Couple of SeaRAMs and MGs, a dozen containers.... make sure the crew quarters are comfortable, and this could be the basis of a (insert island chain name here) squadron.
Being the eternal optimist that I am, I'm fairly certain that at least ONE container in the stacks of 1000's on the West Coast already contains a number of Chinese missiles, and not 40-50 containers thusly loaded. The idea isn't new, but since it isn't real glittery with a smoking hot name, then the USN won't want anything to do with it. And in the 10 years it would to implement it along with the ever-present delays, over-budget spending, and test failures China will have something far more lethal - like FOBS launched from their moon base.
My grandfather's Seabee cruise books from the time he was in WWII in the So. Pacific were a catalog of examples of improvise, adapt and overcome. What could be accomplished with a 55 gallon drum was nothing short of an example of elegant simplicity - not perfect but very well suited to the circumstances. From their creation, Seabees have been about not the pursuit of perfection but solving the task at hand with the resources available & to pull from the resourcefulness that is in the DNA of Seabees to do what it is they do. Seabees wouldn't hesitate to do a bolt on/welded on solution that might not be the most elegant or most perfect answer but you could count on it working and often asking 'how the hell did they do that?" The "physics" of what we are facing in the shipbuilding arena when stacked up against near peer threats demands a culture of improvise, adapt, overcome... not the relentless pursuit of exquisiteness with a development & deployment timeline that stretches out into decades. If there was ever a time for this kind of resourcefulness it's now...
I take your point but those corporations are only building the hulls the Navy tells them to build. In the case of the Constellation class, changes by the Navy are resulting in a 3 year delay for the first in class given all the changes mandated by the Navy.
Dalghern had the ability to improvise because he was a naval officer in a naval shipyard. There is freedom when operating your own equipment in your own shipyard which is entirely lost when contracting with Lockmart, Inc.
Instead of bemoaning that, why not demand from your Congressman that the US Navy return to building naval ships in U.S. Naval shipyards. We did it before, we can do it again.
Theirs is really an MUSV carrying missiles. Ours can and should be doing the same thing. The navalized version of OUSV Ranger and Mariner is sitting in Austal awaiting outfitting. Evidently pending changes from lessons learned following the deployment of the 4 large USVs to the Pacific last year.
Arm up with Starlink like overlook and targeting and cruise missile / drone container attack and these bastardized container ships you would not want to f-word with. Plus how do you tell which is which?
All good ideas! However, given that the COLUMBIA-class budget and schedule are out of control based on a GAO report released yesterday (link below), from what source(s) will the money come? I suspect the AUKUS agreement will also result in similar issues, given the Navy's inability to deliver projects within budget/schedule commitments.
CDR Sal, a great idea, sadly a "deja vu" version. The USA was developing the NLOS PAM (containerized missiles that could be placed around the battlefield) and the USN was looking at them on the LCS as their "teeth". The program was cancelled, the LCS lost its "teeth"...and here we are again.
Have to observe if we did decide to go full bore on this, pick your version of bureaucratic obstacles to include Military Industrial Complex (TM) profit driven "studies" to inflate the cost and profit to major companies, JCIDS, safety "concerns" (some totally realistic, others simply "gold plating" for profit). This is the "Gordian Knot" you wrote of the other day. Where is our Alexander to cut thru it? The world wonders...and is concerned. OBTW, given the size of the Chinese maritime "militias" (hundreds of ships), their civilian ROROs (ferries), and ability to "strap things on with zero regard for safety / personnel comfort, this is a gun barrel we may find ourselves already facing...very soon.
Spot on. I see Sino- US conflict commencing with monster COSCO hulls 300 miles off of Norfolk, San Diego, Jax and Bremerton flipping up the top row of boxes and launching a pre-emptive wave of cruise missles. Goodbye US fleet.
A few weeks ago the story of crew shortages in the active navy was broken. With current recruiting shortfalls, the question “where would we get the crews” is not as easily answered as you posit, I would imagine. I’m a post gulf pre GWOT Army vet, and I actively counsel youth against serving in the armed forces due to the bellicose nature of the current iteration of our nation. If live rounds started being exchanged in the name of Taiwan, I don’t think retention and recruitment will really pick up.
We need more than VLS cells. The Chinese have militarized every Chinese vessel afloat — they are all ISR platforms. Perhaps we need to think how we emulate their approach as we need to be prepared if they start taking out our space platforms. Back in WW2 the Navy commissioned a large number of yachts for such missions as weather watching and rescuing downed pilots. (My father was CO of the USS Chalcedony, a 200’, stainless steel ship, built by a wealthy Hawaiian businessman for exploring the Pacific. Most of the crew were Hawaiian resident & USNR.)
and as lifeguards trailing Atlantic convoys. Takes balls to be in an unarmed yacht fishing oil soaked sailors out of icey waters as the escorts and convoy sail off to the East.
A reason to have one of our remaining yards start cranking out one of the smaller hulls. Call it a Missile Patrol Boat. One layer of containers, so the deck doesn't have to be quite as heavy, mount some AD, and get up numbers. Like I said above, make the crew areas comfortable, and put a few in as many island chains as we can. Say, 3-year- assignment to the Solomons, with the ability to repeat for those who want to. Let the locals know Uncle has their back.
So, those FSVs have about a 120' x maybe 30' deck. If we assign one missile per container we can get what, 5x3 containers on that deck? Then we need the control center, radar, etc.
Meanwhile, the boat needs the full deck department, a handful of engineers, a Commander, the launch crew. They have berthing and hotel functions for 30-50 people, so that works out.
But, having done all that, we have tied up 50 crewmembers per, and we don't have the people we need now, either in the USN or the USNS/MSC.
They can be made with hella range, though: Take out the huge mud tanks, replace with a fuel tank and they can have global range at a pretty good clip - approaching 20 knots.
Flag reads and nods approvingly. Hands to Captain and says "this is a good idea". Capt hands to Lcdr and says look into this. Lcdr nods and glances at watch realizing he's late to spin class. Hands to contractor and says, let's add this to the working group agenda for next week. WG coordinator notes the proposed add and tells his boss who is teeing up HIS pet project for the WG.
There are not enough competent people to man ships and not enough competent people to design and build ships. Highly automated systems only work in highly routinized environments and applications. We don't have enough competent senior managers to recognize basic realities. Man the lifeboats.
There are plenty of folks to man the ships. The problem is that we overload the sailors until they quit.
We need to build quality enlisted housing. Nice homes, on base, and suitable for families. And, you need meaningful, but relaxed shore duty; one year for every year of sea duty.
We treat our sailors as badly as our ships and wonder why they don't re-enlist.
Couple of SeaRAMs and MGs, a dozen containers.... make sure the crew quarters are comfortable, and this could be the basis of a (insert island chain name here) squadron.
FSVs with a PSV mother ship. Use what we have.
Well, there's also some hope with slightly larger ships, we could maybe stand up another shipyards. But for now, your proposal is fine.
Being the eternal optimist that I am, I'm fairly certain that at least ONE container in the stacks of 1000's on the West Coast already contains a number of Chinese missiles, and not 40-50 containers thusly loaded. The idea isn't new, but since it isn't real glittery with a smoking hot name, then the USN won't want anything to do with it. And in the 10 years it would to implement it along with the ever-present delays, over-budget spending, and test failures China will have something far more lethal - like FOBS launched from their moon base.
💯
My grandfather's Seabee cruise books from the time he was in WWII in the So. Pacific were a catalog of examples of improvise, adapt and overcome. What could be accomplished with a 55 gallon drum was nothing short of an example of elegant simplicity - not perfect but very well suited to the circumstances. From their creation, Seabees have been about not the pursuit of perfection but solving the task at hand with the resources available & to pull from the resourcefulness that is in the DNA of Seabees to do what it is they do. Seabees wouldn't hesitate to do a bolt on/welded on solution that might not be the most elegant or most perfect answer but you could count on it working and often asking 'how the hell did they do that?" The "physics" of what we are facing in the shipbuilding arena when stacked up against near peer threats demands a culture of improvise, adapt, overcome... not the relentless pursuit of exquisiteness with a development & deployment timeline that stretches out into decades. If there was ever a time for this kind of resourcefulness it's now...
We could do that when we had sailors in government yards. Now, we let multi-national corporations do all our shipbuilding.
I take your point but those corporations are only building the hulls the Navy tells them to build. In the case of the Constellation class, changes by the Navy are resulting in a 3 year delay for the first in class given all the changes mandated by the Navy.
Dalghern had the ability to improvise because he was a naval officer in a naval shipyard. There is freedom when operating your own equipment in your own shipyard which is entirely lost when contracting with Lockmart, Inc.
True but it does not change the fact that we are unlikely to head down that road given what that investment would entail.
With 99% of ship building not on our soil
Instead of bemoaning that, why not demand from your Congressman that the US Navy return to building naval ships in U.S. Naval shipyards. We did it before, we can do it again.
I am afraid I translate Auxiliary Cruiser as victim.
I certainly see a need for Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships, AKA Armed Guard.
It strikes me what the Dutch are going to build is similar in concept to LUSV.
The Dutch, being the practical people they are, decided on a manned vessel rather than go down the rabbit hole of unmanned.
I predict the Dutch will get there first and for far cheaper than the US Navy with their LUSV.
Like with the glorified LCS OPV, the Navy and US Industry tends to favor overly complex and expensive solutions.
Theirs is really an MUSV carrying missiles. Ours can and should be doing the same thing. The navalized version of OUSV Ranger and Mariner is sitting in Austal awaiting outfitting. Evidently pending changes from lessons learned following the deployment of the 4 large USVs to the Pacific last year.
Arm up with Starlink like overlook and targeting and cruise missile / drone container attack and these bastardized container ships you would not want to f-word with. Plus how do you tell which is which?
Just realized this is the naval version of concealed carry…
how many US flagged container ships are there? Won't they stick out?
Look at offshore fast supply vessels and platform supply vessels and your answer isn't nearly as depressing.
All good ideas! However, given that the COLUMBIA-class budget and schedule are out of control based on a GAO report released yesterday (link below), from what source(s) will the money come? I suspect the AUKUS agreement will also result in similar issues, given the Navy's inability to deliver projects within budget/schedule commitments.
https://breakingdefense.com/2024/09/navy-struggling-to-contain-costs-for-columbia-class-sub-program-says-gao/
This makes my heart happy. I’m here for it!
CDR Sal, a great idea, sadly a "deja vu" version. The USA was developing the NLOS PAM (containerized missiles that could be placed around the battlefield) and the USN was looking at them on the LCS as their "teeth". The program was cancelled, the LCS lost its "teeth"...and here we are again.
Have to observe if we did decide to go full bore on this, pick your version of bureaucratic obstacles to include Military Industrial Complex (TM) profit driven "studies" to inflate the cost and profit to major companies, JCIDS, safety "concerns" (some totally realistic, others simply "gold plating" for profit). This is the "Gordian Knot" you wrote of the other day. Where is our Alexander to cut thru it? The world wonders...and is concerned. OBTW, given the size of the Chinese maritime "militias" (hundreds of ships), their civilian ROROs (ferries), and ability to "strap things on with zero regard for safety / personnel comfort, this is a gun barrel we may find ourselves already facing...very soon.
Spot on. I see Sino- US conflict commencing with monster COSCO hulls 300 miles off of Norfolk, San Diego, Jax and Bremerton flipping up the top row of boxes and launching a pre-emptive wave of cruise missles. Goodbye US fleet.
And the US, unlike Israel, has essentially no homeland air defense missile systems. Would not put too much faith in our interceptors either.
Exactly.
A few weeks ago the story of crew shortages in the active navy was broken. With current recruiting shortfalls, the question “where would we get the crews” is not as easily answered as you posit, I would imagine. I’m a post gulf pre GWOT Army vet, and I actively counsel youth against serving in the armed forces due to the bellicose nature of the current iteration of our nation. If live rounds started being exchanged in the name of Taiwan, I don’t think retention and recruitment will really pick up.
Consider getting 16 cells at sea for about a cell per man. Allows more frigates at lesser manning without losing cells.
Keep the consultancy class and procurement "smartest people in the room" (Salamander © and ™ acknowledged) away from this idea at all costs.
We could end up with an entirely viable and "good enough" 21st Century analog to the Flower Class if we're careful.
We need more than VLS cells. The Chinese have militarized every Chinese vessel afloat — they are all ISR platforms. Perhaps we need to think how we emulate their approach as we need to be prepared if they start taking out our space platforms. Back in WW2 the Navy commissioned a large number of yachts for such missions as weather watching and rescuing downed pilots. (My father was CO of the USS Chalcedony, a 200’, stainless steel ship, built by a wealthy Hawaiian businessman for exploring the Pacific. Most of the crew were Hawaiian resident & USNR.)
and as lifeguards trailing Atlantic convoys. Takes balls to be in an unarmed yacht fishing oil soaked sailors out of icey waters as the escorts and convoy sail off to the East.
This echoes my beliefs. Build ordinance, ISR and not expensive targets.
Good idea: However, how many US flagged merchantmen are or will be available?
A reason to have one of our remaining yards start cranking out one of the smaller hulls. Call it a Missile Patrol Boat. One layer of containers, so the deck doesn't have to be quite as heavy, mount some AD, and get up numbers. Like I said above, make the crew areas comfortable, and put a few in as many island chains as we can. Say, 3-year- assignment to the Solomons, with the ability to repeat for those who want to. Let the locals know Uncle has their back.
Think small. Theee are about 40 fast supply vessels like what the Dutch are doing laud up on the gulf coast.
So, those FSVs have about a 120' x maybe 30' deck. If we assign one missile per container we can get what, 5x3 containers on that deck? Then we need the control center, radar, etc.
Meanwhile, the boat needs the full deck department, a handful of engineers, a Commander, the launch crew. They have berthing and hotel functions for 30-50 people, so that works out.
But, having done all that, we have tied up 50 crewmembers per, and we don't have the people we need now, either in the USN or the USNS/MSC.
They can be made with hella range, though: Take out the huge mud tanks, replace with a fuel tank and they can have global range at a pretty good clip - approaching 20 knots.
While the number is non-zero, I doubt the number will be much larger than that.
Flag reads and nods approvingly. Hands to Captain and says "this is a good idea". Capt hands to Lcdr and says look into this. Lcdr nods and glances at watch realizing he's late to spin class. Hands to contractor and says, let's add this to the working group agenda for next week. WG coordinator notes the proposed add and tells his boss who is teeing up HIS pet project for the WG.
"spin class." Lord help us
There are not enough competent people to man ships and not enough competent people to design and build ships. Highly automated systems only work in highly routinized environments and applications. We don't have enough competent senior managers to recognize basic realities. Man the lifeboats.
There are plenty of folks to man the ships. The problem is that we overload the sailors until they quit.
We need to build quality enlisted housing. Nice homes, on base, and suitable for families. And, you need meaningful, but relaxed shore duty; one year for every year of sea duty.
We treat our sailors as badly as our ships and wonder why they don't re-enlist.