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Changing Nature of Warfare

/analyses/2004/changing-nature-of-warfare

This report begins with the agenda of the conference, followed by a summary of the major themes that emerged during the discussions at the conference and in the papers. We have extended the themes to their implications for the year 2020 and for U.S. policy and interactions in the world. We then include a report of the discussions at the conference, starting with the themes laid out in the agenda, the summary presentations by those who submitted papers, and the ensuing detailed commentaries and discussions. This report is our own record of the conference proceedings and does not imply consensus among those who participated. Finally, the 21 papers submitted are included in the report, in the order of their presentations during the conference.

US Greek Naval Relations Begin

/analyses/2003/us-greek-naval-relations-begin

This paper discusses the U.S. Navy’s campaign against Greek pirates who interfered with American shipping in the Aegean during the second decade of the nineteenth century. This campaign was not a particularly important one in the overall history of the U.S. Navy, nor did it strongly influence subsequent Greek-American naval relations. Nevertheless, it illustrates some key aspects of the nature of the Greek war for independence, and of the republic in North America that had itself won its independence less than half a century earlier.

Forward from the Start

/analyses/2003/forward-from-the-start

Why was the Navy at the forefront of the far-forward attacks on alQaeda in Afghanistan and the move against Iraq, while willing to take a back seat to the Coast Guard at home? Why did the Navy respond to one of the worst failures in defense at home in the nation's history principally by striking farther forward than it ever had before? Current national policy and naval strategy provide much of the answer, of course. History, however, also provides some clues.

Seabee Assignment Tradeoffs

/analyses/2003/seabee-assignment-tradeoffs

The Commander of Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) asked CNA to determine what type of compensation would target any existing or impending shortfalls in Seabee retention and manning. Currently, the Seabee community receives no sea pay and little deployment-related pay. In phase 1, CNA found that the recent policy that increases sea pay to seagoing personnel without providing a comparably sized amount to Seabees could worsen the Seabee community’s relative standing. That study found that a $2.9- to $4.3- million-per-year compensation is justified, and it presented a variety of compensation options to address Seabee manning and retention concerns.

Statistical Methods for Learning Curves

/analyses/2003/statistical-methods-for-learning-curves

In this chapter, we first discuss statistical methods for estimating '"cost progress" or "learning." We use these two terms interchangeably to describe a reduction in unit production cost as more items have been cumulatively produced over the course of a manufacturing program. Next, we turn our attention from the learning curve to the cost-estimating relationship (CER), a regression equation to predict the development or production cost of a system based on performance and technical characteristics such as weight, speed, and composite materials content.

Interwar US and Japanese National Product Expenditure

/analyses/2003/interwar-us-and-japanese-national-product-expenditure

I assess the meaning and implications of these data in another report. Here, howewer, it is appropriate to mention cautions to be observed with regard to them. It is reasonable to expect that each of the series here is generally consistent internally over the 21-year period from 1920 through 1941. Thus we can be pretty certain that the trends shown for Japanese naval equipment and aircraft procurement or U.S. defense current expense are accurate. The U.S. series benefit from better source data and more stable prices, but this is somewhat balanced by the need to guess at defense deflators for the period 1920-1928, and to piece series together for GNP and total defense expenditure. The consistency across the series in one family also is likely to be good. That is, the relationship between Japanese construction and Japanese army equipment and aircraft procurement is probably relatively accurately portrayed. The U.S. series may be slightly better in this regard due to better source data, although the uncertainties about defense deflators for 1920-1928 again takes its toll.

Hard to Fill Billets and Continuation

/analyses/2002/hard-to-fill-billets-and-continuation

This paper investigates the relationship between retention and sailors’ assignments. We identify the Navy’s hard-to-fill billets based on location and job characteristics and then estimate the impact of being ordered into a hard-to-fill billet on sailors’ retention. By definition, most sailors do not desire Navy hard-to-fill billets; however, some sailors might. Therefore, we also analyze the effect on continuation of sailors serving in billets of their choosing using individual sailor preference data from the Job Advertising and Selection System (JASS). Finally, we estimate the costs to the Navy of sailors serving in billets not of their choosing.

Future Deployable Medical Capabilities and Platforms

/analyses/2002/future-deployable-medical-capabilities-and-platforms

All three medical services (Army, Air Force, and Navy) are working to develop smaller, more mobile medical platforms and capabilities. This document is intended to help Navy Medicine plan its future deployable capabilities by (a) suggesting alternative platforms, (b) analyzing the positives and negatives of those platforms, (c) suggesting other pertinent issues to be addressed in considering alternatives, providing analytical input into Navy Medicine’s new requirement-setting process, and (e) supplying preliminary analyses of capabilities and rough cost estimates. The capability/engineering and cost estimates that we make in this study are preliminary. This document is an early step in a process that would require more detailed engineering and cost studies of particular options.

Charting the Pathway to OMFTS

/analyses/2002/charting-the-pathway-to-omfts

The Director, Expeditionary Warfare Division ( N75 ) asked the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) to develop and assess the role of amphibious, maritime pre-positioning force, and tactical lift in the context of U.S. Marine Corps ’ new warfighting concept for expedi- tionary operations, known as OMFTS. This core project is entitled Relating Amphibious Lift to Forcible Entry. One task within the project is a historical assessment of amphibious operations, especially as related to forcible entry and Marine Corps operational concepts. This report fulfills that task. It explains the rationale behind amphib- ious warfare, discusses changes in amphibious warfare since 1941, and identifies historical approaches for success in operations similar to OMFTS. Thereby, we provide a general assessment of the relation- ship between OMFTS and historical reality. OMFTS, together with its supporting concept of ship-to-objective maneuver (STOM), is described as a new and decisive form of amphibious warfare. In this new concept, assault units will penetrate deep into enemy territory along multiple axes over extended fronts (very broad or deep fronts). They will seize their operational objec- tive directly and without pause. The major argument of our historical assessme nt is that th e stated premises u n derlying th e OMFTS warfighting concept are largely sound but incomplete. OMFTS includes notable means of transforming amphibious warfare, such as altering methods of supply, exploiting new technologies, and incor- porating the principles of maneuver warfare. Indeed, there are his- torical indications that OMFTS might make amphibious warfare less methodical and less costly. Nevertheless, key historical constraints and demands of amphibious warfare have been neglected so far.

History of Shipbuilding in Recent Times

/analyses/2002/history-of-shipbuilding-in-recent-times

The history of the shipbuilding industry in the years since World War II has been one of boom and bust. Most of the world's merchant ships are now built by Korea and Japan, which together built about 77 percent of the gross tonnage delivered in 2000. The third-ranked shipbuilding nation in 2000 was China, which built almost 5 percent of the world output. Several European countries are small but significant participants in the world commercial shipbuilding market. Listed in order of total gross tonnage of ship deliveries in 2000, from largest to smallest, these countries are Germany, Italy, Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland, France, Norway, the U.K., and Sweden. Together, they produced about 10.5 percent of the gross tonnage of merchant ships delivered in 2000. U.S. shipbuilders produced less than one-fourth of one percent of the commercial tonnage delivered in 2000, which is about the same as the production from Finland.