I see that the Navy is about to release its Future Navy Force Study, which will recommend a sharp change in direction away from large, expensive surface ships toward a larger fleet of smaller, missile-armed, potentially unmanned, ships. It was obvious at least a decade ago, if not longer, that with the advent of precision guided weapons, large surface ships like aircraft carriers were just becoming easy targets, at least for near-peer opponents. It used to take massive ships to carry the massive 16-inch guns they used and to withstand the recoil of those guns, or to carry and launch aircraft. With the advent of guided missiles and vertical launch cells it was clear long ago that even much smaller ships could now carry impressive firepower.
Clearly the response to the threat of swarms of relatively inexpensive guided missiles overwhelming the defenses of large, expensive ships like carriers is to distribute the fleet’s offensive power into swarms of smaller, less expensive, missile-carrying ships instead of keeping all our eggs in a few vulnerable baskets. The navy seems finally to have realized this, a decade or so late. Of course it will take another decade or so of Congressional futzing and bureaucratic infighting before this will be accomplished. But at least we have started…..perhaps.
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