Compass Points - Innovation
Cycles of Innovation Continue.
Compass Points - Innovation
Cycles of Innovation Continue.
February 8, 2024
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Dr. Robert Farley writing in The National Interest asks the question, "Does Cheap Missiles Mean the Era of Navy Surface Warships Is Over?"
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More than a year on from the sinking of RFS Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, we have few clear lessons for the naval architects who must build new fleets or the legislatures that must pay for them about the future of naval warfare.
Questions linger, and we don’t yet have all the answers.
Futurists consistently overpredicted the end of the surface ship over the 20th century. The submarine, then the aircraft, then the nuclear weapons were supposed to spell the end of surface warships. Submarines proved to be a serious but manageable threat, aircraft became part of a warship’s toolset, and against nukes warships were fortunately never tested in real combat.
-- Dr. Robert Farley
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Throughout history a nation or group of nations will develop some new technology, a new weapon of war. At first the technology seems unbeatable. At first the technology may actually be unbeatable. But soon opposing nations develop a variety of counters in training, tactics, and new counter technology of their own. What was once the new technology inevitably becomes the old technology. And weapons that once seemed unbeatable become just another factor commanders must deal with on the battlefield.
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The Institute for the Study of War in their Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 7, 2024, report that Russia and Ukraine are engaged in an "offense-defense innovation-adaptation race."
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The February 7 strike package is emblematic of the constant air domain offense-defense innovation-adaptation race in which Russia and Ukraine are engaged. Ukrainian air defense managed to shoot down the majority of the Kh-101/555/55 cruise missiles and Shahed drones, which may suggest that Russian forces fired the Kh-101 series missiles and Shaheds in order to distract Ukrainian air defense. Ukrainian forces did not shoot down any of the Kh-22 cruise missiles, Iskander-M ballistic missiles, or S-300 surface-to-air missiles, by contrast. Russian forces may have specifically designed this strike package to distract Ukrainian air defense with the Kh-101s and Shahed combination with the intention of helping the other missiles make it through to their intended targets. The unconfirmed reports of 3M22 Zircon strikes are also noteworthy as Zircons are typically fired from naval vessels at other vessels or coastal targets, so Russian forces may have had to adapt the Zircon launchers to strike targets so far inland. Russian forces additionally appear to have integrated North Korean missiles into their strike packages, which may have been harder for Ukrainian forces to detect and shoot down. ISW has previously assessed that Russia is experimenting with the strike packages it can launch at Ukraine to achieve the maximum desired effect, and that Ukraine in return continues efforts to adapt and respond to new Russian strike packages.
-- Institute for the Study of War
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The ISW finds that month-by-month Ukraine, "continues efforts to adapt and respond to new Russian strike packages." This is the way of war. A nation fighting to win cannot surrender when new technology arrives. The answer is to find a counter to the new technology.
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How does this continual "offense-defense innovation-adaptation race" apply to the Navy and Marine Corps today? The US Navy is not going to surrender its surface fleet just because of the development of precision munitions. Precision munitions are a threat to the fleet. Beyond that, hypersonic precision munitions are a significant threat. But the Navy is developing a variety of technology programs to counter precision munitions. The US Navy has not said and never will say, "this new technology is too powerful, we will have to stop sailing around the world and instead just stay in port." The Navy would never do that.
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But what about the Marine Corps?
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Unfortunately, beginning in summer of 2019, the Marine Corps looked at the threat of precision munitions and decided the threat to the deployed MAGTF was so great that the Marine Corps should begin to retreat from worldwide offensive operations and instead withdraw to defense. The Marine Corps turned its focus toward a theoretical force of missiles Marines that would be located on islands off the coast of China. These units would sit and wait for passing Chinese military ships and launch missiles toward them. The missile units would be small, isolated, narrow in capabilities, and difficult to augment, reinforce, support, or evacuate.
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In developing the new defensive plan, the Marine Corps did not seem to ask, what are new counters to the threat of precision munitions? Instead, the Marine Corps began with the premise that precision munitions made global MAGTF operations impossible. That first premise led to a damaging chain of decisions and the reduction or elimination of much of the Marine Corps’ combined arms capabilities.
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Do cheap missiles mean the era of Navy surface warships is over? Absolutely not.
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Do cheap missiles mean the era of the Marine global MAGTF is over? Absolutely not.
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There is a constant "offense-defense innovation-adaptation race." The Marine Corps must get in that race and stay in that race, not by focusing on defensive operations, but by rebuilding and rebalancing the uniquely powerful and uniquely flexible Marine MAGTF. Compass Points salutes Dr Farley and the Institute for the Study of War and salutes all those throughout the Marine community and in Congress helping to upgrade the Marine MAGTF with new technologies and new capabilities.
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The National Interest (nationalinterest.org) 01/30/2024
Does Cheap Missiles Mean the Era of Navy Surface Warships Is Over?
Russia’s misfortune at sea does not necessarily mean that the rest of the world can rest upon the obsolescence of the surface warship. The U.S. Navy should however worry about the proliferation of cheap missiles.
by Robert Farley
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Institute for the Study of War (understandingwar.org) 02/07/2024
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 7, 2024
By Karolina Hird, Christina Harward, Nicole Wolkov, and Fredrick W. Kagan
https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-february-7-2024
It is easy to forget the rate of advancement and rapid obsolescence in surface combat vessels between 1890 and 1940 (equivalent to 1970-2023). Surface vessels remained a relevant capability and the concept of the surface vessel was married to the emerging technologies and concepts. As always, readiness and professional maintenance regime made a difference in capability. Even Billy Mitchell didn't argue against ships per se..he was arguing he could sink them and carriers were the future king of the waves. And the ships remain....
With increasing surveillance satellite coverage of the world's seas and oceans, it will become harder to hide from observation, which has suggested to me that perhaps we need more, smaller warships with multiple capabilities in each hull.