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We are going to need refit locations when the torpedoes run out. South Pacific island chains are already being compromised by China. Are we producing more 48’s? Not that I can see. Are we going to have enough TLAMs to shoot? Not that I can see. Are we going to have trained crews sitting around while their boats are waiting on maintenance…
We are going to need refit locations when the torpedoes run out. South Pacific island chains are already being compromised by China. Are we producing more 48’s? Not that I can see. Are we going to have enough TLAMs to shoot? Not that I can see. Are we going to have trained crews sitting around while their boats are waiting on maintenance? Yep, see Connecticut, and A handful of others. It’s a shitshow. Our best promise was the subsurface branch.
The boats will expend their loadouts and then permanently cede the territory due to transit time to and from Hawaii to replenish. (Guam will be gone in the first hour.)
Guam, Yokosuka, Atsugi, Misawa, Camp Butler, Singapore, Pearl, Panama Canal Zone, Bremerton and San Diego as well.
Even likely they take out Cubi to prevent us from using it.
If war starts, China is not going to take baby steps.
The Canal Zone? Run by the CCP?
Good luck with that. Want to be that in the event of an 'incident' there will suddenly be 'technical' issues shutting the canal down?
During WWII US subs had access to a number of bases along the northern shores of Western Australia. As part of AUKUS, HMAS Stirling in Perth is expected to get a major upgrade in facilities, perhaps reopening the base in Exmouth can be considered. Espirito Santo, Noumea and Ulithi were major advanced bases in WWII, also Kwajalein, Peleliu and Samoa....which is American territory. Well, Pago Pago is.
Do we have stockpiles there now? And do we have tenders to go hang out in the other places?
No and no. What little we have in tenders, two of them, they usually tied-up in Guam with an occasional port-call to break things up.
There's a comms station for the USN, and a barebones airfield that the RAAF uses. USAF personal also rotate through the airfield manning the Learmonth Solar Observatory. Nearby is a bombing range.
Shipping the MK 48s down range is a much harder problem then figuring out how to load them down range.
Seems like tossing them in a C-17 would be easier than finding a pier and a crane. But, I must defer to my betters on this one.
How many loadouts have we?
MTH, let's see if this image link works:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0377073491e0a811e87b1bd3e37f76d142c71d855ae88d1bb3f6d1d239c50fc3.png
EDIT: It seems to work. But let's see if the image stays up on the Disqus side.
You need a lot of these. Think mulberries like they used at noumea during WW2.
Some additional points here concerning the notional James River class mobile naval shipyard (MNS):
-- The mobile shipyard is self-propelled using the Ford Class reactor and propulsion system. When underway, it might achieve a speed of 20 knots or more.
-- When forward deployed, the vessel has two or more auxiliary tugboats permanently assigned to it. When in transit to a forward area assignment, the tugs float inside the MNS's own interior dock while the vessel is underway.
-- Since the MNS can be assigned to in-theater forward areas subject to attack, it has its own organic self-defense capability equivalent to that of a laser battle cruiser.
-- Each unit is always being employed as an active shipyard wherever it is assigned; i.e., the vessel is not being held in reserve for use in a future conflict.
-- When not forward deployed, the MNS supplies a variety of shipyard services which complement those of an existing land-based naval shipyard. It may even be assigned to an existing shipyard as service expansion capacity.
-- Two or more MNS can be located together to create a larger floating shipyard. Two MNS can be rafted together if the need arises.
-- Since the MNS is itself a warship, it will require maintenance periodically in another shipyard. The beam of the James River class is narrow enough to fit inside Drydock 12 at Newport News.
The question arises, where would this hummer be constructed? If we wanted such a vessel but don't want to interrupt our CVN construction schedule at Newport News, then Korea is the logical candidate to build it.
One blind spot… our shipyard trades are civilians. Your plan doesn’t take into account the massive numbers of yard birds and civilian trades.
That is an important point. And here is another one which must be taken into account. Every civilian employee working at every shipyard in the western Pacific will be working under threat of attack. Pearl Harbor for example. Except if your shipyard is itself a ship, there is no place to hide.
Civilian shipyard workers whose place of employment is an MNS must be willing to accept the risks of working aboard such a vessel, for which they will be compensated accordingly.
This kind of issue, and some number of others, must be taken into account when comparing the benefits of employing the MNS as a true naval shipyard as opposed to employing it as a very capable forward operations support tender.
Last I heard, the last Mk48 we bought was in the late 1990's.
Fortunately other nations have bought them to keep the line open - barely