I hope we (the DOD) can come up with an add on system that can be quickly added to provide directed energy solutions to current hulls until engineering and acquisition can develop a permanent solution. In my perfect world, I would “automate” an older hull and make it to be a “quick” solution to anti air/drone platform. Think Perry class frigate with CWIS and directed energy retrofit as a dedicated anti “anything that flies” platform. I’m just spitballing and wishing now.
Why spend a lot to automate a high expense, high repair bill platform. We have to get serious about a build new strategy. We need modular and we need it riding in the bed of our F-150. Overlord/MUSV. Cheap, fast, redundant, built at plenty of yards that already know how to build ansimilar ship.
Yeah. For all the range time we got, we've drawn down the ammo locker to an appaling degree, while we destroyed thousand dollar (or less) drones with million dollar (and much more) missiles.
If the replacement rate was approximately equal to the burn rate on that deal, it might not be a bad tradeoff. However, our yearly replacement rate was approximately equal to a days burn rate. Not a good exchage rate.
Iron beam and our own military has experimented with lasers in the 50-100 Kw range that will burn drones. Modern auto cannons with 40mm proximity slugs can do a lot of good. How fast can a modern auto cannon be reloaded??
The Europeans and Brits have also benefitted. Aster is now battle tested, as are the various combat management systems the different Euro frigates use. This raises the reputation of Western/NATO equipment globally, reassuring Rest of World allies and intimidating many potential adversaries (many of whom have recently been looking at their Soviet/Russian kit and wondering...)
So, yes, give the Houthi a place on the podium, right next to Russia, as the current training providers of choice for NATO hardware and software.
Thank you for bringing to our attention, and it was heart warming to see the reference to the Admiral, an exemplar! His philosophy lives on, in modest part, through my students. Be well.
I've said to friends and family that the ships in and near the Red Sea that participated in shooting down all of these threats had the most experienced radar and fire control crew in the Navy. I also thought that the Navy would be pulling a bunch of those folks (enlisted and officer) off the ships and putting them in the schoolhouses to teach. Most were probably due for a shore tour anyway, so it works out for everyone concerned. This old Jarhead also sends Bravo Zulu to all involved.
Meaningful shore duty is the key to retention. Give sailors good jobs, with soft hours, and homes for their families, and we are on our way to solving our manning problems. Sea duty is hard.
The data refinements and tweaks to the systems are wonderful. Now if we can just ramp up missile production to replace and maybe even get ahead that would be great.
I was briefly a small part of that BMD community, working at IWS 2.0 12-14 years ago. I worked with the TDC development group - which gives Aegis equipped ships the capability to glean that type of intel that goes into refining TTPs and intercept algorithms. It was fairly heady stuff for this recently retired DS turned non-Aegis FC.
Spreading lessons learned through the Fleet is a good thing. Talking about our fixes in the popular or tech press is something I don't need to know, and neither do you.
CE 2012: "'Avalanche of Leaks'; (Stuxnet, finding Osama, kill lists, etc) One of the adults in the administration, then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates to White House national security adviser Thomas Donilon; "I have a new strategic communications approach to recommend," he said. "What?" asked Mr. Donilon. "Shut the [blank] up.""
It bothered me that after our summer 2001 cruise that had us punishing the Taliban, very little surface warfare de-briefings occurred with our strike group. The airwing learned a shit ton but I don’t recall ever being sat down by strike group or SWDG or TACTRAGRU to discuss best practices and how our battle orders / opords worked or didn’t work. I know the squadrons and airwing matriculated their lessons but the surface guys… nope. Glad they are doing so now.
I’m not talking about the deck division. I’m talking about the combat direction teams on each of the strike groups units. It’s a little more nuanced than deck scrapers and paint. I get that you don’t know what Bravo or Echo or Zulu are in an OPORD. It’s cool, from an Airdale…
It is useful but expensive training. I hope we are also learning from the Black Sea battles where our targeting and first world weapons are making surface warfare dicey. In both cases the ultimate goal of keeping sea lanes open has been a failure. Commercial shipping is avoiding the areas so the ultimate mission has failed.
The Chinese are also learning—a blockade around Taiwan may be just as successful as an invasion
They need regular and frequent LNG tanker landings to keep their generators fueled and their lights on.
Yet the Taiwanese have a perfectly good nuclear power plant sitting idle but will expect American sailors driving nuclear aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines to relieve the blockade to fuel their electric system.
All true and a Bravo Zulu to the officers and crew of all the US and Allied ships.
But...
While we have learned a lot about our enemies, they too have been studying us and who is to say who has come out ahead?
At the very least "Houthi" is now a household name.
What bothers me most has been the reluctance (as far as I know) to use the Marines and Special Forces to take the fight to the enemy on the ground.
I hope we take advantage of this splendid little war to build (and maintain) the right type and number of warships, MSC auxiliary ships and bases needed to keep the SLOC open.
Well, having an Iranian spy as Chief of Staff for the "United States Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations" complicates this kind of plan.
While the learning is important, I fear the goal of the Houthis is to draw down our inventories prior to battle with China, or perhaps Iran. All three work together.
One lesson I hope has been well learned from this, from the Iran missile attack on Israel, and from Ukraine is: out procurement system is badly broken and our/NATO's weapons production capacity (not to mention shipbuilding, etc) is way below what is needed.
As a former TAO, I endorse this post. So much win even if the Houthis are the equivalent of star wars sand people/tuskin raiders….. but we have learned a lot. I hope we build on it and find a low mix/hi mix capacity to overkill what the Iranians and Chinese have also learned from our responses.
^ This 10³%. From a technology standpoint? I suspect like the Spanish Civil War a lot of wrong conclusions will be drawn. And others will gain some intel. However? We now have a few score of scope readers, button pushers, and tactical decision makers that can push their experience through the fleet.
11 years ago, Raytheon shared the history of the Standard missile family. It was all evolution, hand in glove between the contractor, the institutional side of the Navy, and the Fleet.
The did it with slide rules, and without diversity.
Yes. Well-put. Thank you!
Can’t wait until we have a reliable directed energy weapon that can burn out threats at dollars a shot instead of thousands of dollars a shot!
If it takes 1000 tons of ship and adds hundreds of millions of dollars to add one turret, I’d have wished we were more on top of alternatives.
I hope we (the DOD) can come up with an add on system that can be quickly added to provide directed energy solutions to current hulls until engineering and acquisition can develop a permanent solution. In my perfect world, I would “automate” an older hull and make it to be a “quick” solution to anti air/drone platform. Think Perry class frigate with CWIS and directed energy retrofit as a dedicated anti “anything that flies” platform. I’m just spitballing and wishing now.
Why spend a lot to automate a high expense, high repair bill platform. We have to get serious about a build new strategy. We need modular and we need it riding in the bed of our F-150. Overlord/MUSV. Cheap, fast, redundant, built at plenty of yards that already know how to build ansimilar ship.
Bring back the nuke cruisers! :D
Yeah. For all the range time we got, we've drawn down the ammo locker to an appaling degree, while we destroyed thousand dollar (or less) drones with million dollar (and much more) missiles.
If the replacement rate was approximately equal to the burn rate on that deal, it might not be a bad tradeoff. However, our yearly replacement rate was approximately equal to a days burn rate. Not a good exchage rate.
It is going to be a race between a functional directed energy weapon system and an operational Cold Fusion reactor. Or Brazil becoming a world power.
Five years. Ten years max. Just like it was 20 years ago.
Exactly!
Take heart. Man will eventually fly!
"Lasers" are literally vaporware.
Proximity fuses is the way to go.
Iron beam and our own military has experimented with lasers in the 50-100 Kw range that will burn drones. Modern auto cannons with 40mm proximity slugs can do a lot of good. How fast can a modern auto cannon be reloaded??
Can't wait for the AIM-174B tests!
They're doing them now.
And using a $4.8 million missile to blow up a $400 drone is what we've come to expect from years of government procurement.
It's when you blow up the drone in view of the launch crew that it's worth it.
What we need are some 81mm mortars and counter-battery radar
Since it's Navy, 120mm NEMO on an LUSV.
Me too. If we ever have to use them, hopefully we will not have stupid ROEs killing the advantage.
We had some great intellectual capital that has been used well from that era.
The Europeans and Brits have also benefitted. Aster is now battle tested, as are the various combat management systems the different Euro frigates use. This raises the reputation of Western/NATO equipment globally, reassuring Rest of World allies and intimidating many potential adversaries (many of whom have recently been looking at their Soviet/Russian kit and wondering...)
So, yes, give the Houthi a place on the podium, right next to Russia, as the current training providers of choice for NATO hardware and software.
Amen. Continuous progressive improvement over time.
Chinese have got to be thinking about this too.
Thank you for bringing to our attention, and it was heart warming to see the reference to the Admiral, an exemplar! His philosophy lives on, in modest part, through my students. Be well.
I've said to friends and family that the ships in and near the Red Sea that participated in shooting down all of these threats had the most experienced radar and fire control crew in the Navy. I also thought that the Navy would be pulling a bunch of those folks (enlisted and officer) off the ships and putting them in the schoolhouses to teach. Most were probably due for a shore tour anyway, so it works out for everyone concerned. This old Jarhead also sends Bravo Zulu to all involved.
Meaningful shore duty is the key to retention. Give sailors good jobs, with soft hours, and homes for their families, and we are on our way to solving our manning problems. Sea duty is hard.
And this is why even though I tease the crap out of you, I read your posts and respect you. Good call.
The data refinements and tweaks to the systems are wonderful. Now if we can just ramp up missile production to replace and maybe even get ahead that would be great.
I was briefly a small part of that BMD community, working at IWS 2.0 12-14 years ago. I worked with the TDC development group - which gives Aegis equipped ships the capability to glean that type of intel that goes into refining TTPs and intercept algorithms. It was fairly heady stuff for this recently retired DS turned non-Aegis FC.
Spreading lessons learned through the Fleet is a good thing. Talking about our fixes in the popular or tech press is something I don't need to know, and neither do you.
CE 2012: "'Avalanche of Leaks'; (Stuxnet, finding Osama, kill lists, etc) One of the adults in the administration, then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates to White House national security adviser Thomas Donilon; "I have a new strategic communications approach to recommend," he said. "What?" asked Mr. Donilon. "Shut the [blank] up.""
It bothered me that after our summer 2001 cruise that had us punishing the Taliban, very little surface warfare de-briefings occurred with our strike group. The airwing learned a shit ton but I don’t recall ever being sat down by strike group or SWDG or TACTRAGRU to discuss best practices and how our battle orders / opords worked or didn’t work. I know the squadrons and airwing matriculated their lessons but the surface guys… nope. Glad they are doing so now.
being shot at focuses the mind. The air group took fire. the deck division did not
I’m not talking about the deck division. I’m talking about the combat direction teams on each of the strike groups units. It’s a little more nuanced than deck scrapers and paint. I get that you don’t know what Bravo or Echo or Zulu are in an OPORD. It’s cool, from an Airdale…
As for an OPORD, I'm a Command and General Staff College grad and ours are 5 numbered paras, not alphabetic.
1. Situation,
2. Mission,
3. Execution,
4. Sustainment (formerly Service and Support, currently referred to as Admin & Logistics by the US Marine Corps), and
5. Command and Control.
plus various annexes
Ours are phonetic designations for warfare commanders. See, armed services separated by an uncommon vernacular.
I’m also just busting your balls.
is fine. Dad was a deck div BM in ww2 on a CVE. I knew that term and not the various command and control compartments below deck
It is useful but expensive training. I hope we are also learning from the Black Sea battles where our targeting and first world weapons are making surface warfare dicey. In both cases the ultimate goal of keeping sea lanes open has been a failure. Commercial shipping is avoiding the areas so the ultimate mission has failed.
The Chinese are also learning—a blockade around Taiwan may be just as successful as an invasion
They need regular and frequent LNG tanker landings to keep their generators fueled and their lights on.
Yet the Taiwanese have a perfectly good nuclear power plant sitting idle but will expect American sailors driving nuclear aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines to relieve the blockade to fuel their electric system.
CDR Sal,
All true and a Bravo Zulu to the officers and crew of all the US and Allied ships.
But...
While we have learned a lot about our enemies, they too have been studying us and who is to say who has come out ahead?
At the very least "Houthi" is now a household name.
What bothers me most has been the reluctance (as far as I know) to use the Marines and Special Forces to take the fight to the enemy on the ground.
I hope we take advantage of this splendid little war to build (and maintain) the right type and number of warships, MSC auxiliary ships and bases needed to keep the SLOC open.
Well, having an Iranian spy as Chief of Staff for the "United States Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations" complicates this kind of plan.
While the learning is important, I fear the goal of the Houthis is to draw down our inventories prior to battle with China, or perhaps Iran. All three work together.
One lesson I hope has been well learned from this, from the Iran missile attack on Israel, and from Ukraine is: out procurement system is badly broken and our/NATO's weapons production capacity (not to mention shipbuilding, etc) is way below what is needed.
As a former TAO, I endorse this post. So much win even if the Houthis are the equivalent of star wars sand people/tuskin raiders….. but we have learned a lot. I hope we build on it and find a low mix/hi mix capacity to overkill what the Iranians and Chinese have also learned from our responses.
^ This 10³%. From a technology standpoint? I suspect like the Spanish Civil War a lot of wrong conclusions will be drawn. And others will gain some intel. However? We now have a few score of scope readers, button pushers, and tactical decision makers that can push their experience through the fleet.
Knowing when to shoot is the hardest part of standing the watch.
11 years ago, Raytheon shared the history of the Standard missile family. It was all evolution, hand in glove between the contractor, the institutional side of the Navy, and the Fleet.
The did it with slide rules, and without diversity.
https://youtu.be/F2fXChvE6WQ?si=QRC0I_P6geT0bsK7
Evolution over revolution all day and every day.