Odd garb on a ship that can't sail, while people wear silly masks. Yes; plenty of embedded confusion on display here. And worse, someone photographed it, and then someone else released the image into the public spectrum.
^ Classic picture. If I was eyeballing those pupus on the wardroom table I'd have trouble taking the meeting seriously. Kind of a Waldorf salad vibe for me.
The operative word is "had", Jet. I went from 26 years of coffee brewed in 20 cup aluminum perk machines that had an NSN to a short errant detour to a Scandinavian Gevalia brewer and their prissy little mail order beans. When my routine lab work came back showing a dangerous level of estrogen, I switched to a Mr. Coffee and Folgers. I always keep a spare Mister C in standby. Re "deckplate scum"...the brotherhood is bigger and more forgiving than you might think.
Gah! Deckplate scum to deckplate scum, I guess the brotherhood isn't as forgiving as I thought. Thanks for the wake-up call that my Folgers failed to grant me before I posted.
Boys, you need a Jura. The Swiss-made robotic coffee machine. It’s an electronic barista. Fresh beans go in the top, delicious coffee pours into your cup with the press of a button. If is is good enough for Roger Federer, it’s good enough for you.
Not so fast, Tom. It's a trap! https://us.jura.com/en/customer-advice/key-technologies Anybody who buys this is gonna be getting spam emails from Russia and telemarketing calls from India trying to sell you an extended maintenance warranty. This Jura has the look and stench of a dang LCS CODAG Combining Gear. Roger Federer?...Britney Spears ex-husband. Pf-f-ft...some endorsement.
When my daughter left the Fighting Freddie two+ years ago, she was one of 10% of the crew that refused the jab prior to the requirement.
They made those 30 wear masks as a result of not being jabbed.
Her ‘ceremony’ or whatever you call it of being recognized, her official picture, and final salute to the CO on the quarterdeck prior to walking off the brow required her to continue to wear the mask.
No defense of Gildays Navy. This picture is just as stupid.
Without signage labeling them Gluten-Free how can anyone fault them? For good or ill, New Navy, Mr. Haircut. When I was a new RD1 on a DDG in the Portsmouth Navy Shipyard my team, mostly college drop-out draft dodging RDSN's/RD3's, and I manned needle guns to prep the 02 level and mast...no masks, no hearing protection, never heard of a gluten or harmful paint chip and wouldn't have cared if we did. Rumor was that the Wardroom and Chief's Mess had the best poopoo's. You put anyone of us in that setting, mask or no mask, we'd have stripped it like locust.
Memories. Me too, triggered, but in a good way. I caught a whiff of Air Wick Apple Cinnamon at first. Then I remembered earlier times of Kiwi shoe polish, steak, bacon and patis/nuoc mam.
If we actually got seven cruisers, you’d have a very good point. What we actually have are seven hulls that maintain watertight integrity only if the rust molecules are being nice. Navy budgets have had only a loose acquaintance with the truth for quite some time now. The Ticos are just one example, but the annual GAO reminder of this failing is their comparison of the assumptions in the Navy’s shipbuilding and maintenance budgets.
Used to golf with shipyard repair folks. They all said the cruisers were not maintainable and needed to be retired. I pointed out the VLS numbers and wondered what would replace the reduction, response was "not my problem" (which was correct, the shipyards maintain, not acquire). Senior leadership has been "lacking" for decades. Used to work for Richardson, big sigh of relief when he took over as nuke chief since it seemed to be a "safe" place to stash him for eight years and he would retire. Then he "unexpectedly" became CNO...
The Navy has already spent billions on fast and fragile. That was yesterday's post. Put a sail on a warship, say it is for climate change, and Congress will fall over themselves throwing money at "slow and fragile".
solve the fast part. The fragile? use their birds first and send them home. Don't we expect massive attacks on day 1? That's what these ships would be for.
O Hour, and the CIC is reporting a "line of inbound aircraft, at least 60 plus" and "reported multiple missile launches in China" speed isn't as important as 120-160 more Standards to service targets. And it's less of a loss if a lightly manned freighter gets to be a cruise/ballistic missile pincushion.
I feel like more shots won't matter once the first leaker gets through. I think we need some magic fly swatter option. I hope SEWIP Blk III has some of that.
Well, hopefully more shots will reduce the chance of leakers. And like I said, maybe leaker hits one of the missile carriers rather than a carrier, Burke, or replenishment ships.
Just using what is available now. MUSVs with 4 mk 70 launchers each for 16 cells. They can shuttle up and back with new loads. Leave the CG/DDGs loaded with AAW loadout to the max. Move the Tomahawks up on the fast little guys.
We could also use the ADL launchers being developed for ESSM on the Carriers and LHAs to fit GDSDB and ER-GMLRS. You could fit 40 cells on an MUSV dacck, 160 rounds of NGFS. I'd rather have that 160 than the 600 rounds of 5" on the 2.4 billion dollar destroyer.
The cruiser eradication started in the 1990's, with the elimination of all the nuclear powered cruisers. Ships were decommissioned halfway through their design life, and the ability to escort a carrier on a long high speed run was lost. These ships were also often sent out alone for various reasons, because supplying them was so easy - send food and parts every month or two.
The starvation of the Navy service schools was underway at the same time. Reduced curriculum, reduced manning, reduced availability. But hey, we still have as many admirals!
"Modernization costs skyrocketed as shipyards cracked the aging vessels open and discovered a myriad of unexpected problems"
Unexpected problems? Apparently gone are the days of INSURV colonoscopies. I guess the public, Senators, and Representatives not privy to a SCIF no longer know if INSURV reports are comprehensive.
That line also caught my eye. And, you would think that after they cracked the first one open, there would not be a myriad of *Unexpected* problems on the following ones.
Stealthy but pricey. 2 MUSVs for 70 million and 32 cells that can move back and forth at high speed and reload at a container port in minutes or 28 more cells for a half billion and a hack of a lot of work and time to reload?
Some years ago I came upon a picture from 1979 of destroyers being built, 5-7 in a row, almost like a graph, from the right side being early construction, to the far left just about ready to launch.
From the Pascagoula yard.
It was a cadence. Always one moving left as the construction progressed to completion.
That’s what is needed.
Budget 3-4 destroyers a year, a constant flow. Not the stupidity of a single this year, then two budgeted the next, maybe slip a 3rd in an off year. I’ll stipulate I don’t know what is in the pipeline once the Burke line was restarted.
It’s what the B 21 requires as well. Keep the line alive.
We need the people, we have the yards. The yards could be better, but we can get the fleet we need with or without those improvements from the build perspective.
One of my fav pictures...It shows what is probably the last time we were serious about shipbuilding with anything resembling urgency and commitment to building/having a capable fleet...
While it is impossible to argue that Commander Salamander is wrong about the deliberate and general neglect of the AAW cruiser fleet, to the point we are going to lose them all, the more alarming development in my opinion is that we continue to pretend the CVN fleet has reasonable value in a high end conflict absent significant AAW defense.
While now SAM specialists tend not to understand that most air threats are not defeated by SAM's - even when they are defeated by AAW ships - it is vital to the operational survival of those ships that, when a missile (or modern strike aircraft) penetrates the fighter and EW defenses of a task group that the SAM ship has effective hard kill options. These could - but do NOT include multiple dual purpose guns - so that any technical issue (including simply reloading a mount) does not render a warship with zero guns ready to fire. Guns can reload at sea. For practical purposes, Standard SAM's cannot (reloading at an anchorage from a specialist ship does not count operationally - even if such a ship had reasonable self defense capabilities - which it does not). Nor is any class of major warship fitted with a reasonable number of point defense systems. We are back at the point we were early in WW2, or the British were in during the Falklands War. IF we elect to try to prevail in a sea war, we will need to mount light weapons in numbers. But light weapons are more or less "revenge weapons" intended to exact a cost on the enemy who gets too close. We knew when the CWIS was designed that a missile or jet it destroyed would still produce a flaming mass that would likely hit the ship, causing significant if not fatal damage (fire being one of the two deadly enemies of warships in battle. This was proven in a Reagan era test. For that reason we designed the CWIS to mount a 30 mm gun. That gun was in fact built for the A-10, but it has NEVER been fitted to any US CWIS mounting. Failures of this type will, in any fight with a statistically significant number of attacks, cause mission kills or lost ships.
I expect we will stand off during a naval conflict with PRC. The opposite of putting 7th Fleet into the Taiwan Strait - which has worked several times (starting in 1950). A few years ago I thought it was still a good idea. The very move scuttles an invasion timetable - the invasion ships will not sail or will turn around if they have sailed already. [I served in the gator navy before going to a DDG].
But it is unclear we are up to the task today. It takes great skill to deal with the scale of air threats that could be fielded to challenge such a move. Do we train to that level?
Agree here... We're shorthanded when it comes to escorts. So we have what 70-ish Burkes??? In a WestPac fight, having a 3-4 CVN battle group is what we'd need to get anything done. How many escorts would it need??? I'm gonna say the answer is "more than we could field", because I think the actual number is around 55. Our current peacetime escort of a CG and one or two DDGs is absurd. We should be sailing and training with proper sized groups. What we do now shouldnt even be photographed, because it just proves how unserious we are...
Actually, this is a pretty subjective question. It depends on both the threat and on what is a "reasonable" defensive capability? Historically - in the 1960s - we would have at least two rings of escorts - and possibly others in "picket" or "scouting duty." The inner layer might be cruisers, the outer layer destroyers and destroyer escorts. ["Frigate" had a different meaning then - sort of oversized destroyers of undersized cruisers - when the usage was dropped some went into both destroyer and cruiser categories]. But the number would be vastly more than in this era. One to four carriers would usually operate together, with several cruisers and many destroyers and destroyer escorts. We kept on fielding ASW ships until we didn't have any left. A study of the last 7 mothballed frigates found NONE were worthy of reactivation. The pretense all is well with the surface navy is - as Commander Salamander says repeatedly - essentially criminal. If you are not crying out, you are contributing to the pretense.
Sure... And the only thing Id question is "whats a reasonable defensive capability"?? Based on what?? Budget? Maintenance schedules?? Im not at all concerned with whats "reasonable". I want a defensive capability thats "more than adequate". If its only 30, fine. But if weve determined that its 55, or 70, or 99...then we need to do whatever is necessasary to get there. And if we won't or cant, then we need to step back and get ready to accept whatever is coming...
Actually - in this era - it may be time to do away with the carrier strike group as we have known it. I suspect the "aircraft" of the past is generally replaced by missiles. And missiles can easily be delivered by submersables or small stealth craft. BIG surface ships are likely to be detected - and not just by radar. But if there are advantages to manned aircraft at sea - maybe we put them in submersables - as USN toyed with post WW2 - imitating the Japanese I-400's (with jets no less - see Friedman's US Submarines Since 1945). What is clear is that space sensors almost guarantee detection of major vessels in the open ocean. So do aircraft sensors. See in particular SAR radars, OTH radars, etc.
I think we really need to bring in the commercial fleet owners to work out ship life and maintenance practices which must be followed moving forward. I'd also say we need to focus on a build new strategy while this is implemented to reduce risk and surprises which will certainly continue to occue with the existing ships. Focus on removing our structural debt. New destroyers with no electric propulsion, 4 main turbines and needing to trail a shaft? Just to haul around 96 cells and a 300 million dollar radar? We need serious engineering bringing us sound, evolutions in ship design every 5-8 years.
-Design a cleaned up, cheap Burke IV to come at FFG from the high end. Give me 96 cells for 1.5 billion and a hybrid propulsion plant with more electricity and only 2 mains.
-Italy has moved onto the PPA. Tell Fincantieri we want the US spec version of that ship and take out the FFG role from the bottom up. Use the electric motors that will now be going into Burkes. Use the same genset type we are putting into the FFGs (less valves).
Live with the Burke IIIs on order as the high end and grow the fleet with these other ships.
If that were true our numbers would have gone up by now. Planning to do the same thing ongoing will just keep shrinking the fleet. Future money literally burnt up in smoke.
What's not being said is all of this is intentional, there's no other explanation. Our armed forces are being systematically reduced to a shell of its former self. It's the Carter administration all over again ...
But as important, it feels like as flags get closer to retirement, they need to move left to get jobs in DC.
Does this mean they don’t care about the Navy they just left, or more concerned about the next job and what this means in a partisan (left) DC - it’s for smarter people than me to figure out.
Ignorance and belief that if Russia is not really such a conventional threat maybe China isn’t either. Ref the quote given above by Napoleon. Some Bad intent in places maybe but belief exists that the world be ok without us on the beat….Soros crowd for example.
It was totally intentional!!! The Navy never planned to keep the cruisers. They idled them and let them rot. Then after years of neglect, guess what...theyre in awful shape. Go figure!! Nevermind that a good part of the supposed 'modernization' was software. I mean...what kind.of 'modernization' do you get with $150m per ship????
The Navy just.played a shell game with Congress and outfoxed them. It was a well played game!!! But...those responsible for engineering this shadyness should likely swing from a yardarm for deceitfully ignoring the will of Congress...
Great linkage between our antiquated promotional system and our decaying equipment. We need statutory updates to our "up-or-out" system that incentivize diverse career paths and heterodox thought. The issue is fundamentally cultural in the Navy and DOD, and as they say, culture eats strategy for breakfast.
I’d say that’s another symptom of the same root. Incentives drive people’s behavior, and flag officers have spent 30 years confirming themselves to their next boss. The politicization driven from the top is just from FO/GOs trying to sense the temperature in the room.
That has always been a thing, yes, but more camouflaged. Add no fail mentality. Add political litmus tests and Sal’s favorite, DEI, and you get distractions from mission capability and self/cultural delusion
The chant of “The Littorals! the Littorals!!” and the resulting deemphasis on blue water VLS cells has done more damage to the capabilities of the fleet than anything I can think of back to maybe the fight with the Air Force in the 50’s. The Navy passive-aggressively complying-not-complying with Congress trying to course correct by forcing the cruisers be kept is a symptom, again stemming from the flawed concept of the naval challenges going forward and what the next enemy would look like.
It does seem to finally be the case that leadership is publicly recognizing the shape of the threat, but the leaders for the past 20 years who went along with the chanting are really darned culpable in all this.
Given that a new Burke costs $1.8bn, spending even double the originally projected $2.4bn for seven cruisers seems like a pretty good deal.
This picture is classic:
https://www.navytimes.com/resizer/6ykNxBNh3ld7hOvK52Mu6_KdtTU=/1440x0/filters:format(jpg):quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/archetype/J6EKA2XJPJBANDMA5ZKW2BXVX4.jpg
Naval officers wearing "ground combat" camo on a ship... when the ship is tied up at Norfolk... the underlings wear masks, the boss man does not...
Oy vey.
Odd garb on a ship that can't sail, while people wear silly masks. Yes; plenty of embedded confusion on display here. And worse, someone photographed it, and then someone else released the image into the public spectrum.
Looks to me like the whole thing was a "photo op" only. It is certainly not a working meeting.
^ Classic picture. If I was eyeballing those pupus on the wardroom table I'd have trouble taking the meeting seriously. Kind of a Waldorf salad vibe for me.
Is that Coffee in a French Press? Very we the people. ( I actually own one and have never used it)
Huzzah, Andy! I am assuming the French Press was a gift.
Its for camping actually, but as I usually hike its way to heavy to haul.
We've used ours several times when the power is out:)
Well, as deckplate scum, I had one. And my own coffee as well.
The operative word is "had", Jet. I went from 26 years of coffee brewed in 20 cup aluminum perk machines that had an NSN to a short errant detour to a Scandinavian Gevalia brewer and their prissy little mail order beans. When my routine lab work came back showing a dangerous level of estrogen, I switched to a Mr. Coffee and Folgers. I always keep a spare Mister C in standby. Re "deckplate scum"...the brotherhood is bigger and more forgiving than you might think.
Gevalia? eeewww!
https://www.portorico.com/store/coffee.html
Sign up for the sales.
Gah! Deckplate scum to deckplate scum, I guess the brotherhood isn't as forgiving as I thought. Thanks for the wake-up call that my Folgers failed to grant me before I posted.
Ill second that!! Thanks but no!! Ill take my Black Rifle Freedom Fuel mixed with a lil Folgers in my ancient Mr Coffee for economic reasons, thanks.
Boys, you need a Jura. The Swiss-made robotic coffee machine. It’s an electronic barista. Fresh beans go in the top, delicious coffee pours into your cup with the press of a button. If is is good enough for Roger Federer, it’s good enough for you.
Only $2-3K, sure.
Not so fast, Tom. It's a trap! https://us.jura.com/en/customer-advice/key-technologies Anybody who buys this is gonna be getting spam emails from Russia and telemarketing calls from India trying to sell you an extended maintenance warranty. This Jura has the look and stench of a dang LCS CODAG Combining Gear. Roger Federer?...Britney Spears ex-husband. Pf-f-ft...some endorsement.
The question is, can you soft patch potholes with the product once it cools? If not, then it doesn't meet Navy standards.
When my daughter left the Fighting Freddie two+ years ago, she was one of 10% of the crew that refused the jab prior to the requirement.
They made those 30 wear masks as a result of not being jabbed.
Her ‘ceremony’ or whatever you call it of being recognized, her official picture, and final salute to the CO on the quarterdeck prior to walking off the brow required her to continue to wear the mask.
No defense of Gildays Navy. This picture is just as stupid.
Love the poopoo’s on the table while wearing a mask. Doubt anyone ate them.
Without signage labeling them Gluten-Free how can anyone fault them? For good or ill, New Navy, Mr. Haircut. When I was a new RD1 on a DDG in the Portsmouth Navy Shipyard my team, mostly college drop-out draft dodging RDSN's/RD3's, and I manned needle guns to prep the 02 level and mast...no masks, no hearing protection, never heard of a gluten or harmful paint chip and wouldn't have cared if we did. Rumor was that the Wardroom and Chief's Mess had the best poopoo's. You put anyone of us in that setting, mask or no mask, we'd have stripped it like locust.
Truth
I doubt they were even authorized to eat them---for appearances (photo op) only.
picture brings back a few memories
- not the masks or garb, just the wardroom
Memories. Me too, triggered, but in a good way. I caught a whiff of Air Wick Apple Cinnamon at first. Then I remembered earlier times of Kiwi shoe polish, steak, bacon and patis/nuoc mam.
And are those tennis balls on the chair legs? Like a walker? That picture tells far more than a thousand words.
If we actually got seven cruisers, you’d have a very good point. What we actually have are seven hulls that maintain watertight integrity only if the rust molecules are being nice. Navy budgets have had only a loose acquaintance with the truth for quite some time now. The Ticos are just one example, but the annual GAO reminder of this failing is their comparison of the assumptions in the Navy’s shipbuilding and maintenance budgets.
Used to golf with shipyard repair folks. They all said the cruisers were not maintainable and needed to be retired. I pointed out the VLS numbers and wondered what would replace the reduction, response was "not my problem" (which was correct, the shipyards maintain, not acquire). Senior leadership has been "lacking" for decades. Used to work for Richardson, big sigh of relief when he took over as nuke chief since it seemed to be a "safe" place to stash him for eight years and he would retire. Then he "unexpectedly" became CNO...
Pray for peace. Prepare for war...
First part is about all we can hope for. The second part is woefully inadequate...
So... buy some civilian container ships, put cannister launchers with Standards on them, add at least 2 per CBG?
Too slow and too fragile
The Navy has already spent billions on fast and fragile. That was yesterday's post. Put a sail on a warship, say it is for climate change, and Congress will fall over themselves throwing money at "slow and fragile".
solve the fast part. The fragile? use their birds first and send them home. Don't we expect massive attacks on day 1? That's what these ships would be for.
Recruiting is bad enough...where will they find the topmen in the Gen Z pool?
O Hour, and the CIC is reporting a "line of inbound aircraft, at least 60 plus" and "reported multiple missile launches in China" speed isn't as important as 120-160 more Standards to service targets. And it's less of a loss if a lightly manned freighter gets to be a cruise/ballistic missile pincushion.
I feel like more shots won't matter once the first leaker gets through. I think we need some magic fly swatter option. I hope SEWIP Blk III has some of that.
Well, hopefully more shots will reduce the chance of leakers. And like I said, maybe leaker hits one of the missile carriers rather than a carrier, Burke, or replenishment ships.
That right there is the nice part about having numbers have a quality of their own.
Just using what is available now. MUSVs with 4 mk 70 launchers each for 16 cells. They can shuttle up and back with new loads. Leave the CG/DDGs loaded with AAW loadout to the max. Move the Tomahawks up on the fast little guys.
We could also use the ADL launchers being developed for ESSM on the Carriers and LHAs to fit GDSDB and ER-GMLRS. You could fit 40 cells on an MUSV dacck, 160 rounds of NGFS. I'd rather have that 160 than the 600 rounds of 5" on the 2.4 billion dollar destroyer.
The cruiser eradication started in the 1990's, with the elimination of all the nuclear powered cruisers. Ships were decommissioned halfway through their design life, and the ability to escort a carrier on a long high speed run was lost. These ships were also often sent out alone for various reasons, because supplying them was so easy - send food and parts every month or two.
The starvation of the Navy service schools was underway at the same time. Reduced curriculum, reduced manning, reduced availability. But hey, we still have as many admirals!
The traditional mission of a cruiser is to go off alone. Thus, the name.
More admirals than ships...
"Modernization costs skyrocketed as shipyards cracked the aging vessels open and discovered a myriad of unexpected problems"
Unexpected problems? Apparently gone are the days of INSURV colonoscopies. I guess the public, Senators, and Representatives not privy to a SCIF no longer know if INSURV reports are comprehensive.
That line also caught my eye. And, you would think that after they cracked the first one open, there would not be a myriad of *Unexpected* problems on the following ones.
"Was this all just an incredibly well-run DC play?"
I'd say no. "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence." Napoleon Bonaparte (1774).
All I can say is whoever decided to extend the VA class to add VLS is to be applauded.
That said, it was really to address the retirement of the SSGN, but it shows a plan.
Where else do you see it.
Stealthy but pricey. 2 MUSVs for 70 million and 32 cells that can move back and forth at high speed and reload at a container port in minutes or 28 more cells for a half billion and a hack of a lot of work and time to reload?
You’re not wrong but as we continue to build VA class and we will, it’s okay to add capacity.
I am kind of hot to move to SSNX before the SSBNs are all the way out the door.
Don’t think you can do “anything” in minutes in a container port anymore
You can when you are the world's largest customer.
SSGNs were to use up reactor and hull life on four boats that weren't needed in strategic service.
SSNs with a hull extension and payload module make a lot more sense as a long term factor.
Brilliantly written
This needs to be looked at incredibly hard ,with timeline & names.
Just like the Chinese misdeeds ,name & shame.
I read about this in the mid teens & its criminal that there's absolutely nothing to show for it since then.
Thank you Cmdr for your analysis .
Depressing content but the quality of the writing and quality of the comments are well, exquisite.
Some years ago I came upon a picture from 1979 of destroyers being built, 5-7 in a row, almost like a graph, from the right side being early construction, to the far left just about ready to launch.
From the Pascagoula yard.
It was a cadence. Always one moving left as the construction progressed to completion.
That’s what is needed.
Budget 3-4 destroyers a year, a constant flow. Not the stupidity of a single this year, then two budgeted the next, maybe slip a 3rd in an off year. I’ll stipulate I don’t know what is in the pipeline once the Burke line was restarted.
It’s what the B 21 requires as well. Keep the line alive.
This maintains a supply chain and skills.
They commissioned 8 Spruance in one year during that run while also building the LHAs at one per year.
Exactly. I figured someone would know about this and provide better detail
Thx.
We need the people, we have the yards. The yards could be better, but we can get the fleet we need with or without those improvements from the build perspective.
One of my fav pictures...It shows what is probably the last time we were serious about shipbuilding with anything resembling urgency and commitment to building/having a capable fleet...
While it is impossible to argue that Commander Salamander is wrong about the deliberate and general neglect of the AAW cruiser fleet, to the point we are going to lose them all, the more alarming development in my opinion is that we continue to pretend the CVN fleet has reasonable value in a high end conflict absent significant AAW defense.
While now SAM specialists tend not to understand that most air threats are not defeated by SAM's - even when they are defeated by AAW ships - it is vital to the operational survival of those ships that, when a missile (or modern strike aircraft) penetrates the fighter and EW defenses of a task group that the SAM ship has effective hard kill options. These could - but do NOT include multiple dual purpose guns - so that any technical issue (including simply reloading a mount) does not render a warship with zero guns ready to fire. Guns can reload at sea. For practical purposes, Standard SAM's cannot (reloading at an anchorage from a specialist ship does not count operationally - even if such a ship had reasonable self defense capabilities - which it does not). Nor is any class of major warship fitted with a reasonable number of point defense systems. We are back at the point we were early in WW2, or the British were in during the Falklands War. IF we elect to try to prevail in a sea war, we will need to mount light weapons in numbers. But light weapons are more or less "revenge weapons" intended to exact a cost on the enemy who gets too close. We knew when the CWIS was designed that a missile or jet it destroyed would still produce a flaming mass that would likely hit the ship, causing significant if not fatal damage (fire being one of the two deadly enemies of warships in battle. This was proven in a Reagan era test. For that reason we designed the CWIS to mount a 30 mm gun. That gun was in fact built for the A-10, but it has NEVER been fitted to any US CWIS mounting. Failures of this type will, in any fight with a statistically significant number of attacks, cause mission kills or lost ships.
You hit on the overall goal of killing the Cruiser it’s to be able to point to our CVN’s as not being valuable due to their vulnerabilities.
I expect we will stand off during a naval conflict with PRC. The opposite of putting 7th Fleet into the Taiwan Strait - which has worked several times (starting in 1950). A few years ago I thought it was still a good idea. The very move scuttles an invasion timetable - the invasion ships will not sail or will turn around if they have sailed already. [I served in the gator navy before going to a DDG].
But it is unclear we are up to the task today. It takes great skill to deal with the scale of air threats that could be fielded to challenge such a move. Do we train to that level?
Agree here... We're shorthanded when it comes to escorts. So we have what 70-ish Burkes??? In a WestPac fight, having a 3-4 CVN battle group is what we'd need to get anything done. How many escorts would it need??? I'm gonna say the answer is "more than we could field", because I think the actual number is around 55. Our current peacetime escort of a CG and one or two DDGs is absurd. We should be sailing and training with proper sized groups. What we do now shouldnt even be photographed, because it just proves how unserious we are...
Actually, this is a pretty subjective question. It depends on both the threat and on what is a "reasonable" defensive capability? Historically - in the 1960s - we would have at least two rings of escorts - and possibly others in "picket" or "scouting duty." The inner layer might be cruisers, the outer layer destroyers and destroyer escorts. ["Frigate" had a different meaning then - sort of oversized destroyers of undersized cruisers - when the usage was dropped some went into both destroyer and cruiser categories]. But the number would be vastly more than in this era. One to four carriers would usually operate together, with several cruisers and many destroyers and destroyer escorts. We kept on fielding ASW ships until we didn't have any left. A study of the last 7 mothballed frigates found NONE were worthy of reactivation. The pretense all is well with the surface navy is - as Commander Salamander says repeatedly - essentially criminal. If you are not crying out, you are contributing to the pretense.
Sure... And the only thing Id question is "whats a reasonable defensive capability"?? Based on what?? Budget? Maintenance schedules?? Im not at all concerned with whats "reasonable". I want a defensive capability thats "more than adequate". If its only 30, fine. But if weve determined that its 55, or 70, or 99...then we need to do whatever is necessasary to get there. And if we won't or cant, then we need to step back and get ready to accept whatever is coming...
Actually - in this era - it may be time to do away with the carrier strike group as we have known it. I suspect the "aircraft" of the past is generally replaced by missiles. And missiles can easily be delivered by submersables or small stealth craft. BIG surface ships are likely to be detected - and not just by radar. But if there are advantages to manned aircraft at sea - maybe we put them in submersables - as USN toyed with post WW2 - imitating the Japanese I-400's (with jets no less - see Friedman's US Submarines Since 1945). What is clear is that space sensors almost guarantee detection of major vessels in the open ocean. So do aircraft sensors. See in particular SAR radars, OTH radars, etc.
I think we really need to bring in the commercial fleet owners to work out ship life and maintenance practices which must be followed moving forward. I'd also say we need to focus on a build new strategy while this is implemented to reduce risk and surprises which will certainly continue to occue with the existing ships. Focus on removing our structural debt. New destroyers with no electric propulsion, 4 main turbines and needing to trail a shaft? Just to haul around 96 cells and a 300 million dollar radar? We need serious engineering bringing us sound, evolutions in ship design every 5-8 years.
-Design a cleaned up, cheap Burke IV to come at FFG from the high end. Give me 96 cells for 1.5 billion and a hybrid propulsion plant with more electricity and only 2 mains.
-Italy has moved onto the PPA. Tell Fincantieri we want the US spec version of that ship and take out the FFG role from the bottom up. Use the electric motors that will now be going into Burkes. Use the same genset type we are putting into the FFGs (less valves).
Live with the Burke IIIs on order as the high end and grow the fleet with these other ships.
Don’t possess the expertise to if this all works but Using thing at hand that we know work to get the numbers up is the way to go.
If that were true our numbers would have gone up by now. Planning to do the same thing ongoing will just keep shrinking the fleet. Future money literally burnt up in smoke.
Thought I was agreeing with you
What's not being said is all of this is intentional, there's no other explanation. Our armed forces are being systematically reduced to a shell of its former self. It's the Carter administration all over again ...
Yup. Elections have consequences.
But as important, it feels like as flags get closer to retirement, they need to move left to get jobs in DC.
Does this mean they don’t care about the Navy they just left, or more concerned about the next job and what this means in a partisan (left) DC - it’s for smarter people than me to figure out.
WRT "Elections have consequences" they did when we had elections and not selections.
Now the selections have consequences
Brilliant
Ignorance and belief that if Russia is not really such a conventional threat maybe China isn’t either. Ref the quote given above by Napoleon. Some Bad intent in places maybe but belief exists that the world be ok without us on the beat….Soros crowd for example.
The Soros players are the definition of bad intentions
It was totally intentional!!! The Navy never planned to keep the cruisers. They idled them and let them rot. Then after years of neglect, guess what...theyre in awful shape. Go figure!! Nevermind that a good part of the supposed 'modernization' was software. I mean...what kind.of 'modernization' do you get with $150m per ship????
The Navy just.played a shell game with Congress and outfoxed them. It was a well played game!!! But...those responsible for engineering this shadyness should likely swing from a yardarm for deceitfully ignoring the will of Congress...
Great linkage between our antiquated promotional system and our decaying equipment. We need statutory updates to our "up-or-out" system that incentivize diverse career paths and heterodox thought. The issue is fundamentally cultural in the Navy and DOD, and as they say, culture eats strategy for breakfast.
Not sure this is on target. Personally I think the biggest issue is politicization. FBI fo shizzle
I’d say that’s another symptom of the same root. Incentives drive people’s behavior, and flag officers have spent 30 years confirming themselves to their next boss. The politicization driven from the top is just from FO/GOs trying to sense the temperature in the room.
That has always been a thing, yes, but more camouflaged. Add no fail mentality. Add political litmus tests and Sal’s favorite, DEI, and you get distractions from mission capability and self/cultural delusion
The chant of “The Littorals! the Littorals!!” and the resulting deemphasis on blue water VLS cells has done more damage to the capabilities of the fleet than anything I can think of back to maybe the fight with the Air Force in the 50’s. The Navy passive-aggressively complying-not-complying with Congress trying to course correct by forcing the cruisers be kept is a symptom, again stemming from the flawed concept of the naval challenges going forward and what the next enemy would look like.
It does seem to finally be the case that leadership is publicly recognizing the shape of the threat, but the leaders for the past 20 years who went along with the chanting are really darned culpable in all this.
This and the 20 years of land conflict spending while using assets for arms interdiction and other missions.
Well, “Joint” everything didn’t help.