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| https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/08/29/russia-cheap-fast-missiles-cut-ukraine-sea/ |
The Ukrainians scared the Russian Black Sea Fleet away from the open sea and slowly reduce it to scrap.
The Houthis were able to render the Red Sea passage impractical for maritime trade.
The Iranians scared the USN so much that it doesn't dare enter the Persian Gulf or use naval gunfire against targets at the Strait of Hormuz.
It's almost as if - wait for it! - area denial works and ships are not survivable enough close (hundreds of nautical miles close) to major land mass held by a well-armed hostile power that's prepared to deny the sea (surface) with land-based assets.
That's difficult to accept of career officers of a Western navy.
Now extend this and realise that - as I kept writing for many years - land-based air power can extend this area denial thousands of nautical miles onto oceans.
It's almost as if - be seated firmly! - ships are in wartime practical only at VERY long distance to land-based threats or under cover of AEW & fighters. NATO could keep the English Channel safe, but the Baltic Sea and Black Sea would only become usable with extreme and deliberate effort. North Sea and Aegean Sea would be of questionable safety in wartime. All this without a single Russian ship or boat leaving port or even only existing! Satellites, covert agents with a view on a port, land-based missiles and air-launched missiles is all it takes for this.
What's left for navies to do?
Not terribly much. They can protect maritime traffic lanes close to friendly shores (without using a single ship) and they can escort oceanic convoys.
What can air forces do?
Air forces can employ OTH radars, AEW, fighters and tanker aircraft (this could mostly be quickly refitted airliners) to make aerial incursions towards those lanes (such as Montreal-Brest) too risky.
The realm of warships is ever-shrinking. Back in the 18th century 3rd rate ships of the line (~battleships) could anchor in view of enemy ports to blockade them. That ended with coastal armoured ships and at the latest with the first torpedo-armed submarines. Warships have been on a retreat ever since. Now they only belong into distant waters where the threat level is low anyway, likely limited to submarines.
What about the realm of submarines in a war against a well-armed enemy? In theory, they can go where friendly air power cannot go. Now, where exactly can NATO air power not go? Lake Baikal in Siberia? I have a hunch we could go there with a refitted Airbus A340 at normal cruise altitude.
So submarines are not vulnerable to most of the threats that warships face, but there's very little they really bring to the table, in spite of all fanboi propaganda. IMO submarines have largely withdrawn to the role of sparring partner for oceanic convoys. Somehow you need to provide them with an enemy during training, after all. Everything else they can do can be done by more versatile land-based air power, satellite or is only serving themselves (collecting acoustic data to be used exclusively by submarines - self-licking ice cone). Well, there may be one exception - tracking and taking out hostile SSBNs in a bastion. The issues are that taking out such a second strike capability could provoke a nuclear first strike, there's little reason to believe they could really find such targets in wartime and finally, there's little reason to believe they could survive in a bastion given today's low frequency sonar technology.
So maybe long-time readers now understand why my navy-themed blog posts centre on oceanic convoy defence and why I'm rather non-friendly to navies and their top brass.
related:
/2016/08/summary-of-my-naval-ideas.html
/2018/06/bundeswehr-structure-what-i-would-do.html
/2018/01/modern-warships-i-introduction.html
/2019/07/how-to-fix-united-states-navy.html
/2021/05/navies-obsession-with-peacetime-hull.html
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