![]() ![]() It’s built around a hypothetical Black Swan-class sloop of war ship, displacing 3,150 tons (larger than an Independence-class LCS, but smaller than a Freedom-class LCS). It’s a modernized idea that traces its roots back to the Royal Navy and Royal Indian Navy Black Swan ships that served as convoy escorts in World War II. The most compelling concept is the Black Swan Concept, proposed by the United Kingdom Ministry of Defense in 2012. The trends identified in these documents apply at sea as well as on land.įortunately, our allies have already been examining the use of small combatants in current and future fights. All of these documents correctly identify an operating environment characterized by pervasive surveillance and threat detection in the visual and electromagnetic spectrums, leading to a trend of small, dispersed, distributed combat units that depend on speed and stealth to survive and operate on the battlefield. There are a number of assessments of the future operating environment, including Joint Operating Environment 2035, A Cooperative Strategy for 21 st Century Seapower, and the recent Marine Corps Operating Concept. Despite a rich history with small combatants, the Navy will have to dredge up a lot of moldy institutional knowledge and begin applying it to the future operating environment. The smaller craft will be of more importance because the Navy has let its small surface combatant fleet dwindle in recent decades, and the craft chosen will be the ship to restore the fleet’s balance. However, the center of gravity will more than likely be the small surface combatant. As the Navy examines its options for the Future Surface Combatant (FSC) family of ships, the large surface combatant will most likely get the most attention and effort. ![]()
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