Anti - surface warfare Anti - surface warfare ( ASUW or ASuW ) is the branch of naval warfare concerned with the suppression of surface combatant s . More generally , it is any weapons , sensors , or operations intended to attack or limit the effectiveness of an adversary ' s surface ships . Before the adoption of the submarine and naval aviation , all naval warfare was , of course , anti - surface warfare . The distinct concept of an ASuW capability therefore is post - WW2 , and literature on the subject as a distinct discipline is inherently dominated by the dynamics of the Cold War . Categories of ASUW . ASUW can be divided into four categories based on the platform from which weapons are launched : Anti - ship missile s include the Harpoon , RBS - 15 , P - 500 Bazalt , Penguin and Exocet . History . Following the results of the Battle of Taranto and the Battle of Midway , the primary combatant ship type was the CV or fleet carrier . After WW2 , the ASuW concept primarily involved the multiple carrier battle - groups fielded by the US Navy , against which the Soviet Union designed specialized strategies that did not equate to a 1 : 1 match of designs . Broadly speaking , military planners in the US after WW2 envisioned that a Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe would require a massive convoy effort to Europe to supply Allied forces in theatre . Against this necessity of logistical and combat support , the Soviet Union expanded its submarine fleet , which in the event of hostilities may have been sufficient to deny the supply of material to the theatre . As military strategists often design counter - strategies to meet the capabilities of the rival force , the Western then responded with the construction of SOSUS lines to track Soviet submarines . From the air , Russian naval aviation had ASuW capabilities . The Tupolev Tu - 16 Badger G was armed with anti - ship missiles , followed by the Tupolev Tu - 22M Backfire supersonic maritime strike bomber . Even the prop - driven Tu - 142 , primarily designed for ASW warfare , could and was armed with antiship missiles . Today , following the end of the Cold War , ASuW still involves asymmetries , which may for now be more pronounced . Air ASuW . After the development of reliable long - range guided missiles , Air ASuW was imagined to consist of a mass attack by high - speed jet aircraft launching sufficient number of missiles to overwhelm the anti - air defences of a fleet . Some commentators believed that this capability was consistently underestimated . Exocet strikes against the Royal Navy during the Falklands War resulted even in the adoption of ' Exocet ' as a slang term for a ' sharp , devastating and surprising attack . ' The USS Stark incident showed a medium - sized power could significantly damage a modern frigate , with the attack of a single plane on a single ship capable of inflicting heavy damage , let alone the scenario of a multi - ship flight . Surface AsuW . After the launch of " airplane - carrying heavy cruisers , " it once against became possible for two fleet battle groups to engage in some sort of heavy fleet - on - fleet surface action . The fall of the Soviet Union has prevented the results of such an action ' s outcome , but given the dramatically revealed capability of Air ASuW weaponry , a simple " completely domination " NATO estimation would likely have been naive . Submarine ASuW . Undersea versus fleet action is commonly described as a " cat - and - mouse " game , where submarines seek to escape detection long enough to engage in a punishing strike against the much more valuable CV fleet groups . Early Soviet submarine designs could be heard " across the Atlantic , " but by the late 80s , many advanced designs were approaching sound - output equivalent to a body of water the size of the sub . P - 3 Orions or other ASW maritime patrol planes could deploy Magnetic Anomaly Detectors or disposable sonobuoys , against which the concept of a submarine firing a SAM was generally considered a poor trade - off ( the revelation of the submarine ' s location was not generally considered worth the possible hit on a single plane ) . However , the concept of the submarine firing on the plane has been revived with Germany ' s 209 - class diesel submarines . Submarines seeking to engage in ASuW can also be targeted by other submarines , resulting in wholly undersea combat . Shore / Space ASuW . Shore - based assets may have provided the decisive edge in surface warriors , with constrains imposed by range of such assets . Furthermore , satellites controlled from ground stations could provide information on enemy fleet movements . Post Cold - War . In the post - Cold War era , UAVs and asymmetric threats such as the suicide boat are adding additional complexity to the ASuW discipline .