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The same discussion was had at the end of the 1800s, as the torpedo had become a thing, so that the big warships with 300mm guns and more (even 430 for the Ital

The same discussion was had at the end of the 1800s, as the torpedo had become a thing, so that the big warships with 300mm guns and more (even 430 for the Italians) were thought of (by some naval strategists) as mere sitting ducks. Which they were. Fast forward to today and big warships are still a thing, for one reason or another (mostly for fighting goat herders from Central Asia who don’t have access to torpedo-launching vessels), but the idea has remained the same. Of course that the very big and the very important US Navy will never get rid of their big warships, they’d rather sink praising Mahan until the very end than changing their strategic world-view (which would also most likely imply them losing their big warships jobs). This wiki link about the French Jeune École is a good starting read [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeune_École https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeune_École

RugnirViking 3y ago
MTBs and later submarines were indeed threats to battleships and large surface combatants. But they were manageable with a screening force of smaller ships, especially with the advent of wireless telegraphy so the screen & scouting ships could stay over the horizon and/or out of visual range at night. There is a reason torpedo nets went in and out of fashion a few times. Planes however were a huge threat to ships. Manually guided AA guns simply were not able to deal with them for a time, leading to situations like you said. Screening ships were not able to deal with them nearly as effectively. Modern surface to air missiles are at a point now where its a lot more of a fair fight, but as with anything, enough planes (or enough ships for that matter) will overwhealm. Nowadays the main "meta" of naval surface combat revolves around anti-ship missiles. Over time destroyers have crept up in size, and armour has been all but abandoned as well. These new "destroyer" ships are enormous, with Arleigh Burke as an example sized comparible to 1900 heavy armoured cruisers. This allows them to carry a lot of anti ship missiles which are enormous. This is because a large part of the counter strategy revloves around a few things. #1 - to be effective, you need to have several missiles timed to arrive at the enemy positon at once, to overwhealm their defence systems (CIWS and the like). Each defence system has a certain time taken and probability of successfully downing an incoming missile, so ideally you want both multiple defences on each ship (covering all incoming angles) and overlapping fields of fire (to catch any that leak through each individual defensive system). This synergises very well with multiple ships in close proximity able to cover one another with their defences, but they must be arranged carefully to allow a maximum of their defensive weapons to fire at oncoming missiles without blocking each other. Small unmanned surface combatants may change this again, but to my mind the countermeasures are similar (layered fields of defensive fire, focus on defeating large incoming swarms using multiple overalpping systems)
- trashtester 3y ago
  Actually, I would suspect that if there is a blue water peer level conflict in the pacific in the next 20 years, subs may end up dominant. At least if aircraft carriers are made obsolete by missiles.

RugnirViking 3y ago

MTBs and later submarines were indeed threats to battleships and large surface combatants. But they were manageable with a screening force of smaller ships, especially with the advent of wireless telegraphy so the screen & scouting ships could stay over the horizon and/or out of visual range at night. There is a reason torpedo nets went in and out of fashion a few times. Planes however were a huge threat to ships. Manually guided AA guns simply were not able to deal with them for a time, leading to situations like you said. Screening ships were not able to deal with them nearly as effectively. Modern surface to air missiles are at a point now where its a lot more of a fair fight, but as with anything, enough planes (or enough ships for that matter) will overwhealm. Nowadays the main "meta" of naval surface combat revolves around anti-ship missiles. Over time destroyers have crept up in size, and armour has been all but abandoned as well. These new "destroyer" ships are enormous, with Arleigh Burke as an example sized comparible to 1900 heavy armoured cruisers. This allows them to carry a lot of anti ship missiles which are enormous. This is because a large part of the counter strategy revloves around a few things. #1 - to be effective, you need to have several missiles timed to arrive at the enemy positon at once, to overwhealm their defence systems (CIWS and the like). Each defence system has a certain time taken and probability of successfully downing an incoming missile, so ideally you want both multiple defences on each ship (covering all incoming angles) and overlapping fields of fire (to catch any that leak through each individual defensive system). This synergises very well with multiple ships in close proximity able to cover one another with their defences, but they must be arranged carefully to allow a maximum of their defensive weapons to fire at oncoming missiles without blocking each other. Small unmanned surface combatants may change this again, but to my mind the countermeasures are similar (layered fields of defensive fire, focus on defeating large incoming swarms using multiple overalpping systems)

trashtester 3y ago
Actually, I would suspect that if there is a blue water peer level conflict in the pacific in the next 20 years, subs may end up dominant. At least if aircraft carriers are made obsolete by missiles.