This major revision updates Wayne Hughes's 1986 landmark study that is credited with providing decision makers a sound foundation for battle planning and tactical thinking. The book integrates the historical evolution of tactics, analysis, and fleet operations, and today it can serve as a primer for anyone who wants to learn how navies fight and win. This second edition includes much new material on combat in the missile age and reflects the reconfiguration of many tactics for littoral operations after the fall of the Soviet Union. Hughes recreates famous battles to show how tactics have changed through the ages and the ways in which they have remained unchanged. He covers tactical interaction between land and sea, the sensory revolution of WWII, secret weapons and maritime surprise, the role in battle of leadership and morale, and the importance of surface warships in today's U.S. fleet. He suggests that naval tactics, unlike ground combat, are dominated by the offense and concludes that the great tactical maxim must be attack effectively first. A new chapter traces the evolution of missile tactics at sea and includes details of attacks on ships. Many changes emphasize joint operations and coastal combat. The already extensive appraisal of command and control and information warfare is further expanded to cover modern naval operations and the character of modern salvo warfare. In the tradition of Mahan and Clauswitz, this classic text incorporates literature, politics, and a knowledge of human nature. Indispensable reading for all those interested in naval tactics, it is also a valuable reference for wargamers

In the U.S. Navy, “Wheel Books” were once found in the uniform pockets of every junior and many senior petty officers. Each small notebook was unique to the Sailor carrying it, but all had in common a collection of data and wisdom that the individual deemed useful in the effective execution of his or her duties. Often used as a substitute for experience among neophytes and as a portable library of reference information for more experienced personnel, those weathered pages contained everything from the time of the next tide, to leadership hints from a respected chief petty officer, to the color coding of the phone-and-distance line used in underway replenishments. In that same tradition, the new Naval Institute Wheel Books will provide supplemental information, pragmatic advice, and cogent analysis on topics important to all naval professionals. Drawn from the U.S. Naval Institute’s vast archives, the series will combine articles from the Institute’s flagship publication Proceedings, selections from the oral history collection and from Naval Institute Press books to create unique guides on a wide array of fundamental professional subjects. Naval tactics were described by Vice Adm. A.K. Cebrowski, a brilliant thinker on the subject of naval warfare, as “the sum of the art and science of the actual application of combat power.” Renowned naval tactician Capt. Wayne Hughes called the study of naval tactics as striving “to bring whatever order and understanding is possible out of the chaos of battle.” With those words of wisdom serving as the “commander’s intent,” this collection sheds a bright light on this sometimes dark and mysterious but unquestionably essential realm, illuminating the principles and concepts of tactics that serve the warrior at the most critical moments.

Looks at important naval battles of the past, including the Falklands War, analyzes naval strategy, and tells how to plan effective fleet operations.

Covering the classic era of sailing ship warfare from the mid-eighteenth century to the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, Naval Warfare in the Age of Sail reveals how warships were built, sailed, and fought in the era made popular today by the novels of Patrick O'Brian and C. S. Forester. The often dense technical detail of these works is explained here for the general reader through text and illustrations that bring the period vividly to life. Through his discussions of single-ship actions, fleet operations, famous commanders, and the day-to-day routines of the men who worked the ships, Bernard Ireland investigates how the navy of King George III came to dominate the high seas, ushering in a century of British maritime supremacy. Acclaimed naval artist Tony Gibbons illustrates every type of sailing warship from ships of the line, frigates, and sloops to privateers' schooners, bomb ketches, and xebecs.

Fighting the Fleet recognizes that fleets conduct four distinct but interlocking tasks at the operational level of war--striking, screening, scouting, and basing--and that successful operational art is achieved when they are brought to bear in a cohesive, competitive scheme. In explaining these elements and how they are conjoined for advantage, a central theme emerges: despite the utility and importance of jointness among the armed forces, the effective employment of naval power requires a specialized language and understanding of naval concepts that is often diluted or completely lost when too much jointness is introduced. Woven into the fabric of the book are the fundamental principles of three of the most important naval theorists of the twentieth century: Rear Admiral Bradley Fiske, Rear Admiral J.C. Wylie, and Captain Wayne Hughes. While Cares and Cowden advocate the reinvigoration of combat theory and the appropriate use of operations research, they avoid over-theorizing and have produced a practical guide that empowers fleet planners to wield naval power appropriately and effectively in meeting today's operational and tactical challenges.

This textbook is intended to serve as an introduction to the underlying science and engineering of weapons used in the naval service. The philosophy used in the material selected for this text is that individual weapons come and go, but the principles of their operation largely remain the same. Some subjects are covered in greater detail than needed for an introductory course to allow this text to serve as a basic reference to take into professional life. The text was written to be inclusive of all college majors; as such a conscious effort was made when possible to apply algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and avoid calculus. Therefore, many of the equations derived are 1st order, and provide approximations that are sufficient to illustrate the relative performance parameters of variables used in weapon system design. These same theories and principles can then be applied to actual sensors and weapons using operational parameters and specifications determined from technical manuals and warfare publications. Material has been drawn from pervious texts of the same title that have explained the principles for the last 40 years. Much of the work can be traced to the work completed by the Bureau of Naval Weapons in the 1960's. It was updated and expanded in the 1980's version and incorporated in this text. In some cases, principles of systems that the U.S. Navy no longer uses are described in a belief that sometimes it is good to know where you have been to know where you are going. In addition, many countries and organizations still employ some of these lower technology systems. Therefore, it is necessary to understand their basic capabilities. With advent of new technologies and methods, this text will require periodic updating.

A Brief Guide to Maritime Strategy is a deliberately compact introductory work aimed at junior seafarers, those who make decisions affecting the sea services, and those who educate seafarers and decision-makers. It introduces readers to the main theoretical ideas that shape how statesmen and commanders make and execute maritime strategy in times of peace and war. Following in the spirit of Bernard Brodie's Layman's Guide to Naval Strategy, a World War II-era book whose title makes its purpose plain, it will be a companion volume to such works as Geoffrey Till's Seapower and Wayne Hughes's Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat, the classic treatise that explains how to handle navies in fleet actions. It takes the mystery out of maritime strategy, which should not be an arcane art for practitioners or policy-makers, and will help the next generation think about strategy.