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During World War II, teamwork and aggressiveness were famemakers of Destroyer Squadron 23—alias, the “Little Beavers.” Since then, the sobriquet has come to mean squadron unit integrity, fighting as a team, and winning battles therefrom. The Little Beaver qualities need to make a comeback in modern destroyer squadron operations.
Little Beaver died in the U. S. Navy during the 1970s. His spirit, however, is still among us. Before we let it die also, we should examine why we have let the principle of squadron integrity exist in spirit only. After all, well-trained groups of ships win naval battles, not individual ships and not “pickup teams” of individual ships.
How It Was: Destroyer squadrons, escort squadrons, and the like were once treated as integral units. They overhauled together. They trained together. They deployed together. They fought together. The captains knew and understood one another, and their ships’ crews could instinctively understand and anticipate the actions of the others—an essential ingredient in combat. Most important, squadrons could fight together with minimum communications because they had planned and resolved matters together in advance.
This ability to fight as an integral unit was once of great importance to destroyers. Destroyers were the cavalry of the fleet, operating together in advance of heavy units to seek out and attack enemy forces. Their torpedo and gun attacks required much coordination, which was achieved through training together under the squadron commander. No amount of doctrine in any number of publications Could indenendentlv nrenarc a shin tn hp nn that tnam
Destroyers were also submarine hunters. They operated together to hunt and kill submarines. Antisubmarine warfare (ASW) requires instincts gained over many years of practice. Teams must know how to work together to pin down their elusive target. ASW is not a single ship effort, nor can any pickup team do it well.
In addition, destroyers escorted all types of heavy ships, including amphibious warfare ships, battleships, and aircraft carriers. Their versatility in this regard has always put destroyers in high demand. As escorts, they serve as multicapable ships against enemy aircraft, surface ships, and submarines. Simultaneously engaging such targets requires the ultimate in teamwork and coordination.
How It Is: In spite of this need for squadron unit integrity, teamwork, and coordination, destroyer squadrons in the U. S. Navy today are primarily administrative entities to which ships are temporarily assigned based on their schedules (which are not driven by unit integrity considerations). Destroyer squadron commanders have become administrators of a revolving pool of ships and convenient commanders to assign to coordinate the operations of the latest pickup team. Indeed, destroyer squadron commanders themselves are often treated as units, available to move about as schedules dictate in ways unrelated to the ships of the squadron.
The Atlantic Fleet has sought to alleviate this problem through the “high-numbered squadron/low-numbered squadron” concept. The high-numbered squadron commanders command operational groups of ships. The low- numbered squadron commanders administrate. Ships rotate between the two squadron types based on their schedules. In other words, a ship’s schedule drives the situation, not the need to achieve continuity in material and operational workup. The ships themselves have little opportunity to gain squadron spirit and are in fact working for two bosses much of the time.
Many officers support the high-numbered/low-num- bered squadron concept. Others believe a squadron commander must take his ships through the entire administrative, maintenance, training, and operational cycle to know his ships well enough to fight them well. Either system can work in a peacetime or low-level crisis environment. But what is the best way to obtain full effectiveness for combat situations? The high-/low-numbered squadron concept seems to be an adaptation to the problem rather than a solution. The problem is how to maintain squadron unit integrity amid the current proliferation of schedule demands.
The Pacific Fleet has maintained the “straight” destroyer squadron organization; that is, destroyer squadron commanders maintain responsibility for operations, material, training, and administration of their squadrons. The Pacific Fleet has not adapted to the problem, nor has it found a solution. In practice, destroyers and frigates rotate among squadrons based on their schedules. Squadron assignment is based on the squadron commander with which the ship will deploy. As a result, a ship can usually expect to change squadrons every one to two deployments. Generally, the squadron commander will not assemble the
ships with which he will deploy under his command until about six months prior to deployment.
The Pacific Fleet method is a de facto high-/low-num- bered squadron concept. Until six months prior to deployment, a squadron commander is, in fact, a low-numbered squadron commander, concerned mostly with material and administrative matters. True, in between inspections and administrative duties, he does participate in various operational exercises, but usually as a unit, not as a squadron commander of his own ships. He is used as an available commander to exercise control over whatever pickup team has been dictated available by the schedule.
How We Got There: How did we get into this situation of high-/low-numbered squadrons, pickup teams, and shifting squadron assignments? There are many reasons.
► The U. S. Navy has an ever-demanding schedule of ship commitments and a paucity of ships to fill them, making the schedule dominate other considerations.
► Since the Vietnam War, Navy operations have acquired a peacetime nature, in which ship presence is considered more than is the combat capability of the ships present. For example, in peacetime, it may seem adequate to have any six ships establish presence rather than six ships of a combat-ready squadron that have trained together.
► There has been a tremendous growth in the shore-based bureaucracy that supports ships with an accompanying proliferation of inspections and assist teams, each demanding its own space on the schedule.
► Higher levels of the Navy bureaucracy, which are not as intimate with actual ship needs as the squadron commander, have taken a larger role in dictating the management of ships and their schedules. As a result, the squadron commander has become more a monitor of what takes place and less a leader and manager.
► Accompanying the movement of management to higher levels has been an increasing tendency to seek staff solutions to problems rather than holding the chain of command accountable. Thus, more committees and teams are usually created to assess the ships. This compounds an already difficult situation.
. ^e perception of the carrier battle group as the only ■mportant group of ships in the operational arena has caused a decrease in emphasis on the operational value and integrity of the destroyer squadron.
' The introduction of the composite warfare commander (LWC) concept as command and control doctrine has resulted in an operational organization that is vertically structured along warfare lines, with accompanying deemphasis on the broad material, administrative, and operational role of the destroyer squadron commander.
A destroyer squadron whose ships have worked together consistently over time is the best unit to support either a carrier battle group or a new type of independent offensive group. To achieve this, the Navy would have to overcome the obstacles listed previously. Let us examine whether this can be done.
. Ship Scarcity: The combination of scarcity of ships and increasing commitments has always been a problem. But there are two solutions to this problem. First, the Navy is aPproaching its goal of 600 ships. If commitments are kept ln balance, the problem of ship scarcity will be alleviated.
Second, as numbers of ships become more available, scluadron integrity can be enhanced by delegating more scheduling authority to squadron commanders. Basically, his would involve macro-scheduling at the fleet and group evel, such as scheduling a squadron to participate in a mujor exercise, an overhaul, or a deployment. Microscheduling, involving the choice of ships to participate in maJor exercises, inspections, assists, sea trials, and minor at~sea periods, is the realm of the squadron commander.
Peacetime Orientation: The peacetime orientation toWard presence instead of combat capability can only be changed by reordering priorities at high levels. There will a ways be a need to emphasize the presence role of a ship 0r group of ships, sometimes at the expense of combat CaPability as various crises arise around the world to ^hich the Navy is tasked to respond. However, with the growth of capability in the Soviet Navy and others, the ■ S. Navy must be more attuned to the actual combat CaPability that results from positioning well-trained teams l. sbips. The probability of actual combat at sea is much •gher now than in the past.
. ,lle Bureaucracy: A navy always needs to balance its bn°re support with the fleet. In the past decade, the num- er of U. S. ships declined without a proportionate reduc- •!°n >n the shore establishment. In addition, the complexly of ships significantly increased at the same time a ^cruiting and retention problem surfaced. Thus, the Navy as depleted of the quality middle-grade petty officers ceded to maintain the new equipment. As a result, the •Mount of work accomplished on ships by the shore estab- ls ment rather than by the fleet dramatically increased. deed, some ships were purposefully designed to be more ePendent on shore-based support than previous ships were. The increased number of inspections and assists with accompanying schedule demands was a natural outgrowth. Now, the fleet is expanding and the recruiting and retention problems are being solved. The pendulum should swing back toward fleet-based management and support of its problems.
Centralized Management: Many problems materialized in the 1970s that required high-level, centralized management of solutions. For example, the exhausted post-Vietnam 1,200-pounds-per-square-inch steam turbine propulsion plants demanded the centralized control of the Propulsion Examining Board (PEB). Overhauls were frequently in trouble as the country’s shipyard work force aged and turned over; this situation increased centralized control by the type commanders. Scheduling too few ships for too many commitments required centralized control to stretch thin the resources. The heroic measures needed in the 1970s to preserve the Navy and keep it operating and up to date have now outlived their usefulness. Naval leaders must now decentralize the Navy and place more leadership and management responsibility at lower echelons in the chain of command.
Staff Solutions: Problems tend to have two types of solutions: the ‘staff solution” or the ‘‘chain-of-command solution. In a staff solution, the boss turns to his staff and tells them to take action. By the nature of staffs, the solution usually takes the form of a new instruction, a new committee, or a new assist team. In the chain-of-command solution, the boss seeks the advice of his staff and then calls his people in command together and issues orders. The usual result of this method is direct action that addresses the problem at the level it exists. Although both types of solutions are necessary, the Navy has been leaning too much toward the staff solution.
One reason for this tendency may be that the Navy is merely reflecting the society that it defends. Perhaps, the mental toughness in the chain of command that permits enforcement of valid procedures at lower levels had decayed somewhat. However, that trend is changing toward tougher, more informed young leaders.
Whatever the reason, staff solutions are not the solution. The Navy must reemphasize the use of chain-of- command solutions and restore the reliability of that chain. A good place to start is by removing the squadron commander assignment to monitor and replace it with an assignment to lead, manage, and be accountable.
The Perception of the Carrier Battle Group: It is said that the destroyer squadron is no longer a basic combat unit; rather, the only basic combat units are the carrier battle groups (CVBGs). Therefore, schedules must be adjusted to provide for their support and training. There are two responses to this perception.
First, the CVBG usually consists of one carrier, one cruiser, one submarine (maybe), and one destroyer squadron. Yet, the destroyer squadron is often treated simply as four to six individual destroyers or frigates assigned to the CVBG. This treatment is furthered by the CWC concept.
which organizes the destroyer squadron commander into a role as a warfare commander and de-emphasizes his leadership of the destroyers and frigates in all operational, training, material, and administrative matters.
This treatment of the destroyer squadron need not be so. In fact, the CVBG would be strengthened if its destroyer squadron was an effective fighting team, maintained and trained over a consistent period of time by a squadron commander. In the same way, the CWC concept need not erase the role of the destroyer squadron commander as the commander of the CVBG destroyers and frigates. The proper command relationships must be established and enforced.
Second, the CVBG will soon be one of many basic combat units. The U. S. Navy will unlikely continue an operational organization that supports only 13 (or 15) offensively capable ship groups for very long. As the Tomahawk missile comes into the fleet, new types of offensive combatant ship groups will be established and trained together as a team. In the immediate future, these groups will be established around the recommissioned battleships. As Spruance-class destroyers are backfitted with the vertical launch Tomahawk missile, and Arleigh Burke- class destroyers with the same system and the Aegis antiair system are commissioned, destroyer squadrons will once again become the advance cavalry of the fleet. They will be able to operate in advance or on the flanks of the CVBGs, use the CVBG air superiority umbrella, and conduct long-range attacks on both sea and land targets.
When the Navy promotes a strategy of distributed offensive power, this does not mean a simple distribution of capability among ships in a CVBG. Rather, ship groups will be strategically and tactically distributed across a broad front, each group having a unique type of offensive capability. The kind of teamwork and coordination that enabled the Little Beavers to be effective in the South Pacific in World War II gunnery and torpedo attacks will be necessary to the modem destroyer squadron operating as an independent offensive unit and conducting over-the- horizon targeting, Harpoon attacks, Tomahawk attacks, and attacks against nuclear submarines. Of course, the destroyer squadron’s role in escorting large ships such as aircraft carriers will continue.
^ The CWC Doctrine: The CWC doctrine is a natural outgrowth of the CVBG concept, since it effectively manages the defense of a CVBG. Basically, the CWC doctrine organizes the CVBG under warfare commanders who manage all ships in each warfare area with the officer-in-tacti- ^al command (OTC) exercising control by negation. Warfare commanders are. established in areas of antiair, antisubmarine, and antisurface warfare. Other officers are esjgnated as supporting coordinators, such as screen coordinator and air resources coordinator. The advantages of ne CWC concept are that it provides:
More effective use of the carrier air wing in all areas An excellent organization for the planning phase of an operation _
A delegation of authority to allow rapid reaction times A defensive citadel around the carrier ranging as far as 'ective communications
One problem with the CWC doctrine, however, is that it erodes destroyer squadron unit integrity:
organizes the senior officers of a task group into war- are management areas, leaving only the OTC as a big- P'cture commander. This deemphasizes the role of the estroyer squadron commander as a broad gauge tactical eomrnander of his ships.
^ tends to require the destroyer squadron commander to e,nbark on the carrier. Once there, he performs essentially staff function. This lessens his position as commander of e assigned destroyers and frigates, centralizes most of e senior officers in one ship and makes the chain of c°mmand more fragile, and denies the availability of the estroyer squadron commander to the OTC to command as*t elements operating at longer distances from the carrier >n a more offensive posture.
This destroyer squadron commander, conferring with the captain of one of his DDs, is exactly where he should be— on the bridge of the destroyer. Too often, the CWC concept requires DesRon commanders to embark on the carrier of the battle group, thereby hindering destroyer squadron integrity.
The advantages of the CWC doctrine for defense of a CVBG are substantial, however. Thus, the solution to the problem is to make some minor changes that support destroyer squadron integrity. For example:
► The destroyer squadron commander should be used as a screen commander, as well as a warfare commander, but not as a screen coordinator. The screen commander should control the total formation for the OTC. He should station ships to optimize their multimission capabilities in support of all the warfare commanders.
► The destroyer squadron commander should be employed in the chain of command to his ships for all but the most urgent reaction-oriented operational matters.
► The destroyer squadron commander should be embarked on a destroyer or frigate in most situations. Few of the arguments set forth for embarking him on the carrier outweigh the need to have him among his own ships and available to the OTC to command supporting task elements. Embarked on a destroyer, the squadron commander can still perform effectively as a battle group warfare commander.
The CWC doctrine has great flexibility and can be tailored to fit any ship group or task. For example, in an independent, offensively oriented destroyer squadron, a CWC organization different from that in a CVBG is necessary because three of the four reasons for having the CVBG CWC organization disappear. That is, there is no carrier air wing to manage, the number of units is such that delegation of authority to meet reaction times is more easily managed, and the squadron will operate in a more offensive posture, with each ship having similar offensive and defensive capabilities, negating the need for the citadel structure of a CVBG.
Little Beaver Can Live: It is not “too hard” to restore Little Beaver to the fleet. It is only “too hard” if we proceed day-to-day without understanding what we have, how we got there, and what we can have if the principles of squadron unit integrity are restored. What we can have is a much more capable, combat ready Navy.
You betch’um, Red Ryder!
Captain Powers holds degrees from the Naval Academy, Naval Postgraduate School, George Washington University, and his doctorate from Catholic University. He has served in four destroyers and was CO of the USS Claude V. Ricketts (DDG-5). Tours ashore have included U. S. Naval Forces, Vietnam, Naval Ordnance Systems Command, The National War College, the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations (OP-354), military assistant to the Defense Science Board, and special assistant to the Director, RDT&E (OP-098X). Captain Powers is currently Commander, Destroyer Squadron 17. His next assignment will be Commander, Surface Warfare Development Group. He was awarded First Honorable Mention awards in the 1983 and 1984 General Prize Essay Contests.
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