Deception is as old as warfare. From the Trojan War and its famous horse to the operations to make Hitler think D-Day was a feint, tricking the enemy into thinking they know where you are or what you're doing when they don't is an effective tactic.

A B-52D deploys a Quail decoy

In the 1950s, planners tasked with developing methods for American bombers to penetrate Soviet air defenses came up with a new way of doing this. By building a small unmanned aircraft, basically a cruise missile sans warhead, with the same speed and altitude performance as a bomber, and fitting it with radar reflectors so that it looked like a bomber on radar, they could flood Soviet radar displays with false targets, drawing off their interceptors or at the very least diluting their efforts.¹ Several decoys were developed, some designed to be launched from aircraft, others from ground bases thousands of miles away, although most of them were cancelled before they entered service. The only exception was the air-launched ADM-20 Quail, designed to replicate a B-52. Quail, which also had a 100 lb payload bay for chaff and a flare to replicate the B-52's IR signature, served from 1960 to 1977, by which point improvements in radar made it easy to distinguish from the B-52 and thus obsolete. Read more...

It's time for our regular biweekly open thread. Talk about whatever you want, even if it's not military/naval-related.

Overhauled from 2017-2018 were Armor Part 4, the Spotter's Guides to modern and early 20th century warships, Why the Carriers aren't Doomed Part 1, my take on the 80s reactivation of the Iowas and my comments on proposals to do so today. The 2018-2019 overhauls are Commercial Aviation Part 4, Information, Communication and Naval Warfare Part 2, Auxiliaries Part 4, the Stafford Museum in Weatherford (home of Apollo astronaut Tom Stafford), The Great White Fleet Part 3 and Interwar Naval Diplomacy.

Billy Mitchell, pioneering American aviator and proponent of an independent air force, had scored a major PR victory when he sunk the former German battleship Ostfriesland, which he had convinced the public that the Navy believed was impossible. Unfortunately, his grandstanding tactics had made him enemies in Washington, and the new head of the Air Service, Mason Patrick, was appointed with a specific remit to keep Mitchell in line. Mitchell was informed that any public statements would have to be specifically approved by Patrick, and for the next two years, he mostly kept his head down.

Virginia under air attack

In September 1923, the Army Air Service received two more pre-dreadnoughts, New Jersey and Virginia, for use during bombing tests. Despite Michell's insistence that he be delivered the "sturdiest ships to be scrapped with steam up and magazines filled", they were in much the same shape Ostfriesland and Alabama had been, stripped out and with minimal watertight integrity. Both were swiftly sunk, although the Navy managed to convince Pershing to emphasize the obsolete nature of the targets during his statements to the press. Mitchell was furious, but held his tongue and avoided leaking his report to the press. Later that year, Mitchell married again, and he and his new wife headed to the Far East on an inspection tour that lasted more than 7 months. Read more...

In 2015, the Center for a New American Security published Retreat from Range, by Jerry Hendrix, a respected naval historian and former naval flight officer.² In it, he argued that the range of US carrier air wings had fallen precipitously since the 1950s as it abandoned its deep-strike capabilities in favor of a focus on sortie generation and low costs. With the rise of weapons like the Chinese DF-21, this is unacceptable, and new aircraft need to be developed. This report has received extensive media attention, with several outlets taking up the cry for more range out of carrier wings.

Forrestal during her shakedown cruise in early 1956

Unfortunately, a large part of the report's thesis is wrong. Leaving aside that the threat of weapons like the DF-21 is grossly overrated, his analysis of the range of US carrier wings is dangerously flawed. Simply put, the numbers Hendrix gives for his 1956 carrier aircraft are complete nonsense. They seem to have been generated by googling each of the aircraft in question, and then taking the values for "max weapons load" and "max range" and slapping them together. Anyone with any serious exposure to aircraft should immediately recognize that this is not the right way to do this. Payload affects range, particularly when it's being carried on the outside of the plane and displacing drop tanks. Not accounting for this speaks of at best extreme carelessness on the part of Hendrix and CNAS. Read more...

Gentlemen,

The last 12 months have been an interesting time. We have largely recovered from the budget doldrums, and laid down two Ocean-class battleships, near-cousins to the Saint Louis, while commissioning Nancy and Nantes. Tensions with Austria-Hungary and Germany are high, while the situation with Japan has moderated somewhat. We have developed several new pieces of technology, including that necessary for CVL conversions.

We have a reasonable budget surplus at the moment, and need to decide what to do with it. Options include more destroyers, new CLs, and the CVL conversions of the DT class CAs. A sketch has been prepared which shows 12 aircraft. Read more...

The US Navy has strict requirements for the contents of a ship's log, as spelled out in OPNAVINST 3100.7. This includes things like the ship's course and location, the state of the engineering plant, the officer in charge, and other ships nearby. But every year, the restrictions are lifted just a little, and the first log of the new year can be completed in verse, so long as all of the required information is present. The sample above was written by Ens. Lauren Larar for the log of USS McCampbell (DDG-85), one of the first USN vessels to cross into 2019. Read more...

In the early 60s, the US military faced a serious problem. Much of its firepower was tied up in manned strike aircraft, but these aircraft were increasingly vulnerable to surface-to-air missiles like the Soviet SA-2 Guideline. Any effective air campaign would require the destruction of the SAM sites, but existing methods of attacking SAM sites, such as iron bombs and short-range missiles, were extremely dangerous. Fortunately, China Lake, the Navy's main center for developing aerial weapons, had the idea for a missile that would home in on the SAM's own radar emissions. This neatly solved several problems. The attacking aircraft could launch from greater range, and without having to get the precise position of the target. Simply lob the missile towards the SAM site, and it would find and attack the radar on its own.

AGM-45 Shrike

The first weapon of this new type, dubbed anti-radiation missiles, was the AGM-45 Shrike. It was based on the airframe of the AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missile, but with a new seeker designed to track the Fan Song radar of the SA-2 and a different warhead and rocket motor. This weapon was in use over Vietnam almost as soon as it entered service, and proved a significant improvement over previous methods of shutting down SA-2 sites, although it had a number of drawbacks. Read more...

It's our regular Open Thread. Talk about whatever you want, so long as it's not culture war.

A blog I've recently discovered is the well-named A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, which mostly covers ancient warfare as seen in popular culture, but has made a few interesting forays into naval warfare.

Overhauls since last time are The South American Dreadnought Race, Huascar Part 2, Dreadnoughts of the Minor Powers and Armor Parts one, two and three for 2017. For 2018, we have Commercial Aviation Part 3, all three* parts on electronic warfare, Spot 1, and The Great White Fleet Part 2.

Merry Christmas, all. As I hope that you're spending time with your families, and I don't have any fun naval Christmas traditions to talk about, please accept some pictures of warships decked out in Christmas lights.

Iowa in 1984

Iowa in 1986

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In mid-1921, interservice relations were at an all-time low. Many advocates of the airplane, led by Billy Mitchell, claimed that the battleship was now obsolete. Their campaign had gained tremendous popular support, and the decision was made to test the effectiveness of aerial bombing on several German ships which had been turned over to the US as war prizes. The initial tests on destroyer G-102 and cruiser Frankfort had given some information, but the main event was still to come, with the bombing of the former German dreadnought Ostfriesland.

Ostfriesland in 1920

The test would be conducted on July 20th and 21st, and was to be observed by dignitaries including Secretary of War John Weeks and new Army Chief of Staff John Pershing. Because it was officially a weapons test, a schedule had been set to make sure that all sizes of bombs were tested, and to allow observers to board the ship safely to evaluate their effects. This would be coordinated from the minelayer Shawmut, serving as the control ship. Both Navy orders and Mitchell's own operational order were very specific. The "All Clear" had to be shown from Shawmut before bombing could commence, and if it was withdrawn, the bombing was to stop immediately. Read more...