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Formal requirements development for NSFS has been lacking

• Until USMC formally specifies what it needs, the Navy will continue to meet Required Operational Capabilities/Projected Operational Enviroment (ROC/POE) requirements and treat the remainder of capability development as merely a suggestion.

There are several gaps in the Navy's NSFS capability, but new technologies could mitigate them

• Targeting in denied environments is likely to be challenging and will be highly dependent on organic assets, principally unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Although UAVs can provide useful data, locating an enemy that is determined to deny the electromagnetic spectrum or use concealment is a major challenge for NSFS.
• Sensor-to-shooter timelines are far too long to support effective engagement on a fluid battlefield. NSFS for maneuvering forces ashore must be capable of responding at very short notice to calls for fire.
• A single ship firing rounds from a single gun is physically limited in the targets it can reach and the numbers of targets it can simultaneously service. This suggests that a single-ship model might be unworkable in heavily contested environments.
• Lack of range exacerbates inability to support more than a single landing force element at a time. Thus, the effective area that a single ship can support is constrained to a few miles.
• The Navy has undervalued magazines munitions that might be particularly valuable.
• Singular reliance on high explosives, instead of a combination of high explosives and dual-purpose improved conventional munitions, exacerbates issues of insufficient volume of fire.
• Formal modeling indicates a high volume of munitions expenditures, beyond what would be carried in a ship's magazine.

Naval surface fire support (NSFS) has been a traditional mission of U.S. Navy surface combatants. Although naval guns have been viewed as a major instrument of sea control, they have also been seen, and widely used, as ways to directly influence the battle ashore by providing the equivalent of artillery support for U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) forces operating ashore. Although there is no denying that the Navy and the USMC have viewed NSFS as important, the actual requirements are sometimes vague. For that reason, RAND researchers conducted an assessment of the formal requirements and programs for NSFS.

The researchers examined existing requirements documents and refined those requirements by applying battalion-level scenarios. They also applied a formal model to address volume of fire and required magazine size and considered possible technological and platform solutions. By comparing actual and potential requirements, the researchers were able to then make recommendations for capability development and for changes to existing requirements.

• Chapter One

  Introduction

• Chapter Two

  The Historical Context and Current Capabilities

• Chapter Three

  Naval Surface Fire Support Capability Development Requirements

• Chapter Four

  Scenario Analysis as a Basis for Additional Requirements

• Chapter Five

  Volume Requirements Modeling

• Chapter Six

  Naval Surface Fire Support Developmental Efforts

• Chapter Seven

  Conclusion, Findings, and Recommendations