Washington - we have a big, big problem!

"Come on Navy! We can do better! We have known about this issue since the get-go. We need a solution to this problem and need it yesterday. Until then, we can only hope we don't get into a fight with Russia or China."

Point of personal history. In my career as a defense contractor, I was on a team which sold the Vertical Launching System (VLS) to the Navy. Of all the things I did as a defense contractor, this was my high point for sure. In the early days of the VLS, one of the slots in the VLS was reserved for a crane. Why? Because after the cannisters are expended (all shots fired), the crane could load new canisters from a supply ship onto the cruiser or destroyer. One minor problem however - the cranes did not work for underway replenishment. So, they were discontinued. 

The Navy has known for a while now, if we get into a fight, a real fight, not being able to reload the canisters at sea is a huge problem. Even in the Red Sea, once the canisters were exhausted, the ship needed to head to a friendly port to get replenished. In a fight with China in their back yard (East or South China Sea), getting back to a friendly port to get more missiles is really a non-starter. It could take weeks. Plus (my opinion only), a cruiser or destroyer headed back to port with empty canisters, would be a sitting duck.

The Navy would LOVE to have an at sea solution to fill these canisters. But truthfully, right now a ship-to-ship transfer of canisters would almost take a "sea state" of zero to make it work. What else could the Navy do? One idea which has tossed around for a while was a "missile barge". Have it bristling with missiles, tow it to the fight, and when it was finally expended, that would be it. That is no longer being considered. Now it is back to the Sea Lift Command to come up with an "at sea" solution.

The VLS, with the number of missile variants that is can fire with deadly accuracy, is one of the best weapons our military has. However, in a fight with a superpower, and not a bunch of sand farmers from Yemen, having this problem without a solution is tragic. Do we think the bad guys are aware of this problem? We would be fools to think otherwise. 

Here is the real problem. The cruisers and destroyers are the "shield" for the strike group. And the heart of course, of the strike group is the carrier. To have empty cannisters in any of these escort ships not only puts the cruisers and destroyers undefended, but also the other ships in the strike group - including the carrier.

Come on Navy! We can do better! We have known about this issue since the get-go. We need a solution to this problem and need it yesterday. Until then, we can only hope we don't get into a fight with Russia or China.