When comparing military hardware as a measure of a country’s strength, few assets receive more attention than ships, and there are reasons for this level of awareness. Ships are enormously expensive, and due to their relatively discrete numbers, are easy to aggregate. Counting hundreds – or thousands – of fighter jets, bombers, tanks, Humvees or other military platforms often drives one to attempt to tally mind-boggling numbers and requires one to often compare apples to oranges. During the Cold War, while the quality of their ships might not have been equal to that of the US Navy, the Soviet Union boasted a far larger navy than the United States. By the end of his thirty year tenure as Fleet Admiral of the Soviet Union, Admiral Sergey Gorshkov had built a powerful, blue-water navy, and had professed the intention to use it aggressively against the United States and its NATO allies. This capability and intent caused great alarm within the US military. As a result, at the height of what has become known as the Reagan Defense Buildup in the 1980s, the USN evolved a strategy to build a ‘600-ship Navy.’ That effort resulted in a total number of navy ships that reached 594 in 1987. That number has declined steadily during the past threeand-one-half decades, and today the Navy has less than half the number of active, commissioned ships that it had then. As American baseball player Yogi Berra famously quipped: “It’s déjà vu all over again.” The PLAN (the Chinese People’s Republic Army-Navy) ship inventory now exceeds that of the USN, and the gap is widening. Indeed, the USN intends to decommission thirty-nine ships during the coming fiscal year, greatly exacerbating this differential and broadening its challenge. The US Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Michael Gilday, in conference addresses and official documentation, recently revealed the Navy’s goal to reach 500 ships, calling for 350 manned ships and 150 large unmanned maritime vehicles in order to be able to fulfill the Navy’s global commitments, especially in a potential conflict with China. How Many Ships Are ‘Enough?”’ Whether it was comparing the size of the USN to that of the Soviet Union decades ago, or comparing it to that of the PLAN today – and especially in the future, if current trends continue – there is much room for debate as to whether the United States needed 600-ships then, or needs 500 ships now. That debate is best conducted in other fora: professional symposia, think tank gatherings, strategy and policy publications, and the like. What is far more interesting to analyze is the US Navy’s sudden commitment to have thirty percent of its fleet comprised of unmanned surface vehicles, many of which will be built with nascent or as-yet-untested technology. For this reason – as well as others – the United States Congress has been increasingly reluctant to authorize the Navy’s planned investment of billions of dollars on USVs, until the service can come up with a concept of operations (CONOPS) for using them. In all fairness, Congress has a point. The Navy has announced plans to procure large numbers of unmanned systems – especially large and medium unmanned surface vehicles – but a CONOPS, one in even the most basic form, has not yet emerged. While the Navy appears to be committed to buying large numbers of unmanned surface vehicles, it must come up with a convincing concept of operations for how they will be used during a conflict against a determined adversary. Unless or until the Navy can evolve such a CONOPS, it is unlikely that a 500 ship fleet, partially populated with 150 unmanned surface vehicles, will ever reach fruition. As the Navy looks to allay Congressional concerns and accelerate the fielding of unmanned maritime systems, the emphasis should be on no longer thinking of each unmanned maritime system as a ‘one-off,’ but, rather, to package these together as multiple-sized and function vehicles A career US naval aviator with four command tours and five years as a carrier strike group chief of staff, George Galdorisi is a new addition to MilTech’s stable of distinguished writers. He is also the only one to have (successfully) collaborated with Tom Clancy. George Galdorisi Did We Ever Need a 600-Ship Navy? What Do We Need Today? From the Bridge MT 5/2022 · 35 Even in open ocean circumstances, USVs of this size and scope are relatively unobtrusive, resulting in potentially higher covert capability and survivability. (All photos Jack Rowley unless otherwise stated)
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