Something’s Wrong in the Surface Fleet and We Aren’t Talking About It
Michael Junge
November 8, 2017
Last year the Battle of Jutland was all the rage, with the 100-year anniversary and renewed interest in a book about the lead up to naval war at the start of the 20th Century. Even naval neophytes are familiar with Adm. David Beatty’s comment that “there seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today,” uttered while British battlecruisers exploded from seemingly slight damage.
Conventional wisdom agrees that there was something inherently wrong in the design of those ships. Battlecruisers were a hybrid concept — lightly armored but heavily armed. In retrospect the design was the problem — no one blames individual ship commanders for how the ships performed. Today Beatty’s line is once again in vogue as the U.S. Navy struggles to explain three collisions and a grounding. What is different, though, is that the actions of individual ships are being blamed rather than the system that puts the fleet at risk.
https://warontherocks.com/2017/11/somethings-wrong-surface-fleet-arent-talking/
