With the strategic opportunity for rebuilding Nordic defense, the project begun in 2018 in Norfolk in reshaping the U.S. and allied navy’s command structures and force design can find its real impact and meaning. The Nordic defense renaissance provides an opportunity for disruptive change and strategic redesign to deal with the challenges facing both European direct defense and North American defense.

Whether the United States fully embraces this opportunity rests in part on whether the strategic shift launched in 2018 can be maintained and leveraged over the next few years.

In our just published book, A Maritime Kill Web Force in the Making: Deterrence and Warfighting in the XXIst Century,  we have provided analysis of how the maritime forces can work together to deliver the kind of defense capabilities appropriate to 21^st century threats from the authoritarian powers.

When one combines this book with our earlier book,The Return of Direct Defense in Europe: Meeting the Challenge of XXIst Century Authoritarian Powers, one can see how we have been focusing on both strategic changes, and the changes in both the art of warfare and the art of warfighting required as we move beyond the land wars of the past twenty years. We have argued that this is not only a strategic shift but a strategic shock, and Russian actions in Ukraine certainly have underscored those key points.

What follows is an excerpt from chapter eight in our new book:

The U.S. Navy is shaping an integrated distributed force. Working connectivity throughout the force and working new ways to shape modular task forces provides the capability for the U.S. Navy to be more lethal, survivable, and effective and lays down the foundation for working new technologies into the fleet along the lines of the payload/utility kill web approach which we discuss in the next chapter.

The standup of new fleets in Norfolk to deal with the Russian threat starting in 2018 provides a case study of such change. We spent time with the command as well as with the North Carolina-based Marines to understand how the relaunch of Second Fleet and the standup of a new NATO command in the United States drive and reflect the changes in fleet operations shaping a way ahead for a distributed force within integratable kill webs.

Second Fleet and Allied Joint Force Command Norfolk were placed under the command of Vice Adm. Lewis to launch the new approach and to shape the initial way ahead. According to his original deputy, Vice Adm. Mustin, who is now head of the Naval Reserves, “What made us successful over the last 20 years, post 9/11, is not what’s going to make us successful into the next few decades.

Working with Vice Adm. Lewis has been important as well. As Second Fleet Commander, he clearly understands that we need to shape a new approach. When I was in High School in the 80’s, my father was Second Fleet Commander, so I can legitimately say that “The new Second Fleet is not your father’s Second Fleet.” He went on to add that “What Vice Adm. Lewis wants and what we are offering started with a clean sheet of paper as it relates to the design of the reserve force for C2F.”

The opportunity which the U.S. Navy has had to standup a new fleet in Norfolk to deal with North Atlantic defense as well as to work interactively with the standup of the only NATO operational command on U.S. territory has clearly allowed for shaping an innovative way ahead for fleet operations, and joint and allied integration to deal with the Russian, not the Soviet threat.

We have discussed the standup of the commands and their interaction in crafting a fully operational fleet with the leadership of both commands as well as with the Marines who are working with them. It is clear that from the outset, the approach has been to work from the ground up to have a distributed integrated force.

As Vice. Adm. Lewis put it to us: “We had a charter to re-establish the fleet. Using the newly published national defense strategy and national security strategy as the prevailing guidance, we spent a good amount of time defining the problem. My team put together an offsite with the Naval Post-Graduate school to think about the way ahead, to take time to define the problem we were established to solve and determine how best to organize ourselves to solve those challenges.

“We used the Einstein approach: we spent 55 minutes of the hour defining the problem and five minutes in solving it. Similarly, we spent the first two and a half months of our three-month pre-launch period working to develop our mission statement along with the functions and tasks associated with those missions. From the beginning our focus was in developing an all-domain and all-function command.

“To date, we clearly have focused on the high-end warfighting, but in a way that we can encompass all aspects of warfare from seabed to space as well.”

In a speech in early 2021 to DSI’s Fifth Annual Joint Networks Conference, Vice. Adm. Lewis underscored how he viewed the central role of allied and joint integration in shaping a way ahead for the commands.

“At C2F, we have integrated officers from multiple allied nations directly into the fleet staff. The U.S. Marines, reserve component officers, and foreign exchange officers are fully functioning staff members—not just liaison officers—and they include a two-star Royal Canadian Navy officer as the vice commander of C2F.

“At JFCNF, an initial team of fewer than ten individuals stood up the command with the help of reserve, joint, and international officers—a testament to integration from its inception. We are also integrating the staff by functional codes (C2F N-codes in the same building with their JFCNF J-codes), and we aspire to use NATO standards for everything from classification to mission orders and associated command-and-control systems to realize our full potential.”

In that speech, Vice. Adm. Lewis highlighted the importance of interoperability and interchangeability in working fleet capabilities. “Interoperability is defined as ‘the ability to act together coherently and efficiently to achieve tactical, operational, and strategic objects,’ often involving the ability to exchange information or services by means of electronic communications. We must then be integrated—the ability of forces to not only work toward a similar mission, but to do so as one unit.

“An example of this is the Mendez Nunez, who deployed as part of the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group in 2019. The final step in the spectrum of relationships is interchangeability. That is the ability to accomplish the mission, regardless of which nation is executing a particular role.”

The launch of the C2F saw the addition of Lewis’s Vice Commander to be a Canadian Rear Admiral. One clearly important fact cannot be missed when visiting VADM Lewis, is that one finds his office flanked on one side by a Canadian Rear Adm. and on the other by a British Rear Adm. The first is his C2F deputy, and the second is his NATO deputy.

It is hard to miss the point: this is a command focused on integration of maritime capability across the North Atlantic. The importance of having a Canadian Rear Adm. within the American command cannot be overstated. Rear Adm. Waddell brings experience from commanding Canadian forces in the Pacific and the Atlantic.

According to Waddell: “We will not be as large a command as other numbered fleets. We are designed to max out at about 250 people and currently are around 200 now. We must be different and innovative in how we get after the missions. We need to make sure we’re using tools and alternative resources, because we don’t have that depth and capacity of people, so you have to find a different way.”

As a startup command that is FOC, they are not emulating other numbered commands in many ways. “We are not primarily focused on the business of force generation, but we focus on how to use assigned forces to shape a desired outcome. We don’t want to get in the space of those responsible for force generation: we just want to be able to advocate for timely, effective outputs that optimize the use of the fleet.”

He noted that the assumption that the Second Fleet was going to be the Second Fleet of old was misplaced. “The old Second Fleet was interested in sea lines of communication. But the new Second Fleet is focused on strategic lines of communication. This is an all-domain perspective, and not just the convoy missions of past battles of the Atlantic.” He referred to C2F as the maneuver arm in providing for defense, deterrence, and warfighting but as part of a whole of government approach to defending the United States, Canada, and NATO allies against threats.

He underscored that “we are flexible and unconcerned with regard to whom we will work for. Operationally, we work for NAVNORTH (Fleet Forces Command) for the Homeland Defense Mission, but we can seamlessly transfer and work for NAVEUR/ EUCOM to defend forward, or to work in the GIUK Gap for an Allied Joint Force Command.”

How did we end up with a Vice Commander who is Canadian?

As Rear Adm. Waddell tells it, “Vice. Adm. Lewis was asked to stand up Second Fleet and given much latitude to do so. He went to a senior Canadian official to ask for a Royal Canadian Navy officer to serve as his deputy.”

Waddell felt that bringing a Canadian officer into the force made a lot of sense for a number of reasons.

First, because of the partnership nature of operations in the area of interest.

Second, because the Canadians have experience in operating in the high north, which could be brought to the renewed efforts on the part of the United States side to do so.

Third, as Waddell himself works the C2F experience he can weave what he learns into Canadian approach to operations. “It’s not lost on me that we as a Canadian service honed our teeth in the battle of the Atlantic in the Second World War in the North Atlantic and then in the ASW fight through the Cold War. Those competencies, although we were collectively distracted a little bit from iterations to CENTCOM and in the Persian Gulf for some time, are crucial going forward. I think we’ve reinforced those capabilities and are investing in new capabilities at home in Canada, such as with the Type 26 surface combatant program, a very robust platform.”

He discussed various tools and approaches being used to understand how to scope the challenges and priorities, including hosting a Battle of the Atlantic tabletop exercise. The goal of efforts like these are to scope out the various interactions across an extended battlespace to understand how fights influence one another.

All of this leads to a very significant conclusion about the U.S. Navy and allies integrating across an extended battlespace and operating distributed forces. “For the web of capabilities, you need to be ready to fight tonight, you need to be able to seamlessly integrate together across the fleet, inclusive of U.S. and allied forces. You fight as a fleet.”

That means fundamental change from a cultural assumption that the U.S. Navy has run with for many years. “You need to understand and accept that a fighting force needs to be reconfigurable such that others can seamlessly bolt on, participate in, or integrate into that force. That might mean changes from the assumptions of how the Navy has operated in the past to successfully operate with allies.” Reconfigurable across a coalition is clearly enabled by kill web capabilities to operate as flexible modular task forces.

The standup of Allied Joint Forces Command occurred shortly after that of the new C2F. And the concept from the outset was that both commands would work together under the leadership of a single U.S. Admiral to find ways to shape more effective leveraging of U.S. and Allied capabilities and to be able to operate as a much more effective integrated force than in the past.

JFC Norfolk was created at the 2018 Brussels Summit as a new joint operational-level command for the Atlantic. It reached an important milestone in September 2020 when it declared Initial Operational Capability. JFC Norfolk is the only operational NATO command in North America and is closely integrated with the newly reactivated U.S. Second Fleet.

JFC reached its initial operating capability in September 2020. Royal Navy Rear Adm. Betton, who was the first commander of HMS Queen Elizabeth, is the Deputy Commander of Allied JFC.

According to a discussion we had with Betton in March 2021, “Coming here 18 months ago has been a really exciting professional opportunity, and genuinely a pleasure to have another run at setting up a team pretty much from scratch. The Second Fleet team was well on the way by the time I got here, but the NATO team was just about at conception, but not much beyond that.”63 The geography and three-dimensional operational space of the NATO zone of responsibility is very wide indeed.

As Betton put it: “SACEUR’s area of responsibility, goes all the way from the Yucatan peninsula in the Gulf of Mexico to the North Pole. I’ve always loved the phrase from Finnmark to Florida, or Florida to Finnmark. But it is also important to realize all domain challenges and threats that we face. It’s everything from seabed infrastructure, through the sub-sea water column, the surface, the airspace above it, and up into the satellite constellation above that.”

The allies are bringing new capabilities to the fight, such as P-8s, and F-35s, and new combat ships as well. Finding ways to integrate evolving allied capabilities by the “relevant nations” is crucial to shaping a more effective allied deterrent and warfighting strategy in the North Atlantic.

As Betton put it: “The U.S. is by far the dominant figure of NATO, but it’s not the only piece. And it’s not always just the heavy metal that is relevant. It’s the connectivity, it’s the infrastructure and the architecture that enables the 30 nations of NATO to get so much more than the sum of the parts out of their combined effort.

“But it’s particularly the relevant nations in the operational area and their ability to work together which is an important consideration.”

The Rear Adm. underscored the importance of the only operational NATO command on U.S. soil. “The idea of integrating it with the second fleet headquarters under a dual-hatted command was a fantastic move because it emphasizes bluntly to Europe that the U.S. is fully committed to NATO. It’s not NATO and the U.S. The U.S. is part of NATO. And having an operational headquarters here in CONUS really emphasizes that point in both directions.”

He noted that there are 16 nations at the command currently with three more arriving in the next few months, namely, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Bulgaria. And reworking how to create the most effective defense is also a work in progress.

As Rear Adm. Betton put it: “One of the key efforts we are pursuing in this integrated command is not just stitching together NATO and U.S. assets, but it’s also stitching together teams within teams. It could be the U.S. cooperating with Norway, Sweden, and Finland, with Admiral Lewis commanding a multinational command.

“And a crisis might grow and evolve into something that the North Atlantic Council agree to respond to and therefore activate the JFC to command in a NATO sense. But because the Commander has that flexibility to go from a unilateral U.S. only under second fleet, through a growing coalition, there’s the opportunity to coordinate activity with a whole diverse range of entities before it becomes a formal NATO response.”

It is clear that agility and scalability are a key part of the way ahead for 21st century full-spectrum crisis management. And the JFC working in an integrated manner with C2F certainly is working such capabilities. This is a case of startup fleets working core capabilities which are clearly needed across the combat force….

A Maritime Kill Web Force in the Making

We have just published our book A Maritime Kill Web Force in the Making which highlights how mobile and sea basing provide key components for an integrated distributed force.

As we noted in the chapter in the book entitled “the expeditionary sea basing force in maneuver warfare”:

“The U.S. Navy will never have enough ships to dominate as it did in World War II with the strike force that hit Saipan. And with the naval build-up of the Chinese and the Russians, the threat envelope is expanding at the same time. This means that the U.S. Navy will need to get full value out of the ships they have and to leverage flexible basing options in maritime maneuver warfare, shape enhanced integratability with the USAF and find more effective ways to operate with allies and partners.

“Shaping an integrated distributed force for maneuver warfare at sea, operating through interactive kill webs, is not a nice transformation to have but a requisite one. There is no area where better value could be leveraged than making dramatically better use of the amphibious fleet for extended battlespace operations.

“This requires a re-imaging of what that fleet can deliver to sea control and sea denial as well as Sea Lines of Communication (SLOC) offense and defense.

“Fortunately for the sea services, such a re-imaging and reinvention is clearly possible, and future acquisitions which drive new connectors, new support elements, and enhanced connectivity could drive significant change in the value and utility of the amphibious fleet as well. In addition, as the fleet is modernized new platform designs can be added to the force as well.

“This entails shaping variant payloads as well to be delivered from a distributed integrated amphibious fleet. As building out the evolving fleet, larger capital ships will be supplemented and completed with a variety of smaller hull forms, both manned and autonomous, but the logistics side of enabling the fleet will grow in importance and enhance the challenges for a sustainable distributed fleet.

“That is certainly why the larger capital ships – enabled by directed energy weapons as well – will see an enhanced role as mother ships to a larger lego-like cluster of smaller hull forms as well.”

Recently, I continued my discussions with Jim Strock, a leading expert on expeditionary sea-basing, about how such an approach is enabled by the new class of expeditionary sea-basing ships, the Lewis B. Puller-class expeditionary sea base ship.

But prior to focusing on that discussion, here is  a very good explanation of this class of ship provided in a June 16, 2020, video where the captain of USS Lewis B. Puller explains how this ship contributes to the enablement for the force operating from a sea base.

And this is how Naval Sea Systems Command describes the ESB:

“The Expeditionary Sea Base (ESB) ship class is highly flexible that may be used across a broad range of military operations supporting multiple operational phases, similar to the Expeditionary Transfer Dock (ESD) class. Acting as a mobile sea base, they are part of the critical access infrastructure that supports the deployment of forces and supplies to provide prepositioned equipment and sustainment with flexible distribution.

“The ships were originally called the Mobile Landing Platform (MLP) and the MLP Afloat Forward Staging Base (AFSB), respectively. In September 2015, the Secretary of the Navy re-designated these hulls to conform to traditional three-letter ship designations. The design of these ships is based on the Alaska class crude oil carrier, which was built by General Dynamics National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO). Leveraging commercial designs ensures design stability and lower development costs.

“The USS Lewis B. Puller (ESB 3), USS Hershel “Woody” Williams (ESB 4), and follow on ships USNS Miguel Keith (ESB 5), John L. Canley (ESB 6), and Robert E. Simanek (ESB 7) are optimized to support a variety of maritime based missions, including Special Operations Forces (SOF) and Airborne Mine Counter Measures (AMCM). The ESBs, which include a four spot flight deck, mission deck and hangar, are designed around four core capabilities: aviation facilities, berthing, equipment staging support, and command and control assets.

“In August 2017, upon arrival in the U.S. 5th Fleet Area of Responsibility, ESB 3 was re-designated from USNS and commissioned as a USS. As a commissioned Navy ship, USS Lewis B. Puller (ESB 3) is commanded by a Navy O-6 with a permanently embarked military crew. This re-designation provides combatant commanders greater operational flexibility as to how the platform is employed in accordance with the laws of armed conflict.

This is how Strock then described how the ESB can operate to support an integrated distributed fleet and deliver kill web capabilities.

“Let me give you an overview of what the ship can do in its current configuration and with potential modifications. Right now, it has inherent features that can support Marine Corps MAGTF capabilities and mission sets in the near term. Its current organic capabilities support aviation, troop movement, equipment staging, and have significant command and control spaces.

“And it has already demonstrated the ability already to embark and operate a wide variety of modular capabilities for mission tasking well beyond what the ship was originally designed to do.

“For example, it provides for unmanned systems operation and support. As you know, the Navy and the Marine Corps are considering adding unmanned surface vessels, unmanned under sea vehicles, and unmanned aerial vehicles as fundamental capability sets in current and future operating environments.

“They’re already out there. Once operational, those systems need to be supported without encumbering other high-value ships, such as surface combatants and amphibious ships with additional duties.

“The ESB in its current form and with modifications could support a wide variety of surface, aerial, and undersea unmanned systems to include launch and recovery, fueling, repair, and data and information fusion, as well as unmanned aerial systems that could be employed as airborne repeaters.

“The latest ESB that is under construction and will be christened on 25 June in honor of the late Sergeant Major John L. Canley, USMC, has a new boat davit launch and recovery system made by Vest Davit. This system can launch and recover surface craft up to 20-ton weight, a significant increase in the ship’s lift-on, lift-off capabilities

“Another capability which the ESB can provide is to operate as an alternate aviation operations and support platform. The ESB has the third-largest flight deck in the Navy’s inventory. The flight deck and hangar are currently certified to support H53, H60, V22, H1 aircraft operations. It’s currently operating unmanned aerial systems off of the flight deck. It’s able to enhance the ARG by providing increased aircraft operating spots and maintenance support services.

“For example, selected ARG aviation elements originally embarked on amphib ships could be transitioned to the ESB, thereby enabling the ARG’s large deck amphibious ship to be configured as an F-35 lightning carrier, if required. And as you know, the USS Tripoli just completed that test of a pure JSF mix.

“Moreover, the ESB has more than sufficient space, weight, and power reservations to accommodate the installation of ship modifications and enhancements that would enable the launch recovery of F-35 aircraft in vertical takeoff mode and landing mode, along with selected maintenance and support requirements.

“There is interest in determining whether or not you could modify one of the operating spots on an ESB to support JSF pure vertical launch and recovery. That would mean that a JSF, without armament and without full fuel load, could hopscotch to and from a big deck, if you needed to cross deck the airframes.

“What is not known right now is whether or not actual shipboard testing has been completed by NAVAIR for a JSF in a pure vertical launch and recovery mode operating off of a ship, and whether or not the ESB wind envelopes would support that. That is to be determined, but the physical structure the ESB can certainly support it.

“A core capability which the ESB can provide is for logistics support in a contested environment. If you look at the various supply packages that they could embark, and you couple that with the operational reach of both tilt rotor and rotary-winged aircraft, as well as surface connectors, ESBs can serve as a sea-based resupply and distribution hub in support of operating forces distributed over extended distances.

“With modifications to the empty ballast tanks that the ESBs already have —  remember the ships are built on a tanker platform —  engineers estimate that ESBs have the potential to store upwards of 11 million gallons of cargo fuel that could be distributed to forces ashore, or used for at-sea refueling of aircraft, connectors, and other sea-based platforms. To put it in perspective, LHA 6 and 7 carry around 1 million gallons of cargo fuel. The other big decks carry about 600,000 gallons of cargo fuel.

“But the ESB potentially could store and distribute 11 million gallons of cargo fuel without any substantial modification. ESB’s are constructed based on the Alaska Class Crude Carrier tanker design, and ESB production planners did not modify the tank rings that were part of the original ship general arrangements.  So today, selected tank rings could be returned to fuel storage capability with the addition of fuel distribution piping and pumping equipment.

“Additionally, ESBs can provide emergency health care support. The ESBs are already outfitted with container lockdown spots on the flight deck for resuscitative surgery suites. If emergency surgery for wounded is needed, you can bring them straight to the flight deck on a V22 and put them straight into an operating table.

“Another capability provided by ESB is that they can serve as an intermodal trans-shipment point. And this is really important to support the linkage between strategic, operational, and tactical logistics pipelines. The ESB could receive supplies and equipment from strategic sea lift shipping.

“Those could be commercial container ships. But this requires then reconfiguring those containerized assets into tailored support packages, and then delivering pre-planned or on-call supplies and equipment to forces ashore, certainly via manned systems and potentially unmanned systems, both vertical and surface.

“A core capability, notably with a kill web focus, is command and control. The ESBs are outfitted with three very large planning spaces that collectively have in the neighborhood of 40 individual tabletop planning desks, along with spaces to handle sensitive classified information.

“With the embarkation of modularized communication suites for additional connectivity on and off the ship, ESBs have significant flexibility in meeting increasingly dynamic afloat command and control requirements. And they can generate littoral battle space awareness through the use of embarked ISR assets, and the collection fusion and dissemination of that information across dispersed forces.

“And with regard to the ESB’s flexible mission deck, it has multiple container lock down spots and is configured with two megawatts of power. You can do a lot with two megawatts across a variety of functions.”

It is clear that the ESB then provides a significant opportunity to rethink how the fleet can leverage a capability that is both a support and littoral power projection vessel.

When considering the manning of the force, the ESB provides as well additional berthing spots for the operating force as well. Strock noted that the two ESBs under construction now have increased the berthing spots from 250 to 350.

And the ships provide a cost effective plus up of the fleet, notably when you take a distributed integrated kill web focus to how the fleet can operate in the evolving combat environment.

According to Strock, the first three ships delivered at around $650 million each which is about one-fifth the cost of a big deck amphibious ship and a little bit more than one-third the cost of an LPD-17 platform.

They also fit into the trend line of how the Navy is focusing on ship survivability.

The ship’s power generation capacity  could enable it to operate various ship self-defense systems.  Additionally, its hull form is inherently survivable against mine and torpedo strikes since it is based on a petroleum tanker design, which includes a center buoyancy box, and its subdued electromagnetic and acoustic signatures.

One of the key survivability factors is size.  To put size in perspective, the ESB is a 99,000-ton displacement warship.  That’s twice the tonnage of the LHA/LHD, and four times the tonnage of the LPD-17.

The ESB provides an excellent basing capability notably when considering basing as a key element of the dynamic and mobile chessboard which needs to be shaped as one builds out a force that is both more survivable and providing the kind of the lethality required notably through integratability.

This is how we put in our new book on shaping a maritime kill web force:

‘Military capabilities are being reshaped to operate in a contested environment involving peer competitors, and there is a clear opportunity to leverage new platforms and systems to shape a military structure more aligned with the new strategic environment. Mobile basing and re-crafting combat operational architecture are clearly key parts in shaping military capabilities for the new strategic environment.

“Mobile basing is an air-maritime-army effort to shape a chessboard enhancing mobile basing capabilities moving forward. Military capabilities are being reshaped to operate in a contested environment involving peer competitors, and there is a clear opportunity to leverage new platforms and systems to shape a military structure more aligned with the new strategic environment. Mobile basing and re-crafting combat operational architecture are clearly key parts in shaping military capabilities for the new strategic environment. Mobile basing is an air-maritime-army effort to shape a chessboard of capabilities which can deal with the threats of peer competitors which deploy into the extended battlespace.

“As Jim Strock, former Director of the Seabasing Integration Division at the USMC, put it in a recent interview:

“Sea control against adversaries that are relying on long-range fires to push our fleet back further is a key challenge. The carriers, the submarines, the DDGs provide significant firepower and can extend sea control in terms of firing solutions. But the expeditionary force based on the interconnected sea bases, from which one can project an air and ground integrated force, provides a very different but complimentary capability to the largely missile strike force.

‘I think what needs to be really brought into the conversation about these new operating environments is how Naval Expeditionary Forces with the current and evolving aviation capabilities can operate across all the warfighting functions: C2, fires, maneuver, logistics, force, protection, and ISR. How can you leverage their ability to extend sea power ashore in these new operating environments?”

Addendum:

 “The Navy awarded NASSCO a fixed-price incentive fee type contract for the detail design and construction of T-ESD 1 and T-ESD 2 in May 2011. A detail design and construction (DD&C) contract was awarded to NASSCO for T-ESD 3 in February 2012.

“The ship configuration was subsequently changed to ESB 3 mid-construction via an engineering change proposal in March 2014 after receiving JROC approval.

“A DD&C contract for ESB 4 was awarded on Dec. 19, 2014 and the construction contract for ESB 5 was awarded December 2016, and in August 2019, NASSCO was awarded the DD&C contract for ESB 6 and 7. T-ESD 1, T-ESD 2, ESB 3, ESB 4, and ESB 5 have delivered; in June 2020, ESB 6 began construction.”

General Characteristics, Expeditionary Sea Base (ESB)

Builder: General Dynamics – National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (GD-NASSCO)

Propulsion: Commercial Diesel Electric Propulsion

Length: 239.3 Meters (785 feet)

Beam: 50 Meters (164 feet)

Displacement: 90,000 tons (fully loaded)

Draft: 10.5 Meters (fully loaded); 12 Meters (load line)

Speed: 15 knots

Range: 9,500 nautical miles

Crew: 44 Military Sealift Command personnel

Military Crew: 101 military (Accommodations for 250)

Ships:

USS Lewis B. Puller (ESB 3), Norfolk, Virginia

USS Hershel ‘Woody’ Williams (ESB 4), Souda Bay, Greece

Miguel Keith (ESB 5) – Delivered

John L. Canley (ESB 6) – Under construction

Robert E. Simanek (ESB 7) – Under construction

Featured Photo: In a recent article, I highlighted the coming of autonomous USVs as a fleet extender and enabler. A ship like the USS Lewis B. Puller class can easily launch, and recover such vessels.

And given the variety of payloads, for example, that the MANTAC MANTAS or DEVIL RAY can carry, the swapping out of payloads for a wide variety of missions can easily be enabled by the ship’s many working areas. 

The featured photo and slide show highlights the operation of the DEVIL RAY from the USS Lewis B. Puller in the 5th Fleet area of operations and the photos are credited to MARTAC.

And for our January 2022 report on mobile basing, see the following:

And for our just published book, see the following:

A Maritime Kill Web Force in the Making

By Robbin Laird

As the U.S. Navy shifts to a priority emphasis on distributed maritime operations, the opportunity for maritime autonomous systems to play a growing role is opened up. That is for the simple reality that as distributed modular task forces deploy, autonomous capabilities can contribute to the lethality and survivability of the force.

The kill web is a collection of sensors netted with C², able to pass critical data to the optimal delivery system in order to rapidly achieve the Commander’s intent.  Software technologies are key parts of the way ahead to allow for switching across multiple domains to provide for a secure operational web.

Autonomous USVs can provide wolfpack deployed ISR or relay systems to enhance the reach and survivability of the fleet in its distributed operational role. They can also provide an ability to move data to other deployed task forces to provide for enhanced integrability to do so.

This is about deploying autonomous USVs in a wolfpack to operate payloads appropriate to the mission assigned to them by the commander of the modular task force. This means that the nature of the payloads onboard the USVs and their ability to work as a mission team are key attributes of how an autonomous system wolfpack can contribute to the survivability of the fleet (situational awareness) and lethality (through target acquisition support).

But the nature of the platform is important to enable such a capability. The focus on autonomous systems may be often described as platform agnostic, but clearly the platform needs to be viable for the mission sets it carries the payloads for.

So what might such a platform look like?

And how might it be built, upgraded and maintained?

I would start from the simple point that an autonomous USV is not a morphing of a manned vessel to an unmanned one.  It is not simply replicating what a manned ship looks like, but simply operated by robotics or simply being a vessel remotely piloted.

Recently, I had a chance to talk with Bruce Hanson of MARTAC systems with regard to how they have built and are upgrading their platforms upon which various payloads are being operated. In the next piece, I will focus on the kinds of payloads which their platforms are already operating in the real world. The point being what MARTAC has delivered is an autonomous USV capability which navies and maritime security organizations can use to build their operational experience for enhanced defense and security capabilities now and to learn how to reshape the force going forward.

The company currently features two boats, one 12 feet in length (MANTAS) and the other 38 feet in length (DEVIL RAY). They have other sizes of boats in process, but the core point is that they have built the boats so that if one can be trained to operate one of them one can operate the others as well.

Hanson underscored that they built their boats since 2010 by building vessels of three feet in length so that they could operate several of them to test out systems and capabilities. This meant also that from the ground up they have focused on how the vessels can operate as a wolfpack. As he noted: “There is no point in simply looking at one of our boats in isolation: it is about they can operate as a wolfpack, operating in your terms within a broader fleet kill web or mesh approach.”

Hanson underscored that “the vessels talk to each other and can adjust to single platform failures or degradation.” As he put it: “They can operate as a self-healing commando team.”

The boats are built to provide a scalable fleet of USVs. And Hanson noted: “What you get with the different size vessels are differences in range and payload ranging from 18 to 16,000 pound payloads and ranges from 35 to 1000 nautical miles on vessels from 6 to 60 feet.”

The boats are built to interface with customer payloads, as the company has eschewed from the outset building their own payloads. From the beginning, they understood that customers would wish to operate their own payloads, whether that be a U.S. service preference, or for allies and partners.

The boats are catamarans. Hanson and his team hold the world speed records for catamarans and they have applied their real-world experience to building boats to operate as USVs for the maritime and security forces. The boats are built from carbon fiber and are very durable and able to operate through waves in high sea states.

The form factor of the boats is such that they can operate from standard navy RHIB launchers , and can be configured to fit into various Naval standard launch systems as well.

The company has its own core software team which builds the software to operate the vessel, the C² and the interface with the payloads. As with all good smaller companies building a focused capability, they control the entire upgrade capabilities of their operating software systems for their boats.

The boats come standard with four independent C² systems which allows for flexibility in operating the boats dependent on the mission sets. The boats have low / high bandwidth sat com, high bandwidth line of site, low bandwidth line of sight and 4G/5G communications capabilities. According to Hanson: “We have quite a bit of edge processing on the boat along with cyber protection systems.”

The boats have a unique dead zone capability as well. This means that boats will stop, slow down, return to base, continue or do some other response if communications are cut so that the MARTAC boats do not suffer from the “runaway” boat problem which other USVs have demonstrated in various exercises.

The control system is designed for handoffs for boat control among operators in the fleet or ashore. The system can allow coalition transfer as well which would mean that a European nation with a fleet of MARTAC boats in operation could transfer control of those boats for a period of time to a partner or ally for their mission.

The boats are built to operate together or separately dependent upon the mission requirements. But they built the boats with a nested dolls approach. This means that the 38-foot boat can launch autonomously a 12-foot boat to collaborate in the mission as well.

The company has a slogan which goes with their company moniker which is “Beyond Human Capability.”  What this bluntly means is that the users of the boats need to understand that these boats are not simply mimic replacements for what humans would do if operating on the boats. Rather, the boats operate differently from how a human could do so if on the boats. What this means, for example, is that the speed of the boats and the turning ratios of the boats are beyond what a human onboard could survive.

Getting navies to understand that autonomous systems are not remotely piloted is a challenge as well. Hanson tells the story of an exercise with the U.S. Navy where the MARTAC representative told the US Navy evaluator that he was going to lunch right in the middle of the live mission. The evaluator commented: “You can’t do that – who will run the boat?” “It’s Sea State 3+”The MARTAC rep said: “The boat is operating itself. See you after lunch.”  When he came back from lunch, the boat was performing as expected and the U.S. Navy evaluator said: “Your boat truly is autonomous!”

Building a robust platform from day one to be autonomous, with appropriate operational software, but allowing for flexible customer payloads is what MARTAC is focused on doing with regard to their USV boats. In the next piece, I will focused on demonstrated missions which they have been able to execute in working with the US Navy and allies.

The video below shows a clip of the MANTAS returning to the DEVIL RAY after performing an ISR mission during Autonomous Warrior 2022 (Credit MARTAC)

Featured Photo: Devil Ray operating in Jarvis Bay, Australia, during Autonomous Warrior 2022 Exercise held by the Royal Australian Navy in May 2022.

For an explanation of the nested doll concept of operations, see the following:

A Con-Ops Enabler: Scalable USVs in a Nesting Doll Approach

Also, see Chapter Four on “The Coming of Autonomous Systems” in

Defense XXI: Shaping a Way Ahead for the United States and Its Allies

And for a comprehensive examination of the shaping of the maritime kill web concept of operations:

A Maritime Kill Web Force in the Making