Fleets of the Future

I’ve been playing with the CSIS 2046 Fleet tool…

The Center for Strategic and International Studies has developed a tool for projecting the cost, size, and construction time of different visions of the future U.S. naval fleet. The tool projects to 2046, and allows users to play with a variety of different ship types and fleet configurations. The tool remains in beta, and has a number of twitchy bugs, but nevertheless represents a fascinating contribution to the conversation on fleet composition.  The basic ship types include U.S. Navy Ford-class carriers (CV), Arleigh Burke Flight III destroyers (DD), Littoral Combat Ship and LCS based frigates (FFG), Virginia-class subs (SSN), Ohio-class ballistic missile subs (SSBN), America-class amphibs (LHA), San Antonio-class docks (LPD), LXR landing ships (LSD), and a variety of support and logistical vessels.

And a bit more…

However, as with any projection, it’s useful to ask where long-range expectations could go wrong. The CSIS model projects linear ship development, based on a few archetypal classes; large surface combatants, small surface combatants, and so forth. This raises the question of how effectively we can make long-term predictions about the general contours of ship types. A projection of 2017, based on 1987, would do rather well; today’s fleet is constituted mainly from platforms in development in the Reagan administration. The exceptions (the Littoral Combat Ship, for example) fortunately fit nicely into established categories, even if the meaning has changed (an LCS is a small surface combatant, but performs a far different function than the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates of 1987).