Surface Warfare: Strategies, Tactics, and Operations

By Fouad Sabry

What is Surface Warfare

Surface warfare is naval warfare involving surface ships. It is one of the four operational areas of naval warfare, the others being underwater warfare, aerial warfare, and information warfare. Surface warfare is the oldest and most basic form of naval warfare, though modern surface warfare doctrine originated in the mid-20th century.

How you will benefit

(I) Insights, and validations about the following topics:

Chapter 1: Surface warfare

Chapter 2: Cruiser

Chapter 3: Carrier battle group

Chapter 4: Hull classification symbol

Chapter 5: Naval ship

Chapter 6: Anti-ship missile

Chapter 7: Warship

Chapter 8: United States Seventh Fleet

Chapter 9: USS Fletcher (DD-992)

Chapter 10: Exercise RIMPAC

(II) Answering the public top questions about surface warfare.

Who this book is for

Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information for any kind of Surface Warfare.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Billion Knowledgeable
• Release date: May 29, 2024

Book preview

Chapter 1: Surface warfare

Surface warfare refers to naval combat involving ships of the surface. It is one of the four operational branches of naval warfare, along with submarine warfare, aerial warfare, and information warfare. Surface warfare is the oldest and most fundamental form of naval combat, while the contemporary surface warfare doctrine emerged in the middle of the 20th century.

Modern surface warfare dates back to the middle of the twentieth century, when surface, air, and submarine combat components were combined to achieve strategic objectives. Interdiction and sea control are the two most essential strategic objectives in United States Navy doctrine.

Interdiction is the process of intercepting an enemy in transit through a certain area. During World War II's Battle of the Atlantic, German naval aims against Britain centered on stopping ships from arriving undamaged with their cargoes.

Sea control is the dominance of force over a certain region that impedes the operation of other naval forces. During World War II, the aim of the Allied warships in the Atlantic was to retain sea control and impede the operation of Axis naval forces. Anti-access/area denial opposes the enemy's sea control without attempting to achieve sea control itself.

Surface warfare (SuW) includes anti-surface warfare (ASuW), anti-air warfare (AAW), anti-submarine warfare (ASW), naval gunfire support (NGFS), riverine operations, mine warfare, and electronic warfare, and is conducted by a surface ship.

In the second half of the 20th century, aviation and submarine warfare platforms established their superiority against naval surface force, as evidenced by the Battle of Taranto, the Battle of Pearl Harbor, and the sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse.

After World War II, guided anti-ship missiles necessitated new strategies and philosophies. As in the War of Attrition, when Egyptian missile boats hit and sank the Israeli destroyer Eilat on 20 October 1967, small, fast, and relatively inexpensive missile boats constituted a considerably more dangerous threat to major ships than torpedo boats.

Battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, and frigates are examples of surface combatants. In addition to mine warfare ships, amphibious command ships, coastal defense ships, and amphibious assault ships, surface combatants comprise a variety of different vessels. Support ships (i.e., non-combat ships) such as freighters, oilers, hospital ships, tugs, troop transports, and other auxiliary ships are crucial to naval operations. In the prevalent U.S. Navy paradigm, several types of ships would be arranged largely into the carrier battle group.

{End Chapter 1}

Chapter 2: Cruiser

Cruisers are a class of warship. Modern cruisers are often the third-largest ships in a fleet, following aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships, and are typically capable of performing many functions.

The meaning of the term cruiser, which has been in use for several centuries, has evolved over time. During the Age of Sail, cruising referred to particular types of missions—independent reconnaissance, trade protection, or raiding—performed by frigates or sloops-of-war, which served as a fleet's cruising warships.

Midway through the 19th century, cruiser became a classification for ships designed for long-distance voyaging, commerce raiding, and reconnaissance for the battle fleet. Cruisers were in a variety of sizes, from medium-sized protected cruisers to enormous armored cruisers that were nearly as large as a pre-dreadnought battleship (albeit not as powerful or as well-armored). With the introduction of the dreadnought battleship before to World War I, the armored cruiser evolved into the battlecruiser, a vessel of comparable size. The enormously massive battlecruisers that succeeded armored cruisers during World War I were now categorized alongside dreadnought battleships as capital ships.

After World War I, the direct successors to protected cruisers could be placed on a consistent scale of warship size, less than a battleship but larger than a destroyer, by the turn of the 20th century. The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 defined cruisers as warships with a maximum displacement of 10,000 tons and a maximum caliber of 8 inches for their guns. The London Naval Treaty of 1930 established a distinction between heavy and light cruisers, with heavy cruisers having 6.1-to-8-inch guns and light cruisers having 6.1-inch guns or less. Each type was limited in total and individual tonnage, which influenced the construction of cruisers until the treaty system collapsed shortly prior to the outbreak of World War II. The German Deutschland-class pocket battleships, which possessed stronger weaponry at the expense of speed compared to conventional heavy cruisers, and the American Alaska class, which was a scaled-up heavy cruiser design labeled as a cruiser-killer, were variations on the Treaty cruiser concept.

In the latter part of the 20th century, the battleship's obsolescence made the cruiser the largest and most powerful surface combatant ship (aircraft carriers not being considered surface combatants, as their attack capability comes from their air wings rather than on-board weapons). The cruiser's function varied per ship and navy, but typically included air defense and shore bombardment. During the Cold War, Soviet cruisers were equipped with anti-ship missiles designed to sink NATO carrier task forces by saturation attacks. The U.S. Navy constructed guided-missile cruisers with destroyer-style hulls (some were referred to as destroyer leaders or frigates prior to the 1975 reclassification) that were primarily intended to provide air defense while frequently incorporating anti-submarine capabilities, being larger and equipped with longer-range surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) than early Charles F. Adams guided-missile destroyers tasked with short-range air defense. By the end of the Cold War, the distinction between cruisers and destroyers had blurred, with the Ticonderoga-class cruiser adopting the hull of the Spruance-class destroyer but being designated as a cruiser because of its improved mission and combat systems.

As of 2023, only the United States, Russia, and Italy operate active service vessels formally classified as cruisers. With the exception of the aircraft cruisers Admiral Kuznetsov and Giuseppe Garibaldi, these cruisers are mostly equipped with guided missiles. Until 2017, the BAP Almirante Grau was the last gun cruiser in service with the Peruvian Navy.

However, additional classes besides those listed above may also be termed cruisers due to varying categorization schemes. The US/NATO system includes the Chinese Type 055

The terms cruiser and cruizer are synonymous. During the 18th century, the frigate emerged as the preeminent cruiser class. A frigate was a small, quick, long-range, lightly armed (one gun-deck) ship used for scouting, transporting dispatches, and interfering with enemy trade. The sloop was the other primary form of cruiser, though numerous other ship types were also in use.

In the 19th century, naval fleets began to be powered by steam. In the 1840s, experimental steam-powered frigates and sloops were constructed. By the middle of the 1850s, both the British and American navies were constructing steam frigates with extremely long hulls and massive gun armament, such as the USS Merrimack and the Mersey.

Beginning with the Belliqueuse, which was commissioned in 1865, the French produced a number of smaller ironclads for overseas cruise. These station ironclads paved the way for the construction of armored cruisers, a sort of ironclad designed for the conventional cruiser objectives of swift, autonomous raiding and patrolling.

The Russian General-Admiral, constructed in 1874, was the first fully armored cruiser, followed by the British Shannon a few years later.

Prior to the 1890s, armored cruisers were constructed with masts for a complete sailing rig, allowing them to operate far from friendly coaling ports.

Unarmored cruise warfare vessels, constructed with wood, iron, or a combination of steel and other materials, remained popular until the late nineteenth century.

Ironclads' armor frequently limited their steam range to a short distance, Moreover, numerous ironclads were unsuitable for long-distance missions or service in remote colonies.

Typically a screw sloop or screw frigate, the unarmored cruiser might remain in this duty.

Even though warships of the mid- to late-19th century often mounted modern weapons shooting explosive shells, They were unable of combating ironclads.

This was seen during the conflict between HMS Shah, A cutting-edge British cruiser, and the Peruvian monitor Huáscar.

Despite the fact that the Peruvian ship was obsolete at the time of the encounter, It withstood around 50 hits from British shells with flying colors.

In the 1880s, naval engineers began using steel as a building and armament material. A cruiser made from steel could be lighter and faster than one made from iron or wood. According to the Jeune Ecole school of naval theory, a fleet of swift, unprotected steel cruisers is excellent for commerce raiding, while a torpedo boat may destroy an enemy battleship fleet.

Steel also provided the cruiser with the necessary defense to survive in combat. Steel armor was far stronger per unit of weight than iron armor. By installing a relatively thin coating of steel armor over the ship's key components and positioning the coal bunkers where they could deflect shellfire, a useful level of protection could be accomplished without significantly slowing the ship down. Protected cruisers often included an armored deck with sloping sides, which provided protection comparable to a light armored belt at a lower weight and cost.

The Chilean ship Esmeralda was the first protected cruiser when it was launched in 1883. Produced by a shipyard in Elswick, Britain, owned by Armstrong, she spurred the construction of a series of protected cruisers known as Elswick cruisers in the same shipyard. Her forecastle, poop deck, and wooden board deck were replaced by an armored deck.

The Esmeralda was armed with 10-inch (25.4 cm) cannons in the forward and aft locations and 6-inch (15.2 cm) guns in the midships stations. It could reach 18 knots (33 km/h) and was propelled solely by steam. Additionally, its displacement was less