Plenty of blame is going around these days about why the Marine
Corps will have to wait many years before the Navy can supply long-range
artillery fire from surface ships. Tomahawk cruise missiles are
fine, Marines assert, but they do not provide the steady, hammering
firepower that Marines want behind them as they penetrate enemy
territory.
The carping got louder in recent weeks, prompted by the Navy’s
decision in October to abandon the DD-21 next-generation surface
combatant program. Many Marines saw this move as further evidence
that the Navy is falling short in its commitment to modernize sea-based
artillery. Some Marine officers, however, conceded that they also
had themselves to blame, because they should have articulated their
needs more clearly and more emphatically.
The Navy has had no surface fire-support platforms since it retired
the Iowa class battleships in the early 1990s. The Marines, however,
do not want 16-inch battleship guns, but rather an ensemble of advanced
guns and missiles that can meet ambitious requirements for range
and accuracy.
The Corps’ war-fighting doctrine is based on the notion that
while Marines land ashore and prepare to engage the enemy with their
own land-based weapons, they will need fire support from naval guns
on ship decks as far away as 200 nautical miles from the coast.
Today, the best the Navy can do is 13 nautical miles.
It will be at least four to seven years before any of a number
of long-range capabilities planned for the future is ready for use
in the fleet.
"In the world we are going to live in, that fire support will
be absolutely necessary," said Marine Maj. Gen. William A.
Whitlow, director of expeditionary warfare. "Until you get
your forces ashore, your fire support has to come from the sea,"
Whitlow said in a speech to the National Defense Industrial Association’s
expeditionary warfare conference, in Panama City, Fla.
Currently, he lamented, "We don’t have the fire support."
That is a shame, he said, given the type of war the United States
now is fighting in South Asia. "You can’t shoot $1 million
missiles against the guy in the tent and then run back to the United
States and reload," said Whitlow. "You don’t have
enough of them, and you can’t afford it."
With the dollars available in the budget, he said, "We need
to continue to develop and field adequate surface fire systems to
support forces ashore, naval or otherwise."
The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress,
estimated that the Navy would need about $2 billion to pay for the
development of the fire-support systems that the Marines want—not
including the cost of the ships.
Fire support only is useful if it comes in high volume, Whitlow
said. "It takes things like volume fire to rip the enemy’s
hearts out.
"Most people don’t care if it comes from a gun tube
or a [missile launcher], as long as we have it in sufficient quantity."
According to the Marine way of war, he said, "one precision
round doesn’t do it." Artillery fire is necessary, said
Whitlow, "even though it stirs up a lot of dust and turns up
a lot of rock."
But Whitlow stopped short of blaming the Navy for this problem.
He said that the Marines share some of the responsibility. "One
of the things we haven’t done well in the Marine Corps is
to more clearly define what volume fire is," he said. "It
isn’t an expensive missile or round. … Is it more than
10 rounds? Less than 200?
"We have to get a better definition. We have to get away from
a strike mentality [as opposed to volume fire]."
In the Marine Corps, Whitlow said, "We haven’t done
a good enough job defining the specific requirement."
Retired Navy Vice Adm. Henry C. Mustin, said that the Marines should
be more explicit about how many guns, how many missiles, how many
destroyers and cruisers they need to meet their requirements. "Until
those numbers are developed and supported analytically, promulgated
and understood by the Defense Department and Congress, you are not
going to get anywhere," Mustin said at the conference.
But not all Marines agree that they are to blame.
Lt. Gen. Emil R. Bedard, the Marine Corps’ deputy commandant
for plans, policy and operations, said that the requirements were
laid out unmistakably, several years ago. The problem is that they
keep getting changed.
"We have defined our requirements very, very clearly,"
said Bedard. However, "over the past 10 to 15 years, we have
moved the goal-posts."
A case in point is the land-attack Standard missile, which the
Navy was expected to acquire as a near-term weapon, until a more
advanced missile is developed. The LASM originally was intended
to hit soft targets, such as artillery and small vehicles. Subsequently,
said Bedard, "within the Navy, we went ahead and changed the
requirement that LASM be capable of killing tanks. LASM was not
designed to kill tanks."
The LASM was scheduled to be deployed in 2004, but the Navy recently
suspended the program. A Navy spokeswoman said at press time that
the service had not yet decided whether to fund LASM in fiscal 2003
and beyond.
"The kind of fire support that the Marines need for maneuver
ashore in the littorals is not the tactical Tomahawk," said
Bedard. "It’s the kind that comes from a gun." Today,
"We don’t have it [even though] the requirements have
been articulated. … We have a hard requirement for a gun.
We are not going to fall off from that requirement."
The leadership of the Navy, said Bedard, should stop "abandoning
programs that have been worked on for four to five years."
DD-X Program
The DD-21 cancellation was bad news for many Marines, because that
destroyer came with two 155 mm gun systems per ship. Those guns
would fire long-range guided projectiles from 200 miles out.
To replace the DD-21, the Navy started the so-called DD-X program,
which aims for a broader family of ships, from large destroyers
to small combatants and missile-defense ships. DD-X, however, is
only a research program and does not include ship production.
There has been a torrent of speculation as to why the Navy cancelled
DD-21. Among the most obvious reasons, said several experts, is
that a single-mission ship is hard to justify in an environment
of tight shipbuilding budgets.
Scott C. Truver, vice president of national security studies at
Anteon Corp., said in a recent interview that the Navy was pressured
to change the program in order to meet emerging requirements for
missile-defense missions. "Land attack [alone] is less desirable
than tactical and operational flexibility, and theater ballistic-missile
defense," Truver said.
The cost of the ship, at nearly $1 billion each, made the DD-21
program unpalatable to Navy leaders who were trying to fund other
shipbuilding and aviation programs viewed as more pressing. Both
the size and the cost were factors that weighed heavily, said Rear
Adm. Thomas J. Wilson, the Navy’s director of surface warfare.
Marine Maj. Gen. G. Nash, director of operations, observed that
the "joint sea services are great teammates until they go into
the budget wars."
Bedard, meanwhile, said the problem with DD-21 was that it was
taking on too big a risk by pushing technologies that are not yet
proven. The ship, for example, was supposed to be the first electric
ship in the Navy and the first surface combatant to operate with
a crew of less than 100 sailors.
"DD-21 was a great idea. But we hung so many bells and whistles
on it that it was beginning to sink," Bedard told the conference
in Panama City. Officials said that the DD-X program will continue
to fund the development of the 155 mm gun, even though the design
of the ship is yet to be determined.
"We don’t tell the Navy how to build a ship," Bedard
said. "We tell them what our requirement is, and they have
to figure out how to do it."
Whitlow noted that the debate over naval surface fire support has
been going on for many years. Dozens of letters written by the current
and former commandants of the Marine Corps have circulated around
the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill, but the lobbying campaign has
not proved effective thus far.
There are several naval surface fire-support systems that the Marine
Corps said it needs. The only one that is available today is the
5-inch, 54-caliber projectile, fired from 5-inch guns aboard Arleigh-Burke
destroyers and other vessels. This weapon has a range of 13 nautical
miles.
The capabilities that the Corps wants but does not have include:
• The Extended-Range Guided Munition (ERGM), a GPS-guided
projectile expected to have a range of 63 nautical miles. It is
scheduled to be operational by 2006.
• The Tactical Tomahawk, a GPS-guided, more sophisticated
version of the current Tomahawk cruise missile. It is scheduled
to be in operation by 2004.
• The 155 mm long-range land-attack projectile, which is
now part of the DD-X program. That weapon will not be ready until
at least 2012.
• The Advanced Land-Attack Missile (ALAM), with a range of
more than 200 nautical miles. This weapon was supposed to be part
of the DD-21 program. A draft requirements document was issued,
but subsequently cancelled.
• The land-attack Standard missile. LASM was intended as
an interim system until ALAM was deployed. A Navy source said that,
"while new work on the program has been suspended, no official
word has been issued by the resource sponsor canceling the program."
(Continues on p. 28)
The Marine Corps also is planning to field improved land-based
artillery and air-to-ground weapon systems. These include:
• The lightweight 155 mm towed howitzer. This is a newly
designed weapon, scheduled to be operational in 2005.
• The High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), based
on a wheeled chassis. It is slated for deployment in 2008.
• The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The Marine Corps version
of JSF, with vertical takeoff and landing capabilities, is scheduled
to join the fleet by 2011.
As the DD-X program takes shape, it appears likely that the former
DD-21 155 mm gun will be retained as a subsystem in the new ship.
That means that contractors will continue development of both the
gun (with a 50-round magazine) and the long-range projectile.
The DD-X solicitation issued in November specifies that the ship
should be able to operate at speeds of about 30 knots. The desired
missions for DD-X include: land-attack, air-dominance, undersea
and surface dominance and mine-warfare operations.
It is less clear what will happen with the ALAM. The Navy’s
land-attack office is expected to begin funding the program in fiscal
year 2004, sources said.
If the Navy funds the program, it is likely that Raytheon and Lockheed
Martin will compete for the award. Raytheon is the prime contractor
for LASM and Lockheed Martin makes a naval version of the Army tactical
missile, known as NTACM.
Lockheed Martin is hoping that the uncertainty about LASM will
open the door for the company to resurrect NTACM as an alternative
weapon.
When the Navy originally committed to buying LASM as an interim
system in 1998, it rejected the NTACM as too expensive. Industry
sources at the time said that the main reason why the Navy had picked
LASM was to sustain the production line of the Standard missile,
which is the cornerstone of the Navy’s theater missile-defense
capability. Then director of Navy surface warfare Rear Adm. Rod
Rempt specifically recommended LASM, over NTACM.
In 1998, the Navy asked Raytheon to start producing LASM by converting
the Standard air-defense missile to a surface-to-ground strike weapon.
LASM, fitted with an advanced warhead and guided by GPS and its
own inertial navigation system, could hit targets up to 150 nautical
miles inland, Raytheon said. Lockheed claims that NTACM has a range
of 185 nautical miles.
There are approximately 1,200 rounds in the U.S. Navy’s inventory
available for LASM retrofit.
But even if the Navy cancels LASM, officials said that the requirement
for a long-range land-attack missile is not going away.
"We sure hope LASM goes forward," said Raytheon spokeswoman
Sara Hammond. "It’s the only near-term fast strike missile
in development." She said the missile completed a critical
design review in October and is on track for a flight test in the
spring of 2002.
The NTACM is identical to the Army tactical missile, with a couple
of minor internal modifications, said a Lockheed Martin source.
"The requirement is still there, so we believe that NTACM is
still a candidate."
The Lockheed official said that the Navy’s nuclear submarine
community appears to be interested in NTACM as a weapon that could
be launched from Trident submarine missile tubes. To make it work
from underwater, the NTACM would have to be fit in a special capsule,
to keep it dry until it reaches the surface.
NTACM would cost $426,000 apiece, according to Lockheed. The General
Accounting Office said in a May 2001 report that LASM probably would
cost $400,000.
The idea of adapting an Army missile for naval operations is not
new. In February 1995, the Navy fired Army tactical missiles off
the fantail of the USS Mount Vernon. The launch platform was a heavy
truck with a launcher box on the back. Testers drove the launch
vehicle onto the fantail of the Mount Vernon, took the ship 75 miles
out to sea, off San Clemente Island, in the Pacific. The missile
is reported to have hit a parked trailer on the range in the island.
Following that experiment, Lockheed engineers fired the missile
from the Navy’s Mk 41 vertical-launch cell at White Sands
Missile Range.