Indo-Asia-Pacific

Taiwan’s Layered Air Defence and the Calculus of Deterrence

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By Guarav Sen

In any future Taiwan Strait conflict, the opening phase would be decisive – not because it guarantees victory, but because it shapes escalation, operational momentum, and political decision-making. The identification of a center of gravity in Taiwan’s defense is therefore contingent on the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) campaign objectives, which vary across firepower-strike, invasion, and blockade scenarios.

Taiwan’s integrated air defence system functions as a scenario-dependent operational centre of gravity, most clearly in a PLA firepower-strike or decapitation campaign. While unlikely on its own to determine the outcome in all contingencies, integrated air defence plays a central role in shaping the battlespace. An analysis of Taiwan’s air defence is particularly salient as nations assess lessons from the recent U.S. strike and leadership-targeting operations, and recognize that neutralizing defence air systems is a critical enabling capability in invasion and blockade scenarios.

By denying rapid air superiority and preserving Taiwan’s combat power, the integrated air defense complicates efforts to achieve a swift fait accompli and raises the costs and risks of PLA operations.1 This article examines the interplay between integrated air defense and the broader PLA campaign options, assessing how its survivability influences the feasibility of coercion, blockade, and amphibious invasion.

PLA Campaign Logic Across Scenarios

PLA operational planning emphasizes methodical sequencing of action rather than a single decisive engagement. A campaign could shift from initial firepower-strike and paralysis efforts toward a coercive blockade or, if conditions permit, an amphibious invasion. Each option places different demands on air superiority, command and control, and escalation management, making Taiwan’s air defense posture central to shaping the viability of PLA courses of action.

The Opening Salvo: Fire and Electrons

A PLA campaign could begin with a multi-domain strike designed to induce strategic paralysis, rather than a fleet posture offshore that is immediately detectable, attributable, and escalatory.2 Roughly 900 short-range ballistic missiles fielded by the PLA Rocket Force are aimed at Taiwan, alongside hundreds of land-attack cruise missiles and long-range guided rockets. Such weapons place island targets at risk from mainland firing points.

However, as Russia’s campaign against Ukraine demonstrates, even sustained missile and drone saturation struggles to produce strategic paralysis against a defended state and instead yields diminishing returns as air and missile defenses adapt.3 The experience of Ukraine offers a useful comparison. Large-scale saturation attacks using missiles and one-way attack drones have imposed high costs and strained air defenses, but have failed to produce strategic paralysis, instead pushing the conflict toward prolonged attrition as a functional, integrated air defense remains in place.

Concurrent with missile barrages, the PLA Navy Air Force could unleash thousands of precision-strike sorties in the initial days.4 Its Eastern and Southern Theatre Commands already field a modern fleet of over 950 fighters and 300 bombers or attack aircraft.5 This includes J-16 multirole fighters and low-observable J-20s armed with long-range PL-15 air-to-air missiles.6 Air bases, ports, radar sites, command-and-control nodes, and surface-to-air missile batteries would be the primary targets in Taiwan to blind, break, and constrain Taiwan at sea and in the air.7

Kinetic barrages will be combined with non-kinetic operations. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would use a combination of electronic warfare and cyber tools to interfere with early warning radars, jam satellite communications, penetrate networks, and use decoys to drain finite interceptor stocks.8 The doctrine of “systems destruction warfare” seeks to collapse an adversary’s operational architecture rather than engage in platform-versus-platform attrition, although they possess the numbers to do so.9

Special Operations, Air Assault, and Shaping Actions

PLA special operations forces and pre-positioned networks would likely focus on targeting critical nodes—air defense command elements, sensors, communications infrastructure, and key political or military leadership—rather than holding terrain. Air assault forces would aim to seize or disrupt airfields, ports, and chokepoints to enable follow-on operations. Low-signature platforms such as helicopters or gyrocopters pose a detection challenge, but remain vulnerable to short-range air defenses, visual acquisition, and networked cueing from integrated sensor systems.

Years of “grey-zone” activity or military actions below the threshold of open conflict set the table. Frequent PLA Air Force air defense identification zone incursions and surrounding naval drills signal, degrade Taiwan’s readiness, and enable ongoing reconnaissance. Every Taiwan radar activation reveals location, frequency, and modes, refining future targeting and prioritization.10 Grey-zone efforts normalize tension, compress warning time, and blur the distinction between exercise and attack, complicating mobilization and defense.11 These preparatory activities negatively shape the environment in which Taiwan’s air defense system must function from the very first hours of conflict.

The Layered Shield: Architecture, Integration, and Vulnerabilities

If Taiwan’s air defense system survives—even in degraded form—it becomes a key enabler of Taiwan’s Overall Defense Concept, a planning framework that emphasizes force preservation, littoral denial, and the destruction of invading forces at the beachhead.12 Amphibious success requires local air superiority.13 A functioning air defense system complicates PLA Air Force air dominance, forcing higher-altitude standoff operations that dilute close air support and defensive fires for landing forces.14

Under this air denial umbrella, Taiwan’s mobile Hsiung Feng anti-ship missile batteries and fast attack craft can turn the Strait into a kill zone.15 Without functioning air defense, China’s air forces could hunt down these dispersed assets; however, with air defense in place, lightly defended support ships are exposed, creating a sustainment dilemma for Beijing. Even in a blockade scenario, the PLA Navy must still sustain persistent surveillance, air–maritime coordination, and enforcement against blockade-running; functions that become more costly and escalation-prone when operating under a surviving, even degraded, Taiwanese air defense. Air defense undermines the notion that a blockade is a low-risk coercive option.

Taiwan has spent decades building one of the world’s most integrated air defense systems, which is designed to detect, track, and engage everything from ballistic missiles to low-flying drones.16 Its philosophy is defense-in-depth with multiple supporting layers. Each layer can be ablative, reducing incoming attacks and protecting key assets, allowing forces to continue fighting.17

Included in these layers, the AN/FPS-115 Pave Paws radar at Leshan provides early warning of incoming ballistic threats from deep within the mainland.18 Pave Paws also feeds into a resilient network of fixed and mobile long-range air-search radars.19

Six E-2K Hawkeye airborne early warning and control aircraft add a flexible, high-altitude “look-down” capability against low-flying cruise missiles and stealthier threats, pushing the detection envelope far into the Taiwan Strait. When integrated with passive sensors and ground-based networks to mitigate the vulnerabilities of emitting systems, together the system forces China to allocate scarce long-range interceptors and strike assets to hunt these platforms rather than employ them elsewhere.20

Taiwan fields multiple layers of medium- and high-altitude air and missile defenses designed to counter aircraft, cruise missiles, and short-range ballistic missiles. While some interceptors are optimized for engaging aircraft, the backbone of Taiwan’s ballistic missile defense consists of hit-to-kill interceptors. These interceptors are intended to destroy incoming missiles by kinetic impact rather than proximity detonation. The operationalization of an enhanced upper-tier interceptor, expected in the mid-2020s, is intended to expand the defended battlespace in both range and altitude, strengthening Taiwan’s ability to absorb and attrit large missile salvos in the opening phase of a conflict.

Taiwan’s air defense posture continues to rely on a layered architecture in which a mid-tier capability focuses on engaging aircraft and cruise-missiles, while a dispersed short-range air defense network provides terminal and point defense against low-altitude threats.

Observations from recent high-intensity conflicts, particularly Ukraine’s experience with contested airspace, have reinforced Taiwan’s emphasis on prioritizing the defense of critical assets under conditions of constrained air-surveillance coverage. This has encouraged a defensive posture that relies heavily on high-end interceptors to manage high-value threats. While such a layered approach improves localised situational awareness and asset protection at the tactical level, it also deepens dependence on scarce and costly upper-tier capabilities.

The combined sensors and shooters are operational and integrated within the Republic of China (Taiwan) Air Force Air Defense and Missile Command. Looking ahead, the planned T-Dome project aims to further decentralize command and control by improving sensor–shooter integration and shortening decision-making timelines.21 Rather than relying on a single command node, the system is intended to allow multiple sensors to cue interceptors more flexibly, improving resilience against a decapitation strike.

The systems of the combined forces are integrated so that each sensor can be activated and used to direct fire and engage enemy formations, creating a highly efficient, low-latency tactical engagement core. This is expected to create a far more active tactical posture in anticipation of a decapitation strike or a tactical battle.22

Strategic self-reliance underwrites Taiwan’s defense concept. To offset delays in U.S. arms deliveries and the risk of wartime isolation, National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST) has prioritized domestic production. NCSIST’s new goal of producing over 1,000 missiles yearly will be very useful. Programs that are hitting their goals early, such as the TK-3, signal credible sustainment in the wartime scenario and the capacity to sustain wartime operations without immediate U.S. resupply, which enhances deterrence through depth and resilience.23

The Asymmetric Duel: Attrition and Adaptation

Taiwan’s integrated air defense system faces two principal challenges. First is the risk of saturation, as PLA doctrine emphasizes overwhelming defenses through large volumes of drones and missile salvos intended to exhaust interceptors.24 The second are non-kinetic pressures. PLA investments in cyber, electronic warfare, and data manipulation are aimed at degrading, rather than disabling, command-and-control and sensor–shooter links. Experience from Ukraine suggests that such non-kinetic operations can disrupt the effectiveness of air defense and impose friction, but have generally fallen short of paralyzing integrated systems, particularly when defenders employ redundancy, mobility, and rapid adaptation.

The Ukraine war offers lessons for the PLA as it refines drone-swarm tactics to saturate Taiwan’s defenses.25 As in Ukraine, tactics can be used to overcome a numerical disadvantage, including mobility, dispersal, and tactical innovation. Taiwan’s adaptation includes surface-to-air missile mobility, strategic hardening, command-and-control redundancy, and distributed teams equipped with man-portable air defense systems and other weapons to efficiently counter unsophisticated threats. During a blockade or attrition contest, the ability to sustain will be decisive, elevating NCSIST’s role in the mass production of missiles, drones, and spares from a matter of industrial necessity to one necessary for survival.26

Should Taiwan survive the first strike and compel the PLA to transition to an adaptive phase of the conflict marked by a slower tempo, operational improvisation, and iterative adjustment rather than pre-planned shock operations, the possibility of a swift PLA victory is eliminated.

Conclusion: The Shield of Uncertainty

An integrated air defense system is a central enabling pillar that shapes campaigns, denies quick victory, and raises costs. It integrates domestic and foreign systems under a doctrine developed from the lessons of in-depth analysis of contemporary warfare. It is more than the capability to down missiles and aircraft. It aims to withstand the initial strike, disrupt China’s rapid decision-making in a conflict, and force any hostilities into a protracted, expensive war of attrition for Beijing.

This system serves as a multilayered complication for every stage of a potential cross-strait invasion. It denies an adversarial force the critical air superiority necessary to acquire an amphibious assault, and increases the risk of a military blockade. It also supports Taiwan’s more extensive asymmetric defense posture, which relies on dispersed, mobile defense systems. Success, in this context, is measured not by the system’s absolute performance but by its robust, sustained performance under stress and by the cognitive impacts of its existence on Chinese war planners. As such, the integrated air defense has a unique impact, increasing China’s calculative risk and introducing deterrence through the potential of a protracted, destructive war that Beijing is highly unlikely to win.

Gaurav Sen is a Senior Research Fellow at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is the author of The Peril of the Pacific: Military Balance and the Battle for Taiwan. His research interests include Indo-Pacific security, great-power competition, strategic autonomy, and maritime geopolitics.

References

1. Lantes, Korey F. 2024. “’Strategic Disruption’ Can Thwart an Invasion of Taiwan.” Proceedings 150, no. 12 (December 2024). U.S. Naval Institute. https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2024/december/strategic-disruption-can-thwart-invasion-taiwan

2. Cancian, Mark F., Matthew Cancian, and Eric Heginbotham. 2023. The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan. January 9. Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). https://www.csis.org/analysis/first-battle-next-war-wargaming-chinese-invasion-taiwan

3. Goldstein, Lyle. 2025. “Target Taiwan: Prospects for a Chinese Invasion.” Defense Priorities, September 2025. https://www.defensepriorities.org/explainers/target-taiwan-prospects-for-a-chinese-invasion/

4. Ibid.

5. Xu, Tianran. 2025. “Taiwan’s Air and Missile Defence. Part 4: Long-range SAMs versus PLA Offensive Capabilities.” ThoughtRoom – Open Nuclear Network, April 29, 2025. https://platform.opennuclear.org/thoughtroom/quick-takes/taiwans-air-and-missile-defence-part-4-long-range-sams-versus-pla-offensive-capabilities

6. The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). 2024. Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment 2024: Key Developments and Trends. London: IISS. May 2024. https://www.iiss.org/globalassets/media-library—content–migration/files/publications—free-files/aprsa-2024/asia-pacific-regional-security-assessment-2024.pdf

7. Lin, Sean and Wu Su-wei. 2025. “Taiwan Should Seek to Leverage PLA Satnav System to Counter Drone Threat: Experts.” Focus Taiwan (Central News Agency), September 2, 2025. https://www.focustaiwan.tw/cross-strait/202509020028

8. Lin, Sean and Wu Su-wei. 2025. “Taiwan Should Seek to Leverage PLA Satnav System to Counter Drone Threat: Experts.” Focus Taiwan (Central News Agency), September 2, 2025. https://www.focustaiwan.tw/cross-strait/202509020028

9. Wuthnow, Joel. 2025. PLA Systems Attack. Keystone 25-1, January 2025. Available at https://keystone.ndu.edu/Portals/86/PLA%20Systems%20Attack-%20Keystone%2025-1%20Jan%2025.pdf

10. The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). 2018. China, Global Security & Taiwan. Research Paper. London: IISS. https://www.iiss.org/research-paper/2018/09/china-global-security/

11. Goldstein, Lyle. 2025. “Target Taiwan: Prospects for a Chinese Invasion.” Defense Priorities, August 25,   2025. https://www.defensepriorities.org/explainers/target-taiwan-prospects-for-a-chinese-invasion/

12. Hsi-min, Lee (Adm., Ret.). 2021. Taiwan’s Overall Defense Concept: Theory and Practice. Hoover Institution. September 27, 2021. Available at https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/210927_adm_lee_hoover_remarks_draft4.pdf

13. Revels, Matthew. 2023. “Denying Command of the Air: The Future of Taiwan’s Air Defense Strategy.” Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs 6, no. 3 (March–April): 135–44 https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/JIPA/Display/Article/3371516/denying-command-of-the-air-the-future-of-taiwans-air-defense-strategy/

14. “Taiwan’s Air and Missile Defence. Part 4: Long-range SAMs versus PLA offensive capabilities,” Open Nuclear Network, accessed Nov 3, 2025

15. Dotson, John. 2025. “Taiwan’s Defense Policies in Evolution.” Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs 8, no. 1 (Spring 2025). April 21, 2025. https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/JIPA/Display/Article/4164821/taiwans-defense-policies-in-evolution/

16. Xu, Tianran. 2024. “Taiwan’s Air and Missile Defence. Part 1: Tien Kung-1 and Tien Kung-2.” Open Nuclear Network(Thoughtroom). 18 September 2024. https://platform.opennuclear.org/thoughtroom/quick-takes/taiwans-air-and-missile-defence-part-1-tien-kung-1-and-tien-kung-2

17. U.S. Department of Homeland Security. 2016. Recommended Practice: Improving Industrial Control System Cybersecurity with Defense-in-Depth Strategies. Washington, DC: ICS-CERT / NCCIC.

18. Wolff, Christian. 2025. “Strategic Radar Systems — AN/FPS-115 ‘PAVE PAWS’.” RadarTutorial. https://www.radartutorial.eu/19.kartei/01.oth/karte004.en.html

19. Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance. 2018. “AN/FPS-117.” May 1, 2018. https://www.missiledefenseadvocacy.org/defense-systems/an-fps-117/

20. Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance. 2018. “AN/FPS-117.” May 1, 2018. https://www.missiledefenseadvocacy.org/defense-systems/an-fps-117/

21. Author unknown. 2025. “What is Taiwan’s multi-layered T-Dome air defense system?” The Japan Times, November 30, 2025. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/11/30/asia-pacific/taiwan-air-defense-focus/

22. Author unknown. 2025. “Taiwan President Unveils ‘T-Dome’ Air Defence System to Counter China Threat.” The Hindu, October 10, 2025. https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/taiwan-president-unveils-t-dome-air-defence-system-to-counter-china-threat/article70146730.ece

23. “Taiwan’s Missile Production Program … Two Years Ahead of Schedule,” Global Taiwan Institute, 2024, accessed Nov 3, 2025.

24. Sen, Gaurav. 2025. “How Taiwan Must Prepare to Face Chinese Drone Saturation.” The Strategist (Australian Strategic Policy Institute), July 4, 2025. https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/how-taiwan-must-prepare-to-face-chinese-drone-saturation/

25. Ditter, Timothy. 2025. PRC Concepts for UAV Swarms in Future Warfare. Arlington, VA: CNA Corporation. July 2025. https://www.cna.org/reports/2025/07/PRC-Concepts-for-UAV-Swarms-in-Future-Warfare.pdf

26. Grieco, Kelly A., and Hunter Slingbaum. 2025. “Taiwan’s Squandered Defensive Potential.” The Henry L. Stimson Center, September 11, 2025. https://www.stimson.org/2025/taiwans-squandered-defensive-potential/

Featured Image: A People’s Liberation Army Air Force J-16 escorts a H-6 bomber during a routine deterrence patrol. (Japan Air Self-Defence Force photo)

Force Structure

A Concept of Operations for Achieving a Navy Fleet of 500 Ships

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By Captain George Galdorisi

The U. S. Navy stands at the precipice of a new era of technology advancement. In an address at a military-industry conference, the then-U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Michael Gilday, revealed the Navy’s goal to grow to 500 ships, to include 350 crewed ships and 150 uncrewed maritime vessels. This plan has been dubbed the “hybrid fleet.” In an address at the Reagan National Defense Forum, his successor, Admiral Lisa Franchetti, cited the work of the Navy’s Unmanned Task Force, as well numerous exercises, experiments and demonstrations where uncrewed surface vessels were put in the hands of Sailors and Marines, all designed to advance the journey to achieve the Navy’s hybrid fleet.

More recently, other speeches and interviews addressing the number of uncrewed surface vessels the Navy intends to field culminated in the issuance of the Chief of Naval Operations Force Design 2045, and subsequently the Chief of Naval Operations Navigation Plan for America’s Warfighting Navy, both of which call for 350 crewed ships and 150 large uncrewed maritime vessels. These documents provide the clearest indication yet of the Navy’s plans for a future fleet populated by large numbers of uncrewed surface vessels (USVs).

The reason for this commitment to uncrewed maritime vessels is clear. During the height of the Reagan Defense Buildup in the mid-1980s, the U.S. Navy evolved a strategy to build a “600-ship Navy.” That effort resulted in a total number of Navy ships that reached 594 in 1987. That number has declined steadily during the past three-and-one-half decades, and today the Navy has less than half the number of ships than it had then. However, the rapid growth of the technologies that make uncrewed surface vessels increasingly capable and affordable has provided the Navy with a potential way to put more hulls in the water.

However, the U.S. Congress has been reluctant to authorize the Navy’s planned investment of billions of dollars in USVs until the Service can come up with a concept-of-operations (CONOPS) for using them. Congress has a point. The Navy has announced plans to procure large numbers of uncrewed systems—especially large and medium uncrewed surface vessels—but a CONOPS, in even the most basic form, has not yet emerged. Additionally, while the composition of the future Navy’s crewed vessels is relatively well understood—based on ships being built and being planned—what those uncrewed maritime vessels will look like, let alone what they will do, has yet to be fully determined.

That said, the Navy has taken several actions to define what uncrewed maritime vessels will do and thus accelerate the journey to have uncrewed platforms populate the fleet. These include publishing an Unmanned Campaign Framework, standing up an Unmanned Task Force, establishing Surface Development Squadron One in San Diego and Surface Vessel Division One in Port Hueneme, CA, and conducting a wide range of exercises, experiments and demonstrations where operators have had the opportunity to evaluate uncrewed maritime vessels.

All these initiatives will serve the Navy well in evolving a convincing CONOPS to describe how these innovative platforms can be leveraged to achieve a hybrid fleet and gain a warfighting advantage over high-end adversaries. Fleshing out how this is to be done will require that the Navy describe how these platforms will get to the operating area where they are needed, as well as what missions they will perform once they arrive there.

A key part of this evolving CONOPS will involve integrating crewed ships and uncrewed maritime vessels. This means that both will need to operate as a synergistic fighting force, not all merely steaming together to perform a mission. This will require leveraging emerging technologies that can connect these platforms in a fashion now called man-machine teaming.

U.S. Navy’s Commitment to Uncrewed Maritime Vessels

 It is beyond the scope of this article to attempt to detail the reasons for the precipitous decline in the number of crewed ships. Indeed, the most recent Navy Long-Range Shipbuilding Plan details 19 ship decommissionings during this fiscal year, more than the number of ships being commissioned. Many—especially the U.S. Congress—have encouraged the Navy to increase the number of ships it fields. Add to this such factors as the increasing cost to build ships, and especially the cost to man these vessels (Seventy percent of the total ownership costs of surface ships is the cost of personnel to operate these vessels over their lifecycle), and the fact that the Navy is literally wearing these ships out more rapidly than anticipated in order to meet the increasing demands of U.S. Combatant Commanders, and it is easy to see why the Navy has difficulty growing the number of crewed surface vessels. 

The rapid growth of the technologies that make uncrewed surface vessels increasingly capable and affordable has provided the Navy with a potential way to put more hulls in the water. To support these goals regarding large numbers of uncrewed maritime platforms populating the Fleet, the Navy established an Unmanned Task Force to provide stewardship for Navy-wide efforts to accelerate efforts regarding uncrewed systems. From all indications, it seems that for the U.S. Navy, the intent is to go all-in on uncrewed maritime vessels and field a hybrid force of crewed ships and uncrewed maritime systems. Importantly, the intent is to have these uncrewed systems work in conjunction with manned platforms and achieve the goal of manned-unmanned teaming.

In a presentation at a Center for Strategic and International Studies/U.S. Naval Institute forum, Vice Admiral Jimmy Pitts, deputy chief of naval operations for warfighting requirements and capabilities (N9), put the focus on uncrewed maritime systems in these terms: “We are leading the way with unmanned systems. We are leveraging the success of the Navy’s unmanned task force as well as the disruptive capabilities office. Our goal is to get unmanned surface system solutions to the Fleet within the next two years.” Admiral Pitts went on to ask the questions: “What will unmanned systems do operationally? How will they get to the war at sea and littoral operating areas? How will they stay in those areas and remain ready for conflict?”

In an article in U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Commander, Admiral Samuel Paparo, put the emphasis on scaling robotic and autonomous systems in an operational context, noting:

The CNO is focusing on rapidly developing, fielding, and integrating UxSs. These systems will augment the multi-mission conventional force to increase lethality, sensing, and survivability. Project 33 [part of the Navigation Plan] will allow the Navy to operate in more areas with greater capability. Unmanned systems provide the ability to project fires and effects dynamically, at any time, from multiple axes, and with mass.

Recognizing that the United States is in an “AI arms-race” with our peer adversaries, a report by the Navy’s Science and Technology Board: The Path Forward on Unmanned Systems, advises the Navy to fully leverage AI-technologies, noting: “As they design, develop and acquire new systems, DON will want to take advantage of rapidly changing technology such as AI and autonomy.” This builds on the Navy’s desire to lower total operating costs by moving beyond the current “one UxS, multiple joysticks, multiple operators” paradigm module that exists today.

A Concept of Operations for Getting Uncrewed Surface Vessels to the Fight

The concept of operations proposed is to marry various size surface, subsurface and aerial uncrewed vehicles to perform missions that the U.S. Navy has—and will continue to have—as the Hybrid Fleet evolves. The Navy can use evolving large uncrewed surface vessels as a “truck” to move smaller USVs, UUVs and UAVs into the battle space in the increasingly contested littoral environment. The Navy has several alternatives for this platform:

  • The Navy’s program of record LUSV. The Navy envisions these LUSVs as being 200 feet to 300 feet in length and having full load displacements of 1,000 tons to 2,000 tons, which would make them the size of a corvette.
  • Unmanned Surface Vessel Division One (USVDIV-1) has stewardship for two surrogates for LUSVs, the Ranger and Nomad, as well as two MUSV prototypes, Sea Hunter and Seahawk. The Navy was sufficiently confident in the operation of its LUSV and MUSV prototypes to deploy them to a recent international Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise.
  • The MARTAC T82 Leviathan, a scaled-up version of the T38 Devil Ray, is an MUSV capable of either carrying an approximately 35,000-pound payload or, alternatively, carrying smaller craft and launching them toward the objective area.

While there are a plethora of important Navy missions this integrated combination of uncrewed platforms can accomplish, this article will focus on two: intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and mine countermeasures (MCM). There are many large, medium, small and ultra-small uncrewed systems that can be adopted for these missions. The technical challenge remains that they must be designed to ensure that the multiple sized UxSs associated with these missions can be adapted to work together in a common mission goal. 

Rather than speaking in hypotheticals as to how uncrewed vessels might be employed for these two missions, this article will offer concrete examples, using COTS uncrewed systems that have been employed in recent Navy and Marine Corps events. In each case, these systems not only demonstrated mission accomplishment, but also the hull, mechanical and electrical (HME) attributes and maturity that Congress is demanding.

While there are a wide range of medium uncrewed surface vessels (MUSVs) that can potentially meet the U.S. Navy’s needs, there are three that are furthest along in the development cycle. These MUSVs cover a range of sizes, hull types and capabilities. They are:

  • The Leidos Sea Hunter is the largest of the three. The Sea Hunter is a 132-foot-long trimaran (a central hull with two outriggers). 
  • The Textron monohull Common Unmanned Surface Vessel (CUSV), now renamed MCM-USV, features a modular, open architecture design.
  • The Maritime Tactical Systems Inc. (MARTAC), catamaran hull uncrewed surface vessels (USV) include the Devil Ray T24 and T38 craft. The two Devil Ray USVs, along with their smaller MANTAS T12 USV, all feature a modular and open architecture design. 

All of these MUSVs are viable candidates to be part of an integrated uncrewed solution CONOPS. I will use the MANTAS, Devil Ray and Leviathan craft for a number of reasons. First, they come in different sizes with the same HME attributes. Second, the Sea Hunter is simply too large to fit into the LUSVs the Navy is currently considering. Third, the MCM-USV is the MUSV of choice for the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Mine-Countermeasures Mission Package, and all MCM-USVs scheduled to be procured are committed to this program.

If the U.S. Navy wants to keep its multi-billion-dollar capital ships out of harm’s way, it will need to surge uncrewed maritime vessels into the contested battlespace while its crewed ships stay out of range of adversary anti-access (A2/AD) systems. This will require robust command and control systems,

Depending on the size that is ultimately procured, the LUSV can carry several T38 Devil Ray uncrewed surface vessels and deliver them, largely covertly, to a point near the intended area of operations. The T38 can then be sent independently to perform the ISR mission, or alternatively, can launch one or more T12 MANTAS USVs to perform that mission. Building on work conducted by the Navy laboratory community and sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, the T38 or T12 will have the ability to launch unmanned aerial vessels to conduct overhead ISR. 

For the MCM mission, the LUSV can deliver several T38s equipped with mine-hunting and mine-clearing systems (all of which are COTS platforms tested extensively in Navy exercises). These vessels can then undertake the “dull, dirty and dangerous” work previously conducted by Sailors who had to operate in the minefield. Given the large mine inventory of peer and near-peer adversaries, this methodology may well be the only way to clear mines safely.

Operational Scenario for an Integrated Crewed-Uncrewed Mission

This scenario and CONOPS are built around an Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG) that is underway in the Western Pacific. The ESG is on routine patrol five hundred nautical miles from the nearest landfall. An incident occurs in their operating area and the strike group is requested to (1) obtain reconnaissance of a near-shore littoral area, and (2) determine if the entrance to a specific bay has been mined to prevent ingress. The littoral coastline covers two hundred nautical miles. This area must be reconnoitered within twenty-four hours without the use of air assets.

Command staff decides to dispatch the three LUSVs for the mission. Two LUSVs are each configured with four T38-ISR craft and the third LUSV is configured with four T38-MCM vessels. The single supervisory control station for the three LUSVs is manned in the mothership.

The three LUSV depart the strike group steaming together in a preset autonomous pattern for two hundred and fifty nautical miles to a waypoint that is central to the two hundred nautical mile ISR scan area, two hundred and fifty nautical miles from the shore. At this waypoint, the LUSV will stop and dispatch the smaller T38 craft and then wait at this location for their return. Steaming at a cruise speed of twenty-five knots, the waypoint is reached in about ten hours.

  • Two T38-ISR craft are launched from each of the two LUSVs. The autonomous mission previously downloaded specifies a waypoint location along the coast for each of the four craft. These waypoints are fifty nautical miles apart from each other, indicating that each of the four T38 craft will have an ISR mission of fifty nautical miles to cover.
  • Two T38-MCM craft are launched from the third LUSV. The autonomous mission previously downloaded has them transit independently along different routes to two independent waypoints just offshore of the suspected mine presence area where they will commence mine-like object detection operations.
  • In this manner, each of the six craft will transit independently and autonomously to their next waypoint which will be their mission execution starting point.
  • Transit from the LUSV launch point, depending on route, will be about two hundred and fifty to three hundred nautical miles to their near-shore waypoints. Transit will be at seventy to eighty knots to their mission start waypoint near the coast. Transit time is between four and five hours.
  • The plan is for each of the T38-ISR craft to complete their ISR scan in four to five hours each and for the two T38-MCM craft to jointly scan the bottom and the water column for the presence of mine-like objects in four to five hours at a scan speed of six to eight knots.

The MANTAS and Devil Ray craft transit to the objective area and conduct their ISR and MCM missions. The timeline for the entire mission is as follows:

  • LUSV detach strike group to T38 launch point and launch six T38: – 10-12 hours.
  • T38 transit from launch point to mission ISR/MCM start waypoints: – 4-5 hours.
  • ISR Mission and MCM mission time from start to complete: – 4-5 hours.
  • T38 transit from mission completion point back to LUSV for recovery: – 4-5 hours.
  • LUSV recover T38s and return to strike group formation – 10-12 hours.

Even with the ESG five hundred nautical miles from shore, the strike group commander has the results of the ISR and MCM scan of the shoreline littoral area within approximately twenty-four hours after the departure of the LUSVs from the strike group. 

A Bright Future for Uncrewed Surface Vessels

This is not a platform-specific solution, but rather a concept. When Navy operators see a capability with different size uncrewed COTS platforms in the water successfully performing the missions presented in this article, they will likely press industry to produce even more-capable platforms to perform these tasks. This, in turn, will enable the Navy to field a capable Hybrid Fleet that will be the Navy’s Future Force.

While evolutionary in nature, this disruptive capability delivered using emerging technologies can provide the U.S. Navy with near-term solutions to vexing operational challenges, while demonstrating to a skeptical Congress that the Navy does have a concept-of-operations for the uncrewed systems it wants to procure. 

Captain George Galdorisi (U.S. Navy – retired) is a career naval aviator and national security professional. During his 30-year career he had four tours in command and served as a carrier strike group chief of staff for five years. Additionally, he led the U.S. delegation for military-to-military talks with the Chinese Navy. He is the Emeritus Director of Strategic Assessments and Technical Futures at the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific. He is the author of seventeen books, including four New York Times bestsellers. His most recent novel, Fire and Ice, was eerily prescient as it foresaw Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Featured Image: T38 Devil Ray USV (Martac photo)

Readiness

Optimizing Reactor Plant Maintenance: The Case for Shipboard SLMs

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By LT P.J. Greenbaum and LT Vince Freschi

Introduction

Operational availability is the Nuclear Navy’s bread and butter, yet shipboard technicians are currently prevented from improving maintenance outcomes by an archaic data bottleneck.  Scheduled maintenance to prevent system degradation or failure is planned years in advance and kept up-to-date utilizing detailed records boards which meticulously track maintenance completion.  When a system fails or is degraded, corrective maintenance often requires hours of reading, symptom elaboration, and troubleshooting, before a component can be repaired.  Fatigued watchstanders burn critical man-hours sifting through static technical libraries and disjointed databases to isolate casualty root causes – a complex, time consuming process akin to utilizing a card catalog to search tens of thousands of pages for a single sentence.      

Consider an MMN2 (Machinist’s Mate, Nuclear) conducting a troubleshoot and repair of a noisy coolant pump.  Currently, this Sailor must spend hours manually cross-referencing decades worth of material history logs with historical maintenance records, send manually-collected vibration analysis data off-ship for analysis by pricey contractors, and flip through multiple volumes of tech manuals, all to diagnose a possible problem that may or may not lie at the root cause of the issue. Generating a quality control package to repair the pump takes several hours, and generating the work authorizations and safety protocols (i.e. “tag-outs”) takes several more – all of which delays the time to repair for the pump, leaving critical propulsion plant components offline longer than needed. From the authors’ experience leading Sailors in the maintenance of nuclear systems, finding the right part alone can take hours, with many times a successful search becoming futile due to the part number turning obsolete.  This results in an asset unavailable for tasking, reducing the operational force posture.

The solution to this issue is to incorporate existing technology to equip Sailors with the tools necessary to keep ships in the fight.  Fortunately, the technology exists to provide locally hosted, air-gapped Small Language Models (SLMs) to enhance the nuclear propulsion plant troubleshooting process.  By implementing a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) framework, Naval Reactors can transform its massive repositories of procedures, technical manuals, and material history into a live, up-to-date database of Reliable External Knowledge (REK).  This approach will reduce manhours required for fault investigation, improve the accuracy of system troubleshooting, and result in reduced downtime for propulsion plant components.

The Structure: Coupling Small-Language Models with Retrieval Augmented Generation

Much attention has been garnered since the release of ChatGPT in late 2022 regarding the use cases for large language models (LLMs) – models that possess between 100 billion and 2 trillion parameters – which are able to digest large volumes of disaggregated data and generate human-like text in response.1  While extremely powerful in their ability to synthesize and process loosely structured datasets, these machines require a high bandwidth connection to an off-ship data center – a non-starter for warships that frequently operate at EMCON in signal-denied environments.  Even the Department of War’s release of GenAI.mil – a well-intentioned attempt at bringing generative AI capabilities directly to the warfighter – has limited applicability on a warship, where bandwidth and EMCON restrictions prevent its widespread use.  Furthermore, LLMs can also be prone to “hallucinating” – irrelevant, incorrect, or misleading responses to queries – with potentially catastrophic consequences in a nuclear propulsion plant.2

The development and refinement of small language models (SLMs) possessing orders of magnitude fewer parameters (1 billion to 10 billion), however, allows for highly specialized, localized air-gapped models, capable of running on a single, high-functioning workstation – like a high-performance gaming laptop – which would be perfect for a rugged shipboard environment.3 These small-parameter SLMs would be most effective when coupled with a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) framework.4  This architecture replaces the model’s reliance on static, pre-trained memory with a dynamic system.5  By utilizing a local vector database to index every page of the ship’s electronic technical manuals – Reactor Plant Manuals (RPMs), Steam Plant Manuals (SPMs), machine-specific technical manuals, maintenance logs, and material history entries – the SLM no longer has to recall every answer from its training.  All it has to do is find the answer within the verified, pre-uploaded documentation.  RAG will enable it to return responses on the semantic meaning of queries and not the word-by-word match currently available with a “CTRL+F” search.  This shift ensures that even a “small” 10 billion parameter model could deliver hull-specific, nuclear-grade technical guidance with a level of accuracy that matches or even exceeds its larger, data center-bound counterparts, all without the danger of hallucinations.6 

The Nuclear Reliable External Knowledge Database

Key to the development of the vector database will be compiling and maintaining – with proper version control – a database of reliable external knowledge (REK) that the SLM can draw from when responding to Sailor queries.  The widespread use of interactive electronic technical manuals (IETMs) like the Reactor Plant Manual and Steam Plant Manual onboard nuclear powered naval vessels simplifies the process of indexing the Nuclear Navy’s relevant data into a machine-readable format, but a machine which sees and understands procedural context – via the IETMs – without a thorough understanding of the system design bases – present in component technical manuals and procedural front-matter – runs the risk of providing inaccurate and incomplete recommendations.  Therefore, in addition to the IETMs, legacy manuals for all propulsion plant components – like pumps and valves – as well as procedural guidelines – like the Joint Force Maintenance Manual (JFMM), the Radiological Controls for Ships, and the propulsion plant preventative maintenance system (PMS) – must be included in the REK database as well, allowing SLM recommendations to be pre-filtered through Nuclear Navy maintenance rules and regulations prior to arrival at the technician. 

But the REK database cannot be static; it must be periodically updated to incorporate the latest feedback reports, Naval Reactors technical bulletins, and CASREPs , ensuring that the SLM maintains current  hull and platform specific information.  A monthly maintenance check, accomplished by uploading a “refresh” library – centrally created and made available via the Naval Reactors local area network – would allow for periodic updates in all but the strictest EMCON conditions.  A critical advantage of incorporating fleet‑wide data is that equipment casualties encountered on one hull are often repeat iterations of known failure modes across other ships‑in‑class. By enabling Sailors to leverage prior diagnoses and corrective actions on sister platforms, the system reduces redundant troubleshooting, supports failure‑rate trending, and ultimately shortens equipment downtime.

Onboard the modern Ford-class engineering plant, the pre-existing automation and smart sensors open the doors to even more AI applications.  Integrating the SLM with data log sets, vibrational analysis data, and material history, would allow the plant to be not only monitored through the eyes of its highly trained nuclear operators, but also through AI powered by the latest Silicon Valley advances.  Coupling the SLM with Eulerian Video Magnification and installing fixed cameras on vital pumps and turbines would allow for early detection of failure on a minute-by-minute basis. The efficacy of preventative maintenance can be audited based on failure frequency and down time, empowering Sailors to continuously preserve the plant in the most efficient manner possible.

The Use Case

Consider once again the MMN2 from the introduction and the noisy reactor coolant pump.  With a shipboard SLM co-pilot, the MMN2 could input the symptoms seen in a natural language prompt, accompanied by the equipment logs that preceded the failure along with the vibration data analysis for the pump.  After a few seconds of “thinking,” the SLM would utilize its RAG framework to instantly pull the relevant drawings, scrape the log data for trends, and analyze the vibration data for potential failure mechanisms.  But utilizing its live-updated REK library, the SLM could also flag CASREPs from other ships-in-class which noted similar failure modes.  After a few more seconds, a quality assurance package could be generated in the ship-specific format, complete with all tools, parts, and materials required, required isolations for the work to be conducted, a step-by-step procedure for repair drawn from the relevant tech manual.  But perhaps most importantly, each reference the SLM pulls its material from can be displayed on an adjacent window, with the MMN2 checking the SLMs recommendations each cited tech manual. 

The Way Forward

The first step in deploying a shipboard RAG-equipped SLM at-scale must be accelerating the conversion of legacy technical manuals and drawings into machine-readable formats suitable for the creation of a vector database.  Once all relevant technical publications, procedures, and best-practices have been compiled into a singular database (no small feat considering the Navy’s notorious compartmentalization), the data must be “chunked” into smaller sub-sections and embedded into a high-dimensional (due to computing restrictions, likely in the low hundreds of dimensions) numerical vector for retrieval by the model.  Ensuring the model remains free of “data poisoning” – the injection of corrupted or incorrect data into a model’s training – will require a centralized organization, like Naval Reactors, to manage the training and development of the vector database.  For optimal utility, shipboard technicians must be able to add data – like material history entries – into the vector database, although care must be taken to ensure that the model does not incorporate this potentially flawed shipboard data into its training phase.  Fortunately, the recent establishment of the Propulsion Plant Local Area Network (PPLAN) technician school provides an avenue to train designated technicians on the procedures required to maintain the REK database.  Designating these Sailors with a Naval Enlisted Classification (NEC) and designating those NECs as “critical” for billet-based distribution would ensure that ships have the requisite knowledge to always support their shipboard AI nodes onboard.

Next, the Navy must define the technical hardware specifications for a “Shipboard AI Node” that meets MIL-SPEC requirements for shock, vibration, and EMCON security.  The Navy must prioritize maximizing video random access memory (VRAM) to maximize the processing power (the “intelligence”) of the SLM.  Utilizing a laptop client already approved to handle classified information would save time and speed delivery of the system to the fleet.

Once the software and client have been paired together, the Nuclear Navy can utilize its already-existing training pipeline to begin integrating the system into maintenance and troubleshooting workflows.  The Nuclear Power Training Units in Charleston, South Carolina and Ballston Spa, New York function as the perfect “proving ground” for the SLM in a fleet-like scenario.  Treating the prototype rollout as a dynamic test – experimenting with model size, tokenization, chunking, and retrieval methods – would improve model performance and validate system functionality prior to fleet-wide deployment. 

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, Naval Reactors must establish a “Human-in-the-Loop” certification framework, ensuring that AI-assisted troubleshooting remains an advisory tool that works within the rigorous standards of the Nuclear Navy.  Just as the SWO community still teaches its navigators paper charting at SURFNAV, despite the existence of well-proven Voyage Management Systems (VMS), the Nuclear Navy must work to ensure that any AI troubleshooting co-pilot utilized by its Sailors enhances their understanding of integrated plant operations, not replaces it.  While some may argue that using such a co-pilot bypasses the deep-dive traditionally required to build system-wide expertise, a shipboard SLM acts as a learning accelerant, not as a crutch.  By removing manual document searches, the tool allows technicians to spend more time synthesizing plant information and conducting high-level analysis – tasks that truly build systemic understanding – as opposed to spending hours searching through manuals for the “NIIN in a haystack.”  When integrated into a “Human-in-the-Loop” framework, this technology ensures that a Sailor’s learning is grounded in the most accurate, cited technical data available.  The stakes in nuclear reactor plant operations are simply too high to outsource critical thinking.  This technology must be viewed as a force multiplier that sharpens a nuclear technician’s judgment and reinforces the culture of procedural compliance that defines the program.

Conclusion

The integration of SLMs equipped with RAG architecture into the nuclear propulsion environment represents a significant upgrade to the maintenance capabilities of the individual nuclear operators.  Incorporating AI into the shipboard troubleshooting and maintenance workflow is a fundamental shift designed to reduce equipment downtimes.  In a future conflict characterized by denied communications and long stints at sea, a ship’s ability to remain self-sufficient – by diagnosing and repairing its primary propulsion and electrical generation capacity without racing back to stateside contractors – could mean the difference between sustained operability and taking a capital ship out of the fight.  Ultimately, the goal is clear: a propulsion plant where easily accessible, machine-readable data works as hard as the Sailor.  The technology exists already; the Nuclear Navy’s leadership must just deploy it.  By embracing SLMs and RAG architecture, the Navy’s most valuable and complex nuclear assets will remain mission-ready, even in the most contested environments. 

LT Vincenzo Freschi was born in Olbia, Italy, to an American Navy Officer and an Italian chef, where he enjoyed life in the countryside with his Border Collies until he attended Penn State University. There he earned a degree in Nuclear Engineering with a minor in Military Studies, and commissioned as a Naval Officer in 2020. Following commissioning, he served aboard the USS Stockdale (DDG-106). In 2023 he completed the Navy Nuclear Power School and Prototype training pipelines before reporting to the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), the world’s largest aircraft carrier, where he worked as the RE DIVO. Now he serves as an NROTC instructor at Carnegie Mellon University while pursuing a master’s degree in Artificial Intelligence.

LT Paul (P.J.) Greenbaum grew up in Boiling Springs Pennsylvania and attended Princeton University on an NROTC scholarship, where he studied international relations, public policy, and African studies.  He commissioned and pursued a follow-on Master’s degree at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China as a Schwarzman Scholar, where he studied international relations and Chinese language.  He served onboard the USS Benfold (DDG-65) homeported in Yokosuka, Japan as the Electronic Warfare Officer, and he completed his follow-on nuclear propulsion training in Charleston, South Carolina.  He reported to the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) in October 2023 and served for two years as the Reactor Mechanical division officer.  He currently serves as an NROTC instructor at the University of California, Berkeley while pursuing a degree in nuclear engineering.

References

  1. “A Comprehensive Survey of Small Language Models in the Era of Large Language Models: Techniques, Enhancements, Applications, Collaboration with LLMs, and Trustworthiness | ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology.” Accessed December 21, 2025. https://dl.acm.org/doi/full/10.1145/3768165.
  1. Agrawal, Prof. Pallavi. “Running LLMs Locally on Consumer Devices.” International Journal for Research in Applied Science and Engineering Technology 13, no. 4 (2025): 5433–41. https://doi.org/10.22214/ijraset.2025.69433.
  1. Kandala, Savitha Viswanadh, Pramuka Medaranga, and Ambuj Varshney. “TinyLLM: A Framework for Training and Deploying Language Models at the Edge Computers.” arXiv:2412.15304. Preprint, arXiv, December 19, 2024. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2412.15304.
  1. Lewis, Patrick, Ethan Perez, Aleksandra Piktus, et al. “Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Knowledge-Intensive NLP Tasks.” arXiv:2005.11401. Preprint, arXiv, April 12, 2021. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2005.11401.
  1. Ruiz, Daniel C., and John Sell. “Fine-Tuning and Evaluating Open-Source Large Language Models for the Army Domain.” arXiv:2410.20297. Preprint, arXiv, October 27, 2024. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2410.20297.
  1. Shuster, Kurt, Spencer Poff, Moya Chen, Douwe Kiela, and Jason Weston. “Retrieval Augmentation Reduces Hallucination in Conversation.” arXiv:2104.07567. Preprint, arXiv, April 15, 2021. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2104.07567.

Featured Image: Sailors make repairs aboard the destroyer USS Halsey in the Arabian Sea in 2021. (U.S. Navy photo)

History

Pitfalls in Political Warship Designs

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By Steve Wills

“When leaders design warships the results are often mixed.”

Leaders throughout history, going back at least to the Egyptian pharaoh Hatshepsut, have commissioned the building of great fleets for national security purposes. Henry 8th and Elizabeth 1 created fleets for the defense of England. George Washington authorized the first Continental navy units, and Abraham Lincoln spearheaded the acceptance of armored warships for the United States navy to help defeat Confederate ironclads like CSS Virginia. Teddy Roosevelt was a fan of larger and larger battleships, and he dispatched the Great White Fleet on its global deterrence mission. More recently, President Franklin Roosevelt began the rebuilding of the U.S. navy ahead of World War 2, and President Ronald Reagan’s 600 ship navy in the 1980’s helped to deter conflict with the Soviet Union and bring the Cold War to a close. On the other hand, rulers personally designing their nation’s warships have seen mixed outcomes. Swedish King Gustavus Adophus’ decision to add additional armament to the ship of the line Vasa arguably contributed to that ship’s accidental sinking on its maiden voyage in 1628. The German Kaiser Wilhelm II was an enthusiastic navalist, but his individual ship designs, often at odds with the laws of physics, were the bane of his naval chief Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. Joseph Stalin was very much a landsman but delighted in suggesting design elements for the Soviet navy’s Stalingrad class battlecruisers that were hated by Soviet naval leadership. Even Great Britain’s Lord Louis Mountbatten’s attempts to design a warship, in his case a gigantic aircraft carrier made of ice, met with less than ideal results.

History suggests that leaders should direct the missions and construction program for fleets but save the concepts and designs of individual warships to their navies.

“Next to God the navy is the most important for the success of the country.”

Swedish King Gustavus Aldophus was a revolutionary monarch who greatly expanded the scope and power of the Swedish kingdom over his twenty-plus year reign. He greatly improved his nation’s military and political organization and was one of the military leaders most admired by Napoleon for his campaigns in the bloodbath of the European Thirty Years War, a conflict that ultimately took his life in 1632.

Among his many skills, Gustavus Adolphus was a believer in the power of mobile, effective artillery as a battle-winning tool. The Swedish Navy he inherited featured mostly medium-sized and smaller warships that often relied on the boarding and capture of opponent naval vessels with guns being secondary to combat efforts. The Swedish King however needed to keep open supply lines across the Baltic Sea in order to preserve communication throughout his kingdom and demanded a larger and more capable class of warships to support that mission. That meant a modern warship with standardized cannon mounted on at least two gundecks in order to deliver reliable firepower. The King personally chose the twenty-four pound Swedish army demi-gun developed as a lightweight, mobile weapon for sieges as Vasa’s primary armament.

Vasa had begun construction in 1626, but there had been delays in fitting her armament of over fifty and ultimately sixty four guns, of which the bulk were the 24 pound weapons. Gustavus Adolphus was angry at the delays in the outfitting of his new vessel to the point where he sent one of his personal artillery masters Erik Jonnson back from the battlefields of Poland to get the Vasa’s armament fitting back on schedule. The King reportedly visited the ship in January 1628, but most of his exhortations in a steady stream of letters to the builder came from abroad, but all of them demanded that Vasa needed to go to sea immediately in support of protecting sea lines of communication in the Baltic.

Figure 1: Gustavus Adolpus’ Flawed Flagship Vasa, now raised and displayed in a Stockholm museum.

When Vasa was ready to embark on her first voyage in the spring of 1628, she was a dangerously unstable vessel, despite compromises in her armament. Gustavus Adolphus ordered seventy two of the 24 pound guns for the ship, and it was decided the ship would carry fifty six such weapons, but ultimately only forty eight of the weapons were mounted, but on the two full gun decks the King desired. Dutch naval architects that designed the ship had already opted for a relatively shallow hold for the ship that did not adequately support the weight of two gun decks above. The addition of the twenty-four pound weapons may have made the ship’s capsizing on her first voyage on 10 August 1628 inevitable. Gustavus Adolphus was furious at the loss of his prized ship, and immediately made plans to salvage her expensive, standardized artillery. He ordered a court to investigate the ship’s loss demanded, “In no uncertain terms that the guilty parties be punished.”

The Captain of Vasa Söfring Hansson, who survived the disaster, assured investigators that all was in order and that the crew was not intoxicated at the time of Vasa’s departure from Stockholm. Much of the blame was ultimately assigned to the Dutch naval architects who designed the hull. Gustavus Adophus once said, “Next to God the navy is the most important for the success of the country,” but he had signed off on all of the ship’s specifications. One of the builders suggested that only God knew the reason for the loss of the ship, but the King had hurried construction and demanded the heavier armament, and as one of the builders Hein Jacoksson stated before the inquiry court, “His Majesty had approved these measurements. The number of guns on board was also as specified in the contract.”

“Stag and Homunculus Dead”

German Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz’s attempts to build a powerful German fleet in the first decade of the 20th century were both aided and hobbled by the enthusiasm of Germany’s ruler Kaiser Wilhelm II. The Kaiser was an enthusiastic navalist and often appeared in the uniforms of not only his own navy, but also those for which he was but an “honorary” flag officer. Unfortunately for Tirpitz, the Kaiser not only advocated for his navy, but also wanted a hand in the design of individual ships. Responding to a report that stated that longer-range naval gunnery was making the mission of torpedo boats more challenging, the Kaiser designed his own high speed, heavily armored “torpedo battleship.” Such suggestions were common from the ruler and Tirpitz noted in his memoirs that his team set to work to assess “the impossible,” noting that the Kaiser’s design was unworkable as the ship’s vast torpedo armament (all tubes were underwater,) combined with heavy armor left no space for required engineering space.

Tirpitz’s team nicknamed the unfortunate creation “the Homunculus.” The admiral journeyed to the Kaiser’s hunting lodge where the ruler was on yet another vacation and presented the facts to his leader. Wilhelm gracefully decamped from his naval designer role for the moment, and Tirpitz breathed a sigh of relief. Afterward he was invited to join the Kaiser’s hunting expedition. He later reported to his staff, “stag and Homunculus dead.” So ended that particular imperial effort at warship design.

“You possibly do not know what you need,” which means battleships!

Joseph Stalin was not much of a “navalist” until later in his rule of the Soviet Union, but when he did so, it was with the same, single-minded, ruthless determination with which he pursued other endeavors. Stalin ordered a large, ocean-going fleet in the late 1930’s that was in general a balanced fleet of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers. Salin’s reasoning for building this first ocean-going fleet remain obscure, but “Under Stalin’s direct inspiration and involvement, plans for creating a huge ocean-going navy—bolshoi okeanskii flot—took shape,” and continued even into the beginning of World War 2. The dire necessity to repel invading German forces from the Motherland commanded that Soviet resources be used elsewhere rather than in an ocean-going battleship navy. Once the war ended, however, Stalin resumed his push for a large, ocean-going battleship fleet, even when he senior naval leaders preferred to build aircraft carriers as the new 20th century capital ship. Stalin became personally involved in the primary, postwar capital ship design, labeled the Stalingrad class battlecruiser. Stalin specifically demanded high speed for the class, and an armament of nine twelve inch guns to ensure the Stalingrad’s could outrange any British or American cruiser guns. Soviet admirals who got in his way suffered his wrath and the Soviet leader dismissed Fleet Admiral Kuznetsov in early January 1947 for such opposition.

Upon Stalin’s death in 1953 the Stalingrad’s were almost immediately cancelled by his successor Nikita Krushchev. The incomplete hull of Stalingrad was launched; used as a floating target for anti-ship missiles, it was scrapped around 1962. Stalin’s naval leaders had pleaded with the dictator even before World War 2 for more submarines and smaller warships, especially in the confined waters of the Black Sea. Stalin was a man of few words and famously replied to his admirals in 1936, “you possibly do not know what you need,” which for many historians suggests Stalin was fully in support of big-gunned warships above all others.

“To hell with Habakkuk!”

Finally, there was the case of Lord Louis Mountbatten’s Habakkuk pykrete aircraft carrier. Mountbatten had been a Royal Navy signals expert before World War 2 and liked to tinker with naval technology. He persuaded British wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill to take an interest in a giant, 2000 foot long super carrier made of an ice and wood pulp combination known as pykrete. Mountbatten dramatically presented the power of pykrete to Churchill and other senior leaders at the 1943 Quebec Conference. Two blocks of material, one of normal ice and one of the pykrete mixture were wheeled into the conference room. Mountbatten dramatically removed a pistol from his jacket and proposed to demonstrate the armor like properties of pykrete. He first fired a shot into the ice block which immediately shattered. His second shot at the pykrete bounced off the target, and ricocheted around the room, almost hitting U.S. Admiral Ernie King or British Field Marshal Alan Brooke (the accounts of the incident vary.) It was not an auspicious start to the project, and it was later cancelled as the introduction of much smaller and numerous escort carriers solved the problem of lack of airpower in Arctic seas. A small test ship 1/50 the size of the giant carrier was built and operated on a lake in Canada with some success over the winter but melted and sank with the spring thaw.

Field Marshall Lord Alan Brooke perhaps best summed up the challenges of Mountbatten’s ice carrier when he told the admiral at the Quebec conference, “To Hell with Habakkuk! We are about to have the most difficult time with our American friends and shall not have time for your ice carriers.” As it turned out, there was thankfully no time or funding for this particular fantasy fleet.

“I’m Not Into this Detail Stuff, I’m More Concepty”

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is perhaps best known for his attempts to “transform” the military to meet new and unconventional threats such as seen on 9/11 and other cases in the last twenty five years. These extended to the Navy as well and have sadly come to be represented by the very truncated DDG-1000 (now Zumwalt class destroyer, and the littoral combat ship LCS.) Rumsfeld had been a naval reservist aviator, and had as he said in his memoir, “a healthy respect for the men and women in unform,” but that, “my role as Secretary of Defense was different.” This involved high level leadership and not a focus on details unless immediately the task at hand. Rumsfeld could be very detail-oriented, as he proved when ordering the cancellation of the troubled Army 155mm mobile artillery Crusader vehicle in May 2002.

This detail focus did not extend to the Navy’s DDG-1000 and Littoral Combat Ship programs that evoked well Rumsfeld’s desire to transform the military into a lighter and more agile institution. Both vessels packed excessive amounts of “transformational” equipment, and organizational change into just one generational change in warship. Both types had many new, and as it turned out immature equipment, that began to fail operational testing and other measures of effectiveness. These repeated test failures in propulsion and combat systems, as well as within the vital LCS mission packages excessively delayed both programs which in turn dramatically raised their costs. In effect, each of these programs overloaded the already byzantine defense acquisition and test and evaluation system, but repeated systemic delays that made both ship types, especially the DDG-1000, unaffordable as designed.

Mr. Rumsfeld had left office when these problems became more glaringly apparent, and while he was not directly responsible, and was buys engaged in the “War on Terror,” and later invasion of Afghanistan, but he or his immediate subordinates should have perhaps checked back more on the progress of these transformational efforts. In a 2002 Washington Post on operations in Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 attacks that included his recollections of detailed plans for attacks on terrorists there, Rumsfeld stated, “I’m not into this detail stuff. I’m more Concepty.” Perhaps in the case of LCS and DDG-1000’s immature Rumsfeld should have been more engaged in the details.

“All I can say is what the girl said when she put her foot in the stocking. It strikes me there’s something in it”

One of the few political leaders who were perhaps responsible for a questionable, and certainly “transformative” but later successful warship design was Abraham Lincoln. The President had heard of the construction of a rebel “monster ship” from the burned remains of the scuttled frigate USS Merrimac in Norfolk, Va, and authorized an immediate response, stating, “”one or more ironclad steamers or floating batteries, and to select a proper and competent board to inquire into and report in regard to a measure so important.” Swedish-born designer John Ericsson planned to submit the revolutionary Monitor design to this U.S. Navy board Lincoln authorized, but the Navy was not fan of the hot-headed Swedish innovator, who had designed a revolutionary screw propellor for the USS Princeton, but was blamed for the disastrous explosions of one of the ship’s guns on trials. Despite his unpopularity, Ericsson persisted in sending his design to the Ironclad board. While Navy officers were dismissive, President Lincoln was intrigued by the design and Monitor was included in the trio of ironclad warships authorized by Congress from a field of seventeen overall entries. Monitor was essentially built by a startup company with dozens of new patents, but was completed before the others and enroute to Hampton Rhodes when CSS Virginia’s 8 March 1862 massacre of Union wooden ships Cumberland and Congress.

Fearing the ex-Merrimac/CSS Virginia might attack Washington DC from the Potomac River, in the wake of the Hampton Roads disaster, some of Lincoln’s cabinet feared the worst, but of course Monitor arrived on time and in an indecisive battle on 9 March 1862 prevented the Confederate ironclad from damaging or destroying other wooden ships. Lincoln toured the Hampton Roads area after the battle, and even inspected Monitor in person, and received briefings from her officers on the battle with the Virginia. While Lincoln played a key role in getting the revolutionary USS Monitor constructed and was a fan of the turreted vessels throughout the war, he was not deep in the details of its construction. When seeing the ship’s design, however he did remark, “All I can say is what the girl said when she put her foot in the stocking. It strikes me there’s something in it” Like Rumsfeld, Lincoln was later too busy fighting a war to really get into the design of successor monitors, notably the failed Casco class shallow draft monitors, that like LCS 140 years later tried to accomplish too many transformational changes (shallow draft, armored turret, better speed,) in a limited hull form.

In retrospect, even the most resolute navalist leader should be advised from advocating for specific types of ships and should never descend into the details of their construction unless perhaps scholastically trained to do so, and in the part of being a good manager. Gustavus Adolphus was a land forces commander who got carried away with loading artillery onto Vasa’s already unstable hull. Kaiser Wilhem fancied himself an expert in everything but was at least willing to give way on some of his more outrageous naval designs. Joseph Stalin’s naval motives remain unclear, but he was always in favor of bigger as better, regardless of cost. Admiral Mountbatten was a visionary in many fields, but his Habakkuk giant carrier was probably an expensive bridge too far, and it was logically discarded. Donald Rumsfeld had a clear concept of transforming the military for new threats but never transformed the acquisition and test and evaluation system to support his vision or checked back enough to evaluate the initial fruits of his call to action.

Abraham Lincoln perhaps best represents how senior leaders can enable dramatic naval advances without getting too deep in the details. Lincoln also followed through in checking up on the first of the class in monitor vessels, something that modern presidents and Navy Secretaries might do as well. President Trump’s Great Golden Fleet of guided missile battleships and other ships may yet sail but his administration should likely leave the details to the Navy to work through, in spite of the service’s mixed record of warship design over the past two decades. History suggests leaders should save their exhortations for missions and not design minutia. These leaders should however check back frequently on the progress of their visions as they take form in steel, weapons and the people that crew them.

This maxim would certainly apply to the navy’s new frigate. In the years after his retirement, World War 2 admiral Raymond Spruance was having a routine checkup in a California-area medical center when he encountered an infirm woman in the waiting room with him. Spruance, who never minced words looked the woman over critically and said, “You’ve had a stroke, haven’t you?” The woman angrily replied, “I’ve had two strokes.” Spruance, who was not know for humor replied, “Three strokes and you’re out.” Like the woman in Spruance’s waiting room, the United States has now has two strikes/strokes on building a small surface combatant (LCS and the cancelled Constellation class frigate program.) Each might have been saved had leaders better monitored their progress. Exhortations for new ship concepts can pay dividends, but deep dives into details perhaps limits the leader’s ability to step back and logically evaluate the ship’s potential for success or failure. As President Ronald Reagan famously stated, “Trust but verify,” a maxim for checking shipbuilding as well as Soviets.

Dr. Steven Wills currently serves as a Navalist for the Center for Maritime Strategy at the Navy League of the United States. He is an expert in U.S. Navy strategy and policy and U.S. Navy surface warfare programs and platforms. After retiring from the Navy in 2010, he completed a master’s and a Ph.D. in History with a concentration on Military History at Ohio University, graduating in 2017. He is the author of Strategy Shelved: The Collapse of Cold War Naval Strategic Planning, published by Naval Institute Press in July 2021 and, with former Navy Secretary John Lehman, Where are the Carriers? U.S. National Strategy and the Choices Ahead, published by Foreign Policy Research Institute in August 2021. Wills also holds a master’s in National Security Studies from the U.S. Naval War College and a bachelor’s in History from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

Featured Image: Retired Captain Dudley W. Knox presents President Franklin D. Roosevelt with the final volume of an edited collection official naval records relating to U.S. Navy strategy and operations during the undeclared War with France between 1798 and 1801. Cimsec.org

Fostering the Discussion on Securing the Seas.