The Bigger Fleet Almost Always Wins, Expert Warns US Navy Of China

With China on course to overtake the U.S. Navy and become the largest submarine force, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College warns that in naval warfare, the bigger fleet almost always wins.

Based on a historical analysis of 28 naval wars, former U.S. Navy captain Sam Tangredi, the Leidos Chair of Future Warfare Studies at the US Naval War College, found that 25 were won by the side with the larger naval fleet.

Tangredi's analysis covered naval wars from the Greco-Persian Wars of 500 BC to the proxy conflicts during the Cold War. When the fleet size was roughly equal, superior strategy and substantially better trained, and motivated crews always carried the day, finds the expert. It is only in three wars that a smaller fleet with superior technology has won, he adds.

In his research published in the January issue of the U.S. Naval Institute's Proceedings magazine, Tangredi writes that a "shrinking" U.S. Navy is concerning because of the growing fleet of the Chinese navy. The three examples where technologically advanced but smaller fleets have won the war are not very reassuring, he points out.

"All other wars were won by superior numbers or, when between equal forces, superior strategy, or admiralship," Tangredi writes in his paper.

"Often all three qualities act together because operating a large fleet generally facilitates more extensive training and is often an indicator that leaders are concerned with strategic requirements," the expert further adds.

Although China continues to lag behind the U.S. military in terms of aggregate military hardware and operational skills, the PLA has improved its relative capabilities in many critical areas. The Pentagon estimates that China today has the world's largest navy with approximately 340 vessel platforms.

According to a report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) published in December 2022, sometime between 2015 and 2020, the Chinese navy surpassed the U.S. Navy in the number of battle force ships. The PLA Navy is further expected to grow to 400 ships by 2025 and 440 ships by 2030. In comparison, the U.S. Navy had 294 ships at the end of 2021, with budget submission for 2023 projecting that the number will include 290 or 291 battle force ships by the end of 2030.

Most analysts doubt that the U.S. defense industry, which has shrunk since the end of the Cold War, could expand quickly enough to meet wartime demand, Tangredi elaborates. It is a fear that has also been expressed by Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday who has pointed out that the biggest barrier to adding more ships to the Navy is industrial base capacity, even stressed the need for the U.S. Navy shipbuilding industry to focus on building new ships faster.

While military officials and security experts have expressed concern regarding the pace of China's naval expansion and modernization, officials in the U.S. has been focusing on achieving technological superiority to overcome the disadvantage in numbers.

"A naval war against China in the western Pacific in this decade would pit a smaller U.S. naval force against a larger PLAN, on China's home turf, within range of the PLA's air and rocket forces. U.S. leaders must ask themselves to what extent they are willing to bet on technological—without numerical—superiority in that fight," Tangredi concludes.