The Fleet Structure of the Future
.By David W. WiseApril 23, 2022
The sinking of the Moskva, the air defense-capable jewel of Russia’s Black Fleet, is yet another example of the vulnerability of surface ships. This vulnerability should lead to the re-evaluation of naval force structures, the United States Navy in particular.
Surface ships face a wide and increasing range of threats. In 2000 the USS Cole (2000) was heavily damaged by low-tech attacks by terrorists who were able to come alongside the ship. The Moskva incident was an attack by a second-tier military power using homemade subsonic Neptune antiship missiles. The advent and proliferation of a number of sophisticated hypersonic precision anti-ship missiles will elevate these threats by orders of magnitude.
Turning points in paradigm are often hard to discern either because of fixation on traditional models or resistance to change, but change arrives whether invited or not. The Battle of Tsushima (1905) in the Russo-Japanese War heralded the transition from sail and ironclad ships to steel battleships. Midway (1942) marked the emergence of the era of the aircraft carrier.
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