Navy Times
February 24, 2003
Pg. 18

Battle Groups Prepare To Do More With Less Hardware

By David Brown, Times staff writer

When airstrikes began over Iraq 12 years ago, the Navy was feeling its way through a new type of warfare, one in which weapons could be shot from afar and technology, when wielded properly, could be devastating.

Now, as an invasion of Iraq becomes more likely, the Navy has had 12 years to improve. The bombs flown by jets pack more punch, war fighters can hit moving targets with greater speed, and troops from different services are more used to talking to one another.

Still, analysts say, the stretched- thin service — with older jets and ships — is missing some of the combat power the Persian Gulf War Navy had in its quiver.

The most pressing need, naval historian Norman Polmar said, is the ability to jam enemy radar.

During Operation Desert Storm, the EA-6B Prowler, a tactical electronic jammer, was aided by the Air Force’s EF-111 Raven. With the retirement of that aircraft in the late 1990s, the Prowler became the only tactical jammer used by the Navy, Marine Corps and, to a lesser extent, the Air Force. It shoulders the burden, Polmar said, and there aren’t enough of the aging Prowlers to go around.

"Our forces are going to be hard-pressed in the electronic countermeasures arena," he said.

Five decks

This time around, five aircraft carriers are massing in the waters near Iraq. The Constellation and Harry S. Truman, in the Persian Gulf and eastern Mediterranean, respectively, are on normal deployments.

The Abraham Lincoln was extended and has joined the Constellation in the gulf. As of Feb. 14, the Theodore Roosevelt was in the western Mediterranean on its way toward the Middle East, while the Kitty Hawk was near the Philippines heading west toward the Central Command area.

The total is a carrier down from the opening strikes of the Persian Gulf War, when the America, Saratoga and John F. Kennedy launched jets from the Red Sea while the Midway, Ranger and Theodore Roosevelt were stationed in the gulf.

But the fact that one fewer carrier is going over isn’t a symptom of a smaller service, said Scott Truver, a naval expert with Anteon Corp. It shows the Navy can do more with less.

"We don’t need more than five carriers," he said. "We’ve got agreements with local host countries [to base aircraft]. Kuwait came through, and so did Qatar."

Grainy images on television networks 12 years ago proved the worth of "smart" bombs, as weapons plowed into buildings that sat doomed in an airplane’s cross hairs. Still, nonguided "iron" bombs made up the bulk of the munitions dropped in Iraq during Desert Storm.

New warfare

With the Kosovo and Afghanistan conflicts, all that changed. Tomahawk cruise missiles not only hit the right building, they can hit an aiming point within two feet, Truver said.

Indeed, with war on the horizon, the Navy has cranked up its orders for precision-guided munitions. The fiscal 2004 budget request submitted in February asked for 267 Tactical Tomahawks, 429 Joint Stand-Off Weapons, 84 Standoff Land-Attack Missile-Expanded Response missiles, and 12,326 Joint Direct-Attack Munitions. All were increases over the 2003 budget, with the exception of SLAMER.

"Some 80 percent of the weapons in Operation Enduring Freedom were some form of precision weapon, as opposed to about 10 percent [for Desert Storm]," Truver said. "That’s driving the way you think about the load-outs for magazines."

The military flew some 200 sorties a day during Enduring Freedom, compared to 3,000 sorties a day during Desert Storm — hitting the same number of targets, several military officials said.

But that firepower doesn’t do any good without solid intelligence and the ability to hit moving targets, he said.

"The biggest change [since 1991] has been in information technology, which affects virtually everything," Truver said. "You’re able to get information and update your attack plans in a very short period of time compared to 1991."

Plus, more joint operations such as Allied Force and Enduring Freedom mean the services are used to dealing with one another, from midair refueling to close-air support, he said.

"There’s much more knowledge and understanding of what the different forces bring," Truver said. "You attack this, we attack that."

What they don’t have are aircraft with heavy bombing capability, such as A-6 Intruders and A-7 Corsair IIs, Polmar said. The Abraham Lincoln, though, is carrying the first operational squadron of F/A-18E Super Hornets, which have a greater bomb load and range than older Hornets.

The Navy also has learned lessons in conducting mine countermeasures after the mining of the cruiser Princeton and amphibious helicopter carrier Tripoli on Feb. 18, 1991. Navy officials in the past few years have made a priority of mine countermeasures and are distributing that capability to ships, helicopters and unmanned underwater vehicles.

When taken as a package, the U.S. military’s ability to strike the enemy from far away with pinpoint accuracy will be "awe-inspiring" for the Iraqis, Truver said.

"This literally will be a bolt out of the blue. They won’t know it’s coming," he said. "It will seem like an act of God, and will overawe them with the ability to strike exactly when they want to strike and do it repeatedly and with volume."