Run Silent, Not Deep
Surface warfare can take a cue from submarines, which have always operated with ‘restricted’ communications.
By Lieutenant Commander Greg Porter, U.S. Navy
June 2023 Proceedings Vol. 149/6/1,444
The contest for control of the seas will also take place in the information and space domains and across the [electromagnetic] spectrum. Maintaining resilient command and control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting (C5ISRT) architecture has never been more vital.
—Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Michael M. Gilday, CNO NavPlan January 2021
Future naval combat will be high-speed, lethal, and complex. Beyond-line-of-sight technologies have created new challenges in high-end naval warfare, including space-based sensors and antiaccess/area-denial shore-, air-, and sea-launched missiles, drones, and loitering munitions. The development and continuous improvement of sophisticated over-the-horizon (OTH) weaponry has significantly expanded the size of the battlespace and improved shore-based forces’ ability to project power across and beyond the sea. Hypersonic and ballistic-missile technologies, such as China’s DF-21 and DF-26 missiles, increase the pace of warfare and reduce defensive reaction times.1 Concurrently, the proliferation of cheap precision drones with small warheads, such as Iran’s Shahed 136, increases war’s asymmetry.2 As Admiral Gilday states, “We have to do more than simply employ new capabilities—we must compete in new ways.”3 Future naval warfighters need to adopt new tactics if they want to win.
The Ukrainian Navy has creatively used both cruise missiles and drones to strike Russia’s Black Sea Fleet surface combatants.4 Such threats will only increase in the future as the United States, China, Russia, North Korea, and India are all investing in hypersonic missile development.5 It seems just about everyone is investing in drone technology. These future threats will define the physical battlespace; electronic warfare enables them, but it also can be used to counter them.
Effective Targeting
The threat of OTH weapons is significant, but OTH weaponry depends—as all fires do—on effective targeting. The shooter must be able to find, fix, and range the adversary to successfully engage it. In the past, an adversary could often be seen before it could reach engagement range. In the 1987 Iraqi attack on the USS Stark (FFG-31), the Iraqi aircraft was detected nine minutes before the first missile launch.6 In the HMS Sheffield sinking during the Falkland Islands War, the Argentinian aircraft was detected on radar 19 minutes before the missile strike.7
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2023/june/run-silent-not-deep
