Future naval warfare ideas

I have a thread on futuristic naval technology and warfare in mind.

Looking at a number of countries are rising to a level that enables them to finance military forces that can restructure the power balance in the world. Military expenditure is derived from surplus per capita income that is still more available for the old powers mostly united under the NATO umbrella.

Naval warfare will likely be part of these coming changes in a mutipolar world of many concepts.
Human trade has always been by sea in bulk because it is the least expensive route. Thus war at sea offers the most capable tool to settle issues between the big ones by force for a reasonable cost on a limited scale with the least .

New surface warships need high cruise speed with long endurance, reduced observeability (stealth, permanent decoys and jamming) and high maneuverability at speed bursts to fully exploit the efficiancy of countermeasures against guided missiles.
Observeability includes heat and electromagnetic wave emission, magnetic anomaly, radar reflection and wave patterns.

The shape of a ship will have a great role in allowing to switch mission service packages on short notice. Fast switches can create capability shifts that topple an enemy force by suddenly and massively hitting their weakest connections hardest.
Catamarans are among the hull designs most promising for a new naval architecture of eqipment boxes with simpler to exchange modules during a deployment.

Mines and unmanned combat systems will merge on sea, air and land into autonomous or remote controlled ambush devices with increased range zones of target acquisition and directed strike for each device in order to compensate for the small numbers of highly capable and mobile manned platforms. This in turn limits movement capabilities of assets that can not traverse ambush infested areas in a highly mobile long range select strike environment with sophisticated search algorithms and observation tools, greatly reducing surviveability of everything in a predictable position.

The are likely part of the answer with multiple slim hulls, hydrofoils, air cushions and ground effect, but are they stealthy in noise and wave pattern? What's their endurance, draft and maneuverability at speed? How well can they remain unobserved and how much capability do they have to take damage and survive?

In my opinion the of the , the , the , the and the are glimpses at this future.

Small naval vessels will be stealthy mining rather than torpedo or missile boats. They will have multipurpose very long range guns that are a mix between mortar and howitzer with cheap and sometimes slightly smart projectiles that ignite a ramjet with an oxygen independent rocket mode after ejection at speed and a range on par or beyond the . The main task will be transport for deployment and surveillance support.

Some cold start devices will be added to medium sized ships with few missiles and a single dedicated task per mission package

Large ships need hot launching for salvos, but will have UAS long range bombers&observers taking off from a sideways monorail (similar to the Russian aircraft carrying cruiser designs) with a catch magnet on a moving robotic arm.

Aircraft carriers become aerial defence platforms with wings of sophisticated supercruising long range fighter-bombers(capable of difficult strike sequences in a coutermeasure intense environment) and large manned reconnaissance platforms. The distinction between amphibious warfare LHA and aircraft carriers will diminish with aircraft carriers being the more expensive blue water version with more of the largest and longest range and endurance UAV instead of commando deployments of light ground forces with supporting airstrikes in deep penetration.
LPD, LHD LSD will follow together a similar role and configuration with logistic support for heavily armed and armoured ground units and their attached air wing relatively close to the shore and for this reason usually of inexpensive design compared to other carriers.

Subsurface and submersible will be the development for stealthy penetrators and lurkers equipped with a range of weapons to exploit surprise at increasing distances instead of the numerical strength in salvo combat. Networked information by external sources, commandos and miniature crafts will enhance the reduced target acquisition ability of the ship hiding under water. These stealthy surprisers will always provide an asymmetric balance to platform gigantism, but can't survive without surface protected refugees too far away against an enemy capable of exercising sea control with his surface and subsurface assets in the region. Such conditions would turn them into more or less expensive naval mine deployment vessels.

What are your ideas and opinions?

If you want to bully a small nations like Iraq or Syria, the legacy fleet is more than enough.

But a fight broke out between major nations of similar strength, I think all surface fleet would be obsolete, all you have to do is to station submarines all around the ocean, each of them would be armed with long range anti ship missiles (500km+), and they would receive encoded information from satellites and naval commands, they would receive target information, and then coordinate with each other to launch those missiles at the same time, along with stealth bombers, no surface warship or carrier battle groups would withstand a barrage of few hundred incoming anti ship missiles.

The key for this tactic relies on real time target acquisition of the enemy fleet on the open sea, and this will be a reality in the up coming decades. So in the end, I would think all major surface warships will be sunk, and all you have is submarines in the ocean, where if they are careful enough, no one will get caught and sunk by the other party.

But on the other hand, anti submarine technology may have developed to such an extent that just like in WW2, it became extremely perilous to operate the U boats.

stardave said:

If you want to bully a small nations like Iraq or Syria, the legacy fleet is more than enough.

But a fight broke out between major nations of similar strength, I think all surface fleet would be obsolete, all you have to do is to station submarines all around the ocean, each of them would be armed with long range anti ship missiles (500km+), and they would receive encoded information from satellites and naval commands, they would receive target information, and then coordinate with each other to launch those missiles at the same time, along with stealth bombers, no surface warship or carrier battle groups would withstand a barrage of few hundred incoming anti ship missiles.

The key for this tactic relies on real time target acquisition of the enemy fleet on the open sea, and this will be a reality in the up coming decades. So in the end, I would think all major surface warships will be sunk, and all you have is submarines in the ocean, where if they are careful enough, no one will get caught and sunk by the other party.

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If it is about missile platforms, you can safe a lot of money by making current surface designs low depth submersible.

It has so far neither been established that you can locate surface ships and target them without doubt (decoys, jamming). So surface ASW still has an economic advantage over subsurface. Deep diving units have a compareably very expensive and thus limited missile payload. With increased distance their surprise diminishes and they enter the realm of saturation combat salvo model for which they are the worst possible type of platform. Getting closer endangers them to ship- and airborne surface ASW. For this reason the equation is complex, but you are right that certain battlespaces will be denied to surface combatants, although these are in my opinion far from ever covering the whole sea. Subsurface and surface vessels have both an invisibility to sensors that are not close or finely structured enough on a wide range of applications. Both types do evolve just like the sensors to detect them. The problem is that state of the art sensors for state of the art ships are expensive and can only cover a limited battlespace by constantly sweeping this area. Submarines like surface vessels create a discernable wave pattern that currently is the most promising way to detect naval vessels.

Submarines still can't cotrol the sea lines of communkication, but are the most cost efficient way to dispute them, although a combination with suitable aerial and surface assets enhances their effect, contrasting the Pacific versus the Atlantic WWII.

This is a concept so far for the US Navy. I don't know how much of it will come to fruition, but the article is quite interesting to read.

Equation said:

This is a concept so far for the US Navy. I don't know how much of it will come to fruition, but the article is quite interesting to read.

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Click to expand...

Some rule of thumb physics:
a ship is a 3 dimensional object
that is detected by a 1-2 dimensional scanner
via electromagnetic waves (=including light, radar and so on) that loose with the square of the distance covered.

a 100,000 ton displacement aircraft carrier can be detected only 10 times farther than a 100 ton medium landing craft.

In comparison to a stealthy Visby corvette of 650tons displacement with detection ranges of about 10nm, a carrier of similar stealth design would have about 55nm detection range. That gives ample space for putting it 250nm away from all targets for doing normal carrier stuff.

Furthermore, any opponent will have a hard time with the real and intentionally misleading signals in order to figure out the difference between a carrier and a skillfully modified MCM boat.


Long range artillery with high speed railguns on a giant ship is stupid. The stealth idea of the Zumwalt is good.
Projectile speed increases friction and turbulences resulting from the friction, in turn requiring more energy storage per surface, leading to heavier projectiles.
The implications are clear, built a gigantic ship propelled artillery piece that can be elevated and is aimed by turning the whole ship. It's like a swimming A-10 warthog, but several times larger and with only one very giant barrel. You can still achieve more range by adding some base bleed, rocket engines or a ramjet in order to compensate for energy losses on the way (I would prefer a ramjet base bleed).



As you can see, this problem was solved long ago by putting a mortar on a raft. If you just replace the giant destroyer by an upgraded MCM ship with some transport facilities for scouts and their equipment you get a workable solution at a reasonable price that would already qualify as a streetfighter LCS or with some additional Visby class ASW definitely so. But hey, that's inexpensive at a fraction of the costs for the same effect and would allow to meet all budget plans.

I think the key to future warfare on the high seas lies in very fast, stealthy and relatively small arsenal ships, able to dish out long range missiles at targets acquired for them by satellite arrays. Engaging in highly coordinated swarm tactics would become the norm. Such swarms would be lethal at long range with the help of their satellite networks, and just as lethal at short range where they can rely on more conventional detection systems.

So the objective to overcome such swarm fleets would be to cripple your opponents satellite system and thus cripple their ability to target you with their long range missile systems, and respond with your own fast surface vessels and tagretting systems once you have targetting at range advantage.

So

a) Protect your targetting network in orbit, while trying to undermine or destroy your opponents

b) swarm your opponent with accurate missile fire from your own arsenal ship fleet.

Submarines would take on a support role, those not utilized for the unconventional strategic ballistic missile duty would be put to use in sneaking past your opponents fleets and striking at valuable infrastructure and targets on their mainland with cruise missiles.

Aircraft cariers would become obsolete in great power engaments, and aircraft would no longer serve as significant a role in projecting power abroad in such engagements with big powers, at least in the outset. They would simply be far too vulnerable to the vast array of anti-aircraft missile systems that will emerge over the coming years and the carrier itself would be too vulnerable to approach within 3,000km of hostile waters.

To protect satellites, I suspect arming them will be the only option, and making them small and thus harder to detect. Automated ballistics systems or lasers (doubtful, power requirements too high) could be used as short range defensive countermeasures. Also, give them the ability to simply maneuver. They could have a minor offensive role as well if allowed to maneuver, dropping metal rods from orbit with high accuracy or bomblets at high velocities for example, but that would leave them vulnerable to ground based crippling (blinding) or destructive laser attack (ground based lasers are more viable because they can have all the power they need).

Perhaps ship based lasers would see greater utility in the future but this would still necessitate big slow and vulnerable ships.

In short a future fleet would consist of:

-Hundreds of long range arsenal ships carrying as many anti-ship missiles as possible, which far exceed the range and speed of carrier based aircraft.
-An extensive and well defended satellite network dedicated to guiding missiles and providing detection, as well as hunting down other satellites and surgical strikes from orbit.
-Extensive anti-satellite capabilities, ground missile based, ground laser based and of course dedicated, heavily armed 'hunter' sats lurking in orbit seeking out enemy orbital infrastructure then destroying it. Perhaps it could be manned and resemble a shuttle or small station.

One who controls space will control the earth, or at least be able to abuse it's inhabitants with impunity, like the US does to much of the middle east with it's airpower.

Who pays for the munitions required? Have you calculated the costs of arsenal ship strikes? It's a classic of destroying a 50$ tent with a 500,000$ missile.

Obviously they would be targetting other surface combatants which cost far more than the missile.

Here is a good read on about the effects and military strategy on "swarming and future conflicts". It's a long reading so take your time and enjoy.