A “Parking Garage” Hiding in Plain Sight — A Case for Just Enough Requirements?
Much fanfare was made with the arrival of U.S. Navy submarine tender USS Emory S. Land (AS 39) in HMAS Stirling, 16 Aug. On the other side of the country, an expeditionary sea base (ESB) ship, United States Ship?(USS) Miguel Keith (ESB 5), quietly slipped into Sydney.
The “parking garage” of a ship is interesting in terms of its multirole capability and should challenge Defence Capability Managers to revisit views on system integration requirements for non-capital ships and notions of what survivability looks like for High Value Units. ?This article introduces the concept of Just Enough Requirements, and posits such thinking might be necessary for Australia to:
A Jack of All Trades, Master of None
The Expeditionary Sea Base (ESB) ships, along with its sister, Expeditionary Transfer Docks (ESD) are important enablers for the US Expeditionary Advanced Based Operations, and Stand-in Forces (SIFs). As borne out by the roles the USS Lewis B. Puller ESB is known to have performed while forward deployed to the Arabian Gulf, the ESBs are highly versatile vessels. The Puller ESB is known to have:
- Airborne Minesweeping operations using the MH-53E helicopter.
- Bunkering the forward deployed Avenger Class MCM Vessels.
- Hosting a MCM Task Unit equipped with small boats, UUVs & ROVs for mine hunting.
At over 200m in length, the ESB can conduct 4 helicopter or rotorcraft operations at a time and was procured with the requirement to be able to insert elements of the Marine Littoral Regiment (MLR) ashore at range.
Resiliency / Survivability
The vessel’s double hull and its size means the ESBs are more resilient than they look; especially compared with the Littoral Manoeuvre Vessels the Australian Army will be procuring. At sea the ESBs could quite easily be missed identified as one of hundreds of merchant vessels transiting the archipelagic waters of SE Asia.
To provide protection and strike capability, the ESBs could conceivably deploy containerised or vehicle mounted weapon systems onboard.
Minimum Viable Capability — Littoral Combatant Ship
The USN first attempt at a multi-mission ship class – the Littoral Combatant Ship (LCS) – has a storied and pilloried history. Did the US Department of Navy (DON) learn from the LCS by avoiding overfitting and tightly coupling systems with the ESD and ESBs? USS Sioux City (LCS 11) was the first LCS to be deployed to the Gulf where it spent 5 months. It was then decommissioned some 10 months later (pictured below) having been in service for less than 5 years. Conversely the USS Lewis B Puller ESB, was commissioned while forward deployed to the Gulf a year earlier than USS Sioux City and has remained forward deployed to the Gulf since.
Both ship classes reportedly cost approximately the same amount of money: US $500 mil. The through life costs of supporting the LCS appears to be prohibitively more expensive. The high sustainment costs for the LCS contributed to the decision to the reduce the number of LCS and the early retirement of some LCS. Low Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) upfront does not equal Minimum Viable Capability (MVC) if the through life support or Operational Expenditure (OPEX) is expensive. ?
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Just Enough Requirements
Compared with most naval vessels, the list of requirements for ESBs is not long. Having just enough requirements was a budgetary decision. What the US DON had originally envisioned was priced at US$1.5 billion. In other words, it was as expensive as the USS San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock (LPD). At approximately US$500 mil the Lewis B. Puller Class ESB is a third of the price of the original envisioned capability. When compared to the Littoral Combatant Ship (LCS), the Lewis B Pullar ESB Class has clearly a better Return On investment (ROI).
The just enough requirements approach is different to Minimum Viable Capability (MVC) as the latter:
Essentially, the ESB requirements is simply that it should be based on the Expeditionary Sea Dock (ESD), have a helo spot for 4 large Helicopters and a hanger for one large helicopter.
If you need additional effects, then it is a case of Bring Your Own (BYO) lethality. For the USMC this could mean embarking:
These BYO systems are unlikely to be integrated into any ship Combat Management System or the ship as this adds time and costs. Such trade-offs are needed if the USN (and other navies) are to increase their size of the Fleet. As historian Julian S. Corbett?explained: no navy can be made up entirely of capital ships.
For Australia’s circumstances, does Defence have the budget luxury to have quarantined lethality systems for one purpose? One solution would be to employ the littoral manoeuvre force to provide additional firepower at sea with their own systems which they then take ashore onto the islands. This could work in the case of larger vessels such as the ESBs and possibly for the Australia Army’s Littoral Manoeuvre Vessels – Heavy. It would not be possible for the Australian Army’s Littoral Manoeuvre Vessels – Medium as it is too small for this purpose.
Final Thoughts – Minimum Viable Capability and Just Enough Capability
This article draws attention to what is meant by Minimum Viable Capability. Presently it is used to support speed to capability and manage the Integrated Investment Program without an understanding of what MVC means through the life of the capability. MVC needs to be understood as a temporal term if spiral development then occurs. Inevitably the one sure thing about spiral development is that the costs of it spirals; witness the Hobart Class DDG Baseline 9 upgrade costing more than the platforms when they were introduced. Defence is just kicking the can down the road with MVC, if all MVC projects are followed by spiral development. The IIP will balloon out again. Some Defence capability will need to be Just Enough Capability; it might be augmented by BYO lethality, but the capability is never destined for spiral developments. A clear articulation of what is MVC for spiral development and what is MVC never destined for spiral development (what this article refers to as Just Enough Capability) is required.
Stovepipes and silos are big “No NO’s” in Defence. Stovepipes and silos are antithetical to a Joint Force. But is the remedy worse than the cure? It well might be if the cost (in money and time) is too steep. A BYO lethality as described in this article which is siloed and stovepipe can provide a greater return on investment, avoid integration risks and escalating costs and assist in preventing the IIP from haemorrhaging.
For Just Enough Requirements to succeed:
Neither of the above two bullet points are assured.
Bibliography
Cardone, D. CAPT (USN), Coyle, B. CMFR (USN), and Murphy, D. LCDR (USN), 2023, “Assessing the Expeditionary Sea Base”, USNI Proceedings, Vol 149/1/1,439, January, accessed 31 Aug 2024: https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2023/january/assessing-expeditionary-sea-base
Test and Evaluation Manager - Department of Defence
5 个月MVC is one thing. Minimal crew maybe a reality though. I agree an approach such as MVC may be suitable, however, everyone still wants it to do everything !
Co-Founder and Co-Owner at Air Power Australia think tank, expertise in Flight Test Engineering
6 个月Interesting article, Andy. Do you have any thoughts on the “parking garage” of Astutes hanging around the RN’s neck? ??????
Strategic Communications | Media Liaison | Crisis, Emergency and Disaster Communications | Communications Planning | Media Training | Spokesperson | Issues Management
6 个月Im reminded of Manoora and Kanimbla that proved to be great bang for buck
Head of Sales, Ships Systems at ATLAS ELEKTRONIK UK Ltd
6 个月An excellent article Andy
Innovator | Strategist | Concept and Capability Developer | Veteran | MBA | MDefStud | AAICD
6 个月Where MVC applies to rapidly fielding small scale, new or adapted civilian tech with a short lifespan, (like the Counter IED era), its been a relatively easy fit. MVC is harder when its high tech, high complexity and the level of integration can't be wished away. It's harder to pivot away from a capital acquisition when it fails. But, for your example of larger scale ships like the ESB at least, Navy has recent runs on the board. Over the DSR period we fielded two minimally modified commercial vessels. Because we weren't trying to design and build a new ship, they were acquired and modified based on a 'top level requirement' of a few pages. Converting COTS ships or adapting designs offer a plethora of (relatively) quick and cheap ways to tackle ADF issues around GWEO distribution and at-sea transfer, Sub (and DD/FF Tenders), strategic joint bulk fuel and solid stores resupply and so on. Assuming away the $, the issues lie in the lack of any Joint CONOPS to define which problems can be solved and which roles could and should be combined in any single design, accepting lower survivability and that Navy isn't necessarily the customer and is a bit busy with Frigates. So the first step is to find an owner to define each MVC.