Washington Naval Treaty 2.0

The Royal Navy’s HMS Vanguard Is a Truly Strange Warship
It played an important ceremonial role.

by Robert Farley 

Here’s What You Need to Remember: Although not comparable to its contemporaries of modern design and armament, it was a beautiful ship, and well worthy of service to the royal family.

In an effort to take advantage of the superiority of the Royal Navy in World War I, First Sea Lord John “Jackie” Fisher developed a scheme to land British troops in Pomerania, thus directly threatening Berlin and forcing the Germans to withdraw troops from the Western Front. To this end, Fisher authorized the design of a group of shallow-draft “large light cruisers” that would carry guns heavy enough to support the landings. HMS Courageous and HMS Glorious would each carry four fifteen-inch guns in two twin turrets, while HMS Furious was expected to carry two eighteen-inch guns in single turrets. The light cruiser designation, incidentally, enabled Fisher to evade government restrictions on the construction of new battlecruisers.

As it happened, the Baltic landings never proved practical, and Courageous and Glorious joined the Grand Fleet as battlecruisers. After the war, the Royal Navy removed the heavy guns and converted all three ships into aircraft carriers, a procedure enabled by the Washington Naval Treaty. All three served in World War II, although only Furious survived the conflict.

The conversions left four twin fifteen-inch turrets lying about, guns that couldn’t be used on new ships because of the Washington Naval Treaty. Gun turrets are among the most expensive and difficult to construct parts of a battleship, however, so they were retained in the hope of future use. The British fifteen-inch/38-caliber gun was regarded as a great success, and suitable for use in later ships.

The Royal Navy’s first post–London Treaty battleships were the five ships of the King George V class, which served with honor in every theater of World War II. The Navy intended to follow these up with the Lions, which would have represented the apogee of British battleship design. Each of the six ships would have displaced 43,000 tons and carried nine sixteen-inch guns in three triple turrets. The Lions would have carried heavier armor than the American Iowa class, with a design speed of twenty-eight knots. However, the war intervened, and the Admiralty determined that smaller ships should take precedence, shifting resources allocated to the Lions to aircraft carriers and antisubmarine craft.

Fortunately, the availability of the four old fifteen-inch turrets meant that a seventh ship, Vanguard, could be completed more quickly than the Lions. Intended for use in the Pacific, the ship would be fast enough to catch and powerful enough to destroy the Japanese Kongo-class battlecruisers. The design went through several evolutions (at one point the Royal Navy declared that the ship would be a replacement for HMS Royal Oak, sunk by U-47 in 1939) before the keel was finally laid in 1941. Work proceeded slowly, incorporating the lessons of the war, and Vanguard was not finally completed until late 1946. It was the last battleship ever launched, although not the last one completed, an honor that would belong to the French Jean Bart.

Displacing 44,500 tons (standard) and capable of thirty knots, Vanguard was the largest battleship ever built by the Royal Navy, and was only exceeded internationally by the Iowa and Yamato classes. However, many of its foreign contemporaries carried a heavier main armament. Vanguard was well armored and an excellent seaboat, but because of its light main battery it likely would have struggled against the Japanese and American super battleships. Visually, its great size made the fifteen-inch turrets look diminutive.

Vanguard saw only limited opportunities for action in the years after the war, but played an important ceremonial role. In 1947 it carried King George VI, Queen Elizabeth and a young Princess Elizabeth on a royal visit to South Africa. Elizabeth had presided over Vanguard’s launching in 1944, the first (but far from the last) such ceremony she would conduct. It was also present at the Coronation Fleet Review of Elizabeth II in 1953. Vanguard spent the rest of its career with the Home Fleet and the Mediterranean Fleet. It was placed in reserve in 1956.

The Royal Navy has rarely demonstrated the same enthusiasm for ship preservation found in the United States. Several of the most storied battleships of the twentieth century (HMS Warspite, HMS Rodney, HMS Queen Elizabeth) were quickly sold to the scrappers after World War II, in part because of the demands of postwar austerity. Four King George V–class ships survived until 1958 before meeting the same fate, leaving Vanguard as the only remaining Royal Navy battleship. Desultory efforts at preservation failed, perhaps in part because of its brief, uneventful career, and Vanguard went to the cutters in 1960.

Vanguard was an idiosyncratic curiosity, but would have filled its role effectively if it had been completed in time. Although not comparable to its contemporaries of modern design and armament, it was a beautiful ship, and well worthy of service to the royal family.

Dr. Robert Farley has taught security and diplomacy courses at the Patterson School since 2005. He received his BS from the University of Oregon in 1997, and his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 2004. Dr. Farley is the author of Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force (University Press of Kentucky, 2014), the Battleship Book (Wildside, 2016), and Patents for Power: Intellectual Property Law and the Diffusion of Military Technology (University of Chicago, 2020). He has contributed extensively to a number of journals and magazines, including the National Interest, the Diplomat: APAC, World Politics Review, and the American Prospect. Dr. Farley is also a founder and senior editor of Lawyers, Guns and Money.

The unfinished Carracciolo class (1916)


Author’s illustration of the Carracciolo
The RN Francesco Caracciolo was the firs Italian ‘super dreadnought’, launched on 12 May 1915 at Castellamare di Stabia. The initial project called for a 35,000 tons battleship capable of 28 knots, with fur triple turrets and twenty 152 mm guns in casemates. Designs were were presented by Ansaldo Yard (engineer Nabor Soliani) and by Orlando Yard (engineer Orlando) but also the Odero Yard (engineer Scribanti). They were presented by General Ferrati, General Carpi and colonels Rota and Russo, Ferrati being the one who decided the best one. As the Italian industry would need to be ramped up and there was no time for this, requirements were lowered to an eight 381 mm guns battleship displacing a more reasonable 31,000 tons. Experiences on models were conducted in La Spezia, at Freude tank, to find what was the best hull shaped. Other scale models were designed to received a reduced underwater protection, tested against light explosives. Venica arsenal worked on the horizontal protection and La Spezia on the oil boilers and the connected pipes.


wow’s take on a what-if modernized version of the Carracciolo, if built.

After the design was approved, RN Francisco Carraciolo was laid down on 16 October 1914 at Regio Cantiere di Castellammare di Stabia.
However soon, shortages of steel slowed down the construction to a crawl and after May 1915, the admiralty decided to concentrate instead on lighter ships, destroyers, submarines, and notably gunboats, less expensive and more useful. All work as suspended in March 1916, after it went on slowly for almost a year. 9,000 t of steel already had been assembled so Carraciolo was the most advanced at around 80%. Cristoforo Colombo had only 12.5 percent of her hull complete, 5% of the machinery. The last two, Marcantonio Colonna and Francesco Morosini, started in March and June, only had the keel and few plates assembled when it was halted.

The heavy guns however had been manufactured, and were diverted onto the monitor Faà di Bruno, Alfredo Cappellini, the two Monte Santo, four Monte Grappa-class monitors also used them and the remainder were installed on railway mounts, as Cannone da 381/40 AVS, or in coast-defense positions.
It’s only in October 1919 that work resume, and in 1920, the Regia Marina staff considered converting her as an aircraft carrier. Howevr Italy was by then in a dire economic situation, and compared to the benefits of an Italian pacification campaign in Libya, this plan was dropped. Ansaldo later proposed a cheaper floatplane carrier alternative, to no avail.

Italian navy commanders in addition delayed the adoption of a policy for the interwar Regia Marina, between the traditional surface and decisive battle fleet camp, and a fleet composed of aircraft carriers, torpedo boats and submarines. Admiral Giovanni Sechi argued eventually that a balanced fleet with a small core of good battleships backed with carriers was the most flexible option. As new vessels were planned, Admiral Giovanni Sechi Sechi decided to reduce the number of older capital ships in service and the Francesco Caracciolo class was cancelled. The incomplete lead ship was sold on 25 October 1920 on auction to the Navigazione Generale Italiana shipping company, which planned to convert her as a merchant ship, but but she was evtenually mothballed in Baia Bay (Naples).

The Washington Naval Conference setup a new tonnage limit for the Regia Marina (61,000 metric tons), and the Francesco Caracciolo class was yet again planned to be converted as aicraft carriers. The new design has an island superstructure. Again, budgetary problems soomed the proposal and Francesco Caracciolo was scraped from late 1926 on, the other dismantled in their slip, and the machinery from Cristoforo Columbo recycled in the ocean liner Roma.

Carraciolo specifications 1940
Dimensions 186.9 x 29.2 x 8.6m
Displacement 29,100 tonnes /29,400 tonnes FL
Crew 1300?
Propulsion 2 screws, 2 reduction turbines, 8 Yarrow boilers, 90 000 hp
Speed 27 knots (50 km/h; 31 mph)
Range 6,700 nmi (12,408 km, 7,710 miles)
Armament 10x 355mm (2×2, 2×3), 12 x135mm (4×3), 10 x90mm AA, 12x 37mm, 15x 20mm Breda AA.
Armor Decks 135-166 mm, barbettes 130-280mm, belt 130-250mm, blockhaus 250mm.



A photomontage whatif rendition

General characteristics

Type...................................... Super-dreadnought battleship
Displacement......................... 34,000 t (33,000 long tons) (full load)
Length.................................. .212 m (696 ft) (loa)
Beam.....................................29.6 m (97 ft 1 in)
Draft..................................... 9.5 m (31 ft 2 in)
Installed power........................20 × Yarrow boilers; 105,000 shp (78,000 kW)
Propulsion...............................4 × shafts; 4 × steam turbines
Speed.....................................28 knots (52 km/h; 32 mph)
Range.....................................8,000 nmi (15,000 km; 9,200 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Armament...............................4 × twin 381 mm (15 in) guns
..............................................12 × single 152 mm (6 in) guns
..............................................8 × single 102 mm (4 in) guns
..............................................12 × single 40 mm (1.6 in) guns
..............................................8 × 450 or 533 mm (17.7 or 21.0 in) torpedo tubes
Armor
..............................................Belt: 303 mm (11.9 in)
..............................................Turrets: 400 mm (15.7 in)
..............................................Conning tower: 400 mm (15.7 in)
..............................................Deck: 50 mm (2 in)

POOR HISTORY AND FAILED PARADIGMS: FLAWED NAVAL STRATEGY AND LEARNING THE WRONG LESSONS FROM A CENTURY OF CONFLICT
R. B. Watts | 02.15.22



This article is part of the National War College’s contribution to the series “Compete and Win: Envisioning a Competitive Strategy for the Twenty-First Century.” The series endeavors to present expert commentary on diverse issues surrounding US competitive strategy and irregular warfare with peer and near-peer competitors in the physical, cyber, and information spaces. The series is part of the Competition in Cyberspace Project (C2P), a joint initiative by the Army Cyber Institute and the Modern War Institute. Read all articles in the series here.

Special thanks to series editors Capt. Maggie Smith, PhD, C2P director, and Dr. Barnett S. Koven.

In 2006 the United States Navy published a startling photograph. The picture clearly showed a Chinese submarine, periscope raised, with the USS Kitty Hawk in the background. That the photo was taken by an antisubmarine helicopter hovering over the submarine was lost in the initial wave of reactions but the point was clear: a new, modern force had arrived, and it posed a direct threat to our primary naval strike power. US naval power and strategy has a rich history that includes epic battles, catastrophic losses, and stalwart traditions. Around the globe, naval forces have long been the power of empires and used to extend a nation’s reach beyond its geographic homeland. At the dawn of the twentieth century, it was not uncommon to hear British and German naval officers toasting with De Tag! (To the Day!) and to clink their raised glasses in the acknowledgement that they would one day meet in a decisive battle at sea. For navalists, a battle between the world’s greatest navies was a certainty.

For the US Navy and other great navies of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Mahanian theory predicting a decisive battle at sea between the world’s great powers has dominated strategy discussions. The ruling classes and top theorists became firmly entrenched in an ethos of then-modern conflict that demanded expansion, expected conflict with other great powers, and predicted a great naval battle for command of the sea. According to Alfred Thayer Mahan, eliminating an enemy fleet by capital ships—a navy’s most important ships, typically the largest and leading or primary ships in a naval fleet—in a decisive battle would not only win command of the sea, but would also win the war. Ironically, when war finally came the supposedly decisive naval battle of World War I at Jutland was anything but decisive—Mahan’s theory of naval warfare was instead shown to be decisively misguided.

Of course, history never really repeats itself, but its echoes tend to carry forward into modern times. Most often, history’s echoes ring painfully familiar and today’s great power competition—a thinly disguised reference in US strategic parlance to competition specifically with China—is no exception. But another echo is also starting to ring—namely, the presumption that competition will inevitably lead to war. The fact that China is building a modern navy is viewed by Western analysts with alarm, but not panic. Dark quotations from the “Thucydides Trap” and dire warnings of how China’s militarization of man-made islands will somehow close the South China Sea are frequently predicted to result in any number of global catastrophes. War, it is said, will hinge upon US naval power being able to engage the Chinese navy successfully, to ensure command of the sea and theoretical victory. Many navalists wonder if De Tag! is upon us once again.

Today’s Assumptions

Today our formidable Navy is preparing for battle with gusto, stressing capital ship power—namely, aircraft carriers—to execute Mahanian style battle in an offensive strategy, seeking out and destroying the enemy at sea. But the reason we assume China will engage at sea and play our game is unclear. The foundation upon which modern naval strategy is built is fatally flawed, relying on dubious theory, and selectively listening to the echoes of history. Unlike other naval powers, the United States Navy clings to Mahanian theory as rationale for its force structure and strategy. While going all in on Mahanian theory has enabled an enormously powerful Navy that can travel and strike globally—virtually unopposed—the adherence to Mahanian theory has resulted in a limited record of operational success in the twentieth century. And, crucially, the Mahanian US Navy is particularly unsuited for a projected conflict with China.

Even a neutral observer—a near impossibility in the practical sense—is likely to wonder why the United States continues to rely on outdated theory despite having the ability and capability to update, modernize, and strategize for the modern era. The reason we do so is simple: we want to return to it. We rationalize incorporating dated theory into modern warfare with dubious historical examples and assumptions. The result is a protracted attempt to mold any potential adversary into our desired theoretical vision and the continuation of some bad habits—theorizing war against our ideal enemy instead of the enemy we have, envisioning an enemy that fits a desired vision to match how we want to fight the next war, and developing an understanding of modern conflict that is rooted in a selective instead of wholistic examination of a century of naval conflict.

Poor History: Mahan Vindicated?

Mahanian theory was a poor predictor of events in World War I, but it could be argued that Mahan’s theory was vindicated in World War II. In 1945 the United States Navy stood at the height of its power. Relatively new as a capital ship force—the first modern battleships of the great white fleet had sailed in 1907—the US Navy undertook a massive expansion to prepare for war, both materially and philosophically. Pearl Harbor demonstrated how the battleship had been eclipsed by the aircraft carrier. The Navy immediately adapted—taking what it learned at Pearl Harbor, the Navy grew to thirty fleet carriers by 1945, and added hundreds of smaller ships to fight Japan in a distinctly Mahanian fashion. Ultimately the primary tool of victory in the Pacific was carrier power.

However, as the United States emerged from World War II as a superpower pitted against the now-hostile Soviet Union, Navy admirals took the lessons learned at Pearl Harbor and argued for the continued development of larger “super carriers” to provide the US Navy with a forward-deployed naval strike capability. In its push for bigger and better carriers, the Navy was making a distinctly Mahanian argument supported by the overwhelming victory in the Pacific during World War II. As a military service, the Navy saw its growth as key to its survival as a service—especially as post-war funding became more limited and it was unclear which service would be prioritized for growth in the new bipolar superpower era. Despite hostility from the other services—especially the Air Force, which understood power projection as its singular province—the Navy got what it wanted and aircraft carriers, a capital ship force that could execute Mahanian theory of decisive battle, became the bedrock of the US Navy’s intimidating fleet.

But the lessons taken from World War II and the rationale for a battle fleet of capital ships was a selective one that ignored how World War II was a two-ocean war, and how the war in the Pacific had a markedly different character from the war in the Atlantic. The war in the Atlantic was not a carrier war, but rather one in which the primary threat was the German U-boat, a formidable enemy whose potential success threatened the entire Allied war effort. The Atlantic was a small-boy war of destroyers, escorts, and antisubmarine aircraft, with little Mahanian theory influencing the plan. To defeat the undersea U-boat threat, the Navy relied on a unique combination of defensive measures, intelligence, and small-unit actions. As the Navy set a course for modernization and expansion, it failed to encompass the historical lessons from its World War II Atlantic experience. Instead, the core philosophical ethos focused on capital ships and how carriers were needed to fight a peer at sea. The strategy overlooked the lessons learned from the smaller antisubmarine forces that won in the Atlantic. Ultimately, the problem of future warfare was more complex than the Navy chose to acknowledge.

Failed Paradigms: Creating an Enemy

In the post–World War II era, the United States fell deep into the Cold War, and great power competition was focused on the US relationship with the Soviet Union (and to a lesser extent, China) within the context of containing communism. During this time, the Navy continued to argue that a Mahanian strategy reliant on its capital ships was the best way to accomplish containment and to keep command of the sea. Outside of naval planning circles, few understood the difficulties with, and inherent weaknesses of the Navy’s approach.

Most noticeably, during the Cold War, the US capital ship fleet had no peer opponent. The Soviet Union, although developing as a modern naval power, was not imperial Japan and would never present the same formidable foe at sea. The Soviet surface fleet was small by comparison, and its combat power remained questionable. The poor condition of the Soviet surface ships kept them close to home, and while the Soviets were certainly capable of global deployment, they rarely strayed far in large groups of credible combat power. These facts were ignored by a succession of Navy admirals who were determined to keep the focus on capital ships. The ruse continued into the late 1970s when then-Chief of Naval Operations Elmo Zumwalt went so far as to testify that the Soviets, as a great power, had surpassed US naval strength. In the final years of the Soviet Union, the myth continued as US government printing offices kept producing slick publications outlining the threat posed by the Soviet surface fleet and how US carriers would defeat them in combat.

The irony is that the Soviet navy did pose a threat at sea, but not in the manner pushed by the US Navy. During the Cold War the Soviets developed a substantial force of nuclear submarines—almost twice the size of the US submarine fleet. Instead of a World War II Pacific-like battle, the Soviet Union’s investment in submarines should have signaled to the US Navy that any future war at sea would be far more like the battles fought in the Atlantic and that carrier power was secondary. Incredibly, naval strategists did not shift to focus on building an antisubmarine force composed of smaller ships and attack submarines. Instead, the Navy continued to identify its carrier fleet as the primary means to defeat the undersea threat despite the lessons learned in World War II in the Atlantic. In the 1980s, the Navy introduced a new Maritime Strategy, which was an aggressive forward deployment to the far north intent on bottling the Soviet surface and submarine power in their bases, while simultaneously conducting strikes against enemy bases in the frozen Kola peninsula. Naturally, such actions would—in theory—provoke the Soviets to sail their weaker force out to sea and engage in battle at sea. In short, De Tag! was back.

The fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent opening of the former Soviet Union showed how the US Navy got its strategic assumptions and paradigms wrong. The Soviet navy was, as some had suggested, intended to operate in defense of the homeland. Ultimately, the Soviets did not consider the US Navy’s strategy of a forward deployment and command of the sea within striking distance of the Soviet homeland—in this case, the frozen Kola peninsula—a relevant threat. The US Navy’s entire strategy and the force structure built to execute it, was mistaken. Which brings us to the present day and China.

Rising from the Ashes: Mahan in the East

Following the photo of the Chinese submarine near the USS Kitty Hawk, China continued to add to its naval power. In 2011, China launched its first aircraft carrier and subsequently built a series of small naval bases on man-made islands off the mainland coast cementing it as a peer naval power capable of threatening US dominance at sea. The Chinese navy is being built for offensive operations in the spirit of Mahan, and it is possible that De Tag! is here again.

Given our history of producing naval strategies based on flawed assumptions and incorrect core beliefs, we should be wary of making similar mistakes with our naval strategy toward China. Assumptions about how the Chinese will employ military force at sea are echoing historical mistakes, including the notion that China is building its navy to engage in an open-sea battle, or that any strike warfare against the Chinese mainland will be decisive, and that capital ship dominance is the sole enabler of US command of the sea.

Currently, US naval strategy emphasizes the concept of “freedom of the seas”—a concept that Mahan would have wholeheartedly endorsed—and is focused on access, or the free flow of ocean-born commerce. However, a strictly military approach to protecting shipping-lane access to enable international trade is woefully dated. Freedom of the seas is an established international norm, codified in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, but the United States has refused to ratify the convention over sovereignty concerns. Therefore, in theory, the United States is using its naval powers to enforce an international treaty it has not even signed. Freedom of the sea is intended to protect merchant ships and trade routes, but the United States is no longer a dominant merchant power. The US strategy is really committing our naval power as a global police force—much as the British Empire did—at significant cost and risk, to protect foreign ships that are already bound by the UN convention. Using our naval power in this manner is becoming increasingly provocative and history shows that wars have started over mishaps and incidents at sea.

If we assume the rhetoric of great power competition is correct and war is inevitable, or at least likely, the Navy is correct to prepare. But blindly continuing its love affair with Mahanian naval theory could be catastrophic. China is not Japan or the Soviets and presents a new, formidable threat. Militarily, the Chinese navy, although modern, is very much a regional force. And despite an aggressive building program, China is not yet an overwhelming threat to US naval power. The presumption that China is seeking Mahanian-style battle despite the given combat power of the US Navy is not credible. To win at sea, the United States must consider the adversary we face, not the adversary we want to face.

Yet we still must consider war with China a possibility and therefore must reinvigorate the debate over how best to employ US naval power and the Navy’s composition. Aircraft carriers, while impressive, are becoming increasingly vulnerable, not less so. The newer threats of hypersonic missiles, targeting from space, and cyber present unique challenges for the US Navy and the loss of a single carrier will have enormous consequences. Additionally, even if the US Navy achieves command of the sea, it may be irrelevant due to modern strike capabilities. History has shown that the ability to strike an adversary’s mainland from sea is not decisive in war—including examples from North Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Additionally, it is important to recognize that in war, an enemy will play its own game, not ours. China understands US naval capabilities, tactics, and theory and to assume otherwise is foolish. However, in open waters, China’s naval power is effectively neutralized by our combat power. China fears isolation and its own lack of access to trade and shipping routes, and with our seaborne allies, it is possible to keep a hostile China in check. Developing a flexible naval force, increasing trade alliances, and signing onto the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea are key to any naval strategy to combat China.

The United States has a mighty history of seapower and maintains longstanding traditions that our US Navy bears with pride. But as times change and power shifts, it is critical for the US Navy to avoid clinging to antiquated naval theory to rationalize a fleet that supports a familiar strategy instead of a strategy that will counter modern threats at sea. The question is not if the US Navy should maintain its capabilities to engage in, and decisively win, a battle at sea—which it absolutely should­—but instead, whether the current naval strategy is based on sound assumptions and is focused on modern-day threats and challenges. Whether we will once again see De Tag! is uncertain but clinging to the myth of Mahanian theory and capital ship invincibility is a losing strategy.

Dr. R. B. Watts is a professor of national security strategy at the National War College. He retired from the US Coast guard as a captain after serving twenty-six years on active duty, including six sea tours with both the Navy and the Coast Guard. He holds an advanced degree from the Naval War College in strategic studies, master’s degrees from Old Dominion University in history, American Military University in international naval studies, and the Naval Post Graduate School in homeland security, and a PhD from the Royal Military College of Canada in war studies.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense, or that of any organization the author is affiliated with, including the National War College, National Defense University, and US government.

Image credit: Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Rawad Madanat, US Navy

Ultimately the primary tool of victory in the Pacific was carrier power.

the lessons taken from World War II and the rationale for a battle fleet of capital ships was a selective one that ignored how World War II was a two-ocean war, and how the war in the Pacific had a markedly different character from the war in the Atlantic. The war in the Atlantic was not a carrier war, but rather one in which the primary threat was the German U-boat, a formidable enemy whose potential success threatened the entire Allied war effort. The Atlantic was a small-boy war of destroyers, escorts, and antisubmarine aircraft, with little Mahanian theory influencing the plan. To defeat the undersea U-boat threat, the Navy relied on a unique combination of defensive measures, intelligence, and small-unit actions. As the Navy set a course for modernization and expansion, it failed to encompass the historical lessons from its World War II Atlantic experience. Instead, the core philosophical ethos focused on capital ships and how carriers were needed to fight a peer at sea. The strategy overlooked the lessons learned from the smaller antisubmarine forces that won in the Atlantic. Ultimately, the problem of future warfare was more complex than the Navy chose to acknowledge.

Given our history of producing naval strategies based on flawed assumptions and incorrect core beliefs, we should be wary of making similar mistakes with our naval strategy toward China. Assumptions about how the Chinese will employ military force at sea are echoing historical mistakes, including the notion that China is building its navy to engage in an open-sea battle, or that any strike warfare against the Chinese mainland will be decisive, and that capital ship dominance is the sole enabler of US command of the sea.

Learn from Fleet Boat Development
The interwar period saw U.S. submarines improve from inferior to superior. How that came about offers lessons for present-day fleet architects.
By Commander Joel Holwitt, U.S. Navy
February 2020 Naval History Magazine

At the end of World War I, the U.S. Navy discovered that surrendered German U-boats were superior to U.S. submarines. The U-boats could go faster and farther, and they could carry almost twice as many weapons as the newest U.S. submarines. They also could submerge four times faster. The U.S. Navy’s subs possessed advantages only in maximum depth and an extra half knot submerged.1

At the start of World War II 23 years later, however, the U.S. submarine force possessed versatile “fleet submarines” that proved their technological quality throughout the war.

The interwar development of the fleet submarine remains relevant. Today’s Navy has undertaken an aggressive program to develop new platforms and payloads, even as the United States’ competitive advantage shrinks or even disappears in some areas.2 The architects of tomorrow’s fleet should study the lessons offered by their interwar ancestors and base design requirements off realistic strategy, refine requirements and technologies through operational feedback loops, take advantage of industrial collaboration, and accept contributions from the deckplates.

Strategic Vision and the Operational Feedback Loop

Even before World War I, the U.S. Navy evaluated the possibility of a future war involving Great Britain (code-named “Red”), Japan (code-named “Orange”), or both. The Red and Orange war plans established the idea for strategic employment of the submarine force. A short-range coastal-defense submarine would be sufficient to meet the demands of the Red plan, but War Plan Orange called for a more capable and longer-range submarine that could cross the Pacific, scout out the Japanese Navy, and soften it before the U.S. surface fleet closed to finish it off.3

Because the bigger, more capable submarine could carry out the lesser submarine’s missions, the Navy began developing “fleet submarines”—the V-boats—before the Great War even ended.4


a chart comparing a U.S. and German submarine at the end of World War I

Starting in the 1920s and until the brink of World War II, the Navy experimented. Although some of its experiments entailed only one submarine and one surface ship, other larger exercises—the famous Fleet Problems—assembled most, if not all, of the Navy. The service carried these out annually in the Caribbean, the Hawaiian Islands, or off the Panama Canal, practicing war plans and testing new technological capabilities.5

The results were fed to the General Board of the Navy. Working directly for the Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), the General Board was made up of some of the most respected admirals in the Navy. It conducted frequent hearings with subject-matter experts from the fleet and the Navy’s engineering bureaus, out of which the board developed requirements for prospective platforms. It is no exaggeration to say that the World War II U.S. Navy was conceived by the General Board during the interwar period.6

Results also informed operational doctrine. During Fleet Problems in the 1920s, fleet commanders determined that S-boats, the largest class of U.S. submarines at the time, were too slow to keep up with the surface fleet. As a result, commanders chose to deploy the S-boats well ahead of the battle line and ordered them to attack on making contact with the enemy. When the first V-boats of the 1930s entered service, U.S. submariners experimented with subs operating together as a “battle task force” before abandoning the concept. Through experimentation, fleet exercises determined that submarine commanders should operate independently, a role subsequently written into doctrine.7

By March 1931, the submarine force had gained enough at-sea experience from the first six V-boats to hold a conference to refine the fleet boats’ characteristics. The conference wrote out a long list of recommendations for future submarines, with an emphasis on the independent scouting role. Submarines would need to be smaller than the first six V-boat prototypes, with a displacement that supported extended range, along with fuel, weapons, food, and supplies for at least two months of war patrol.8

In 1935, the Submarine Officers Conference reiterated and updated the desired characteristics, with lessons from operational experience. Submarines still needed to be small to be maneuverable, but they also required a little more space to better support long ocean voyages and carry more weapons.9 These characteristics would guide submarine design through the end of World War II.10

It would be difficult to overstate the value of the interwar operational feedback loop in identifying key information and converting it into updated requirements and doctrine. But even as Fleet Problems led to a doctrine of independent operations, they also left significant blind spots and misperceptions, including an exaggerated sense of vulnerability to sonar and aircraft. Worse, the operational feedback loop did not recognize that the Mk 14 torpedo and its overly complicated Mk VI magnetic exploder had been inadequately tested, costing submarines and lives in 1942 and 1943.11



Two U.S. submarines under construction at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard before World War II.
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, developed many of the innovations that moved the Navy from less-capable World War I submarines such as the small O-2 (left) to the superior fleet boats that helped win the war in the Pacific. The V-4 (future USS Argonaut [SM-1], right) was the largest of the interwar V-boats and performed a variety of duties, including landing Marine Raiders at Makin Atoll.
MILNE COLLECTION, UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE LIBRARY

Incremental but Rapid Development

The strategic imperatives of War Plan Orange set the requirements for U.S. submarines, while operational feedback about what worked—and what did not—refined them. This allowed the Navy to build an advanced submarine force through innovation by junior officers, collaboration with outside industry, and a rapid but incremental development process.

Deckplate innovators proved crucial to the development of the fleet submarine. For instance, World War I and 1920s submarines launched torpedoes using compressed air, releasing bubbles that upset the submarine’s trim and gave away its position. Lieutenant Marshall M. Dana solved this problem at Portsmouth Navy Yard in the early 1930s with the “bubble eliminator,” a poppet valve that vented air and water from the torpedo tube into a tank in the torpedo room bilges.12

Similarly, around 1932, Lieutenant Commander Olton Bennehoff designed and built a rudimentary torpedo data computer (TDC) while commanding the USS S-48 (SS-159). Bennehoff experienced numerous difficulties, not the least of which was that his first attempt was too large to fit through the submarine’s hatches. But he progressed enough with the concept that the Navy had him continue work on it at the Bureau of Ordnance (BuOrd). With the General Board’s blessing, BuOrd took Bennehoff’s concepts, shared them with industry, and ultimately used competition between Arma and Ford Instrument to develop a superior computer that could solve multiple equations simultaneously.13 No other navy developed anything comparable before or during World War II. The German and Japanese submarine fleets possessed only angle solvers for their fire-control systems.14

Perhaps the most important technological development in the 1930s was the tremendous improvement in submarine diesel engines, the result of collaboration with private industry. Following World War I, diesel engine reliability and efficiency were so poor that fleet commanders did not expect submarines would ever operate faster than 15 knots. Anything more appeared to require submarines of unwieldy size.15 By 1930, the Navy’s engineering bureaus were so discouraged with the state of U.S. diesel engines that they implored the General Board to purchase German diesel technology. But even after the Navy obtained German-designed M.A.N. diesels for the last two V-boats, officers remained dissatisfied with engine reliability and operation.16

Only a few years later, however, improvement in railroad diesel engines permitted a tremendous leap forward. The submarine force and the railroad industry cooperated to design and produce powerful new compact diesel engines that finally allowed U.S. submarines to proceed at high speed on the surface and recharge their massive battery banks. Future Admiral Stuart S. “Sunshine” Murray recalled the close collaboration between the USS Porpoise (SS-172)—the first fleet submarine with the improved engines—and the Boston and Maine Railroad:

When we were short of spare parts, due to nonarrival or anything like that, the Boston and Maine was very helpful in that they would trade spare parts with us. We could get them right off of their diesel engines or from their diesel shops. I might add it worked the other way at times also. They borrowed from us.17

All these developments led to rapid, if incremental, changes in U.S. submarine design. Starting in 1933, with the New Deal’s financial support for industrial recovery, the Navy built small blocks of submarines every fiscal year. Each block entered the operational feedback loop immediately on acceptance into the fleet, with recommendations from engineers and submarine crews quickly fed back to the General Board and applied to the next year’s block. In this way, the Navy transitioned from the Porpoise to the Gato (SS-212) in just eight years. Although the Gato bore a superficial similarity to the Porpoise, the number of torpedoes she carried increased by almost a full third, test depth increased by a fifth, surface speed improved, and submarine equipment evolved to include torpedo data computers, air conditioning, and more.18

This “incrementally rapid” process continued during World War II, if anything, at a faster pace—bringing advanced radars, bathythermographs, and electronic bearing transmitters to submarines in a little more than three years.19





A comparison of a U.S. and German submarine at the start of World War II

(My note: U123 was a Type IXB U-boat. M.)

U.S. submarines evolved tremendously after November 1918. When war came in December 1941, a Gato-class submarine could proceed faster surfaced or submerged, go almost as far, and carried more weapons than its closest German counterpart, a Type IXB U-boat. The U-boat’s primary advantage was that it was designed to go deeper.20

But a straightforward comparison of characteristics understates the Gato’s advantages. For instance, although the Type IXB U-boat carried nearly as many torpedoes as a Gato, almost half were carried externally. To use the torpedoes, the U-boat required calm seas and adequate time to unstow them, hoist them through a hatch, and strike them below. This evolution left the U-boat highly vulnerable to attack and without easy access to half its primary weapons. And while the Type IXB had a moderately longer range than its U.S. counterpart, German submarines lacked air conditioning, a crew’s mess, and other amenities that permitted extended patrols in any climate. While U.S. submarines could remain on station for two to three months and maintain adequate alertness and high battle standards, U-boat sailors were forced to endure hellish conditions of unbearable humidity and condensation, as well as soaring interior temperatures when surfaced. Consequently, the relative disparity in effectiveness of these submarines only increased with time on station.21

Admittedly, U.S. submarines were carrying out missions in the Pacific, not directly competing against German U-boats. But they were tremendously successful. Even though U.S. submarines were unexpectedly assigned the mission of unrestricted warfare against Japanese trade, they proved superbly capable at it, as well as at combat against Japanese fleet units and a variety of missions such as aviation lifeguard and guerrilla landings. U-boats proved much less successful at the missions the Kriegsmarine set out to accomplish.22

Lessons for Tomorrow

The architects of tomorrow’s U.S. Navy—not only submariners—should draw a number of lessons from the successful development of the U.S. fleet submarine.

Design platforms and payloads from a clear-eyed strategic vision. The interwar requirements for U.S. submarines were based on genuine needs to support a transpacific offensive, such as speed, range, weapons loadout, and endurance. As today’s Navy develops future warships, aircraft, and weapons, the characteristics of these platforms and payloads must be tied to the latest plans for tomorrow’s fight. Designers should set specifications and capabilities in relation to the most limiting war plan.

(Except that Warplan Orange 1935 called for UNRESTRICTED SUBMARINE WARFARE against Japan and American submariners knew it. M)



Frequently refine design characteristics, technology, and doctrine through operational feedback. Upgrades in submarine design, performance, and doctrine from the S-boats of the early 1920s to the Gato-class in 1941 owed much to the operational feedback loop that included Fleet Problems and the General Board. The 2016 resurrection of Fleet Problems in the Pacific Fleet is a welcome use of the past to inform the future Navy. But the interwar Navy worked as well as it did because its feedback loop included independent organizations such as the General Board, the Naval War College, various fleet elements, and the Office of the CNO. The resurrected Fleet Problems, on the other hand, appear to be an internal Pacific Fleet program.23 Today’s Fleet Problems should be incorporated into a broader modern operational feedback loop.

Collaborate with industry. Just as yesterday’s Navy benefited from a close relationship with the railroad industry, today’s Navy needs to establish and maintain close ties with industries pursuing cutting-edge information technologies, advanced metallurgy, and sensors.

Take ideas from the deckplate. The advent of 3D printers and computer-aided design allows the Navy’s highly trained technical wizards to develop their own solutions. The Navy should reward these innovators by assigning them develop­ment duties, much as Bennehoff reported to BuOrd to supervise the refinement of his initial TDC.

www.usni.org/sites/default/files/styles/embed_medium/public/Holwitt-NH-JF-20%204.jpg?itok=zdbLYI_o
Sailors with a 3D printer

Interwar designers took ideas from all comers. The advent of “additive manufacturing”—better known as 3D printing—is allowing sailors to develop deckplate-level solutions to problems.

U.S. NAVY (GEORGE BELL)

A Radical (but Historical) Solution

None of the above recommendations matter if the Navy’s acquisitions program continues to produce platforms and weapons at a snail’s pace. Countless articles criticize the long delays in producing new warships and aircraft—especially the decades-long production of the Navy’s top priority, the Columbia-class ballistic-missile submarines. With such a prolonged production line, what hope is there to improve platforms through annual incremental change?

The first 170 years of U.S. warship procurement suggest a radical solution: construction at naval shipyards. From the earliest days of the Republic through the late 1960s, government-funded and -run naval shipyards at Portsmouth, Brooklyn, Mare Island, and elsewhere designed and constructed all manner of warships. These shipyards served as a valuable foil for and competitor to private industry.

Much of the conceptual design and testing of the fleet submarines was done at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine. (See “Midwife to the Fleet Boat,” August 2018, pp. 34–38.) After proving its competence with the L-8 (SS-48), Portsmouth became the Navy’s submarine builder of choice. When naval construction boomed during the Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt assigned construction to the Brooklyn Navy Yard and other government shipyards to force private shipbuilders to reduce costs. Naval leaders also recognized that there were fewer labor problems at the government yards. The public shipyards continued to prove their worth in time of crisis: Portsmouth Naval Shipyard proved to be far more efficient than others, steadily reducing construction time and building quality submarines throughout the war.24

Despite this, Congress shifted all new warship construction from the naval shipyards to private shipbuilders in the late 1960s to guarantee private shipyards government business. In addition, there were claims that private industry would naturally drive down costs and seek efficiencies.25

The past half-century argues that this is not the case. Indeed, Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, not always a strong advocate of Navy shipyards, grew so frustrated with private yards that he proposed shifting new construction back to public ones to provide “a benchmark to judge costs at private yards” shortly before he was forcibly retired.26



Portsmouth Naval Shipyard circa 1918

When Portsmouth Naval Shipyard laid the keel of the Electric Boat–designed O-1 (above) in 1917, the yard had built only one submarine, the L-8. By the time the final boat was launched—the USS Sand Lance (SSN-660) in 1969—Portsmouth had built 134 submarines. Given problems with construction in private yards over the intervening half century, the author argues it may be time to revisit constructing submarines in Navy-owned yards.
NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND

Because it has been more than 50 years since a U.S. naval shipyard designed and constructed a warship, this historical solution is radical. The costs of standing up new construction capabilities might be prohibitive, but the opportunity to add competition and drive efficiencies the way that Portsmouth Naval Shipyard did in the first half of the 20th century may help break the Navy free of the current acquisition morass.

The development of U.S. submarines from inferiority at the end of one war to high quality at the start of the next offers many lessons. The leaders assigned to design and build the platforms and payloads necessary for the next war should internalize the need for clear-eyed strategic vision, build a high-velocity operational feedback loop, take advantage of the talents of the deckplate, and reform the current shipbuilding industry. The Navy can ill afford to end up with a Type IXB U-boat instead of a Gato-class fleet submarine.

1. Norman Friedman, U.S. Submarines through 1945: An Illustrated Design History (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press [hereafter: NIP],1995), 159–61.
2. ADM John M. Richardson, USN, A Design for Maritime Superiority Version 2.0, December 2018, 9.
3. Michael Vlahos, The Blue Sword: The Naval War College and the American Mission, 1919–1941, U.S. Naval War College Historical Monograph Series, No. 4 (Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 1980), 97–121, 163; Craig C. Felker, Testing American Sea Power: U.S. Navy Strategic Exercises, 1923–1940 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2007), 9–32; Gary E. Weir, Building American Submarines, 1914–1940, Contributions to Naval History no. 3 (Washington: Naval Historical Center, 1991), 5–11, 23–46.
4. John Alden, The Fleet Submarine in the U.S. Navy: A Design and Construction History (NIP, 1979), 10, 18, 24–35.
5. Albert A. Nofi, To Train the Fleet for War: The U.S. Navy Fleet Problems, 1923–1940, U.S. Naval War College Historical Monograph Series, no. 18 (Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 2010).
6. John T. Kuehn, America’s First General Staff: A Short History of the Rise and Fall of the General Board of the U.S. Navy, 1900–1950 (NIP, 2017).
7. Felker, Testing American Sea Power, 65–72; Submarine Officers’ Conference to the Chief of Naval Operations, Subject: Submarine Officers’ Conference to Discuss Submarine Characteristics for New Construction (188 to 193), 16 December 1935; 420-15 1936; Box 112; Subject File 420-15; General Board, Subject File 1900–1947; General Records of the Department of the Navy, Record Group 80; National Archives Building, Washington, 1–2.
8. RADM Thomas C. Hart, Commander Control Force, to the Chief of Naval Operations, Subject: Results of Study of Submarine Warfare in Conference at Submarine Base, New London, and Recommendations on Submarine Design, 31 March, 1931; 420-15 1931–1933; Box 111; Subject File 420-15; General Board, Subject File 1900–1947; General Records of the Department of the Navy, Record Group 80; National Archives Building, Washington, 1–2, 15–16.
9. Submarine Officers’ Conference to the CNO, 2.
10. RADM C. S. Freeman, Commander Submarine Force to the Chief of Naval Operations, Subject: Submarines—Employment of in a Pacific War, 27 July 1938; 420-15 1938; Box 112; Subject File 420-15; General Board, Subject File 1900–1947; General Records of the Department of the Navy, Record Group 80; National Archives, Washington, DC, 1.
11. Clay Blair Jr., Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War against Japan (Philadelphia, PA: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1975), 18–19, 66–67, 116, 146–47, 199–201, 361; Anthony Newpower, Iron Men and Tin Fish: The Race to Build a Better Torpedo during World War II (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2006), 22–32, 59–73, 87–111, 131–96.
12. Testimony of Commander R. H. English, 6 March 1936, “Characteristics of Submarines,” Hearings before the General Board of the Navy, 1917–1950 (hereafter “General Board”), 12–32; Alden, The Fleet Submarine in the U.S. Navy, 48.
13. RADM William D. Irvin, USN, “Oddball S-Boat,” in Submarine Stories: Recollections from the Diesel Boats, ed. Paul Stillwell (NIP, 2007), 64; Letter by and Testimony of RADM H. R. Stark and LCDR O. R. Bennehoff, 15 February 1935, “Proposed Military Characteristics of Submarines 182–187,” General Board, 32–35; Testimony of CDR R. W. Christie and LT E. K. Walker, 24 May 1938, “Characteristics of Submarines,” General Board, 65–66.
14. Friedman, U.S. Submarines through 1945, 195.
15. Testimony of ADM W. V. Pratt, 27 May 1930, “Testimony of Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Fleet, in Regard to Needs of the Fleet,” General Board, 181.
16. Testimony of RADM Harry E. Yarnell, 8 July 1930, “Main Engines and Necessary Auxiliaries for the USS V-8 and USS V-9,” General Board, 253–66. Friedman, U.S. Submarines through 1945, 191–93.
17. ADM Stuart S. Murray, USN, “Developing the Fleet Boats,” in Stillwell, Submarine Stories, 70.
18. Alden, The Fleet Submarine in the U.S. Navy, 42–74.
19. Keith Wheeler, War under the Pacific (Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1980), 70.
20. “Type IXB,” uboat.net; Friedman, U.S. Submarines through 1945, 294, 311.
21. James E. Wise, Jr., U-505: The Final Journey (NIP, 2005), 2, 154; David J. Bercuson and Holger H. Herwig, Long Night of the Tankers: Hitler’s War against Caribbean Oil (Calgary, AB: University of Calgary Press, 2014), 283–84.
22. Joel Ira Holwitt, “Execute Against Japan”: The U.S. Decision to Conduct Unrestricted Submarine Warfare (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2009), 82–83, 183, 204–99.
23. ADM Scott H. Swift, USN, “Fleet Problems Offer Opportunities,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 144, no. 3 (March 2018): 22–26.
24. William M. McBride, Technological Change and the United States Navy, 1865–1945 (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 176–79; Rodney K. Watterson, “Top Sub Shop,” Naval History 27, no. 1 (February 2013): 50–55.
25. Clinton H. Whitehurst Jr., “Is There a Future for Naval Shipyards?” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 104, no. 4 (April 1978): 30–40.
26. “Adm. Rickover Predicts Gains If Navy Builds Subs,” The New York Times, 6 May 1981, A23.