The U.S. Sea Services need more logistics ships. A lot more. The services allowed the combat-logistics fleet to wilt during the post-Cold War interregnum when Americans talked themselves into believing that their victory was for all time, history had ended, and strategic competition and warfare were no more. Why waste resources preparing for a war that will never come? Now, though, competition and conflict have come back with a vengeance. The U.S. Navy fleet—including the logistics fleet—must rebound in size and capability to keep pace with gathering dangers.
If my arithmetic is correct, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps can count on about 276 auxiliaries to haul manpower, fuel, ammunition, and cargo of all kinds during an armed conflict, presumably in the Western Pacific or Western Europe. The Navy’s Military Sealift Command operates “approximately 125” of these workhorse vessels (116 at the moment, by my count). The Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration maintains a National Defense Reserve Fleet made up of “approximately 100 vessels,” including a Ready Reserve Force that tallies 48 ships at present. The Maritime Administration also has standing agreements with civilian shippers granting access to 60 more merchantmen in times of crisis, constituting the nation’s Maritime Security Program Fleet.
Two hundred seventy-six sounds like a plentiful supply of auxiliary ships. In fact, the inventory is lean in the extreme at a time when the demand for logistical support is only mounting. Think about the operational concepts Navy and Marine officialdom has broached in recent years. Concepts that go by such names as Distributed Maritime Operations, Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment, and Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations instruct expeditionary naval forces to break up into smaller, more numerous packets. Scattering combat power among more, smaller units imparts resiliency to the force, allowing it to absorb battle losses and fight on. After all, if only a minute percentage of the force’s aggregate strength resides in any given hull, airframe, or marine unit, losing that unit subtracts only a minute percentage from the force’s fighting power. The force endures. Which is the point.
But distributing the fleet compounds the logistics dilemma. All those units scattered across the nautical chart need sustenance. Resupplying, say, a Marine Littoral Regiment maneuvering along the Ryukyu or Philippine island chains demands a combat-logistics fleet that is just as distributed as the rest of the Sea Services. A host of shallow-draft cargo ships, crewed or uncrewed, is a must to service fighting forces that have fanned out across sea, sky, and land.
Bear in mind, though, that the logistics fleet needs more than numbers adequate for peacetime operations. It needs a surplus of vessels. That is because the enemy gets a vote in whether stores and reinforcements reach the scene of battle, just as it gets a vote in whether U.S. and allied forces prevail in battle once there. It will certainly vote “no.”
Look to the Pacific. China’s People’s Liberation Army (“PLA”) is an attentive student of history. Chinese mariners have studied World War II, the last time U.S. expeditionary forces had to fight their way across the oceans to reach distant battlegrounds. PLA analysts understand that the Imperial Japanese Navy made little effort to contest U.S. logistics despite possessing a complement of fleet submarines comparable to the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s submarine force—the force that ravaged Japanese communications and ultimately dismembered the island empire. You can bet the PLA Rocket Force, Air Force, and Navy will not repeat Japan’s grave and puzzling mistake. They will hurl the full weight of China’s anti-access defenses at the U.S. combat-logistics fleet, enfeebling U.S. battle forces indirectly without necessarily risking a major fleet engagement.
That is what I would do were I in command of the People’s Liberation Army. I would concentrate the bulk of my efforts on interdicting U.S. and allied resupply lines, on the logic that naval combat forces wither on the vine if deprived of ammunition, fuel, and stores for long. Even a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier needs regular replenishment. The carrier itself can steam on virtually forever, but its aircraft guzzle fuel. A carrier without a working air wing is a nuclear-propelled freighter. In short: take out the auxiliaries and the U.S. fleet goes away. Problem solved.
PLA commanders will also have learned from studying World War II that the United States lost some 500 logistics ships—around double the current inventory—sunk or damaged, to a clutch of relatively crude German U-boats during the six months following Pearl Harbor. The numbers game only adds to the allure of the indirect approach for Beijing, as does the fact that the U.S. Navy evidently has no plans to provide convoy escorts for vulnerable supply ships. Its battle fleet has too few light surface combatants equivalent to the tin cans that performed escort duty during the world wars. So it seems the logistics fleet will be both critical and unguarded in any Pacific fracas.
Go figure. The good news is that service chieftains and their political masters know the Sea Services and the maritime industry have a problem. Now let’s muster some collective urgency about solving it. Lose the logistics fleet, lose the war.
Dr. James Holmes is J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and a Distinguished Fellow at the Brute Krulak Center for Innovation & Future Warfare, Marine Corps University. The views voiced here are his alone.
The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.
Center for Maritime Strategy
By Dr. James Holmes
The U.S. Sea Services need more logistics ships. A lot more. The services allowed the combat-logistics fleet to wilt during the post-Cold War interregnum when Americans talked themselves into believing that their victory was for all time, history had ended, and strategic competition and warfare were no more. Why waste resources preparing for a war that will never come? Now, though, competition and conflict have come back with a vengeance. The U.S. Navy fleet—including the logistics fleet—must rebound in size and capability to keep pace with gathering dangers.
If my arithmetic is correct, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps can count on about 276 auxiliaries to haul manpower, fuel, ammunition, and cargo of all kinds during an armed conflict, presumably in the Western Pacific or Western Europe. The Navy’s Military Sealift Command operates “approximately 125” of these workhorse vessels (116 at the moment, by my count). The Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration maintains a National Defense Reserve Fleet made up of “approximately 100 vessels,” including a Ready Reserve Force that tallies 48 ships at present. The Maritime Administration also has standing agreements with civilian shippers granting access to 60 more merchantmen in times of crisis, constituting the nation’s Maritime Security Program Fleet.
Two hundred seventy-six sounds like a plentiful supply of auxiliary ships. In fact, the inventory is lean in the extreme at a time when the demand for logistical support is only mounting. Think about the operational concepts Navy and Marine officialdom has broached in recent years. Concepts that go by such names as Distributed Maritime Operations, Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment, and Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations instruct expeditionary naval forces to break up into smaller, more numerous packets. Scattering combat power among more, smaller units imparts resiliency to the force, allowing it to absorb battle losses and fight on. After all, if only a minute percentage of the force’s aggregate strength resides in any given hull, airframe, or marine unit, losing that unit subtracts only a minute percentage from the force’s fighting power. The force endures. Which is the point.
But distributing the fleet compounds the logistics dilemma. All those units scattered across the nautical chart need sustenance. Resupplying, say, a Marine Littoral Regiment maneuvering along the Ryukyu or Philippine island chains demands a combat-logistics fleet that is just as distributed as the rest of the Sea Services. A host of shallow-draft cargo ships, crewed or uncrewed, is a must to service fighting forces that have fanned out across sea, sky, and land.
Bear in mind, though, that the logistics fleet needs more than numbers adequate for peacetime operations. It needs a surplus of vessels. That is because the enemy gets a vote in whether stores and reinforcements reach the scene of battle, just as it gets a vote in whether U.S. and allied forces prevail in battle once there. It will certainly vote “no.”
Look to the Pacific. China’s People’s Liberation Army (“PLA”) is an attentive student of history. Chinese mariners have studied World War II, the last time U.S. expeditionary forces had to fight their way across the oceans to reach distant battlegrounds. PLA analysts understand that the Imperial Japanese Navy made little effort to contest U.S. logistics despite possessing a complement of fleet submarines comparable to the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s submarine force—the force that ravaged Japanese communications and ultimately dismembered the island empire. You can bet the PLA Rocket Force, Air Force, and Navy will not repeat Japan’s grave and puzzling mistake. They will hurl the full weight of China’s anti-access defenses at the U.S. combat-logistics fleet, enfeebling U.S. battle forces indirectly without necessarily risking a major fleet engagement.
That is what I would do were I in command of the People’s Liberation Army. I would concentrate the bulk of my efforts on interdicting U.S. and allied resupply lines, on the logic that naval combat forces wither on the vine if deprived of ammunition, fuel, and stores for long. Even a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier needs regular replenishment. The carrier itself can steam on virtually forever, but its aircraft guzzle fuel. A carrier without a working air wing is a nuclear-propelled freighter. In short: take out the auxiliaries and the U.S. fleet goes away. Problem solved.
PLA commanders will also have learned from studying World War II that the United States lost some 500 logistics ships—around double the current inventory—sunk or damaged, to a clutch of relatively crude German U-boats during the six months following Pearl Harbor. The numbers game only adds to the allure of the indirect approach for Beijing, as does the fact that the U.S. Navy evidently has no plans to provide convoy escorts for vulnerable supply ships. Its battle fleet has too few light surface combatants equivalent to the tin cans that performed escort duty during the world wars. So it seems the logistics fleet will be both critical and unguarded in any Pacific fracas.
Go figure. The good news is that service chieftains and their political masters know the Sea Services and the maritime industry have a problem. Now let’s muster some collective urgency about solving it. Lose the logistics fleet, lose the war.
Dr. James Holmes is J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and a Distinguished Fellow at the Brute Krulak Center for Innovation & Future Warfare, Marine Corps University. The views voiced here are his alone.
The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.