The first iteration of future naval warfare will be a continuation of current trends and procurements, extension of current capabilities and expansion of the fleet along current conventional naval force structure and infrastructure. We can consider this as "the day after tomorrow."
This first iteration will begin the integration of all arms and services into a combined operations scheme commanded by a theater commander; a flag officer whether general or admiral, who has cross-interservice experience and ideally has as a junior officer, crossed from one service to another or as a senior or flag officer has been an observor at exercises and operations of another service.
The fleet will have increased to 12 supercarriers, 14 amphibious assault carriers in whatever configuration, (LPD, LHD, etc), an increase of from 4 to 8 submarines, increase of from 2 to 5 littoral warfare ships (with increased lethality and survivability), an increase of 5 destroyers, recommissioning of 3 to 5 cruisers and recommissioning of 12 to 15 frigates and an increase of 8 to 12 support vessels.
In a conflict, the theater commander will oversee a combined arms, combined service operation. The Navy will not function independently. Rather, Air Force and space assets will provide surveillance, targeting, damage assessment and communications, Army and Marine units on the ground will occupy forward areas to provide artillery and missile support, help protect shore facilities and coastlines and target nearby ships and vessels with artillery and missiles while also providing air defense. Air Force assets will provide ground and air surveillance, communications and air control and support deconfliction and attack naval targets while maintaining its traditional role.
Functional commands will include space assets, cybernetic forces, psy/PR/media/social media operations, Special Operations Command (including SEALS, Air Force, Army, Marines) and logistics and Coast Guard.
The conflict will not only be highly congested and highly conflicted, it will also be highly violent. Satellites will provide not only C4ISR, but will also station kinetic energy weapons, possibly as low technology as a 5 meter rod of tungsten steel wrapped in space shuttle heat shielding. The use of the rod upon a target will release energy perhaps as great as that of a Hiroshima bomb.
Special Forces will penetrate far inland to identify, target and assess battle damage against selected targets and may conduct raids, elimination of select leadership or facilities, or neutralization of command centers, logistics nodes (electrical generation, refineries, mines, railroads, roads, bridges, dams, TV and radio stations) and support elements and energy grids.
Kinetic energy weapons will also target cybernetic warfare centers, channels and nodes while cyberforces may affect public media (internet, radio and TV) providing real world or psy op viewpoints of the conflict.
Procurement of truly modular LCS craft will increase. Procurement and training and development of tactics of "Ghost" craft will also begin.
The first iteration will freeze procurement of surface ships larger than destroyer size and begin the procurement of drones and training of swarming tactics and training of all arms, all services integration and drone warfare and training plus the training of an extended and expanded psy op command.
The Second Iteration
The second iteration will see a fleet with no surface ships larger than destroyers other than perhaps 2 to 4 supercarriers, 3 to 5 amphibious assault carriers and 3 to 5 cruisers. Support vessels and diaster relief vessels will number as determined by the national command authority and will be sized and configured as necessary to support their relief and support missions.
Destroyer and frigate sized vessels will begin the transition to drone command and control platforms while continuing some of their current combat capabilities. New classes of destroyers and frigates will begin entering the fleet with a mission of drone command and control and will number approximately 10 to 15 with another 8 to 12 destroyers and frigates in conventional roles and mission configurations and 12 to 20 destroyers and/or frigates in a role of missile platforms.
Littoral combat vessels may number up to 40 and be truly modular with multi-mission roles, with swapouts of modular mission packages shortening to no more than 12 hours. LCS vessels may see a further role of evacuation, insertion of special forces, support of landing operations, disaster relief, logistics support, missile platforms, drone command and control, drone transport and repair, drone munitions tenders, Coast Guard interdiction, fleet support, air defense et al. Newer LCS' will employ greater lethality, greater survivability and greater stealth.
"Ghost" craft will be integrated into the fleet and will number at least 50 with increasing procurement throughout the second iteration. "Ghost" craft will be useful in littoral combat roles, suppression of pirates and swarming tactics by enemy forces, interdiction and surveillance of enemy shipping.
Drones will begin to be refueled in flight by other drones and initiate the era of drone attacks in redundancy from many points of the compass. Air Force fighter drones will complement Naval fighter drones while Army ground support and attack drones support Air Force attack drones. Coast Guard drones will provide interdiction and defense while also providing communications and surveillance of facilities outside the theater of conflict.
The Army role of missile and artillery support will have expanded and Air Force, space, Army and Navy drones will provide targeting and battle assessment; both damage assessment and current battle assessment. Drones in the second iteration may have a multimission function, but these separate missions will be limited to no more than 3 to 5 roles per drone to limit size and cost and increase stealth, survivability and lethality. Drones will integrate various elements of autonomy depending upon the stage of evolution in which they came off the manufacturing train with later evolutions encompassing greater and greater autonomy.
Reducing the size and missions of each drone will increase the size of the manufacturing base of the basic drone body but security regimens surrounding stealth, communications, weapons and software may pose bottle necks in assembly and production if manufacturers cannot meet security requirements.
EMP stealth drones may enter at this iteration with the mission of penetrating enemy air space and generating EMP bursts over enemy facilities and targets. There will also be jamming stealth drones, communications interception stealth drones and mis/disinformation interjection stealth drones.
The submarine force may have increased by a further 2 to 8 boats with mission roles of attack, missile platforms, special forces platforms, mine layers and drone control and command. Submarine drones will include surveillance drones, communications interception, command and control, stealth mine drones and others as determined are necessary to meet fleet missions in the second iteration. Submarine drones will increase in number from the end of the first iteration of 10 to 20 to over 100 by the end of the second iteration.
Officers at all levels will have interservice experience and service with allied and friendly forces.
The battle space in the second iteration will, if anything, be more congested, more conflicted and more violent and may extend into other dimensions - public media, education, domestic infrastructure, quantum physics, alliances and public and world opinion. Electronic warfare drones will be essential to effective management and prosecution of the conflict and will include electronic warfare drones, electronic counter-warfare drones and electronic counter-counter warfare drones.
The Third Iteration
The fleet is nearly invisible and, in a sense, nearly non-existent as it consists of only 20 or so surface ships of frigate and destroyer size plus about 20 LCS'. A handful of the destroyer/frigates may be missile platforms while the remainder are assigned to the drone operations command. The submarine force has stabilized at about 90 platforms of which at least 20 are dedicated to drone operations. All surface ships and all drones employ a high degree of stealth.
Most missiles are now launched from stealth missile drones. Some Ghost craft are also missile platforms as well as several of the LCS'. Space drones launch kinetic weapons and manuver to target enemy space assets, as well as providing C4ISR to the national command authority.
The battle space consists of surface, submarine, air, ground and space and includes cyber command, space command, alliance management, public opinion management, quantum operations, logistics, infrastructure,
More To Come...
