The American Wolf Packs a Case Study in Wartime Adaptation
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USS Steelhead (SS-280) refitted with 5.25-inch deck gun, April 10, 1945 (retouched by wartime censors) (U.S. Navy) The American Wolf Packs A Case Study in Wartime Adaptation By F.G. Hoffman o paraphrase an often ridiculed and their militaries to adapt. Indeed, and suggests that U.S. forces can im- comment made by former Secre- it is virtually impossible for states and prove upon their capacity to adapt.2 In T tary of Defense Donald Rums- militaries to anticipate all of the prob- particular, that assessment calls for a rein- feld, you go to war with the joint force lems they will face in war, however vigoration of lessons learned and shared you have, not necessarily the joint force much they try to do so.”1 To succeed, best practices. But there is much more to you need. While some critics found most military organizations have to truly learning lessons than documenting the quip off base, this is actually a adapt in some way, whether in terms of and sharing experiences immediately after well-grounded historical reality. As one doctrine, structure, weapons, or tasks. a conflict. If we require an adaptive joint scholar has stressed, “War invariably The Joint Staff’s assessment of force for the next war, we need a com- throws up challenges that require states the last decade of war recognizes this mon understanding of what generates rapid learning and adaptability. The naval Services recently recognized the importance of adaptation. The latest Dr. F.G. Hoffman is a Senior Research Fellow in the Center for Strategic Research, Institute for National Strategic Studies, at the National Defense University. The author would like to thank Dr. T.X. Hammes, maritime strategy, signed by the leader- Dr. Williamson Murray, and Colonel Pat Garrett, USMC (Ret.), for input on this article. ship of the U.S. Marine Corps, Navy, and JFQ 80, 1st Quarter 2016 Hoffman 131 Coast Guard, defines the need to create identify the enemy’s battle fleet so the contest and gauge success at these once- “a true learning competency,” including modern dreadnoughts and carrier task a-year evolutions. “realistic simulation and live, virtual, and forces could attack. Alfred Thayer Mahan Conceptually framed by war games, constructive scenarios before our people had eschewed war against commerce, or these exercises became the “enforcers of deploy.”3 History teaches that learning guerre de course, in his lectures, and his strategic realism.”12 They provided the does not stop once the fleet deploys and ghost haunted the Navy’s plans for “deci- Navy’s operational leaders with a realistic that a true learning competency is based sive battles.”8 laboratory to test steel ships at sea instead not only on games, drills, and simulations The postwar assessment from inside of cardboard markers on the floor at Sims but also on a culture that accepts learning the submarine community was telling: Hall. Unlike so many “live” exercises and adaptation as part of war. “Neither by training nor indoctrination today, these were remarkably free-play, This lesson is ably demonstrated by was the U.S. Submarine Force readied for unscripted battle experiments. The fleet’s the Navy’s refinement of wolf pack tactics unrestricted warfare.”9 Rather than sup- performance was rigorously explored, cri- during the Pacific campaign of World porting a campaign of cataclysmic salvos tiqued, and ultimately refined by the men War II. The tragic story of defects in U.S. by battleships or opposing battle lines of who would actually implement War Plan torpedoes is well known, but the Navy’s carrier groups, theirs was a war of attrition Orange.13 Both the games and exercises reluctant adoption of the German U-boat enabled by continuous learning and adap- “provided a medium that facilitated the tactics against convoys is not often stud- tation to create the competencies needed transmission of lessons learned, nurtured ied.4 There are lessons in this case study for ultimate success. This learning was not organizational memory and reinforced for our joint warfighting community. confined to material fixes and technical the Navy’s organizational ethos.”14 The success of the U.S. submarine improvements. The story of the torpedo Brutally candid postexercise critiques force in the Pacific is a familiar story. The deficiencies that plagued the fleet in the occurred in open forums in which junior Sailors of the submarine fleet comprised first 18 months of the Pacific war has been and senior officers examined moves and just 2 percent of the total of U.S. naval told repeatedly, but the development of countermoves. These reflected the Navy’s manpower, but their boats accounted for the Navy’s own wolf pack tactics is not as culture of tackling operational problems 55 percent of all Japanese shipping losses familiar a tale. Yet this became one of the in an intellectual, honest, and transparent in the war. The 1,300 ships lost included key adaptations that enabled the Silent manner. The Navy benefited from the 20 major naval combatants (8 carriers, Service to wreak such havoc upon the low-cost “failures” from these exercises.15 1 battleship, and 11 cruisers). Japanese Japanese war effort. Ironically, a Navy that shipping lost 5.5 million tons of cargo, dismissed commerce raiding, and invested Limitations of Peacetime with U.S. submarines accounting for little intellectual effort in studying it, The exercises, however, had peacetime almost 5 million tons.5 This exceeded the proved ruthlessly effective at pursuing it.10 artificialities that reduced realism and total sunk by the Navy’s surface vessels, retarded the development of the sub- its carriers, and the U.S. Army Air Corps Learning Culture marine. These severely limited Navy bombers combined. By August 1944, the One of the Navy’s secret weapons in submarine offensive operations in the Japanese merchant marine was in tatters the interwar era was its learning culture, early part of World War II.16 With and unable to support the needs of the ci- part of which was Newport’s rigorous extensive naval aviation participation, vilian economy.6 The submarine campaign education program coupled with war the exercises convinced the fleet that (aided by other joint means) thoroughly games and simulations. The interac- submarines were easily found from the crippled the Japanese economy.7 tion between the Naval War College air. Thus, the importance of avoiding This critical contribution was not and the fleet served to cycle innovative detection, either from the air or in foreseen during the vaunted war games ideas among theorists, strategists, and approaches, became paramount. In the held in the Naval War College’s Sims Hall operators. A tight process of research, run-up to the war, the Asiatic Squadron or during the annual fleet exercises in the strategic concepts, operational simula- commander threatened the relief of sub- decades preceding the war. Perhaps the tions, and exercises linked innovative marine commanders if their periscopes Navy hoped to ambush some Japanese ideas with the realities of naval warfare. were even sighted in exercises or drills.17 navy ships, but the damage to Japanese The Navy’s Fleet Exercises (FLEXs) This belief in the need for extreme sea lines of communication was barely were a combination of training and stealth led to the development of and studied and never gamed, much less experimentation in innovative tactics reliance on submerged attack tech- practiced. A blockade employing surface and technologies.11 Framed against a niques that required commanders to and submarine forces was supposed to clear and explicit operational problem, identify and attack targets from under be the culminating phase of War Plan these FLEXs were conducted under water based entirely on sound bearings. Orange, the strategic plan for the Pacific, unscripted conditions with opposing Given the quality of sound detection but it was never expected to be the sides. Rules were established for evaluat- and sonar technologies of the time, opening component of U.S. strategy. ing performance and effectiveness, and this was a precariously limited tactic of Submarines were to be used as scouts to umpires were assigned to regulate the dubious effectiveness. 132 Recall / The American Wolf Packs JFQ 80, 1st Quarter 2016 Torpedoed Japanese destroyer IJN Yamakaze photographed through periscope of USS Nautilus, June 25, 1942 (U.S. Navy) Technological limitations restricted a perfect match for a generation of torpe- Submarines were to be confined to service the Navy’s appreciation for what the sub- does that were never tested.18 Nor did the as scouts and “ambushers.” They were marine could do. The Navy’s operational Navy practice night attacks in peacetime, placed under restrictive operating condi- plans were dominated by high-speed car- although it was quite evident well before tions when exercising with surface ships. rier groups and battleships operating at Pearl Harbor that German night surface Years of neglect led to the erosion of tactical no less than 17 to 20 knots for extended attacks were effective.19 Worse, operating expertise and the “calculated recklessness” periods, but the Navy’s interwar boats at night was deemed unsafe, and thus needed in a successful submarine com- could not keep pace. They were capable night training was overlooked before the mander. In its place emerged a pandemic of 12 knots on the surface and half that war.20 The submarine community’s of- of excessive cautiousness, which spread from when submerged. They would be far in ficial history found that the “lack of night the operational realm into the psychology of the wake of the fleet during extended experience saddled the American sub- the submarine community.22 operations. This inadvertently promoted mariners entering the war with a heavy plans to use submarines for more inde- cargo of unsolved combat problems.”21 pendent operations, which eventually Once the war began, however, the old Unrestricted Warfare became the mode employed against tactics had to be quickly discarded, and Ultimately, as conflict began to look Japanese commercial shipping in the new attack techniques had to be learned likely, with a correlation of forces not in opening years of the war.