Submarines Are More Battleship, Less Frigate

My good friend Mike Burleson has called me out, he believes my question "Where are the Cruisers?" the other day has a simple answer, the cruiser role is now conducted by Submarines. We don't believe this is true, or at least submarines of this era are not built for that role. Mike makes an interesting argument that the submarine fills the role of Cruisers in mission profile for some warfighter demands, but we find he conveniently omitted a number of warfighter roles the submarine cannot do, not to mention all of the peacemaker roles. Mike quotes a pretty good definition of the cruiser role from Wikipedia:

"Historically a cruiser was not a type of ship but a warship role. Cruisers were ships—often frigates or smaller vessels—which were assigned a role largely independent from the fleet. Typically this might involve missions such as raiding enemy merchant shipping. In the late 19th century the term 'cruiser' came to mean ships designed to fulfill such a role, and from the 1890s to the 1950s a 'cruiser' was a warship larger than a destroyer but smaller than a battleship."

We note that Mike's argument is primarily based on the roles of commerce raiding, long-range scouting, and surveillance missions. While these warfighter roles can certainly be conducted by submarines, what about convoy escort, shore bombardment, and the most common cruiser role since WWII, showing the flag?

One thing we have noticed on the blog is that there is a tendency to focus on the warfighter, and when discussing Corbett or Mahan, too often there is a rush into the principles of war. What we find absent from discussion though are comments regarding the principles for maintaining maritime peace, what kind of fleet is required for those periods absent war, or even limited war, which in every Navy but the US Navy is the primary role of the frigate; the historical role of the cruiser. We note this because the US Navy does not have a frigate in its future plans, a major omission in our opinion.

In observing maritime history, even modern maritime history, we ask ourselves where the submarine could indeed fill the role of the Cruiser? Could submarines have escorted the tankers during the Tanker War? How about the Convoys of the Cold War?

We also note, that in the mission profiles of today the submarine continues to prove it is indeed a ship of the line, the premier warfighter if not a battleship in its own right, not a peacemaker able to conduct the historical role of a Cruiser. Take for example the possibility of a limited blockade of Iran for nuclear materials, could a submarine conduct the blockade? Not exactly, modern submarines don't conduct the VBSS mission necessary to inspect cargo at sea, they are part of the scouting network that we observe has become more centric to the battle line in the modern era.

More telling though is the recent strike by a submarine against a target deep in Somalia. Clearly a warfighting role, we note there are no fifth-rate or sixth-rate vessels in the world that could conduct that mission. A precision strike mission deep into land, likely in coordination with inserted special forces, to hit a time sensitive target with long range weapons. In every Navy in the world, that can only be conducted by ships of the battle line. In our opinion the submarine appears more battleship than frigate, and is not a suitable replacement either now, or historically, for the Cruiser role.

In examining the Cruiser role in the modern era, and specifically under the new Maritime Strategy, we find the role is primarily a peacemaker. This is exactly why we advocate shifting more of the warfighter burdens to the submarine service so to free up the surface fleet to do more of what it is best designed to do, be the peacemaker for a maritime strategy that focuses on maritime peace. Our observation that scouting has primarily moved to the battle line is also why we believe the LCS is the wrong platform. The best Motherships in the future will be big, not small like the LCS, and they will belong on the battle line, not in the flotilla.

As evidence we note that the best modern motherships of today are in fact big, and clearly belong on the battle line, as they are also known as Ohio class SSGNs.