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Guns and missiles both serve important roles in naval warfare. There are various missions better suited for naval guns and others that favour missiles. For the most part, guns and missiles are both needed to defend against the threat spectrum that warships may expect to encounter, and to optimise combat capability. Both weapon systems come in a variety of sizes and can attack or defend against different targets or threats.
WHAT A SURFACE SHIP SKIPPER NEEDS
What are the important factors in determining a weapon system? Lethality? Reduced life cycle costs? Ease of maintenance? Compact size or weight? Cost?
According to Adm. James Holloway III, USN (Ret.), a former Chief of Naval Operations, the answer is, "All of the above". Holloway is a veteran of World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the Cold War. He is the author of Aircraft Carriers at War, recently published by the Naval Institute Press and reviewed in this issue.
"Warship and warplane design is an exercise in compromise. It is possible to make extraordinarily accurate weapons but sometimes these are not only expensive, they are very difficult to maintain and they may be overly demanding in terms of ammunition that their magazines cannot carry enough missiles that might be required in an intense battle. In WWII, at the Palau invasion, my destroyer's magazines were emptied three times in a week supporting one contingent of Marines on Pelileu", Holloway says. "What is needed, in my view, are three kinds of weapons on a surface ship."
"First would be surface-to-air missiles to provide defence of the battlegroup of which the surface combatant is a member. Second is a close-in defence system for surface combatants similar to the CIWS (Close-in Weapon System), which automatically responds with GATLING guns firing a lethally intense stream of projectiles at an incoming warhead such as a cruise missile in its final phase. Third a surface combatant requires a long range missile be used against hostile surface ships and also in a land attack mode against targets ashore. This would be the cruise missile with a range of about 800 miles with high accuracy. Then finally there is a need for guns on a surface combatant to be used as sea-based artillery for supporting Marines or, when...