I keep getting calls from commenters for ‘warships’ to be disguised as civilian ships and hide in plain sight, lost among the throngs of commercial shipping. These unidentifiable ships will rain destruction on the enemy who will have no clue where and what the disguised ships are. Hey, does this sound a lot like the Marine’s idiotic notion of small, hidden, missile-shooting units raining destruction on the hapless enemy who cannot find them? But, I digress …
I didn’t want to do this post because, frankly, the concept is so obviously bereft of intelligence as to be a worthless exercise. Unfortunately, this ridiculous notion has gotten so prevalent that I’m forced to do a post and lay this idiotic idea to rest, once and for all.
Let’s start with the obvious. In a war, there won’t be any commercial shipping anywhere near a war zone. Commercial ships will avoid war zones like the plague because they know they’ll be sunk on sight. Both sides will assume that any unidentified ship belongs to, or is aiding, the enemy and they’ll sink it without a second thought.
I mean, think about it. If you’re the owner of a commercial ship are you going to sail your ship through the middle of a war zone infested with mines, submarines, trigger happy missile-shooters, etc.? Of course not!
So, since there won’t be any commercial traffic anywhere near a war zone, what’s the point of trying to disguise a warship as a commercial ship? If it stayed in commercial shipping lanes, it wouldn’t be anywhere near a war zone where it could do any good and, if it did venture into a war zone, it would be conspicuous for being the only supposed commercial vessel in the area and would be automatically assumed to be a disguised enemy ship and sunk on sight.
All right, let’s talk about the fabled Q-ships so many people are enamored with. As a reminder, Q-ships were designed to combat submarines which, at that time, generally came to the surface, at some point, during attacks. Today, submarines never surface during an attack so Q-ships are useless in that role.
Q-ships have been occasionally used against merchant ships but the overall record is almost utterly ineffective and any losses inflicted are utterly insignificant.
Modern satellites and other surveillance and tracking will very quickly detect a Q-ship and modern, long range weapons will quickly sink it. We have computerized tracking of all civilian shipping (and naval ships that opt to signal their location). No Q-ship will stay hidden. The Q-ship will be the one who turned off their transponder. If they leave it on, they’ll be sunk. If they turn it off, they’ll be sunk. Same result, regardless.
I feel like I’m writing a post about the foolishness of trying to cross a crowded highway blindfolded. Is it really necessary to construct an argument against it or is it just so incredibly obvious that it’s a bad idea that it’s a waste of time to even discuss it?
I don’t want to discuss this again.
