Category Archives: Tactical Concepts
Strength in Numbers: The Remarkable Potential of (Really) Small Combatants
LT Jimmy Drennan is a Surface Warfare Officer in the U.S. Navy. He is the prospective Weapons Officer aboard USS Gettysburg and a Distinguished Graduate of the Naval Postgraduate School’s Systems Engineering Analysis program. You are a tactical commander tasked with a mission to seek out and destroy one of the enemy’s premier capital ships [...]
Laser Weapons and Naval Warfare: An Introduction
To date, the story of laser weapons has been one of great promise but slow delivery. However, modern developments in the fields of materials science, optics, and computer technology are making it increasingly likely that they will reach operational status in the next decade. This realization has prompted laser weapon-development programs around the world, including [...]
Read MoreWho Defeated the Somali Pirates? Another Look
As observers thankfully have noted, piracy off the coast of Somalia dropped significantly over 2012. As Mark Munson points out, a variety of factors contributed to this decline. These included an increase in armed guards aboard commercial vessels, continued international naval patrols in the region, attacks by some of those international naval forces on [...]
Read MoreSwarms at Sea and Out-swarming the Swarms?
This week Foreign Policy posted a new article by Navy Postgraduate School professor John Arquilla, in which he discusses the how “swarm” tactics employed by the Russians caused the failure of Napoleon’s 1812 invasion. Arquilla is a prolific author who regularly writes about swarms and “net-centric” operations. In the above piece he cites successful maritime [...]
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