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Where Are The Frigates?
Apr. 17th, 2008 08:44 amSorry if it seems I’ve got pirates on the mind here, but I am writing my second novel (first one available here) on the subject. At any rate, the interesting if always hard-left site Lawyers, Guns and Money does periodic posts on issues naval. They recently posted a bit on US Navy Carrier Vulnerabilities to submarines. The piece led me to a pair of posts on another blog, Information Disemination. One post discussed the vulnerabilities specifically and the other post asked where are the cruisers?
For my non-naval-geek readers, I’ll try to summarize all three of these posts, first by discussing the carrier vs. submarine issue. Basically, the authors conclude that the overall threat to US Navy carriers is probably not as high as during the Cold War, but probably higher than many people know or admit. For example, a typical Cold-War-era carrier battle group had ten escort ships, several of which were optimized for anti-submarine warfare (ASW), and most of which had at least one helicopter. The carrier also had some long-range fixed-wing ASW planes. A modern battle group now has four escorts, only two of which have helicopters, and no fixed-wing ASW planes.
The increase in vulnerability to submarines is obvious. On the (for American forces) plus side of the equation, the Chinese or other potential enemies don’t have nearly the surface or air forces of the old Soviet Union. Heck, the Russians don’t have the forces they used to have. So, the net-net is less threat, but weighted more heavily towards submarines.
The other issue, where are the cruisers, is a little more complicated. Partially because what the US Navy calls a cruiser is not fulfilling a cruiser roll. Historically, “cruisers” weren’t a type of ship, but referred to a roll of maritime presence, patrol and escort. Think of a cruiser as a beat cop, patrolling the streets. Just like the beat cop, their primary mission is controlling and preventing low-level crime. If, for example, there’s a hostage situation or other "high threat," the beat cop calls in the SWAT team.
Modern US Navy cruisers weigh about 10,000 tons (similar to WWI battleships) and cost over a billion dollars a pop. In function, they're most equivalent to a classical battleship – a ship to go find and sink the enemy. In most navies, the cruiser role is being fulfilled by a ship called a frigate. Here’s the rub – the US Navy is getting rid of their frigates! This is actually a policy, called Network-centric warfare, which basically says every military unit should be set up to see what everybody else can see, and whoever’s got the shot takes it.
In theory, this is great. In practice, much of success in warfare consists of being in the right place at the right time. Go back to the beat cop example. Network-centric warfare would replace the beat cop with video cameras and a really fast 911 response from the central police station. Of course, what you miss is that no response is faster than “I’m already here,” and just visibly being there can prevent problems.
Nor is this particularly a new phenomenon in US naval history. The US Navy entered both world wars short on destroyers and light cruisers (the ships fulfilling the “cruiser” role). My old ship, the last US-built class of frigates, was politically unpopular in the Navy, chiefly because it wasn’t a battleship.
Maybe it’s because I’m biased based on my experience, but my space navy will have a lot of "cruisers" in it. I'll be calling them frigates because, well, they'll have taken the name from then-modern navies. I also think that this history of how ship types change over time, as well as institutional biases, really needs to be considered by any writer building a fictional Space Fleet.
In the real world, our lack of frigates will lead to more cases of billion-dollar ships chasing after speedboats full of pirates. And sometimes, there won't be anybody around to do the chasing.
Word Count for Space Rescue
Complete (41.6K) Goal (80K)
52.04% complete
Since Last Post = 1,400 words
Things accomplished in fiction: Two amateur spies meet, Kelly gets outwitted by 15-year-old.
Other thoughts Writing workshop tonight, but while in the shower this morning, I decided that one of my helper characters would be better off as an off-screen martyr.
For my non-naval-geek readers, I’ll try to summarize all three of these posts, first by discussing the carrier vs. submarine issue. Basically, the authors conclude that the overall threat to US Navy carriers is probably not as high as during the Cold War, but probably higher than many people know or admit. For example, a typical Cold-War-era carrier battle group had ten escort ships, several of which were optimized for anti-submarine warfare (ASW), and most of which had at least one helicopter. The carrier also had some long-range fixed-wing ASW planes. A modern battle group now has four escorts, only two of which have helicopters, and no fixed-wing ASW planes.
The increase in vulnerability to submarines is obvious. On the (for American forces) plus side of the equation, the Chinese or other potential enemies don’t have nearly the surface or air forces of the old Soviet Union. Heck, the Russians don’t have the forces they used to have. So, the net-net is less threat, but weighted more heavily towards submarines.
The other issue, where are the cruisers, is a little more complicated. Partially because what the US Navy calls a cruiser is not fulfilling a cruiser roll. Historically, “cruisers” weren’t a type of ship, but referred to a roll of maritime presence, patrol and escort. Think of a cruiser as a beat cop, patrolling the streets. Just like the beat cop, their primary mission is controlling and preventing low-level crime. If, for example, there’s a hostage situation or other "high threat," the beat cop calls in the SWAT team.
Modern US Navy cruisers weigh about 10,000 tons (similar to WWI battleships) and cost over a billion dollars a pop. In function, they're most equivalent to a classical battleship – a ship to go find and sink the enemy. In most navies, the cruiser role is being fulfilled by a ship called a frigate. Here’s the rub – the US Navy is getting rid of their frigates! This is actually a policy, called Network-centric warfare, which basically says every military unit should be set up to see what everybody else can see, and whoever’s got the shot takes it.
In theory, this is great. In practice, much of success in warfare consists of being in the right place at the right time. Go back to the beat cop example. Network-centric warfare would replace the beat cop with video cameras and a really fast 911 response from the central police station. Of course, what you miss is that no response is faster than “I’m already here,” and just visibly being there can prevent problems.
Nor is this particularly a new phenomenon in US naval history. The US Navy entered both world wars short on destroyers and light cruisers (the ships fulfilling the “cruiser” role). My old ship, the last US-built class of frigates, was politically unpopular in the Navy, chiefly because it wasn’t a battleship.
Maybe it’s because I’m biased based on my experience, but my space navy will have a lot of "cruisers" in it. I'll be calling them frigates because, well, they'll have taken the name from then-modern navies. I also think that this history of how ship types change over time, as well as institutional biases, really needs to be considered by any writer building a fictional Space Fleet.
In the real world, our lack of frigates will lead to more cases of billion-dollar ships chasing after speedboats full of pirates. And sometimes, there won't be anybody around to do the chasing.
Word Count for Space Rescue
Complete (41.6K) Goal (80K)
52.04% completeSince Last Post = 1,400 words
Things accomplished in fiction: Two amateur spies meet, Kelly gets outwitted by 15-year-old.
Other thoughts Writing workshop tonight, but while in the shower this morning, I decided that one of my helper characters would be better off as an off-screen martyr.
