Air University Review, May-June 1982

Why Not VLRs, Now?

The significance of Dr. Roger A. Beaumont’s article "Between Two Stools: Very Long-Range Aircraft in Sea Control," in the September-October 1981 issue of the Review, has been fittingly escalated by the recent announcement that naval priorities are to get increased funding under the Reagan administration. One gets the impression from reading press clips of the announcement that only the U.S. Navy and its carrier-dominated forces can be relied on to take part in missions involving enemy ships. Dr. Beaumont has raised the valid point that there may be another way of combating the. Soviet Union’s growing surface fleet other than sailing in harm’s way all the way to the approaches of Murmansk.

We are constantly stressing the technological superiority of the West in comparison with the U.S.S.R., so what is wrong with using a U.S. version of the Backfire bomber to threaten Soviet surface vessels with a variety of high technology, standoff weapons? Based in the continental United States or on the territory of friendly and allied states, such a land-based force might restrict the advance of the Soviet Navy’s surface combatants long before such ships were capable of interdicting vital Western sea lines of communication. The alternative is to continue to invest up to $17 billion in each carrier task group designed to do the same job.

It is not simply a question of carriers or no carriers. It is more a case of designing forces economically to suit a given strategy and area. The aircraft carrier proved its worth in World War II as a power projection force. There are still a number of areas on the earth’s surface that the United States has decreed as vital to its national interest but in which we have no allies or cannot arrange basing for sufficient air assets to put military teeth behind our diplomatic pronouncements. In these areas, U.S. Navy carriers retain a valid mission, and we should continue to press along with the Navy for the largest and most modern of sea forces necessary to ensure successful operations in these waters. In other world regions, however, the Navy’s present mission is likely to be one of force protection rather than force projection, and here the glorious tradition of carrier-launched naval air may have been overtaken by modern technology.

An example of this is the Navy’s own land-based fleet of Orion antisubmarine warfare aircraft, which do a superb job against Soviet submarines from bases on both coasts of the United States and from scattered overseas locations. They have replaced the World War II airborne submarine hunters whose impressive performance against German U-boats Dr. Beaumont catalogued in his article.

Unfortunately, no such glittering historical tradition can be invoked in the name of reestablishing a U.S. very long-range (VLR) force with a primary mission of attacking enemy surface ships. In the 1920-30s, the peacetime U.S. Army Air Force proved it could sink anchored dreadnoughts and find civilian liners far at sea. In so doing the AAF won a role in coastal defense that in turn provided a rationale for development of the B-17 bomber. In wartime the B-17 became a fabled workhorse of the strategic bombing campaign in Europe, but its record as a naval bomber was less than spectacular. On the random occasions when B-17s were able to find the Japanese ships they were sent against, few successful bombings were achieved.

Thus, no invocation of a previously effective U.S. VLR antisurface ship force can be made in partial justification of establishing a new one. The case for a modern VLR force must be made on the basis of technological advancement and economic efficiency. Vast areas of the globe that in World War II required carrier-launched air in order to ensure continuing air cover over them can today be protected by the longer range aircraft which more than thirty years of technological advancement have made possible. Furthermore, aerial refueling can extend aircraft time on station to the limits of crew endurance over these same areas. Modern reconnaissance systems, both airborne and space-based, can provide near real-time tracking of enemy vessels so that open ocean searching for assigned targets will no longer be necessary. Similarly, standoff weapons, electronic countermeasures, and smart bombs have increased the vulnerability of large naval ships to air attack. Consequently, a much better case can be made for VLRs since Japanese vessels last dodged the high-altitude attacks of B-17s.

Advances in technology alone should suggest the impartial examination of the use of VLRs in an antishipping role for the present day. The assignment of a high priority to the mission of engaging the Soviet fleet well outside of areas considered vital to ourselves and our allies only increases the case for such an examination. In a time of growing Soviet naval strength, our own continuing fiscal restraints require that our future force structures be increasingly based on deriving maximum military potential from available technology at the least possible cost. Past organizational structures and roles, no matter how gloriously embellished or strictly defined, should not establish inflexible parameters within which we must build those future forces. If there is a priority need to engage the Red Fleet deep in its own waters, it does not follow automatically that the U.S. Navy and its existing force structure are the only or even the best method of going about the task. Ongoing political, economic, and technological developments add increasing weight to Dr. Beaumont’s argument in favor of a U.S. VLR force with a sea-control mission.

Lieutenant Colonel William A. Barry (USAFA; M.A., University of Notre Dame) is Chief, Political/Economic Division, Headquarters Strategic Air Command, Offutt AFB, Nebraska.

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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