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Can the Arsenal Ship Function as a Minimum Manned Vessel?

CSC 1997

Subject Area - Strategic Issues

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Title: Can the Arsenal Ship Function as a Minimum Manned Vessel?

Author: LCDR Juan Navarrete, United States Navy

Thesis: The Arsenal Ship can function as a minimum manned vessel if sufficient dollars are devoted to giving it a credible level of survivability in the threat environment.

Background: The United States Navy is in the process of developing a new class of combatant ships. This is the result of the Navy's shift of focus from open ocean to littoral operations. The arsenal ship is designed to dramatically increase the scope and relevance of surface strike and fire support through a massive concentration of firepower and the continuous availability of netted targeting and weapons assignment. It will be an added flexible deterrent option that will provide significant leverage during the early phases of crisis response and control. One of the primary objectives of the ship's design is its affordability. The most costly portion of a ship's design and operation throughout its service life is its life cycle costs. The key to minimizing life cycle costs is the minimization of the ship's crew requirement. The arsenal ship will be designed with a maximum of 50 people as its crew. Every ship in the U.S. Navy must be able to meet certain functional requirements to successfully operate. The arsenal ship will be one of the largest ships in the U.S. Navy with one of the smallest crew complements in relation to its size. How and whether or not it will be able to meet these requirements is the question at hand.

Recommendation: Designers of the arsenal ship must focus on the survivability of the ship in the threat environment. It must be a highly capable ship and its survivability must be highly probable if it is to succeed.   

Can the Arsenal Ship Function as a Minimum Manned Vessel?

The global situation has changed with the end of the Cold War. Today's national security environment and the United States' military budget situation have led to new theories and ideas. One such concept that the U.S. Navy is studying is the arsenal ship.

Arsenal Ship Concept

The United States Navy's shift of focus from open ocean to littoral operations has led to the development of the arsenal ship concept. "Forward ...From the Sea" and "Operational Maneuver From the Sea" describe the anticipated future requirements of the U. S. Navy. Naval support to the land battle in the littorals is the main reason for the development of the arsenal ship. This ship is designed to dramatically increase the scope and relevance of surface strike and fire support through a massive concentration of firepower and the continuous availability and application of netted targeting and weapons assignment. It will be specifically tailored to meet the heavy support challenge in the opening days of conflict. The arsenal ship will bring overwhelming firepower to bear in support of Unified Commander-in-Chief's (CINC) and ground commander's plans and schemes of maneuver as well as provide significant leverage during the early phases of crisis response and control, in effect an added flexible deterrent option available to the National Command Authority.

The United States' National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement states the importance of maintaining a strong defense capability. The United States, as the world's leader, must be able to influence and respond to acts of aggression anywhere in the world with a credible military presence and power projection capabilities. With the decreasing number of overseas bases and an ever shrinking military budget the United States must maintain its ability to execute timely combat operations across the spectrum of conflict. Naval forces will continue to be important in maintaining a forward presence.

The arsenal ship is an affordable and much needed enhancement to the United States' existing force of aircraft carriers and land attack capable surface combatants and submarines. It is not meant to be a replacement for either nor is it a replacement for land based air. It is another available option in firepower as an offensive or defensive measure. It will operate under the control and umbrella of regularly deployed Aegis capable combatants. The arsenal ship with its ability to provide massive firepower will give the Unified CINC's the capability to halt or deter an invasion. This delay could then enable the build-up of coalition land-based air and ground forces to achieve a favorable conflict resolution.

The overall plan calls for a total of six arsenal ships. Three would be permanently forward deployed, one stationed near the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, one in the Western Pacific and one in the Mediterranean. The other three would provide for scheduled maintenance rotation. The forward deployed arsenal ships would be continuously available for immediate rapid movement upon receipt of even ambiguous or limited strategic warning. Similar to the U.S. maritime pre-positioning force, they will remain on station in support of the Unified CINC for indefinite periods without dependence on host nation support or its permission.^[1]

The operational concept is a ship designed to carry a broad mix of about 500 missiles held in vertical launch tubes. Space will also be allocated for the future addition of a yet to be developed extended-range gun system. The ship will be capable, throughout the spectrum of conflict, of launching many current and planned Department of Defense weapons. The CINC will be able to position the arsenal ship to destroy the enemy's critical infrastructure at or near the outbreak of hostilities. The use of precision guided missiles (PGM's) equipped with advanced penetrating warheads and submunitions will allow the arsenal ship to serve as an additional maneuver element in the landing force or ground force commander's plan by isolating, immobilizing, or destroying enemy forces, including enemy armored fighting vehicles, as well as providing fires in direct tactical support of ground forces.^[2]

The arsenal ship will employ the Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) remote magazine launch concept which will provide additional magazine capacity for Theater Ballistic Missile Defense (TBMD) and air supremacy missiles. The CEC concept will allow remote missile selection, on board missile initialization and remote launch orders. It will also provide remote "missile away" messages to the controlling platform. It is envisioned that controlling platforms will range from naval controllers within the formation to U.S. Air Force aircraft, Army units or Marine ground controllers many miles away.^[3]

In order to meet mission goals while minimizing costs, the ship's design will be based on commercial practices relying heavily on automation in engineering, damage, ship and weapon control systems to achieve the ability to operate effectively with a crew size of no more than 50. Additional berthing space will be available for special evolution detachments further enhancing operational flexibility.^[4]

The arsenal ship and associated weapon control systems will yield the flexibility to respond to multiple commanders and to conduct simultaneous long range strike, naval surface fire support, and theater air defense missions. The following tables show some of the cababilities the arsenal ship will provide.

Table 1. Target Sets to be Countered by Arsenal Ship^[5]

Table 2. Arsenal Ship's Weapons to Counter Target Sets^[6]

Arsenal ships will be fully integrated into the joint warfighting force structure. The ships will carry a variety of weapons which will be able to be controlled by air, sea or ground forces in support of a land campaign and will be capable of performing several functions to include: long range strike, invasion halting, fire support to joint ground forces, tactical ballistic missile defense and air superiority.^[7]

The ships will operate as integral fleet units within the chain of command under the joint combatant command (COCOM). Peacetime operational control (OPCON) will be exercised by numbered fleet commanders as normal fleet units. Within a joint task force structure, OPCON will be exercised by the joint force maritime commander, if designated, while tactical command (TACON) will be assigned to a naval commander.^[8]

The key to the arsenal ship's affordability and operational flexibility will be off board integration of all but the most rudimentary C4I. The existing fleet of Aegis capable cruisers and destroyers will provide joint connectivity, including targeting, mission planning, and weapons control. The wide array of joint connectivity needed for netted operations will be hosted through an assigned control ship, which will employ an advanced CEC like weapons link. Target and user integration will likewise be performed off ship. This will significantly reduce the ship's manning requirements, cost and developmental risk, while leveraging the extensive joint C4I investment already programmed for the majority of the surface navy. It is envisioned that the complexity of varied tasking will be reduced to highly reliable, jam resistant targeting, weapons and launch orders.^[9]

To complete its mission the arsenal ship will need to be capable of operating in any threat environment. Normally, it will be protected by battle group combatants; however, it must be survivable against 21st century anti-ship missiles, torpedoes and mines. Passive defense measures will need to capitalize on the benefits of mass, innovative applications of multiple hull integrity and ship signature reduction. Active self defense measures should be roughly equivalent to that of a combat logistics force ship.^[10] A vertical-launched seasparrow missile would be a prime candidate for providing force protection.

Arsenal ships must be designed with extremely low maintenance and high reliability. They are to be forward deployed for the large part of their operational life cycle with only a minimum of crew on board. In order to insure high operational availability new maintenance concepts will be required. Specifically, equipment and material selection, equipment arrangement, built-in test equipment, redundancy, equipment reliability, manning, logistics facilities, transportation, replenishment, on board storage, training, and use of off board support teams and spares pools are to be developed in order to minimize life cycle costs.^[11] The maintenance concept will be developed with the aim of minimizing life cycle costs while simultaneously ensuring that the ship will be ready to perform its missile launch mission whenever required.

The key to minimizing life cycle costs will be the minimization of the arsenal ship's crew requirement. The Arsenal Ship Capabilities Document states that the arsenal ships' will be manned, if at all, by a Navy crew which will be as small as practicable, and in any event not to exceed 50 people.^[12] As previously discussed, automation will be incorporated throughout the ship as much as possible in order to achieve this goal. Every ship in the U.S. Navy must be able to meet certain functional requirements. The arsenal ship will be one of the larger U.S. Navy vessels with one of the smallest crew complements. How and whether or not it will be able to meet these requirements is the question at hand.

Watch Stations and Watch Standing

A typical navy ship has at least 7 watchstanders on its bridge team and at a minimum, five to eight personnel standing engineering watches. The U.S. Navy is looking at reduced manning concepts in new ways with the Smart Ship program. The program is in practice aboard the USS Yorktown, an Aegis cruiser. The Yorktown is experimenting with minimizing personnel on watch while continuing to maintain all its capabilities. It is currently operating with a single individual on the bridge and another on watch in engineering control. It does, however, have several other personnel on watch in its combat information center (CIC). These watchstanders are able to monitor bridge operations and engineering parameters in addition to their CIC duties.

The arsenal ship will not require a combat information center. All targeting, mission planning, command and decision functions will be made from other controlling platforms to include ships, aircraft and ground units. The arsenal ship will be a huge floating magazine of ready-to-launch missiles that will be targeted and fired from elsewhere. There will be no need for an Aegis-like CIC with upwards of 25 personnel on watch 24 hours a day. The arsenal ship will operate more like a familiar merchant vessel in regard to the numbers of personnel on watch at a time. It will be able to function with a single watchstander on its bridge. There will probably be a computer console on the bridge from which he can monitor all engineering parameters, in addition to alarm systems which will immediately bring his attention to any sign of impending casualty. Merchant vessels today operate with as few as one person on watch at a time; the arsenal ship with its advanced controls and monitoring systems will also be able to do so.

Training and Crew Competency

Today's Navy ships typically experience an 18 to 24 month deployment cycle. Eight to twelve months of that cycle just prior to deployment is devoted to preparing the ship for its next deployment. This part of the cycle is dedicated to training the crew and exercising the ship's systems to ensure that it will be ready to function as desired during its upcoming deployment. The crew completes damage control, ship control, engineering casualty control and operational training exercises. These exercises begin at the basic level and progress to deployment ready during this training portion of the ship's cycle.

The arsenal ship will be considerably different. Its crew will be as small as practicable in order to minimize life cycle costs; the basic functions of the crew will include ship control and maintenance. It will also be required to be able to refuel while underway and conduct helicopter operations for vertical replenishment at sea.^[13] A ship with such a small crew will necessitate that each member be able to function in more than one area of responsibility. Each crew member would have a primary watch station and also one or more secondary ones. These would include underway replenishment, flight deck crew and damage control. This is not a new concept in itself. It has been applied successfully in previous classes of minimum manned ships. The arsenal ship will necessarily be much more involved in cross-training its crew prior to deployment. This should not be insurmountable; a dedicated crew with sufficient time to train should be capable.

Maintenance, Troubleshooting and Repair

Maintenance, troubleshooting and repair man-hours cannot be eliminated, but they certainly can be minimized by using the highest quality equipment and material available. The measure of readiness of a ship's systems is termed availability. The arsenal ship is to be designed, constructed and integrated with a total ship inherent availability goal of 0.95.^[14] To maintain an availability of 0.95 with a minimal crew will require very high equipment reliability, sustainability and/or redundancy along with a crew that can correct the most reoccurring system faults. While the ship will not have its own combat system suite as typical of today's combatants, it will have sophisticated computers, control and communications systems.

The ship will be designed with built-in-test equipment and on board storage space for high failure components. The ability to receive helicopters makes the arsenal ship easily accessible to off-ship support and repair parts and teams when the required expertise is not on board. These technicians could be available as organic assets within the battle group as most, if not all, of the systems on board the arsenal ship will also be common to other ships in the group.

Maintainability of the arsenal ship will be highly dependent upon the ship's design, system reliability, crew technical ability and off ship support. If these factors are all carefully planned and organized the arsenal ship will be able to meet availability requirement and complete its mission.

Survivability and Damage Control

The arsenal ship must necessarily have a high survivability. Its mission will place it at the top of every enemy's target list. The ships will be continuously stationed forward, in harm's way for extended periods at the center of action in littoral waters, possibly within easy reach. Survivability will be critical if the arsenal ship is to carry out its mission.

The Arsenal Ship Capabilities Document (ASCD) states that the ship's survivability should be achieved through passive means to the maximum practicable extent.^[15] Passive techniques to be considered in its design include the use of signature reduction/control, countermeasures to reduce detectability and targetability. The ship will also require a design or system to protect the vertical launch systems from damage if the ship is hit and considerations which would enable it to withstand flooding as a result of underwater damage. Passive means must be used if life cycle costs are to be minimized. On board active defense measures would add to the life cycle cost, maintenance requirements and manning levels. Active defense would be carried out by an associated Aegis cruiser or destroyer.

Even with the best defenses available, the possibility of taking a hit cannot be ruled out. The shallow waters of the littorals are probably the most dangerous for a ship to operate in. The combined threat of mines, missile carrying patrol boats and diesel submarines cannot be disregarded.

There have been several instances in recent history in which third world threats have destroyed or damaged naval combatants that should have been capable of defending themselves. In many cases the ships that were hit should have been able to shoot down the incoming missile threat. In other cases it has been the danger of an undetected mine. No ship, even with the most advanced active and passive defensive measures, will ever be able to prevent being hit 100 percent of the time. The arsenal ship will be relying mainly on passive defense measures, and it will be in a high threat environment most of its life.

During the battle for the Falkland Islands six British ships were sunk by the Argentine forces and several others were severely damaged. Four of the ships that were sunk were combatants hit by anti-ship missiles.^[16] Each of those had anti-ship missile defense systems. The ships were sunk nevertheless.

On May 17, 1987, the USS Stark (FFG-31) was on a routine patrol in the Persian Gulf when it was hit by two Exocet missiles fired from an Iraqi Mirage F-1 fighter plane. The first Exocet struck the port side in the forward berthing area and passed through the ship without detonating. It did, however, spread hundreds of pounds of burning solid fuel which created an instant inferno. It was less than fifteen seconds later that the second missile hit. It struck the ship slightly forward of where the first one hit and detonated about five feet inside the hull.^[17]

The USS Stark is a guided missile frigate with active and passive defense measures. Active measures include its missile capability, its 76mm gun system, its 20mm anti-ship missile point defense gun and its capability to electronically jam incoming missiles. The Stark was still susceptible to the threat and was severely damaged. The Stark did survive and that can be attributed to those who fought the fires.^[18]

On April 14, 1988, the USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) was on a routine patrol in the Persian Gulf when its lookouts sighted three mines directly ahead. The commanding officer immediately notified the crew that the ship had entered a mine field, set damage control condition zebra and ordered the ship to general quarters. He then brought the ship to all stop and lowered the ship's auxiliary propulsion units to more precisely control the ship's movement. His intention was to reverse the ship's movement and back down the ship's original wake. While this was happening and the ship was a safe distance from the mines ahead, flight quarters was set with the intention of launching a helicopter to mark the mines with smoke floats. The helicopter was never launched as the ship struck an unseen mine shortly after beginning to back into its wake. The resultant explosion left the ship with a hole in the hull about twelve feet long and ten feet wide. The ship's keel was also bent upwards about two feet and twisted over towards the starboard side. The explosion also fractured the ship and created a crack that extended from the main deck starboard side, up and across the 02 level, and down to the port side main deck. The ship's main propulsion was effectively destroyed.^[19]

The USS Samuel B. Roberts did survive its encounter with the mine. The damage control efforts of its crew contained the flooding and fought the fires that had resulted.^[20]

Both the Stark and the Roberts are considered to be minimum manned. The arsenal ship will be manned with only a small fraction of what these two ships had assigned. The arsenal ship will face the same threat and probably even more of a threat as more and more third world nations arm themselves. The arsenal ship's survivability will be the most difficult factor to achieve considering the small crew size. Built in survivability and automatic damage control systems must be utilized to the maximum.

Conclusion

The arsenal ship can function as a minimum manned vessel and has the potential to be a big player in the United States National Military Strategy. Its survivability in the threat envirionment, however, will be the most difficult challenge. Increasing the survivability of the ship while maintaining the ability to operate it with a minimal crew will be a difficult challenge. If additional dollars must be allocated in order to have sufficient systems on board that would give the ship a credible survivability then that is what must be done. Since enlarging the crew is not an option, the design and installation of automatic firefighting and damage control systems that can give the ship the survivability it must have is essential.