Will a Short-Term Navy Plan Drive a Long-Term Decline of Super Carriers?

Commercial off-the-shelf unmanned surface vessels (USVs) will be a thousand stakes in the heart of the platform-centric sea control Navy.

The Navy's Navigation Plan seeks salvation in unmanned surface ships:

The U.S. Navy’s commitment to develop, test and field uncrewed surface vessels at an accelerated pace has profound implications for the maritime community. The need to field a hybrid fleet not at some distant time, but this decade, will likely mean that the Navy can’t wait for uncrewed surface vessels that are developed via the DoD’s often tortuous acquisition process.

What this means for industry is that commercial-off-the-shelf uncrewed surface vessels will likely receive a favorable hearing from Navy officials who increasingly recognize that the need for a hybrid fleet to emerge as soon as possible is compelling.

The Navy needs numbers in the short run, assuming this works. This would address my worry about how large surface ships survive in a kill web environment. In the long run, enemies will be able to respond in kind. And have the advantage of not worrying about ocean-spanning range. So shipyards still matter to crank out USVs like sausages.

And massing effort from many smaller unmanned ships requires a networked Navy using something like the Integrated Combat System that has a certain logical path to follow that has profound implications, indeed:

You may say that ICS-equipped escorts will be able to mass defensive missiles and systems to protect the carrier. But I doubt that the defenses could stop all the inbound missiles. Enough will evade defenses to get at least a mission-kill. Is it really worth it to use networks to defend the big platform-centric offensive carrier instead of focusing on networked offense?

How many Ford-class carriers--the pinnacle hull of a platform-centric Navy to mass effort--will be built on this path? I think far fewer will be needed for both power projection and sea control missions because sea control will be dominated by semi-expendable sea-going USVs--along with larger, more conventional ships with smaller AI-assisted crew supplemented by shore-based crew working remotely--and because power projection requirements need fewer big carriers.

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Long-Range Torpedoes

Missiles have longer range than torpedoes. But the ability to detect and shoot down missiles is much better. What to do? Combine their features.

The Navy has new air-launched torpedoes that keep the launching aircraft safe from fire:

The Navy has also developed accessories for its air-launched torpedoes, the lightweight Mk 54 which enables the torpedo to glide long distances before entering the water. The new accessory enables a maritime patrol aircraft to launch the torpedo from high altitude. The modified Mk 54 has pop-out wings, so the high-altitude torpedo can still be stored inside the aircraft bomb bay. When dropped, the wings pop out, an onboard computer uses GPS and tiny electric motors, to operate the wings and fins to guide the torpedo to a preprogrammed location, at which point the glide kit falls away as the torpedo enters the water and starts searching for the submarine. 

The system can also be used for naval mines. But what about anti-ship torpedoes like my suggestion for ASuROC anti-ship torpedoes fired closer to the target through the air to avoid far stronger ship air defenses.

I thought mounting them on surface-hugging missiles would achieve that by being too low for air defenses to react before the torpedo goes in the water. The Tomahawk would be a good candidate given the "U.S. Navy is aware of the fact that the Tomahawk is not the ideal anti-ship missile."

But gliding from high altitude outside of missile defenses should work against surface targets as long as the torpedo payload has a long enough range once in its element, no?

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NOTE: The image is from Boeing.

Land-Based Aircraft Replace Carrier Aviation in Some Locations

Have we forgotten that aircraft carriers needed for air power far from land air bases aren't as necessary where land bases exist?

Will land-based F-35s be just as much of a deterrent and combat force as carrier-based F-35s? 

The aircraft carrier remains a potent signal of American intentions — but it is not the only asset at the United States’ disposal to project hard power, should it be called on.

Recent events in the Middle East demonstrate that the F-35s deployed abroad are arguably just as, if not more important, than the capital ships on which they deploy.

And given the F-35’s capabilities, the aircraft’s presence alone should be interpreted as a signal of American fixity of purpose on par with that of the aircraft carrier.

The article is more about spreading out and sustaining the F-35 for a long struggle with the above observation almost made in passing, but the observation is one I've made well before F-35Bs and F-35Cs went to sea:

Land-based air power has always been an important part of naval aviation. Even with our total carrier dominance by the end of World War II in the Pacific, we needed to plan for an amphibious landing on Kyushu Island to establish air bases prior to the main assault on the Tokyo region.

In the context of our needing land-based air when we had fleets of carriers roaming the seas, the idea that even two carriers in CENTCOM is enough naval air power is kind of ridiculous. Why not put Navy (or Marine Corps) planes ashore in the Gulf region?

Carrier-based aircraft do have the advantage of not needing host nation permission. For punitive missions against a minor enemy, a carrier or two is enough. 

But in a major operation in CENTCOM against enemy forces ashore, carriers would need local allies for diplomatic and military support in addition to permission to use their land facilities and bases to support carrier operations. Carrier aviation would only be able to assist land-based aircraft, which would do the heavy lifting.

As long as we have that kind of host nation support in peacetime, I don't know why land-based aircraft can't be used for punitive missions. We could deploy a portion of a carrier air wing ashore even if the carrier is available.

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.

NOTE: I'm adding updates on the Last Hamas War, including the revived Syria multi-war, in this post.

NOTE: You may also like to read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved. Go ahead and subscribe to it.

NOTE: I made the image with Bing.