Naval operations: Lessons from recent conflicts

The last three years have seen navies involved in the most intensive maritime conflict of recent decades. The outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian War in February 2022, followed by the commencement of attacks on Red Sea shipping by rebel Houthi forces in Yemen in November 2023, have provided ‘real world’ evidence of the impact of technological progress on naval operations. Some of the resulting lessons are likely to have a marked influence on fleet structures, equipment and doctrine for years ahead. However, the distinctive nature of the hostilities that are currently underway suggests that it might be unwise to extrapolate their significance too widely.

The operational context

Despite the differing aims of the relevant protagonists, the ongoing maritime hostilities in the Black and Red Seas share some notable similarities. Both are taking place in relatively enclosed, littoral regions where geography inevitably exerts a considerable influence on the threats posed to naval forces. In essence, the Russian Black Sea Fleet (BSF) and the allied navies deployed in the Red Sea have been operating close to hostile shores against forces seeking to prevent them attaining their objectives. After some early, limited successes, the Russian Fleet has essentially failed to achieve its goals, notably leaving Ukraine’s strategically important grain trade largely free from blockade. Meanwhile, whilst the US Navy and its allies have gained tactical victories in protecting the passage of shipping in the Red Sea through a crucial chokepoint, they have been unable to prevent a material dislocation of maritime trade that has had real, if to date limited, economic costs. The overall picture arguably validates the focus on littoral operations that was a major feature of post-Cold War naval developments, whilst simultaneously demonstrating some of the limitations of this littoral strategy.

The two conflicts have also been noteworthy in the marked asymmetry of the naval forces involved. The bulk of Ukraine’s modest fleet was swiftly neutralised after the commencement of Russia’s full-scale invasion, and the country has subsequently been unable to deploy any major naval combatants. Equally, the Houthi rebels in Yemen have never fielded a navy of note. As such, neither the Russian BSF nor the US Navy and its allies have been confronted by significant conventional naval opposition. Instead, the nature of operations in both wars has been typified by the need to face down a potent land-based, missile threat that has been supplemented by an increasingly wide range of drone technologies. At best, this threat has proved difficult to counter in the absence of effective options to neutralise the risk ‘at source’, whether through occupation or elimination of the enemy’s base infrastructure.

The rise of the drone

The conflicts in the Black and Red Seas have seemingly been where the role of the uncrewed vehicle in maritime warfare has come of age. Drones have previously had a material impact in specific aspects of naval operations, such as their role in mine clearance during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. However, their presence in the current wars has been much more pervasive. A well-publicised development has been Ukraine’s use of uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs) such as the indigenously-developed Magura V5 to destroy a significant number of Russian warships, both in port and at sea. Ukraine’s ability to achieve the rapid deployment of these low-cost USVs, as well as to overcome some of the targeting challenges inherent in their use, has undoubtedly been a major achievement. Despite limitations in range and speed, such vessels have proved difficult to detect and to counter, for example when used in coordinated or swarm attacks.

In addition to being used as weapons in their own right, uncrewed vehicles have also been increasingly widely used to confuse and saturate warship defences as part of more broadly coordinated operations. There have been various, unconfirmed reports that Ukraine used uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) to distract the combat management team aboard the Russian cruiser RFS Moskva prior to the ship’s destruction by R-360 Neptune anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) in April 2022. In the Red Sea, Houthi engagements against allied warships have also sometimes combined aerial drones, cruise and ballistic missiles in coordinated assaults. For example, a complex engagement in early January 2024 saw 18 one-way attack (OWA) drones, two cruise missiles and a single ballistic missile destroyed by a combination of American and British warships, as well as carrier-based aircraft. These tactics have, to date, failed to inflict damage to any warship, arguably endorsing the heavy investments made in air and missile defence by the US Navy and other partner fleets over many years. Nevertheless, they have still imposed significant challenges – in terms both of crew fatigue and munitions depletion – on thinly spread allied forces. Moreover, it is difficult to exclude the possibility that the use of similar tactics by a better-resourced adversary benefitting from more advanced technology might achieve more material results.

A less remarked-upon role of the drone in the conflict in, particularly, the Black Sea had been the use of a wide range of UAVs to provide persistent intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance (ISR) across the maritime domain. Just as on the land battlefields, the ready availability of large numbers of attritable drones that are often equipped with commercially-derived technology has vastly increased the availability of real time information over inshore and coastal waters. This information has undoubtedly contributed to some of the Ukrainian successes previously mentioned. In any event, the expansion of information provided by UAVs has become yet another challenge faced by any navy seeking to impose its will in an opponent’s littoral waters.

The response to the rise of the maritime drone remains work in progress. In some cases, it seems that old approaches are being successfully adapted to meet the new threat. A good example is the Russian Navy’s deployment of helicopters to detect and engage USVs, thereby exploiting their vulnerability from the air. This is reminiscent of the similar adaptation of rotorcraft to counter the danger posed by the advent of missile-armed fast attack craft during the course of the Cold War. The intelligence advances gained by the widespread use of surveillance drones may be much more difficult to overcome when operating in littoral waters. However, the use of visual stealth, as well as careful control of electronic emissions, is likely to remain relevant.

Logistical vulnerabilities

Another interesting, if not altogether unsurprising, aspect of recent maritime operations in the Black and Red Seas is the extent to which logistical considerations have played their part. One of the most pertinent revelations has been the vulnerability of the BSF’s homeport of Sevastopol to attack by drones and precision-guided munitions such as Storm Shadow cruise missiles, despite the presence of extensive air defences. The extent of the damage and destruction caused to ships and other facilities has significantly limited the port’s viability as an operational base. This has, in turn, enforced the dispersal of the BSF’s warships further afield and thereby restricted their overall effectiveness. This vivid demonstration of the limited security afforded by even well-defended fixed infrastructure within practical striking distance of enemy forces has important implications for both expeditionary and defensive naval operations. Potential responses include a greater focus on dispersed naval forces along the lines of the US Navy’s Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) concept and increased reliance on mobile base infrastructure.

The war in the Black Sea has, however, suggested that logistical support shipping might prove particularly exposed to developing technologies, at least in a littoral context. Many of Ukraine’s naval successes have been achieved against the BSF’s landing ships and other support vessels, with a combination of missile strikes and drone attacks effectively destroying much of the fleet train. This has made the Russian Armed Forces far more reliant on civilian shipping and land-based infrastructure such as the Kerch Strait Bridge to meet their logistical needs, both of which come with their own vulnerabilities. The Western nations’ own logistics vessels, few of which are particularly heavily-armed, would seem to be equally liable to destruction in a similar conflict. This might have particular relevance to the DMO strategy referenced above, given a distributed force’s greater requirements for logistical support – particularly in terms of fuel.

The influence of logistics has also been highlighted by the defensive operations carried out against the Houthi rebel attacks in the Red Sea. A much-reported aspect of this campaign has been the heavy demands made by these attacks on the limited stocks of sophisticated and expensive air defence missiles carried aboard ship deployed to the region. For example, the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Diamond temporarily departed the theatre for the over 5,556 km (3,000 NM) voyage to Gibraltar in February 2024 to replenish her (maximum 48) outfit of Sea Viper/Aster surface-to-air missiles after two months of active service. It would seem that the challenge is not so much that an individual attack will saturate the defensive shield, so much as the totality of assaults will eventually deplete magazine capacity.

There are various potential solutions to this conundrum. Certainly there is a trend towards expanding missile capacity aboard surface warships; the aforementioned HMS Diamond is to receive 24 additional CAMM surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) for her Sea Ceptor system, as part of previously-planned upgrades to the British Type 45 destroyer class. The US Navy’s use of carrier-based airpower to supplement ship-based missiles as part of the defensive umbrella against drone attacks has also proved to be of utility. This is indicative of the value of a fully integrated combat management capacity, including the fleet-wide synthesis of weapons and sensors heralded by the US Navy’s Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC).

However, the mismatch between limited numbers of expensive air defence missiles and cheaper threat missiles and drones endorses the current investment being attracted into directed energy weapons (DEWs) such as high-energy lasers (HELs). These hold out the potential of providing warships with essentially a self-replenishable magazine, coupled with a cost of operation that rated at a few dollars’ worth of electricity per engagement.

Training, readiness and survivability

The recent naval operations in the Black and Red Seas also provide lessons in the fields of training and readiness. For reasons that will be easily apparent, there is little first-hand knowledge of BSF readiness at the start of the Russo-Ukraine War. However, American and European commentary following the loss of RFS Moskva pointed to deficiencies in situational awareness and damage control procedures, exacerbated by lack of a balanced non-commissioned officer corps and over-reliance on short term conscripts, as material factors in the ship’s destruction. Certainly, the relatively high level of losses subsequently experienced by BSF units in the course of the war suggests that it has taken time for the Russian Navy to adjust to operational realities.

The allied navies operating in the Red Sea have, to date, managed to avoid a catastrophe on the scale of Moskva’s loss. However, their own experience has not been entirely plain sailing. A salutary lesson was provided by the premature withdrawal of the Danish air defence frigate KDM Iver Huitfeldt from the theatre of operations. This followed a broadly successful engagement against a drone attack in March 2024 that, nevertheless, revealed a number of deficiencies in her equipment and crew training. Problems encountered during the action included the emergence of a defect in the ship’s Evolved Sea Sparrow missile (ESSM) launcher that rendered it temporarily unusable, the premature detonation of up to half of the 76 mm ammunition fired from the frigate’s guns, and crew errors in the operation of the command and control (C2) system. Concerningly, it seems that there were concerns about the extent of crew experience and training, as well as about the reliability of some equipment, before Iver Huitfeldt commenced her deployment.

Many of these deficiencies can likely be traced to the general complacency that often permeates a peace-time environment, as well as the hollowing out of capabilities as a broad consequence of the immediate post-Cold War era. The greater focus on readiness that has accompanied the increase in East-West tensions will likely serve to dissipate some of this malaise. It is noteworthy that navies that have maintained a relatively high operational tempo in recent years – the US Navy and Royal Navy are amongst a number that spring to mind – have generally experienced fewer glitches than their less-active peers in adjusting to wartime conditions.

One interesting, little discussed, aspect of the recent conflicts relates to the seemingly impressive survivability of modern combatants. With the exception of the obsolescent and ill-prepared Moskva, no major surface combatant has been destroyed in the course of operations. By contrast, Russia’s BFS has lost numerous smaller combatants and – as previously noted – support vessels. The relatively good track record of larger warships in both surviving and sustaining operations arguably runs contrary to the proponents of fleet structures comprising larger numbers of cheaper vessels.

Limited lessons

The recent naval operations considered in this article hold many important lessons for both practitioners and industry to consider. However, it should also be noted that there are limits to what can be learned. As previously noted, the maritime elements of both current conflicts have been taking place in littoral waters in an environment where land-based systems enjoy significant advantages. The warships of Russia’s BSF have been operating under constant surveillance in confined waters that are within range of a myriad of missiles, drones and other weaponry. In these circumstances, it is hardly surprising that it has suffered material casualties. Similarly, the allied navies in the Red Sea are protecting shipping passing through a well-defined choke point in constant range of a broad spectrum of land-based weapons. Their ability to eliminate these threats is also constrained by practical and political considerations. The results arguably have limited application to environments where a different geography applies. The constant ISR picture provided in the littoral environment by plentiful drones will progressively degrade as naval operations are performed further out to sea. Similarly, the advantages of USV swarms deployed in, say, the confined waters of the Black Sea will have little application in more open waters. Here their limitations in terms of range, speed and seaworthiness will inevitably come to the fore.

Equally significantly, the asymmetry of naval forces that is a marked feature of both operations considered by this article means that they have only limited relevance to a conflict where substantial navies are engaged on both sides. Neither the war in the Black Sea nor its counterpart in the Red Sea has seen engagements between opposing surface vessels. Equally, submarine missions in the Black Sea have essentially been confined to long-range strikes against land targets performed by ‘Kalibr’ cruise missiles launched from Russian ‘Kilo’ class (Project 877) boats. Although the Russian BSF’s flotilla of amphibious vessels was significantly reinforced in advance of Ukraine’s invasion, there have been no significant amphibious landings of note.[1] The experiences of the Black and Red Sea conflicts therefore leave many questions about the future direction of naval operations that remain unanswered.

Concluding remarks

The naval operations that have taken place, first, in the course of the Russo-Ukrainian War and, subsequently, during protection of trade deployments in the Red Sea provide important opportunities to analyse the practical consequences of evolving naval technology and doctrine. The hostilities have demonstrated many of the practical challenges inherent in sustaining protracted operations in littoral waters against a well-armed, land-based opponent. These difficulties have been exacerbated by the ISR and saturation potential provided by the increasing availability of attritable drones. The importance of training and readiness, particularly when transitioning from a peacetime to wartime environment, has been demonstrated yet again. However, the distinct geographical nature of both operations, as well as the marked asymmetry of the forces involved, place inevitable limitations on the extent of their relevance to other maritime scenarios. The student of, for example, potential ‘blue water’ conflict across the open expanse of the Pacific Ocean may need to look elsewhere to inform their research.

Conrad Waters

Author: Conrad Waters is a naval and defence analyst. He is Editor of Seaforth World Naval Review, Joint Editor of Maritime Defence Monitor, Naval Industry correspondent for ESD, and a regular contributor to other Mittler Report publications.

[1] There have been some reports of amphibious operations in the Sea of Azov at the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War but details of these are scant. The lack of subsequent amphibious operations may, of course, point to the increasing impracticality of traditional seaborne landings in a contested environment. Some sources suggest that planned Russian landings in the Odessa region were deterred by the potential strength of opposition.