Lieutenant Colonel Colin Smith rightly calls for an expanded consideration of littoral warfare in his June article, “Corvette Carriers: A New Littoral Warfare Strategy.” The notion of corvette carriers, however, suffers from significant problems. These include protecting the carriers when transiting to theater, accessing choke point areas within theater, and resupply. Because of these concerns, we offer an alternative: forward deploy a modern, well-armed patrol combatant or corvette in theater and support it with a mobile, distributable, survivable, land-based support train. This would accomplish the same objectives at lower cost and reduced risk.
The biggest problem with corvette carriers is that they would require additional forces to protect them. High-value units in carrier and expeditionary strike groups require dedicated platforms for protection from threats across domains because they lack the ability to defend themselves alone. It will be the same with adapted amphibious assault or expeditionary mobile base ships. The corvettes the ships are recommended to carry will likely not be up to the task—the Norwegian Skjold-class possesses no antisubmarine or mine countermeasures capability and lacks meaningful air defenses. Given the major threats in the littoral environment—diesel submarines, mines, and coastal missiles—this lack of capability is significant.
Antiaccess capabilities could easily deny such carriers entry into strategic bodies of water, especially those that feature strategic chokepoints. Beyond the obvious example of the Strait of Hormuz, consider the Baltic Sea in the European Command area of responsibility. In any conflict in the Baltic region, there would be an immediate threat to the Danish Straits. Were Russia to place sea mines in the Danish Straits and sink a merchant ship in the Kiel Canal—a more aggressive version of how they closed the Kerch Strait in November 2018—access for carriers loaded with missile corvettes is unlikely without a significant campaign to degrade Russian defenses enough to allow for mine clearance. If Russian submarines were to control either side of the straits, access would be contested more vigorously.
It is unlikely a sea-basing approach would be adequate to achieve the Navy’s objectives in the early stages of a conflict either. In the majority of conflict scenarios where missile corvettes would be useful, they must necessarily be in theater, and in some cases already within strategic choke point areas, before the conflict begins. Consider the Russian seizure of Crimea. Russian forces moved on and captured the peninsula within a matter of a few days. Russian naval forces, seemingly conducting normal resupply operations to forces stationed in Sevastopol, helped enable this operation. U.S. corvettes may have deterred this action, but the operation was complete before a corvette carrier could have arrived.
Consider also the Russo-Georgia War of 2008. That conflict featured significant Russian naval operations against Georgia and ended after only five days. No corvette carrier could have made it to theater before the conflict had ended. And RAND wargaming suggests Russia could occupy the Baltic States within as little as 60 hours. Even if corvette carriers could get through the Danish Straits, they would likely arrive too late to affect the initial stages of the campaign.
The refueling and replenishing of corvette carriers would be yet another burden. Sea-based logistic lines to resupply strike groups are vulnerable to a variety of threats, and a recent study suggests the Navy’s logistics fleet is already insufficient to meet its tasks in a high-end fight against Russia or China. Adding another high-value unit to the mix that requires the same logistic lines to operate is not a viable proposition.
Instead, the Navy needs a mobile, distributable, survivable, land-based support train for missile corvettes. This support train could meet missile corvettes at small ports and inlets anywhere in theater. It could be based around standardized logistics containers to facilitate exploiting existing civilian infrastructure. Of course, such a support train also requires protection, but its mobility, small footprint, and—ideally—short length would contribute to survivability.
But it only works well if the corvettes and the logistical tail are forward deployed. The presence of forward-deployed U.S. Navy combatants could have deterred Russian actions or reduced their effectiveness in the scenarios above. Forward-deployed missile corvettes do not require the ongoing presence of carriers, and properly positioned, would be ready to respond to a conflict on day one.
Fifth Fleet has both patrol combatants and mine countermeasures ships based in Bahrain, and Seventh Fleet in Japan is the largest forward-deployed naval force in the world. In Europe, four Arleigh Burke–class guided-missile destroyers have been stationed in Rota, Spain, since 2015, and the USS Mount Whitney (LCC-20) has been the flagship for Sixth Fleet in Gaeta, Italy, since 2005. Matthew Krull argued convincingly in The National Interest last year that the United States should forward deploy destroyers and cruisers to the Baltic Sea, as well.
But the costs associated with forward deploying additional large combatants to Europe would likely prove excessive. The United States would get a much better return on investment from deploying corvettes to the eastern Mediterranean, the Baltic, and even the High North. These assets would actively support NATO’s Standing Naval Forces and provide Commander, European Command, who also serves as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, with a ready-to-fight asset for U.S. and Allied operations. Such a strategy is needed to increase capability and deterrence across other U.S. theaters of operation as well.
Ultimately, Lieutenant Colonel Smith is correct that the U.S. Navy needs a new small combatant, and there must be a paradigm shift in thinking about littoral warfare. Our disagreement fundamentally is over the nature of the shift. Instead of corvette carriers and a sea-basing strategy, the Navy should invest in a real littoral warfare platform and double-down on forward deployment.