Fullbore Friday

For you fans of, "The Cruel Sea" ... it has been about six years since I last reposted this and it is about time to bring back the history and record of this scrappy class of warship.

Even if you've read this FbF in the past - give it another read.

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What happens when a Navy finds itself short and has to play catch-up until the yards can design and build a more capable fleet? Sink all its funds into a few big ships and then hold its breath? Perhaps build good enough until you get yourself straightened out? Go smart?

They were a stop-gap measure to take the strain of convoy protection until large numbers of larger vessels — destroyers and frigates — could be produced. Their simple design using parts common to merchant shipping meant they could be constructed in small commercial shipyards all over the United Kingdom and eastern Canada where larger ships like destroyers could not be built. Additionally, the use of commercial machinery meant that the largely reserve and volunteer crews that manned them were familiar with their operation.

Yep, you knew they were going to make it to FbF - The Flower Class Corvette from one of the books on Phibian's professional reading list (hey, there is an idea I never get around to), The Cruel Sea. For a 205', 33' beam 16 kt ship - she seems multi-mission to me.

* 1 x 4 in (102 mm) BL Mk IX gun,
* One QF 2 pounder naval gun (40 mm) "pom-pom"
* Six x 20 mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns
* One Hedgehog A/S Mortar
* Depth charge projectors

Range 3,500 nautical miles at 12 knots, and oh boy did they made a lot of them; 267. Duty is as duty does - the Battle of the Atlantic would have been lost without them.

Service on corvettes was cold, wet, monotonous and uncomfortable. The ships were nicknamed "the pekingese of the ocean". They had a reputation of being very bad at rolling in heavy seas, with 80-degree rolls (that is, 40 degrees each side of the normal upright position) (check out the pics here) being fairly common - according to Nicholas Monsarrat they "would roll on wet grass" - however, they were very seaworthy ships, and no seaman was ever lost overboard from a Flower during WW2.Flower corvettes provided the main escort duties during the critical Battle of the Atlantic, and so were in the thick of the fight. Their primary aim was to ensure that merchantmen survived the crossing rather than sink U-boats, and so if a convoy encountered a U-boat a typical action would involve the corvette forcing the submarine to dive (thus limiting its speed and manoeverability) and keeping it underwater (and pre-occupied with avoiding depth charge attack) long enough for the convey to pass unmolested. This tactic was stretched to the limits when the U-boats made a 'wolf-pack' attack, intended to swamp the convoy's defences, and the Flower's low top speed made effective pursuit of a surfaced U-boat impossible.

Radar, Huff-Duff radio direction finding, depth-charge projectors and ASDIC meant that the Flower was well equipped to detect and defend, but lack of speed meant that they were not so capable of joining the more glamorous fast hunter-killer surface groups which were in place by the end of the war. Success for a Flower, therefore, should be measured in terms of tonnage protected rather than U-Boats sunk. Typical reports of convoy actions by these craft include numerous instances of U-Boat detection near a convoy, short engagement with gun or depth-charge, followed by a rapid return to station as another U-Boat takes advantage of the fight to attack the unguarded convoy. Continuous actions of this kind against a numerically superior U-Boat pack demanded considerable seamanship skills from all concerned, and were very wearing on the crew.

35 were lost at sea, of which 22 were torpedoed by U-boats, and 4 sunk by mines. It is thought that Flowers participated in the sinking of 47 U-boats and 4 Italian submarines.

How is this for you Snipes out there.

2 fire tube boilers, one 4-cycle triple-expansion steam engine

Don't laugh at that plant - after the war they proved their value.

Of particular interest is the story of HMCS Sudbury, built in Ontario in 1941. After WW2 ended she was converted to a towboat and Harold Elworthy, owner of Island Tug & Barge bought her in 1954. The Sudbury and her crew specialized in deep-sea salvage and completed many dramatic operations, but made their reputation in November/December 1955 when they pulled off the daring North Pacific rescue of the Greek freighter Makedonia.

The Sudbury towed the disabled vessel for 40 days through some of the roughest weather imaginable before arriving safely into Vancouver to a hero's welcome. The incident made headlines around the world and for the next decade the Sudbury and her 65-meter sister ship Sudbury II, purchased by Island Tug in 1958 were the most famous tugs on the Pacific coast.

There is actually one as a museum ship, HMCS SACKVILLE (K-181) that is pictured below. What a class of ship.

The 2024 Defense Budget: A Mixed Bag for the Navy

It is with nations as with people; they will show you what they value by what they spend their money on.

Details always matter in a budget, but with inflationary pressures unseen in decades, a significant land war in Europe, and an accelerated naval challenge by the People’s Republic of China, the actual buying power of a budget and where you spend it matters more than usual.

Few are better positioned to explain the bold faced concerns with the 2024 Defense Budget  to navalists than our friend Bryan McGrath, returning again for a guest post that will bring you up to speed.

Over to you Bryan.

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Last week, the Biden Administration delivered its 2024 Defense Budget to Capitol Hill, and it contained a mixed bag for the Navy. On one hand, all major Navy accounts were increased over the 2023 budget, and there were notable investments in readiness and weapons procurement. On the other hand, no major account’s increase kept pace with inflation, a problematic fact and the source of most defense hawks’ calls for increasing defense spending above the rate of inflation. In a time of growing great power competition and a massive naval buildup by China, the Navy is at best, treading water.

No account within the Navy budget is watched as closely as the shipbuilding account, often referred to by the abbreviation “SCN” for “Shipbuilding and Conversion (Navy).” The 2024 budget provides $29.5B to procure 9 battle force ships (1 ballistic missile submarine, 2 attack submarines, 2 destroyers, 2 frigates, 1 replenishment ship, and 1 submarine tender). The devil is in the details however, as while the $29.5B figure is 3% higher than the 2023 total, 12 ships were procured in the 2023 budget, including 3 destroyers and an LPD 17 Flight II amphibious ship. Additionally, in an age of Chinese naval expansion and a growing emphasis on American Seapower, the projected spend on new construction ships is $100M (constant dollars) less in the fifth and final year (FY28) of this budget than it is in the first (2024). It is difficult to understand how less money in FY28 will buy five more ships than in 2024, when one of the FY28 ships is an aircraft carrier and one is a ballistic missile submarine. Congressional budget hearings are likely to probe this question.

Returning to the LPD 17 Flight II mentioned in the previous paragraph, the 2024 budget submission eliminates future production of this vessel, something that is reported to have caused tension between the Navy and the Marine Corps (see here and here). Apparently, OSD directed at least a “pause” in LPD 17 production while the Navy and Marine Corps conduct amphibious shipping requirement studies. This does not sit well with Marine Corps Commandant General David Berger who recently said that “We cannot decommission a critical element without having a replacement in our hand”. Because the budget also calls for decommissioning three WHIDBEY ISLAND Class LSD’s, force levels will dip below the USMC’s requirement for thirty-one amphibs beginning in 2024. This 31-ship requirement also happens to be a matter of public law. A related issue flowing from a significant drop in the number of amphibious ships is a concomitant drop in demand for the Marine Corps “Ship to Shore Connector” (SSC), a surface effect ship that is being purchased to replace the Navy’s aging “Landing Craft Air Cushion” (LCAC). Five were acquired in 2023, with none in 2024 and two a year thereafter. It is difficult not to see a cause-and-effect relationship between the (then) new Commandant’s 2019 statements about legacy platforms and his willingness to trade force structure for innovation—and the 2024 budget’s realization of these positions.

Navy officials often cite the need to stabilize the shipbuilding profile to provide predictability and certainty to the shipbuilding industrial base, especially its workforce. There is within this budget, increased unpredictability, especially with respect to the ships and craft of the amphibious force. Added to the LPD 17 and SS uncertainty injected in this budget, the Landing Ship Medium (LSM, formerly the Light Amphibious Warship (LAW)) appears in 2025, suggesting that it is filling the gap left by truncating the LPD 17 Flight II line. As these ships are likely to be a fraction of the size of an LPD 17, they are not a useful substitute, either operationally or within the industrial base.

Additionally, the late budget submission did not include (for the second year in a row) the required 30 year shipbuilding plan, a document that among other things, signals to that shipbuilding industrial base the Navy’s future path. These signals are required to spur the kind of internal investment necessary to increase production capacity above what has been for decades, an industry tuned to meet bare minimums for peacetime production. In a controversial move in the 2023 shipbuilding plan, the Navy laid out three different shipbuilding plans, putting forward a menu of options that it could pursue if resources were made available.

Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro recently indicated that the 2024 plan will continue the practice of multiple alternative futures, saying “If you look at the numbers very carefully, you’ll see that in the first 10 years of that plan, the numbers don’t change. And that is important, because the industry does need a steady signal of what our intentions actually are…take a look at the numbers in those first 10 (year) tables and you’ll see a tremendous amount of stability and flexibility, even compared to last year.” Del Toro appears to suggest that unlike the 2023 plan (in which the second five-year tranche of ships differs), each of the three forthcoming options will put forward the same plan for the first ten years. This would be a helpful start toward providing stability, but it is far less of an impact than year-to-year consistency, which recent plans have lacked. Additionally, while submitting three plans provides a vehicle for surfacing repressed Navy desires, it undercuts the suggestion that the plans are tied in any meaningful way to strategy.

A look back at the FY2011 shipbuilding plan is insightful, if only as a means for displaying the predictive value of 30-year plans. If the Obama Administration’s plan had been followed, there would be 320 battle force ships in the Navy inventory in FY 2024. The Biden budget submitted last week supports only 293 battle force ships. In the meantime, numerous 30-Year Plans have been submitted in which year to year goals and force mixes have changed, sometimes significantly.

A final question that the 2024 budget submission raises is how OSD and the Navy responded to the change to the Navy’s Title 10 mission brought about by the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, a change that OSD was dead-set against. The most obvious sign of lukewarm implementation is the aforementioned truncation of the LPD 17 Flight II, a ship of significant flexibility and capability throughout the continuum of conflict. As the previous Title 10 mission was devoted to operations incident to combat at sea, OSD pressure on the Navy and Marine Corps led to a short-sighted (and strategically dubious) focus on capabilities more valuable AFTER the shooting starts than before, and the LPD 17 was seen as vulnerable. Putting aside the fact that part of that vulnerability resides in the Navy’s failure to make use of available deck space for offensive power, the new mission and its emphasis on peacetime operations that protect and sustain both security and prosperity created an even greater need for these ships.

Finally, not only was the mission of the Navy changed by the 2023 NDAA, but a Congressional Commission on the Future of the Navy was directed. This commission has not yet been named or begin its activities, but it seems clear that as it moves forward, it should take the enhanced Title 10 mission statement as its central framing notion and provide insight into appropriate fleet designs based on the funding levels specified by the enabling legislation.

 

Bryan McGrath is the Managing Director of The FerryBridge Group LLC. His opinions are his and do not represent those of his clients.

Japan Puts a Marker Down in Europe

The last few years have seen Japan take the very welcome steps out of the box her post-WWII constitution put her in and the habits of the post war generations.

With her size and wealth, even her 1% of GDP on defense created a significant military. As anyone who has operated can attest, it is a quality one in equipment, training, and material condition.

It's growing - and that is a good thing for the international order.

More than is apparent to the outside eye, her national security community – both uniformed and civilian – are very clear-eyed about the world in which they find themselves in 2023. They are taking steps to take her rightful and deserved place in the first tier of nations in national security, but they are small, direct, and cautious steps - but steps they are.

With all the above, the last few days brought a very significant moment for Japan and her friends. While most eyes were on the meeting between Russia’s Putin and the People’s Republic of China’s Xi, we had this;

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday in Kyiv, in a rare and unannounced visit that highlighted Japan's support for the war-torn country in the face of Russia's ongoing invasion.

The Japanese leader arrived in the Ukrainian capital on Tuesday afternoon local time by rail from neighboring Poland, becoming the final Group of Seven leader to visit the country since Russia's Feb. 24, 2022, invasion.

This is not just a photo op - this is a significant moment in Japan's ongoing evolution in to a proper 21st Century nation with responsibilities and the ability to help advance the cause of a more democratic planet.

Japan has not made such a statement with regards to events in Europe - I believe - since the presence of the 2nd Special Squadron in combat operations in the  Mediterranean WWI. 

That matters.

The next G7 Meeting is in Japan ... in a certain city of mention, Hiroshima;

"The world was astonished to see innocent civilians in Bucha killed one year ago. I really feel great anger at the atrocity upon visiting that very place here," Kishida said.

"I would like to give condolence to the all victims and the wounded on behalf of the Japanese nationals. Japan will keep aiding Ukraine with the greatest effort to regain peace," he added.

Earlier Tuesday, Japan's Foreign Ministry said Kishida would convey the “solidarity and unwavering support for Ukraine” of Japan and other G7 nations during the meeting while “firmly rejecting Russia's aggression and unilateral attempts to change of the status quo by force.”

...

"The situation in Ukraine and support for the country will be a major theme at the G7 Hiroshima summit,” NHK quoted LDP Secretary-General Toshimitsu Motegi as saying ahead of Kishida's arrival in Kyiv on Tuesday, saying it was "of great significance" that the prime minister "sees the situation on the ground firsthand.”

Not just Ukraine, the Japanese Prime Minister is sending a message by who he visits;

Kishida, who had been visiting India and was expected to return to Tokyo, entered Poland from India using a secretly chartered plane instead of the standard government aircraft, NHK reported.

Poland. India. Yes.

Japan continues to underline that she is part of the group of nations who will not allow Russia and China set a new global order.

Nothing in the diplomatic world is done by accident - especially when location and timing matter a lot for the unspoken messaging.

The decision to visit Ukraine came at an unusual — and perhaps fortuitous — time for Kishida, with Chinese leader Xi Jinping simultaneously in Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, ostensibly over Beijing’s proposal for a ceasefire between the neighbors.

Xi’s trip, his first abroad since winning an unprecedented third term as leader earlier this month, came just days after the International Criminal Court accused Putin of war crimes and issued a warrant for his arrest.

While Xi has sought to portray China as a potential peacemaker, even as he deepens relations with Putin, the two visits by the leaders of the world’s second— and third-largest economies served as a reminder of Tokyo’s robust support for Kyiv and Beijing’s ”no-limits” relationship with Moscow.

In Tokyo, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said the day’s news told of “two very different European Pacific partnerships.”

“Prime Minister Kishida is making an historic visit to Ukraine to protect the Ukrainian people and promote the universal values enshrined in the U.N. Charter,” Emanuel tweeted. “Approximately 900 kilometers away, a different and more nefarious partnership is taking shape in Moscow.”

Meanwhile, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Weibin took aim at Kishida’s trip, saying that China “hopes Japan will push for an easing of the situation (in Ukraine), and not the other way around.”

Separately, Russia sent two strategic bombers over the Sea of Japan for about seven hours Tuesday, the country's Defense Ministry said. Moscow regularly sends the bombers, which are capable of carrying nuclear weapons, for missions in international airspace as a show of strength, but the timing was seen as more pointed with Kishida's trip.

A strong statement by Japan that is getting exactly the response you'd like. The response from the usual suspects means it matters.

Japanese defense planners and a number of senior lawmakers have been wary of the threat of conflict over Taiwan. Many have said a Taiwan emergency would also be an emergency for Japan.

These fears that Japan could be unprepared for a crisis in its own backyard have prompted Tokyo to pursue a dramatic hike in defense spending as well as closer ties with allies and partners.

The timing of the two visits could give more ammunition to claims that Tokyo and Washington sit firmly on one side of an increasingly divided world, while Beijing and Moscow find themselves on another.

“The coincidental timing of the trips does indeed create a stark contrast,” said Brown. “It presents the image of two blocs, with Japan and Ukraine on the side of democracy, and Russia and China representing an axis of authoritarianism.”

There are two blocks in the international world set in opposition, and the "realist" thing to do is accept that central fact.

We also need to accept that fact that "we" failed to win the post-Cold War peace.   

If you have not already, I highly encourage you to watch this 1992 interview with former President Nixon. If you have time, watch the whole thing - but this bit on Russia is spot on;

 

In the last decade of the 20th Century and the first decade of the 21st, Russia did not join the West. There was no "Peaceful Rise of China." The Smartest People in the Room™ failed us ... or it was a counter-historical fool's errand anyway. Pick whichever reason best fits your priors.

We have the 2023 that we have. We might as well crack-on with the slog.

Our friends are better than their friends anyway.

60-Minutes Does our Navy - and the Nation - a Solid. I'll take the "W."

A regular topic of conversation here and on Midrats (it came up quite a bit on Sunday’s podcast with Jerry Hendrix), is the lack of discussion in the public space about the importance of a strong Navy to our republic’s economic and military security. Sure, inside our salons, slack channels, and email threads we talk to each other a lot, but we seem to have a hard time getting our message out to the general public.

Sunday night’s 60-Minutes was an exception to the rule. There is a lot of credit to go around here. First of all, you have to give credit to the 60-Minutes team fronted by Norah O’Donnell and lead producers Keith Sharman and Roxanne Feitel. This two-segment effort was not just on a topic we all are interested in, it was just plain good journalism.

Sure, I have a nit to pic here and there, but that is just my nature. Perfect? No … but it is one of the best bits of solid, down the middle journalism about our Navy and its challenges I have seen from a major network for a long time. 

If you missed it, CBS has published the video and transcript that I’m going to pull some bits from below for conversation.

The second segment was more meatier than the first, but the first is important. It isn’t just where Big Navy got a chance to make a run at media capture with the "C-2 to the Big Deck at sea" show that we all love, but it will introduce many people to someone who is very good at his job and representing the Navy, Admiral Samuel Paparo, USN.

He gets your attention early by, even though clearly well prepared and sticking to scripted talking points and marketing pitches here and there of questionable utility, he also spoke in blunt terms in a way we don't hear enough in venues such as this;

Admiral Samuel Paparo commands the U.S. Pacific Fleet, whose 200 ships and 150,000 sailors and civilians make up 60% of the entire U.S. Navy.  We met him last month on the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz deployed near the U.S. territory of Guam, southeast of Taiwan and the People's Republic of China, or PRC.

Norah O'Donnell: You've been operating as a naval officer for 40 years. How has operating in the Western Pacific changed?

Admiral Samuel Paparo: In the early 2000s the PRC Navy mustered about 37 vessels. Today, they're mustering 350 vessels.

...

60 Minutes has spent months talking to current and former naval officers, military strategists and politicians about the state of the U.S. Navy. One common thread in our reporting is unease, both about the size of the U.S. fleet and its readiness to fight. The Navy's ships are being retired faster than they're getting replaced, while the navy of the People's Republic of China or PRC, grows larger and more lethal by the year. We asked the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Admiral Samuel Paparo, about this on our visit to the USS Nimitz, the oldest aircraft carrier in the Navy.

Admiral Samuel Paparo: We call it the Decade of Concern. We've seen a tenfold increase in the size of the PRC Navy. 

Norah O'Donnell: Technically speaking, the Chinese now have the largest navy in the world, in terms of number of ships, correct?

Admiral Samuel Paparo: Yes. Yes.

Norah O'Donnell: Do the numbers matter?

Admiral Samuel Paparo: Yes. As the saying goes, "Quantity has a quality all its own." 

This is exactly how the answer needs to be delivered. No squish, no excessive spin - acknowledge the reality of where we are. 

More of this from more senior leaders.

There was some subtlety as well. When he first said this, about 10-seconds later I decided to rewind to listen to it again. 

Norah O'Donnell: And if China invades Taiwan, what will the U.S. Navy do?

Admiral Samuel Paparo: It's a decision of the president of the United States and a decision of the Congress. It's our duty to be ready for that. But the bulk of the United States Navy will be deployed rapidly to the Western Pacific to come to the aid of Taiwan if the order comes to aid Taiwan in thwarting that invasion.

Norah O'Donnell: Is the U.S. Navy ready?

Admiral Samuel Paparo: We're ready, yes. I'll never admit to being ready enough.  

Did you catch that? He can't say, "We're not ready." as if the call comes, we can and will execute what we are tasked ... and initially will be ready to do what we can with the reduced numbers we have ... but everyone knows there is a huge asterisk next to "ready." 

We don't have enough escort ships. We don't have enough VLS tubes. We don't have a large enough airwing with long enough legs. We don't have enough reliable and robust tanking. We don't have much of a bench ... so, we are "ready" - but not even close to being "ready enough." A subtle distinction with not so subtle implications.

We also need to give a nod to our Navy for not having only the 4-stars talk to CBS. LCDR David Ash, USN got some good face time with the camera, and his fellow LCDR Matthew Carlton, USN blessed us with his superb deployment stash.

60-Minute's graphics department also gets credit for the video that the pic at the top of this post is a screen capture of. 

One of the most important things someone can do who is interested in understanding the western Pacific from the PRC's POV is to see it from their shores in an east-up orientation. Where only a small group of PRC focused navalists have shared the image or have that projection on their wall were blessed with that perspective, now it is in the minds of at least hundreds of thousands more people.

This is how the Chinese Communist Party sees the Western Pacific, including the South and East China Seas from Beijing. Taiwan is the fulcrum in what China's leaders call "the first island chain," a constellation of U.S. allies that stretches across its entire coast.  Control of Taiwan is the strategic key to unlocking direct access to the Pacific and the sea lanes where about 50% of the world's commerce gets transported.

Norah O'Donnell: China has accused the United States of trying to contain them. What do you say to China?

Admiral Samuel Paparo: I would say, "Do you need to be contained? Are you expanding? Are you an expansionist power?" To a very great extent, the United States was the champion for China's rise. And in no way are we seeking to contain China. But we are seeking for them to play by the rules.

...and that is where the friction lies. The PRC holds the "rules" in contempt because they had no role in making them. As they don't like the rules, they are bit by bit changing them. From creating no-go zones in the South China Sea that once were open seas, to putting their flag down on the island nations of the southwest Pacific, to bending policies in Latin American nations, to being an observer at the Arctic Council to match their Arctic strategy.

Rules can, and are, being changed.

There was another point where Admiral Paparo put a marker down that someone can pick up and run with ... hey, I think I'll do that now;

Norah O'Donnell: How much do you worry about the PLA Rocket Force?

Admiral Samuel Paparo: I worry. You know, I-- I'd be a fool to not worry about it. Of course I worry about the PLA Rocket Force. And of course I work every single day to develop the tactics and the techniques and the procedures to counter it, and to continue to develop the systems that can also defend-- against them.

Norah O'Donnell: About how far are we from mainland China?

Admiral Samuel Paparo: Fifteen hundred nautical miles.

Norah O'Donnell: They can hit us.

Admiral Samuel Paparo: Yes they can. If they've got the targeting in place, they could hit this aircraft carrier. If I don't want to be hit, there's something I can do about it.

Ahhhhh, yes. Time to bring back one of my favorite graphics.

Draw a 1,500nm circle from the PLARF launch sites and look at what land based airfields, bases, depots and facilities of all sorts are located under that threat. They cannot move. A navy and sea based facilities can.

Undersold point, but Paparo is leaving it there for you to run with.

As a recidivist staff weenie, I swelled with pride at this moment. Nothing happens by accident;

Norah O'Donnell: I just noticed out of the corner of my eye. 

Admiral Samuel Paparo: This is a 688 class, a Los Angeles-class attack submarine. This is the most capable submarine on the planet. You know, with the exception of the Virginia class, our newer class of submarines.

Someone on that staff needs a NCM. Having that SSN heave in to view at that time and that place is simply 5.0 staff work. BZ to everyone, and like most of this visit, just all around well done. 

We've all seen such opportunities not work out all that well, but the time on NIMITZ was simply our Navy at its best. Paparo's staff, the crew of NIMITZ, the Strike Group, and Airwing all just did a superb job. Yes, there were a few PAOisms and talking points, but the visit and interviews were honest and praiseworthy. Paparo will get most of the credit, but everyone underway on that visit just did a superb job.

However, the following comment gave me pause, and it serves to make a point...I think.

Norah O'Donnell: How much more advanced is U.S. submarine technology than Chinese capability?

Admiral Samuel Paparo: A generation.

Norah O'Donnell: A generation.

Admiral Samuel Paparo: And-- by generation, think 10 or 20 years. But broadly, I don't really talk in depth about submarine capabilities. It's the silent service.

OK, I left active duty 13 yrs ago or so, but ... ummm ... I recall the PLAN submarine force then, and I also know roughly what the state of the US SSN were in 2013 and 2003, 10 and 20 years ago. If the PRC is pushing out new construction on par with what we were building even in 2003, much less 2013 ... ummm ... eek. 

To avoid me having a drop, flop, and foam panic attack, we'll call it an overstatement mulligan.

Also, that SSN is an LA Class SSN. I'm not sure which one, but the last one was commissioned in 1996. That was 27 years ago.

So. Let's just leave that there to simmer.

Norah O'Donnell: One recent-- nonclassified war game had the U.S. prevailing but losing 20 ships, including two carriers. Does that sound about right?

Admiral Samuel Paparo: That is a plausible outcome. I can imagine a more pessimistic outcome. And I can imagine a more optimistic outcome. We should be clear-eyed about the costs that we're potentially incurring 

There are about 5,000 Americans on board the Nimitz.  The ship is nearly half a century old. Given the Navy's current needs in the Pacific and because there's fuel left in its nuclear reactors, the carrier's life at sea is going to be extended.

Again, Paparo does a superior job here, but I want to take the last bit to remind everyone what war at sea looks like. Does everyone here fully understand what a loss of two CVN and 18 other ships would mean? 

Let's go back to March 10th's FbF about the loss in combat of the USS Laffey (DD-459),

Out of that crew of 208?  57 KIA/114 WIA. That is an 82% casualty rate.

We have 5,000 Sailors on each CVN. That is 10,000 Sailors. Let's uses a round number from a Flight II Arleigh Burke DDG manning of 300 as we don't know in that wargame what the other 18 ships were lost. That gives you another 5,400 Sailors for 15,400 total. 

With a 82% casualty rate, that is 12,628 Sailors; 4,158 killed and 8,470 wounded. That is almost as many killed in the last two decades fighting in Iraq (4,431). 

Killed not in 20 years, but a few weeks to months - maybe days.

That is what it is all about, which leads us to a great point brought up by two of the best people who served in the last Congress, Representative Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and Representative Elaine Luria (D-VA). 

Again, the right people to talk to.

Norah O'Donnell: What is it about the U.S. Navy that has allowed the two of you to find common cause?

Rep. Mike Gallagher: I think we-- share a sense of the urgency of the moment. We see increasing threats from China in particular in the Indo-Pacific. We feel like we're not moving fast enough to build a bigger Navy.

...

Norah O'Donnell: What would you say the state of the U.S. Navy is today?

Rep. Elaine Luria: I think the Navy has not received the attention and resources that it needs over two decades. I mean, I served on six different ships. Every single one of those ships was either built during or a product of the fleet that was built-- in the Cold War. 

Both Mike Gallagher and Elaine Luria have lobbied for government money for the shipyards in or near their districts, but they say this is less about jobs and more about national security. 

Rep. Elaine Luria: If we don't get this right, all of these other things we're doing in Congress ultimately-- might not matter.

She is exactly right - it might not matter. That is a deep comment we should all stop and ponder a bit.

There were a few Easter Eggs here for the Front Porch. You should all take a moment to savor. We've been at this together for almost two decades. Our arguments have soaked in. Enjoy:

Over the last two decades, the Navy spent $55 billion on two investments that did not pan out. The first was a class of Destroyers known as the Zumwalt. The futuristic fighting ships were supposed to revolutionize naval warfare. Thirty-two were ordered, but only three were ever launched. The cost of each ship, by one estimate, was upwards of $8 billion, making them the three most expensive Destroyers ever put to sea.

Another example is the Littoral Combat Ship or LCS, designed to be a fast all-purpose warship for shallow waters. Thirty billion dollars later the program ran aground after structural defects and engine trouble. Within the Navy, the LCS earned the unfortunate nickname, little crappy ship.

Norah O'Donnell: The Navy's last few decades have been described as a lost generation of shipbuilding. Is that overly dramatic? 

Don't get too full of yourselves folks, but take a bow. It wouldn't be there without you.

Next we had the CNO. He was a bit more off then on here. He looked if not unwell, at least very tired. Where Paparo gets an A- for his appearance - well prepared but not over scripted - I think the CNO got at best a B- as he was over-prepared and ready with talking point phrases that were just not appropriate for the moment. 

There were some things that just clunked;

Norah O'Donnell: Is the Navy in crisis?

Admiral Mike Gilday: No, the Navy's not in crisis. The Navy is out on point every single day.

Norah O'Donnell: Is it being outpaced by China? 

Admiral Mike Gilday: No. Our Navy's still in a position to prevail. But that's not blind confidence. We are concerned with the trajectory that China's on, with China's behavior. But we are in a good position right now-- if we did ever get into a fight against them. 

Ummm, CNO; no one thinks our Navy is doing great right now. This was not a rah-rah moment, this was an opportunity to ask for help to get our maintenance, stores, and fleet numbers aligned with requirements. A lost opportunity. His comments are simply not aligned with an objective review of the facts on the ground.

We should be less concerned with the trajectory the PRC is on - which we can't control - but with the trajectory we are on - that we can.

Another morale booster for the Front Porch, the CNO did repeat something he states on a regular basis and good for him that he does. Spot on.

Admiral Mike Gilday: I think one of the things that we learned-- was that we need to-- have a design well in place before we begin bending metal. And so we are going back-- to the past, to what we did in the '80s and the '90s, the Navy has the lead.

In the first and second decades of this century, how many people rolled in to comments here to tell us our critique represented "old think," that we didn't get the "new Navy" or were disconnected from "new methods?" 

Well, ha! He who laughs last laughs best. We were right, and in 2023, the CNO is with us circa 2004.

Especially for those who are subscribers to the Midrats podcast (going in to its 14th year) and readers here through the years, one of our regular and favorite guests made and appearance, Toshi Yoshihara; 

Toshi Yoshihara: China will have about 440 ships by 2030. And that's according to the Pentagon.

Norah O'Donnell: Why is China able to build more warships more quickly than the U.S.?

Toshi Yoshihara: China has clearly invested in this defense industrial infrastructure to produce these ships, which allows them to produce multiple ships simultaneously, essentially outbuilding many of the western navies combined.

They then went on to discuss issues with industry that in addition to what we linked to at the top of the post, we also discussed with Jerry Hendrix on last Sunday's Midrats.

If you want more Toshi, you can listen to his January visit to Midrats, or read his latest book we talked about; Mao's Army Goes to Sea: The Island Campaigns and the Founding of China's Navy.

Again, the CNO lost another opportunity by refusing to state hard truths.

Norah O'Donnell: What do you see when you see China's shipbuilding program?

Admiral Mike Gilday: It's very robust.

Norah O'Donnell: Do we have enough shipyards?

Admiral Mike Gilday: No. I wish that we had more commercial shipyards. And-- over my career, we've gone from more than 30 shipyards, down to about seven that we rely upon on a day-to-day basis to build ships. 

Going back to his "no crisis" comments earlier - I'm sorry, but the above is a crisis and needs to be spoken of and acted on as such. We have allies in Congress ... we can make this push ... but we need out senior uniformed leaders to ... well ... lead on this fight.

If, as Paparo says, we have a "decade of concern" then we need to focus on what we can get to displace water and make shadows on the ramp in the next decade that we know can project power at range. It is time to push the pie-in-the-sky, perpetually oversold, transformationalist, bullshit Tomorrowland stuff to the back burner both in the budget ... and unquestionably on the public stage.

Admiral Gilday says the U.S. Navy's main advantage over China is America's sailors.  His goal is to modernize the U.S. fleet and have those sailors serving alongside hundreds of unmanned vessels by 2045.

Admiral Mike Gilday: I think unmanned is the future. And so I think that-- some 40% of our fleet in the future, I believe, is gonna be unmanned. 

Own goal. Complete distraction and off topic to the challenge at hand. On top of that, he's poorly briefed and wrong.

2045 is to today what today is to 2001. Look at what we deployed with in 2001 and what we have today. That is your slope.

There will not be that big of a shift to unmanned due to legal, technological, and C2 challenges as well as and simple logic and experience. 

What an incredibly irresponsible stance to say such thing at this in this venue. It hobbles future leaders and managers who have to put credible platforms at sea that our Sailor will need to go to war in well before some vapor-ware 2045 fever dream.

40% my ass. Whoever briefed him that this was a good place to bring this up should be fired...or he tripped himself on one of his preplanned talking points. 

We did have a recovery at the end. The show, and the CNO, ended strong. It was a great close that sells well and gets attention. We needed more of this, and maybe there was on the cutting room floor. Usually there is what, 5-hrs of interviews for a 5-minute segment?

So, nice end.

Norah O'Donnell: The U.S. defense posture is viewed as aggressive by the Chinese. The foreign minister just said, "Look, stop the containment. This may lead to conflict." 

Admiral Mike Gilday: Perhaps the Chinese minister doesn't like the fact that the U.S. Navy is operating in collaboration with dozens of navies around the world to ensure that the mar-- maritime commons remains free and open for all nations. The Chinese wanna dictate those terms. And so they don't like our presence. But our presence is not intended to be provocative. It's intended to assure and to assure-- to reassure allies and partners around the world that those sea lanes do remain open. The global economy literally floats on seawater.

Preliminary Notice to CDR Salamander OG Blog Readers

Great and wonderful members of the Front Porch, especially those regular readers since 2004.

As most of you may be aware of by now, I have been posting in parallel over at substack for the last few years.

I did that for a few reasons. Mostly because of the coding, NMCI, facebook and other location may block blogspot as it can seem as if it is SPAM. Bad on blogspot, irritating to readers. Because substack is a "cleaner" code, no one has that problem...yet.

Anyway, blogspot is owned by google and the last few weeks they have been pulling down some of my posts going back almost a decade for a variety of reasons. Many of them are because they contain pictures of ... military operations where "physical violence" is taking place. 

Well, that is that happens in a military. I am appealing the deletions, but this is not a satisfactory situation for a military related blog as I would have to pretty much stop posting any picture of video of ... combat. I can't stand the prospect of some bot or busy body running through and randomly deleting posts.

The last straw was them pulling down a post, text only, of our Declaration of Independence.

Just look at it.

It says "SPAM" but when you go to "/contentpolicy" you see the full range of things under SPAM that includes everything up to violent images.

So, and no this is not an April's Fool joke, but starting the 1st of April, no new content will be posted here. 

All new content will be over at substack. Just follow this link and update your bookmarks. 

You can also sign up to get an email notification whenever there is a new post.

I did not want to do this as we have a very well established community in comments here that means a lot to me. We've been at this together for the better part of two decades. 

Some members of the Front Porch have already migrated over to substack, so it just isn't the new kids. There's plenty of salt over there.

So, you have an 11-day warning.

I will not delete this blog. This will remain here as an archive of a time when blogspot was a freer place, as will all the older posts that google has not deleted for this arbitrary reason or another.

Come join  us ... its a cleaner look anyway.

 

Episode 650: Keeping America's Dominance at Sea with Jerry Hendrix

Except for those over a 85, no one alive has ever existed at a time when the US Navy was not the premier naval power - and no one alive at all has known a world where the US Navy was not the premier naval power in the Pacific.

Though on paper it could be challenged in the first third of the 20th Century by the Royal Navy, and was challenged in a very real way by the Imperial Japanese Navy in the Pacific in the early mid-century, after the 1930s no industrial power could hope to compete with the United States in production and warships ready to fight at sea in a major conflict.

During the Cold War, there were a couple of decades where the Soviet Union could put a fleet to sea to give the US Navy regional concern, but never really on an ocean wide scale.

As we approach the end of the first quarter of the 21st Century, a rising power is presenting a challenge in the Pacific the US Navy, and its political leaders, seem to have trouble accepting.

The People's Republic of China is clear that it wants the global power the USA presently has - including on the high seas. 

Returning to Midrats Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern to discuss his recent article in The Atlantic, "The Age of American Naval Dominance is Over" is Jerry Hendrix, PhD.

Jerry is a retired USN Captain, author, and a senior fellow with the Sagamore Institute, in Indianapolis. His most recent book is To Provide and Maintain a Navy (2020).

Join us live if you can, but it not, you can get the show later by subscribing to the podcast. If you use iTunes, you can add Midrats to your podcast list simply by clicking the iTunes button at the main showpage - or you can just click here. You can find us on almost all your most popular podcast aggregators as well.

Fullbore Friday

While researching yesterday's post I came across a 2011 post of mine that, in a way, read like an OG FbF ... and figured, let's bring the story of HMS Liverpool (D92) a little more than a year before her decommissioning to the Front Porch so we can see the proper use of a main gun.

Often here we have comments about how, "nAvAl GunZ uR oBSolEt3" ... well, of course they are not.

Let's head off the coast of Libya ... and do so with a 2011 mindset;

---

Commander Colin Williams said: ‘It was a good old fashioned ding-dong. The enemy fire was coming in pretty close. It was fairly close-range stuff but we’ve trained for this and we were ready to win the fight.

Repeat after me: "There is no more important weapon on a warship than its main gun battery."

Translate that in to Latin and we'll put it in to Autotune for 'ya and make it a Gregorian Chant. Heck, we'll put it on t-shirts and sell them.

The Portsmouth-based destroyer was just six miles off the coast of Gaddafi-held territory when she came under a barrage of rockets and heavy calibre machine gunfire yesterday.

But the Libyan forces were no match for her 4.5in gun, which silenced the attack within half an hour with no casualties or damage to the ship.
...
Cdr Williams said: ‘We had a couple of contacts moving down the coast. The other two ships went in to investigate and we sent up our helicopter in support.

‘Then they started getting fired on by the vessels and from the shore and it all got a bit hairy from there.’

As her helicopter dodged gunfire, Liverpool fired an opening salvo and manoeuvred into position to take on the shore battalion.

The captain said: ‘It took us about 20 or 30 minutes to bring it to an end.
...
He revealed he was actually asleep when the attack began at 2am yesterday.

He said: ‘I was woken as we prepared and it was very humbling to see my ship’s company working so calmly and quietly.

Exactly.

Though the shore-duty theorists with their transformationalist fetish continue to ignore facts that interfere with their religion - history & reality - their worst enemy - continue to tell us what you need to get right in your warships.

This time it is Libya - and again - it is the Royal Navy (what is left of her) that tells us what we need to know.

Other things to go with our chant:
1. As Seaman Murphy gundecks PMS and his brother at the factory has quality control issues - it is best a-la SPRUANCE & TICO to have two main batteries.
2. Larger isn't better, it is essential. Beancounters, men insecure with their manhood, and the non-battleminded like small caliber weapons. Those who need to kill or be killed know that if a 3" will do - a 5" is needed. If a 5" will fit, an 8" should be there instead. If you think I am nuts, just ask a Marine. If you think he is nuts - tell him to his face, please.

You will close the shore - you will be shot at - you will need to shoot back. Make sure those who have a comfortable commute and a comfortable home build you the ships you need - not the ones they think are neat.