The chain of thought works like this: 1. Navies still rely on surface vessels for many roles/tasks. While subs are the most lethal killers afloat, there's a lo

The chain of thought works like this: 1. Navies still rely on surface vessels for many roles/tasks. While subs are the most lethal killers afloat, there's a lot of roles they can't fulfill. 2. Surface vessels are hard to automate. The attempts to reduce staffing costs led to debacles like the LCS, and contributed to issues with the Ford CVN class. 3. Smaller surface vessels (as shown with the LCS) can't really stay on station as long, transit long distances as well, and deal with the same weather conditions. Additionally, they can't carry as many munitions, limiting their ability to fight. And some weapons simply won't fit on small ships (the hypersonic missiles mentioned in the article, as well as larger VLS based weapons). 4. While a greater number of small ships seems to increase your survivability, the lower capability of these small ships don't make the tradeoff worthwhile. 5. Studies have shown that larger ships (especially large carriers) are generally more effective dollar for dollar than smaller ships. I think this translates to surface combatants as well as carriers. 6. Automated surface combatants have issues if they're not "managed" by a controlling ship that has personnel that can do maintenance as well as deter people from screwing with them. Ships require continual maintenance, not just the electronics etc, but the ship itself. Otherwise you end up with rust buckets that don't last through their planned service life.