02 April 2007
Swift Boat
HSV-2 Swift
No, it is not the famous riverine speedboat of the Vietnam era that sank John Kerry's presidential run. This is something else altogether. It is either a marvel of advanced science, or a strategic disaster in progress. Maybe it is both.
I am gong to take a deep breath this morning. The full moon hanging out the window suggests whatever will happen in Iran may be imminent, but it is not yet; the drumbeat of casualties and the ominous portents from Afghanistan are only that, not realized. Not yet.
The current engagement in the Gulf cannot continue indefinitely, and there must be something beyond that. We are in a vessel shooting swiftly down time's river, and some people are thinking about what is to come when these rapids are passed.
I enjoyed my time in the Navy, which at its best is the least intrusive and most flexible of national tools. In times of peace, which it serves to enforce, it is yachting on the grand scale, and in fact validates the concept of job-as-adventure.
In times of war, of course, that paradigm is dreadfully incorrect. At present the Fleet is doing what it does best: two aircraft carrier groups are circling in the Persian Gulf, and a third is on the way to briefly- perhaps- augment their striking power. No one must ask permission for their swift movement.
In the world to come after this war, the Fleet will regain its relevance, though the money diverted to necessarily support ground operations is causing a pinch. Despite the lack of folding money, the Service is trying out some concepts that will enable it to continue a global mission on the cheap.
Gigantic ships are expensive things. Britain eventually decided that it could no longer afford one, and the end of the 350 year history of the Royal navy has now dwindled to a few dozen ships, only half of which are deployable at any given time. The embarrassment suffered by HMS Corneall, who lost her party of sailors and Royal Marines to Iranian speedboats is only part of the ignominy. A great institution has come to the limit of its diminished capabilities, and there is no way out on its own.
The force that they have is formidable, but what is, is not what will be. The gross number of ships is declining at an alarming rate based on replacement, if you are a budgeteer, it is clear that more must be done with less.
Ships must be more efficient, in power and the use of manpower, and that is why the Admirals have ordered two modest demonstrations that may show the way ahead.
Navy Secretary Donald Winters is a visionary, unusual in a political appointee. He has taken grasp of a Service with a pinched resource base and imaged the world to come. He has harnessed some bold ideas about breaking up the cosy acquisition process with the big defense contractors, and adopted part of the uniformed Chief's “Thousand Ship Navy” concept.
Recognizing that things must be smaller, the Admirals have argued that leveraging the resources of all the world's navies would answer the end of the unilateral force.
I have my doubts on that score, but I recognize that the man has to do what the man has to do.
Two pilot programs have been announced, the first of which is being called “Global Fleet Station (GSF) Pilot 2007,” and will be conducted this year in the Caribbean basin. The second pilot is scheduled for next fiscal year in the unstable but oil-rich Gulf of Guinea.
The concept is a mish-mash of the transformational jargon of the former Secretary of Defense Donal Rumsfeld. The “Thousand Ship Navy” “leverages allied forces through advanced net-centric capabilities,” which is a way of saying communications and data sharing will increase the impact of the small number of USN hulls.
Later this month, HSV-2 Swift will depart Mayport, FL, for a six-month deployment in the Caribbean. It sounds like a cruise-line itinterary, with port visits in Belize, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Panama.
Swift is not a commissioned warship, but rather it a leased high-tech catamaran which has been used as a testbed for new technologies and concepts. It is a remarkable platform, right out of the pages of Popular Science a few decades ago. It has demonstrated transit speeds of almost forty knots, and capable of spurts much faster. During flight-deck certification, the ship successfully recovered helicopters while making 43 knots speed-of-advance, and has operated with over 60 knots of wind over the deck.
The Component-Based Total Ship System, or “Combattss” operating suite uses a family of commercial-based software applications, including one that can display contact data in three dimensions immediately analyze flight path and trajectory on incoming targets. Users can interface with the operating system using the Mozilla web-browser, which would permit interoperability with a broad variety of remote users.
There is an experimental wireless LAN that allows anybody who comes aboard to simply plug in their laptop. The Joint Interoperable Mission Planning and Rehearsal System that runs on the server is designed to allow a commander to conduct mission planning while en route to a crisis area.
For connectivity with the shore, Swift should be able to accommodate six megabytes in routine configuration, with four times that bandwidth available using off-the-shelf commercial accelerators.
It is a wonder ship, with only a handful of officers and men required to operate the system. Swift will be on deployment until early fall, linking the Caribbean in a seamless web of data. I do not know what sort of weapons it might carry if it was a real Navy ship. Marvel that it is, it is essentially unarmed, which I consider to be a detrimental factor in a ship of war. But that has always been an unfortunate afterthought in the acquisition process.
I prefer things that bristle with menace, since that is what this is all about.
In the fall, a bigger and slower amphibious will commence a one-year deployment to the Gulf of Guinea. That ship will be the host of the embarked Maritime Operations Center (MOC) and provide connectivity to the various national, police and naval entities around the Nigerian oil terminals.
Both areas are vital to American petroleum imports, and even more so in the world after this war. The top five external sources of oil and gas for America's autos and industry are: Canada, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Venezuela, and Nigeria in precisely that order. You can see the inerent weakness in the supply chain, and the military strategy that flows from it.
In the Caribbean, incendiary President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is problematic, and may have commenced a self-fulfilling trajectory of conflict with his largest consumer. Accordingly, Swift is headed South first.
But the planning process is necessarily long range, and that is why the Gulf of Guinea is next. The planners note that Nigerian oil will account 20% of America's total oil imports by 2020.
The internal situation may be shaky, and I do not think the Army will be asked to take care of it. Boots on the ground come with an extremely high cost, which we willing to pay only in certain increments. But the sea frontier comes with a certain freedom, regardless of how far away it is, and it appears certain that the Gulf is going to be as wired as effectively as possible.
Then the rest of the world, if there is money enough.
Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com