Credited to: Ackbar
Navies are one of the most complicated and difficult military branches to work with in RP for the fact that real life navies are so varied and the complete lack of recent real world conflicts to model them after. You can call me a bit of an expert on the subject of military history, so this is a general guide on the workings of a modern navy and how two modern navies would interact. I both allow and encourage you to lovingly plagarize the tactics, numbers, etc. for this and to add any further input you may have. This will help everyone be on about the same page when it comes to future RP.
The section "The Progression of Naval Tactics" gives a far too short history of naval tactics, only two paragraphs of which are dedicated to modern tactics.
The Progression of Naval Tactics
Up until the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the general tactics of naval warfare were virtually unchanged throughout the millenia: get close to an enemy's ship and fight hand to hand like a ground battle. There was ocassionally the element of ramming an enemy ship (e.g. the Greek triemes), but generally the tactics of the sea were to make it a ground battle fought on boats nearly all admirals of the era were generals with experience in land armies.
After the Spanish Armada, the idea of naval artillery was the dominant for the next 400 years. The tactics and builds of sailing ships were essentially unchanged during this time. The two opposing fleets would form lines of ships (hense the largest ships were known as a "Ship of the Line"), bow to stern, square up against each other and fire their broadsides (i.e. all the guns on the long side of the ship). The more guns you could fire at you enemy, the better, so the most coveted maneuver was the
"Crossing the 'T'" where you could cross you ship in front of your enemy so you could fire a broadside while the enemy could not respond as ships did not have their main guns on the bow. Since this was the tactic that everyone was attempting to accomplish, rarely did either side ever accomplish it so the battle were generally inconclusive as two lines of ships shot at each other, giving neither side an advantage. In the rare cases when a commander did not form a battle line (e.g. the Battle of Trafalger) and sailed straight into the enemy's line tended to be both reckless and usually highly conclusive battles (usually for the commander who sailed at the line).
While there are some major innovations that I will skip over (ironclads, steam powered ships, gun turrets instead of fixed gun emplacements, etc.) the next great revolution for naval warefare was the commissioning of the HMS Dreadnought, which was revolutionary in that it was a battleship with all big guns (meaning one type of shells for the entire ship and the fact that the big guns were the only ones typically used in a battle) and its much improved engines which made it both faster than every other ship its size in existence and gave it the power to carry much heavier armor while still keeping its speed (remember that armor is extremely heavy and the more you have, the slower the ship will go). This made the battleship seem like the king of the ocean in the early 20th century, but two other simulaneous innovations doomed the battleship almost immediately (though no one realized their potential until fourty years later): the torpedo and the airplane.
In the First World War, the only neither the United Kingdom nor Germany were able to effectively bring their battleships to bear (the only major battle between them was at Jutland which ended in a draw), so it was the smaller ships that had much larger impacts, especially the submarine. Submarines were next to impossible to detect while submerged during the First World War, but they had the drawback that they could only remain submerged for about thirty minutes at a time due to their deisel engines not being able to run underwater, and the fact that the electric engine that could be run underwater needed to be recharged after about a half hour (by running the deisel engine). This technical problem would not be solved until the advent of nuclear submarines.
The attack on the American battleships in Pearl Harbor by Japanese carrier based aircraft is typically the point where battleships were considered obsolete, but the Battle off Samar four years later showed that battleships were probably useless relics decades before the war started. In that battle, an American task force of three destroyers (despite the ferocious sounding name, they are actually very lightly armed ships), six destroyer escorts (like smaller, even less armed destroyers), and a handful of aircrafts armed with only machine guns held off a Japanese Fleet of four battleships, eight cruisers, and eleven destroyers including the famed Yamato through the effective use of torpedos and the mere threat of air attacks. This would be the last time two enemy surface fleets would engage each other from visual range.
More recent conflicts like the Maldives (Falkland) War have brought into doubt the viability of the aircraft carrier as guided missiles appear to be becoming more important weapons than aircraft as they are more difficult to intercept, cheaper to produce, and do not need to return home. Because of the threat that missiles pose to modern fleets, more and more destroyers and frigates are being redesigned to play a larger anti-missile role than an anti-aircraft one. The role of the submarine is still unknown as it has not been used in a major conflict in quite some time. The ease and destruction that British submarines played in the Maldives Conflict were astounding, but the Argentinian Navy was not nearly up to par with a first class navy in anti-submarine measures.
The Modern Fleet
Only a handful of countries operate battleready, large aircraft carriers: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, India, and Brazil. There are a couple of others that have obsolete or unworking carriers, but the point is that an aircraft carrier is prohibively expensive for just about any nation on the planet. The modern naval carrier fleet is set up as such:
In the center is the Aircraft Carrier. This is the most important ship as it is often used as the command center of the fleet and is the basis of it power.
Surrounding the carrier are the support vessels (fuel carriers, armament ships, supply vessels, etc.). These support vessels are unarmed, but are vitally important to the upkeep of a fleet.
In the inner circle of warships surrounding the carrier are cruisers and amphibious assault vessels (if they are attatched with the squad).
The outer circle of warships comprised of destroyers and frigates.
Somewhere within the destroyer circle one or more attack submarines will be patroling, performing anti-submaine roles.
Functions and Sizes of Modern Vessels
The estimates are based on the United States Navy vessels and their designations.
The Aircraft Carrier
Crew: 3000-5000
Armament: 50-100 Aircraft, anti-ship missiles, anti-missile defenses
Description: The variability in the crew and aircraft are dependent on whether you are discussing a normal size carrier or a modern supercarrier. The supercarriers are on the larger end, but they cost upward of US$15 billion, so they are only for extremely weathly nations or those that spend on nothing but defense. Their main role is to act as the command ship of the fleet and to be the base of operations for the naval aviation.
The Cruiser
Crew: 400
Armament: Anti-Ship Missiles, Cruise Missiles, 5 inch cannon
Description: This ship is almost exclusively an offensive weapon, with long range missile to strike both ships and ground targets. It usually will include both active and passive sonar (active sonar is when a ship sends out a signal and listens for an echo, which is effective over shorter ranges and passive sonar is when a ship listens to hear the engines of other ships which is effective over much longer ranges.
The Destroyer
Crew: 300
Armament: Anti-Ship Missiles, Anti-Missile Defenses, Anti-Submarine Defenses, Anti-Aircraft Defenses, 5 inch cannon
Description: The destroyer is much more versitile than its submarine hunting ancestors, but is still primarily a defensive vessel. The destroyer is usually customized to fit either an anti-missile, anti-submarine, or anti-aircraft role, while having some offensive firepower as well.
The Frigate
Crew: 200
Armament: Anti-Ship Missile, Anti-Submarine Defenses, Anti-Missile Defenses, Machine Guns
Description: The frigate is similiar to the destroyer in that it is a defensive ship, but its mission tends to be less of an active defensive role and more of a passive defense. While Cruisers may carry over a hundred missiles, and destroyers a little less than a hundred, the frigate will only carry a dozen or so. It has long range radar to detect aircraft and missiles and active and passive sonar.
The Attack Submarine
Crew: 130
Armament: Cruise Missiles, Torpedos
Description: The attack sub is used for both anti-submarine and anti-ship warfare. When it attatched to a battle group it will usually be as an anti-submaine role, but they also travel alone as forward attack vessels. Nuclear powered vessels can stay submerged indefinitely as they reactors create oxygen from the water, and can stay asea as long as their food supplies will allow. With better stealth technologies and quieter engines, they are becoming even more difficult to detect, especially since they now carry the ability to launch anti-ship missiles for hundreds of kilometers while still submerged.
The Ballistic Missile Submarine
Crew: 150
Armament: Nuclear Missiles, Cruise Missiles, Torpedos
Description: This vessel is used primarily as a second strike capability in a nuclear attack scenario. In theory, if the nuclear silos of an attacked nation are put out of commission, the nuclear submarines will be able to launch their payloads as they are difficult to find and notoriously quiet. While their crew is only slightly larger than an attack submarine, they are nearly twice as long due to their large number of nuclear missiles. They are rarely, if ever, attatched to a larger fleet and tend to sail alone to avoid detection.
Navies are one of the most complicated and difficult military branches to work with in RP for the fact that real life navies are so varied and the complete lack of recent real world conflicts to model them after. You can call me a bit of an expert on the subject of military history, so this is a general guide on the workings of a modern navy and how two modern navies would interact. I both allow and encourage you to lovingly plagarize the tactics, numbers, etc. for this and to add any further input you may have. This will help everyone be on about the same page when it comes to future RP.
The section "The Progression of Naval Tactics" gives a far too short history of naval tactics, only two paragraphs of which are dedicated to modern tactics.
The Progression of Naval Tactics
Up until the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the general tactics of naval warfare were virtually unchanged throughout the millenia: get close to an enemy's ship and fight hand to hand like a ground battle. There was ocassionally the element of ramming an enemy ship (e.g. the Greek triemes), but generally the tactics of the sea were to make it a ground battle fought on boats nearly all admirals of the era were generals with experience in land armies.
After the Spanish Armada, the idea of naval artillery was the dominant for the next 400 years. The tactics and builds of sailing ships were essentially unchanged during this time. The two opposing fleets would form lines of ships (hense the largest ships were known as a "Ship of the Line"), bow to stern, square up against each other and fire their broadsides (i.e. all the guns on the long side of the ship). The more guns you could fire at you enemy, the better, so the most coveted maneuver was the
"Crossing the 'T'" where you could cross you ship in front of your enemy so you could fire a broadside while the enemy could not respond as ships did not have their main guns on the bow. Since this was the tactic that everyone was attempting to accomplish, rarely did either side ever accomplish it so the battle were generally inconclusive as two lines of ships shot at each other, giving neither side an advantage. In the rare cases when a commander did not form a battle line (e.g. the Battle of Trafalger) and sailed straight into the enemy's line tended to be both reckless and usually highly conclusive battles (usually for the commander who sailed at the line).
While there are some major innovations that I will skip over (ironclads, steam powered ships, gun turrets instead of fixed gun emplacements, etc.) the next great revolution for naval warefare was the commissioning of the HMS Dreadnought, which was revolutionary in that it was a battleship with all big guns (meaning one type of shells for the entire ship and the fact that the big guns were the only ones typically used in a battle) and its much improved engines which made it both faster than every other ship its size in existence and gave it the power to carry much heavier armor while still keeping its speed (remember that armor is extremely heavy and the more you have, the slower the ship will go). This made the battleship seem like the king of the ocean in the early 20th century, but two other simulaneous innovations doomed the battleship almost immediately (though no one realized their potential until fourty years later): the torpedo and the airplane.
In the First World War, the only neither the United Kingdom nor Germany were able to effectively bring their battleships to bear (the only major battle between them was at Jutland which ended in a draw), so it was the smaller ships that had much larger impacts, especially the submarine. Submarines were next to impossible to detect while submerged during the First World War, but they had the drawback that they could only remain submerged for about thirty minutes at a time due to their deisel engines not being able to run underwater, and the fact that the electric engine that could be run underwater needed to be recharged after about a half hour (by running the deisel engine). This technical problem would not be solved until the advent of nuclear submarines.
The attack on the American battleships in Pearl Harbor by Japanese carrier based aircraft is typically the point where battleships were considered obsolete, but the Battle off Samar four years later showed that battleships were probably useless relics decades before the war started. In that battle, an American task force of three destroyers (despite the ferocious sounding name, they are actually very lightly armed ships), six destroyer escorts (like smaller, even less armed destroyers), and a handful of aircrafts armed with only machine guns held off a Japanese Fleet of four battleships, eight cruisers, and eleven destroyers including the famed Yamato through the effective use of torpedos and the mere threat of air attacks. This would be the last time two enemy surface fleets would engage each other from visual range.
More recent conflicts like the Maldives (Falkland) War have brought into doubt the viability of the aircraft carrier as guided missiles appear to be becoming more important weapons than aircraft as they are more difficult to intercept, cheaper to produce, and do not need to return home. Because of the threat that missiles pose to modern fleets, more and more destroyers and frigates are being redesigned to play a larger anti-missile role than an anti-aircraft one. The role of the submarine is still unknown as it has not been used in a major conflict in quite some time. The ease and destruction that British submarines played in the Maldives Conflict were astounding, but the Argentinian Navy was not nearly up to par with a first class navy in anti-submarine measures.
The Modern Fleet
Only a handful of countries operate battleready, large aircraft carriers: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, India, and Brazil. There are a couple of others that have obsolete or unworking carriers, but the point is that an aircraft carrier is prohibively expensive for just about any nation on the planet. The modern naval carrier fleet is set up as such:
In the center is the Aircraft Carrier. This is the most important ship as it is often used as the command center of the fleet and is the basis of it power.
Surrounding the carrier are the support vessels (fuel carriers, armament ships, supply vessels, etc.). These support vessels are unarmed, but are vitally important to the upkeep of a fleet.
In the inner circle of warships surrounding the carrier are cruisers and amphibious assault vessels (if they are attatched with the squad).
The outer circle of warships comprised of destroyers and frigates.
Somewhere within the destroyer circle one or more attack submarines will be patroling, performing anti-submaine roles.
Functions and Sizes of Modern Vessels
The estimates are based on the United States Navy vessels and their designations.
The Aircraft Carrier
Crew: 3000-5000
Armament: 50-100 Aircraft, anti-ship missiles, anti-missile defenses
Description: The variability in the crew and aircraft are dependent on whether you are discussing a normal size carrier or a modern supercarrier. The supercarriers are on the larger end, but they cost upward of US$15 billion, so they are only for extremely weathly nations or those that spend on nothing but defense. Their main role is to act as the command ship of the fleet and to be the base of operations for the naval aviation.
The Cruiser
Crew: 400
Armament: Anti-Ship Missiles, Cruise Missiles, 5 inch cannon
Description: This ship is almost exclusively an offensive weapon, with long range missile to strike both ships and ground targets. It usually will include both active and passive sonar (active sonar is when a ship sends out a signal and listens for an echo, which is effective over shorter ranges and passive sonar is when a ship listens to hear the engines of other ships which is effective over much longer ranges.
The Destroyer
Crew: 300
Armament: Anti-Ship Missiles, Anti-Missile Defenses, Anti-Submarine Defenses, Anti-Aircraft Defenses, 5 inch cannon
Description: The destroyer is much more versitile than its submarine hunting ancestors, but is still primarily a defensive vessel. The destroyer is usually customized to fit either an anti-missile, anti-submarine, or anti-aircraft role, while having some offensive firepower as well.
The Frigate
Crew: 200
Armament: Anti-Ship Missile, Anti-Submarine Defenses, Anti-Missile Defenses, Machine Guns
Description: The frigate is similiar to the destroyer in that it is a defensive ship, but its mission tends to be less of an active defensive role and more of a passive defense. While Cruisers may carry over a hundred missiles, and destroyers a little less than a hundred, the frigate will only carry a dozen or so. It has long range radar to detect aircraft and missiles and active and passive sonar.
The Attack Submarine
Crew: 130
Armament: Cruise Missiles, Torpedos
Description: The attack sub is used for both anti-submarine and anti-ship warfare. When it attatched to a battle group it will usually be as an anti-submaine role, but they also travel alone as forward attack vessels. Nuclear powered vessels can stay submerged indefinitely as they reactors create oxygen from the water, and can stay asea as long as their food supplies will allow. With better stealth technologies and quieter engines, they are becoming even more difficult to detect, especially since they now carry the ability to launch anti-ship missiles for hundreds of kilometers while still submerged.
The Ballistic Missile Submarine
Crew: 150
Armament: Nuclear Missiles, Cruise Missiles, Torpedos
Description: This vessel is used primarily as a second strike capability in a nuclear attack scenario. In theory, if the nuclear silos of an attacked nation are put out of commission, the nuclear submarines will be able to launch their payloads as they are difficult to find and notoriously quiet. While their crew is only slightly larger than an attack submarine, they are nearly twice as long due to their large number of nuclear missiles. They are rarely, if ever, attatched to a larger fleet and tend to sail alone to avoid detection.