One thing I don’t understand about modern warships - why do they carry so few offensive weapons?
American ‘Burkes and peer destroyers from some Asian navys have a shitload of VLS cells, but my understanding is that the majority of these hold anti-aircraft (defensive) missiles?
Russian ships seem to have an extremely powerful, but limited load of anti-ship and cruise missiles.
But most other navys (see - especially Europe) have rather poor armament.
In the case of the USN, you could argue that a ‘Burke’s primary role is carrier escort, and that the carrier air wing is the real offensive punch. But most other navies don’t have carriers.
A remarkably large number of the weapons on a USN warship can be used offensively. Most of the anti aircraft missiles can be used in surface to surface mode. Given their high speed, they can do a large amount of damage, despite the small warhead, simply from KE. This is, in fact, why the US Army is acquiring the Typhon system with SM-6 missiles.
As for the Euro navies, I believe they are generally not designed for really offensive operations. They're generally conceptualized as fighting the Soviets, and so designed for fighting off Russian maritime attack regiments and submarines.
Most of the US Navy's offensive weapons are with the carrier air wings. The destroyers exist primarily to protect the carriers.
The Russians have to put their offensive weapons on surface ships because they're too poor to afford carriers. I mean they tried to build one but it never worked and was worse than useless.
The air force does the offense.
We do probably need to have some conversation about "what is the Navy for", too- its not clear how useful it would actually be in anything approaching a peer conflict. If it's just for pirates and transport the whole thing could be much cheaper.