The Big Dog

For the projection of power ashore in a littoral conflict, nothing beats naval air. It gets there fast, and pounds the hell out of the enemy before he knows what hit him, and today’s navy has sophisticated electronics packages that puts ordinance right on target and causes SAMs to bite the hand that fed them.

Nice.

But what if your enemy is, say, a mujahedeen who don’t have a SAM system, and couldn’t use it if he did? Naval air still rules the battlefield, but a fifty cal machine gun shooting straight up into the air will rip the belly right out of a F/A 18 coming in hot to lay down ordinance in support of besieged grunts.

A 16” shell, on the other hand, is impervious to a puny 50 cal round. Even if it did somehow succumb to a low tech weapon, it wouldn’t have a pilot punching out to be caught by an enemy who would use him for political and propaganda purposes. Nor would it give up secrets like a downed Predator.

In political parlance, a 16” shell is as PC as you can get. It don’t care who it blows up, and it ain’t gonna roll on its brothers if it falls into the wrong hands.

Viet Nam, a political war as much as anything else. The generals and admirals running things all gambled on their service being the one that could whip the enemy better than any other service. In the navy, the conventional forces had little to impact. Sure, the brown water navy was there. Swifts and PBRs and LCUs, mikes and zippos all did their part, but there were no naval battles to win, no dramas on the high seas to write home about. That’s not to say that the SEALS didn’t do their part, but SEALS terrorizing some terrorist VC didn’t win big dollars in the defense budget sweepstakes.

Enter the New Jersey. Able to reach 90% of targets in North and South Viet Nam without coming within range of a shore battery, it was a beautiful thing in the surface navy’s thinking.

But not so fast. Airdales (only half a word in the black shoe world – brothers you know what I mean) were running the show.

New Jersey deployed to Viet Nam to support combat operations. North Viet Nam was off limits. A 16” round isn’t Precision Guided Ordinance. The first few rounds are fairly accurate, but as the guns heat, the accuracy gets worse. You could aim at the Hanoi Power Plant and take out a hospital, school, or POW camp. (The brass hats wouldn’t fund radar guided RAP rounds – no, they’d rather risk a multimillion dollar A-6 and a pilot who cost Uncle Sugar untold sums to train – but who am I to tell them what to do?) So NJ found herself supporting Operation Market Basket, gunfire support for troops under attack.

She slipped into the op area unannounced.

A FAC called for a fire mission from a small boy off the coast. A platoon of Marines was under attack from a mortar squad. The FAC had the mortar squad’s coordinates.

“Alfa Whiskey, this is Tango Golf two six. I have a fire mission. Coordinates Bravo Bravo Two Eight, Xray niner eight Foxrot. Over”

On Alfa Whiskey, the bridge to bridge circuit snapped, “Alfa Whiskey, this is Big Dog we’ll take this mission”. Then on the fire support circuit, “Tango Golf, Bravo Delta, roger. Confirm coordinates ‘Bravo Bravo Two Eight, Xray niner eight Foxrot’”.

“Bravo Bravo Two Eight, Xray niner eight Foxrot, roger. Fire one salvo for effect.”

“Bravo Delta, roger salvo.”

Well, a salvo from a Battleship is an entirely different thing than a salvo from a small boy with some 5”/38s.

Nine 16” HE rounds whistled over the small boy’s head from 20 miles away. They impacted the target area with such force that the mortar squad’s position was reduced to a smoking hole. The pressure from the impact spun the FAC’s plane around. He examined the effect of the navy’s effort once he reoriented himself for just a minute.

“Jesus Christ! What did you use? Target destroyed”, the FAC reported in a high pitched, girlish scream.

“Bravo Delta, Target destroyed. Roger, out”

Who really needs Naval Air in a littoral war?

Tomorrow, another victory for BB power over air power.

“Fire Power For Victory”.