56 Comments

Once you get those extra tubes, you'll then have to solve SM-6 production rate. And a "good-enough" cruiser? LOL. Look at what the community is doing to a proven FFG design.

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"Cruiser" means a container ship with Mod 70 or ADL and a few SeaRAM launchers bolted down. Sail with a CBG or SAG. I suspect we'll be back to buying SM-2 to keep ammo production up until we get enough SM-6 lines going.

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A lot of commonality between SM-2IIIC and SM-6

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I want more small, maneuverable hulls on the cheap to ferry missiles around in a distributed way. OUSV size or a little bigger like a Damen 6911 stripped down for 9 mk 70 launchers, for instance.

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I always thought it made sense to move the tomahawk land attack missiles to a cheaper chicken ship. More room for antiship and defensive missiles. Let the cheaper chicken ship move with a slower esg or as you suggest a sag.

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We should look at a cheaper flight IV Burke and flight 2 cg Zumwalt.

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All I want is peace, but if I must stand tall, arm up, even fight for that peace I wish to be well armed and over match my enemies, I know the scripture is odd but the heart of it is true.

Luke 22:36 – Sell Your Cloak to Buy a Sword. >Jesus Christ<

Merry Christmas, Hanukah and Yule to all men and women.

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“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." Mathew 10:34

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"Currently, Arleigh Burkes are being completed at a rate of 1.6 per year. By comparison, the Chinese Type-052D (Luyang III) is somewhat smaller and less heavily armed (64 compared to 96 cells) but had an annual production rate of 3.1 until 2022. China also continues construction of other classes including the Type-055 cruiser (at its peak at a rate of two per year)."

Math. It's hard. I wonder why the author didn't spell it out for the reader?

AB (96 cells) x 1.6 = 153.6 VLS cells per year

(T_052D (64 cells) x 3.1) + (T_055 (112 cells) x 2.0) = 422.4 VLS cells per year

It won't take long for those curves to intersect.

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And the total VLS count lines intersect all that much faster when you take into account the submarine retirements.

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PLAN is confirmed to be putting VLS on their Type 093's and will continue to do so on their 095's that are under development.

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Merry Christmas to all!

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Auxiliary Cruisers with a number of MK 70 canisters would be a better use than LCS.

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LCS should play coach or quaterback to missile haulers. Let it provide situational awareness with UAVs and helos from the flight deck. Let it keep subs and other surface contacts away. Its LCS-2s on that ocean. Start with 2 MH-60 detachments and uavs that can come up via the elevator. Keep 3 usv to launch out the rear for security or ASW.

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Nice article. VLS count offers clarity but what's the geographic allocation & how quickly can those numbers be meaningfully adjusted from one region to another? Allocating Tomahawks and SM-6s to the LCS is one answer in the present offers a role for strike. Given that adaptation, pushes one to consider "by what other means"???? Example? C-130s in a Rapid Dragon configuration is also an answer and might that not be considered "equivalent to" in terms of VLS cell count in the ship killing business... thinking "necessity is the mother of invention." Praying for a lot of very clever 0-4s and 0-5's focusing on what's possible who are unencumbered by who owns what turf? Arrows with very long legs suggests (to me anyway) archers can be very creative in going about their craft without operating up close and personal.

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Need to speed up B52J. The BUFFs will need those longer legs in the Pacific.

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A single B-1 can carry more LRASMs than 2 squadrons of F-18's... presuming you had the inventory of LRASMs necessary & an intention to employ B-1s in the ship-killing business. Concrete and unambiguous metrics which VLS count are useful but I wonder if that count should not have a time component attached? A unit of measure that represents a "VLS strike equivalent" and incorporates time? That would seem to be a relevant piece of the puzzle too.

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Yes! Basic firstest with the mostest.

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Going to need long legs and tanker support because the Chinese are gearing up to crater runways in the Second Island Chain.

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You get it. We are to the era of getting masses of precision munitions to as many targets as possible. VLS only advantages are space conservation and ability to rapidly engage targets with 360 degree coverage. Tomahawks need not be in those tubes.

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VLS count is certainly an interesting metric but represents a momentary snapshot of what is in those cells at time (t). The relevance of that count number is likely to take on an interesting appearance should one model that out as a probabilistic function incorporating a delta T (as a probabilistic distribution) between a cell's replenishment and cell exhaustion. Now that's a number that I think will take on a deeper meaning should things get "spicy."

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Right, those cells mean nothing if we lose the ability to acquire targets for what is in them.

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I no longer have access to the real numbers, but as I have questoned before - how many Mk 70 boxes can you plunk onto an LCS before it turns turtle? Any second year naval architecture student with access to the data could do tha calculation.

Auxilliary cruisers - MARAD ships + Mk 70 boxes. Some simple structural calcs that any civil, structural, or mechanical engineering student could make, and there you are. Well, I do have to admit that my simplification fails to take into account the need for some serious re-thinking in DC regarding the use of assets.....

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1dEdited

One thing that might help with missile inventory is if you black shoes will stop shooting down our own jets. Lucked out with another shot by GETTYSBURG, was a Pk miss on the second Hornet…which brings up another issue.

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the second Hornet?

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Yup. Two were fired on. One shot down, other missed. Both jets on the CV1 approach to TRUMAN. The extent of the SWO incompetence here is beyond stunning.

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Wow; this incident report isn't getting any better! As I saw in another thread online, hopefully they weren't on plane guard too. That would just be shooting fish in a barrel!

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It will be more interesting for what the experienced eyes here on the porch notice is absent from the investigation report.

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And lots of Super Hornets and F-15EX with tanker support on as many islands as possible. Send a bunch of NSM at naval and naval support targets will confound enemy ops.

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Ues, but we needs sans runways too. Nsm on h-60 and maybe ah-1. F-35B kicker.

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Dear Santa Sal,

Can we please just have plans for a rational ship building program in our stocking?

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I'll settle for a rational logistics and combat support plan. Can't fight in the western Pacific without fuel and ammo to do so. Might want Mare Island, Alameda, and Adelaide spun up to repair damaged ships in, especially since a lot of those VLS cells we have are deadline due to ship and sub maintenance.

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Not Adelaide but thanks to AUKUS, Australia is funding a major upgrade to Austal's Henderson shipyard. When complete, it will be the largest naval construction and repair facility in the southern hemisphere.

https://www.minister.defence.gov.au/media-releases/2024-10-16/new-defence-precinct-henderson-deliver-continuous-naval-shipbuilding-and-nuclear-powered-submarine-maintenance

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"Are these the shadows of the things that will be, or are they shadows of things that may be only?". ( attribution: Dickens )

let us pray, the latter; and hope for better things to come. Good Solstice, Yule, Happy Christmas!

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There was an old aviation saying which I repeat here - but with no intended malice towards the Porch Partygoers nor the Good CDR Sal to wit: You can lead a blackshoe to water but you can't make him think.

Just HOW LONG have the good water wing bubbas known about this oncoming train wreck and nary a coherent rational plan amongst them? Least of which is a frigate taking almost 9 years to get wet. Our sailors deserve something better than this "coal in their stockings" crappy leadership.

Merry Christmas to one and all, Pray for Peace, aim small miss small.

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The sorry leadership problems started with the infiltration of the leftist mode of thinking. The first manifestation was the disestablishment of the Women's auxiliaries. It got worse from there.

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How about you proofread your text and use fewer acronyms? Make your product more accessible. Thank you!

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Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!

Happy Holidays to everyone who deserves to be happy (you know who you are, or if you don't, you probably do:)

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Just a heads-up over at "Naval News": The U.S. Coast Guard/U.S. Navy Integrated Program Office received approval Dec. 19 to begin to build the first polar security cutter (PSC).

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I propose naming it USCGC Nuuk after the best, most important city in our new island territory! /sarc

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An alternative might be to off shore procure the hulls. South Korea has a pretty impressive shipbuilding capability for one example.

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Amen! Politics, however, will likely prevent that. It makes sense and with your experience, you should know better. 😁

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Well, yeah, but it IS Christmas tide.

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Yes, and we should make allowances. But that ends at 23-59-59 tomorrow. Then it's back to slings an arrows, unless you prefer something that makes a lot more noise. I prefer 'splodey myself. From a Naval rifle, you get two for the price of one.

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I'd like a dozen Mogami and a dozen KDX III to go, please!

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