CDR Sal, once again, you provide a different perspective that provides a genuinely different perception of the potential battlespace. Stating the obvious, and without talking out of school, this "cloud" of small islands becomes especially important IF the...opponents...information gathering systems are degraded sufficiently to allow the movement of logistics (and tactical) assets unobserved. IF that degradation does not occur, and the munitions delivery capabilities of the opponent are not degraded, known fixed targets and emerging targets are at grave risk. That's where these "maritime militia" vessels and the like assume a big role as passive collectors. Technology wizards, please pick up the red phone...
a simple description would be......that, with regard to a "chain"; an adversary takes/destroys/degrades a first link, then moves on to the second IN LINE, then the third in line, to the next in line, etc. etc.
a "cloud" rather, means that if an adversary takes/destroys/degrades what used to be a single link in a chain...........but cannot necessarily with confidence or security, move on from one link to another, because threats may arise from many directions within the "cloud"
This is good thought. The next question is, what happens during an armed conflict when movement of combat assets from one location to another inside that amorphous cloud occurs? How is that movement accomplished, and what means would an adversary use to disrupt that movement or even prevent it altogether?
EDIT: Aha ... I see you are addressing these questions in another set of remarks.
As noted above by Sceptic, staying unobserved is a major concern. That implies a significant effort against not only air, land, and sea ISR assets but also, especially, against space based assets as they more than any other will have the wider lens to spot activity.
I would also be concerned about just what assets we intend to use in such a strategy. We have no ADs, only a couple of ASs, and few other auxiliaries suitable for setting up shop in some remote corner of the Pacific. I would expect that for sustained operations you need at least two vessels for every service point you plan to establish. One working, one transiting to the next site.
Yes transiting. Modern ISR is such that keeping an operation this large hidden for long is unlikely. Much like field artillery, I think the order of the day is establish shop, quickly conduct repairs for a brief time, then move on as the second vessel goes into business.
Thinking about it, you may need 2.5 for every maintenance point. The extra half is for damaged, broken down, etc. ships that will certainly happen.
Can we ever get back the level of expertise, that corporate knowledge that our AD's and AS's maintained in regular crew turnovers? I am afraid that is lost and may be slow in ever coming back. We do such a good job shooting ourselves in the foot.
I’ll go up a level. By using the Chinese definition of the WestPac geographic environment, “first and second island chain,” we have preemptively ceded that maritime territory to China. They own it and we are now intruding on their space. Anything, and everything we do is colored by that Chinese defined and Chinese controlled intrusion framework. The words are appeasement in action.
The GIUK gap was never the “Soviet Approach Corridor.” The Kamchatka Peninsula was never the “First Barrier.” Australian characterization of the New Guinea and Indonesian islands as the “Northern Approaches” is as brilliant as the Chinese island chain taxonomy.
We need to define and implement a different terminology and geographic framework for that region in order to reclaim the region for the international community. The War Plan Orange terminology of “Central Pacific, “Western Pacific,” and “Southwestern Pacific” seems adequate to the task.
Americans must stop using Chinese descriptions of not-Chinese geography.
Fair enough. Oddly, the WEZ of many...adversary systems align relatively closely to the geographic layout. Which forces them...and us to pay attention to the geography BUT we can call it whatever we want.
That is interesting! Does the geography define the technology or the opposite? The US Navy’s “orange” war plans for a Pacific war with Imperial Japan drove technology development for aircraft, fuel efficiency and battle damage repair capability. Hence PBY’s, better ship boiler technology, at sea refueling, SEABEEs, and modular floating dry docks. And West Coast Public shipyards. All critical to our victory in 1945.
Did the first and second island chains drive Chinese missile technology, too? Plausible.
If operations drive technology development, then why does DoD source technology development in OSD? A decidedly not-operational entity. Maybe that is why so few DoD technologies actually get adopted? The valley of death is the natural child of a non-operational demand signal which, of course, delivers non-operational capabilities?
“Every process is perfectly designed to deliver the product it delivers.”
If true, the Fleet & COCOMS should own the military RDT&E process. All of it.
The Japanese understood "forward arming and refueling points” at tertiary airports offer the potential of much more dynamic airpower, particularly with aircraft capable of operating from austere facilities."
Times have changed. Now austere facilities by their nature are more vulnerable to attack by long range ballistic missiles. Perhaps one of the big brains here can envision a ConOp that might have a chance of success. (I can't see anything but something like the '42 carrier raids being successful.)
The US still thinks of the Western Pacific in relation to how we fought the Japanese in WWII. China, with its huge land mass and population, poses a different kind of challenge to US seapower, airpower and land (islands, rather than continents) power. In WWII, the US strategy was driving toward the sealing-off and eventual invasion of Japan. China cannot be "sealed off" in the same way as the island nation of Japan, and the US is not going to invade China. Instead, in war, China would need to be "sealed in."
"Sealing in China" without convincing Russia to join in the "sealing" is difficult to impossible. Now, if China continues to move into natural resource rich parts of easter Russia (eg Siberia), that convincing might be on the table.
Using the terms 'First and Second Island Chains' is the language of the CCP, as we've heard repeatedly over the last decade, words matter. While there's a cynical POV with that phrase when viewed through a sociological lens, in the language of diplomacy it does matter.
What am I missing? Do these discussions appear to omit allies further to the front, i.e., South Korea, and the roll that nuclear may have?
It appears that South Korea must obtain a nuclear deterrent rather than rely on too-little-and-too-late-arriving US conventional support against stiff, bloody resistance from nuclear China, Russia and North Korea, particularly if they coordinate non-nuclear attacks on Taiwan and South Korea. The bear, the tiger and the jackal surround South Korea. Japan demographically cannot defend itself conventionally.
Europe cannot/will not timely, successfully as a whole defend itself conventionally, and they continue to denigrate the US, or at least the parts of it most likely to provide the bodies to defend Europe.
Facing the reality of the cost of assisting these countries v. our gain by doing so, America/Americans will not fight for these areas. Politically, they are on their own. See Georgia, Crimea and the Ukraine in 2022.
Looking at the world, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Poland, Finland and probably Sweden should go nuclear. The Melian dialogue is still valid. "The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must." Don't be Melos.
This is of concern, for example, because of China's actions in other areas, e.g., the Asia Times reported that China is building an electromagnetic kill zone (AT's phrase) n the South China Sea.
You can't help your allies at the front unless you secure your rear. SLOCs have to be secured.
As an aside, securing your rear means building social solidarity and patriotism in the USA too, as the New Deal did before WW II. The top 10% income cohort will provide few if any soldiers, draft or not.
The less nuclear armed powers the better. As for Europe, the Polish Army alone would be a formidable force defending against Russia.
Cloud perspective is appropriate. Offers more and more secure points to keep the fleet operating. Rearm and Refuel on the move. Again, full disclosure, ground pounding tanker here. During CW, we used to practice this technique in Germany, Korea, and CONUS -- give a moving tank battalion of 54 tanks a squirt of gas (100+ gallons or so), and rearm main gun (maybe 20 rounds per tank) and machine gun ammunition (several hundred 7.62 and .50 cal with as little disruption to movement and as little susceptibility to attack during the process. Leaders would pick a large meadow, or better yet a forested area that had been undercut/thinned, along the route. Timing was critical. Fuelers and ammo trucks show up and stage -- running the pump lines takes 15 minutes. Lanes established. Tank unit shows up and tanks move through the lanes (I recall my support platoon could establish 12 fuel lanes, get gas at one point, 100 meters down the lane, ammo trucks have ammunition already broken down, load the main gun and machine gun ammo, exit the temporary area and continue to move (back on the road or using forest trails). Tanks complete in less than 30 minutes. Support platoon rolls things up in another 15 minutes. Whole process took an hour (a lifetime in an era of drones and UAS) but was pretty good for 80s-90s.
Selecting anchorages that could be occupied for only one or two days within the cloud, with support ship(s) and combatants arriving prepped to tie up/raft up and resupply and then quickly exit back to sea is probably the only way to sustain in a long fight over Taiwan or other CCP objectives. Major facilities like Guam, Subic, (and Okinawa, Yokosuka if the CCP wants to take on Japan directly) will be toast within a few days of open hostilities. Sustainment will be from austere and largely "impermanent" locations and infrastructure.
CDR Sal, if you haven't, read up on oceanographer Mary Sears, commissioned in the Waves, who provided services to the Navy during WWII that I wonder how they would be available today. She quickly contributed drift models to help find pilots and others left in the water, but also ran a team who calculated tides, dug through archives from all around the country and the UK, often using a pre-war Japanese survey of pacific islands that was in the library of Congress to identify coral reefs, location of the best landing beaches and slew of other details after the disaster at Tawara. They ended up working many projects that never came to be. They also helped to map temperature gradients for submarine operations. Interesting stuff and even more interesting to wonder if there is some group buried that could repeat these sorts of tasks today.
CDR Sal, once again, you provide a different perspective that provides a genuinely different perception of the potential battlespace. Stating the obvious, and without talking out of school, this "cloud" of small islands becomes especially important IF the...opponents...information gathering systems are degraded sufficiently to allow the movement of logistics (and tactical) assets unobserved. IF that degradation does not occur, and the munitions delivery capabilities of the opponent are not degraded, known fixed targets and emerging targets are at grave risk. That's where these "maritime militia" vessels and the like assume a big role as passive collectors. Technology wizards, please pick up the red phone...
What are the obvious (not to me) tactical implications of conceptualizing widely distributed islands as a cloud as opposed to a chain?
Chains can be broken or followed, clouds not so much.
a simple description would be......that, with regard to a "chain"; an adversary takes/destroys/degrades a first link, then moves on to the second IN LINE, then the third in line, to the next in line, etc. etc.
a "cloud" rather, means that if an adversary takes/destroys/degrades what used to be a single link in a chain...........but cannot necessarily with confidence or security, move on from one link to another, because threats may arise from many directions within the "cloud"
Others have given good answers. Mine is a little different:
Within the cloud you might be at one of a dozen, or dozens, of different places. You have to look at them all to be found.
A cloud also implies amorphousness. It changes and moves around. Today maybe you are at point Alpha. Tomorrow point Lima. Day after...who knows?
This is good thought. The next question is, what happens during an armed conflict when movement of combat assets from one location to another inside that amorphous cloud occurs? How is that movement accomplished, and what means would an adversary use to disrupt that movement or even prevent it altogether?
EDIT: Aha ... I see you are addressing these questions in another set of remarks.
Defense in depth.
As noted above by Sceptic, staying unobserved is a major concern. That implies a significant effort against not only air, land, and sea ISR assets but also, especially, against space based assets as they more than any other will have the wider lens to spot activity.
I would also be concerned about just what assets we intend to use in such a strategy. We have no ADs, only a couple of ASs, and few other auxiliaries suitable for setting up shop in some remote corner of the Pacific. I would expect that for sustained operations you need at least two vessels for every service point you plan to establish. One working, one transiting to the next site.
Yes transiting. Modern ISR is such that keeping an operation this large hidden for long is unlikely. Much like field artillery, I think the order of the day is establish shop, quickly conduct repairs for a brief time, then move on as the second vessel goes into business.
Thinking about it, you may need 2.5 for every maintenance point. The extra half is for damaged, broken down, etc. ships that will certainly happen.
Can the ESBs be repurposed?
Can we ever get back the level of expertise, that corporate knowledge that our AD's and AS's maintained in regular crew turnovers? I am afraid that is lost and may be slow in ever coming back. We do such a good job shooting ourselves in the foot.
I’ll go up a level. By using the Chinese definition of the WestPac geographic environment, “first and second island chain,” we have preemptively ceded that maritime territory to China. They own it and we are now intruding on their space. Anything, and everything we do is colored by that Chinese defined and Chinese controlled intrusion framework. The words are appeasement in action.
The GIUK gap was never the “Soviet Approach Corridor.” The Kamchatka Peninsula was never the “First Barrier.” Australian characterization of the New Guinea and Indonesian islands as the “Northern Approaches” is as brilliant as the Chinese island chain taxonomy.
We need to define and implement a different terminology and geographic framework for that region in order to reclaim the region for the international community. The War Plan Orange terminology of “Central Pacific, “Western Pacific,” and “Southwestern Pacific” seems adequate to the task.
Americans must stop using Chinese descriptions of not-Chinese geography.
Fair enough. Oddly, the WEZ of many...adversary systems align relatively closely to the geographic layout. Which forces them...and us to pay attention to the geography BUT we can call it whatever we want.
That is interesting! Does the geography define the technology or the opposite? The US Navy’s “orange” war plans for a Pacific war with Imperial Japan drove technology development for aircraft, fuel efficiency and battle damage repair capability. Hence PBY’s, better ship boiler technology, at sea refueling, SEABEEs, and modular floating dry docks. And West Coast Public shipyards. All critical to our victory in 1945.
Did the first and second island chains drive Chinese missile technology, too? Plausible.
If operations drive technology development, then why does DoD source technology development in OSD? A decidedly not-operational entity. Maybe that is why so few DoD technologies actually get adopted? The valley of death is the natural child of a non-operational demand signal which, of course, delivers non-operational capabilities?
“Every process is perfectly designed to deliver the product it delivers.”
If true, the Fleet & COCOMS should own the military RDT&E process. All of it.
Nothing keeps me rooted in geographic reality quite like a physical globe sitting in my library does.
The Japanese understood "forward arming and refueling points” at tertiary airports offer the potential of much more dynamic airpower, particularly with aircraft capable of operating from austere facilities."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakajima_A6M2-N
Times have changed. Now austere facilities by their nature are more vulnerable to attack by long range ballistic missiles. Perhaps one of the big brains here can envision a ConOp that might have a chance of success. (I can't see anything but something like the '42 carrier raids being successful.)
The US still thinks of the Western Pacific in relation to how we fought the Japanese in WWII. China, with its huge land mass and population, poses a different kind of challenge to US seapower, airpower and land (islands, rather than continents) power. In WWII, the US strategy was driving toward the sealing-off and eventual invasion of Japan. China cannot be "sealed off" in the same way as the island nation of Japan, and the US is not going to invade China. Instead, in war, China would need to be "sealed in."
"Sealing in China" without convincing Russia to join in the "sealing" is difficult to impossible. Now, if China continues to move into natural resource rich parts of easter Russia (eg Siberia), that convincing might be on the table.
Using the terms 'First and Second Island Chains' is the language of the CCP, as we've heard repeatedly over the last decade, words matter. While there's a cynical POV with that phrase when viewed through a sociological lens, in the language of diplomacy it does matter.
Maps are of great use to a planner. Running exercises in OPT Leaders this week, and I would kill for a reliable Dow system for ad hoc desktop mapping.
It took 21/2 years to punch through that "cloud" in WWII....
And a lot of casualties...aircraft, ships, and men.
The big problem is that the Trump Administration seems not to grasp the utility of Naval Aviation. Or F/A-XX would be both awarded and fully funded.
What am I missing? Do these discussions appear to omit allies further to the front, i.e., South Korea, and the roll that nuclear may have?
It appears that South Korea must obtain a nuclear deterrent rather than rely on too-little-and-too-late-arriving US conventional support against stiff, bloody resistance from nuclear China, Russia and North Korea, particularly if they coordinate non-nuclear attacks on Taiwan and South Korea. The bear, the tiger and the jackal surround South Korea. Japan demographically cannot defend itself conventionally.
Europe cannot/will not timely, successfully as a whole defend itself conventionally, and they continue to denigrate the US, or at least the parts of it most likely to provide the bodies to defend Europe.
Facing the reality of the cost of assisting these countries v. our gain by doing so, America/Americans will not fight for these areas. Politically, they are on their own. See Georgia, Crimea and the Ukraine in 2022.
Looking at the world, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Poland, Finland and probably Sweden should go nuclear. The Melian dialogue is still valid. "The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must." Don't be Melos.
This is of concern, for example, because of China's actions in other areas, e.g., the Asia Times reported that China is building an electromagnetic kill zone (AT's phrase) n the South China Sea.
Here endeth the rant.
You can't help your allies at the front unless you secure your rear. SLOCs have to be secured.
As an aside, securing your rear means building social solidarity and patriotism in the USA too, as the New Deal did before WW II. The top 10% income cohort will provide few if any soldiers, draft or not.
The less nuclear armed powers the better. As for Europe, the Polish Army alone would be a formidable force defending against Russia.
Cloud perspective is appropriate. Offers more and more secure points to keep the fleet operating. Rearm and Refuel on the move. Again, full disclosure, ground pounding tanker here. During CW, we used to practice this technique in Germany, Korea, and CONUS -- give a moving tank battalion of 54 tanks a squirt of gas (100+ gallons or so), and rearm main gun (maybe 20 rounds per tank) and machine gun ammunition (several hundred 7.62 and .50 cal with as little disruption to movement and as little susceptibility to attack during the process. Leaders would pick a large meadow, or better yet a forested area that had been undercut/thinned, along the route. Timing was critical. Fuelers and ammo trucks show up and stage -- running the pump lines takes 15 minutes. Lanes established. Tank unit shows up and tanks move through the lanes (I recall my support platoon could establish 12 fuel lanes, get gas at one point, 100 meters down the lane, ammo trucks have ammunition already broken down, load the main gun and machine gun ammo, exit the temporary area and continue to move (back on the road or using forest trails). Tanks complete in less than 30 minutes. Support platoon rolls things up in another 15 minutes. Whole process took an hour (a lifetime in an era of drones and UAS) but was pretty good for 80s-90s.
Selecting anchorages that could be occupied for only one or two days within the cloud, with support ship(s) and combatants arriving prepped to tie up/raft up and resupply and then quickly exit back to sea is probably the only way to sustain in a long fight over Taiwan or other CCP objectives. Major facilities like Guam, Subic, (and Okinawa, Yokosuka if the CCP wants to take on Japan directly) will be toast within a few days of open hostilities. Sustainment will be from austere and largely "impermanent" locations and infrastructure.
CDR Sal, if you haven't, read up on oceanographer Mary Sears, commissioned in the Waves, who provided services to the Navy during WWII that I wonder how they would be available today. She quickly contributed drift models to help find pilots and others left in the water, but also ran a team who calculated tides, dug through archives from all around the country and the UK, often using a pre-war Japanese survey of pacific islands that was in the library of Congress to identify coral reefs, location of the best landing beaches and slew of other details after the disaster at Tawara. They ended up working many projects that never came to be. They also helped to map temperature gradients for submarine operations. Interesting stuff and even more interesting to wonder if there is some group buried that could repeat these sorts of tasks today.