U.S. Navy Logistical Support and Contested Logistics

With the U.S. Navy focused on distributed maritime operations for its capital ships, the challenge of providing logistical support is that much harder. And doing so in conditions where the adversary is going to work on disruption of your logistical support system makes the problem even more challenging.

A recent article by Jan Tegler in National Defense Magazine highlighted one way that the Navy was approaching the problem: task civilian contractors to take on more of the burden.

Military Sealift Command, the support arm of the Navy, has always relied on civilian contractors to provide for basic capabilities and with the central role which its T-AKE ships provide in this effort, not surprisingly there is a key emphasis on how civilian contractors can provide for increased mission support onboard those ships.

After visiting the MSC, this is what we wrote after visiting a T-AKE ship in 2016:

It does not take a genius to understand that resupplying ships that are 1,000 miles from one another is not the same as 200 miles from one another, and enhances the demand function on the MSC fleet.

And with the shortfall of combat ships in the fleet, the Military Sealift Command is being pressed to do more. A case in point is the newest supply ship in the MSC fleet, the T-AKE ship. The 14 T-AKE ships are completed and the final two ships were funded at $825 million which would make per ship cost around 412 million.

The ship has been designed to provide flexible, blue water support in any Ocean of the world to the fleet. A well designed ship for any climate and sea state T-AKE ships have significant cargo space, including ammunition support, with efficient and well thought-out elevators to enable the crew to move cargo to the delivery to the point of support. Coupled with the use of modern logistical and inventory control IT systems the ships crew can find the cargo in its location quickly and efficiently.

Given the shortage of ships for the USCG and the US Navy, the T-AKE ship fleet has been tasked to do a diversity of missions far beyond simple fleet replenishment.

Given the high demand on the tanker fleet, T-AKE ships have also become an ocean going tanker.

The Marines are using it as mini-amphibious support ship in the Pacific.

Currently T-AKE con-ops can already support either military helicopters for fleet replenishment at sea or commercial helicopters for other mission sets

Its helo deck has landed Ospreys and there an important consideration of perhaps modifying the two-helo hanger arrangement into a space for 24/7 Osprey operations

As the surface Navy is discovering for the distributed operational fleet, it makes good sense to rely on the Osprey as a significant operational connector.

A blunt fundamental question in today’s resource battle for assets is; can the MSC actually support Navy plans to more widely distribute its fleet in the years ahead?

In the Tegler article we learn: The Navy in July announced the award of a $77.3 million contract to Air Center Helicopters Inc. to provide heavy lift vertical replenishment services aboard Military Sealift Command T-AKE-class dry cargo/ammunition ships. The vessels support deployed aircraft carrier strike groups, amphibious ready groups, surface combatants and even submarines in the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific.

The contract — the fourth the company has secured with the Navy since 2018 — calls for four two-helicopter detachments operating from four T-AKE ships 365 days a year under a range of conditions up to and including wartime.

The core point of the article was that because of decline in core capability held by the Navy fleet itself, relying more on civilian contractors was necessary.

The article pointed to a number of causes of the decline of organic U.S. Navy capability.

National Defense posed questions to several commands and offices about the service’s dependence on contractors to conduct a vital segment of the vertical replenishment missions it once performed organically, or how it might impact its ability to sustain deployed naval forces in combat. Naval Air Forces, Naval Air Force Atlantic, Naval Supply Systems Command, Indo-Pacific Command, the Office of the Secretary of the Navy and the Navy Office of Information did not respond to inquiries.

A statement from Navy public affairs officer Cmdr. Beth Teach said only, “this contract is paid for out of commander, Naval Air Forces operational appropriated funds, and helps meet the vertical replenishment requirement across the fleet, providing heavy lift capability and logistical redundancy to the MH-60S.”

As the statement said, the Navy uses the MH-60S to do some medium lift vertical replenishment or “VERTREP” missions. But the service’s heavy lift capability has eroded steadily as its CH/MH-53E fleet has aged and dwindled. Retirement of the MH-53 is planned for fiscal year 2027 with no similarly capable replacement on the horizon.

According to Navy Office of Information spokesman Lt. j.g. Utsav Trivedi, the “CMV-22B Osprey and MH-60S Sea Hawk will fulfill fleet logistics support missions that the MH-53E performed.”

But cutbacks in 2022 to the number of Sea Hawks deploying with carrier air wings to make room for the Boeing MQ-25 on carrier decks have also diminished the Navy’s vertical replenishment capacity.

Further, flight envelope restrictions for the tri-service Osprey fleet, including the requirement that they operate no farther than 30 minutes from a suitable divert airfield, remain in place, currently limiting the CMV-22B’s ability to perform the replenishment mission at sea.

There are several interesting aspects to this characterization of the decline of Navy organic capacity.

First, there is always the challenge of space on a surface ship. If you add a new thing, you have to replace a former platform. When you are discussing a surface ship in terms of organic capability, it is always a question of choice. In this case, the MQ-25 displaces some Sea Hawks.

Second, there are the self-imposed restrictions on the Osprey. This is Department of Defense made self-imposed limitation, and not one based on the service’s own record in using the aircraft nor on the needs of the particular service.

In fact, if the Navy is serious about contested logistics, it needs to ramp up its CMV-22B numbers to support a distributed fleet, buying numbers correlated with the number of peacetime deployed large deck carriers it can supply.

Third, it is interesting to learn that “retirement of the MH-53 is planned for fiscal year 2027 with no similarly capable replacement on the horizon.”

I assume the spokesperson is referring to Navy plans only, because clearly there is a current replacement of the MH-53 can be found, and it is called the CH-53K.

There is an open question of whether as the Navy focuses on DMO it actually needs its own organic lift capability to bring assets you would not ask a civilian contractor to bring in times of severe conflict, such as weapons and weapons support.

And there is another serious consideration not mentioned by the article, namely the coming of autonomous maritime surface capability for logistical support.

I would argue that such systems will dovetail very nicely with manned aircraft in providing a combined arms approach to providing for contested logistical support.

That is subject I will address in my next article on contested logistical support.

Featured photo: A Eurocopter SA 330J Puma helicopter assigned to dry cargo and ammunition ship USNS Charles Drew (T-AKE 10) prepares to deliver replenishment cargo to Australian frigate HMAS Anzac (FF 150) during a vertical replenishment operation April 19, 2016. (U.S. Navy photo by Grady T. Fontana/Released)