Carrier-borne mid-range ASW revival?

[zippy]

Anecdote acknowledged. While I know we're a far cry from the proficiency we had during the CW, I think you're casting an awfully wide net with your declarative statement. Curious if you've had a recent experience observing a P-8 crew at work.

P8 computing power and systems make submarine detection a lot easier. Big plus there. Thanks to things like the red stripes, HONA, 18 month home cycles and desert deployments, until recently you’ve had operators who got their first on top experience on a ASW centric deployment at their 10-15 year mark and some only on their second ASW deployment in 20 years with 10+ years in betwen. Entire squadrons took their planes to 5th fleet for a decade + without ever even trying to find a submarine.

As we know ASW is based in science but there’s a bunch of stuff that goes into it that makes it more of an art form. A lot of institutional knowledge and basic skills atrophied due to lack of exposure so in many ways crews were re-inventing the wheel during their infrequent ASW deployments. A 1-2 weeks squadron turn over isn’t really enough to impart all the knowledges about finding submarines in an AOR... airspace constraints, rules of the road, sure but that’s admin when it comes to ASW. It’s going to take a few more years of rotating squadrons consistently back through ASW deployments for that knowledge and experience base to build back up.

 

[taxi1]

Watching them fuck away ASW prosecutions first hand.

They haven’t been good at ASW after decades of it taking a back seat to other real world priorities. A few years of renewed focus and P8s isn’t going to magically make them great. There’s a full generation of AW operators who struggle because they had very little exposure to the basics for years. ASW rodeos were regularly won by U teams using RO/RO ASW stations because their operators had a solid understanding of the fundamentals due to previous experience.

Example:

Actual conversation in the tube going back to take a piss after hours of no contact against a CTF 72 target (nuclear powered) submarine:
Looks at screen… sees almost textbook CZ on the screen…

“Hey is that CZ?”
SS1- “no sir I don’t know what that is…”
“It looks like CZ to me” (explains why- points to screen)
“No sir, it’s doesn’t look like CZ to me”
-Goes to TACCO/MC
“Hey I think he’s got CZ contact but he’s not recognizing it. We should probably do a CZ investigation pattern.”
-TACCO goes back and looks at the screen.
“Nah it’s not CZ It’s probably…” (insert suspect explanation)
Go and take a piss and come back… CZ still on the screen. Talk about it on ICS again specifically why i think it looks like CZ. MC and SS1 disagree and decide to continue to sit on our pattern as is waiting for direct contact.
-Finishes on station period with no ASW contact.

Tube gets called to the carpet later in the week after tapes reviewed and shows that we had XX minutes of ASW contact and they didn’t recognize it.

ChatGPT1 would have nailed that shit.

 

[Gatordev]

Don’t know enough about it...

As for the digital infrastructure stuff…if that fails wouldn’t large portions of our fleet capability rendered useless today?

Yes. Hence my concern.

Insert Forrest Gump meme here.

Anecdote acknowledged. While I know we're a far cry from the proficiency we had during the CW, I think you're casting an awfully wide net with your declarative statement. Curious if you've had a recent experience observing a P-8 crew at work.

I can't speak to the VP side, but it's been a recognized weakness on the rotary side as well, specifically for the SOs. With all of the other requirements put on an AWR, plus the overall general disinterest in ASW by the juniors in the rate, the capability has atrophied.

The good news is that historically, sim utilization, specifically WTT use, allowed time to get folks over there to practice, and there is a drive by leadership to help make that happen.

 

[Griz882]

Yes. Hence my concern.

Insert Forrest Gump meme here.

So, ASW is like a box of chocolates?

 

[Gatordev]

So, ASW is like a box of chocolates?

Exactly. You never know if you'll get contact, nothing, or a green flare.

 

[Waveoff]

I don't think there's many VP FOs on here so take my input with a gain of salt. 95% of our TACCO upgrading events is ASW focused, and there is definitely a deficiency amongst crews when you real life tasking usually ends up being ISR. That being said, we all have to train for flapping at a moments notice, in any AOR. We have had crews leave with short notice to 7th and 6th fleets, while also supporting search plans on both sides of CONUS. What others have said about experience is also correct. You cannot teach "on top of adversary subs". You can either observe it from the COTAC seat, or in the sim learning the fundamentals being taught by the instructor at the console.

Without getting into nitty gritty details: ASW is definitely going through an identity crisis when it comes to our current sensor suite. Subs in general are getting quieter, both passively and actively. You can't make a sonobuoy listen harder, per se. You can only make it more sensitive to minute freq changes. You can try to combat that with "louder" pings but whenever you go active you show your hand when it comes to covert/overt postures. We are getting some new tech to better integrate with other forces, but despite being the only long range ASW platform, a lot of us don't feel the emphasis is being received to rapidly embrace new technology. Then you throw the requirement for learning a renewed MTI suite, more push to lead SCAR/MAC tasking, all with no extra manpower or allotted time to train... you have a lot pissed off people feeling they've been spending their entire 3 year sea tour in a constant state of upgrading and answering the "over to you on how you want to execute that" tasking.

 

[Griz882]

And just when you needed it most…

Reviving The Use Of Navy Tactical Jets As Submarine-Hunters

A veteran Cold War submarine-hunter reflects on the unlikely quest to have U.S. Navy fighters once again fight undersea threats.

www.thedrive.com

It is interesting to note they once worked with dropping bouys out of modified Zuni rocket pods from A-7’s. Article also gives a nod to the Marines doing ASW work.

 

[Waveoff]

And just when you needed it most…

Reviving The Use Of Navy Tactical Jets As Submarine-Hunters

A veteran Cold War submarine-hunter reflects on the unlikely quest to have U.S. Navy fighters once again fight undersea threats.

www.thedrive.com

It is interesting to note they once worked with dropping bouys out of modified Zuni rocket pods from A-7’s. Article also gives a nod to the Marines doing ASW work.

With current sub quieting tech.... that would never work today for the amount you would need to carry IMHO. I don't think you'd get useful playtime out of non MPRA aircraft anyway. P-8s are doing AAR on the front and back end of onsta, and every flight I've had tackling a problem like this is in excess of 9 hours.

We can carry 129 buoys before strapping them wherever we have space. And even though helos are a flying DICASS with their dipper, they never seem to be where the problem is. As for ships assisting with ASW.... in 3 years I have never had a positive interaction doing coord ops with a DDG or otherwise. We have been holding direct path active and passive, reporting our track in link, and the ship is calling contact no where close. A lot of the problem there is a comms flow issue and an understanding of capabilities. When you call the P-8, you are talking to 1 of 9 people, and 90% of the time its either the TACCO or junior COTAC (NAV COMM). When we call the ship, it seems to be a mixed back of the bridge, CIC, random watchstanders, etc. You toss an INMARSAT degradation in there and one or both of us don't have chat... heads are on fire.

Personal opinion: I'd rather deal with the problem myself with multiple P-8s onsta (or a helo making the journey) than be handheld by a ship drowning out the waterspace and inducing a comms nightmare. The CTF by itself is already enough of a headache.

 

[Waveoff]

To double back on what I said: that is the my thought in the current situation when we are flapping not in the vicinity of a CSG. We frequently will clear waterspace in front of the CSG, but we do not get a lot of experience doing actual strike group coordinated operations for ASW in instances other than a C2X on homecycle. The carrier will always be the HVU, and there is definitely a gap in the "medium range" ASW picture for them.

 

[Swanee]

Personal opinion: I'd rather deal with the problem myself with multiple P-8s onsta (or a helo making the journey) than be handheld by a ship drowning out the waterspace and inducing a comms nightmare. The CTF by itself is already enough of a headache.

A big (negative IMO) part of the RPA communities is to have everything unrelated to EO/IR, Radar, and weapons employement offloaded to someone else in another building, a DGS, another TS acronym, a guy sitting somewhere in a SCIF smelling the farts that our noses get a whiff of.

This largely makes MPRA and RPA work against each other. While block 5 MQ-9 GCS's have the workstations (we have three that largely go unoccupied) to use this data, there is no stomach for the AF to train airmen to this mission, nor to pay for VP NFO types to join us. We also tend to shift around like the wind. One day we're completely ISR over land, the next we're armed in support of a raid, the next we're conducting a straights transit cover, And finally we're looking for some boat in the area.

There are missions in which I want the properly trained dude, looking at the right info, sitting behind me, with over the shoulder bro comms when needed. But the AF (and MQ-9 community writ large) seems to be against that.

And when we try to get our whiz bang pod data to you, the PAROC can't seem to get out of their own way, and there is some port blocked and "insert excuse here" that if the real world thing happened there would be some folks who would pay for it with their lives.

 

[wink]

@Waveoff made the case for a dedicated mid zone ASW asset. P-8s and helos over taxed. P-8s not experienced with ship integration and lacking experience with mid zone tactics. Working with DDGs and FFGs was VS bread and butter. "Attack don't track" was a necessity. Like anything else you need true SMEs. We do not have that. The S-3 has been gone so long without a replacement there is no corporate knowledge left.

 

[RoarkJr.]

Never said it was a dumb question, simply a kind recommendation that OP should focus on the gators closest to him on the boat…

“Closest gator to the boat” needs to be retired. It is wrong. It is perfectly fine to speculate/discuss things related to a prospective or actual profession if the interest and questions are genuine and reasonable. This interest and the accomplishment of said gators are somehow always misconstrued to be mutually exclusive.

It probably comes from the idea that certain things are difficult or impossible to understand until you reach a certain level. Better to get thinking about things early and then polish later, or, if it’s just a hobby, so be it. At best it is accurate for those not already indoctrinated into the military by OCS/academy/recruit training and are asking basic questions that only experience can answer, such as, how many peanut butters can one manage to grab and consume at the chow hall.

 

[robav8r]

We have gotten away from 500' ASW prosecutions for a lot of reasons; technology and the defense industry telling we don't have to do it like that any more to an over reliance on using multi-statics and

@Waveoff made the case for a dedicated mid zone ASW asset. P-8s and helos over taxed. P-8s not experienced with ship integration and lacking experience with mid zone tactics. Working with DDGs and FFGs was VS bread and butter. "Attack don't track" was a necessity. Like anything else you need true SMEs. We do not have that. The S-3 has been gone so long without a replacement there is no corporate knowledge left.

There was a time that the Battle Group (1984's and a bit later terminology) did not pull into port before the ASW problem was resolved during FLEETEX (the last at-sea event before deploying over the horizon). I have watched the Navy discount and defer integrated, multi-platform qualitative ASW training for a long time . . . . as many of you have. Yeah, I know ASW is "hard" and costs a LOT of money to build proficiency in. I guess we'll see eventually . . . .

 

[FormerRecruitingGuru]

“Closest gator to the boat” needs to be retired. It is wrong. It is perfectly fine to speculate/discuss things related to a prospective or actual profession if the interest and questions are genuine and reasonable. This interest and the accomplishment of said gators are somehow always misconstrued to be mutually exclusive.

It probably comes from the idea that certain things are difficult or impossible to understand until you reach a certain level. Better to get thinking about things early and then polish later, or, if it’s just a hobby, so be it. At best it is accurate for those not already indoctrinated into the military by OCS/academy/recruit training and are asking basic questions that only experience can answer, such as, how many peanut butters can one manage to grab and consume at the chow hall.

 

[CommodoreMid]

Zippy, your story is clearly from P3 days in the height of the “let’s show how we’re relevant in the desert!” and not the case any more. I will agree true back then, but in the last 10 years the focus has gone back to the ASW game. Yes, competing mission sets and future growth technologies are definitely distractions and very hard to balance, but these days it’s rare for someone to go their first tour without getting legit on top time of an adversary sub.