Ok some thoughts on Battle Force 2045, the outline of which can be viewed in the Secretary's thread linked here. This is mostly from an amphibious operations perspective. https://twitter.com/EsperDoD/status/1313581286699798530

The fundamental disagreement I have with this and other visions of the Navy is that it doesn't actually view the Navy as a navy, but instead as a water army.

The purpose of an army is to fight other armies. Fighting other navies is a purpose of a navy, but not the only one and it may not even be the primary one. The US Navy must be prepared to do so, but also must safeguard the global economy every day, peacetime and wartime.

This is visualization of what the US Navy protects: maritime shipping that accounts for the bulk of the global and US economic activity, the bedrock of the liberal international order (which should be called the liberal maritime international order really).

Additionally, undersea network cables that generally follow these same routes connect the internet together across the globe. The internet is fundamentally a maritime network. That needs to be protected.

The point is this: the size of the US Navy should not be analyzed in comparison to a potential adversary navy, but instead to what its responsible for protecting: a planet-wide economy that rests on maritime shipping and a maritime digital network.

This tells us too things: 1) It's way too small for the job and 2) Unmanned ships are not the answer. They may be great for war, they are next to useless for the maintenance, patrolling, and security of a global maritime network.

You could argue that this is the primary purpose of the US Navy, not warfighting. If the US is cut off from the global maritime economy or it collapses, we're not fighting anybody anyway. We wouldn't be able to afford to fight anybody.

Now back to Battle Force 2045. It was obviously developed for a water army, not a navy, but still... kinda hits the mark for a real navy. It envisions a more balanced fleet which would be good for warfighting AND global maritime security.

But does it get the number of ships right? I don't know about that, but I do know about amphibs. And the right number of amphibs is 55.

In order to fulfill Geographic Combatant Commanders' requests for amphibs on station and rotate them out for maintenance, you need 55. The 38 amphib requirement is, and always was, a bare minimum. So Battle Force 2045's 50-60 amphibs about right...

... except there's a wrinkle I alluded to yesterday: the CMC's vision for diversifying amphibious platforms. The 55 amphib requirement holds true if amphibs are the only platform that you can deploy Marines on. If we have more options, that number no longer holds.

What we need from an amphibious operations perspective is a mix of big amphibious warships, ESBs (like the one below), and the Light Amphibious Warship if it does get developed.

This provides Combatant Commanders with a greater range of options for seabasing Marines and SOF. What's the right mix? Don't know. That needs to be worked out.

This brings me to light carriers. If a light carrier is defined as just a smaller aircraft carrier, we already have some, they're just classified as amphibious warships. Like the USS America below.

The America class is an LHA. Essentially, an amphibious warship without a well deck. It can't launch surface craft, only airframes.

So what's the difference and what's all this nonsense about well decks and surface craft and what have you? The history of amphibs and light carriers explains this.

In World War 2, we had no amphibious warships. In order to do amphibious operations, you had to combine troop ships, supply ships, and carriers to support them. All three in one place, tied down for a long period of time.

You don't want to use your big deck carriers for this if you don't have to. You want them out hunting enemy ships. So we started using light carriers to support amphibious operations to free up the big decks for other things (and also for escort duty, which I'll get back to).

After World War 2 though, the modern amphibious warship is developed. You no longer have to combine troop ships, supply ships, and light carriers because you have a ship that can perform all three of their functions: troops, equipment, and naval aviation on one platform.

A modern amphibious warship essentially IS a light carrier on top of a troop ship on top of a supply ship. So do we need both anymore? Probably not: the America class can perform that function.

Here's why I think this plan is good for both warfighting and global maritime security: amphibious ships along with some of the planned smaller vessels are great for both functions.

So even though this plan was obviously derived from a water army viewpoint, it would provide the capabilities needed for a navy as well. Further analysis is needed on the right mix of amphibious platforms to answer capacity questions, but the right capabilities are there.

Lastly, I make no assertions about how all this can be paid for. Figuring out what we need is easy. Figuring out how to pay for it is another problem altogether that I'm not qualified to answer. End of thread.

One postscript: To use unmanned systems at sea you need a ship to base them on. Amphibious ships can also do this, with little to no modification. So amphibious platforms are going to be HUGE for at least the rest of the century.