VARIABLE PAYLOAD/SHIP SYSTEMS ENGINEERING STANDARDS (SSES) Senator HART. Mr. Paisley, will the DDG 51 be a conventional design or will it include any modular/variable payload features? Secretary PAISLEY. The DDG 51 will incorporate the Ship Systems Engineering Standards (SSES) for the weapon module stations. Portions of the Aegis combat systems are already modular in nature and these will also be used. Senator HART. If the SSES concept is not incorporated in the DDG 51, what is the first combatant in which it will be incorporated? When is it anticipated the lead ship will be authorized? Secretary PAISLEY. The SSES concept will be incorporated in the DDG 51 to the degree that it is ready. Currently it is planned that the standards for the weapon module stations have been developed to a sufficient state that we are able to incorporate them in a ship design. It is anticipated that the lead ship of the DDG 51 Class will be authorized in fiscal year 1985. As the other standards for electronic and topside modules are developed, they will be available for future incorporation. It is planned that the first wholly variable payload ship incorporating all the Ship Systems Engineering Standards will be the Frigate of the 1990s. Senator HART. I strongly support the Marine Corps effort to develop a light, simple multiple rocket launcher comparable to the Soviet "Stalin Organ." What is the current status of the program? General RUSSELL. We have fabricated a brassboard model of a Field Artillery Rocket System (FARS) and are studying in detail all aspects of this system preparatory to spending the significant sums of money required to continue through advanced and into engineering development. Senator HART. Has the program been delayed, compared to the schedule envisioned for it last year? If so, why? General RUSSELL. The program has progressed generally on the schedule envisioned last year. We are at a natural, and needed, delay point, however, as we analyze what has been accomplished to date and what direction is most feasible and economical to pursue in the future. Senator HART. Is additional funding beyond that requested in the budget needed to move the program forward at a rapid pace? General RUSSELL. The funding requested in the budget is adequate for moving the program forward at this time. The problems of adapting a direct fire aircraft rocket, the 5 inch ZUNI, to an indirect fire, ground launched mode must be fully analyzed and understood before we attempt to move out at too rapid a pace. Senator HART. Could the program be accelerated if additional funding were provided? If so, what would be the maximum feasible accelerating, and how much additional funding would be required? General RUSSELL. The program could be accelerated by additional funding, but such acceleration would increase the risk of pursuing a dead end course. The Marine Corps feels that the funding requested is adequate for the required IOC. Senator COHEN. The subcommittee stands adjourned. Mr. PAISLEY. Thank you. [Whereupon, at 11:15 a.m., the subcommittee adjourned.] DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION FOR APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 1984 THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 1983 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEA POWER AND FORCE PROJECTION, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, D.C. NAVY/MARINE CORPS STRATEGY The committee met, in open session at 10:15 a.m., in room SR222, Senate Russell Office Building, Senator William S. Cohen (chairman) presiding. Present: Senators Cohen, Quayle and Nunn. Staff present: James F. McGovern, staff director and chief counsel; James G. Roche, minority staff director; L. Wayne Arny III, Robert S. Dotson, Patrick L. Renehan, professional staff members; Mark B. Robinson, Judith A. Freedman, research assistants; Kathleen L. McGuire, staff assistant. Also present: Jim Dykstra, assistant to Senator Cohen; Hank Steenstra, assistant to Senator Quayle; John Roddy, assistant to Senator East; Arnold Punaro, assistant to Senator Nunn; Frank Sullivan and Mary Shields, assistants to Senator Stennis; Kathleen Callahan, assistant to Senator Bingaman. OPENING STATEMENT BY SENATOR WILLIAM S. COHEN, CHAIRMAN Senator COHEN. The committee will come to order. I hope you will accept my apologies. My last committee was 20 minutes late in starting and that has held me up. This is the last of the Sea Power and Force Projection Subcommittee hearings scheduled to review the fiscal 1984 budget. It is our intention to devote today's discussion to a review of strategy and policy questions pertaining to the Navy, and a last examination of a few of the Navy projects in that budget. This morning it is my pleasure to welcome Mr. John Lehman, the Secretary of the Navy; Adm. William Small, the Vice Chief of Naval Operations; and Gen. Paul X. Kelley, the Deputy Chief of Staff and Prospective Commandant of the Marine Corps. We could discuss issues relating to strategy and policy, but it is my hope that we will at least discuss several major questions in the following areas: the lessons of the British experience in the Falkland Islands, and the effect of those lessons on the Navy's strategy and procurement policies; a review of the fiscal 1984 shipbuilding (3253) and conversion plan; a discussion of the cost control issues pertaining to the Lamps Mark III program and the Tomahawk cruise missile program; the cost-effectiveness of leasing ships such as the TAKX's and the T-5 tankers; a review of the Navy's general strategy for meeting the national defense commitments and structuring our naval forces to meet those requirements. I expect Senator Nunn and others to join us periodically through the morning but pending that, why don't we proceed with Secretary Lehman. STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN F. LEHMAN, JR., SECRETARY OF THE NAVY Secretary LEHMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think looking at the Falklands at this point in the budget year is very useful. We now have a fairly good picture of what we believe the lessons to be learned are, and they have a great deal of relevance to the budget issues before this subcommittee. Let me summarize the summary report, "Lesson of the Falklands," I have submitted for the record. In the overall set of lessons to be learned, we find that, not surprisingly, most of the useful lessons are old lessons to be relearned rather than new ones. But there are some new ones, because this is the first naval conflict fought in the era of satellite and real time computer controlled command and control communications, intelligence, and so forth, and with new materials and equipments having been tested in combat for the first time. But by and large, it is the larger verities of warfare that have been reaffirmed and validated. I would like to list what I believe are the most important lessons in order of priority. First, is that this was a classic case of the failure of deterrence. Deterrence simply being the principle that one is most successful in defending one's interests if one does not have to fight, and one persuades the adversary that injury will come to his interest greater than any gain if he resorts to force. This did not happen in the Falklands because of a misperception by the Argentines that the United Kingdom did not have the combination of will and capability to carry out a military defense of its interests in the Falklands. I think this is something that Congress and the executive branch should pay close attention to, because there are many of the same voices today calling for the same kinds of actions that led to this failure of deterrence on a smaller scale in the United Kingdom. I was a student in England at the time of the major change in policy which scaled the Royal Navy down and pulled back the focus of British defense policy to NATO. You will recall the White Paper of 1966 that Dennis Healy provided and the decision made by the Wilson government to cancel aircraft carriers because aircraft carriers were said to be no longer useable, vulnerable, and sitting ducks. So, the decision was made then to cancel the two aircraft carriers that were in the Royal Navy modernization plan. Also, the decision was made to orient British defense away from global capabilities and focus them entirely in the European NATO theater. 1 The summary report, "Lessons of the Falklands," appears on page 3295. I wasn't the only one in England at the time. Apparently the head of the Argentine Navy, Admiral Anoya, who was said to be one of the principal planners of the attack on the Falklands, was naval attache at the time and he apparently was very heavily impressed by those arguments. FAILURE OF DETERRENCE So the first lesson is the failure of deterrence. The United Kingdom and the taxpayers in the United Kingdom have paid heavily for those false economies started 15 years ago, which have continued since. Second, I would say the lessons regarding people are the most important. The quality, the training, and the morale of the people involved in the conflict on both sides, was the single most important determinant of the outcome of the conflict. On the one hand, the all-volunteer professional forces on both sides performed extremely effectively. The conscript, least experienced elements of the forces, and here, entirely on the Argentine side, did not perform well at all. The all-volunteer naval, marine, air force, and army forces of the United Kingdom showed tremendous performance in all kinds of adversity; whereas the young, inexperienced Argentine conscripts, though in superior numbers, did not perform well. Yet the Argentine Air Force and some elements of their Navy, elements that were professional, career, all-volunteer, performed with courage, skill, and professionalism. So, once again, I think this underlies the priority we, in the Reagan administration, have placed on people first. That is the most important element of our military recovery program: To restore the quality, the recognition, the compensation, the professionalism, and the readiness and training of people first. Equipment and ammunition is in a secondary order of priority. INTELLIGENCE The next lesson is, in my judgment, the second most important determinant of the outcome and that is intelligence. Overall, the superior, strategic intelligence available to the United Kingdom forces was a strong determinant in the outcome. Both sides had very poor tactical intelligence and suffered heavier losses and lost many tactical opportunities because they did not have on-scene tactical intelligence of any appreciable quality. But in the view of some commanders, had the superiority of strategic intelligence not been available to the United Kingdom, the outcome would have been reversed. The next lesson learned is one that really has a great many implications for all of the specific programmatic issues before this subcommittee. That is the importance in naval warfare of defense in depth, the layered defense and the management of a synergistic layering of defense capabilities, both active and passive, to deal with any level of threat encountered, not just in the high-threat areas. Today, harm's way is everywhere because of low cost, high tech in the form of modern high performance aircraft, low cost diesel electric submarines and cruise missiles that are distributed now in 25 Third World nations quite apart from the major superpowers. So, in order to go anywhere where there is a potential military threat to a nation's naval interests, naval forces must be prepared to deal with a high level of threat. That can only be dealt with by defense in depth. Many of the programs that we are requesting in this year's budget are premised on that fundamental assumption that our naval forces must operate simultaneously in four media: Under the sea for the submarine threat; on the surface; on all of the air and space superjacent of that operating maritime area, and fourth, the land areas that can dominate the maritime areas involved. All of this must be integrated. We must have the capability to deal with threats from all four media and do it simultaneously. The United Kingdom did not have that capability. The Argentine forces did not have that capability. As a result, the United Kingdom suffered much heavier losses in their naval forces than they otherwise would have. They never established air superiority in the exclusion zone and were not even able to prevent aerial resupply going into the Falklands. Right up until the eve of surrender, they were unable to keep 20 year old and older aircraft off their ships and off their troops ashore. Even though their two small V/STOL carriers and the aircraft embarked performed superbly they never seriously challenged in terms of providing air superiority, the ability of the Argentines to attack and reattack the United Kingdom forces. Not only did the British not have the numerical aerial superiority we have on our large carriers, starting with airborne early warning and interceptors, to use that battle space and the electronic warfare and other specialized aircraft to maximize the battle space, but their surface ships had not been modernized with the kinds of antiair warfare and antisurface warfare capabilities that are so fundamentally a part of the program we have put before you. They did not have three dimensional search radars on their surface ships. They did not have the different kinds of active and passive electronic warfare capabilities that are essential layers of this defense. They did not have, except for three ships, the essential last layer of close-in defense, with missiles and guns, that can actually engage very high performance cruise missiles. They did not have the latest generation of antisubmarine warfare equipments for their surface ships that could have prevented one of the Argentine submarines from getting in among their task force, which apparently did take place. Nor were they able to successfully prosecute that submarine, because we know the submarine did get back safely to port. Of course, they were good enough to prevent that Argentine submarine from successfully prosecuting an attack on any one of their combatants. So, there are a great many issues that come out of the conflict that we can talk about, if you wish, at some greater depth. These are lessons very much in our mind as we consider such things as weapons choices for the DDG-51 class for which we are asking long lead funding for this year; the fleet modernization program, the pace at which we incorporate close-in defense, the amount of |