Western navies are preparing for wartime scenarios where they may face degraded operational conditions, including a loss of satellite communications, Navy Chief of Staff Adm. Nicolas Vaujour said at the Paris Naval Conference. The French navy includes two or three days of drills under “back to the ‘80s” conditions whenever it deploys its carrier strike group. Countries including China and Russia have developed weapons to deny the U.S. and others access to space capabilities. The U.S. Navy has similar training as France to prepare for a degraded operational environment, such as a day of operating without GPS, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti said at the conference. Navies and their carrier strike groups are facing new or evolving threats in the face of hypersonic missiles, anti-ship ballistic missiles, drones and cyber warfare, the admirals at the conference said. The battlefield is increasingly transparent, and commanders should assume capabilities will be attacked and degraded during operations. Sea has become a more contested environment, and navies need to think about naval combat “from seabed to space.” The ability of carriers to function as intelligence nodes and using artificial intelligence to integrate battlefield sensor data from their entire strike group will be key to fending off new threats. The contemporary battlespace has become more contested for everyone, and the challenge for carrier strike groups is integrating all available data to create a “superiority bubble” around the carrier.
Source: Rudy Ruitenberg, Europe correspondent for Defense News.
