By Robbin Laird

I have had a chance to visit with Rear Admiral Garvin and his team in Norfolk last Fall and earlier this year.

We discussed the evolving approach to theater ASW in those discussions along with the evolving approach to training and shaping an effective distributed maritime force.

We continued our discussion during a phone interview on April 30, 2020 and focused on the evolving capabilities of the Maritime Patrol Enterprise and its intersection with the distributed maritime force and a kill web concept of operations.

Rear Admiral Garvin leads the U.S. Navy’s global maritime patrol and reconnaissance enterprise.

This means that he trains, certifies and deploys the U.S. Navy’s Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Forces worldwide in support of theater Fleet and Combatant Commanders.  This global oversight provides him a unique opportunity to focus on the entire scope of maritime operations, rather than focused narrowly upon one particular theater.

A 1989 US Naval Academy graduate, he witnessed the last 30 plus years of change in the political/military environment as a P-3 pilot. This meant as well that he was entering the force coincident with the perceived sunsetting of the Soviet Naval threat and transition to a new era of maritime patrol operations.

He began his deployed operational experience at Keflavik, Iceland as part of the US and NATO ASW force prosecuting former Soviet, now Russian submarines. Contrast this with his last operational deployment focused almost entirely on over land ISR contribution to CENTCOM forces.

Despite the decades-long increase in overland ISR and combat focused missions, the Navy did not abandon its key ASW mission set.

During my first discussion with a naval officer in 2011 about the coming P-3 to P-8/Triton transition, the Navy’s attention was focused squarely on delivering a new 21^st century capability to effectively meet a growing ASW threat, and to do so via the kind of manned-unmanned teaming which the P-8/Triton dyad demands.

In that 2011 discussion with then Commander Jake Johansson,  he highlighted how he thought P-8 would change the approach.

The P-8 gives you a range of capabilities that could be flexibly used in different ways. They will allow you the ability to fly from different bases farther from the fight.  The ability to reach more distant operational areas may impact our onstation time but the increased reliability of the aircraft and the inflight refueling capability will ultimately result in a force with increased responsiveness as well as more capability and flexibility for Combatant Commanders. 

We can protect our P-8 fleet a little bit better by having a little bit of distance between us and the fight as well.  We will also be able to rapidly get into theater or into that area of responsibility that we need to be in, do our business and come back.

CDR Johansson then highlighted the potential synergy between BAMS, which has evolved into Triton, and the P-8 for the ASW mission sets.

I call them remotely-piloted, because it takes a lot of people to operate these systems. We moved to the family of systems (BAMS and P-8) because we felt that we could move some of the persistent ISR capabilities to a more capable platform, BAMS.  BAMS long dwell time can provide the persistence necessary more efficiently than a rotation of P-8 24/7/365.  Also, if we used P-8 to do that we would have to increase squadron manpower to give them the necessary crews to fly 24/7 MDA in addition to the ASW/ASUW missions. 

We hope to have 5 orbits flying 24/7/365 to cover the maritime picture were required. The great thing about BAMS and P-8 is that they can work together to meet the COCOMS requirements.  BAMS can provide the persistence and the P-8 can be used to conduct the specialized skill-sets that the BAMS cannot.  BAMS can provide you the maritime picture while the P-8 either responds to BAMS intelligence or conducts ASW/ASUW. 

This Family of Systems concept can become quite a lethal combination if we employ it correctly.

That was in 2011; now in 2020, I am talking with Rear Admiral Garvin and although the language has evolved somewhat, the operational experience being gained with P-8 and the coming of Triton certainly validates CDR Johansson’s forecast.

Question: In a way the approach we took with our allies to defend the GIUK, which included SOSUS, manned aircraft, and combat ships of various types, is being morphed today into a 360-degree manned-unmanned teaming tracking and kill web.

Is that a fair way to put it?

 Rear Admiral Garvin: It is. We are following a similar mission construct working with our allies but the thinking and modality has advanced significantly.

“We are taking full advantage of the leap forward in many sensors and communications technology to interoperate in ways that were previously impossible. Faced with a resurgent and challenging ASW threat, we have not given up on the old tool sets, but we are adding to them and weaving them into a new approach.

“We are clearly shifting from linear or sequential operational thinking into a broader understanding and implementation of a web of capabilities.

“In the past, when operating a P-3, you operated alone, you had to be the sensor and the shooter. To be clear, it remains necessary that every P-8 aircraft and crew be ready and able to complete the kill chain organically, but the fact of the matter is that is not the way it always has to be, nor is it the way that we’re planning for it to have to be going forward.

“On any given mission, the P-8 could be the sensor and perhaps the allied submarine is the shooter. Or vice versa. Or maybe the destroyer is the one that happens to get the targeting solution and the helicopter is the one that actually drops the weapon. Sensor, shooter, communications node, or perhaps several at once, but each platform is all part of a kill web.”

Question: The P-8 and the Triton are clearly a dyad, a point often overlooked.

How should we view the dyadic nature of the two platforms?

Rear Admiral Garvin: There are several ways to look at this.

The first is to understand that both platforms are obviously software driven and are modernized through spiral development.

We focus on spiral development of the dyad in common, not just in terms of them as separate platforms. It is about interactive spiral development to deliver the desired combat effect.

“Another key element of teaming is that during the course of their career, the operators of P-8 and Triton have the opportunity to rotate between the platforms. 

“This gives them an innate understanding of the mission set and each platform’s capabilities. They, better than anyone, will know what the dyad can deliver, up to an including a high level of platform-to-platform interaction. The goal is to be able to steer the sensors or use the sensor data from a Triton inside the P-8 itself.

“The idea of P-8 and Triton operators working closely together has proved to be quite prescient.  

“Our first Triton squadron, VUP-19 is down in Jacksonville, Florida under Commander, Patrol and Reconnaissance Wing 11. And when we build out the full complement of Tritons, we’ll have VUP-11 flying out of Wing 10 in Whidbey Island, Washington. Triton aircrew literally work down the hall and across the street from their P-8 brothers and sisters.

“The Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance aviator of the future will be well versed in the synergy inherent in both manned and unmanned platforms.

“The unblinking stare of a Triton enhances the Fleet Commander’s MDA and understanding of an adversary’s pattern-of-life by observing their movements in the optical and electromagnetic spectrum.

“Moreover, Triton serves as a force multiplier and enabler for the P-8. Early in Triton program development, we embraced manned and unmanned teaming and saw it as a way to expand our reach and effectiveness in the maritime domain.

“One key software capability which empowers integration is Minotaur.

“The Minotaur Track Management and Mission Management system was developed in conjunction with the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Minotaur was designed to integrate sensors and data into a comprehensive picture which allows multiple aircraft and vessels to share networked information.

“It is basically a data fusion engine and like many software capabilities these days, doesn’t physically have to present on a platform to be of use.

“These capabilities ride on a Minotaur web where, if you are on the right network, you can access data from whatever terminal you happen to be on.

Question: With such an approach to integratabilty, then this allows the fleet to be able to collaborate with one another without each platform having to be topped up with organic generators of data and to have to maximize the sensor-shooter balance on a particular platform.

This then must provide flexibility as well when flying a dyad rather than a single aircraft to work a broad range mission like ASW?

Rear Admiral Garvin: It does.

It also provides for resiliency through multiple sensor points in the kill web empowering multiple kill points on that web.

“This begs the question, how much resiliency do you want to build in? Do you need several platforms that carry the actual data engine, with the rest of the force simply having access to data produced by the data fusion engine?

“It becomes a question of cost-benefit and how much resilience do you want to build into each individual platform.

 Question: In other words, the new approach allows for a differentiated but integrated approach to system development across the force seen as interactive platforms?

Rear Admiral Garvin:  I think of it this way, rather than taking an evolutionary or iterative approach, what this allows for is a step change approach.

“We’re thinking beyond just the iterative.”

This discussion with Rear Admiral Garvin drives home a key point for me that the MPA dyad operates in a way that is not simply a U.S. Navy capability for a narrowly confined ASW mission sets.

The USAF is clearly concerned with the maritime threat to their air bases and needs to ensure that a joint capability is available to degrade that threat as rapidly as possible to ensure that the USAF has as robust an airpower capability as possible.

Certainly, the B-21 is being built in a way that would optimize its air-maritime role. And clearly a core bomber capability is to get to an area of interest rapidly and to deliver a customized strike package.

Hence, for me the new MPA approach is a key part of the evolving USAF approach to future capabilities as well.

The color of the uniform perhaps belies how joint a kill web approach to platforms really is.

The featured photo shows the MQ-4C Triton preparing for a flight test in June 2016 at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md. During two recent tests, the unmanned air system completed its first heavy weight flight and demonstrated its ability to communicate with the P-8 aircraft while airborne. US Navy photo.

By Robbin Laird

Recently, I finished a study of the new build offshore patrol vessel and the shaping of a new template for shipbuilding in Australia.

This is the first of three new build ships for the Australian Navy and for the Australian Defence Force.

Next is the ASW frigate in this decade and in the decade after that the new build Australian Attack submarine.

This new build submarine – the Attack Class – has had much more press and public attention than the other two new classes of ships, but what can get overlooked is the context within which the new build attack submarine will enter the force.

By context in this article, I am referring to the evolution of the ADF and of the shipbuilding context.

The broader strategic context has been well treated in a number of articles focused on the nature of the Chinese and Russian air-maritime threats to the Australian forces and interests.

But clearly that operating environment is increasingly congested, contested, and complex.

There are three key elements of change shaping the operational context within which the Attack Class submarine will enter the force.

The first is a significant evolution of theater anti-submarine warfare, with the coming of the P-8/Triton dyad, likely leading to further integration of the Royal Australian Air Force with the Royal Australian Navy.

The second will be the rollout of maritime remotes as part of the kill web within which ASW will evolve, with sensor networks mutating and migrating through the arrival of artificial intelligence systems working networked sensors and with sensors themselves evolving to allow for direct interactivity among the sensor themselves.

The third is migrating the skill sets and innovations generated in this decade from the continued evolution of the Collins Class submarines.

During my visit to HMAS Stirling, I had a chance to discuss with submarine commander Robin Dainty.

“The demand side and the concepts of operations side of innovation affecting the naval forces will be very significant in the decade ahead. This will be a very innovative decade, one which I have characterized as building the distributed integrated force or the integrated distributed force.

“What this means for the submarine side of the house and for ASW is working new ways to cooperate both within national navies and across the air-naval-land enterprise of the allied forces. The decade will see new ways to link up distributed assets to deliver appropriate effects at the point of interest in a crisis.  It will involve working new weapon and targeting solution sets; it will see an expansion of the multi-mission responsibilities for platforms working in the distributed force.

“And the Collins class will be participating in this path of innovation and lessons learned as well as technologies evolved both on the ship or the extended battlespace enabling the evolution of an integrated distributed force.”

Recently, I had a chance to talk with the Deputy Chief of the Royal Australian Navy, RADM Mark Hammond.

Our conversation was to have taken place during my visit to Australia in March 2020, but COVID-19 raised its ugly head and that face-to-face conversation did not happen. We were able to talk by phone on April 28, 2020 about the context issue for the new build submarine.

RADM Hammond started by talking about the Australian context of submarine capability in terms of the significant range and endurance challenge posed by the Indo Pacific Theater through which Australia’s lifeblood or maritime trade flows (featured graphic above).

He then highlighted that during WWII the US conducted over 500 submarine operations across this Theater from Australia using S-class, Gato class, and Balao class submarines.

He noted that the Gato and Balao class were able to operate effectively at long distances across the Indo Pacific (as far north as Japan) from ports in Australia, but had to do so largely in surface transit mode for significant parts of the operation and only remaining submerged for short periods.

The smaller S-class lacked the endurance for this mission and were employed largely around the Solomon Islands and in areas close to the equator.

The Gato and Balao “Fleet boats” truly came into their own during the campaign and elements of their design arguably inform the ‘range and endurance’ DNA for successful conventional submarine operations from Australia today.

The Oberon class submarines operated by Australia from the late 1960s until 2000 were of similar but evolutionary capability, designed to transit at relatively high speed on the surface to an operating area, whereupon they would dive for more extended periods to conduct exercises and operations.

In an era predating effective broad area surveillance threats, this could be risk-managed and effective.

But “to emulate that capability today requires a bigger submarine because the entire deployment, including at nighttime, has to be undertaken under water because the environment has changed.

“Today anything on, or above, the surface of the ocean is liable to detection and targeting. And a submarine that has been detected and targeted is not very useful. As simple as that.”

We then discussed the impact of Collins modernization throughout the period of transition to the new build submarine.

“We are taking a continuous learning mindset that views the life cycle extension for Collins as an opportunity.

“It’s an opportunity to de-risk the future submarine program.

“It’s an opportunity to trial some technologies that will be integral to the future submarine program.

“And it’s certainly a mindset that recognizes that we must maintain lethal operational capability during the transition period.“

We then discussed the context for the new submarine which is being generated by innovations in theater ASW in the decade ahead.

“The Attack Class submarine will be a fully interoperable ADF asset optimized to survive and thrive in the contemporary and future ASW threat environment.

“This means deliberately designing for interoperability with our own forces, our partners and our allies.

“It also means integrating in the design and construction methodologies the options and margins to enable future capability enhancements.“

“In my view, our Future Force must be designed to safely and effectively operate in the ‘environment of relevance’ and fight at the ‘speed of relevance’.

“Neither of these reference frames are static, and both are ambiguous. But failure to consciously consider and mitigate the risks posed by either will lead to inferior capability”

We next discussed the Arafura Class OPV template, its impact on the future submarine program and the integration of maritime remotes into the future combat environment.

“The Arafura OPV has a great deal of inherent design flexibility – especially wrt its capability to employ unmanned and remote sensors.

“With regard to the future submarine program, we’re looking for similar opportunities.

“But future proofing in a submarine design is a different challenge than doing the same in a surface vessel.

“The goal is the same though – to enhance through life relevance, recognizing the environment and speed of relevance are going to continue to change.

“In this context the more flexibility you have to upgrade sensors and weapons through life, the greater your capacity to maintain relative operational effectiveness and to exploit tactical advantages of the platform in the evolving threat environment.”

Obviously, this approach will also reduce the time to modernize and enhance cost effectiveness of the ongoing upgrade cycle as well.

“The design approach for the future submarine fully embraces the evolution of maritime remotes in the maritime combat environment.

“We are working through the role of maritime remotes within the ADF, and as we develop that experience, we will fold that into the operational employment doctrine for the future submarine as well.”

And we concluded by discussing the impact of COVID-19 on perceptions of what Air Vice Marshal (Retired) John Blackburn refers to as Smart Sovereignty.

As RADM Mark Hammond put it: “I think in the age of COVID-19, it is likely the decision made by our island nation to establish an Australian national sovereign shipbuilding program, supported by largely sovereign supply chains, will be recognized as the right approach for Australia.”

Rear Admiral Mark Hammond

Rear Admiral Mark Hammond joined the Royal Australian Navy in 1986 as an electronics technician. He was commissioned as a naval officer in 1988 and is a graduate of the RAN Recruit School (1986); the Australian Defence Force Academy (1990); Australian Command and Staff College (2004); and the Centre for Defence Strategic Studies (2014).

Rear Admiral Hammond completed seamanship and navigation training in various ships then volunteered for submarine service. Qualifying in Oberon Class submarines in 1994, Hammond joined HMAS Collins as Navigating Officer in 1996 (during First of Class Trials), and was selected as Flag Lieutenant to the Chief of Navy.

He subsequently completed the Principal Warfare Officer’s Course and Submarine Warfare Course in 1998, and served as the commissioning Operations Officer in HMAS Waller. In 2001 Rear Admiral Hammond instructed the Submarine Warfare Officer Course and assumed duties as Executive Officer in HMAS Sheean. In 2003 Hammond completed the Netherlands Submarine Command Course (Perisher) and the US Navy’s Prospective Commanding Officer Course.

Rear Admiral Hammond served as Staff Officer Future Concepts at Naval Headquarters in late 2003, and graduated from Command and Staff Course in 2004. Hammond then deployed on operations with the Royal Navy Submarine force, before assuming command of HMAS Farncomb and completing two years of demanding operations in the Indo Pacific region.

Subsequent shore postings included Assistant Naval Attaché – Washington DC, USA; Director Future Submarines – Operational Requirements; Joint Exercise Director (J75) at Joint Operations Command; Director Submarine Sub-Program (Collins and Future Submarines); and Chief of Staff to the Chief of the Defence Force, performing the latter role for General Hurley from November 2012 to December 2013.

In late 2014 Rear Admiral Hammond was appointed as Director General Maritime Operations, exercising OPCON of the Navy’s ships, submarines and detachments, before relocating in 2017 to the United States for duties in the Pentagon as the Chief of Defence Force Liaison Officer to General Joseph Dunford, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Rear Admiral Hammond returned to Australia in March 2018 to assume duties as the Deputy Chief of Navy.

Rear Admiral Hammond has sea experience in French, British and US nuclear attack submarines, Australian and Dutch conventional submarines, and multiple surface vessels. Academic qualifications include Bachelor of Science (UNSW, ADFA, 1991); Masters in Management (Defence Studies, UCAN, 2004); and Masters in Maritime Studies (UoW, 2005).

The featured graphic was taken from the following report:

Andrew Forbes, Protecting the Ability to Trade in the Indian Ocean Maritime Economy (Sea Power Centre-Australia, 2014)