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 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.
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.
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 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.
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 ...
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.
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.
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...
So... buy some civilian container ships, put cannister launchers with Standards on them, add at least 2 per CBG?
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.
"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.
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.
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 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.
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 ...
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.
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.