Current Naval Doctrine

Lately I've been interested in the Pacific war against Japan, so I've read umpteen books on the subject. Doctrine before WW2 was well established, but proved to be totally wrong one the war started. The Big Gun Club doctrine proved ineffective against the carrier and airpower. Air strategy evolved over the course of the war, and proved to be decisive in naval battles.
Here it is, some 75 years later and the Carrier Battle Group is still the basis of the USN. It's occured to me that missles could make the carrier strategy obsolete. I know Battle groups have elaborate defenses, but the USN hasn't been in battle for 3/4 of a century.
I'd be interested in anybodies thoughts on this subject, as well as reading recommendations for current doctrine!
Thanks!

Ahoy there! Anyone?

I don't have anything that directly discusses US Naval doctrine regarding missile attacks and defense against same. However, I can suggest a few books that explain the fundamentals that the current doctrine is built on.

"Seapower and Space: From the Dawn of the Missile Age to Net-Centric Warfare" by Dr. Norman Friedman, published by the Naval Institute Press, ISBN 1557508976. Discusses the role of improving sensors and communications in the evolution of the modern battlespace, and how that evolution drove (and was driven by) the space program.

"Distributed Networked Operations: The Foundations of Network Centric Warfare" by Jeff Cares, published by iUniverse Inc, ISBN 0595378005. A look at the science of (and behind) net-centric warfare operations.

"Network-Centric Warfare: How Navies Learned to Fight Smarter Through Three World Wars" also by Dr. Norman Friedman, published by the Naval Institute Press, ISBN 1591142865. Friedman's analysis of net-centric warfare.

Those are about the best I can do. I know of some other boards where very well-informed folks spend their online time, but I don't know the ins and outs of ATS policy concerning links to other boards. It probably says something really horrible about me that those three books are on my 'recreational reading' shelf.

reply to post by OldDragger[/url]

Hi mate.

I'm afraid that I next to nothing about naval conflict other than this once proud seafaring nation used to rule the waves. We Brits have a rich naval history.

We came up with the original idea for state sponsored terrorism in the form of buccaneers and privateers the worst of whom were Raleigh and Drake, yet they are two of our much loved and feted heroes.

We had brilliant Admirals such as Horatio Nelson who defeated the French during the battles in the Nile and Trafalgar;

Then we have Admiral Richard Howe who in a battle called Glorious First of June defeated a superior fleet of the new Republic of France.

James Summerville who helped sink the French fleet to prevent it falling in to German hands and later shaddowed, harried and helped sink the German pocket-battleship Bismark;

Viscount Andrew Cunningham who, aboard his flagship HMS Warspite, defeated the Italian fleet during the Battle of Calabria and followed up with the brilliantly executed attack on the remnants of the enemy at Taranto;

In the Pacific, both the Japanese and American admirals had much the same vision.

Where the Japanese war plan failed, was their inability to locate, attack and sink US carriers whereas, the US admirals were able to do so, almost at will.

The Battle of Midway was the turning point but, had the Japanese Admiral not been afflicted with indecision and had his carriers been equipped with metal decks and not wood, the battle may well have been a close run thing.

Another factor was Japans inability to replace losses as fast as they occured and this definately gave the American fleets the edge.

Naval tactics may well have evolved since those early days during the Battles of the Atlantic and the Pacific, but they still revolve around the carrier.

The modern carrier battlegroup has sufficient firepower amongst the escorting ships which could defeat most 2nd or 3rd world navies.

As to your worry about missiles penetrating the defensive ring around the carriers and destroying the capital ships, I think your fear is ill founded.

I believe that Tom Clancy has written a book simple called Carrier in which he details day to day operations of the CAG.

...you always prepare based on the last major war you fight.

Super Carriers and fleets to protect them have elaborate defenses. It would be hard to get even a sea skimming missle or a torpedoe through the defense grid of the USN.

Super saturation of the air with thousands of missles would work...however. The defenses would have too many targets to designate and defend against. Sooner or later the Carrier and its protecton would take heavy damage.

Having said that, the navies of the world would be hard pressed to go up against a US battlegroup that also has Submarine defense.

I did read somewhere (not sure where) that the US was designing smaller faster carriers that housed 6 or so fighter jets with a crew of about 30....but I have no proof to offer.

A super carrier is very large and very hard to sink.

For every missle the enemy has in the air....the USN has an equal or greater number of missles headed for the enemy.

My opinion is that having lots of large surface fleets are a thing of the past. A smattering of smaller faster fleets would be more useful.

Just my 2 cents.

I have been curious about Naval Strategy, too, and been cruising google, wikipedia and youtube on the matter.

The main buzz word seems to be littoral combat - the swedish army has a nice promotion clip on that on youtube "Where the sea meets foreign interests ashore". The clip is a show-off of their shiny new Skjold-boats, but it actually gives a good breakdown of tactical doctrine.

Almost all new ship designs place a maximum importance on stealth, so usually the biggest ships are tansports for choppers and landing crafts, with a Corvette-Screen for Anti-Aircraft Cover and Missile Artillery.
The choppers and landing crafts launch dozens of miles out on sea "Over the Horizon"
The actual naval dominance in a given maritime area will probably be decided by drones and submarines, if push comes to shove.


[edit on 30-5-2010 by XenoStuffz]

Thanks for the replies!
I too, have seen much on littoral combat. I guess this ties in to the Middle East? I'm not sure how carrier groups fit into that. Seems like a submarine thing.
Every time I read how invulnerable our carrier groups are, I think Yamato! How do space based weapons fit into this, as well as non nuke ICBM types. There is always progress and new strategies. Not so much for Iran, NK, etc, but how about the emerging Chinese and Indian navies? What will the situation be in 20 years?
As for stealth, I think naval stealth has it's own problems and with sattelite tech, I don't see how any surface craft can go undetected for long.
If a vessel can be detected, it can be sunk.

double post

[edit on 1-6-2010 by OldDragger]

reply to post by OldDragger


The problem with satellites is their groundcrew.
Satellites can take wonderful hires pictures to prepare an attack, and they can direct missiles and all sort of drones towards a target, from practically everwhere in the world.

But if you use them for surveillance, and dont know in advance, in which general area someone will operate or even for what kind of ship you are looking for, you still need a fairly large group of people, studiyng an incredible amount of image data very carefully to detect a small ship on a huge ocean.

The advantage of a carrier is, that you dont have to capture, build or rent airfields, if you want to achieve air superiority in a given area, but their upkeep is extremely expensive. Far more so, than simply building or renting airfields for example.
Littoral combat is more about boots on the ground. Its about using the Marine Corps instead of the Navy to project power abroad. Actually useful to fight smugglers, pirates, do commando raids in failed states....

Robert Gates dared to touch on the issue of restructuring Navy budget and invest money into something actually useful for day-to-day military business, and conservatives tried to slaughter him for that. He did not even dare to actually suggest cutting any the budget, he only wondered loud about the possibility of rethinking Naval Strategy.
Well, every empire has their white elephants.

Air Power (more so the velocity of assault) is fundamental to any military capability.

Carriers provide reach for projecting this power and providing C4ISR for/with it.
Until a more efficient means of centrally projecting power is invented (global tactical air strike capability with minimal kill chain capability) , carriers are the best way to achieve this.

All major powers and powers-to-be are investing in carrier programs for the next decade or two. So the proof is in the pudding of those strategic choices made unanimously.

Whether countries have them or not, whether countries have effective ways of countering them or not, everyone wants them, and those who can get some are in the process of doing so.

reply to post by wdkirk


actually getting a torpedo through to the US fleet wouldn't be that hard, being a sonar tech, i'd know about this. our main torpedo countermeasure known as "nixie" has never been tested in a combat situation, in theory it should work, but theories are not fact as we all know, although getting the carrier would be hard because of the cruisers, frigates, and destroyers all around it, it is entirely possible, especially if launched from a submarine.

reply to post by dave_welch

Interesting replies.
Seems that diesel boats have been able to get pretty close to carriers, seems if they can get close they can shoot. It seems like sustained missle/torpedo attacks would be increasingly hard to defend. Throw in some old fashioned airplanes and......?

forget the planes, Russian Kilo submarines are easy to come by and nearly undetectable at less than 5 knots. one could get into a carrier battle group pretty easy once they fire, then they're screwed because we all would know where they are, however one good shot would be all that would be needed by those who would do this.

reply to post by dave_welch




Kilos are so damn noisy that the only chance they have to get anywhere near a CVBG would be to get out in front of it and make like a hole in the water and hope that the CVBG comes close enough for them to get a shot off.

There is a book by Payne Harrison (The Thunder of Erebus (Crown Publishing), 1991, ISBN 0-517-11678-2) where a three phase missile is used to sink a US aircraft carrier. The missile starts out as a Short Range Ballistic Missile, then converts to a sea skimming cruise missile that then becomes a torpedo. Something like this might work, if a way to provide real-time targeting data is found.

Carriers, as stated above are protected by a battle group, that includes Many surface ships, air cover and submarines. Most of the ships, as well as the carrier have very effective missile defences that I have seen in operation. But they are not fool proof.

In November of 06(?), a chinese diesel electric submarine surface behind the USS Kittyhawk within torpedo range. The scarry part being that NO ONE was able to detect it until it poped up for all to see. I can say that a nuclear submarine fleet is great to have,as far a range and speed are concerned, but they are detectible. The reactor system sounds like a rain shower under water. Diesel Electric boats, as the type we used to utilize, and what the Russians and other countries have are noisy on the surface or while at periscope depth charging their batteries, but there is NOTHING quieter than a diesel boat running on its batteries. They are nearly impossibble to detect until it is too late. And with the advancements in battery design, they can go almost 10 days before they have to recharge. This is also not taking into consideration the weapons that are carried. Especially the torpedos. They are no longer the old fire and forget type. They are smart weapons, that can track a target (surfaced and submerged), and will go into a re-attack mode if it happens to miss or lose contact on the target.