Naval strategy, naval power: uses & abuses

[Sigaba]

It wasn't abut fighting. It was about having a big stick in great power gaming.

Few navies have ever built beautiful and impressive battleships or aircraft carriers during peacetime for risking them in battle. Such ships are meant for impressing foreign leaders and for the occasional bullying of a small power, not for peer2peer slaughtering.

As you say:

That's an assertion. Prove it.

And by proof, I mean archival evidence or historical works based upon archival evidence that shows naval planners had no intention of using battleships and aircraft carriers to conduct operations against opposing fleets.

[Fuchs]

I don't have much time today.

For starters, read up on the German Risikoflotte/risk fleet theory/strategy and the RN's "spit & polish" school of officers and their lack of emphasis on battleworthiness. Then think about the Soviet Fleet of the mid/late Cold War.

These are the most obvious cases.

[carl]

For starters, read up on the German Risikoflotte/risk fleet theory/strategy and the RN's "spit & polish" school of officers and their lack of emphasis on battleworthiness. Then think about the Soviet Fleet of the mid/late Cold War.

I think you are confusing risikoflotte with a fleet in being. The risk fleet was intended to prevent war from starting. If the war did start, the theory fell flat on its face. It was based mainly on frightening the other guy. It wouldn't work if he didn't get scared. Now that may be considered building cool ships with the intention never to use them, but it was a German theory I believe, not a British, American or Japanese one.

A fleet in being is a tactic to preserve an inferior force so it can have at least some influence on its' stronger opponent. The tactic is hide in port so the superior force will have a hard time getting at you and has to detail forces to watch you if you do come out to die. It is something that is forced upon the inferior navy by circumstance, not by intention. The Germans had to do it in WWII because the war started several years before their navy was ready. Fleet in being doesn't work so good now because of airpower. Boats are a lot easier to find and hit if they are sitting in port.

As far as the RN's "spit and polish", you are confusing the incompetence of a military force that hadn't had any real battles to fight, with strategy. The RN may not have been so ready for battle in WWI but they fought anyway.

The Soviet Cold War fleet was built around submarines. Those always get used. I don't see how you could say their fleet wasn't built to fight.

[Fuchs]

Simple. It was built for deterrence, for looking good in wargames.
The Soviets did not intend to wage WW3.

It wasn't abut fighting. It was about having a big stick in great power gaming.

Few navies have ever built beautiful and impressive battleships or aircraft carriers during peacetime for risking them in battle. Such ships are meant for impressing foreign leaders and for the occasional bullying of a small power, not for peer2peer slaughtering.

(new bold)


The RN of the 1880's and 1890's (spit and polish school era)can hardly have built its battleships for peer2peer fights because there was no peer.
The same goes for the USN. There is no fleet that could oppose more than a fraction of it, thus the USN is mostly for

... impressing foreign leaders and for the occasional bullying of a small power ...

Again; it would look very different and not so land-attack-centric if it was about patrols for securing global maritime trade.
It would have many multi-purpose cruisers for independent action, many sea control ships, much less amphibious capacity, less cruise missiles.

[carl]

Simple. It was built for deterrence, for looking good in wargames.
The Soviets did not intend to wage WW3.

Nobody intended to wage WWIII. If it had started it would have been a mistake. But if it had started they would have deployed those boats and they would have fought and as such the boats were built to fight. Deterrence doesn't work if you are faking it. Building weapons without the genuine determination to use them if needed isn't deterrence. I'll accept that those boats were built to help deter but that means they were meant to fight.

The RN of the 1880's and 1890's (spit and polish school era)can hardly have built its battleships for peer2peer fights because there was no peer.
The same goes for the USN. There is no fleet that could oppose more than a fraction of it...

The RN and USN that you cite had created a situation whereby they dominated the seas of the world. They did that by fighting. In order to preserve that situation they maintained their dominance by replacing ships, modernizing them and maintaining superiority in naval power. By doing that they kept a peer power from arising. That was the whole point. It worked. But it would not have worked if those ships had not had genuine naval capabilities, i.e. if they had not been able to fight.

Again; it would look very different and not so land-attack-centric if it was about patrols for securing global maritime trade.
It would have many multi-purpose cruisers for independent action, many sea control ships, much less amphibious capacity, less cruise missiles.

And again, I accept the judgment of the USN as to what is needed in preference to yours.

The people who built, manned and paid for these navies said they did so because they might need them in case a fight came up. I think I'll take them at their word and disregard yours.

[Fuchs]

Well, they're incompetent if they need so much hardware for actual fleet actions given the modest non-allied naval power in the world and the more than modest allied naval power in the world.
Even if they did intend this force structure for more purposes than I mentioned; they'd be incompetent in this case. Only incompetents need such a force ratio or spend so much extra wealth of their country on the multiplying the degree of superiority. I don't respect the judgement of incompetents.

So either they're incompetent or the purpose of such a huge navy (and historical precedents) was not to wage major wars against other fleets, but
* impress foreign leaders
* bullying (land attack mostly)


It's hard to come up with a calculation that compares fiscal costs of different forms of major war fighting and still comes to the conclusion that the immensely expensive carrier groups and amphibious forces are more cost-efficient than other forms of assisting allies. Amphibious forces, for example, are at most counterattack forces in a strategic (alliance) defence.


There is of course another explanation, and I'm disappointed that nobody brought this one yet.
We could also explain large navies with an uncontrolled, accidental development and a lot of institutional inertia.
That would kinda lead to the "Niiskanen's bureaucrat" concept, of course.

[Entropy]

Fuchs,

Just a little advice - if you're going to make accusations of incompetence, you probably should back that up, document those claims and make specific arguments instead of providing vague assertions. It sounds like you might have an interesting criticism, but I really have no idea what your actual argument is.

Also, you've yet to respond to what I wrote earlier about the purpose of the US Navy in relation to US defensive commitments. Thanks.

[Sigaba]

That's an assertion. Prove it.

I don't have much time today.

Fuchs--

At your convenience, please do provide historiographically credible sources as evidence to support your broad generalizations about modern naval history.

To be clear, the specific interpretation you offered follows.

It wasn't abut fighting. It was about having a big stick in great power gaming.

Few navies have ever built beautiful and impressive battleships or aircraft carriers during peacetime for risking them in battle. Such ships are meant for impressing foreign leaders and for the occasional bullying of a small power, not for peer2peer slaughtering.

IMO, your argument requires you to provide evidence that the overwhelming majority of naval building programs and concurrent planning were for show, not fighting.

Nobody intended to wage WWIII.

Carl--

With respect, I disagree. The Maritime Strategy--along with its plans to build a "600 ship fleet"--reflected the U.S. Navy's intention to fight a global war against the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies.

[carl]

With respect, I disagree. The Maritime Strategy--along with its plans to build a "600 ship fleet"--reflected the U.S. Navy's intention to fight a global war against the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies.

Maybe it would be more accurate to say nobody wanted WWIII to start.