The revolution in naval warfare continues. In fact, in this era of cheap, massive use of lethal drones and guided missiles, the revolution has entered a white-hot phase.
The cost of armaments is key. Today, the cost of threatening an ocean-going navy is low, but the cost of defending an ocean-going navy is high. Not to mention the danger. Last week, an anti-ship missile fired into the sea by Houthi militants reportedly approached the US Navy"Gravley"The destroyer was shot down by the ship's Close Defense** System (CIWS) when it was less than a mile away.
The CIWS is the last line of defense for American warships, attacking targets within the range of the Blade's arrival. Surface combat ships are equipped with a multi-layered defense system capable of attacking enemy ammunition from tens of miles away. The farther away the better. In this case, as a tactical option, it would be extremely imprudent to let the threat come within range of the Gatling gun. No officer on duty would make such a choice. In fact, if the CIWS intercepts too close, missile fragments can splash onto the ship. The fragments turn into shrapnel and fly towards the attacked ship by inertia.
That is, near-point defense can be a catastrophic success. Thankfully, in the Red Sea encounter, such success was not seen in the perimeter defense.
The chain of events that took place aboard the Gravley remains a mystery, and we may never know exactly what happened. Navy leaders are likely to withhold details for fear of alerting current or future enemies to the weaknesses of the US Navy. But we can speculate. Perhaps the destroyer fired a defensive surface-to-air missile, but the incoming missile dodged the attack. Or maybe there was a malfunction in the ship's equipment. Gravley"The ship is equipped with the Aegis Combat System, a system that integrates radar, computer and fire control, and is the vanguard of shipborne defense systems. A malfunction in battle actually disengages the external defenses of the ship. Some kind of human blunder could also be the reason for a last-minute engagement. In combat, mistakes are commonplace when the stakes are high, time is pressing, options are narrow, and information is incomplete, excessive, or vague.
However, it is nothing new that an adversary as weak as the Houthis can pose a threat to a superior navy. Just ask Julian S. Corbett. More than a hundred years ago, the British naval historian and theorist saw that with the advent of a new navy, his plans for naval warfare were turned upside down. During his lifetime, mines and torpedoes provided super-powerful power to rudimentary submarines and surface patrol boats, allowing lightly armed"fleet", these fleets, which were previously only an afterthought of the commander of the battlefleet, posed a novel and serious danger to battleships, cruisers and other major surface combat ships, which ventured into their range of attack, and were usually still very close.
In Corbett's view, the revolution in maritime armaments upended centuries of naval practice, making it difficult, if not impossible, to draw lessons from past experiences that still apply to the age of steam, thick armor, and heavy artillery. In the age of sails, ** fought ** with **. They can ignore enemy weaker ships because their artillery fire far outstrips them. By the 20th century, this was no longer the case. In contrast, however, the Age of Sails constitutes the only historical repository available to naval scientists. Corbett lamented"The entire nautical technology has undergone a revolution that surpasses all previous experiences", and thinks"Old practices may no longer be safe guides"。As historian Theodore Ropp has argued, David, under the guise of submarines and patrol boats, may not have been able to defeat the enemy battle fleet Goliath in an all-out battle. But he can make Goliath pay a heavy price for access to nearshore waters, or even deny it altogether.
The naval revolution has been taking place on the shore since the time of Ropp and Corbett. It is said that Lord Horatio-Nelson once said that it might be foolish for a sail warship to fight a fortress. In fact, the late Fleet Tactical Deint and Captain Wayne Hughes, a highly regarded naval attainer, certainly said so, codifying Nelson's perhaps fallacious aphorism into naval combat"Cornerstone"One. However, in Nelson's time, the range of far offshore-based anti-ship ** was a relatively simple matter. Only a small area of the sea is in the shadow of rudimentary short-range artillery. Ships can outflank fortresses with relative ease.
Until the 20th century, technology was working to shorten the effective range of coastal artillery. However, with the maturity of military aviation technology, the shore defense forces are becoming more and more capable of delivering long-range strikes against the near-sea fleet. Now, the vast expanse of the sea is within reach. Precision-guided missiles multiply the attack power of land-based forces, not to mention the range of attacks of the offspring of the Corbett's super-large fleet.
However, these are purely military developments that involve a balance between water and land-based sea forces. It's just curious that the ** of shipborne defense has become an important factor in naval warfare. Living before the ultra-high-tech era, Corbett could never have foreseen how the cost of ammunition would distort tactics, operations, and even strategy. His main concern was that the Royal Navy's position as the world's premier maritime combat force would remain forever. During his lifetime, armored dreadnoughts were the most expensive ** in naval battles. Historians worry about the cost of building and operating ships. However, artillery ordnance turned out to be cheap. The ammunition depots of British battleships made it possible to store ammunition in large quantities. Therefore, for Corbett and other naval scholars, the cost of ammunition is only an afterthought.
Not anymore. Nowadays, the ** of ordnance is ridiculously high. Due to the complexity of ammunition and the unstable demand for ammunition from navies in peacetime, it is difficult for industry to produce precision ammunition in large quantities and quickly. A few years ago, a veteran correspondent of Battlefield magazine counted the unit cost of the US sea-launched missiles, which were mainly derived from the old Standard Missile (SM) family. By far the top choice in the Red Sea is the latest model of the SM-2, which costs just under $2.4 million per shot. SM-6 is one"Birds"Missiles, with surface-to-surface and surface-to-air capabilities, up to $4.3 million each**. The SM-3 ballistic missile *** is up to $36 million. Regardless of which ship combat group chooses, it can be quite expensive to shoot down a drone or modified missile that the Houthis or their Iranian backers have spent thousands of dollars developing.
Navy chiefs are now faced with a troubling differential equation: the U.S. Navy is consuming scarce missiles faster than the defense budget can fund new imitation missiles, and faster than manufacturers can assemble replacements. No matter how necessary an operation against the Houthis, after all, freedom of the seas is a valuable public good that can deplete limited stockpiles of armaments that may be needed on more important battlefields. For example, the Western Pacific region, which the Pentagon considers the People's Republic of China to be the top challenge, or the area around European waters, where Russia poses a lesser challenge but is still a concern.
In other words, the more ordnance is consumed on the Middle East, a battlefield secondary to U.S. national interests, the less ordnance is available on the most important battlefield in eastern and western Eurasia. This can be a decisive factor. Sticking to the current armament-intensive approach off the coast of Yemen could have important strategic implications. How can the Pentagon and the U.S. Navy move away from the ruthless logic of high costs, limited industrial capacity, and consequent reduction of armaments at sea?
To do this, there are four basic ideas. The first two are human nature issues that, at least in theory, can be solved in a fairly short period of time.
First, restore the dominance of strategic thinking in the American *** institutions. No country can afford to define every commitment, anywhere on the map, as the highest priority and devote the maximum resources indefinitely. However, this is exactly the trend of a global power like the United States.
Fundamentally, strategy is about identifying and implementing priorities. If the US military excessively squanders military resources in the Red Sea, it puts the most important at risk for something less important. This would be a serious strategic avoidance and would lead to disaster.
Second, let allies and partners take some of the blame. Freedom of the seas is a common trust of all seafaring nations; All seafaring nations are beneficiaries and custodians of maritime freedom, and they should help protect it. In fact, they must do so or face the economic consequences. U.S. emissaries should convince allies, partners, and friends that the Red Sea and the Middle East are of little importance to the United States. That being the case, the region is worth a modest U.S. resource and should not preclude greater priorities in East Asia and Europe. Other countries must shoulder their responsibilities. Or don't take it.
If other seafaring nations are indifferent and dismissive of freedom of navigation, or if they are willing to allow Houthi attacks to turn the Red Sea into a dead sea for merchant ships, then the Americans may have shrugged their shoulders.
The other two are more technical, open-ended, and have an unclear future.
Third, to rebuild the U.S. defense industrial base, replicating the manufacturing capabilities needed for mass production of materials in both world wars and the Cold War. The Pentagon just released a document strategy last month. Now, let's get started. Have a sense of determination and urgency.
Fourth, through deployment"Soft kill"hardware, software, and theory, correcting the imbalance between cheap threats and expensive defenses. "Hard kill"Refers to the physical destruction of evasive, fast-moving enemies**. Gravley did just that, albeit in"Pleats"range. Manipulating one bullet to hit another at a distance is technically demanding and therefore costly. In contrast,"Soft kill"It will destroy the purpose of **, so that it cannot hit the US Navy or friendly warships, but it will not necessarily destroy it. Electronic warfare, directed energy microwaves, and lasers**, as well as other methods that do not require defenders to make bombs, are expected to reduce the cost of defending against cruise and ballistic missile threats. The cost of each engagement is not high. Soft-kill methods are expected to achieve shipborne defense at a low cost, provided they achieve the desired results, of course.
Whether this can be achieved remains an open question. Not every project will work as expected, and not every project will be able to achieve results according to the expected timeline. Directed energy, in particular, may always be the magic of the future**.
In short, the problems of industry and engineering will take time to solve, while the revival of strategic thinking and alliance diplomacy can yield rapid results if American leaders can put it into practice. These are human issues; If people are convinced that change is urgently needed, they can do so quickly. Let us work on all of this while acknowledging the possible limitations.
Maintaining international order requires teamwork. Now it's time to recruit new teammates.
The National Interest, February 4, 2024, James Holmes.