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Blue & Gold Professional Library
Fleet Tactics and Naval Operations
Fleet Tactics and Naval Operations is the third edition published by the Naval Institute Press. The revised edition still covers battle tactics at sea from the age of fighting sail to the present, with emphasis on trends (factors that have changed throughout history), constants (things that have not changed), and variables (things pertinent to each individual battle). The book continues to emphasize combat data, including how hitting and damage rates and maneuvering have been conducted to achieve an advantage over the centuries. The third edition highlights the current swift advances in unmanned vehicles, artificial intelligence, cyber warfare in peace and war, and other effects of information warfare, and how they are changing the ways battles at sea will be fought and won. It also describes the interaction between naval operations, wartime campaigns, and coalition tactics have affected war at sea, with special emphasis on the U. S. Navy. It also points out the growing interaction between land and sea in littoral combat.
408 pages, Hardcover
Published June 15, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
February 23, 2021
Excellent foundational book for US Naval Doctrine, since we don't really train on it. Wish I knew about this as a DIVO and a must read for SWO Department Heads. Steps through historical development at a relevant pace, with good summary pages at the end of the major chapters. Won't put much more detail/content, because "Lists of principles help us deal with the entropy of war. The danger lies in the reader’s memorizing lists as a substitute for study. A senior officer can hardly do more mischief to young officers than to lecture on a list of principles. He or she should lecture on their content instead.”
February 21, 2019
An absolute must read for naval officers. To my enthousiasm it is very much in line with what I wrote in my book, although mine was written for junior officers. Captain Hughes book is very well written and not difficult to read. It should be read by any flag officer that wishes to be taken serious. Good stuff
June 19, 2022
"Attack effectively first" aptly summarizes the thrust of Capt. Wayne P. Hughes (USN Ret.) work in Fleet Tactics and Naval Operations. In essence, unlike land warfare, naval warfare is inherently decisive and that lesson is not forgotten by Capt. Hughes in offering what is the prime reference for naval officers, policymakers, and military enthusiasts when it comes to understanding the tactical level of modern naval warfare.
Fleet Tactics and Naval Operations is neatly divided into the cornerstones (principles) and development (history) of naval warfare before delving into the great trends, constants, and variables that sophisticated naval officers must be aware of in formulating plans or conducting naval operations in the modern era. Throughout the work, a degree of caution and realism characteristic of a seasoned veteran is infused in a marriage of timeless lessons and modern considerations without the often close-minded ignorance of emerging technology. Simply, a must-read for anybody interested in how fleets fight and win above, on or under the sea.
Pros:
- Focuses on the tactical level of naval operations with due regard for (but not overwhelmed by) operational and strategic considerations. The work knows its limits and sticks within them which makes it far more useful than an overwhelming attempt to cover all levels of naval operations.
- Salvo equations are an excellent tool for naval officers because they are tailored to the pulse-like nature of naval combat as distinct from the Lanchester equations historically used for land warfare. A work targeted at and useful for a specific audience.
- Trends, constants and variables is a nice theoretical framework to place developments in the history of naval operations into for the professional naval officer - it places key developments in context to avoid the tunnel vision that befalls many military commanders in the field.
Cons:
- The work is not entirely accessible to a casual audience because (out of necessity) it does rely on a basic understanding of ship types, naval history and systems typically understood only by naval officers. Certainly not the starting point for casual enthusiasts seeking a general understanding of how fleets work.
- The Battle of the Agean (the war gaming scenario the work concludes with) is not written in sufficient detail to glean many lessons from beyond the thought process/OODA loop of a hypothetical fleet commander. For more detail about hypothetical wargames, many fiction novels offer more insight.
- Understandably, the work does not cover amphibious operations or the land-sea-air strike package type missions the US Navy has conducted in the GWOT era. It is a work about fleet tactics (in the near-peer surface warfare sense) but to the modern professional, more detailed emphasis on such operations would be of more immediate concern.
Rating: 9.10
Fleet Tactics and Naval Operations is neatly divided into the cornerstones (principles) and development (history) of naval warfare before delving into the great trends, constants, and variables that sophisticated naval officers must be aware of in formulating plans or conducting naval operations in the modern era. Throughout the work, a degree of caution and realism characteristic of a seasoned veteran is infused in a marriage of timeless lessons and modern considerations without the often close-minded ignorance of emerging technology. Simply, a must-read for anybody interested in how fleets fight and win above, on or under the sea.
Pros:
- Focuses on the tactical level of naval operations with due regard for (but not overwhelmed by) operational and strategic considerations. The work knows its limits and sticks within them which makes it far more useful than an overwhelming attempt to cover all levels of naval operations.
- Salvo equations are an excellent tool for naval officers because they are tailored to the pulse-like nature of naval combat as distinct from the Lanchester equations historically used for land warfare. A work targeted at and useful for a specific audience.
- Trends, constants and variables is a nice theoretical framework to place developments in the history of naval operations into for the professional naval officer - it places key developments in context to avoid the tunnel vision that befalls many military commanders in the field.
Cons:
- The work is not entirely accessible to a casual audience because (out of necessity) it does rely on a basic understanding of ship types, naval history and systems typically understood only by naval officers. Certainly not the starting point for casual enthusiasts seeking a general understanding of how fleets work.
- The Battle of the Agean (the war gaming scenario the work concludes with) is not written in sufficient detail to glean many lessons from beyond the thought process/OODA loop of a hypothetical fleet commander. For more detail about hypothetical wargames, many fiction novels offer more insight.
- Understandably, the work does not cover amphibious operations or the land-sea-air strike package type missions the US Navy has conducted in the GWOT era. It is a work about fleet tactics (in the near-peer surface warfare sense) but to the modern professional, more detailed emphasis on such operations would be of more immediate concern.
Rating: 9.10
November 2, 2022
A classic and deservedly so.
My study of Strategy has been something akin to skydiving. I went up very quickly in a rather rickety small plane, and having obtained a the blurry view from 10'000 feet (covering foreign policy & politics), I'm increasingly pulled ever down, trying to see with a little more clarity how things actually work. Each level further down brings greater complexity, but helps explain some of the tenants, trends and tensions of the higher levels.
The next step on this path is trying to read my way through some of the acknowledged classics on how militaries' actually operate. 'Fleet Tactics and Naval Operations' by Hughes & Girrier fits that bill eminently.
This is an accessible and engaging assessment of how naval tactics are designed. This is not simply a book about the deep ocean. The authors stress that modern naval conflict is very much tied to the use of forces on the land and sky as well, and argue that in the emerging era of missile warfare (this third edition came out in 2018), the littoral or coastal regions will be the key maritime zones for Navy's to master.
The authors don't aim for a principles of war approach, but rather seek to differentiate what they see as the six constants of fleet tactics (“Sailors matter most, Doctrine is the glue of tactics, To know tactics know technology, The seat of purpose is on the land, A ship’s a fool to fight a fort, Attack effectively first”).
These ideas are then interwoven through discussion of broad historical trends (concentrating on the Age of Sail under Nelson and the Pacific battles of the Second World War), and the implications of modern warfare with the role of information and missiles presenting significant challenges for fleets.
I was pleasantly surprised how readable this book was. I have in the past struggled with some military writings, finding they seem to dive into the arcana of technical and technological elements, can go heavy on the quantitative assessments, and leave the reader searching for a stable foothold for the material. That’s not the case here. While some sections invoke mathematical models, these are brief and quite well explained and supported. The authors also display a basic caution, if not common sense, in regularly highlighting the limits of any such assessments, recognising their contribution is for aiding analysis, not substituting for it.
For anyone wanting a better sense of how modern warfare operates, and the core principles behind some of the broader decisions you read about, this is a valuable and highly accessible read. I feel I’ve learned a lot, and the picture below is ever so slightly in greater focus. Now let's just hope my choice to bring a bag of books instead of a parachute was the right call...
My study of Strategy has been something akin to skydiving. I went up very quickly in a rather rickety small plane, and having obtained a the blurry view from 10'000 feet (covering foreign policy & politics), I'm increasingly pulled ever down, trying to see with a little more clarity how things actually work. Each level further down brings greater complexity, but helps explain some of the tenants, trends and tensions of the higher levels.
The next step on this path is trying to read my way through some of the acknowledged classics on how militaries' actually operate. 'Fleet Tactics and Naval Operations' by Hughes & Girrier fits that bill eminently.
This is an accessible and engaging assessment of how naval tactics are designed. This is not simply a book about the deep ocean. The authors stress that modern naval conflict is very much tied to the use of forces on the land and sky as well, and argue that in the emerging era of missile warfare (this third edition came out in 2018), the littoral or coastal regions will be the key maritime zones for Navy's to master.
The authors don't aim for a principles of war approach, but rather seek to differentiate what they see as the six constants of fleet tactics (“Sailors matter most, Doctrine is the glue of tactics, To know tactics know technology, The seat of purpose is on the land, A ship’s a fool to fight a fort, Attack effectively first”).
These ideas are then interwoven through discussion of broad historical trends (concentrating on the Age of Sail under Nelson and the Pacific battles of the Second World War), and the implications of modern warfare with the role of information and missiles presenting significant challenges for fleets.
I was pleasantly surprised how readable this book was. I have in the past struggled with some military writings, finding they seem to dive into the arcana of technical and technological elements, can go heavy on the quantitative assessments, and leave the reader searching for a stable foothold for the material. That’s not the case here. While some sections invoke mathematical models, these are brief and quite well explained and supported. The authors also display a basic caution, if not common sense, in regularly highlighting the limits of any such assessments, recognising their contribution is for aiding analysis, not substituting for it.
For anyone wanting a better sense of how modern warfare operates, and the core principles behind some of the broader decisions you read about, this is a valuable and highly accessible read. I feel I’ve learned a lot, and the picture below is ever so slightly in greater focus. Now let's just hope my choice to bring a bag of books instead of a parachute was the right call...
December 19, 2023
This is a very good book and should be required reading for the Naval Officer. Sadly we don't really teach any of this to the majority of Surface Warfare Officersm. There is a massive lack of professional knowledge in the community and a general apathy towards learning and growing. Anyone can memorize a publication but officers are paid to think. Hughes does a great job poking and prodding to get the "brain juices" flowing in the reader. I took 1 star off due to certain sections seeming to be a bit repetitive in nature.
May 14, 2022
La tercera edición de una obra maestra sobre el combate naval moderno. Interesantísima la teoría de la guerra de salvas.
Acostumbrado a tácticas, técnicas y procedimientos, es curioso estudiar la guerra naval desde una perspectiva superior y entender por qué se hacen las cosas así.
Claves: atacar primero y, para ello, mejor capacidad de exploración que el enemigo. Sí: exploración. Es decir, sensores. Las armas vendrán después.
Acostumbrado a tácticas, técnicas y procedimientos, es curioso estudiar la guerra naval desde una perspectiva superior y entender por qué se hacen las cosas así.
Claves: atacar primero y, para ello, mejor capacidad de exploración que el enemigo. Sí: exploración. Es decir, sensores. Las armas vendrán después.
August 12, 2022
Should be mandatory reading for all Marine officers. We should challenge what we expect the next war to be. Particularly in artillery where ASCMs are the future of projecting influence upon the sea from the shallows. Additionally, it was a great enlightenment into how a naval force fights or can fight in the age of missile warfare.
January 10, 2022
A slow, dense read, but if you're a naval professional or student or amateur naval enthusiast, this book is a key primer to the concepts of war at sea.
September 23, 2025
The knowledge is there, now just need a war fleet for practice…
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews