After the bait and swich snake oil salesmanship of the last decade + that got us where we are today, I am not the only one who is immediately suspicious every time someone starts using too-clever-by-half, cheesy marketing words for what are simply new designs to meet established naval warship niches that have a pedigree which dates back over a century. We should stop trying to be cute - and focus on being professional. Most of the NNFM is good professional work - but the unsightly smear of snake oil degrades its brand a bit ... just a bit.

Off rant and back to the document.

The CVN/CVL discussion is worth almost a specific post in itself. Read the details - but I find this pull quote the best in outlining the argument. Especially if ASBM technology works out in the next decade to the right side of spectrum where we think in will be - having your air assets on more platforms is a progressive risk mitigation strategy that needs much more support.

A calculation of the smaller, but roughly comparable, life-cycle cost of what we argue to be a suitable mix of six CVNs and ten CVLs. The mix carries 620 aircraft, or 12% fewer. We believe the smaller number of aircraft is more than made up for by its flexibility: the CVNs’ powerful short-term punch in a major contingency, complemented by the CVLs’ advantage of greater distributability.

The Navy has service life remaining in many existing CVNs, but a CVL needs to be debated, designed, and built at once to test its compatibility with the F-35B, to develop an early warning aircraft capability, and to explore mixes of aircraft for green water operations, including UAVs. Absent such a CVL, we believe that on affordability grounds alone, the total number of aircraft carriers will shrink to eight within the next two decades and, absent the development of a CVL, with no redress possible.

Like the CVN/CVL discussion, the SSN/SSK discussion is worth a post all its own. The work is VERY Salamanderesque - so you can assume, rightly, that I pretty much agree with 95% of it. They had me at the start when they use a story I tell every time people tell me that that they tell me, "We have plenty of ASW weapons."

The Falklands War of 1982 is a cautionary tale of two submarine fleets having major effects on the enemy in a maritime war. Early in the war, the United Kingdom’s HMS Conqueror, an SSN, sank the aged Argentine cruiser General Belgrano. Seemingly as a result, the Argentine Navy withdrew into port and took itself out of the war, thus isolating the Falklands from substantial reinforcement or resupply. On the other side, one old Argentine submarine harassed the British task force out of all proportion to its nominal combat value. Literally hundreds of ASW torpedoes were fired by the screening destroyers on contacts that proved to be false. Submarines as sea denial systems can influence enemy operations disproportionate to their numbers and cost.

If we go to war - it will be criminal what has happened to our ASW capabilities. It will make the unarmored HUMVEE look like a success. I will leave it at that.

Here is the Salamderesque nature of it squared - sure to upset the usual suspects, which makes it all the more fun.

A total of 80 submarines, with special emphasis on China.

- Of these, there will be 40 SSNs at $2.5B each (if the price can be reduced, the number can rise) and 40 AIP submarines at $500M-$700M each (we show $700M in Table 2 and make the same comment as to the latter’s price and numbers).
- A set of 100 submarines would be better than 80 to defeat China, but in the absence of detailed operating plans and analysis, 80 seems sufficient and an acceptable risk, especially based on our premise that we must have allies in the unlikely case of a war with China.

Admiral Dönitz nods his head in agreement,

Some submarines should be equipped and trained for minelaying.

Serious, dedicated training - not spitting a few out and running.

On the amphibious side of the house, they outline well the Tiffany Green Eyeshade amphibious problem.

In history, opposed landings involved scores of ships and we expected to lose ships and assault craft as well as troops. Today, the large-capacity, efficient amphibious assault ships—LHAs, LHDs, LPDs, etc., are few in number compared to the LSTs, APAs, and AKAs that were the backbone of the opposed assaults in World War II and Korea. Now, the loss of even one amphibious ship would probably terminate the operation in failure.

The solution - well - call it a "prepare and ponder" strategy. Leesea, call your office.

For $1.0B of annual SCN, a fleet composed of between 100 and 150 ships can be maintained for amphibious lift, delivery and sustainment. Many sealift ships will be large, high-capacity RoRos, container ships, and tankers, constructed or purchased at an average cost of about $500M. Others will be small, simple “HSVs,” to quickly move ground forces to a scene of action demanding swift response. Some will be amphibious ships of 15,000 to 25,000 tons for unopposed delivery across a beach or at an undeveloped landing site. In Table 2, we show a sealift fleet of 125 ships, including propositioning ships. This capability will suffice for any likely conflict involving ground combat overseas. The current numbers are between 80 and 90 reasonably modern, large-capacity vessels, plus 31 large ships for amphibious lift. If a large regional war ensues, the U.S. merchant fleet can be requisitioned, but it is relatively small, so leasing from neutrals around the world might be necessary, as was done for Desert Shield.

We espouse a ten-year holiday in which no high-cost amphibious ships are built. Much of the existing amphibious assault force can serve for many more years in the unlikely case of the need to conduct an opposed Marine assault (e.g., in Lebanon or Syria). The amphibious ships will also serve effectively as interim Global Fleet Station ships.

Almost a punt on their part. I think this part of their plan in not as mature as the others and needs more work. I like the direction they are going in - but it isn't fully baked.

The bad;

Although our green water fleet of about 240 vessels is more attuned to the needs of the nation than anything else we have seen,..

Snerk. Of course you silly geese - it is your proposal. You almost have the confidence of a blogger ......

For example, the green water component also includes an additional 400 affordable and easy-to-operate inshore patrol craft to help build up the capabilities of some countries without navies or coast guards.

Still trying to grasp that concept, and "affordable" needs a lot of defined truth in 2010 as we have destroyed that meaning in Congress and with the taxpayer over the last decade. Also, that is a LOT of LT and LCDR Commands .. might be a good way to break the present officer career path diktat --- and get more sea and Command time -- but to make that happen would require a complete manpower restructure. Also a chance to break a lot of paradigms WRT how we man our Navy ... but that needs a lot more fleshing out and in the end, I think 400 is way too large - at least at the start.

We do not believe the present U.S. Navy organization will achieve a green water force, and so our most important recommendation is to create a new command with the authority to foster professionalism in coastal operations similar to that by which the Navy developed naval aviation in the 1920s and 1930s.

Ungh. No. Only if you kill two U.S. Navy organizations will Emperor Salamander permit you to create a new one. Too much Staff Bloat as it is.

Large, multipurpose warships are not, as is frequently argued, more flexible and adaptable than smaller, more focused warships. We repeatedly found cases in which “single purpose” warships are superior in effectiveness and for swift modernization. As an example, the green water component includes 12 gunfire support ships because we believe embedding guns in DDGs, CGs, or other missile-firing surface ships will not result in effective naval gunfire support.

Ehhhh, maybe. Hedging you bets with a High-Low is a better path, methinks.

The smaller, more distributable ships can free the inevitably fewer high-end warships for more demanding operations.

Correct. Piracy is a perfect example, as we have often discussed - but if you only have a few high-end ships, they aren't going to do much for a global Navy - remember, you can't be at sea forever.

Training and career development of Navy officer and enlisted personnel will be enhanced with more single-minded ships. For example, after 1990, ASW (Antisubmarine Warfare) skills atrophied in the surface navy because of its emphasis on offensive and defensive missile warfare. ASW proficiency will be hard to restore in missile ships. By contrast, the Israeli Navy’s training allowed them to quickly adopt new tactics for its highly focused Sa’ar boats, which defeated Egyptian and Syrian missile boats in the first significant missile war in 1973, despite their Gabriel missiles being seriously outranged by the enemy’s Soviet-built SS-N-2s.

Good point, in parts - but "single-minded" is neither the cure or for Israel the reason.

Neither good nor bad:
A broader area of disagreement I have with the authors is a focus on single purpose ships. As described, especially the Gun Support Ship - I think it is worth looking at, especially if you can give it a basic AAW capability which isn't too hard with the ESSM as described. Then it is a little more multi-purpose that makes me feel better, as when possible - you need multi-mission capability as the enemy decides how he is going to attack you, be ready. My bias is towards multi-mission, but as you get smaller, you have less of that luxury .... though even the WWII face DE's had quite the multi-mission capability .... as did PT boats .... so the "it's too small" argument may need work.

Strange and sad thing though is a desire to remove the gun from CG and DDG. Again, they seem to want to pull away from a multi-mission capability. Uni-mission ships simply do not have a good history.

Remember the quote by LT Copeland? As was amply shown during the Falkland Islands War and 5-inch Friday - a multipurpose gun is needed on every warship that can carry it - the larger the better. A multipurpose gun is the Leatherman of naval warfare - all sorts of uses in one package. I would caution being too binary when it comes to NGFS (nee NSFS)- but following is on balance good - quite good.

These are single-purpose ships carrying two of the best guns available for naval gunfire support (NGFS), such as an advanced gun system (AGS), with 2,000 rounds, precise navigation, countermine underwater search, and evolved sea sparrow missiles (ESSM) combined with softkill defense at short range. The Gunfire Support Ship need have only a small surface search radar (because it will operate in company), no stealth properties (because it will reveal its position in action), and no sonar or ASW (antisubmarine warfare) ordnance (as a cost-saving measure). Hull size will be determined by the minimum space and sturdiness required for two guns and their ammunition, which in turn will determine what form of UAV for reconnaissance it may carry.

Littoral warfare operations ashore can be greatly enhanced by the low cost, high volume, and overall efficiency of naval weaponry over aerial bombing or land attack missiles. When in range, the ships are also superior to land-based artillery, which has a large support tail.

Guns in CGs and DDGs are ill-matched because their land attack missiles reach deep inland but must be fired safely from their maritime sanctuary, which is now sometimes 100 miles or more offshore. Missiles are expensive and so best suited for select, fixed, high-value targets to complement the Gunfire Support ships that produce rapid, high-volume fire in support of the battlefield. ... NGFS is an important responsibility of the Navy and if and when any new technology has been demonstrated, swift introduction is unlikely without a force component dedicated to the mission, the value of which was amply demonstrated in the European and Pacific theaters of World War II, in Korea at the Pusan perimeter, Inchon, and Hungnam, and repeatedly during the long Vietnam War.

The Blue Water discussion is interesting - but has some problems.

An ominous trend (although the data sample is small) is that the success percentages of the attackers have gotten better since 1975. Since it seems predictable that the offense will continue to regain the advantage over a defender’s surface-to-air missiles, it is a mistake to rely heavily on expensive DDGs and CGs with Aegis and SAMs. We do not want to eliminate these capable ships and we think new ones should be added periodically as technology advances. If the ships were more easily and quickly updated to neutralize the natural advantage that is possible with ASCMs and TBMs (Theater Ballistic Missiles), we would be more optimistic about their future value. In the meantime, we propose to let attrition at end of life reduce the number of DDGs to a steady state force of 30.

Sure ---- but no one has ever tried to attack an Aegis ship with a ASCM. The HMS SHEFFIELD and USS STARK that they reference earlier are not Aegis ships. I understand the need to decrease funding of large ships to buy more smaller - but I think they might be going too heavy on the small side than the Blue Water side. Just my opinion. I share their concerns with ASCM and ASBM - but better AAW is the answer, not fewer AAW platforms with legacy systems.

On the lower side of the Blue Water force though, they get it exactly right.

To maintain total surface combatant numbers for offensive action and screening at around 140, we conjecture a new blue water frigate similar to those in the other navies of the world. They emphasize sea control but are capable of escorting large and small carriers, amphibious lift, and delivery and sustainment shipping. They carry at least eight long-range surface-to-surface missiles, a helicopter or UAVs, have a capable ASW suite, and strong, short-range hard and soft kill defenses.
There are many international frigates and corvettes that serve as examples for developing an affordable design, which should be evolutionary, but cost, at most, $400M in series production. These include Turkey’s new MILGEM class corvette, Singapore’s Formidable class frigate, Indonesia’s Sigma class corvette, India’s Project 28 frigate, and the Russian Steregushchiy class frigate.

Airtight. Their concept for dedicated land attack Corvettes - different than the Gun Corvettes, also has some merit for discussion - and I like this "influence squadron."

A compact task group with a land-attack mission might consist of four missile corvettes carrying 200 improved Tomahawk land attack missiles (TLAMs), plus a CVL, a DDG, and two new frigates.

They end up with a proposal. Could I live with this?

- Build DDGs at a limited rate, sufficient to keep one shipbuilder’s line open, and to keep technology current, but with the intent of reducing the Aegis force to 30 warships within 25 years. The steady state force of 30 ships costs $60B, so the SCN per year for a 30-year combat life is $2.0B.
- Introduce several affordable frigate designs of 2,500 to 3,000 tons and about 25 knots, with the goal of creating a force of 90 ships at a unit cost of $400M. Essential features are at least eight upgraded TASMs (tactical Antiship Missiles), strong close-in defense, and a modern ASW suite. The ships will emphasize sea strikes and ASW. Each must carry a helicopter or pair of UAVs.
- Design and build simple corvettes carrying about 50 land-attack missiles—upgraded TLAMs as it were. They are not fast, but 25 knots is desirable. They operate in silence, with any radiating platform being in the air or scores of miles away. Because of their simplicity and American shipbuilder design experience with stealth properties, the first design will probably be very much like the final one.

Merely for completeness we include here a component of 20 auxiliaries. The numbers and costs are unchanged from the 313-ship Navy plan.

Absolutely. This is much better than the mix we have right now.

Why is there so much here I agree with? Well, on balance I think it is because they tried their best to root their program in an understanding of history and a realistic expectation of what technology can gain you in the foreseeable future.

NOT A TRANSFORMATIONAL FLEET

Doubtless the structure herein is jarring to those content with the Navy’s current emphasis on power projection and faith in a continuing sanctuary at sea. Nevertheless, insofar as possible, the new fighting machine comprises only well-developed and tested capabilities responding to current circumstances in the spirit of Bradley Fiske’s goal of unity between policy, strategy, and warship characteristics. We often illustrated the fighting machine’s ship characteristics with existing foreign warships, especially borrowing their ideas for coastal operations. We also drew from nascent domestic attempts to create a more distributed force.

Nowhere does the new fighting machine depend upon technological innovations such as the sensors, SAMs, and command-control for advances in BMD; directed energy weapons, rail guns, robots, dirigibles with surveillance radars, and exotic hull forms.

Radical? No; a refreshingly sound and professional work. You can discuss the ideas in this work as adults because there is a minimal amount of "fairy dust" in here - told with simple and direct language; things often missing in such documents produced over the last 15 years.

Finally, back to the Confederate Navy. What would a Confederate Navy look like if they looked at what did and did not work for them in the war while maintaining their curious intellect? Perhaps in a modern sense, such a POV could produce a scaled down version of this.

- CVLs for both blue and green water operational flexibility.
- Land-attack missile ships, each carrying 50 missiles and numbering about 20 inexpensive vessels that can be deployed in pairs or task forces tailored to the risks and demands.
- A new class of AIP diesel submarines to complement the more expensive SSNs for an increasingly important role in sea denial.
- At least 12 dedicated naval gunfire support corvettes that can quickly and affordably go where the ground action demands, be put at risk according to circumstances on the ground, and more readily embrace new NGFS technology when it is tested and ready to install.
High-speed mine clearance vessels that can be on station quickly to clear the way for the operation.
- A large number of smaller, less expensive frigates to complement a smaller number of DDGs and boost surface combatant numbers at less SCN cost.
- At least nine single-purpose strategic defense BMD-DDGs for deterrence.

In many ways, though the name gives me heartburn - but that is just me. the NNFM document and PPT that go with need to be looked at as the very serious and usefull thought pieces that they are. In my view, they are a much more useful document than the last Maritime Strategy when it comes to looking forward to why we need a Fleet and what we can do with it.

Galrahn's discussion at his place on the work is well worth your time, so give him a visit too.