The surface Navy is starting to find itself outgunned by potential adversaries such as China or Iran.

That's the contention of two retired naval officers turned analysts, who recently told lawmakers about strategies to make the surface fleet relevant against adversaries armed with mines, jets and long-range anti-ship missiles.

Bryan McGrath, a retired commander and former destroyer skipper, told the House Armed Services Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee hearing that today's surface Navy is less prepared to fight and defeat a sophisticated adversary than the Cold War-era Navy of 25 years ago.

The surface force has to adapt to compete with China and other foes who are seeking to block the U.S. Navy's access to key strategic points on the globe, McGrath said. And with that will come a fundamental rethinking of Navy strategy. Instead of encircling the aircraft carrier, McGrath said ships like destroyers and cruisers should be dispatched to gain sea control and clear the path for a carrier to launch airstrikes before moving elsewhere.

 

"In an era of little or no threat, the Navy packed its defenses around the carrier and positioned itself close to an adversary in order to generate maximal combat sorties," McGrath said at the open hearing on April 15. "Against a high-end, near-peer competitor, implementing an [anti-access, area denial] strategy, this is on longer possible.

"In the future the carrier strike group will have to fight its way into portions of the ocean from which it can then execute strikes. And then quickly retire and or relocate."

While the Navy has been focused on low-end missions, potential enemies such as China and Iran have adapted, said Bryan Clark, a retired Navy commander, who explained that their goal is to keep the U.S. Navy out of striking distance with a barrage of shore-based missiles that will overwhelm the defenses of an cruiser or destroyer.

An adversary could, with relative ease, force a DDG to shoot all its missiles and overwhelm its defenses — taking it out of the fight for about 1/10th the cost of the $1.8 billion Arleigh Burke-class destroyer.

'Legacy force'

The major disadvantage is that technology has advanced to the point where enemy aircraft, ships and submarines pack missiles that have a longer range than those on U.S. ships. For Clark, that means the Navy has to invest in new missiles that can hit the enemy before they are in range to fire their missiles; to shoot the archer before he looses his arrows.

"Today, the surface ships we deploy don't have weapons that are able to reach enemy aircraft ships or submarines until we are already well within range of their anti-ship cruise missiles" Clark testified. "The way you get out of that is you have to deploy some new weapons."

http://www.defensenews.com/story/military/2015/05/02/mcgrath-clark-seapower-subcommittee/25939167/