Survival On The Modern Battlefield

The lethality of the modern land battlefield argues against the survival and effectiveness of unprotected infantry.  Indeed, it strongly suggests that only armored vehicles have any reasonable expectation of survival long enough to be effective.  For the infantry, this means that heavy armored personnel carriers (HAPC) are mandatory.  The U.S. military’s fascination with unarmored or lightly armored “jeeps” in various forms (such as the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle) is misguided in the extreme.  The Russian lesson in artillery in Ukraine should have been eye-opening for the USand allies.

Similarly, the naval battlefield will be one of immense lethality where only the big and strong (armored) will survive.  Of course, this has always been a characteristic of naval warfare.  Naval battles have always been short, vicious, and deadly, especially for the smaller vessels like WWII destroyers and even cruisers.

Consider our modern U.S. Navy.  Our 90 or so surface warships, the Burkes and Ticonderogas, are likely one-hit kills or, at best, mission kills due to the combination of near complete absence of armor and reduced crew size for effective damage control. 

Our most powerful ships are one-hit kills?

Does this seem wise?

During WWII, ships had to be sunk or very badly damaged to knock them out of a fight and it required immense amounts of ordnance to accomplish.  Today, a single anti-radar, air burst missile can achieve a mission kill. 

Consider the Burke class destroyer.  For all its many VLS cells and impressive Aegis radar arrays, its combat effectiveness ultimately comes down to three SPG-62 missile guidance radars (illuminators).  All three are exposed high on the superstructure, unprotected by any surrounding structures to any great extent.  In other words, they’re out in the open just waiting for some simple shrapnel to wander by.  Worse, two of the three illuminators are located within 10 ft of each other which begs for 2/3 of the ship’s fire control to be eliminated with a single hit.  This violates the survival design maxim of separation of critical items and there is nothing more critical to an Aegis AAW ship than its illuminators.

Consider the recent history of “hits” on US Navy ships.  The Stark, Cole, Port Royal, Antietam, McCain, and Fitzgerald were all rendered mission kills and most were nearly sunk by a single “hit”.  Ponder what that means for the modern naval battlefield.  An entire battlegroup could be wiped out or mission killed by a dozen individual hits.  That’s a pretty low bar for the enemy to achieve!  In WWII, it required dozens (usually many dozens) of hits on a ship to sink it or render it a mission kill.  In fact, mission kills were fairly rare.  A ship either sank or continued fighting.  Losing a few illuminators should not be the end of a ship’s usefulness and yet that is exactly the situation, today.

If we’re going to intentionally and knowingly build one-hit ships then we ought to, at least, be building them much, much cheaper.  Losing a $2B Burke to a single hit is criminal.

If we want expensive ships then we need to build them to absorb damage and keep fighting.  That means firepower and armor and lots of it.  We need to remember what a warship is for, what dangers it faces, and design accordingly.

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