A New Fleet Architecture
The U.S. Navy must reexamine its fleet architecture to remain relevant. Sea control consists of more than scouting and destruction. Exercising it is manpower-intensive, requiring large numbers of surface ships. A fleet focused on aircraft carriers and submarines is not balanced and will be limited in its capability to scouting and destruction. Employing multibillion-dollar air-defense platforms to conduct VBSS/MIO operations is not a cost-effective strategy. For a relatively small price, a large number of small ships can be employed to balance the fleet and enhance its ability to operate in the dangerous littoral environment.
The age of uncontested seas is coming to an end, and ASCMs are sounding its death-knell. The proliferation of such PSR weapons will continue and accelerate either through the distribution of such weapons by those who wish to contest U.S. dominance or through the spreading of additive manufacturing techniques. The lethality and reach of smaller vessels and obscured shore batteries will continue to increase. This will have a significant impact on the effectiveness of the U.S. fleet and the options it can afford its commanders and national leadership. Concentration of capabilities within a few large-signature ships creates a brittle fleet and the increased potential of miscalculation in a crisis. The smaller the number of surface ships available to conduct presence and other missions, the fewer options will be available, resulting in an increase in the requirement to use force to conduct operations such as an embargo or blockade.
Fortunately, the U.S. Navy has access to ship designs that can easily be modified to be cost- and combat-effective in this deadly environment. Bolstered by the revival of the Marine Corps’ historic missions and the development of littoral outposts, the Navy can gain the upper hand in the littorals. This will require embracing more numerous and smaller-profile surface ships and a review of doctrine within the Navy and with our allies. The U.S. Navy must adapt to this new reality—or face potential failure in a conflict for which it is not prepared.
Editor’s Introduction to:
THE FOURTH FLEET
by Russell Newquist
We’re going. Exactly when and how isn’t clear, but we’re going. First the asteroids, then the outer planets. The language doesn’t have to be English. It might be Russian. Perhaps more probably Chinese. Perhaps Hindi. And maybe, just maybe, all of the above and then some.
And there will be war.
THE FOURTH FLEET
Russell Newquist
You haven’t felt fear until you’ve been left to die in a giant tin can, one point two billion kilometers from home. The last thing we heard from the pirates was their laughter as they slammed the hatch shut. Then we watched out the tiny windows in terror as they flew away.
We did a thorough inventory of everything they’d left us. It wasn’t much. Our batteries would last us a day or two—and we could probably extend that to a week if we powered down everything non-essential. But they hadn’t left us any fuel to get anywhere, and they’d taken most of the oxygen, too. We weren’t sure yet how much they’d left us. Our harvest—hydrogen- and helium rich gases we’d mined out of Neptune’s upper atmosphere—was by far the most valuable thing we’d had on board. They’d taken it first.
They hadn’t left much beyond that, either. Not that we’d had a whole lot to start with. Every ounce of weight was extra money. Lots of extra money, when you shipped it all the way out to Neptunian space. Our little gas mining vessel didn’t have a lot of extra niceties. Just enough to keep me and my two brothers alive for our two year contract.
We had about a day’s worth of food in the crew stores. My brother John had a handful of meal bars that he’d brought on at our last resupply. We’d mocked him at the time for spending most of his per diem trying to put back on all the weight that a tightly rationed space diet had finally helped him shed. Now we wished he’d bought more. A couple of flashlights, the clothes on our backs, two rolls of spacer tape, and a smattering of random tools that hadn’t been properly put away fleshed out our meager belongings.
We did what we could anyway. We powered down most of our systems, instituted emergency food rationing, and limited our activity to preserve the little water and air we had left. We even deployed the solar panels for extra juice, although they wouldn’t do us very much good this far into the outer solar system. We’d take anything we could get. But we didn’t really have any hope. Without any propulsion, we weren’t going anywhere.
Everything changed when Simon tried to power down the harvester.
- From “Stranded in Space” by Matthew Holt
The Fourth Fleet ceased its deceleration burn some distance away in order to facilitate maneuvering. Most of the fleet initiated a 180-degree rotation pass to reposition their main engines behind them, where they would safely face away from enemy vessels. But SCVN-26, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, didn’t need to perform this little dance. The engineers who designed her had duplicated the five massive fusion rockets from her stern on her bow as well. Not only could she accelerate or decelerate in either direction, but her engines themselves doubled as the ship’s most devastating weapon.
The giant rotating core made her one of only a dozen or so ships capable of generating her own gravity. Well, a gravity-like sensation. It wasn’t true gravity and didn’t quite feel the same—besides being only about one half of Earth’s gravity. Something about it just wasn’t quite the same. Even so, its crew members could make very long space voyages without the health issues that came with zero gravity.
Like all United States Space Navy carrier vessels, she’d been named after a former President. The former Rough Rider served as a particularly apt moniker for the latest generation of carriers. Ushering in a new wave of technology, the Roosevelt and her sister ships were the largest vessels ever built by humanity.
As she approached Ganymede, the Roosevelt unleashed a swarm of drones. Some were sensor drones, sent out to gather information and beam it back to both their sisters and the mothership. Others were fighter drones, loaded with chain guns, lasers and missiles. All were independently controlled by remote operators on board the Roosevelt herself, yet they were capable of a great deal of automation should they lose contact with their control signals.
The Roosevelt made an impressive sight all on her own. At fifteen hundred feet long and eighty thousand tons of displacement, she carried four hundred twenty-four drones, eight large and twelve smaller railguns, forty-two laser banks, two hundred ship-to-ship missiles, and eleven hundred crew members. If you pressed the ship’s crew—pressed them really hard, you might just get them to admit that the newest ship in the Roosevelt class, the USS Warren G. Harding, with almost a decade worth of newer technology, actually carried more firepower. Maybe. But no ship in any other class could touch it.
The rest of the Fourth Fleet may not have been so modern or large but they were quite impressive on their own. Even the newest of the bunch, the USS Atlanta, dated back to the war. But like every other ship in the formation, save the Roosevelt herself, it had seen plenty of action against the Chinese fleet and carried an impressive combat pedigree. Even without the carrier it would have been an impressive fleet. With it, it was one of the three most destructive combat forces ever assembled by humanity, rivaled only by the First and Ninth carrier fleets.
And all of that power was useless. Commodore Seamus MacGregor, captain of the Roosevelt and commander of the Fourth Fleet, already knew that his quarry was not here. The pirates he chased had launched another attack five hours previously, near one of the moons of Saturn. Which, due to their respective orbital periods, was currently almost perfectly aligned on the other side of the sun from his fleet, almost fifteen astronomical units away as the light shines and probably four times that via the shortest orbital path he could take.
Nine months, he did the estimate in his head. If we’re lucky. Probably more like eleven or twelve. And by then they’ll be long gone. For the fifth time since he’d received the news he pounded his fist on his chair. It di
dn’t accomplish any more than it had the first four times. It didn’t even relieve any of his frustration.
He tuned out the bridge chatter as thoroughly as the crew tuned out his outburst. The mood was sullen, but crisp. Every bit as frustrated as their commander, they nevertheless carried out their duties professionally.
There was plenty of work to do, pirates or no pirates. They had just set a new record for the fastest trip from Mars to Jupiter. Now they set about performing orbital maneuvers and docking preparations as they approached Galileo Station. Built over a fifteen-year period from prefabricated components lugged in by deep-space haulers, the station was considerably smaller than the Roosevelt herself.
The once heavily armed station occupied a halo orbit around the Jupiter-Ganymede L2 position. Due to its key strategic position it had faced multiple attacks during the war, but fended them all off. These days, however, the station served more of a support role for the civilians living and working in the Jovian sector. Much of the space once dedicated to storing munitions had been converted to hydroponics and fuel processing.
The great fleets that had once been stationed here had long since been downsized to a handful of patrol craft that tended not to stray too far. Had there still been even a single battle cruiser patrolling Jovian space, it’s unlikely the pirates would have attacked in the first place. But most of the smaller cruisers were occupied with controlling smaller-scale conflicts around Mars and the larger asteroids.
For the next few hours docking procedures and a stack of paperwork on his desk demanded his attention. Presently he found himself so busy that he completely missed the actual moment of docking altogether. He left his paperwork with his assistant and quickly changed into his dress uniform and left to join the docking ceremony.
Captain Edward Stevens was an academy classmate of his and an old friend. After the formalities were done, they greeted each other warmly and Stevens took the Commodore on a personal tour of the small station. Finally the ended up in Stevens’ office, getting down to business.
“How long are you sticking around, Mac?”
“We’re not.” Stevens feigned surprise, but he couldn’t quite pull it off. “Don’t look so hurt. We’ve got some supplies to drop off for you—quite a bit, actually—and then we’re going to make a loop or three around the planet to show the colors. And then we’re off.”
“Pirate hunting?”
“You know I can’t say.”
“We really need more to work with out here. These attacks are getting out of hand—and we don’t have the resources to deal with it. With the Roosevelt around they wouldn’t even dare to attack–”
“Fleet wouldn’t keep the Roosevelt here and you know it, Ed. There are only three of her kind in service and the solar system is a big place. And piracy isn’t the only threat out there, not by a long shot. The Russians are acting paranoid over something, but when aren’t they? The lunar colonies are restless and threatening to secede. And some kook on Deimos just went and declared himself Caliph. The pirates matter—a lot—but…”
“Yeah, I know. They’re not the only thing that matters. And we’re not all that important all the way out here. I’m sure you have other things to get up to back in the inner system.”
“We’re not headed back to the inner system.”
“Oh?” Stevens was genuinely surprised this time. “Where to?”
“Saturn—and that’s highly classified. The crews don’t even know yet, not even the officers. Only the captains have been told.”
“You are going hunting.”
“I didn’t say that.” MacGregor’s poker face was considerably better than his friend’s.
“Right.”
“We’re not leaving you empty-handed. I’ve got three dozen nav satellites to launch while we’re here.”
“Wait, three dozen? We only need a few to get good nav around Ganymede.”
“Not Ganymede. Jupiter. We’re jumpstarting a whole nav constellation here, for all of near-Jovian space. And there’s more. We’ve got some upgrades for your defense systems, computers, and an entire new solar array to deploy. It’ll triple your available power, which should give you plenty of room to grow—even after we attach the new module we brought for the station.”
“You brought an entire module out here? And kept it secret?”
“Our cargo bays are a bit bigger than advertised.” The commodore winked at his friend.
“I’ll say. And your towing capacity, too!”
“Fully expanded and in place, it should increase your usable interior space by about twenty percent.”
“Why’s Tranquility Base so interested in Jupiter all of a sudden?”
“It’s not Tranquility Base. These orders come straight from the President. The going theory is that coming into power over half of the Earth and two thirds of man’s space colonies has only whet the appetite of his ambition.”
“What, a man who killed his own father to get the job hasn’t given up his ambition?” Stevens almost laughed.
“Be careful where you say that, Ed,” MacGregor cautioned him. “Some people might take that as treason.”
“Going to turn me in, are you Mac?” Stevens did laugh this time.
“No, of course not. But there are plenty of others out there looking to curry favor.” Stevens paused, lost in thought for a moment.
“You’ve met this guy.”
“Once or twice, yeah.”
“Is he as hot-headed as they make him out to be?” This time the commodore paused before answering.
“No, I don’t think he is at all. Between you and me, I think it’s all an act.” Stevens nodded.
“That’s my take, too. But it’s hard to be sure this far away from everything.”
“Well, shrewd or not, he’s got one more gift for you—and you’ll like this one.”
“Oh? Is it Christmas already?”
We process the harvested atmosphere right there on the ship. It’s a hell of a lot cheaper than shipping a bunch of extra material all the way back to Earth, right? But even more importantly, it means we don’t have to ship fuel all the way out there. And Neptune’s atmosphere has really high concentrations of hydrogen, so it’s just right there for the taking.
That’s probably why we were their first target. Most individual ships like ours wouldn’t have even been on their list. But we had enough processed already to refuel their entire fleet four or five times over. We helped set them up logistically for their future plans.
But they missed something. In fairness to them, we missed it too, at first. The harvesting system works in a multistage process. First, it collects the gasses into a gigantic holding tank. Then, once we have sufficient pressure, it pushes it through the refinement chambers that separate out the mixture into its component gasses, which go into multiple tank.
The thing is, in the middle—during the processing, that is—it has to be stored somewhere. They took everything from our main harvesting tank, and they took everything from the separated gasses tanks. But they didn’t think to check the processing tank itself. We didn’t either, at first. But then Simon was powering everything down and he got an alert. The computer was worried the chamber would lose integrity without power.
He almost shut it down anyway, “knowing” that it was empty. But then he checked it. And it was full to the brim. We’d topped off everything we could possibly carry before we pulled out of the atmosphere, to get maximum haul. And the pirates had left us that tank.
We powered the harvester back up and processed it. Nearly destroyed the pumps, because there was no pressure at all in the input tanks—and that came back to haunt us later. But it worked. And the stuff we’d harvested was eighty-percent hydrogen, see? So that one tank was ninety-percent fuel. And that’s how we made it back to the Triton station.
- From “An Interview with John Holt” in Mars Today
The Fourth Fleet saluted the cruiser as they lit their engines and started the burn that would take
them to Saturn. The USS Pennsylvania was staying behind to augment security in Jovian space. Stevens had been thrilled, and so had the civilians. Everyone seemed to think that the pirates would be less bold with a ship of the line nearby.
Even so, Commodore MacGregor had smiled when the new orders came in. If he’d been in his office instead of on the bridge he might have even cheered. But commodores don’t do that in front of their crews. Instead he’d calmly given his helmsman and navigator new orders and watched as they were faithfully carried out. He could tell that his crew had wanted to cheer, too.
The number crunchers on Earth had traced the pirates’ last known trajectory when they’d cloaked and predicted that they were making a push for the asteroid belt next—specifically, they thought the pirates were heading toward Neptune.
They’d barely broken orbit from Jupiter when the signal came, which meant that they hadn’t lost too much time heading in the wrong direction. Even better, with Saturn on the far side of the sun and Neptune on the same side as Jupiter, there was no way for the pirates to beat the Roosevelt to their target.
MacGregor had given the orders and the entire crew had waited over three long months of anticipation. All except for one, that is—a young enlisted man who had scowled every time the conversation came up. Something about it struck the commodore as odd, so he’d tracked the man down.
There Will Be War Volume X Page 24
