Is the Age of the Big Navy Warship Over?

Ever since the Falkland Islands War and the sinking of the Royal Navy’s HMS Sheffield Type 42 destroyer in 1982, the world has been asking whether or not capital ships were going to be survivable in future naval warfare.

Four decades later, in April 2022, when the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s flagship, the Moskva, was sunk, the question seems more relevant than ever.

The Sheffield was sunk by an air-launched version of the French Exocet anti-ship missile (ASM), which was an effective weapon but not the deadliest missile of its type at the time.

The RK-360MC Neptune ASM that hit the Moskva was a homegrown Ukraine design developed before the Russian invasion.

The world today has several orders of magnitude more ASMs in arsenals.

The “big three” of the producers of this type of weapon – the US, Russia, and increasingly the PRC – have not fired these weapons in wartime themselves.

This leads to predictions that surface ships are outmoded and will be nothing but targets in any significant naval engagements in the future.

It also causes others to assert that the aircraft carrier itself is vulnerable to the point that the entire concept of a carrier task force needs to be rethought.

One proposed solution is that the world needs more significant numbers of smaller aircraft carriers for naval aviation missions to disperse aviation assets across several hulls.

Warships Obsolete? ‘This is the Business We’ve Chosen’

Like the famous movie line, the reality is that the ASM is now and will remain a feature of modern naval operations.

What gives some pause is that the threat posed by missiles to naval vessels has evolved to a point where severe countermeasures are constantly being developed.

The most serious concern is that Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles (ASCMs) have proliferated to multiple global spots.

As the recent operations by the US Navy in the Middle East have demonstrated, there are now non-state actors like the Houthi rebels and Hezbollah that are equipped with previous-generation ASMs like the Chinese-made CASIC C-801 and C-802 models (or an Iranian copy of these) as well as, supersonic designs like the Russian Yakhont.

(The famous Indian-Russian joint project, the Brahmos, is a derivative of this Russian design.)

The ASCMs have recently joined with anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs), such as the Chinese DF-21D, DF-26, and YJ-21.

Missiles like the DF-21D are reportedly capable of operating at ranges of up to 2000 km.

They are advertised as carrying payloads that can inflict a “mission kill,” rendering an aircraft carrier non-combat operational or sinking it altogether.

Current-generation anti-missile systems designed to protect capital ships may not be effective against them.

A Missile Shot is Not Always a Kill

There is no question that the many new ASMs on the horizon – including hypersonic designs as well – are a new wrinkle in the world of naval combat planners.

A former senior US flag-rank theatre commander speaking to me pointed out that the space in which a good deal of this anxiety is expressed is the Pacific theatre, where it is assumed there will be a major conflict with the PRC.

“What goes unspoken about this theatre is it is all about kill chains – this is what the development of many of our advanced systems that are still in development are all about,” he explained.

“These are theatres with long distances and the US and its allies are adapting in developing more modern platforms that deal with these challenges, so it is mistake to assume that our approach to combat in the Pacific remains static.

Other experts that we spoke to told us that one should not forget that the US and its allies’ technological advantages still matter.  The PLAN can build more ships than the US, said one retired intelligence officer.

“But their capability with the data linkages and communications that you see in a modern US naval vessels CIC room is what will make a major difference should there be a need for armed conflict in this region.”

About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson

Reuben F. Johnson is a survivor of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and is now an Expert on Foreign Military Affairs with the Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego in Warsaw. He has been a consultant to the Pentagon, several NATO governments and the Australian government in the fields of defense technology and weapon systems design.  Over the past 30 years he has resided in and reported from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, the People’s Republic of China and Australia.