XBradTC

I saw this at War History Online, and it’s worth a read in and of itself:

While many people know the story of the “Little Ships of Dunkirk”, Great Britain was not the only nation to call upon its civilian sailors to come to their nation’s aid. In early 1942 the US Navy and Coast Guard were facing a crisis: they had a massive coastline to protect from U-Boats, and nowhere near enough craft to do it.

Every day they were losing ships to German fire, and weren’t able to produce patrol vessels fast enough to ensure safety at sea. They were searching for a solution, but little did they realize that it was right in front of them.

In 1941, Alfred Stanford, Commodore of the Cruising Club of America, offered his ships and crews to Admiral Ernest J. King, Chief of Naval Operations. But King was an old traditionalist and immediately dismissed the idea of civilians going out looking for submarines. The yachtsmen, though, didn’t relent and created a public outcry. After numerous letters and newspaper articles called for the use of these yachts and their crews, Admiral King finally gave in, and put the volunteers under the command of the Coast Guard, because of their experience with the Coast Guard Auxiliary, a force made up those too old, too young, or unfit to fight.

The Auxiliarists were usually unpaid volunteers, but could be temporarily brought in as paid members of the main fighting force. In 1941 this force stood around 7500 members, with 2-3 thousand craft, most of which were only suitable for inland or coastal operations. The Auxiliary’s main duty at the time was to supplement the Coast Guard’s main force, assisting with safety inspections, lifesaving, as well as patrolling coastal beaches looking for spies and saboteurs.

Now, let’s return to the 21st Century.

The US Navy has spent a lot of time and money on signature reduction of its surface warships, such as the first tentative steps with the DDG-51 Arleigh Burke class destroyers, both classes of Littoral Combat Ships, the DDG-1000 class, and even the LPD-17 class amphibious transport docks.

You can do a lot to hide warships at sea, much of which involved being very quiet, and standing offshore a fair bit.

But sooner or later, you have to close the enemy coast. While the surface ships of the US Navy might, on radar, appear to be just another ship, there really isn’t much you can do to disguise them during the day. And China has an enormous fleet of fishing vessels, and other coastal craft. Properly deployed, they would be in a position to almost certainly visually detect any surface task force eventually, and in a position to very quickly disseminate that information back to the mainland. And it is highly unlikely the US Navy will be able to sink or seize every vessel that has the potential to spot them.

I hope there are some smart naval minds out there trying to come to terms with this problem, because I don’t have a solution on hand.