So the British can design and build a ship. The Japanese can design and build a ship. But my beloved navy, once the master of the world’s oceans, has to send off for some mail order drawings in order to build ships of war. People used to get fired for this kinda stuff. Now they just get promoted.
"With a fiscal year budget of approximately $36 billion, NAVSEA accounts for nearly one quarter of the Navy's entire budget. With a force of 86,886 (as of 1 Oct 2023) civilian and military personnel, NAVSEA engineers, builds, buys and maintains the Navy's ships and submarines and their combat systems." - Funny ain't it? Apparently they can engineer but not design. Maybe they need nearly 30% of the budget.
I dunno' that's for the big brains. But, any reasonable mind has to question their efficacy given the self-important claims from their website and the current status of the USN.
That's what worries me. People forget that the hull is merely a truck for weapons and sensors. If you gut the old weapon and sensor fit and replace it, be prepared to bring big money.
And I'd bet that NAVSEA still won't do a proper systems integration lab to sort it all out ashore before putting it into a hull.
When we've been staring at 20-years of incompetence at NAVSEA and their inability to conceptualize but, design a functional surface combatant...we're left with accepting victories wherever they show up. Fortunately, that foreign design is pretty good, a bit big/heavy for its role but, at this point we'll take it.
When a nation takes it role seriously as a maritime nation, you not only have a robust shipbuilding & maintenance industry but, you recognize that the long lead-times equate to constantly thinking ahead and seeking out the next evolution. There's a whole lot of people on Capitol Hill who are willfully ignorant of not only the position of maritime commerce but, the necessary infrastructure. They see a handful of barges on their local river, a few tug boats or, ferries and think it's all good.
I think the type 26 has a couple of single mount 30mm guns. anti-small boat?
on the topic of CIWS, you give the US credit for their RAM missiles. Do they function in an anti-boat mode or is the 57mm and perhaps a M2, as good as a Phalanx for boats?
is the 57mm useful for anything other than suicide boats?
The newer RAM has an anti-boat capability. 57mm is a leftover from No Big Wars Again era. Would do OK against corvettes on down, should be decent against missiles and aircraft. Though a Super-Rapid 76.2 would be better.
It's the range. Those little boats are outfitted with smaller, man portable missiles that still outrange small caliber ordinance. In a swarm, they could fire a lot of those missiles off from out of range.
If precise on-target fire from a pintle-mounted crew served gun can be delivered, I have never seen it. Never. But it may be that during my service there was never enough ammo allotted for marksmanship training, let alone for basic familiarization training. But I am all for a ship that bristles with all kinds of guns. I want .50 cal. 25mm, belt-fed 40mm Bloopers and even M-14's out there as I transit into the Persian Gulf, sit in a Yemeni or UAE port or am at anchor near Crimea.
Super Rapid doesn’t have a sustained firing mode, and is only capable in fire in ten round bursts followed by a 10-minute cooling cycle because the water jacket surround the gun cannot cool the barrel fast enough to have a sustained fire capability! No Rapid or Super Rapid has ever achieved its theoretical maximum rate of fire, jamming a live round in the breech after 71-rounds fired! Requiring someone to physically reach into the Gun Breech to remove the hot jammed round and the subsequent 30-minute cooling cycle to cool down the gun! Whereas the 57mm Bofors can happily chug along with a sustained 110-rounds/minute until all 1,040-rounds are fired…
Yes, SGT, the 57mm is useful for making that blood vessel pulsate on the foreheads of right-thinking SWO's, might even get the juices flowing in some of them or sadly make some stroke out. Also good for freeing up ammo magazine space for more Welfare & Rec gear, allowing effete men, most women and all sailors with a hernia or recent transitional surgery to be ammo handlers, and to sail close to shore to do saber-rattling without being seen as a posturing bully. Gunboat diplomacy needn't be toxically masculine. And you know? Maybe now is the time for a more LTL approach to warfare. 57mm will do that.
1. Yes. People more clever than us, Jack, suppose it so.
2. Maybe...I dunno. I haven't the certs or pronouns to say with any credibility.
3. Yes, of course. Pls excuse my lack of clarity. ...that saved Welfare & Rec space in the ammo magazine...all those softball mitts, athletic supporters and articles of padding. Très confortable.
I don't know why (I'll leave it to you Navy types) but these "Frigates" are approximately the same tonnage as a WWII Light Cruiser (say, Juneau-class), ~8000 tons loaded.
A Perry-class FFG is about half that.
The current Flight-III Burke's are in the 9500 ton range, not that much bigger...
Unfortunately, 76.2mm is out of favor for "reasons", and while 127mm is great for medium and large ships and NGFS, not so good for AA and ACM work. So hope they make up with additional NSM.
Alright flyboy! A WW2 P-51 "fighter" was 32 feet long and an empty weight of 7600 pounds. A WW2 P-47 was 36 feet long and an empty weight of 10000 pounds. Compare to an F-22 that is 62 feet long and 43000 pounds empty weight or 5 feet shy and almost 25% more than the empty weight of a four engine B-24 Liberator. If we want to call our light cruisers "frigates' then we durn sure will!
Somehow having something available to shoot seems to have become irrelevant. Evidently the strategerists in charge of such things have determined that all engagements will be of short duration, at the end of which both sides will retire to rest, recuperate, reload, and swap war stories about their finest hour.
I suspect someone at NAVSEA is just smart enough to realize that won't really be done. Say, ASW version. Mk. 54, then 40 VLS tubes; 8 quadpack ESSM, 16 NSM, 16 VLASROC; usual CIWS; instead of aft VLS, put some UAVs. Only have basic Air Search and Targeting radar for the ESSM and CIWS. The complaint will be "but we already put that AAW gear in the full Burkes! What if you go Winchester on missiles!" and we won't get our "light" Burkes.
Upping the electrical capacity, plus some speed gain by losing the bow sonar. I am trying to compete this thing against a Constellation so if I can get there by giving up some high end speed I'll do it. Figure 2 engines and it still easily makes the same speeds as Constellation and many other current large combatants.
I suppose the people at PEO think - or have been told - we will only be fighting these ships at range. Mr. Murphy always intervenes and it would be good to have a little heavier ordnance to answer the bell when he calls.
HA! I get you...that good old 4.5 inch Mark 8 Naval gun is the equivalent...and they developed the 155 mm/62 (6.1-inch) Mark 51 Advanced Gun System (AGS) for the Zumwalts. Don't know if the frigates could support it, but the AB IIIs could have.
Yeah, I was just talking about analogous size/caliber, not the ammo. It would make sense to just standardize...but when did the Army and Navy ever cooperate on such things? Makes too much sense.
Simply swapping the barrels out for a NATO compatible 155mm howitzer barrel won’t work, because Mk.51 155mm AGS used specifically designed ammunition for its Polygonal Rifling bore…
Except BAE developed a single caliber round that can be used in three different gun/howitzer systems. The Mk.45 5” gun, the M109A6 155mm Paladin and the Mk.51 6.1” AGS in September 2020…
Disagree that the AB III's could have supported the AGS. I worked on the DD21/DDX early design (which became the Zumwalt). The amount of below deck space it required was enormous. We had a sectional view showing that.
I assume that you mean the 8" that was tested on the USS Hull in the early 1970's? My memory is that OPTEVFOR gave it a negative report which killed it. With the improvements in 155mm rounds, I'd lean towards a gun that used common ammunition with land forces (which the AGS did not).
No, the 4.5" Mark 8 standard Naval gun...which is roughly the same caliber as the 155 tubes the Army has. It would be a minor adjustment to standardize the tube and the ammo.
The 8 inch Light Weight Major Caliber Gun Mount which was mounted on USS HULL was the second iteration of initial designs which were to use then standard Army 175mm projectiles matched up with USS Salem class 8"/55 cartridge cases slightly necked down to be appropriate with the 175mm projectiles. (Projos and powders separate, not a "fixed round" with projectile crimped to the case.
They had a working prorotype, but then the Army discarded their 175mm guns, and any future ammo production. So, USN fall back position was to slightly modify the system and change to 8" bore instead of 175mm and use of USN 8" projectiles. Guns system worked pretty well at Dahlgren and aboard ship. The first of the DDG-51 apparently were designed to accept the 8" MCLWG.
However, funding cuts ended any actual production of 8" mounts and the cheaper 5"/54 LWG went into all the DDG-51s.
There were some structural cracking issues aboard USS HULL with the 8" mount, but not terribly different than others in the class with their 5" mounts.
Just checking my understanding, this is what I got from Janes: The 4.5 inch Mark 8 naval gun is a little smaller but comparable to the standard 155 mm gun-howitzer Army when firing conventional ammunition . A 4.5 inch Mark 8 naval gun firing conventional ammunition has the same, if not better, range. To get the same range, most 155mm guns have to use rocket-assisted projectiles (RAPs) and that is only done with a reduction in the payload. This is put down to the fact that naval guns can be built much more strongly than land-based self-propelled gun-howitzers, and have much longer barrels in relation to caliber (for example the 4.5 inch Mark 8 naval gun has a barrel length of 55 calibers, while the standard AS-90 self-propelled gun has a barrel length of 39 calibers).
Anyway, this length and added strength allows naval guns to fire heavier shells in comparison to shell diameter and to use larger propellant charges in relation to shell weight, leading to greater projectile velocities. So a little more difficult to match up ammo that it would seem at first glance.
Even without active cooling, the heavier naval gun barrels allow a faster sustained rate of fire than field guns, and this is exploited by the autoloading system on ships with a capacity of several hundred rounds. While the US Navy's Advanced Gun System (AGS) also uses a 155 mm caliber, it is not compatible with NATO-standard 155 mm ammunition. Only one type of ammunition was ever developed and procurement was discontinued in 2016 due to its high cost, making the AGS unusable.
On the plus side for the Army, the 155 mm is better than the 4.5 inch Mark 8 naval gun for firing cannon-launched guided projectiles (CLGP) as the lower velocity of the 155 mm shell makes it much easier for the projectiles' internal electronic guidance systems to survive being fired.
That makes sense with respect to capability and impact due to longer/stronger barrels and heavier shells. My inner anality chose to come to the fore on the actual dimensions:)
If the Navy's gun crowd wanted to, they could specify such a weapon, or at least one that fired the same ammo. Which would make a great deal of sense, logistically.
1. Still need smaller combatants for presence in those less obviously important areas and "experience" in peacetime. Non-emitting ISR, SAR, and commerce harassment in war.
2. Still need more tenders and resupply vessels, especially ones to haul the supplies to the ships that resupply combatants.
3. Slightly OT: What if the Navy grows the guts the Coast Guard has, and says "We're laying up ships until we can crew them properly"?
This is the thing that persuades me they don't perceive the threat from China, rightly or wrongly, the same way we do. If they did, they would also be hair on fire and increasing funding and ship building and missile production to meet the threat. But they aren't. I don't think they're stupid (though we can never discount this possibility), but they are operating on some set of assumptions that is at odds with our perception of the state of the two potential combatants.
Laying up ships (if necesary), missiles, ammo, oil, and getting logistical arrangement in order are the basic reqirements to be prepared to execute whatever OPLAN is required (and, therefore, for deterrence). Instead we are retiring cruisers and destroyers (forget the LCSs) and not replacing them at a great enough rate. Holding off decommissioning those ships and increasing production over three to four years would give us a better buffer, at the least, and put a dozen or so hulls in the water.
It’s not just the Navy, the Air Force is retiring every type of aircraft some without replacement at all.
The government is run by people that hate their own country. And then you have the school system trying to indoctrinate children to hate their own country.
Is it any wonder the services can’t recruit anyone.
Sad state of affairs, having the modern Woke Guard be the sea service with more guts. In a healthy republic, my service would be scrambling to mimic its larger sibling.
I've posted before about the captain of the Cole told a talk show host when asked about what caused the 2017 collisions. First assignment was a Burke 315 crew. The time the Cole was attacked, 290-300. Now around 270-280. "The Navy says technology has replaced those people..."
I'd like to know what technology they are talking about. Because the ships have the same engines they had when they are built etc. Yeah some of the weapon stations are remote, but they still need someone controlling them.
And in the case of the Flight III as they are replacing the Cruisers you would think they would need more people in the CIC to take on the job Air Warfare control.
I never saw a Roomba on my NRF FFG back in '85-86. No magic paint either. We were minimum manned and cut further and given IOU's for SELRES and TAR's to supplement us. Minimum manning never seemed to take into account the sweep/swab/wax/buff component and assumed that No-Doz and coffee could take up the slack for watchstanders.
I really like the idea that Japan is already looking for a new class to replace the Mogami class. That is a sign of a robust design cycle and fleet integration plan. The Italian Navy used to do that, where each new small class used much the same equipment as the previous, but in an ongoing evolution of their fleet. I haven't looked recently to see if that is still part of their process.
Italy has their act together too. Their PPA patrol ships are full naval combatants and could probably be fitted out very similar to Constellation if Americanized.
Thanks for the info. And good for the Italians. Their destroyers of the 1960-80 timeframe were used as examples of good design by the Soviet design bureau.
The HM&E design is older but the combat system may not be. The SPY-6 radar is a scaled down version of the one on the Flt III, don't know about the ones on the other two ships. The 72 VLS cells listed for the Type 26 is deceptive. 24 are in a Mk 41. 48 are for the Sea Cepter which is a smaller missile. A good follow on discussion would be to compare Sea Cepter to the latest ESSM as to range and capability.
CAMM is comparable to ESSM Block II (of which there are very few) as it has an active seeker. But it has a shorter range (but also has a far shorter minimum engagement range as well). But the CAMM-ER is directly comparable to ESSM Block II. It will fit in the same cells. There is also the 100km+ CAMM-MR on the way...that may need to be twin packed in the Mk.41 though.
First, given the TICO's were based off a destroyer hull. And, the Constellation is coming close to the weight of a Flight III Arleigh Burke destroyer. I'm beginning to fail to see the distinction between cruisers, destroyers and frigates. In the pre-WWII big gun navy, this all made more sense.
So, why not just use whatever paucity of shipbuilding assets to just build the Arleigh Burkes. You'll have a commonality of a ship assets, commonality of spare parts, and commonality of weapon load outs. We already need to prepare for a three front war with a badly depleted industrial base. Pick a design, one design, and get a start on a 600 ship navy.
They need a larger ship with more VLS capacity and a more robust anti-air suite to take over as the CSG anti-air coordinator and a smaller ship with the flexibility to maneuverable and take on small boats but has some capability with long range ASMs to defend itself against larger attackers. Keep the destroyers for medium size class but they should be all be equipped for an ASW mission with towed arrays and two helos with a hanger.
I'm going with the flight III AB destroyer. First, I'm not hearing a lot of b**ching about the ship, so I think we have a solid platform. VLS capacity just shy of 100; otherwise stretch is for more VLS. Two helo's. Torpedos. Aegis. Displacement-wise almost identical to the TICO's.
You have a good package that is available now for what appears to be a relatively mature concept, either cruiser or destroyer. You can perhaps increase output by using all of your capability to produce this one design instead of shipyards trying to produce a variety of relatively similar ships. You can also replicate the shipyard and have a cadre of experience shipbuilders to rapidly bring these new shipyards on line.
The Constellation sounds like a AB-lite. The CGX is...years off. We have a good package that is available now in the form of the AB flight III. We two, offing into a three front war. We need hulls in the water, now.
A cheap flight IV would ensure annual builds of greater quantity. We have plenty of Flt III on order now. Our designing next while first hits the water should have been Flt IV Burke and Connie an even smaller ship.
The Burke design philosophy is approaching fifty years old. The Burke's basic design approach and platform layout isn't in good alignment with emerging offensive and defensive trends in naval warfare.
What is needed is a clean sheet design which takes into account these emerging trends and which makes rational accomodation for future emerging requirements, most of which are fairly predictable here in the year 2023.
A 21st Century 'destroyer' needs a displacement of 14,000 to 16,000 tons to accomplish all the missions we are now assigning to warships we call 'destroyers'.
DOD 5000 is supposed to deliver optimum combat system designs at a reasonable price point on time and on budget.
So why haven't we seen any serious work being done on a clean sheet design for a Burke replacement?
Why did we end up with the DDG-1000 Zumwalt design, a ship program which was plainly on a pathway to failure years before the first hull was ever commissioned? Why does the Constellation class embark a 57mm gun instead of a 127mm gun?
It is because the Pentagon's entire acquisition process -- including the people who manage it -- has become a thoroughly politicized self-serving money-eating monster which services only the needs of the DOD acquisition bureaucracy, the defense contractors, and the politicians in Congress who fund DOD acquisition.
We will not be seeing anything resembling an effective naval response to China's ever-growing bluewater combat power until that portion of the Administrative State which handles defense acquisition is shaken to its core by a new management team and is rebuilt from the ground up to do the job the taxpayers expect of it.
One advantage of starting a new design while the last one's fairly fresh is that by keeping the design team employed and engaged, you don't lose all the little stuff the team screwed up on the last design. The sub example is how Seawolf came in heavy and expensive and had design weirdness that was unnecessarily convoluted or absurd...and then they designed the stretch module for the third of class...then started on Virginia with some continuity of knowledge and lessons identified, making that first-of-class have fewer ridiculous design or production weirdnesses than it might have otherwise. (The contrast might be whoever decided, after a long gap making new ships, to make a surface ship's firemain out of titanium for some reason.) Seems to me learning curve ain't just for the builders, it's also for the designers.
Why does it not surprise me that the US frigate has the smallest gun? Why does the modern Pentagon insist on sending our sailors into battle with undersized guns and missiles that lack range and capability?
The Japanese are manning Mogami with a crew of 90, same with the follow on class which is larger. We should see what they and other minimally manned countries are doing, Singapore also comes to mind.
Thats another issue I missed on my comparison of WWII CLs vs. modern frigates/DDs. The crews on CLs were driven by the guns (lots of them) with lots of gunners, so the crews were huge - 600 men?
What's the crew (and berthing and mess spaces) for one of these new frigates? 120? 100? 90 for the Japanese entry? Where is that extra space going?
It would be interesting why Japan can succeed with optimal manning and the USN fails. Is it because they have the appropriate rigor when it comes to programs and they are honest with the themselves as far as the support requirements? Is it just because their ships stay closer to home?
Frankly, the Brits are taking too long on Type 26. Its an example of too long and too few. Seems like type 31 might beat it out the door. I think the kick here is we have a horde of relevant allied frigates out there to be thinking about for design ideas and are in the water.
So the British can design and build a ship. The Japanese can design and build a ship. But my beloved navy, once the master of the world’s oceans, has to send off for some mail order drawings in order to build ships of war. People used to get fired for this kinda stuff. Now they just get promoted.
Correct.
"Now they just get promoted."
Sounds a lot like The Peter Principle.
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. At least we got a small bit of sanity out of the corporate navy.
"With a fiscal year budget of approximately $36 billion, NAVSEA accounts for nearly one quarter of the Navy's entire budget. With a force of 86,886 (as of 1 Oct 2023) civilian and military personnel, NAVSEA engineers, builds, buys and maintains the Navy's ships and submarines and their combat systems." - Funny ain't it? Apparently they can engineer but not design. Maybe they need nearly 30% of the budget.
Would we be better off if they only got 15% of the budget?
I dunno' that's for the big brains. But, any reasonable mind has to question their efficacy given the self-important claims from their website and the current status of the USN.
Don't kid yourself, there is almost nothing the same between Connie and Fremm.
That's what worries me. People forget that the hull is merely a truck for weapons and sensors. If you gut the old weapon and sensor fit and replace it, be prepared to bring big money.
And I'd bet that NAVSEA still won't do a proper systems integration lab to sort it all out ashore before putting it into a hull.
1-10, how sad is it that my first reaction to “we’re just gonna by some other country’s ship design” is a sigh of relief?
When we've been staring at 20-years of incompetence at NAVSEA and their inability to conceptualize but, design a functional surface combatant...we're left with accepting victories wherever they show up. Fortunately, that foreign design is pretty good, a bit big/heavy for its role but, at this point we'll take it.
When a nation takes it role seriously as a maritime nation, you not only have a robust shipbuilding & maintenance industry but, you recognize that the long lead-times equate to constantly thinking ahead and seeking out the next evolution. There's a whole lot of people on Capitol Hill who are willfully ignorant of not only the position of maritime commerce but, the necessary infrastructure. They see a handful of barges on their local river, a few tug boats or, ferries and think it's all good.
I think the type 26 has a couple of single mount 30mm guns. anti-small boat?
on the topic of CIWS, you give the US credit for their RAM missiles. Do they function in an anti-boat mode or is the 57mm and perhaps a M2, as good as a Phalanx for boats?
is the 57mm useful for anything other than suicide boats?
The newer RAM has an anti-boat capability. 57mm is a leftover from No Big Wars Again era. Would do OK against corvettes on down, should be decent against missiles and aircraft. Though a Super-Rapid 76.2 would be better.
Trading a missile for a speedboat sounds dumb to me. Can't they add some pintle-mounted crew served guns?
It's the range. Those little boats are outfitted with smaller, man portable missiles that still outrange small caliber ordinance. In a swarm, they could fire a lot of those missiles off from out of range.
If precise on-target fire from a pintle-mounted crew served gun can be delivered, I have never seen it. Never. But it may be that during my service there was never enough ammo allotted for marksmanship training, let alone for basic familiarization training. But I am all for a ship that bristles with all kinds of guns. I want .50 cal. 25mm, belt-fed 40mm Bloopers and even M-14's out there as I transit into the Persian Gulf, sit in a Yemeni or UAE port or am at anchor near Crimea.
Yeah, some radar guided twin bofors would be good for little boats, drones, and anti-ship.
Works for me. Too bad I'm not an absolute monarch, otherwise I'd make you the acquisitions duke.
Have a look at this...Flexforce Agile mount, recently adopted by the RN
https://twitter.com/NavyLookout/status/1661361911420551170
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOKDq_kGY5w
Super Rapid doesn’t have a sustained firing mode, and is only capable in fire in ten round bursts followed by a 10-minute cooling cycle because the water jacket surround the gun cannot cool the barrel fast enough to have a sustained fire capability! No Rapid or Super Rapid has ever achieved its theoretical maximum rate of fire, jamming a live round in the breech after 71-rounds fired! Requiring someone to physically reach into the Gun Breech to remove the hot jammed round and the subsequent 30-minute cooling cycle to cool down the gun! Whereas the 57mm Bofors can happily chug along with a sustained 110-rounds/minute until all 1,040-rounds are fired…
Yes, SGT, the 57mm is useful for making that blood vessel pulsate on the foreheads of right-thinking SWO's, might even get the juices flowing in some of them or sadly make some stroke out. Also good for freeing up ammo magazine space for more Welfare & Rec gear, allowing effete men, most women and all sailors with a hernia or recent transitional surgery to be ammo handlers, and to sail close to shore to do saber-rattling without being seen as a posturing bully. Gunboat diplomacy needn't be toxically masculine. And you know? Maybe now is the time for a more LTL approach to warfare. 57mm will do that.
Wait. These are supposed to be used for *warfare*?! Isn't that extra toxic masculinity?
Did you save space for timeout rooms?
1. Yes. People more clever than us, Jack, suppose it so.
2. Maybe...I dunno. I haven't the certs or pronouns to say with any credibility.
3. Yes, of course. Pls excuse my lack of clarity. ...that saved Welfare & Rec space in the ammo magazine...all those softball mitts, athletic supporters and articles of padding. Très confortable.
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F68a7f644-5533-4ced-965e-e2c42dd7fd2f_466x561.jpeg
Yes there are 2 x DS-30M as on either side of the hangar.
I don't know why (I'll leave it to you Navy types) but these "Frigates" are approximately the same tonnage as a WWII Light Cruiser (say, Juneau-class), ~8000 tons loaded.
A Perry-class FFG is about half that.
The current Flight-III Burke's are in the 9500 ton range, not that much bigger...
Seems that a Flight-IV Burke would do the job?
Ingalls can always build more WMSL hulls and just paint 'em grey. They're ~4,500 tons and approach 30kts as currently configured.
And they have a 57mm gun (~2"...wow!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXPqKceOZpc&ab_channel=WhatisGoingonWithShipping%3F
Not good at all. But surely Ingalls can upgun the design.
Unfortunately, 76.2mm is out of favor for "reasons", and while 127mm is great for medium and large ships and NGFS, not so good for AA and ACM work. So hope they make up with additional NSM.
Alright flyboy! A WW2 P-51 "fighter" was 32 feet long and an empty weight of 7600 pounds. A WW2 P-47 was 36 feet long and an empty weight of 10000 pounds. Compare to an F-22 that is 62 feet long and 43000 pounds empty weight or 5 feet shy and almost 25% more than the empty weight of a four engine B-24 Liberator. If we want to call our light cruisers "frigates' then we durn sure will!
Well, if you want to go there: What did the engineering plant of a Juneau-class CL weigh, compared to one of these frigates?
How much did the armaments weigh (guns and ammo) compared to the CL's?
The plan seems to be a 2" gun on the new 'frigates'. The USS Juneau had a mix of guns including 6 × dual 5"/38 caliber guns
6 × quad Bofors 40 mm guns
4 × dual Bofors 40 mm guns
8 × dual Oerlikon 20 mm cannons
And they could reload!
Oh, and the Juneau had rather more intrinsic protection from enemy fire than these frigates:
Belt: 1.1–3+3⁄4 in (28–95 mm)
Deck: 1+1⁄4 in (32 mm)
Turrets: 1+1⁄4 in (32 mm)
Conning tower: 2+1⁄2 in (64 mm)
I'm sorta with you, doc; BUT those were "AA" cruisers meant to screen CV's.
So, pick a different class of late WWII CL
Fine by me. Hell, if it were up to me, we'da recommissioned Salem and Des Moines rather than diddle with the LCS.
I still think we'd be good restarting the Perry line with VLS up forward
Like the ~10,000 ton Ticonderoga class?
"And they could reload!"
Somehow having something available to shoot seems to have become irrelevant. Evidently the strategerists in charge of such things have determined that all engagements will be of short duration, at the end of which both sides will retire to rest, recuperate, reload, and swap war stories about their finest hour.
PS
Just nitpicking, but the armament was sixteen(16) 5" guns in eight(8) turrets.
My mistake. The USS Juneau was upgunned from the Atlanta-class standard.
Now you are talking my language. Why not a cheap Burke to compete against the Frigate?
I suspect someone at NAVSEA is just smart enough to realize that won't really be done. Say, ASW version. Mk. 54, then 40 VLS tubes; 8 quadpack ESSM, 16 NSM, 16 VLASROC; usual CIWS; instead of aft VLS, put some UAVs. Only have basic Air Search and Targeting radar for the ESSM and CIWS. The complaint will be "but we already put that AAW gear in the full Burkes! What if you go Winchester on missiles!" and we won't get our "light" Burkes.
No reason not to keep the 96 cells. The cells are cheap.
- Drop the bow sonar
-Drop 2 LM2500
- Add 2 more 4MW gensets and possibly drop the aft genset
- Add the 1.5MW gear mounted motors developed for Flt IIA
- Drop the illuminators and go with the 3 face EASR
- Possibly swap the 5" for the 57mm, but why bother.
-Add the VDS and keep cleaning up the aft end for better helo freeboard if possible (Why I discuss removing the aft genset)
Why get rid of engines?
Upping the electrical capacity, plus some speed gain by losing the bow sonar. I am trying to compete this thing against a Constellation so if I can get there by giving up some high end speed I'll do it. Figure 2 engines and it still easily makes the same speeds as Constellation and many other current large combatants.
In a fight, all our tubes are going to go winchester, and then require a pier in a protected harbor to reload, it seems.
I suppose the people at PEO think - or have been told - we will only be fighting these ships at range. Mr. Murphy always intervenes and it would be good to have a little heavier ordnance to answer the bell when he calls.
I know nothing about the navy. I will prove it: "I wonder why they don't use 155mm artillery, same as NATO land armies.".
HA! I get you...that good old 4.5 inch Mark 8 Naval gun is the equivalent...and they developed the 155 mm/62 (6.1-inch) Mark 51 Advanced Gun System (AGS) for the Zumwalts. Don't know if the frigates could support it, but the AB IIIs could have.
Except the AGS can't use Army/Marine 155. They need to do that, but the again, the Mk. 54 127mm is pretty good.
Yeah, I was just talking about analogous size/caliber, not the ammo. It would make sense to just standardize...but when did the Army and Navy ever cooperate on such things? Makes too much sense.
No reason not to standardize a gun so that the ammo can be used in both.
Left to their own devices, I suspect the branches would make Imperial Japan look like a role model for logistics standardization.
Simply swapping the barrels out for a NATO compatible 155mm howitzer barrel won’t work, because Mk.51 155mm AGS used specifically designed ammunition for its Polygonal Rifling bore…
Yes, that is correct. I think we are thinking of conventional 155mm barrels instead of the special AGS type.
Except BAE developed a single caliber round that can be used in three different gun/howitzer systems. The Mk.45 5” gun, the M109A6 155mm Paladin and the Mk.51 6.1” AGS in September 2020…
Disagree that the AB III's could have supported the AGS. I worked on the DD21/DDX early design (which became the Zumwalt). The amount of below deck space it required was enormous. We had a sectional view showing that.
I'm sorry, my composition was confused. I was thinking, though, of the Mark 8 more than the AGS for the AB III.
I assume that you mean the 8" that was tested on the USS Hull in the early 1970's? My memory is that OPTEVFOR gave it a negative report which killed it. With the improvements in 155mm rounds, I'd lean towards a gun that used common ammunition with land forces (which the AGS did not).
No, the 4.5" Mark 8 standard Naval gun...which is roughly the same caliber as the 155 tubes the Army has. It would be a minor adjustment to standardize the tube and the ammo.
The 8 inch Light Weight Major Caliber Gun Mount which was mounted on USS HULL was the second iteration of initial designs which were to use then standard Army 175mm projectiles matched up with USS Salem class 8"/55 cartridge cases slightly necked down to be appropriate with the 175mm projectiles. (Projos and powders separate, not a "fixed round" with projectile crimped to the case.
They had a working prorotype, but then the Army discarded their 175mm guns, and any future ammo production. So, USN fall back position was to slightly modify the system and change to 8" bore instead of 175mm and use of USN 8" projectiles. Guns system worked pretty well at Dahlgren and aboard ship. The first of the DDG-51 apparently were designed to accept the 8" MCLWG.
However, funding cuts ended any actual production of 8" mounts and the cheaper 5"/54 LWG went into all the DDG-51s.
There were some structural cracking issues aboard USS HULL with the 8" mount, but not terribly different than others in the class with their 5" mounts.
And that was in what, the '80's? Have computers not gotten a hell of a lot smaller?
Is not 155mm roughly 6 in, not 4.5?
Just checking my understanding, this is what I got from Janes: The 4.5 inch Mark 8 naval gun is a little smaller but comparable to the standard 155 mm gun-howitzer Army when firing conventional ammunition . A 4.5 inch Mark 8 naval gun firing conventional ammunition has the same, if not better, range. To get the same range, most 155mm guns have to use rocket-assisted projectiles (RAPs) and that is only done with a reduction in the payload. This is put down to the fact that naval guns can be built much more strongly than land-based self-propelled gun-howitzers, and have much longer barrels in relation to caliber (for example the 4.5 inch Mark 8 naval gun has a barrel length of 55 calibers, while the standard AS-90 self-propelled gun has a barrel length of 39 calibers).
Anyway, this length and added strength allows naval guns to fire heavier shells in comparison to shell diameter and to use larger propellant charges in relation to shell weight, leading to greater projectile velocities. So a little more difficult to match up ammo that it would seem at first glance.
Even without active cooling, the heavier naval gun barrels allow a faster sustained rate of fire than field guns, and this is exploited by the autoloading system on ships with a capacity of several hundred rounds. While the US Navy's Advanced Gun System (AGS) also uses a 155 mm caliber, it is not compatible with NATO-standard 155 mm ammunition. Only one type of ammunition was ever developed and procurement was discontinued in 2016 due to its high cost, making the AGS unusable.
On the plus side for the Army, the 155 mm is better than the 4.5 inch Mark 8 naval gun for firing cannon-launched guided projectiles (CLGP) as the lower velocity of the 155 mm shell makes it much easier for the projectiles' internal electronic guidance systems to survive being fired.
That makes sense with respect to capability and impact due to longer/stronger barrels and heavier shells. My inner anality chose to come to the fore on the actual dimensions:)
Yes. The Mk 8 is 4.45" (113mm) dia
The 155 arty shell is 6.1"
There was a Mk8 mount fitted with the 155mm 52cal gun from the AS-90 Braveheart....called the TMF
It was for the Type 45 but got cancelled, work was very advanced...
TMF 155
https://imgur.com/ChDiEGd
TMF alongside 4.5 Mk8...
https://imgur.com/7m6kawG
There was even a twin barreled turret....
https://imgur.com/7R3Oj9X
If the Navy's gun crowd wanted to, they could specify such a weapon, or at least one that fired the same ammo. Which would make a great deal of sense, logistically.
Update: https://warriormaven.com/sea/navy-shoots-upgraded-5-inch-guns-in-pacific-for-live-fire-war-prep
1. Still need smaller combatants for presence in those less obviously important areas and "experience" in peacetime. Non-emitting ISR, SAR, and commerce harassment in war.
2. Still need more tenders and resupply vessels, especially ones to haul the supplies to the ships that resupply combatants.
3. Slightly OT: What if the Navy grows the guts the Coast Guard has, and says "We're laying up ships until we can crew them properly"?
This is the thing that persuades me they don't perceive the threat from China, rightly or wrongly, the same way we do. If they did, they would also be hair on fire and increasing funding and ship building and missile production to meet the threat. But they aren't. I don't think they're stupid (though we can never discount this possibility), but they are operating on some set of assumptions that is at odds with our perception of the state of the two potential combatants.
Laying up ships (if necesary), missiles, ammo, oil, and getting logistical arrangement in order are the basic reqirements to be prepared to execute whatever OPLAN is required (and, therefore, for deterrence). Instead we are retiring cruisers and destroyers (forget the LCSs) and not replacing them at a great enough rate. Holding off decommissioning those ships and increasing production over three to four years would give us a better buffer, at the least, and put a dozen or so hulls in the water.
It’s not just the Navy, the Air Force is retiring every type of aircraft some without replacement at all.
The government is run by people that hate their own country. And then you have the school system trying to indoctrinate children to hate their own country.
Is it any wonder the services can’t recruit anyone.
Sad state of affairs, having the modern Woke Guard be the sea service with more guts. In a healthy republic, my service would be scrambling to mimic its larger sibling.
Is the Navy having trouble crewing vessels?
The Navy is the only service that hasn’t shrunk it’s personnel size.
About 15% short on sea billets is my understanding.
And shore billets are gapped by ____%
ahhh, so you're saying ships are being under manned because the sailors don't want to go to sea? lol
I heard something about the Army having as many generals today as it did in 1945 despite the Army is a 10th the size.
I guess the military has just become a mirror of society which for the most part is completely messed up.
They could save a lot of money and perhaps grief by handing out Participation Trophies to senior O-6's rather than making them supernumerary FOGO's. https://www.startpage.com/av/proxy-image?piurl=https%3A%2F%2Fqph.cf2.quoracdn.net%2Fmain-qimg-defac4a3c9828b4365d5773d4a217567-lq&sp=1700156878T2bd6bcb53a97e63bef7ed7de2bc13ccc0819a91b3d1750577464169ec9f51079
I've posted before about the captain of the Cole told a talk show host when asked about what caused the 2017 collisions. First assignment was a Burke 315 crew. The time the Cole was attacked, 290-300. Now around 270-280. "The Navy says technology has replaced those people..."
I'd like to know what technology they are talking about. Because the ships have the same engines they had when they are built etc. Yeah some of the weapon stations are remote, but they still need someone controlling them.
And in the case of the Flight III as they are replacing the Cruisers you would think they would need more people in the CIC to take on the job Air Warfare control.
His tone strongly implied the technology hadn't replaced the people.
I never saw a Roomba on my NRF FFG back in '85-86. No magic paint either. We were minimum manned and cut further and given IOU's for SELRES and TAR's to supplement us. Minimum manning never seemed to take into account the sweep/swab/wax/buff component and assumed that No-Doz and coffee could take up the slack for watchstanders.
I would prefer a 5" gun. No better way to say "I love you" to the guy with the RPG waiting for you at the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
I really like the idea that Japan is already looking for a new class to replace the Mogami class. That is a sign of a robust design cycle and fleet integration plan. The Italian Navy used to do that, where each new small class used much the same equipment as the previous, but in an ongoing evolution of their fleet. I haven't looked recently to see if that is still part of their process.
Italy has their act together too. Their PPA patrol ships are full naval combatants and could probably be fitted out very similar to Constellation if Americanized.
Thanks for the info. And good for the Italians. Their destroyers of the 1960-80 timeframe were used as examples of good design by the Soviet design bureau.
7300 tons is a pretty big frigate. My DE, Courtney, DE-1021, was far smaller. The Gehrings were also a lot smaller.
^ My first was DE-1027. Links for you, Quartermaster: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1914377095?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51g7LjK6WuS._SL1000_.jpg
The HM&E design is older but the combat system may not be. The SPY-6 radar is a scaled down version of the one on the Flt III, don't know about the ones on the other two ships. The 72 VLS cells listed for the Type 26 is deceptive. 24 are in a Mk 41. 48 are for the Sea Cepter which is a smaller missile. A good follow on discussion would be to compare Sea Cepter to the latest ESSM as to range and capability.
CAMM is comparable to ESSM Block II (of which there are very few) as it has an active seeker. But it has a shorter range (but also has a far shorter minimum engagement range as well). But the CAMM-ER is directly comparable to ESSM Block II. It will fit in the same cells. There is also the 100km+ CAMM-MR on the way...that may need to be twin packed in the Mk.41 though.
I think the Constellation looks best in illustrated form; but then again, I've always had a weakness for a nicely sized poop deck.
A big ol' stern, you could say.
A fat fantail.
I'm sorry, what was the question again?
"Paging Sir MixaLot. Paging Sir MixaLot."
First, given the TICO's were based off a destroyer hull. And, the Constellation is coming close to the weight of a Flight III Arleigh Burke destroyer. I'm beginning to fail to see the distinction between cruisers, destroyers and frigates. In the pre-WWII big gun navy, this all made more sense.
So, why not just use whatever paucity of shipbuilding assets to just build the Arleigh Burkes. You'll have a commonality of a ship assets, commonality of spare parts, and commonality of weapon load outs. We already need to prepare for a three front war with a badly depleted industrial base. Pick a design, one design, and get a start on a 600 ship navy.
They need a larger ship with more VLS capacity and a more robust anti-air suite to take over as the CSG anti-air coordinator and a smaller ship with the flexibility to maneuverable and take on small boats but has some capability with long range ASMs to defend itself against larger attackers. Keep the destroyers for medium size class but they should be all be equipped for an ASW mission with towed arrays and two helos with a hanger.
We could do a cheap Burke IV to move some real strike capacity or magazine depth around the FFG will lack.
I'm going with the flight III AB destroyer. First, I'm not hearing a lot of b**ching about the ship, so I think we have a solid platform. VLS capacity just shy of 100; otherwise stretch is for more VLS. Two helo's. Torpedos. Aegis. Displacement-wise almost identical to the TICO's.
You have a good package that is available now for what appears to be a relatively mature concept, either cruiser or destroyer. You can perhaps increase output by using all of your capability to produce this one design instead of shipyards trying to produce a variety of relatively similar ships. You can also replicate the shipyard and have a cadre of experience shipbuilders to rapidly bring these new shipyards on line.
The Constellation sounds like a AB-lite. The CGX is...years off. We have a good package that is available now in the form of the AB flight III. We two, offing into a three front war. We need hulls in the water, now.
A cheap flight IV would ensure annual builds of greater quantity. We have plenty of Flt III on order now. Our designing next while first hits the water should have been Flt IV Burke and Connie an even smaller ship.
The Burke design philosophy is approaching fifty years old. The Burke's basic design approach and platform layout isn't in good alignment with emerging offensive and defensive trends in naval warfare.
What is needed is a clean sheet design which takes into account these emerging trends and which makes rational accomodation for future emerging requirements, most of which are fairly predictable here in the year 2023.
A 21st Century 'destroyer' needs a displacement of 14,000 to 16,000 tons to accomplish all the missions we are now assigning to warships we call 'destroyers'.
DOD 5000 is supposed to deliver optimum combat system designs at a reasonable price point on time and on budget.
So why haven't we seen any serious work being done on a clean sheet design for a Burke replacement?
Why did we end up with the DDG-1000 Zumwalt design, a ship program which was plainly on a pathway to failure years before the first hull was ever commissioned? Why does the Constellation class embark a 57mm gun instead of a 127mm gun?
It is because the Pentagon's entire acquisition process -- including the people who manage it -- has become a thoroughly politicized self-serving money-eating monster which services only the needs of the DOD acquisition bureaucracy, the defense contractors, and the politicians in Congress who fund DOD acquisition.
We will not be seeing anything resembling an effective naval response to China's ever-growing bluewater combat power until that portion of the Administrative State which handles defense acquisition is shaken to its core by a new management team and is rebuilt from the ground up to do the job the taxpayers expect of it.
One advantage of starting a new design while the last one's fairly fresh is that by keeping the design team employed and engaged, you don't lose all the little stuff the team screwed up on the last design. The sub example is how Seawolf came in heavy and expensive and had design weirdness that was unnecessarily convoluted or absurd...and then they designed the stretch module for the third of class...then started on Virginia with some continuity of knowledge and lessons identified, making that first-of-class have fewer ridiculous design or production weirdnesses than it might have otherwise. (The contrast might be whoever decided, after a long gap making new ships, to make a surface ship's firemain out of titanium for some reason.) Seems to me learning curve ain't just for the builders, it's also for the designers.
Bingeaux.
Yep. Anyway, the Seawolf class are all parts hulks for the Jimmy Carter.
Type 26 is a frigate. The RN defines a frigate as an anti submarine, or general purpose escort, and a destroyer as an anti air specialist escort.
Ultimately weight wise, all these escorts are starting to look like WW2 light cruisers.
"The RN defines a frigate as an anti submarine" ....
Well that's just silly.
Thank goodness they don't have corvettes
Much of that seems to be driven by sensors and other electronics.
Why does it not surprise me that the US frigate has the smallest gun? Why does the modern Pentagon insist on sending our sailors into battle with undersized guns and missiles that lack range and capability?
Like SM-6 and Tomahawk? hmmmmm.
Constellation learned lessons from optimal manning...until the first FFG is commissioned, there's still a chance optimal manning will return.
The Japanese are manning Mogami with a crew of 90, same with the follow on class which is larger. We should see what they and other minimally manned countries are doing, Singapore also comes to mind.
Thats another issue I missed on my comparison of WWII CLs vs. modern frigates/DDs. The crews on CLs were driven by the guns (lots of them) with lots of gunners, so the crews were huge - 600 men?
What's the crew (and berthing and mess spaces) for one of these new frigates? 120? 100? 90 for the Japanese entry? Where is that extra space going?
Its a stealthy ship. We know that eats weight and volume.
"Where is that extra space [volume] going?"
Something I keep wondering about.
It would be interesting why Japan can succeed with optimal manning and the USN fails. Is it because they have the appropriate rigor when it comes to programs and they are honest with the themselves as far as the support requirements? Is it just because their ships stay closer to home?
Staying closer to home, and a much more limited manpower base.
Our manpower base is becoming more and more limited (see recruiting). Are there lessons we can take from them?
Frankly, the Brits are taking too long on Type 26. Its an example of too long and too few. Seems like type 31 might beat it out the door. I think the kick here is we have a horde of relevant allied frigates out there to be thinking about for design ideas and are in the water.
- French FTI
- Korean FFX Batch III
- Italian PPA (Yes, its a frigate)
Too long and too few is the Brit way