Air Chief Marshall Sir Hugh Dowding: [chuckles] More accurately the other way round. Trusting in God and praying for radar. But the essential arithmetic is that our young men will have to shoot down their young men at the rate of four to one, if we're to keep pace at all.
Instead, our idiotic ruling class is preparing for nothing and trying to start wars with Russia, China, and one in the Middle East that we'll be inevitably involved. Not to mention $2 trillion in debt that will never be repaid and the death of the petrodollar. It's a big excrement sandwich and we're all going to have to take a bite.
True, but in DC it often catches up with someone else.
I believe that Gaza would not have occurred but for our humiliating defeat in Afghanistan for which no one in a high position was ever held accountable.
Gaza wouldn't have happened without our humiliating self defeat in Iraq, where we did Iran's work for them, handed them regional hegemony and then to this day for some reason pat ourselves on the back and act like we did a smart thing.
If you think Afg. matters more than what's happened in Iraq then you haven't paid attention. In Afg. things just went back to the 7th century. In Iraq and all the way to the Mediterranean and Red Seas Iran now has open lines of communication and malign puppet strings in its hands. Afg. always was the side show to our opponents after 2003; a distraction they were more than happy to let us indulge. When we left it was just the realization of inevitability.
The Afg. withdrawal is given far too much weight, and the Iraq debacle far too little in our national discussions.
The Department of Defense, Military Industrial Complex, and Congress are happy with the way this works. Can't realistically expect it to change / improve without some seismic shock like losing a major conflict that so damages the nation that change and accountability is demanded. Someone said the only thing more expensive than waging a war is losing one. We may find out in the very near future.
Jamie Gorelick actually sat on the 911 Committee rather than being hauled before it. That would be like putting Allen Dulles in charge of the Warren Commission - oh wait...
I don't agree with the preemise that complexity is directly related to tonnage in building nuclear submarines. The first peak on the "tonnage chart" isn't comparable to the othersthere were MANY more builders than EB and NN - Ingalls, Mare Island, Portsmouth, etc. and they were builing many classes of SSNs - including a bunch of one offs. During the "middle peak" on that chart it becomes more apples to apples with today. Same 2 shipyards, delivering one class of SSNs and one class of SSBNs. In the late 80s early 90s NN and EB delivered 1 Ohio SSBN and 4-5 LA SSNs EACH YEAR. We got this by appropriating the funds ahead of the current rate of production. The DOD Comptroller sound bite (subsequently picked up by SECNAV) that since the yards are behind we are right not to fund it is a simple Comptroller way of excusing how we balanced the program. It is nonsense becsue it is a self-fullfilling prophecy. You could argue the same thing more forcefull;y for DDGs - even though there is way more lead work required for an SSN, there are currently more DDGs under construction than SSNs. The new construction answer is to fund 2-3 SSNs/yr and push EB and NN to deliver. The maintenance thing is to add capacity. Get a private sectoir vendor to compete for SRA/overhaul work. Incentivise buying drydock capacity (floating?) in hgomeport. for example in the 7s- early 90s there were 2 floating drydocks in New London, 1 in San diego 1 or 2 in Norfolk. SRAs were done here by public shipyard workers/IMA. This capacity is gone. Fix this, you fix shipyard capacity by devoting it entirely to overhauls. Fix shipyard management. Make them 1 star billets and let them stay in place a while. When we run significant business ventures with O-6s who rotate every 2 years it never gets better andf the civil servants just wait them out. I would argur NAVSEA should be a 4 star with an 8 year tenure like Naval Reactors. That has been pretty successful. We DON"T need to be schlepping SSNs into the Great Lakes thru the ice - that's silly
Soo Lock YES, Welland Canal NO! Soo Lock has a Navigational Depth of ~35’, whereas the navigational depth of the Welland Canal bottoms out at ~30’! The Virginia SSN navigational depth is ~32’! Not without a lot of Infrastructure work first…
And there's also the Saint Lawrence Seaway which has a navigational depth of ~27’, preventing ships like the Arleigh Burke from accessing the Great Lakes because of her navigational draft of ~31’…
2 of our largest remaining graving docks are on the lakes. It would be great if they expanded the St. Lawrence Seaway, but risk of further environmental damage thwarts the mojo. I think the people hoping for work were thinking they could be moved by barge, but then you have an air draft concern.
Not all the Great Lakes Locks are the same size! “MacArthur” lock measures ~740’ x 78’ x 30’, whereas “Poe” lock can accommodate barges up to ~1,000’ in length, not including Towing Tug which varies in size from ~230’ to ~350’ in length! A new Lake Huron lock is being constructed to be able to accommodate barges up to ~1,200’ in length, but scheduled completion date isn’t until the summer of 2029 at the earliest or spring of 2030 at the latest…
Late in my Army career I heard the best line about how briefers and (some) senior leaders smoothly glide from one position to a later, opposed position without blinking an eye, to wit:
I will say something heretical; for a variety of reasons, I think the 21st century within modern constraints needs more submarines than carriers. Thanks to the USN mishaps in shipbuilding for surface vessels since the Arleigh Burkes, there isn't a single surface warship worth its cost or sweat and tears that has been built since 1991.
The clicking of slippers won't expand the industrial base, create more fabbers among the workforce or see increased defense budgets (not that they manage what they get responsibly).
I happen to be the minority voice like CDR Vandenengel and others that we need to stop building carriers and if you must, build a Nimitz but cut the losses with the Ford fiasco.
It's nuclear submarines and not carriers that make the US a naval superpower for a variety of reasons I've bored folks with elsewhere (check my Substack). The submarine maintenance backlogs and dockside loitering could get marginal relief by stopping all nuclear carrier construction altogether or a five year pause and use the created capacity to start completing more submarine hulls.
Nuclear submarines (and in some cases diesel-electric boats) are the only true stealth modality left in contemporary warfare. There's no stealth aircraft in the world today that can't be detected by long wave radar. Hypersonic munitions that have terminal maneuvering are the future of all air-breathing air modality warfare for the remainder of this century.
I suspect any other solution is too little and too late.
More than few articles have referred to the Russian Kilo II's as akin to a "black hole" in the water. Operating in the littorals with all the noise already present in the water column??? Suspect that would be a very scary proposition to deal with.
Beg pardon, but I've been hearing about the death of the carrier for 40 years. But when it's time to do actual Navy things, the CVNs are the trump cards. They beat out everything else due to their flexibility.
When was the last time a serious navy tried to sink a US carrier with real weapons?
It's easy to look good and and extrude calmness on a parade or a firepower demonstration. How does it look with 4 wake following torpedoes coming in at 50 knots and 73 supersonic anti-ship missiles that just crossed the radar horizon?
It looks the same as it would for any surface ship. Today it would be nice to have an S-3 equivalent that could pose a threat to SSNs and SSGNs farther out. And then there is the stubby legged air wing. Yes, I know that the MQ-25 is supposed to make up for that and promises even more. Then there is the other issue of evolution from CVBG to the more (at least on paper) efficient, capable, and less hull-intensive CSG. I'm not sure that any apolitical admiral wouldn't rather have more gray hulls in the outer picket.
How do we control the air around Taiwan with submarines? Or the straight, which is relatively small and shallow? Would we plausibility even risk our subs in there? How do our subs stop an air attack against a convoy we send to resupply Taiwan?
Im not trying to say it cant be done, Ive never really understood how subs will be very valuable in the most likely war scenarios we are likely to face.
Fair point and this also brings up yet another enormous coverage gap in the surface navy to service inbound aerial threats. Close aboard threats can be serviced by Phalanx systems until those magazines are exhausted. How will these surface vessels service hundreds of inbound Group 1 and 2 UAS weapons (under 55 pounds)? They won't.
I think you are highlighting a tremendous capability gap in the surface Navy.
BUT the USN has not been serious about the aerial threat to surface ships as evidenced by the total lack of investment in updating non-missile defense (traditional naval gun systems measured by caliber), updating picket ship design & TTP and purposely designing ships with no armor whatsoever. There's a reason the USN and allied navies have fled the Red Sea with its rather low density air threat.
Per kinetic defense against mass drone attacks, that naval ship commander will empty his kinetic magazines against inbound threats b/c after detection and declaration, he doesn't know what will scrape his paint and what will sink his ship. Once those kinetic magazines are empty, the ship is simply a target. The kamikaze assaults against naval ships off Okinawa in 1945 may have been a rough approximation of what a mass UAS swarm attack looks like. If you look at the aerial threat scenario around Okinawa in 1945, that may have been the highest density air to surface kinetic attack against surface warships in history.
Highly recommend "Brave Ship, Brave Men" by Arnold S. Lott about the USS Aaron Ward on picket duty 3 May 1945 to get a minute by minute flavor of salvo saturation by kamikazes.
Kamikazes are not the perfect analog to drone swarm saturation but a workable model to see how devastating "leakers" are to what appears to be ferocious air defense.
Yeah. Our capabilities across the board are so eroded.
Just as our AAW capability hasn't evolved (and has eroded), it's fair to point out that our CVWs have too. Relative to both their past strength and perhaps even in absolute terms, a carrier today does not have the strength many of us remember from the end of the Cold War.
Cold War era, they had ~62 combat aircraft plus EW, plus 8-10 S-3s. Plus the helicopters, AEW, tankers, etc.
Now we're at 48 plus EW and AEW. The ASW focused helicopters have morphed into a worrying vague "maritime strike" and "helicopter sea combat" missions that, frankly make me question whether we can protect our ships from even a moderate submarine threat.
To my eyes, we are wholly unprepared in every direction I look. :(
An SSN can carry anti surface weapons with a range in excess of 1000 mi. Its less than 200 miles from the middle of the Taiwan straight to deep waters off the continental shelf. 400 miles at most to the Chinese points of departure. You don't control the air with submarines. You don't have to control the air. You just have to be able to disrupt the adversaries effort enough so it fails. If China cannot be sure of controlling Taiwan by militarily landing on the island, why would it try?
How many Tomahawk MSTs do we have? The reported range of them is between 300-400 miles rather than 1000. The standard TLAM's are land attack only and not even designed to hit a moving target.
Our dwindling number of subs only carry 12 each, and when they're out, they're out and the sub will have to traverse thousands of miles to reload.
How suited is the Tomahawk MST, to attack a modern, heavily defended target? Well, it's subsonic, so it's relatively easy to intercept. If China controls the air, and we cannot launch anything like the number of missiles that would need to be launched to overwhelm their air defenses, it seems likely that this will be an ineffectual strategy.
1. I was talking about what we could have if we made changes now , not wha t we have now, which i agree is inadequate
2. If the changes to make a Tomahawk into an MST limits its range to 400 miles, I'll eat a hat, (I prefer the hats I eat to have sfogliatelle on top, so please send one with the hat) but I doubt it. Show me a reference.
3. The Virginias are now working on Block 6, with the VPM, able to carry 40 Tomahawks total or some mix of the 1500+ mile LRHW and Tomahawks
4. Assuming again that we are talking about what could be done if we had different priorities, a dozen VPM equipped Virginias maneuvering 100 -500 miles east of Taiwan carrying a total of 72 LRHW missiles 312+ Tomahawks and 300 heavy torpedoes isnt exactly a first day of war threat to be ignored.
5. A true hypersonic attack on C&C nodes followed closely by even the somewhat old school Tomahawk would be hard to confidently repel.
6. The resources China would have to put into defending against the above, given the 300,000+ square miles of deep ocean they could be in would be prohibitive to the point of great risk to their efforts.
7. The assumption would be that these subs aren't the only assets, they are the enabling assets. They lead with disruption which other assets exploit.
I always found it interesting how the visibility of a diesel-electric boat snorkeling and their "limited" range of thousands of miles was determined to be death knell for them as an alternative despite all the historical evidence available otherwise. So instead, we consider return radar picture of a surface vessel like the LCS (whose "small" wake is likely visible from orbit) and whisper of an electro-magnetic signature represent a "stealthy" alternative and their grotesque unit cost qualifies that class of hull for what mission now in the littorals????
DE boats are the preeminent Littoral Combat Ship like Germany's Type 212 and Type 214 submarines are known for their advanced technology, including air-independent propulsion (AIP) systems that allow them to operate submerged for longer periods.
What a difference dumping the tens of billions spent on the Littoral Combat Ship into rebranded European DE boats would have in addition to associated submarine tender vessels.
SSNs are the system that enables all the others. Have enough with enough of the right weapons inside the opponents umbrella and you have the ability to degrade their defense and offense enough for all the other systems to take advantage. Its the one area in which we should be able to maintain a qualitative and qualitative advantage. Instead the Navy slavishly clings to the CVN.
The US Navy only spends about 10% of its budget on attack subs but spends more than 40% on CBGs. The only way this Navy is going to get back to a balanced fleet is to cut CBG costs way down and/or get more deployed time out of them and the only way to do both and help the sub enterprise it to cut nuclear power out of the carriers and design and build them accordingly.
Time for some big strategic decisions, instead of we can just walk down the tracks through the tunnel into the light forever happy talk.
Al, agree with everything but even the submarine advantage is in the hazard now and I think we have a very narrow ten year window. I had mentioned before regarding a moon base and a mission to Mars, if it doesn't happen in ten years, it never will because there is a very real slide backwards in engineering and maintenance knowledge in improving existing systems of systems to maintain a legacy baseline much less fundamental improvements in knowledge. The acquisition is a big part of the massive trillion dollar mistakes in naval shipbuilding in the last fifty years but the window is closing to fix that.
Glad you give it ten years. I think, given the Navy's historical 20+- year momentum overrun of the decision curve, we are a decade past the turning point. The SECNAV pushed the Navy toward an existing FFG a decade ago yet it wont have meaningful numbers in service for at least another decade if then. Nuke subs are an order of magnitude more complicated, and the momentum of the MICC is even more so. It wants carriers and their obvious presence in the media. Secretive subs and their lurking don't make for clicks or easy marketing. This would take a level of woke we haven't seen in our screen addled nation in a long time.
My formative was as an EM in the US Army. They taught me Mission First. Without a doubt the most important single thing I ever learned for my professional life. Repetitive experiences taught mid-level Army leadership didn't exactly take that to heart. Thus ended my lackluster military career.
40 years later, I advise large enterprises on matters of IT. After gaining some level of trust I often find myself explaining to VP & C-Level people the strengths and weaknesses of their organizations as it it relates to expensive programs they wish to undertake, and the level of people retooling it will take be successful. Mostly they acknowledge this as not being a surprise.
You can't begin any project built on a ill-conceived dependencies, when you do those are commonly called *failures*. If Congress had more engineers and fewer lawyers we'd all be better served, and not just in the military sphere.
I have no doubt submarines are a valuable platform, especially with what's out their on the potential horizon. But what's worse, I don't believe many of these people can think there way out of paper bag and design programs that play to our current strengths and abilities.
Concepts and requirements baselines informed by tedious product breakdown structures (PBS) and work breakdown structures (WBS) per MILSTD881F in concert with concepts of operations (CONOPs), concepts of employment (CONEMP) and functional descriptions go a long way toward avoiding the trillion dollar mistakes the military has undertaken. In concert with red teaming and folks having the moral courage to question the emperor's wardrobe, the ship could be turned around.
In my sphere it usually takes an entrepreneur, or occasionally an "intrapreneur" to pull off big changes. How does one groom an "intrapreneur" in an organization like the US military and then keep them in place to see the job done? It's rare in large private sector organizations too, to be sure. Real change usually comes from being put up against a wall being told, "change or die".
Please also remember that GAO has repeatedly found that the Navy has kept two sets of books - the schedules and costs for construction, and the schedules and costs for the maintenance of existing ships and those planned for construction.
I absolutely believe that DoD should be audited from stem to stern, along with all other cabinet departments.
I suspect it's going to take a SECNAV with the nerve of John Lehmann to set things right. Someone willing to take a broom to the top NAVSEA leadership - and go to Congress and demand the ability to implement REAL procurement reform.
This somehow seems reminiscent of the legends of a past leader in his bunker moving non-existent armies while being briefed about paper wonder weapons that were going to change the tide.
No PM, whether buying tires or submarines, can afford to convey anything close to realistic costs based on past programs’ actuals. The factor is about 2x and Congress wouldn’t fund it. So the games begin.
They generally provide a figure somewhere on the “Best Case, Most Likely Case, Worst Case” continuum. If memory serves there’s quite the bias toward halfway between best and most likely. The chain of command aligns behind it. In the event the program is funded, this PM (who has built nothing) has a good shot at flag. The music is still playing.
The next PM gets 80% of his/her planned budget, if they’re lucky, since the “taxes” and various other “takes” are known but they’re not allowed to budget for them. Why not? “Well sir, it’s one of life’s great mysteries.” Each year, after the inevitable CR, his development program gets rocked with further takes (the Congressional term of art is “marks”) piled on top of the pure chaos caused by CR’s on a program that’s increasing R&D each year. “Why are you under-performing? Why is your development schedule shifting right? Your out-year procurement costs are rising ( think inflation). this PM keeps all the spinning plates in the air, he/she has a fair shot at flag. The music keeps playing.
The next PM gets to wrestle with all of the above while adding long-lead procurement to the mix. Just think of those CRs and the associated fun. The questions get harder. This PM has no shot st flag without being a golden child. Hint, they don’t typically put such luminaries in a program at this point.
Lather rinse repeat for a couple more PMs with no shot and then a miracle occurs. A god-like PM arrives to deliver the tires (or submarine) at 2x the cost, 3-5 years late, and with many of the features used to sell the project deferred. Think hiding the true original cost under the P-cubed-I rubric. This PM will make three-star easy.
having been a PM, I do think we need to hold both the PEO and PM accountable for unknown slips.. we also need to hold industry accountable - CPARS, Award Fee, or as HGR did in the past, pull the ship out of the SY that is not performing and move it someplace that is - oh wait that would require additional capacity that we dont have
Well, you won't say it so I will. Our national military leadership is composed entirely of corrupt liars who are pissing on our legs and telling us it is raining. If you are not to kind of person willing to do this you won't be promoted to national leadership.
In the old Soviet Union, there were the zampolit, the political officers or commissars who ensured the regular officers complied with the Party dictates. In our retarded system, all of our senior leaders are zampolit lickspittles who kiss the ring, likely check some diversity box on skin color, sex or sexual perversion. Capability doesn't rise to the top in our system anymore and we're going to witness their incompetence if, God forbid, if we ever have to go to war against a real adversary, not some Bronze Age goatherders with AKs and an attitude. It's bad enough with procurement with these useful idiots, but imagine combat. I don't think there are any Ernie Kings waiting in the wings either.
Don't forget one of those Virginia's is also a stretch special mission sub. Should any more SSNs be ordered before SSNX I would at least leave out the VPM. If we ever get to serial SSBN production and have the firm decision on which boats are for Aukus, I'd immediately switch o SSNX and try for 2 per year the first year after SSBNs are done being bought. I say this mostly because SSNX will hopefully borrow most of the boat from Columbia.
Pray for Peace, Prepare for War
"Pray for peace." That sounds like the best option. Too much inertia for anything else.
Air Chief Marshall Sir Hugh Dowding: [chuckles] More accurately the other way round. Trusting in God and praying for radar. But the essential arithmetic is that our young men will have to shoot down their young men at the rate of four to one, if we're to keep pace at all.
Instead, our idiotic ruling class is preparing for nothing and trying to start wars with Russia, China, and one in the Middle East that we'll be inevitably involved. Not to mention $2 trillion in debt that will never be repaid and the death of the petrodollar. It's a big excrement sandwich and we're all going to have to take a bite.
You are right, CDR, "lies" are just how we do things.
I always think about an E-5 who got out after his second tour, intent to become a pastor.
He had a wife and 3 kids, and we all tried to explain to him why he should just suck it up for 12 more years and then follow his dream.
His response, "These people (Navy) lie to each other all the time. I just can't do that."
Edited to add: If you lie to yourself long enough, you will believe the lie. That works for me!
I wrote the above not to disparage the Navy, but because the lies are just part of our culture.
The Navy was the best job I ever had, with people I could trust with my life.
But the lies are pervasive.
On my first day as an E-2 mess cook, I was told to sign for a delivery.
I counted, and there was only half as much as the invoice.
I just did not understand how this could happen, where was the rest of the order?
I brought this to the attention of the man who told me to sign for it.
I'm a little bit slow, so it took me 20 years to really understand how it all works.
If you lie to yourself long enough, you will believe the lie.
It all holds together, until it doesn't.
Washington, DC is the new Emerald City.
All you do is put on green tinted glasses and everything looks spectacular.
Even Toto got a pair.
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
Eventually it catches up. Eventually. “Varus! Where are my legions, Varus!”
True, but in DC it often catches up with someone else.
I believe that Gaza would not have occurred but for our humiliating defeat in Afghanistan for which no one in a high position was ever held accountable.
Gaza wouldn't have happened without our humiliating self defeat in Iraq, where we did Iran's work for them, handed them regional hegemony and then to this day for some reason pat ourselves on the back and act like we did a smart thing.
If you think Afg. matters more than what's happened in Iraq then you haven't paid attention. In Afg. things just went back to the 7th century. In Iraq and all the way to the Mediterranean and Red Seas Iran now has open lines of communication and malign puppet strings in its hands. Afg. always was the side show to our opponents after 2003; a distraction they were more than happy to let us indulge. When we left it was just the realization of inevitability.
The Afg. withdrawal is given far too much weight, and the Iraq debacle far too little in our national discussions.
I see your hidden message, Pete. "DC. Only Toto got a pair."
You are blowing my cover.
youmu stlea rnste ganog raphy butbe steal thier thanI.
Alan Turing couldn't have said it better.
The Department of Defense, Military Industrial Complex, and Congress are happy with the way this works. Can't realistically expect it to change / improve without some seismic shock like losing a major conflict that so damages the nation that change and accountability is demanded. Someone said the only thing more expensive than waging a war is losing one. We may find out in the very near future.
Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won
- Wellington, the day after Waterloo
I am still waiting for accountability for Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Haiti, Serbia,....How about 911? Did anyone lose their job?
Jamie Gorelick actually sat on the 911 Committee rather than being hauled before it. That would be like putting Allen Dulles in charge of the Warren Commission - oh wait...
I don't agree with the preemise that complexity is directly related to tonnage in building nuclear submarines. The first peak on the "tonnage chart" isn't comparable to the othersthere were MANY more builders than EB and NN - Ingalls, Mare Island, Portsmouth, etc. and they were builing many classes of SSNs - including a bunch of one offs. During the "middle peak" on that chart it becomes more apples to apples with today. Same 2 shipyards, delivering one class of SSNs and one class of SSBNs. In the late 80s early 90s NN and EB delivered 1 Ohio SSBN and 4-5 LA SSNs EACH YEAR. We got this by appropriating the funds ahead of the current rate of production. The DOD Comptroller sound bite (subsequently picked up by SECNAV) that since the yards are behind we are right not to fund it is a simple Comptroller way of excusing how we balanced the program. It is nonsense becsue it is a self-fullfilling prophecy. You could argue the same thing more forcefull;y for DDGs - even though there is way more lead work required for an SSN, there are currently more DDGs under construction than SSNs. The new construction answer is to fund 2-3 SSNs/yr and push EB and NN to deliver. The maintenance thing is to add capacity. Get a private sectoir vendor to compete for SRA/overhaul work. Incentivise buying drydock capacity (floating?) in hgomeport. for example in the 7s- early 90s there were 2 floating drydocks in New London, 1 in San diego 1 or 2 in Norfolk. SRAs were done here by public shipyard workers/IMA. This capacity is gone. Fix this, you fix shipyard capacity by devoting it entirely to overhauls. Fix shipyard management. Make them 1 star billets and let them stay in place a while. When we run significant business ventures with O-6s who rotate every 2 years it never gets better andf the civil servants just wait them out. I would argur NAVSEA should be a 4 star with an 8 year tenure like Naval Reactors. That has been pretty successful. We DON"T need to be schlepping SSNs into the Great Lakes thru the ice - that's silly
Sorry about all the typos. Old eyes!
A flag officer who stayed in a billet for 8 years might figure out how the contractors were ripping off the taxpayers. Can't let that happen.
John Lehman knew, and knew he could not fix the system.
Said Flag will quit for the income with the Primes he is overseeing.
The Way of the Swamp.
"The Way of the Swamp"... dang... having a Mandolorian moment "This is the Way" spoken in a chorus.
Not sure an SSN could make it through the Welland Canal or the Soo Locks, but I get your point.
Soo Lock YES, Welland Canal NO! Soo Lock has a Navigational Depth of ~35’, whereas the navigational depth of the Welland Canal bottoms out at ~30’! The Virginia SSN navigational depth is ~32’! Not without a lot of Infrastructure work first…
OK but then there are the approaches to the locks to consider as well. A can opener in the St. Marys River can really ruin your day.
And there's also the Saint Lawrence Seaway which has a navigational depth of ~27’, preventing ships like the Arleigh Burke from accessing the Great Lakes because of her navigational draft of ~31’…
Sounds like our inland waterways are inadequate. Maybe CDR Sal can look into that too.
We need to make the St. Lawrence Seaway bigger to increase commerce with the Lakes ports anyway.
2 of our largest remaining graving docks are on the lakes. It would be great if they expanded the St. Lawrence Seaway, but risk of further environmental damage thwarts the mojo. I think the people hoping for work were thinking they could be moved by barge, but then you have an air draft concern.
Not all the Great Lakes Locks are the same size! “MacArthur” lock measures ~740’ x 78’ x 30’, whereas “Poe” lock can accommodate barges up to ~1,000’ in length, not including Towing Tug which varies in size from ~230’ to ~350’ in length! A new Lake Huron lock is being constructed to be able to accommodate barges up to ~1,200’ in length, but scheduled completion date isn’t until the summer of 2029 at the earliest or spring of 2030 at the latest…
Why will any boats go through the Soo anyway?
Somebody gonna build a new yard on Lake Superior?
Who knows?
The Fraser Shipyards are located in Superior, WI.
Ocean going warships were produced at Connor's Point during WWI.
And that solves what exactly, when the Locks between Lake Superior and the Saint Lawrence Seaway has a navigational depth of only ~30’…
Some of us are hoping for the Lorain yard, but it might be Wisconsin gets to build bigger ships.
Lorain/Elyria/Cleveland hasn't got enough warm bodies with shipbuilding knowledge. The Lorain Yard closed in 1984.
Does any place really have enough warm bodies with shipbuilding knowledge?
This is so depressing i couldn't even finish it. We are boned.
Late in my Army career I heard the best line about how briefers and (some) senior leaders smoothly glide from one position to a later, opposed position without blinking an eye, to wit:
"I didn't lie to you -- the truth changed."
I will say something heretical; for a variety of reasons, I think the 21st century within modern constraints needs more submarines than carriers. Thanks to the USN mishaps in shipbuilding for surface vessels since the Arleigh Burkes, there isn't a single surface warship worth its cost or sweat and tears that has been built since 1991.
The clicking of slippers won't expand the industrial base, create more fabbers among the workforce or see increased defense budgets (not that they manage what they get responsibly).
I happen to be the minority voice like CDR Vandenengel and others that we need to stop building carriers and if you must, build a Nimitz but cut the losses with the Ford fiasco.
It's nuclear submarines and not carriers that make the US a naval superpower for a variety of reasons I've bored folks with elsewhere (check my Substack). The submarine maintenance backlogs and dockside loitering could get marginal relief by stopping all nuclear carrier construction altogether or a five year pause and use the created capacity to start completing more submarine hulls.
Nuclear submarines (and in some cases diesel-electric boats) are the only true stealth modality left in contemporary warfare. There's no stealth aircraft in the world today that can't be detected by long wave radar. Hypersonic munitions that have terminal maneuvering are the future of all air-breathing air modality warfare for the remainder of this century.
I suspect any other solution is too little and too late.
Your comment not heretical, it simply makes too much sense. But contracts and dinner parties don’t you know!
And Naval aviators.
I wonder if the subs are truly as stealthy as we think.
I suspect the Russians and Chinese have been working on this problem ever since The Hunt for Red October.
Do not underestimate their R&D capabilities or their willingness to steal or buy secrets.
Is there another Johnny Walker out there?
Respectfully, they are certainly more stealthy than an aircraft carrier and its entourage.
And less likely to spend a disproportionate fraction of their capacity in self defense.
More than few articles have referred to the Russian Kilo II's as akin to a "black hole" in the water. Operating in the littorals with all the noise already present in the water column??? Suspect that would be a very scary proposition to deal with.
Beg pardon, but I've been hearing about the death of the carrier for 40 years. But when it's time to do actual Navy things, the CVNs are the trump cards. They beat out everything else due to their flexibility.
Today yes. But what about tomorrow? The future may be super battleships that fire missiles.
When was the last time a serious navy tried to sink a US carrier with real weapons?
It's easy to look good and and extrude calmness on a parade or a firepower demonstration. How does it look with 4 wake following torpedoes coming in at 50 knots and 73 supersonic anti-ship missiles that just crossed the radar horizon?
It looks the same as it would for any surface ship. Today it would be nice to have an S-3 equivalent that could pose a threat to SSNs and SSGNs farther out. And then there is the stubby legged air wing. Yes, I know that the MQ-25 is supposed to make up for that and promises even more. Then there is the other issue of evolution from CVBG to the more (at least on paper) efficient, capable, and less hull-intensive CSG. I'm not sure that any apolitical admiral wouldn't rather have more gray hulls in the outer picket.
How do we control the air around Taiwan with submarines? Or the straight, which is relatively small and shallow? Would we plausibility even risk our subs in there? How do our subs stop an air attack against a convoy we send to resupply Taiwan?
Im not trying to say it cant be done, Ive never really understood how subs will be very valuable in the most likely war scenarios we are likely to face.
Mike,
Fair point and this also brings up yet another enormous coverage gap in the surface navy to service inbound aerial threats. Close aboard threats can be serviced by Phalanx systems until those magazines are exhausted. How will these surface vessels service hundreds of inbound Group 1 and 2 UAS weapons (under 55 pounds)? They won't.
I think you are highlighting a tremendous capability gap in the surface Navy.
BUT the USN has not been serious about the aerial threat to surface ships as evidenced by the total lack of investment in updating non-missile defense (traditional naval gun systems measured by caliber), updating picket ship design & TTP and purposely designing ships with no armor whatsoever. There's a reason the USN and allied navies have fled the Red Sea with its rather low density air threat.
Per kinetic defense against mass drone attacks, that naval ship commander will empty his kinetic magazines against inbound threats b/c after detection and declaration, he doesn't know what will scrape his paint and what will sink his ship. Once those kinetic magazines are empty, the ship is simply a target. The kamikaze assaults against naval ships off Okinawa in 1945 may have been a rough approximation of what a mass UAS swarm attack looks like. If you look at the aerial threat scenario around Okinawa in 1945, that may have been the highest density air to surface kinetic attack against surface warships in history.
Highly recommend "Brave Ship, Brave Men" by Arnold S. Lott about the USS Aaron Ward on picket duty 3 May 1945 to get a minute by minute flavor of salvo saturation by kamikazes.
Kamikazes are not the perfect analog to drone swarm saturation but a workable model to see how devastating "leakers" are to what appears to be ferocious air defense.
Yeah. Our capabilities across the board are so eroded.
Just as our AAW capability hasn't evolved (and has eroded), it's fair to point out that our CVWs have too. Relative to both their past strength and perhaps even in absolute terms, a carrier today does not have the strength many of us remember from the end of the Cold War.
Cold War era, they had ~62 combat aircraft plus EW, plus 8-10 S-3s. Plus the helicopters, AEW, tankers, etc.
Now we're at 48 plus EW and AEW. The ASW focused helicopters have morphed into a worrying vague "maritime strike" and "helicopter sea combat" missions that, frankly make me question whether we can protect our ships from even a moderate submarine threat.
To my eyes, we are wholly unprepared in every direction I look. :(
A carrier strike package outside the envelope of the CAP and BCAP is less than ten aircraft.
An SSN can carry anti surface weapons with a range in excess of 1000 mi. Its less than 200 miles from the middle of the Taiwan straight to deep waters off the continental shelf. 400 miles at most to the Chinese points of departure. You don't control the air with submarines. You don't have to control the air. You just have to be able to disrupt the adversaries effort enough so it fails. If China cannot be sure of controlling Taiwan by militarily landing on the island, why would it try?
How many Tomahawk MSTs do we have? The reported range of them is between 300-400 miles rather than 1000. The standard TLAM's are land attack only and not even designed to hit a moving target.
Our dwindling number of subs only carry 12 each, and when they're out, they're out and the sub will have to traverse thousands of miles to reload.
How suited is the Tomahawk MST, to attack a modern, heavily defended target? Well, it's subsonic, so it's relatively easy to intercept. If China controls the air, and we cannot launch anything like the number of missiles that would need to be launched to overwhelm their air defenses, it seems likely that this will be an ineffectual strategy.
1. I was talking about what we could have if we made changes now , not wha t we have now, which i agree is inadequate
2. If the changes to make a Tomahawk into an MST limits its range to 400 miles, I'll eat a hat, (I prefer the hats I eat to have sfogliatelle on top, so please send one with the hat) but I doubt it. Show me a reference.
3. The Virginias are now working on Block 6, with the VPM, able to carry 40 Tomahawks total or some mix of the 1500+ mile LRHW and Tomahawks
4. Assuming again that we are talking about what could be done if we had different priorities, a dozen VPM equipped Virginias maneuvering 100 -500 miles east of Taiwan carrying a total of 72 LRHW missiles 312+ Tomahawks and 300 heavy torpedoes isnt exactly a first day of war threat to be ignored.
5. A true hypersonic attack on C&C nodes followed closely by even the somewhat old school Tomahawk would be hard to confidently repel.
6. The resources China would have to put into defending against the above, given the 300,000+ square miles of deep ocean they could be in would be prohibitive to the point of great risk to their efforts.
7. The assumption would be that these subs aren't the only assets, they are the enabling assets. They lead with disruption which other assets exploit.
I always found it interesting how the visibility of a diesel-electric boat snorkeling and their "limited" range of thousands of miles was determined to be death knell for them as an alternative despite all the historical evidence available otherwise. So instead, we consider return radar picture of a surface vessel like the LCS (whose "small" wake is likely visible from orbit) and whisper of an electro-magnetic signature represent a "stealthy" alternative and their grotesque unit cost qualifies that class of hull for what mission now in the littorals????
DE boats are the preeminent Littoral Combat Ship like Germany's Type 212 and Type 214 submarines are known for their advanced technology, including air-independent propulsion (AIP) systems that allow them to operate submerged for longer periods.
What a difference dumping the tens of billions spent on the Littoral Combat Ship into rebranded European DE boats would have in addition to associated submarine tender vessels.
And the updated Russian Kilo II's are referred to as the "Black Hole"...
I've been saying similar for years.
SSNs are the system that enables all the others. Have enough with enough of the right weapons inside the opponents umbrella and you have the ability to degrade their defense and offense enough for all the other systems to take advantage. Its the one area in which we should be able to maintain a qualitative and qualitative advantage. Instead the Navy slavishly clings to the CVN.
The US Navy only spends about 10% of its budget on attack subs but spends more than 40% on CBGs. The only way this Navy is going to get back to a balanced fleet is to cut CBG costs way down and/or get more deployed time out of them and the only way to do both and help the sub enterprise it to cut nuclear power out of the carriers and design and build them accordingly.
Time for some big strategic decisions, instead of we can just walk down the tracks through the tunnel into the light forever happy talk.
Al, agree with everything but even the submarine advantage is in the hazard now and I think we have a very narrow ten year window. I had mentioned before regarding a moon base and a mission to Mars, if it doesn't happen in ten years, it never will because there is a very real slide backwards in engineering and maintenance knowledge in improving existing systems of systems to maintain a legacy baseline much less fundamental improvements in knowledge. The acquisition is a big part of the massive trillion dollar mistakes in naval shipbuilding in the last fifty years but the window is closing to fix that.
Glad you give it ten years. I think, given the Navy's historical 20+- year momentum overrun of the decision curve, we are a decade past the turning point. The SECNAV pushed the Navy toward an existing FFG a decade ago yet it wont have meaningful numbers in service for at least another decade if then. Nuke subs are an order of magnitude more complicated, and the momentum of the MICC is even more so. It wants carriers and their obvious presence in the media. Secretive subs and their lurking don't make for clicks or easy marketing. This would take a level of woke we haven't seen in our screen addled nation in a long time.
This is all so irritating.
My formative was as an EM in the US Army. They taught me Mission First. Without a doubt the most important single thing I ever learned for my professional life. Repetitive experiences taught mid-level Army leadership didn't exactly take that to heart. Thus ended my lackluster military career.
40 years later, I advise large enterprises on matters of IT. After gaining some level of trust I often find myself explaining to VP & C-Level people the strengths and weaknesses of their organizations as it it relates to expensive programs they wish to undertake, and the level of people retooling it will take be successful. Mostly they acknowledge this as not being a surprise.
You can't begin any project built on a ill-conceived dependencies, when you do those are commonly called *failures*. If Congress had more engineers and fewer lawyers we'd all be better served, and not just in the military sphere.
I have no doubt submarines are a valuable platform, especially with what's out their on the potential horizon. But what's worse, I don't believe many of these people can think there way out of paper bag and design programs that play to our current strengths and abilities.
Dave,
USN enlisted and US Army officer here.
But an amateur navalist.
Concepts and requirements baselines informed by tedious product breakdown structures (PBS) and work breakdown structures (WBS) per MILSTD881F in concert with concepts of operations (CONOPs), concepts of employment (CONEMP) and functional descriptions go a long way toward avoiding the trillion dollar mistakes the military has undertaken. In concert with red teaming and folks having the moral courage to question the emperor's wardrobe, the ship could be turned around.
I am not holding my breath.
Bill,
In my sphere it usually takes an entrepreneur, or occasionally an "intrapreneur" to pull off big changes. How does one groom an "intrapreneur" in an organization like the US military and then keep them in place to see the job done? It's rare in large private sector organizations too, to be sure. Real change usually comes from being put up against a wall being told, "change or die".
You get enough flaming datums and change will come.
Please also remember that GAO has repeatedly found that the Navy has kept two sets of books - the schedules and costs for construction, and the schedules and costs for the maintenance of existing ships and those planned for construction.
I absolutely believe that DoD should be audited from stem to stern, along with all other cabinet departments.
I suspect it's going to take a SECNAV with the nerve of John Lehmann to set things right. Someone willing to take a broom to the top NAVSEA leadership - and go to Congress and demand the ability to implement REAL procurement reform.
This somehow seems reminiscent of the legends of a past leader in his bunker moving non-existent armies while being briefed about paper wonder weapons that were going to change the tide.
Think musical chairs.
Well hey diddle diddle, the PM’s in the middle.
No PM, whether buying tires or submarines, can afford to convey anything close to realistic costs based on past programs’ actuals. The factor is about 2x and Congress wouldn’t fund it. So the games begin.
They generally provide a figure somewhere on the “Best Case, Most Likely Case, Worst Case” continuum. If memory serves there’s quite the bias toward halfway between best and most likely. The chain of command aligns behind it. In the event the program is funded, this PM (who has built nothing) has a good shot at flag. The music is still playing.
The next PM gets 80% of his/her planned budget, if they’re lucky, since the “taxes” and various other “takes” are known but they’re not allowed to budget for them. Why not? “Well sir, it’s one of life’s great mysteries.” Each year, after the inevitable CR, his development program gets rocked with further takes (the Congressional term of art is “marks”) piled on top of the pure chaos caused by CR’s on a program that’s increasing R&D each year. “Why are you under-performing? Why is your development schedule shifting right? Your out-year procurement costs are rising ( think inflation). this PM keeps all the spinning plates in the air, he/she has a fair shot at flag. The music keeps playing.
The next PM gets to wrestle with all of the above while adding long-lead procurement to the mix. Just think of those CRs and the associated fun. The questions get harder. This PM has no shot st flag without being a golden child. Hint, they don’t typically put such luminaries in a program at this point.
Lather rinse repeat for a couple more PMs with no shot and then a miracle occurs. A god-like PM arrives to deliver the tires (or submarine) at 2x the cost, 3-5 years late, and with many of the features used to sell the project deferred. Think hiding the true original cost under the P-cubed-I rubric. This PM will make three-star easy.
having been a PM, I do think we need to hold both the PEO and PM accountable for unknown slips.. we also need to hold industry accountable - CPARS, Award Fee, or as HGR did in the past, pull the ship out of the SY that is not performing and move it someplace that is - oh wait that would require additional capacity that we dont have
Mickey Mouse: very subtle way to hint at the culture thing.
Well, you won't say it so I will. Our national military leadership is composed entirely of corrupt liars who are pissing on our legs and telling us it is raining. If you are not to kind of person willing to do this you won't be promoted to national leadership.
In the old Soviet Union, there were the zampolit, the political officers or commissars who ensured the regular officers complied with the Party dictates. In our retarded system, all of our senior leaders are zampolit lickspittles who kiss the ring, likely check some diversity box on skin color, sex or sexual perversion. Capability doesn't rise to the top in our system anymore and we're going to witness their incompetence if, God forbid, if we ever have to go to war against a real adversary, not some Bronze Age goatherders with AKs and an attitude. It's bad enough with procurement with these useful idiots, but imagine combat. I don't think there are any Ernie Kings waiting in the wings either.
Don't forget one of those Virginia's is also a stretch special mission sub. Should any more SSNs be ordered before SSNX I would at least leave out the VPM. If we ever get to serial SSBN production and have the firm decision on which boats are for Aukus, I'd immediately switch o SSNX and try for 2 per year the first year after SSBNs are done being bought. I say this mostly because SSNX will hopefully borrow most of the boat from Columbia.