The Battleship is obsolete. Yes, Concept of the warship in general is reaching point of functional irrelevance. Admirals entrenched in Bureaucracy refuse to address changes in contemporary warfare are stuck in the hierarchy role of tonnage/ship types. But the Rise in Drones & All Branches of the military adopting platforms for missiles that can be launched from trucks, coastal batteries, and Airplanes.
The Destroyer is only vessel large enough grant use in conventional navies because demand for missiles large enough equate ballistic missile defense.
Obsolete unless addresses changes to contemporary battlefields; Long live the frigate. Devoting large sophisticated ships with 250-350 crewmen for simple missions like drug countermeasures, sub screening, patrol and interdiction/search and rescue; is a tremendous waste of resources better reserved for Corvettes/Frigates.
And modifying a Barge or derrick to be an "Arsenal ship" carrying hundreds of missiles without incorporating warfare/defense electronics necessary systems it needs to function long term as a warship is dumb, more so outfitting a ship to function with all systems like a warship makes the barge no more/less expensive than building a warship.
Bureaucracy obssessed Navy admirals refuse address modernization of warfare, let alone conceptualization of new ideas that threaten their status quo. But Events in last 30 odd years have revealed glaring weakness contemporary full scale fighting forces at sea.
The future of Naval warfare is sketchy but predictable patterns emerge; but Fleets of ships in formation are incredibly risky idea. The Ukraine war revealed a nation with seemingly small or no real navy can fight against and defeat or deter Big navies. After sinking of the Moskva; Russia withdrew it's naval assets greater distance. Russia was forced attack Ukraine at standoff distances further away using expensive super-hyper sonic missiles which at prices greater than Tomahawk, Not easily replaced and their performace was sketchy with many being intercepted, failing or simply avoided.
"Stealth" ship concepts may fool radar, but they only work against surface horizon, The advent of aircraft with radar's aiming DOWN mitigates lot tactical design that compromise storage and practicality. they are still useful...but growing concern of Optical sensor technology means radar mitigating ship design. Hypersonic weapons may pose genuine threat, but they are still immature technology with questionable track records. And in Ukraine war, were being intercepted/shot down by weapons half their speed. Laser weapons are still fraudulent and dumb weapons, Namely their massive power consumption and accuracy in adverse weather combined with their slow burn times. Since retirement of last battleships; shore bombardment has become a deadlock issue US Navy worked on 30+ years with no definitive solutions, Just billions of dollars of weapons useless to soldiers ashore. Nuclear power for navies was pushed for infinite range, high power, but only BIG navies can afford them and their economies of scale did not emerge to address diminishing cost of operation. There is One reactor technology however that may counter this issue, thus allow Navies to adopt Low cost effective nuclear power plants with minimal labor/crew requirements for small ships to adopt near infinite range; more so acclimate to high power demands contemporary radar/sensor platforms need.
The Rise of the anti-ship missile has never been seriously addressed and navies foolishly believe a few CIWS guns can effectively defend a ship at sea. Navies may have to return to gunned platforms with human eyes and gunners that cannot be electronically fooled. A frigate needs something more akin 10+ .50 caliber machine guns, preferably high rates of fire. And possibly high caliber cannons.
Low cost naval strategy may not even involve ships for one participant. Australia, whose military is not bogged down by bureaucratic dogma, their Navy/air force flies F18s and successfully integrated German anti ship missiles. Flown from airbases as much as 100 miles inland, deploy their payloads and flee they don't even need ships. Taiwan has since acquired over 300 Harpoons. The entire 1982 Falkland's naval war revolved around both sides the employment of just five Exocet anti-ship missiles, which devastated the British fleet when fired from common jet aircraft. Many Argentine jets were later lost trying to drop dumb bombs on ships WWII Style. Had Argentina acquired 100 Exocets instead of buying a cruiser; they'd probably have won. USS Stark was attacked and almost sunk by merely 2 exocet missiles. What was assumed attack by fighters gaugee and based on intelligence reports was actually a modified private jet. A Boeing 777 can be modified into a bomber. Its internal fuselage can be modified with revolver racks to carry cruise missiles. With ranges over 7,000 nautical miles plane can take off from airbases or civilian runways hundreds miles inland, launch missiles with standoff ranges exceeding 500 miles. Unlike the military, civilian aviation upgrades its engines every few years, military planes are literally left in the dust in terms economy. Modified passenger jets are ideal, as an entire civilian parts distribution and servicing mechanics already exist to fix them. Navies may try subvert airspace from civilian airliners but that just gives away their position. Ships no longer enjoy safety of ports because civilization sprawls up around it. Webcam, cellphones and internet. Navies are outnumbered 100 to 1 by global fishing and commercial shipping fleets. Photos and geotagging means images of ships can be shared in real time. Just look at all subreddits Warship Porn
