Surface Ships Need More Offensive Punch, Outlook


Six years? Far sooner than that, I fear.

I'm guessing that that the six year timeframe is the admiral's estimate for that project coming to completion.

I wouldn't bet on it. Maybe TWO. I'm reminded of Gates' 20 year claim for China to produce a stealth fighter.
That isn't exactly the case, largely because we're talking apples to oranges here. To get a navy that can do naval assaults, you need a lot of training and equipment, and while China may produce the equipment, it needs a lot of time to get the training.
 

Six years? Far sooner than that, I fear.

I'm guessing that that the six year timeframe is the admiral's estimate for that project coming to completion.

I wouldn't bet on it. Maybe TWO. I'm reminded of Gates' 20 year claim for China to produce a stealth fighter.
That isn't exactly the case, largely because we're talking apples to oranges here. To get a navy that can do naval assaults, you need a lot of training and equipment, and while China may produce the equipment, it needs a lot of time to get the training.
We're not talking about that.
 

Six years? Far sooner than that, I fear.

I'm guessing that that the six year timeframe is the admiral's estimate for that project coming to completion.

I wouldn't bet on it. Maybe TWO. I'm reminded of Gates' 20 year claim for China to produce a stealth fighter.
That isn't exactly the case, largely because we're talking apples to oranges here. To get a navy that can do naval assaults, you need a lot of training and equipment, and while China may produce the equipment, it needs a lot of time to get the training.
We're not talking about that.
That's the implication, though.
 

Six years? Far sooner than that, I fear.

I'm guessing that that the six year timeframe is the admiral's estimate for that project coming to completion.

I wouldn't bet on it. Maybe TWO. I'm reminded of Gates' 20 year claim for China to produce a stealth fighter.
That isn't exactly the case, largely because we're talking apples to oranges here. To get a navy that can do naval assaults, you need a lot of training and equipment, and while China may produce the equipment, it needs a lot of time to get the training.
We're not talking about that.
That's the implication, though.
The only person talking about apples and oranges is you. This discussion here is about how long to get the silos operational. Nobody GAF what you think about China's ability to perform a naval assault.

"or have strategic deterrence in the form of nuclear parity (when all of those missile silos come online). I'm guessing that that the six year timeframe is the admiral's estimate for that project coming to completion."
 

Six years? Far sooner than that, I fear.

I'm guessing that that the six year timeframe is the admiral's estimate for that project coming to completion.

I wouldn't bet on it. Maybe TWO. I'm reminded of Gates' 20 year claim for China to produce a stealth fighter.
That isn't exactly the case, largely because we're talking apples to oranges here. To get a navy that can do naval assaults, you need a lot of training and equipment, and while China may produce the equipment, it needs a lot of time to get the training.
We're not talking about that.
That's the implication, though.
The only person talking about apples and oranges is you. This discussion here is about how long to get the silos operational. Nobody GAF what you think about China's ability to perform a naval assault.

"or have strategic deterrence in the form of nuclear parity (when all of those missile silos come online). I'm guessing that that the six year timeframe is the admiral's estimate for that project coming to completion."
Then my reading comprehension got borked. :confused: Still, some people comparing getting an amphib invasion force to gaining stealth aircraft is at least somewhat disingenuous.
 
Luria said she backs the amendment in part because it would bar the Navy from decommissioning three aging cruisers, would add a second Arleigh Burke-class destroyer and would help stabilize the shipbuilding industry.

“My argument is that of course we have to get new technologies and advance those, but in the meantime we can’t gut the force we have in the hope we’ll have a new force with new technology later,” Luria said. “Essentially, shrinking the Navy is not in line with the statement [from the Pentagon] that China is our No. 1 threat.”
 
You retire something when is outdated in function or you have something better.
If you don't have something better you keep it till you do. I was agreeing with sferrin
I guess I said it wrong.
 
You retire something when is outdated in function or you have something better.
If you don't have something better you keep it till you do. I was agreeing with sferrin
I guess I said it wrong.
What if 'keeping' requires investment that'll be usable for no more than 6-8 years down the line?
 
We should be investing in the future of our navy before long before we
find ourselves having to. If investing in those ships is only good for the six
to eight years we are that much too late.
 
If those ships need to be retired. why now.
"Need"? Like the Spruances "needed" to be retired? Like the Virginias and Californias "needed" to be retired?

View attachment 663569

Completely useless. (That's a 64-cell VLS upfront BTW.)
For one, practically the entire USN that isn't SSN or CVN have been run so ragged that they're falling apart anyway, and that is doubly so for the SpruCans (some of the horror stories about how bad they got by the end are... well... horrifying) and by the time of the end of the Cold War? Burkes made the cruisers largely redundant to a cost-cutting Congress.
 
You retire something when is outdated in function or you have something better.
If you don't have something better you keep it till you do. I was agreeing with sferrin
I guess I said it wrong.
"Need"? Like the Spruances "needed" to be retired? Like the Virginias and Californias "needed" to be retired?
I feel the need to point out that like all things.

Ships have a finite lifespan.

In the Tico case that is a life of 30 years in use with 5 extra for just incase with refits.

The newest Ticonderoga-class cruiser is the USS Port Royal. She was launched in November of 1992, 29 years ago.

Two others were launched that year with the next being in July of 1991, 30 years go, with the oldest the USS BUnker Hill launched in...

Drum roll please...

1984! 37 years ago!

Most of the CURRENT cruisers are pushing 32-33 years of HARD use. They can not be refit or updated anymore, you basically need to rebuild the hull from the keel up and de-rate their speed to baby them to get maybe another decade out of them if we are luckly. But by doing that you are removing any consideration that hull will hold together in the first heavy storm it hits. Also you are basically paying double in maintaining the hull.

And this will not change if we kept the Spruances and the Nuke boats. Most of the Spruancans where pushing 22-24 when they were retire anyways* and the Nuke Cruisers will have need a refueling by 2015 and still be pushing 40 years old. Ancient for an warship, hell they probably have been retired within the last decade if we kept them. Cause those ships had 35 years of design life themselves as well.

By keeping those ships we will have still be in this position today. WITH OLDER LESS CAPABLE SHIPS MIND YOU!

The cancelation of all those 1990s and 2000s ships, like the CG(X) and the Zumwalt snafu is what fucked todays navy up. Cause by now most of those ships be coming online and replacing the tired Ticos. Thankfully the Burke Spam is usefull, it just limiting with what we can do. We going to need a new design NOW if we want a fleet worth the name...

*It should be pointed out that thanks to the Navy bright idea to have two crews per ship, one for port work and one for deployments, with the deployments crews being toss around different ships, each Spruance class hull age ten years in five. Reason for this was because the Crews just didnt care about taking care of them. They did not see the ships as theirs, so the mindset of let it be the NEXT guy issues was strong. This just lead to the ships being trashed like a five year old rental car, with all that implies. The fact that they lasted for most of their design life is telling that they built solidly. But by the time they were retired, they were scrapped, cracks in the hulls, gear permatelly inop, think of a issue a ship can have and they likely had it sadly. The Navy knew this so retired them when they did, basically didnt have a choice. For Refitting them to new was going to cost as much as the Zumwalts did, and we all know how THAT turns out.
 
If those ships need to be retired. why now.
"Need"? Like the Spruances "needed" to be retired? Like the Virginias and Californias "needed" to be retired?

View attachment 663569

Completely useless. (That's a 64-cell VLS upfront BTW.)
For one, practically the entire USN that isn't SSN or CVN have been run so ragged that they're falling apart anyway, and that is doubly so for the SpruCans (some of the horror stories about how bad they got by the end are... well... horrifying) and by the time of the end of the Cold War? Burkes made the cruisers largely redundant to a cost-cutting Congress.

It's easy to lose sight of this. The commitments that the government is demanding of the Navy and the # of hulls it has available are simply incompatible. The USN has already been complaining about the amount of heavy maintenance it has been forced to postpone because of deployments. And it's not simply a case of just throwing money at the problem to magically produce more ships. We have a limited amount of shipyards. They can either build or repair, not both. The blame falls on both the Navy and Congress for having dithered so long and not coming up with a cohesive shipbuilding and naval strategy until we got to this point. And with lead times being what they are, there needs to be a serious conversation about what we need the USN to do and which areas we are willing to pull back from in order to make sure that job can be done in a sustainable manner.
 

From the article :oops:

“In 2017, I was the strike group commander for the Carl Vinson Strike Group. My air and missile defense command ship was Lake Champlain,” he continued. “She missed roughly one-third of the deployment because of maintenance things — not because our radar was down, not because our combat system wasn’t capable, not because she didn’t have a full magazine, but she had tank top cracking that required her to get that fixed to be safely underway.”
 
If those ships need to be retired. why now.
"Need"? Like the Spruances "needed" to be retired? Like the Virginias and Californias "needed" to be retired?

View attachment 663569

Completely useless. (That's a 64-cell VLS upfront BTW.)
For one, practically the entire USN that isn't SSN or CVN have been run so ragged that they're falling apart anyway, and that is doubly so for the SpruCans (some of the horror stories about how bad they got by the end are... well... horrifying) and by the time of the end of the Cold War? Burkes made the cruisers largely redundant to a cost-cutting Congress.

It's easy to lose sight of this. The commitments that the government is demanding of the Navy and the # of hulls it has available are simply incompatible. The USN has already been complaining about the amount of heavy maintenance it has been forced to postpone because of deployments. And it's not simply a case of just throwing money at the problem to magically produce more ships. We have a limited amount of shipyards. They can either build or repair, not both. The blame falls on both the Navy and Congress for having dithered so long and not coming up with a cohesive shipbuilding and naval strategy until we got to this point. And with lead times being what they are, there needs to be a serious conversation about what we need the USN to do and which areas we are willing to pull back from in order to make sure that job can be done in a sustainable manner.
It's a bit more complex than that, Clinton tried to pull a 'grow the economy to grow the military budget' thing but that didn't exactly work out. Then, shortly afterward, Congress went back to its 'starving the US military of funds' mentality again. One of the things that people forget is that even a few years can have immense consequences. I wouldn't be surprised that we'll be needing a 1000 ship navy when it's all said and done...
 
If those ships need to be retired. why now.
"Need"? Like the Spruances "needed" to be retired? Like the Virginias and Californias "needed" to be retired?

View attachment 663569

Completely useless. (That's a 64-cell VLS upfront BTW.)
For one, practically the entire USN that isn't SSN or CVN have been run so ragged that they're falling apart anyway, and that is doubly so for the SpruCans (some of the horror stories about how bad they got by the end are... well... horrifying) and by the time of the end of the Cold War? Burkes made the cruisers largely redundant to a cost-cutting Congress.

It's easy to lose sight of this. The commitments that the government is demanding of the Navy and the # of hulls it has available are simply incompatible. The USN has already been complaining about the amount of heavy maintenance it has been forced to postpone because of deployments. And it's not simply a case of just throwing money at the problem to magically produce more ships. We have a limited amount of shipyards. They can either build or repair, not both. The blame falls on both the Navy and Congress for having dithered so long and not coming up with a cohesive shipbuilding and naval strategy until we got to this point. And with lead times being what they are, there needs to be a serious conversation about what we need the USN to do and which areas we are willing to pull back from in order to make sure that job can be done in a sustainable manner.
It's a bit more complex than that, Clinton tried to pull a 'grow the economy to grow the military budget' thing but that didn't exactly work out. Then, shortly afterward, Congress went back to its 'starving the US military of funds' mentality again. One of the things that people forget is that even a few years can have immense consequences. I wouldn't be surprised that we'll be needing a 1000 ship navy when it's all said and done...
Reality is BRUTAL. Lines shut down, people move on, talent is lost, facilities are closed. Companies don't just sit around, with a humming assembly line and trained workforce, waiting for orders to come in.
 
If those ships need to be retired. why now.
"Need"? Like the Spruances "needed" to be retired? Like the Virginias and Californias "needed" to be retired?

View attachment 663569

Completely useless. (That's a 64-cell VLS upfront BTW.)
For one, practically the entire USN that isn't SSN or CVN have been run so ragged that they're falling apart anyway, and that is doubly so for the SpruCans (some of the horror stories about how bad they got by the end are... well... horrifying) and by the time of the end of the Cold War? Burkes made the cruisers largely redundant to a cost-cutting Congress.

It's easy to lose sight of this. The commitments that the government is demanding of the Navy and the # of hulls it has available are simply incompatible. The USN has already been complaining about the amount of heavy maintenance it has been forced to postpone because of deployments. And it's not simply a case of just throwing money at the problem to magically produce more ships. We have a limited amount of shipyards. They can either build or repair, not both. The blame falls on both the Navy and Congress for having dithered so long and not coming up with a cohesive shipbuilding and naval strategy until we got to this point. And with lead times being what they are, there needs to be a serious conversation about what we need the USN to do and which areas we are willing to pull back from in order to make sure that job can be done in a sustainable manner.
It's a bit more complex than that, Clinton tried to pull a 'grow the economy to grow the military budget' thing but that didn't exactly work out. Then, shortly afterward, Congress went back to its 'starving the US military of funds' mentality again. One of the things that people forget is that even a few years can have immense consequences. I wouldn't be surprised that we'll be needing a 1000 ship navy when it's all said and done...
Reality is BRUTAL. Lines shut down, people move on, talent is lost, facilities are closed. Companies don't just sit around, with a humming assembly line and trained workforce, waiting for orders to come in.
If you want a good posterchild of how bad even a few years can be, take a look at the Kriegsmarine between world wars. Just a decade of not doing navy stuff really screwed them over.
 
Some of these ships were being designed 8 to 10 years before construction
was started. I fear we have lost our way.
 
With every generation of aircraft gaining a magnitude of magnitude of combined effectiveness, and similar performance gain in guided projectile capability, surface ships just does not seem technologically dependent at all. The fact that keeping 40 year hulls is not considered absurd points to slow technological development in technology that dictates hull structure.

The problem with the navy is actually in the disjoint space between design and actual role. The actual role of the surface navy seems to be sailing around to show flag everywhere for whatever reason instead of warfighting. What the navy needs is the enterprise (as in trek, not the carrier) with all the yacht toys.
 
Some of these ships were being designed 8 to 10 years before construction
was started. I fear we have lost our way.
Not really, the real problem is that this isn't the 1st half of the 20th anymore. You can't just have a turnaround of ship design of several months/less than two years anymore. This is also a byline of the 'Reformers' who are complete idiots.
With every generation of aircraft gaining a magnitude of magnitude of combined effectiveness, and similar performance gain in guided projectile capability, surface ships just does not seem technologically dependent at all. The fact that keeping 40 year hulls is not considered absurd points to slow technological development in technology that dictates hull structure.

The problem with the navy is actually in the disjoint space between design and actual role. The actual role of the surface navy seems to be sailing around to show flag everywhere for whatever reason instead of warfighting. What the navy needs is the enterprise (as in trek, not the carrier) with all the yacht toys.
Not really, as I said above, this isn't the 1st half of the 20th century anymore. A lot more stuff goes into ships than just weapons, a lot of electronic and software development goes into ships as well. It also doesn't help that Congress would rather keep short-changing the USN than anything else.
 
Should the navy build more modular designs were you have a basic hull design
that can have a weapons change out instead of purpose built?
 
Should the navy build more modular designs were you have a basic hull design
that can have a weapons change out instead of purpose built?
Define "change out." If it's referring to hot-swap modules, even without the (ugly) LCS example it's a concept which has proven to have inherent difficulty out of proportion with the demonstrated utility. If it's referring to base designs which can more easily adapt to new systems in later production blocs and regular refits, well that's exactly the direction the USN hopes to they're headed in with the next generation combatants.
 
Should the navy build more modular designs were you have a basic hull design
that can have a weapons change out instead of purpose built?
Swap-out modularity is a fantasy, I'm afraid. The LCS proved that tidbit rather well. Easy modernization, on the other hand, is what the USN is going with right now.
 
Were I was kinda going with change out your canister launchers.
The cells could be made to the same outer diameter so a large missile
or smaller missile launcher would fit in the same space. Having seen
your post, it appears I was mistaken.
 
The main spur to a Navy is the existence of an "Enemy Fleet in Being".
During the Cold War the USN and the Soviet Navy were able to use each other to stimulate further dwvelopments in naval power.
After 1991 there was no EFIB to spur US naval development. From 2001 the War on Terror/Forever Wars made this situation worse still.
The recent decade long growth of the Chinese Navy ought to have woken planners up.
 
 
At least they could share engines ,radar and such. That would make
costs less and make them more adaptable. I know that weapons are
a huge cost but don't light arm them. Better to have heavier weapons
and fewer ships than other way around.
 

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