This author slams the idea that very small corvette classes of ships could solve our naval problems:
There is a growing belief in U.S. naval circles that aircraft carriers and higher-end U.S. surface combatants are becoming vulnerable to attacks by improved cruise missiles and targetable ballistic missiles such as the DF-21D. Proponents of this belief argue that corvette-sized vessels grouped in flotillas cost less, are more survivable than larger vessels and (somewhat darkly) suggest that U.S. national command authority would be less adverse to losing a few corvettes in combat than they would to the loss of a “capital ship” Arleigh Burke class destroyer.
He's right but misses the point.
While I am happy that we are putting small combatants into the Persian Gulf where the constricted waters make it folly to put large ships in the opening stages of a naval war, I have freely admitted that really small ships like many of our allies (and potential enemies) have make no sense except for niche capabilities (I'd argue those exist in the Persian Gulf, South China Sea, and Mediterranean Sea to a lesser extent).
Our Navy ships and submarines (Coast Guard is another story, altogether) need a minimum size to sail from the continental United States to other points on the globe and remain on station for a useful amount of time. Only nations whose navies have patrol stations not far from their home ports and which would fight in sheltered waters can use such small ships and subs as the backbone of their navies.
Further, those Aegis "destroyers" are capital ships. They rival World War II heavy cruisers in tonnage. And they can take on any ship in any navy. If they aren't capital ships, what are they?
And precision anti-ship missiles do make our huge aircraft carriers more vulnerable. Really, they do. I'm certainly relieved that we have a back-up carrier force entering service because I value survivable naval aviation.
Yet even the author of that piece seems to admit that the point of the LCS was to have a cheaper ship than the big ships. Sadly, LCS costs have risen so much that they are no longer low-end ships--at least not to the extend that they can be built in large numbers and with the mission modules that would make them more capable.
I would be very happy if we could build a basic multi-role frigate that provides the numbers we need and which can sail alone for forward presence missions or sail with a carrier or amphibious task force. Our Perry-class frigates weren't built to be fancy, but they got (and still get) a lot of the jobs done.
And you don't have to have to think "somewhat darkly" that having cheaper ships that can be forward deployed would be a lesser lost if an enemy strikes our forward-deployed ships in a surprise attack.
Do you seriously want to argue that it would not be a major morale loss for us and gain for our enemy to have pictures of a burning or sinking Ford-class carrier, DD-1000, or large amphibious warfare ship rather than of a Cyclone-class patrol craft or even an LCS?
Or a Modularized Auxiliary Cruiser?
Seriously, when we faced massed Japanese kamikaze attacks on our fleet near the end of World War II, did we put out picket battleships or picket cruisera to screen the high value carriers? No? We put out picket destroyers (or smaller). And those were actual small destroyers and not our current capital ship "destroyers."
There is nothing dark about trying to minimize our losses in the face of likely enemy actions.
We do need numbers. And to afford numbers we need a high-low mix of surface ships, notwithstanding the thorough destruction of the corvette straw vessel.
