On the Development of Fleet Constitution

The third cause is the acquisition by the flotilla of battle power. It is a feature of naval warfare that is entirely new.10 For all practical purposes it was unknown until the full development of the mobile torpedo. It is true that the fireship as originally conceived was regarded as having something of the same power. During the Dutch wars—the heyday of its vogue—its assigned power was on some occasions actually realised, as in the burning of Lord Sandwich's flagship at the battle of Solebay, and the destruction of the Spanish-Dutch fleet at Palermo by Duquesne. But as the "nimbleness" of great-ships increased with the ripening of seamanship and naval architecture, the fireship as a battle weapon became almost negligible, while a fleet at anchor was found to be thoroughly defensible by its own picket-boats. Towards the middle of the eighteenth century indeed the occasions on which the fireship could be used for its special purpose was regarded as highly exceptional, and though the type was retained till the end of the century, its normal functions differed not at all from those of the rest of the flotilla of which it then formed part.

Those functions, as we have seen, expressed the cruising idea in its purest sense. It was numbers and mobility that determined flotilla types rather than armament or capacity for sea-endurance. Their primary purpose was to control communications in home and colonial waters against weakly armed privateers. The type which these duties determined fitted them adequately for the secondary purpose of inshore and despatch work with a fleet. It was, moreover, on the ubiquity which their numbers gave them, and on their power of dealing with unarmed or lightly armed vessels, that we relied for our first line of defence against invasion. These latter duties were of course exceptional, and the Navy List did not carry as a rule sufficient numbers for the purpose. But a special value of the class was that it was capable of rapid and almost indefinite expansion from the mercantile marine. Anything that could carry a gun had its use, and during the period of the Napoleonic threat the defence flotilla rose all told to considerably over a thousand units.

Formidable and effective as was a flotilla of this type for the ends it was designed to serve, it obviously in no way affected the security of a battle-fleet. But so soon as the flotilla acquired battle power the whole situation was changed, and the old principles of cruiser design and distribution were torn to shreds. The battle-fleet became a more imperfect organism than ever. Formerly it was only its offensive power that required supplementing. The new condition meant that unaided it could no longer ensure its own defence. It now required screening, not only from observation, but also from flotilla attack. The theoretical weakness of an arrested offensive received a practical and concrete illustration to a degree that war had scarcely ever known. Our most dearly cherished strategical traditions were shaken to the bottom. The "proper place" for our battle-fleet had always been "on the enemy's coasts," and now that was precisely where the enemy would be best pleased to see it. What was to be done? So splendid a tradition could not lightly be laid aside, but the attempt to preserve it involved us still deeper in heresy. The vital, most difficult, and most absorbing problem has become not how to increase the power of a battle-fleet for attack, which is a comparatively simple matter, but how to defend it. As the offensive power of the flotilla developed, the problem pressed with an almost bewildering intensity. With every increase in the speed and sea-keeping power of torpedo craft, the problem of the screen grew more exacting. To keep the hostile flotilla out of night range the screen must be flung out wider and wider, and this meant more and more cruisers withdrawn from their primary function. And not only this. The screen must not only be far flung, but it must be made as far as possible impenetrable. In other words, its own power of resistance must be increased all along the line. Whole squadrons of armoured cruisers had to be attached to battle-fleets to support the weaker members of the screen. The crying need for this type of ship set up a rapid movement for increasing their fighting power, and with it fell with equal rapidity the economic possibility of giving the cruiser class its essential attribute of numbers.

Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, Chapter 2, Theory of the Means - The Constitution of Fleets, by Julian Stafford Corbett, pg 122-123

There are a number of complex metrics that define the requirements for the Fleet Constitution of the US Navy. Many of these requirements are operational capability requirements, for example, the metrics may be derived specifically to meet the challenges demanded upon the US Navy based on a complex system that evaluates the capabilities of potential opponents. It is typically these tactical considerations, not a naval specific strategic consideration, that determines how many ships, what type of ships, organization of ships, and expected function of a ship in operation to contribute to the combined battle force of the US Navy. Rarely does maritime strategy drive metrics for fleet constitution. However, national strategy can be a factor, but this consideration can be properly attributed to a political or industrial strategic requirement rather than a naval specific strategic requirement.

For example, it is the law of the United States that the United States Navy must operate 11 aircraft carriers. It is unknown if 11 carriers is actually the US Navy's requirement, and we wouldn't begin to assume to understand the complex considerations the Navy takes into account for establishing their fleet requirements. The 11 aircraft carrier requirement comes directly from Congress, but even as a Congressional mandated requirement, it is a national strategic policy. Why eleven? The reason is industrial, it takes around 4.5 years to build a large, nuclear powered aircraft carrier with a service life of 50 years. In order to maintain the Newport News shipyard, a new aircraft carrier needs to be purchased at a rate of one every four and half years, otherwise calculated as eleven carriers built over 50 years. The strategic requirement is to sustain the shipyard efficiently. While some may disagree, the capability to build large, nuclear aircraft carriers is a strategic consideration in the eyes of Congress, and absence of that capability would be, in the eyes of Congress, an unacceptable strategic loss of national industrial power.

Other fleet constitution requirements are not well understood by the public, as the metrics used to determine the requirement are secrets the Navy does not reveal. What the Navy does tell us however is the final requirement number for types of ships. As of right now, and we note the NOC or 2009 QDR could change these requirements, the US Navy has requirements of 19 cruisers and 69 destroyers, or said another way, 88 major surface combatants. Other known fleet constitution requirements include 48 attack submarines and 14 ballistic missile submarines.

Many, probably including many of you reading this, believe a national debate regarding fleet constitution requirements is in order since the release of a new Navy Maritime Strategy last year. We completely agree. We are unimpressed with a fleet requirement of 88 major surface combatants specifically because in order to believe that is a legitimate requirement, we must first believe we intend to go to war in the future with the nations #1 trading partner: China. While no one wants to see the US Navy unprepared for such a war, we hold a firm belief that if such a war were to occur, regardless of whether the US prevails on the battlefield, the nation ultimately loses. The most important question for the Navy today becomes how does the United States Navy, within the resources of national treasure provided, contribute towards the prevention of war with China while maintaining the capability to defeat China on the battlefield... but also retain the capabilities necessary to meet the global requirements demanded of the naval service in the 21st century?

It is a difficult question. While we have highlighted the surface combatant requirement specifically as something we disagree with, we want to note that is not where the debate begins. In fleet constitution discussions, when accounting for strategic, tactical, industrial, and political influences, too often the discussion starts with the battle line and works down. This is not how building fleet constitution works, or not how it will ever work effectively.

The discussion for fleet constitution requirements begins at the National Strategy level first, and in that regard we find two specific national requirements that cannot be avoided. These requirements include the 11 aircraft carrier requirement and the 14 SSBN requirement, both of which represent set-in-stone politically supported national capability requirements. The Navy is a service of the democratically elected civilian government, and requirements for the capabilities represented in those platforms are fixed until such time the government, not the Navy, decides otherwise. We note that in the future, the 14 SSBN requirement will be reduced to 12, but only because the new SSBNs will not require a mid-life nuclear refueling. In other words, the capability requirement at the national level is still mandated, and must be honored.

From there we move into operational requirements that determine the forces necessary to freely operate the naval forces demanded by the national requirement. Specifically, how many ships are required to escort the 11 aircraft carriers. The Navy, based on the task force organization of the Carrier Strike Group, answers this question for us. For an aircraft carrier centric strike force, the US Navy requirement is 4 modern battleship escorts and an attack submarine, resulting in a force requirement of 44 modern battleships and 11 attack submarines. As SSBNs operate alone and without escort, no additional requirements on the fleet constitution of the US Navy are required.

11 aircraft carriers, 14 SSBNs, 44 modern battleships, and 11 attack submarines gives us a total of 80 ships. Everything beyond those 80 ships is the debate for the strategically aligned, tactically capable fleet that meets the operational requirements demanded upon the Navy. The only effective way to determine what that fleet should be is to determine what the flotilla requirements for the US Navy are, because only then will the Navy be able to articulate the surface combatant requirements. Put another way, in the 21st century the debate regarding fleet constitution requirements begins by determining the size, function, purpose, capability, role, and configuration of the flotilla that the US Navy intends to operate.

While the blog discussed many topics, we like to primarily consider this little corner of the internet the place to debate strategic ideas that advance the naval power of the United States Navy while promoting the National Strategy of the United States. While we discuss surface combatants quite often, any regular reader recognizes the primary discussions on this blog involve amphibious ships, hospital ships, logistics ships including the proposed fleet constitution of the Sea Base, the JHSV, and support ships including survey, salvage, and heavy lift capable ships. We describe the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) as part of the flotilla, and discuss its role as such intentionally. We propose new concepts like the mothership, which we see as an enabling capability to be included in the 21st century flotilla.

It is the operational capabilities of the flotilla that allows any Navy to do the work required to influence national power from the sea, and as is proven in history, without the enabling capabilities of the flotilla a Navy is nothing more than a defensive fleet in being. The fleet constitution debate that concentrates its intellectual rigor on the battle line instead of the flotilla will be less capable than the fleet constitution built on the capabilities empowered by the flotilla. This makes the necessity to "right size" the flotilla the most important requirement for developing fleet constitution, because only with a "right sized" flotilla will a Navy get the battle line requirements correct.

Next: Evolving towards a 21st Century Surface Action Group