The Surface Fleet?
By 
Some thoughts at 1945 on the future of surface ships…
More than a year on from the sinking of RFS Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, we have few clear lessons for the naval architects who must build new fleets or the legislatures that must pay for them about the future of naval warfare.
Questions linger, and we don’t yet have all the answers.
Futurists consistently overpredicted the end of the surface ship over the 20th century. The submarine, then the aircraft, then the nuclear weapons were supposed to spell the end of surface warships. Submarines proved to be a serious but manageable threat, aircraft became part of a warship’s toolset, and against nukes warships were fortunately never tested in real combat.
But simply because critics of surface vessels have been wrong in the past does not mean they’ll always be wrong in the future.