A PRIMER ON Naval Theater Air Defense By ALAN G. MAIORANO,NEVIN P. CARR, JR., and TREVOR J. BENDER Theater air defense is one of the Navy’s fundamental and en- during missions. It evolved both technically and tactically fol- lowing World War II to counter the threat to friendly forces posed by manned aircraft, anti-ship missiles, sea-skimming cruise missiles, and tactical ballistic missiles. The ability to quickly develop and maintain an accurate air surveillance pic- ture, coordinate defense-in-depth with available air defense forces, and provide a high firepower response have been criti- cal to naval operations for over fifty years. 22 Maiorano et al. Kamikaze attack on U.S. Navy USS Bunker Hill off Okinawa, 1945. In the 1970s and 1980s, system develop- Evolution Based on Experience ment, tactics, and training were largely driven by In the 1920s, General Billy Mitchell intro- the threat of massed Soviet missile attacks far at duced a new threat by sinking a target battleship, sea from long-range bombers, missile ships, and thereby demonstrating the vulnerability of ships submarines. The decline of the Soviet threat and to air attack. Early naval air defenses relied upon simultaneous proliferation of offensive weaponry massive, uncoordinated fire from anti-aircraft ar- to littoral states prompted a reevaluation of the tillery such as 20mm, 40mm, three-inch, and Navy’s contributions to the new world order. First five-inch guns. In those days, the battlespace ex- outlined in...From the Sea, and updated in For- tended only to the visual horizon, normally less ward...From the Sea, the focus of the Navy has than 15 miles. Air defense was made up of a series shifted from an open-ocean threat to near-land of local anti-air battles fought close aboard, operations against in- strictly in self defense. Ships counted on visual kamikazes revealed shortfalls in creasingly capable re- sightings and primitive, inaccurate voice commu- gional powers. Now nication. Subsequent advances in precision aerial air defenses and ushered in an era the global maritime bombing and torpedo bombing during World of systems development threat has been re- War II posed severe threats which demanded de- placed by regional fensive capabilities. challenges that are Deploying air search radar on naval ships equally as demanding for theater air defense dramatically altered the air defense environment. forces. This change in focus has altered the pri- Long-range detection of the enemy enabled car- mary naval air defense mission from a blue-water, rier-based fighters to attrite incoming raids a open-ocean defense to a more offensive extension number of miles from the target task force. Early of naval air defenses overland. Naval theater air detection of distant raids provided defending defense objectives are clear: ships with critical reaction time to initiate limited ■ initiate and maintain control of airspace early coordination of fire among friendly units under in a crisis or conflict attack. Early detection and advance warning were b USS Bunker Hill ■ permit safe entry of follow-on U.S. and allied firing missile from essential to effective air defenses when kamikazes forces into a theater of operations vertical launching appeared in 1944 as the first true guided missiles. ■ protect and support forces and facilities ashore. system. Tactics evolved quickly, including tightly grouped U.S. Navy Navy air defense capability is built on a solid defensive ship formations and picket ships for foundation of leadership in combat systems inte- early warning. Although primitive by current gration, experience in combined arms warfare, standards, the concept of effective, coordinated and decentralized command and control. These defense-in-depth took shape. But tactics were lim- are the key strengths on which to build a theater ited by stand-alone equipment, intermittent air defense capability in the 21st century. voice radio communications, primitive analog fire control computers, the inability to rapidly ex- change accurate target position data, and the lack Commander Alan G. Maiorano, USN, is the prospective commanding of a long range weapon. The war ended before an officer of USS Vincennes; Commander Nevin P. Carr, Jr., USN, is Aegis effective anti-aircraft defense was deployed. requirements officer in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations; Nonetheless, the lethality of kamikazes revealed and Trevor J. Bender is an analyst with Logicon-Syscon, Inc. Spring 1996 / JFQ 23 ■ NAVAL THEATER AIR DEFENSE Theater Air Defense Joint Architecture these missiles. A guided missile capability was in- corporated in the designs and construction of several new classes of cruisers and destroyers by • Theater CINC flexibility 1957, built from the keel up with air defense as a • Seamless information transfer primary mission. • Interoperability with services / allies The combination of advancements in air • Weapon coordination search radars, deployment of 3–T SAMS, and shift • Near real-time information to carrier-based fighter jets significantly improved • Situational awareness air defense capabilities. The extension of target de- tection ranges, coupled with long-range fighters and missiles, expanded the battlespace of naval task forces to over 100 miles. Targets could now be engaged far beyond the visual horizon. New com- mand, control, and coordination requirements were placed on naval air defense forces. Despite significant advances in radar and Marine Air Force SAM technology, performance shortfalls against Corps Surveillance Warning Control an increasingly demanding threat highlighted weaknesses in stand-alone systems. Improve- ments in search radars, fire control radars, com- JTIDS puters, launchers, missiles, and displays were CRC HAWK piecemeal, built and supported individually with design and development agencies working inde- pendently. Search radars and display systems were managed in the Bureau of Ships while fire control CEC radars, computers, guns, and missile launchers were handled by the Bureau of Ordnance. Often Army Weapons Control Sensor Netting Navy the first chance to test and operate multiple sys- tem components occurred after installation. Combat systems were wired together by ship- Theater Wide builders, not system engineers. Lack of technical and organizational coordination created expen- sive and nearly insurmountable system interface JFC Headquarters problems. The reaction time gained by increased Patriot / THAAD radar detection and target engagement range was offset by manual data evaluation, display, and dissemination. Continuous attention and action were required to deal with a growing volume of tactical data required by a disparate set of war- fighting equipments. shortfalls in air defenses and ushered in an era of The transition from guns to missile batteries systems development. was the first step in a series of initiatives to ad- The advent of unmanned missiles and long- dress high speed threats. In the late 1950s, the range Soviet bombers led the Navy to develop de- Navy recognized that technology would one day fensive weapons and enhance ship-to-ship coor- permit an enemy to develop weapon systems that dination. Transitioning from attacking aircraft to could overwhelm first generation missile sensors faster, smaller anti-ship missiles required cultural and equipment. The flaw was in the speed and re- as well as technological changes in warfighting. liability of target information exchange between Paradigms of air defense based on lookouts and ships and aircraft. Voice communication was too shipboard guns were scrapped in favor of systems slow and unreliable to be effective against large that integrated radar data, high speed fire control numbers of supersonic missiles launched by regi- computation, and surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). ment-size Soviet bomber formations. As missiles In the 1950s the Navy began deploying three could carry nuclear warheads, ship formations be- guided SAM variants known as 3–T missiles: long- came more dispersed to minimize damage from range Talos (65+ miles), medium-range Terrier (20 single missile strikes, further aggravating air de- miles), and short-range Tartar (10 miles). Simulta- fense coordination. Faster and more reliable neously, a large-scale program to convert previ- means of surveillance and identification data ex- ously non-missile ships to missile shooters was change were required. initiated with vessels capable of firing one of 24 JFQ / Spring 1996 Maiorano et al. The Navy tactical data system (NTDS) was These tactical and technical advances came introduced in 1958, the world’s first shipboard none too soon. The Soviets began deployment of tactical data system based on programmable com- a series of air and surface launched cruise missiles puters. This was an initial step in the integration in the 1960s, including the subsonic Styx. The of multiship systems in a force-wide air defense following year Badger C and Bear B/C long-range system. Conceived as a means of exchanging air bombers were equipped to fire supersonic, nu- surveillance radar information throughout a task clear-capable AS–2 Kipper and AS–3 Kangaroo air- force, NTDS replaced and automated older man- to-surface missiles from ranges in excess of 100 ual displays and reduced dependence on voice miles. The launch range of some weapons ex- communications for air defense. NTDS incorpo- tended beyond the surveillance range of radars rated target position and identification informa- aboard ships. Undetected missile launch and su- tion from a ship’s sensors, as well as information personic speeds combined to reduce reaction inserted over an electronic data link by other time, while increasing raid density threatened to ships in a task force, into one computer-managed saturate defenses. track file. Data were exchanged and updated The Navy recognized that stand-alone de- among ships several times per minute via an elec- fense components would eventually not be capa- tronic data link known as ble of responding to air threats. Search and fire Link-11. Early warning and control radars were based on analog technology E–2A Hawkeye expanded air reaction time, information and first generation computers.