Source: WSJNathan Hodge and Julian Barnes
WASHINGTON—Within the president’s defense-budget plan is funding for
an intriguing new item: a floating drone base that also could be used as
a launching pad for commandos.
The vessel—called an “afloat forward staging base”—would be a
platform that could be configured to carry and refuel small patrol
boats, helicopters or pilotless aircraft.
Within
the president’s new defense budget plan is funding for an intriguing
new item: a floating drone base that also could be used as a launching
pad for commandos. Nathan Hodge has details on The News Hub.
It would also give the U.S. military the ability to stage a small
strike force offshore—without obtaining a permission slip from another
country for access to a land base.
Details are still emerging, but the project offers insight into how
the Obama administration envisions a military that in some ways is more
lethal even as it contracts.
Plans for the specialized vessel fit neatly with the Obama
administration’s plans to grow special-operations forces, while slimming
down conventional forces such as the Army and Marine Corps.
Senior officials want to provide military commanders with affordable
sea-base options without necessarily sending a big-deck aircraft carrier
and a full complement of escort ships.
A defense official said the floating staging base was more like a
freighter that would be outfitted for different kinds of missions, from
countering mines to launching remotely piloted aircraft. It also could
be used as a platform for launching commando operations.
The official said one option for the ship is a version of the Mobile
Landing Platform, a logistics ship that is being built by General
Dynamics NASSCO, a San Diego-based shipyard owned by General Dynamics Corp. General Dynamics didn’t respond immediately to requests for comment.
Earlier this week, a Navy SEAL team staged a dramatic rescue of
hostages held in Somalia. The military hasn’t disclosed where the SEALs
launched their operation from, but the raid represented the kind of
operation that the administration wants at the center of its
counterterrorism strategy: one that requires a minimal involvement of
conventional forces.
It isn’t clear what kinds of drones might operate from the ship.
Special-operations forces in the Middle East have used the Fire Scout, a
robotic helicopter, for surveillance operations in the Middle East.
The Navy disclosed last year that two Fire Scouts had operated from a
guided-missile frigate as part of an international task force fighting
Somali pirates.
The unmanned craft also has operated in Afghanistan, and a Fire Scout
drone crashed last year during a reconnaissance mission over Libya.
The sea base described in the Pentagon’s budget rollout has some historical antecedents.
During U.S. military operations to protect Kuwaiti oil tankers from
Iranian attacks in the late 1980s, the U.S. repurposed two oil platform
construction barges, the Hercules and the Wimbrown VII, as bases for
countering Tehran in the Persian Gulf.
James Jay Carafano, a national-security expert at the conservative
Heritage Foundation, said the floating base “sounds like the same
concept” as the converted barges.
“It’s a small platform that you can use to launch quick operations
from,” he said. “So it’s ideal for littoral operations where you want to
do special operations or ISR
[intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance].”
Mr. Carafano added, however, that this kind of capability was “not a
silver bullet,” because such vessels would still have to be sustained
and protected by conventional forces.
“It’s a very limited capability,” he said, adding: “Normally, when we
do stuff like this, they wouldn’t want to advertise it. It does seem to
be a PR campaign for a smaller, leaner, more flexible military.”
Write to Nathan Hodge at Nathan.Hodge@wsj.com and Julian E. Barnes at Julian.Barnes@wsj.com
