The Navy wants a "500-ship" fleet. It desperately needs numbers to face China. But that plan counts a lot on robotic ships. Could modularized auxiliary cruisers fill the gap until the unmanned vessels are ready?
The Navy has a notion of what it wants to face China successfully, according to CNO Gilday:
“We need 12 carriers. We need a strong amphibious force to include nine big-deck amphibs and another 19 or 20 [LPDs] to support them. Perhaps 30 or more smaller amphibious ships to support Maritime Littoral Regiments… to 60 destroyers and probably 50 frigates, 70 attack submarines and a dozen ballistic missile submarines to about a 100 support ships and probably looking into the future about 150 unmanned.”
According to Gilday’s list, that force would be about 513 ships with 263 manned combatants, plus 100 logistics and supply ships and 150 unmanned vessels. Gilday told reporters later that the total would include Littoral Combat Ships.
Counting logistics and supply ships, no matter how vital, changes the terms of describing fleet size based on battle force ships. We've played definitions games before. This really changes the definitions section.
The unmanned ships provide enough to get 413 "battle force" vessels are only now being tested as a concept in real world conditions in the Persian Gulf. But they will be useful in network-centric operations.
Getting capable blue water unmanned vessels will take some time. In the meantime, I think we could add modularized auxiliary cruisers based on container ships as I proposed a long time ago (and which I adapted for Army use in AFRICOM more recently in Military Review):
Our Navy defends our nation within the incompatible and unforgiving boundaries formed by the tyrannies of distance and numbers. We struggle to build enough ships both capable of deploying globally and powerful enough for fighting first-rate opponents. Operating within a network-centric Navy, auxiliary cruisers could once again play a valuable role in projecting naval power. Using modular systems installed on civilian hulls, auxiliary cruisers could handle many peacetime roles; free scarce warships for more demanding environments; add combat power within a networked force; and promote the global maritime partnership.
Our Navy is surely superior to any conceivable combination of potential foes, alarmism notwithstanding. Yet as a global power, our sea power cannot be narrowly defined by our superb warships able to win conventional sea-control campaigns. We have many objectives at sea. Modularized Auxiliary Cruisers could provide the numbers we need to achieve our maritime objectives. The tyranny of numbers matters to the United States Navy.
Using auxiliary cruisers would work out the kinks of the Navy operating with manned ships that aren't standard warships. The experience would help get the robot ships into the fleet faster with fewer hiccups.
The concept is certainly on the Navy radar, now. As it is on the Israeli, Russian, and Chinese radar.
And the experience with modularized auxiliary cruisers would help directly expand the fleet in emergencies with the skills in fitting out container ships. It would be nice to use some of the LCS modular research in a more useful vessel.
I'd count this vision as a 400-ship Navy. Let's hope this is good enough no matter what the definitions reveal or conceal.
NOTE: War updates continue on this post.
