Can Surface Ships Survive a War?

And can submarines really replace surface ships?

large aircraft carrier at sea under attack by multiple missiles

Does the future belong to submarines? 

The U.S. Navy has invested billions of dollars in its carriers, and the decision to retire them will be painful, as it was for Canada in 1970, but the alternative, to risk losing a war against a more competent and innovative peer competitor, is simply much worse. What is to replace the aircraft carrier? The prescient British historian Sir John Keegan said in 1988 that “The era of the submarine as the predominant weapon of power at sea must…  be recognized as having begun. 

The essay is primarily an argument that the carrier is too vulnerable to survive. He’s preaching to the TDR choir on this:

I fear that we will answer the question of whether super carriers are apex predators or expensive prey by watching them burn and sink—yes, if it floats it can sink—and then have the survivors spend their time evading attack. 

And pre-blog I wanted to transition to a network-centric Navy rather than sink money into protecting them when better offensive capabilities exist under the Integrated Combat System:

America's super carriers are the pinnacle of platform-centric warfare. When massing effects required massing assets, the carrier's strike aircraft massed the decisive weapons in one place for effective command and control. But the development of persistent surveillance, secure networked communications, and highly accurate long-range missiles has allowed a navy to mass effects without massing assets.

The Navy is in the "early days" of building the Integrated Combat System (ICS) that links the sensors and weapons of multiple assets[.]

Especially when you consider that simply damaging carriers will take them out of the war:

Even if our big aircraft carriers can't be sunk, a mission-kill is just as good during the time the carrier is out of action. The war might be long over before that ship sets sail again.

And if we get damaged carriers to a shipyard, there is no way we'll repair them in a reasonable amount of time.

And no, don't even try to defend carriers by pointing out that China is building super carriers, too. One, this falters on the failure to distinguish carrier roles of sea control versus power projection. For the latter, we could still use carriers. Fewer than we have now. But still immensely useful.

Second, related to the roles conflation (and I'm channeling my dad, here), if the PLAN jumped off a cliff would you follow them? After all, in July 1914, every European army had lots of cavalry. So the "everybody has them so they must be useful" argument is worthless to me. 

And if you try to say PLAN carriers are significant because the Chinese are genetically able to see the future so trust them, just stop.

Okay, now I really digress.

But aside from big carriers, are surface ships in general too vulnerable? Until surface ships get effective air defense that can outlast the incoming barrage, this is plausible. But with the Navy potentially able to get that kind of air defense, maybe not all surface ships are pointless.

Because surface ships will always have better situational awareness than subs, no? Surface ship vulnerability is the flip side of surface ships being in constant contact with surveillance assets that identify targets.

Subs survive by not being seen. Underwater their detection radius is pretty small, right? And getting close to the surface to get intermittent updates risks exposing them, no? Can subs carry out attacks without information and support from surface ships? Okay, maybe land-based assets could fill that surveillance and targeting role. But unlike ships, land is not mobile so easier to suppress, right? Land bases would need even more air defenses than ships, I imagine. Although sure, not sinking is a great advantage.

Maybe the key is smaller but much more numerous surface ships that are individually weak but as a networked force with ICS operating under Distributed Maritime Operations doctrine provide the well-rounded capabilities our current Burke destroyers—and fading cruisers—provide. The proposed “destroyer” for the Navy is really a cruiser-sized ship. Maybe it is rightly getting questioned absent networked defenses.

And that type of surface fleet would provide the better protected—because they remain concealed—submarines the targeting data the subs need to attack rather than merely avoid destruction.

I just don't think that surface ships in general must give way to the submarine. There will be synergy in their combination.

NOTE: The picture was created using the Substack image generator.