"A New Concept for Air Defense" Topic

"The newest concept being forwarded by U.S. Navy surface fleet leaders is "distributed lethality", in which almost every combatant and noncombatant surface ship would wield offensive missiles such as the Naval Strike Missile (NSM) or Long Range Anti-ship Missile (LRASM). The concept's central idea is that deploying a large number of U.S. ships able to threaten enemy ships, aircraft, or shore facilities will create a potentially unmanageable targeting problem for potential adversaries. This, it is argued, could deter opponents from pursuing aggression and in conflict could compel adversaries to increase their defensive efforts, constrain their maneuver, and spend valuable time finding and defeating U.S. forces in detail.

Implementing this concept should start with the Navy's surface combatants, rather than its numerous unarmed non-combatant ships. Arming the Navy's more than 60 logistics and support ships with offensive missiles and providing them the command and control systems to coordinate their fires will be costly. And once equipped, these noncombatant ships will become more attractive targets while not being better able to protect themselves unless further investments are made in defensive systems. In the end, offensive operations could distract noncombatant ships from their primary missions and reduce the endurance of combatants that depend on them for fuel and to conduct less stressing missions such as training and counter-piracy.

Given the challenges in using supply and support ships for offensive missions, the first step to implement distributed lethality should be to ensure all the Navy's surface warships are able to conduct offensive operations. These consist of amphibious ships and surface combatants…"
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Amicalement
Armand

I was hoping that someone found out a way to weaponize clouds…

Does the US still have a "large" number of ships to go around?

Air defence?

The US is going to need a lot more ships if this is the concept / tactic to be used for Fleet or Task Force deployment. Right now less than 250(?) ships. Current want is 300 ships. Used to be a 600 ship Navy was the goal. Can we afford more ships?

Can we afford more ships?

Thing is, for every 3 ships, only ONE is actually available and deployed.

A 300-ship navy would allow for ~100 ships of various classes to be deployed at any given time.