I'm sure by 2045 or whenever it is that we will have our nuclear subs, our vital shipping routes will be secure. In the meantime, let's hold our collective breaths and hope.
Trump has awarded a contract to Boeing to build the USAF’s sixth-generation fighter plane, sycophantically christened the F-47. (Gettit?) The cost will be astronomical. The Pentagon are guessing $160-180m per plane, twice that of the F-35. That is merely a floor.
It will of course feature a whole cupboard of exotic and very expensive technologies. One interesting critic is Elon Musk, who asks why not go for drones. For once, I think he’s right. Drones are much cheaper to make, as you can cut out all the stuff needed to keep the crew alive, push the manoeuvrability well beyond the physiological limits of the human body, and can trade numbers for survivability without ethical qualms or problems of morale.
The current concept tries to have it both ways. Each manned aircraft will be escorted by drones. Wikipedia: “the PCA [manned plane] is now expected to be accompanied by CCA [unmanned planes] that can carry additional munitions or perform supporting missions.”
Really? Piloting fighter planes in combat is possibly the most stressful work there has ever been. The “Top Gun” scenario is glamourised, but it isn’t fabricated. Pilots have to analyse very complex 3D challenges in seconds, synthesising a flood of information from different sensors and their own senses, at risk of their lives, while subjecting their bodies to the extreme stresses of high-G turns. And now the F-47 pilot is going to have also to command a flock of rapidly manoeuvering combat drones at the same time. This is hard to believe. There is no reserve of superhuman pilots better than the rigorously selected and expensively trained ones they have now.
To reduce the cognitive load, you can add a second crew member, a navigator who can command the drones. Doable, but adds complexity and a low-bandwidth human communication problem, increases weight, and reduces range. The navigator is still having to make and execute very complex tactical decisions while undergoing 9G turns. Errors will creep in.
The hi-tech alternative is to offload much of the command work onto networked AIs in the whole little fleet. This is obviously very challenging technically, but may be soluble with bottomless-pit funding. But if it works, what’s the point of locating the human commander in a vulnerable plane rather than a safe base? In WW2, the most successful admirals (Nimitz, Horton, Doenitz) did not themselves go to sea. The only communications they had were slow enciphered radios. Yamamoto wanted to be closer to the action, and it got him killed, like the epitome of hands-on naval leadership, Nelson. And Nelson did not try to command the Victory as a fighting ship – that was all Hardy’s job as flag captain.
I’ve written heaps on this, which you can find with a search. Three points
The Chinese are big and rich enough to bet on everything eg massive solar, but also nuclear and still a fair bit coal
China’s official position is that it will reincorporate Taiwan by force. Even if (as I argue) a seaborne invasion would fail, they have to keep building ships or else admit defeat
The Chinese are no smarter or dumber than other countries that continue to operate navies that never do anything effective (that is, nearly every country in the world)
I'm not sure if this is a good test case for your proposition. As a general matter, expeditionary wars against national movements have failed, unless in support of a strong viable alternative with real power of its own. (The 2002 invasion of Afghanistan was a partial exception.) This is especially true for an expeditionary war conducted solely with no boots on the ground.
One problem with assessing the utility of surface navies is that their utility is largely in a fleet in being, rather than actual surface naval warfare. (What was the last decisive naval battle--Tsushima?) Counterfactuals are difficult and fuzzy at best.
The Battle of the Phillipines Sea in 1944 was genuinely decisive and, unlike the other two, involved combat between surface ships. But that was 80 years ago, before supersonic jets, missiles and drones. There's a reason there have been no major sea battles since, decisive or otherwise (except Falklands where a third-rate airforce nearly beat the Royal Navy).
A fleet in being is no longer relevant to anything. The Black Sea Fleet was thought to be a powerful fleet in being, but was driven back to port by a country with no navy, not much of an airforce and a limited stock of missiles and drones.
As Biden, Putin and Trump have now demonstrated, a navy is no use for anything except ineffectual attacks on largely civilian targets.
An interesting article on this in the Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/04/bombing-houthis-trump-yemen-irsael/682353/
I'm sure by 2045 or whenever it is that we will have our nuclear subs, our vital shipping routes will be secure. In the meantime, let's hold our collective breaths and hope.
Interesting result of climate change is the opening of the Arctic Sea as shipping routes for the northern hemisphere.
Unless of course war breaks out and Greenlanders start land based operations like the Houthis 🤪
Aviation variant: the unsinkable F-47
Trump has awarded a contract to Boeing to build the USAF’s sixth-generation fighter plane, sycophantically christened the F-47. (Gettit?) The cost will be astronomical. The Pentagon are guessing $160-180m per plane, twice that of the F-35. That is merely a floor.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a64310627/f-47-sixth-generation-fighter/
It will of course feature a whole cupboard of exotic and very expensive technologies. One interesting critic is Elon Musk, who asks why not go for drones. For once, I think he’s right. Drones are much cheaper to make, as you can cut out all the stuff needed to keep the crew alive, push the manoeuvrability well beyond the physiological limits of the human body, and can trade numbers for survivability without ethical qualms or problems of morale.
The current concept tries to have it both ways. Each manned aircraft will be escorted by drones. Wikipedia: “the PCA [manned plane] is now expected to be accompanied by CCA [unmanned planes] that can carry additional munitions or perform supporting missions.”
Really? Piloting fighter planes in combat is possibly the most stressful work there has ever been. The “Top Gun” scenario is glamourised, but it isn’t fabricated. Pilots have to analyse very complex 3D challenges in seconds, synthesising a flood of information from different sensors and their own senses, at risk of their lives, while subjecting their bodies to the extreme stresses of high-G turns. And now the F-47 pilot is going to have also to command a flock of rapidly manoeuvering combat drones at the same time. This is hard to believe. There is no reserve of superhuman pilots better than the rigorously selected and expensively trained ones they have now.
To reduce the cognitive load, you can add a second crew member, a navigator who can command the drones. Doable, but adds complexity and a low-bandwidth human communication problem, increases weight, and reduces range. The navigator is still having to make and execute very complex tactical decisions while undergoing 9G turns. Errors will creep in.
The hi-tech alternative is to offload much of the command work onto networked AIs in the whole little fleet. This is obviously very challenging technically, but may be soluble with bottomless-pit funding. But if it works, what’s the point of locating the human commander in a vulnerable plane rather than a safe base? In WW2, the most successful admirals (Nimitz, Horton, Doenitz) did not themselves go to sea. The only communications they had were slow enciphered radios. Yamamoto wanted to be closer to the action, and it got him killed, like the epitome of hands-on naval leadership, Nelson. And Nelson did not try to command the Victory as a fighting ship – that was all Hardy’s job as flag captain.
Good piece. Some follow-up thoughts on whether the Chinese are making the wrong bet by building the world’s largest surface navy might be in order.
I’ve written heaps on this, which you can find with a search. Three points
The Chinese are big and rich enough to bet on everything eg massive solar, but also nuclear and still a fair bit coal
China’s official position is that it will reincorporate Taiwan by force. Even if (as I argue) a seaborne invasion would fail, they have to keep building ships or else admit defeat
The Chinese are no smarter or dumber than other countries that continue to operate navies that never do anything effective (that is, nearly every country in the world)
Thanks!
I'm not sure if this is a good test case for your proposition. As a general matter, expeditionary wars against national movements have failed, unless in support of a strong viable alternative with real power of its own. (The 2002 invasion of Afghanistan was a partial exception.) This is especially true for an expeditionary war conducted solely with no boots on the ground.
One problem with assessing the utility of surface navies is that their utility is largely in a fleet in being, rather than actual surface naval warfare. (What was the last decisive naval battle--Tsushima?) Counterfactuals are difficult and fuzzy at best.
The Battle of the Phillipines Sea in 1944 was genuinely decisive and, unlike the other two, involved combat between surface ships. But that was 80 years ago, before supersonic jets, missiles and drones. There's a reason there have been no major sea battles since, decisive or otherwise (except Falklands where a third-rate airforce nearly beat the Royal Navy).
A fleet in being is no longer relevant to anything. The Black Sea Fleet was thought to be a powerful fleet in being, but was driven back to port by a country with no navy, not much of an airforce and a limited stock of missiles and drones.
As Biden, Putin and Trump have now demonstrated, a navy is no use for anything except ineffectual attacks on largely civilian targets.
I stand corrected by Rakyat. As far as John's point, we'll see how Taiwan evolves.