Biggest fleet almost always wins: US naval expert

Naval power has always played a critical role in the way great powers interact. The decades leading up to the outbreak of the First World War saw an unprecedented competition between the UK and German Empire, with much of the emphasis placed on Dreadnought battleships echoing a similar, albeit smaller, naval arms race continuing to gather steam between the US and China.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the British Royal Navy was unrivalled in its ability to rule the waves. Maintaining this capability was the “two-power” standard, which sought to ensure that the Royal Navy was at least the size of the next two largest competing navies. This naval might guaranteed the British economy’s access to vital raw resources and helped ensure that the “sun never set on the British Empire”.

In the distance, as France struggled to rebuild itself as a true competitor, the newly formed German Empire emerged as an economic, political and naval competitor to Britain. Driven by voracious consumer and economic demand, combined with a new sense of national purpose, Bismarck’s Germany rapidly became a European and global powerhouse in the decades following its formation in 1871.

Recognising the mounting challenge, the British Royal Navy launched HMS Dreadnought in 1906, effectively resetting the game and laying down the challenge to Germany and any other nation that sought to challenge the industrial, economic and naval might of the British Empire.

Fast forward to the beginning of the 21st century and the US, following decades of the Cold War, remained the world’s largest and most powerful naval power. Commanding the seas through a vast fleet of technologically advanced surface vessels and submarines, with the mighty supercarrier serving as the epicentre of America’s global maritime hegemony.

However, America’s maritime hegemony is now being challenged by a rising power in China that is introducing a suite of maritime capabilities to rival the dominance of the US Navy, as history appears to be repeating itself in the 21st century.

As Soviet dictator Josef Stalin is credited with saying, “Quantity has a quality all of its own” and nowhere is this clearer than in the contemporary naval race. A sentiment echoed by retired US Navy Captain Sam Tangredi in a detailed analysis conducted for the US Naval Institute, and straight up, he rebuts the aforementioned saying with: “No, it doesn’t. That’s one of the dumbest damn things I’ve ever heard.”

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A methodical approach to analysing naval power

For much of the past half century, the United States-led world has enjoyed a quantitative edge of adversaries across the maritime domain, whether it was through the advent of nuclear-powered submarines with the launch of USS Nautilus in 1954, the overwhelming power projection capabilities provided by aircraft carriers and the increasing proliferation of advanced guided weapons resulting in an almost unprecedented period of assured maritime dominance, that is all beginning to change.

Where once Australia and its allies enjoyed a qualitative and numerical advantage, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is rapidly gaining ground in terms of both their technological proficiency, capability and overwhelmingly in terms of the numbers capable of being fielded at any given time. Recognising this shifting paradigm, Tangredi took a methodical approach to analysing this new balance of power.

Tangredi explains the approach, “Using technological advantage as an indicator of quality, historical research on 28 naval wars (or wars with significant and protracted naval combat) indicates that 25 were won by the side with the larger fleet. When fleet size was roughly equal, superior strategy and substantially better trained and motivated crews carried the day. Only three could be said to have been won by a smaller fleet with superior technology.”

Doctrine, strategy and training were also identified as key deciding factors behind the success in these naval engagements, again an area in which the West has typically enjoyed an advantage over potential adversaries, something Tangredi explains in further detail, “When professional naval competence and strategic acumen were equal, the larger fleet usually won, even when the smaller fleet possessed technological advantages at the start of the conflict. A primary reason is that technological advantages were inevitably short-lived. In a war between equally competent technological near peers — absent a series of amazing strokes of luck — the larger fleet always won.”

Technology, attrition and the importance of larger fleets

In a comparatively even battle between technologically comparable adversaries, it is clear that numbers play an increasingly important role, with attrition and the number of missile cells at sea critically important to the outcome of a battle. Tangredi, however, argues that the biggest challenge is convincing policymakers and legislators of just that fact, stating in the US example: “The United States can fund a significant fleet that matches the growth of the PLA Navy — or not. Whether the fleet is 250 or 500 ships is for elected officials and the Navy to decide, but those leaders must identify, acknowledge, and own that risk. There is risk in all choices. But there is particularly higher risk in making choices based on unproven assumptions.

“Based on historical research, claims such as ‘numbers don’t matter’ and ‘our ships are more capable and therefore we need fewer’ have no basis in evidence. Such claims are assumptions that ignore historical evidence, but as Hemingway wrote in A Sun Also Rises, ‘Isn't it pretty to think so’,” Tangredi adds.

Concerningly for both the United States and Australia, the limited number of hulls, as set by “peace time” circumstances influencing policymaking and doctrine-setting dramatically impacts the capacity of the allies to fight in the Western Pacific, in range of Beijing’s formidable area denial capabilities, particularly when the United States, for example, has a global presence to maintain.

For Australia who will be required to take an increasing leadership role in the Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia and into the Northwest Pacific, more capable hulls in greater number will be required to operate independently as well as part of larger allied task groups, will need to confront, as US combatant commanders will, a “bet on technological — without numerical — superiority in that fight”, as described by Tangredi.

It is clear, that growing the number of “cheap” and “plentiful” platforms will provide additional resilience in the event of high-intensity, peer competitor conflict scenarios, freeing up the high-end platforms to conduct strategically important operations, while enabling these cheaper platforms to provide a plug-and-play capability in a range of scenarios, ranging from long-range, maritime merchant marine escort operations, through to integration into larger allied task groups.

This flexibility provides interesting avenues worth consideration for strengthening Australia’s maritime capabilities, while maximising interoperability with allied partners without compromising key high-end warfighting capabilities outlined in the 2020 Defence Strategic Update.

Lessons for Australia’s future defence planning

The growing realisation that both the United States and allies like Australia will need to get the balance of its military and national capabilities just right, not just to support the US as part of a larger joint task force, but to ensure that the Australian Defence Force can continue to operate independently and complete its core mission reliably and responsively.

Enhancing Australia’s capacity to act as an independent power, incorporating great power-style strategic, economic, diplomatic and military capability serves as a powerful symbol of Australia’s sovereignty and evolving responsibilities in supporting and enhancing the security and prosperity of Indo-Pacific Asia.

As events continue to unfold throughout the region and China continues to throw its economic, political and strategic weight around, can Australia afford to remain a secondary power, or does it need to embrace a larger, more independent role in an era of increasing great power competition?

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