Research and forecasts of the development of naval forces
An analysis of the scientific literature on the prospects for the development of naval forces of foreign countries shows that at present the creation of modern forces and means for conducting armed struggle at sea, combat training and maintaining the Navy in constant combat readiness proved to be only capable of highly industrially developed states with a powerful military-economic potential and a high level of scientific development and technology.
THEY LIVE FOR A LONG TIME, ARE COMPLICATED, ARE UPDATED PERIODICALLY
When forecasting the development of the naval forces of foreign countries, it is considered necessary to take into account some specific features of the development of the Navy, which distinguish them from other types of armed forces.
The first feature of the development of the Navy is the variety and complexity of naval weapons and military equipment, which includes, in addition to traditional naval weapons (ships, torpedo, mine, minesweeping weapons, depth charges, etc.), elements of military equipment characteristic of other types of armed forces. Changes in the naval air force should be taken into account when forecasting the development of the Navy.
The second feature of the development of the Navy is the long life of the ship's crew – about 30-35 years. This feature makes it possible to predict the development of the Navy for the long term due to a comprehensive assessment of the factors affecting their development, tasks arising from the assessment of the development of the international situation, scientific, technical and economic capabilities of the state. The long life cycles of ship's personnel and ship's weapon systems make it possible to predict with great certainty the timing of their functioning.
The third feature of the development of the naval forces is the need for repeated modernization of the ship's personnel during operation. A warship, being the result of the achievements of many branches of science and technology, like any other military hardware system, is subject to lagging behind scientific and technological progress in military affairs. And consequently, it becomes obsolete – in some cases already when launching. At the same time, unlike military equipment of other types of armed forces, surface and submarines are able to withstand one or two significant reconstructions carried out on the basis of the main devices (hull, main power plant, etc.) during their lifetime.
INFRASTRUCTURE AND ENVIRONMENT
The fourth feature of the development of the fleet is the specifics of the basing and logistics system, which includes surface, underwater, ground and underground complexes that provide training and restoration of combat capabilities of submarines, surface ships, naval aviation and coastal units. The basing system can be dispersed on the territory of various continents and the World Ocean.
The fifth feature of the development of the Navy is the complexity, huge extent and extreme instability of the environment in which the naval forces have to perform their combat and daily tasks. Effective use of the ship's composition is possible in the case of its design not only in accordance with the requirements of technical sciences related to shipbuilding and the corresponding types of weapons and military equipment, but also sciences related to the study of the World Ocean.
FORECASTING
These features complicate the process of forecasting the development of the Navy of foreign countries. So scientific methods of forecasting the development of the fleet acquire a special role.
Forecasting in military affairs is the determination of prospective probabilistic data on possible directions and trends in the development of the armed forces, military equipment and military art (both in one's own country or a coalition of countries, and in a probable or real enemy), as well as probabilistic data on the course and outcome of the armed struggle and the war as a whole. This definition fully applies to the Navy as an integral part of the armed forces.
The analysis of foreign and domestic literature covering the creation, experience in the use and justification of the prospects for the development of the naval Forces of foreign countries has revealed a number of forecasting methods that determine long-term trends in the development and use of naval forces, their types of forces and military equipment.
These methods are based on the identification and study of trends in the development of naval facilities (processes, phenomena) and on the well-known "inertia" of these trends, which allows extrapolating these trends, processes and phenomena and predicting the state of the projected objects in the future. Let's consider the main methods, combined by individual characteristics into several groups.
PROGNOSTIC METHODS
The study showed that, when making forecasts, it is impossible to mechanically project past and current trends for the future. Predictive methods are a more reliable tool for assessing the state of objects in the future. With the help of these methods, targeted preparation of initial data, recording of information in a certain order, transformation and analysis are carried out in the interests of developing reliable forecasts.
All methods of prognostics are divided into the following three groups: heuristic, analytical and statistical.
1. The basis of heuristic methods is an expert survey. This is a complex and delicate scientific work. Obtaining qualified expert assessments on each problem of the future significantly depends on the abilities of not only experts, but also the organizers of the survey.
Heuristic methods are used when the forecast object is completely or partially not amenable to formalization for a number of reasons. Often these methods are also used in cases of time shortage. They are widely used in the evaluation of promising fleet weapons systems.
2. Analytical methods are used in cases when the general laws of the development of the process (phenomenon), its general structure, the most important analytically expressed connections are known – in other words, when the process under study is amenable to formalization. Connections can be expressed by algebraic, differential and integral equations and their systems, inequalities, nomograms, constructions such as matrices, network graphs, morphological structures, as well as layout and other graphical schemes, etc.
These methods are widely used in modeling the processes of combat operations at sea and in the mathematical justification of naval weapons programs.
3. Finally, statistical forecasting methods are used in cases where there is sufficient statistical information about the forecast object and its development, identified on the basis of retrospective analysis. In these cases, trends in the development of object parameters can be extrapolated into the future for a certain period of time.
By their nature and thanks to the developed mathematical apparatus, the results of statistical modeling are very convincing. However, it is advisable to use them mainly for studies of evolutionary processes.
Statistical analysis of the duration of the stages of the life cycles of ships and naval weapons systems gives grounds to assert that if the military-political situation does not undergo radical changes during the forecast period, then the basic laws determining the development of the naval forces of the probable enemy will not change significantly. This means that for the entire period, it is possible to extrapolate such time indicators as the timing of ships in service and ship weapons in operation, the timing of the construction of a new type of lead ship and the maximum construction time of a series of ships for one project, the timing of the development of new models of ship weapons and the timing of the introduction of new technical solutions. Using the identified time indicators, it is possible to predict the timing of the replacement of one type of combat equipment by another performing similar combat tasks.
DEVELOPMENT OF NAVAL ART
Simultaneously with the prediction of the development of armaments, the prospects for the development of naval art are determined. The main purpose of forecasting is to identify the main trends in changing the components of naval art - the theory of strategic use of naval forces, operational art and fleet tactics, taking into account the predicted situation in the armed struggle at sea, assessing the role and place of naval weapons in solving the tasks assigned to the armed forces as a whole.
To predict the development of naval art, all of these forecasting methods are used. However, the application of these methods has its own specific features.
For example, the citation-index method is successfully used in foreign countries to determine the prospects for the development of a particular problem or task. It is based on the analysis of the dynamics of citation of individual authors, on the identification of competent judgments of fleet specialists, the frequency of repetition of views on a particular issue.
This method requires purposeful collection of the necessary information for a long time, scrupulous study and analysis of the accumulated information in order to most reliably determine the predicted trends, discarding the disinformation aspects from the cited sources.
An important method of predicting naval art is war games. With the help of games based on the developed model (scenario) of the most likely combat operations at sea and operational-strategic, operational and operational-tactical situations set for the draw, the problematic issues of the development of naval art for the forecast period are investigated in various variants, the most effective forms and methods of using forces and means in armed struggle are determined on the sea. War games are conducted on maps and on the ground and, depending on the nature of the tasks assigned, may pursue educational or research goals.
An analysis of approaches to assessing the prospects for the development of naval forces allows us to conclude that the complication of the role and increasing the place of naval forces in the plans for preparing for a sudden outbreak of war urgently requires their comprehensive study. I would like to note that most of the developments available at the time of writing in this area were created in the 1980s and 1990s. Therefore, undoubtedly, additions and clarifications of the scientific and methodological apparatus are needed. In addition, the methods studied on the research topic require a significant amount of initial data that cannot be obtained from open sources in a limited and constantly changing information base.
Vasily Ivanov
Vasily Ivanovich Ivanov is a journalist.