What's the manufacturing cycle (for lack of a better term) for those weapons? In other words, how long from "Start the line" to finished weapons on the way to the ships that will carry 'em, and how many are typically in a batch?
The point exactly. That is the type of capacity we need to restore, not to the same extent, but not just in hulls but missile and other ammo production.
It's one thing not to worry in the immediate time frame -- aka "kust now" -- about how to reload, perhaps cuz there are other things to worry about. It's quite another not to worry about it for what... 32 yrs? We're far past Admiral Beatty's line at Jutland, that "There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today." No, there's something wrong with our entire bloody way of thinking, teaching, training, learning and doing business.
Note the need for additional forward bases in the Western Pacific....perhaps some of those islands we liberated in WWII that had good anchorages and are large enough to host such facilities again? I think those are on a map somewhere...
As to the reloading at sea, I don't get why they don't use guides to slide the missiles in...it would protect them, guide them to minimize swing due to ship movements, and allow them to slip right in. They are just rectangular funnels, if you will, that attach to the tops of the VLS tube on the ship and are moved from tube to tube. The reason it is difficult to manage is they allow the tubes to freely swing on the line from the crane. Stabilizing the bottom in the guide means no more swing to arrest, slides right in.
Sufficient stocks of ordnance plus in theater UNREP capability is the key to winning a war at sea with China. Any fixed anchorage will be subject to attack. Any fixed facilities in those anchorages will be subject to attack. Any mobile facilities afloat such as destroyer tenders or submarine tenders will be attacked wherever and whenever they can be located, either at sea or in an anchorage.
It has' been suggested that a VLS loading jig frame which locks in to the deck will work for assisting UNREPs at sea The jig frame has 'funnels' which are wider at the top than at the bottom, providing for quick and easy capture of the missile cartridge followed by stabilization then by precise alignment as the cartridge is being progressive;y lowered through the jig and into the cell.
Several issues still remain. Reloading a VLS cell safely takes time. Inside a high threat WEZ, the more time it takes for an UNREP evolution to finish, the more opportunity there is for an adversary to attack both the DDG and the UNREP vessel. The UNREP vessels and their escorts must themselves must be capable of defending themselves while an UNREP evolution is progress. Addressing these other issues is a sticky and expensive wicket, to say the least.
Ummm...yeah...that is what a war is. The question is how MANY places they have to hit with HOW MANY missiles and, if mobile, where they are to target them from day to day.
The questions isn't the difficulties of reloading the VLS cells - we can find a way to do it at sea - but that it HAS to be done. You might prefer that it happen away from the fight or in a stable anchorage, but that isn't how it will work out. So, yes, they will have to have assets protecting them during their rearming to be completed.
Again, you don't have the luxury of saying "oh, this is a sticky widget and inconvenient and we are going to have difficulty and have to be careful so let's not do it". It has to be done. Lean forward, develop the capability, and get it done.
Mr. TrustbutVerify, please tell me where I said we shouldn't do it. We certainly have to figure out how to do it, and to do it inside a weapons engagement zone which grows larger and larger with each passing year.
As China's seapower continues to grow, they will push the WEZ as far out from their shores as they can manage. The Chinese don't need to sink our surface combatants and our aircraft carriers if they can interdict the fleet supply train while also keeping up enough pressure on the carriers, the DDGs, and the FFG's to force those assets into a slow but sure process of exhausting their supplies of fuel and ordnance. -- at which point our naval assets become combat ineffective and have no choice but to withdraw.
As far as I am personally aware, little or nothing has been done in the way of serious analysis as to how to deal with the problem of keeping our forward-deployed naval assets properly supplied in the face of serious opposition from adversarial seapower.
No, I'm sure the Navy has never considered how to resupply their ships in a fight and have no idea how it could or should be done. They are just going to shoot everything off and throw up their hands.
The Constellation class have 4 x 8 VLS array. Would it be possible to replenish the Constellation class at sea? Instead of a crane spanning 8 cells on Burkes, the crane is only spanning 4 cells on the Connies. That sounds like that would be doable at low sea states.
"The contract is to buy a total of 154 Block V Tomahawk missile systems, with 54 systems going to the Marine Corps, 70 to the Navy and 30 to the Army, according to the May 24 Defense of Department contract awards
The 70 Tomahawks in the contract issued this week are for missiles the Navy is purchasing with Fiscal Year 2022 funding. The service is seeking to buy 23 Tomahawk missile systems in FY 2023, zero in FY 2024, 26 in FY 2025, 58 in FY 2026 and 58 in FY 2027, according to the Pentagon’s most recent five-year spending plan."
Obviously we're planning another 72 hour conflict with China.
Of course the resupply ships will become targets as well. Particularly in an environment where drones have the ability to find targets at extreme ranges. This will require assets to protect these resupply ships.
They're all gone, save the two AS's in Diego Garcia and Guam. And RRF/USNR could start manning them, but we'd end up pulling from the SURGEMAIN (NSY Support) units heavily.
Build or rent vessels that can carry VLS cells that can be remotely launched by any Navy ship with VLS launch capability that has run out of munitions. Each of those low-tech VLS ferries could have a small Navy detachment of techs and security personnel. Any civilian hull could be retrofitted for this. Build enough of them to have them forward deployed or to account for attrition enroute. Whatever it takes so that you don't run out of ammo in a gunfight. I have no confidence they'll ever solve the rearming at sea problem. Do something now, or just don't commit to a war you cannot win.
Dropping missile-laden containers on a ship's deck appears doable but can the vessel keep up with a SAG or CSG? That would seem to be crucial as the distributed part of DMO works but "too thinned out" - not so much.
One of the newer ferries might keep up in ideal sea states, but I'm not sure they need to keep up. Ideally just get in and out of theatre at a decent pace..
Today's munitions are extraordinarily expensive. Unlike WWII, a cargo of these munitions being carried into a combat theater of operations isn't quickly replaceable if the vessel carrying that cargo is sunk.
If a cargo vessel carrying high value munitions isn't capable of both speed and some measure of organic self defense which complements that of its escorts, it will be sunk inside the theater of operations or even before it gets there.
- Lumber and oil and gas industry have robot arms they should be looking at for this. Also, leave the ships with the sensors forward and have fast ferries bring rounds up from further afield whether ship transfer or at a loading pier.
The punch list of "oh crap" crises moments of our own making never ceases to amaze me. A fleet that has sailed with 1000's of VLS tubes for decades has yet to resolve how to reload a VLS in theatre. Never saw this one coming.
It is in China's long term interests as the leading candidate for replacing the United States as world hegemon to develop its own very powerful bluewater navy which can engage its primary adversary anywhere on earth. The PLAN will therefore, at some point in the future, require its own highly capable fleet supply train; one which will be facing the same kinds of UNREP problems we ourselves will be facing in a bluewater conflict in the western Pacific.
Fall back on Plan Orange and (re)build an Advanced Base in the Marshall Islands to resupply and refuel.
What's the manufacturing cycle (for lack of a better term) for those weapons? In other words, how long from "Start the line" to finished weapons on the way to the ships that will carry 'em, and how many are typically in a batch?
And what ships would carry them? The logistical fleet is in no better shape for hulls than the pointy end is.
We cannot build a bomber every 90 minutes, or a cargo ship every 4 days anymore
The point exactly. That is the type of capacity we need to restore, not to the same extent, but not just in hulls but missile and other ammo production.
It's one thing not to worry in the immediate time frame -- aka "kust now" -- about how to reload, perhaps cuz there are other things to worry about. It's quite another not to worry about it for what... 32 yrs? We're far past Admiral Beatty's line at Jutland, that "There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today." No, there's something wrong with our entire bloody way of thinking, teaching, training, learning and doing business.
Note the need for additional forward bases in the Western Pacific....perhaps some of those islands we liberated in WWII that had good anchorages and are large enough to host such facilities again? I think those are on a map somewhere...
As to the reloading at sea, I don't get why they don't use guides to slide the missiles in...it would protect them, guide them to minimize swing due to ship movements, and allow them to slip right in. They are just rectangular funnels, if you will, that attach to the tops of the VLS tube on the ship and are moved from tube to tube. The reason it is difficult to manage is they allow the tubes to freely swing on the line from the crane. Stabilizing the bottom in the guide means no more swing to arrest, slides right in.
Sufficient stocks of ordnance plus in theater UNREP capability is the key to winning a war at sea with China. Any fixed anchorage will be subject to attack. Any fixed facilities in those anchorages will be subject to attack. Any mobile facilities afloat such as destroyer tenders or submarine tenders will be attacked wherever and whenever they can be located, either at sea or in an anchorage.
It has' been suggested that a VLS loading jig frame which locks in to the deck will work for assisting UNREPs at sea The jig frame has 'funnels' which are wider at the top than at the bottom, providing for quick and easy capture of the missile cartridge followed by stabilization then by precise alignment as the cartridge is being progressive;y lowered through the jig and into the cell.
Several issues still remain. Reloading a VLS cell safely takes time. Inside a high threat WEZ, the more time it takes for an UNREP evolution to finish, the more opportunity there is for an adversary to attack both the DDG and the UNREP vessel. The UNREP vessels and their escorts must themselves must be capable of defending themselves while an UNREP evolution is progress. Addressing these other issues is a sticky and expensive wicket, to say the least.
Ummm...yeah...that is what a war is. The question is how MANY places they have to hit with HOW MANY missiles and, if mobile, where they are to target them from day to day.
The questions isn't the difficulties of reloading the VLS cells - we can find a way to do it at sea - but that it HAS to be done. You might prefer that it happen away from the fight or in a stable anchorage, but that isn't how it will work out. So, yes, they will have to have assets protecting them during their rearming to be completed.
Again, you don't have the luxury of saying "oh, this is a sticky widget and inconvenient and we are going to have difficulty and have to be careful so let's not do it". It has to be done. Lean forward, develop the capability, and get it done.
Mr. TrustbutVerify, please tell me where I said we shouldn't do it. We certainly have to figure out how to do it, and to do it inside a weapons engagement zone which grows larger and larger with each passing year.
As China's seapower continues to grow, they will push the WEZ as far out from their shores as they can manage. The Chinese don't need to sink our surface combatants and our aircraft carriers if they can interdict the fleet supply train while also keeping up enough pressure on the carriers, the DDGs, and the FFG's to force those assets into a slow but sure process of exhausting their supplies of fuel and ordnance. -- at which point our naval assets become combat ineffective and have no choice but to withdraw.
As far as I am personally aware, little or nothing has been done in the way of serious analysis as to how to deal with the problem of keeping our forward-deployed naval assets properly supplied in the face of serious opposition from adversarial seapower.
No, I'm sure the Navy has never considered how to resupply their ships in a fight and have no idea how it could or should be done. They are just going to shoot everything off and throw up their hands.
How many TLAMs can we strap to the deck of an oil platform resupply ship, since those are the only hulls we might be able to crank out fast?
The Constellation class have 4 x 8 VLS array. Would it be possible to replenish the Constellation class at sea? Instead of a crane spanning 8 cells on Burkes, the crane is only spanning 4 cells on the Connies. That sounds like that would be doable at low sea states.
For all they tell us those may be tactical length cells.
"The contract is to buy a total of 154 Block V Tomahawk missile systems, with 54 systems going to the Marine Corps, 70 to the Navy and 30 to the Army, according to the May 24 Defense of Department contract awards
The 70 Tomahawks in the contract issued this week are for missiles the Navy is purchasing with Fiscal Year 2022 funding. The service is seeking to buy 23 Tomahawk missile systems in FY 2023, zero in FY 2024, 26 in FY 2025, 58 in FY 2026 and 58 in FY 2027, according to the Pentagon’s most recent five-year spending plan."
Obviously we're planning another 72 hour conflict with China.
Of course the resupply ships will become targets as well. Particularly in an environment where drones have the ability to find targets at extreme ranges. This will require assets to protect these resupply ships.
Remember all those AD and AS types we threw away so we could be "Transformational"? Gee, who'd guess that we need them again?
Better bring 'em back. Too bad we won't be able to man them. (We can't even man at CivMar wages.)
https://news.usni.org/2023/03/29/marad-head-not-at-all-confident-ready-reserve-fleet-could-be-crewed-in-a-crisis
Yes, and they're all steam plants too.
They're all gone, save the two AS's in Diego Garcia and Guam. And RRF/USNR could start manning them, but we'd end up pulling from the SURGEMAIN (NSY Support) units heavily.
Build or rent vessels that can carry VLS cells that can be remotely launched by any Navy ship with VLS launch capability that has run out of munitions. Each of those low-tech VLS ferries could have a small Navy detachment of techs and security personnel. Any civilian hull could be retrofitted for this. Build enough of them to have them forward deployed or to account for attrition enroute. Whatever it takes so that you don't run out of ammo in a gunfight. I have no confidence they'll ever solve the rearming at sea problem. Do something now, or just don't commit to a war you cannot win.
Dropping missile-laden containers on a ship's deck appears doable but can the vessel keep up with a SAG or CSG? That would seem to be crucial as the distributed part of DMO works but "too thinned out" - not so much.
One of the newer ferries might keep up in ideal sea states, but I'm not sure they need to keep up. Ideally just get in and out of theatre at a decent pace..
See my comment above:
https://cdrsalamander.substack.com/p/in-a-fight-having-your-reloads-at/comment/14147820
Today's munitions are extraordinarily expensive. Unlike WWII, a cargo of these munitions being carried into a combat theater of operations isn't quickly replaceable if the vessel carrying that cargo is sunk.
If a cargo vessel carrying high value munitions isn't capable of both speed and some measure of organic self defense which complements that of its escorts, it will be sunk inside the theater of operations or even before it gets there.
- Lumber and oil and gas industry have robot arms they should be looking at for this. Also, leave the ships with the sensors forward and have fast ferries bring rounds up from further afield whether ship transfer or at a loading pier.
Then, more useful rounds quad packed like GLSDB.
Have fun. They’ll betray you, monetize it, and exploit your coffins. They don’t know how to do anything else.
The punch list of "oh crap" crises moments of our own making never ceases to amaze me. A fleet that has sailed with 1000's of VLS tubes for decades has yet to resolve how to reload a VLS in theatre. Never saw this one coming.
one need only look at photos of replenishment at sea during WW2 to realize that we lack that capability today
"Praise the Lord and pass the Ammunition". (If you have any).
Whats the PLANs plan to reload their ships?
Irrelevant. They will be closer to home and have more tubes.
It is in China's long term interests as the leading candidate for replacing the United States as world hegemon to develop its own very powerful bluewater navy which can engage its primary adversary anywhere on earth. The PLAN will therefore, at some point in the future, require its own highly capable fleet supply train; one which will be facing the same kinds of UNREP problems we ourselves will be facing in a bluewater conflict in the western Pacific.