From the Navy: New Strategies and Tactics for War on the Open Sea

Courtesy of the Naval Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center (SMWDC)

By Rear Adm. Dave Welch

The recent online republication of a 1993 Proceedings article from Capt. Christopher H. Johnson, “The Surface Navy: Still in Search of Tactics,” by the Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC) in July 2018 can be interpreted two ways. The reprint either suggests that Capt. Johnson’s cautionary tale of 25 years ago went unheeded and the Surface Forces are substantially unchanged in our approach to the development of tactical proficiency, or it serves as an invitation to examine what has changed.1,2 As the Surface Warfare community prepares to gather for the annual national symposium of the Surface Navy Association, I choose the latter interpretation and offer that there have been significant changes, particularly in the last five years.

In 1993 Capt. Johnson argued that training cycles focused on administrative tasks – a check-in-the-block approach – to build readiness, and that workups lacked a meaningful, deliberate focus on the development of tactical proficiency and expertise in a ship and crew. This critique was not without merit. By 1993 the Cold War had ended, the Soviet Union was dissolved, and the United States Navy enjoyed uncontested access to the open oceans. Focus was shifting to the littorals. Over the next two decades Surface Forces concentrated on power projection and support for the Joint fight ashore, with little impetus to hone our tactical skills in sea control mission sets. That period has ended, however, and the United States Navy is again in the midst of great power competition. Potential adversaries are developing capabilities that challenge our ability to operate in the deep blue, and with that comes an imperative to develop and master tactics that will translate into effective combat power at sea – tactics that take into account the current threats, and developing capabilities of potential adversaries. Fortunately, in contrast to the Surface Navy described by Capt. Johnson, we now have the ways and the means to advance lethality and tactical proficiency in the Surface Navy.  

The establishment of Naval Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center (SMWDC) in 2015 was a decisive development in our community, perhaps the most important development in a generation.

Lessons Truly Learned

In 1993, Capt. Johnson cast a vision of a Surface Warfare community that provided the latest in advanced tactical training and doctrine and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) to the Fleet to keep it ready, capable, and lethal. Such a vision was not new– it had been developed before in naval aviation. During the Vietnam War, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Thomas Moorer ordered a commission to examine the precipitous drop in naval fighter squadron combat kill ratios since World War II and the Korean War. The Ault Commission made sweeping recommendations, including the establishment of the Fighter Weapons School (TOPGUN) – a seminal step that took place in March 1969.3 This led to a systemic shift in tactical development and training. Over the following decades this approach expanded to all facets of carrier-based aviation, which now sits as a core mission for the most mature of SMWDC’s counterparts, Naval Aviation Warfighting Development Command (NAWDC).

Critical mass for the expansion of the Fighter Weapons School model into the Navy’s other warfare communities – including Surface Warfare – came in 2014 when Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert provided Warfighting Development Centers (WDC) Implementation Guidance to the Fleet.4 This was quickly followed by joint Pacific Fleet and Fleet Forces Commanders’ guidance from Admirals Harris and Gortney that began the internal reorganization of authority and responsibility in the Fleet to achieve the WDC mission.5