新闻来源：www.abcnews.go.com
原文地址：Lessons from Red Sea and Ukraine’s Black Sea fight help prep Navy for possible conflict with China
新闻日期：2024-09-18
美国海军从过去一年在红海的作战经验以及乌克兰黑海对俄防御的经验中汲取教训，为可能与中国发生的新冲突做好准备。
海军正在扩大战斗技能并拓宽训练范围，包括使用无人机、无人水面舰艇等新技术。
海军总司令弗兰切蒂表示，2027年至关重要，因为习近平已命令中国军队准备好进攻台湾。我们需要更好地做好准备。
新的导航计划将于周三发布，将聚焦七个优先目标，涵盖加快战舰维修进度、提升基础设施、加强招聘和改进无人系统等方面。
另一个重要挑战是确保海军80%的兵力随时能投入战斗，弗兰切蒂表示这是一项“高难度目标”。
美国海军正在从乌克兰如何使用无人机、空中打击和远程无人舰艇限制俄罗斯黑海舰队活动并保持关键港口的通航中学习经验。
她的另一观点是，美国在此次亚太大规模冲突中的关键将是控制海洋。此前数月与伊朗支持的胡塞叛军在也门的战斗也为海军提供了宝贵的经验。
今年早些时候，“杜鲁门号”航空母舰驻扎在红海以备支援以色列并保护商船和军舰免受胡塞攻击，该航母进行了超过八个月的部署，并被称作自二战以来最激烈的海上战斗。
F/A-18战斗机频繁从航母甲板上起飞打击胡塞武器，海军驱逐舰不断发射导弹并使用舰载火炮击落来袭的无人机和导弹。
在与“杜鲁门号”一起驻扎的“马森号”驱逐舰上，弗兰切蒂于八月与一名改进了大型自动火炮使用的火控兵进行了会面并为其晋升。这名士兵能够调整火炮更好地应对胡塞无人机，并提出了一种不同的用炮方法以提高效果。
她没有透露该士兵的名字，但提到他的建议确实带来了一些新的正式军事战术和程序，这些内容已被分发给其他所有船只。
另一个关键任务将是改进海军无人系统和武器的开发，并将它们更好地融入训练与作战。随着海军引入更多新技术，如无人水面舰艇，确保有足够训练有素的水手能使用并维修这些设备非常重要。
新的导航计划指出，海军正在研发更大的机器人系统及其可能使用的智能应用来理解和控制战场环境。
同时，海军官员也意识到来自国会的财务限制可能会成为他们面临的问题——这种限制中国军队却没有。预计中国的海军规模会继续扩大超过美国。
尽管希望拥有更强大的海军力量，但他们需要通过与陆军、空军、太空军和陆战队更好地协同作战来弥补这一不足，这是美国历来做得很好的事情之一。
解决延误问题也是关键，弗兰切蒂表示及时将船只送入船厂并按时完成维修对于保持战斗准备状态至关重要。
这些都是我们每天需要做到的事情才能拥有更强大的力量。
原文摘要：
The Navy is taking lessons from its combat in the Red Sea over the past year and what Ukraine has done to hold off the Russians in the Black Sea to help U.S. military leaders prepare the service for a potential future conflict with China.
From drones and unmanned surface vessels to the more advanced operation of ship-board guns, the Navy is expanding its combat skills and broadening training. It is also working to overcome recruiting struggles so it can have the sailors it needs to fight the next war.
Adm. Lisa Franchetti, chief of naval operations, is laying out a series of goals, including several that will be highly challenging to meet, in a new navigation plan she described in an interview with The Associated Press. The objective is to be ready to face what the Pentagon calls its key national security challenge — China.
“I’m very focused on 2027. It’s the year that that President Xi (Jinping) told his forces to be ready to invade Taiwan,” Franchetti said. “We need to be more ready.”
The new plan, set to be released Wednesday, includes what she considers seven priority goals, ranging from removing delays in ship depot maintenance to improving Navy infrastructure, recruiting and the use of drones and autonomous systems.
One significant challenge is to have 80% of the force be ready enough at any given time to deploy for combat if needed — something she acknowledged is a “stretch goal.” The key, she said, is to get to a level of combat readiness where “if the nation calls us, we can push the ‘go’ button and we can surge our forces to be able to meet the call.”
The announcement of the goals comes as U.S. leaders are treading a fine line, pledging a commitment to the defense of Taiwan while also working to keep communication open with Beijing to deter greater conflict.
Taiwan, a self-governing island democracy that split from communist China in 1949, has rejected Beijing’s demands that it accept unification. China says it will do so by force if necessary. The United States is obligated under domestic law to help defend Taiwan and give it weapons and technology to deter invasion.
An important element in any Asia-Pacific conflict will be the need to control the seas. Franchetti said the U.S. can learn from how the Ukrainians have used drones, airstrikes and long-range unmanned vessels to limit Russian ship activity in the western Black Sea and keep access open to critical ports.
“If you look at the Ukrainian success in really keeping the Russian Black Sea fleet pushed all the way over into the east, that’s all about sea denial and that’s very important,” Franchetti said. She added that Ukraine has been innovating on the battlefield by using existing systems, such as drones, in different ways.
The Navy’s monthslong battle with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen has provided other lessons.
“I think probably no one is learning more than the Navy, because really, this is the first time we’ve been in a weapons engagement zone for this sustained period,” she said.
She said sailors are watching their attacks and analyzing the data as ships respond.
Earlier this year, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier was stationed in the Red Sea to respond to help Israel and to defend commercial and military ships from Houthi attacks. The carrier returned home after an eight-month-plus deployment that the Navy said was the most intense running sea battle since World War II.
F/A-18 fighter jets routinely launched off the carrier’s deck to take out Houthi weapons, and Navy destroyers persistently fired rounds of missiles and used on-board guns to shoot down incoming strikes and drones.
On board the USS Mason destroyer, which was stationed with the Eisenhower, Franchetti in August met and promoted one of the destroyer’s fire control sailors who worked on its large, fully automatic artillery gun. Unlike missiles, many of the drones launched by the Houthis were more complicated and challenging to target and shoot down, and he was able to adjust the gun to better defeat them.
“He could see how it was performing against the Houthi threat,” Franchetti said, “and he came up with a different way to use the gun to make it more effective in these engagements.”
She did not identify the sailor and declined to provide details on the exact changes he recommended. But it resulted in new formal military tactics and procedures that were distributed to all other ships.
Another key effort will be to improve Navy development of unmanned and autonomous systems and weapons and integrate them into training and combat. As the military brings on new technologies, including unmanned surface vessels, the Navy needs to ensure it has trained sailors who can use and repair them.
The new navigation plan notes that the Navy is now working on concepts and requirements for larger robotic systems and the artificial intelligence applications they could use to understand and control the battlespace.
Navy leaders also understand the financial restraints they will likely face from Congress — limits that rivals such as China do not have. China outpaces the U.S. in the number of ships and is expected to do so into the future.
Navy officials said that while they would like a bigger naval force, they need to offset that by working more effectively with the Army, Air Force, Space Force and Marines, which is something the U.S. has historically done very well.
A challenge will be eliminating the maintenance overruns that often prevent ships from being able to deploy on time. Getting ships in and out of depots on time, Franchetti said, is critical to having a combat-ready Navy.
“These are the things that we know that we need to be able to do to have the force that’s going to be more ready every single day,” she said.
