Surface Ships Need More Offensive Punch, Outlook

Forest Green said:
Yep, load it with SM-3 IIBs and some mobile GBI. I do like the idea of a converted oil rig though. The North Sea is a good place to keep one permanently.
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I don't think thats a bad idea really, seems like a relatively cheap way to add BMD and aircraft / cruise / drone missile defense in certain key areas. Seems like a better idea than Aegis ashore especially for areas like Japan or Guam. I think you'd need a good sonar network around the platform to protect from subs and then its a viable option.

Alternatively load it up with ESSM, a few SM-6 / SM-3, and a few JAGM for small craft defense and you could reload VLS at seas somewhat near the front.
 
Grey Havoc said:
Time to bring back Navy Yards for real, methinks.
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Hard to do, so much of that land was sold off and is now covered with houses etc.

Mare Island Former Kaiser Richmond shipyard area is still viable, as are a couple others that are still Superfund sites so nobody has built anything there. Because the USN desperately needs one more shipyard on the west coast...
 
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Mare Island isn't viable, the parcels have been sold off and the river is muddier than ever. There's a handful of viable spots around the Bay and Mare isn't one of them.
 
Moose said:
Mare Island isn't viable, the parcels have been sold off and the river is muddier than ever. There's a handful of viable spots around the Bay and Mare isn't one of them.
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Right, shouldn't have said Mare Island but I couldn't remember what former naval shipyard in the area was still undeveloped.

Y'all had mentioned one of them as still having the rails going into it and was undeveloped.
 
Any of the yards that still exist in some way should be looked at hard.


Cause therez not many places to buold such yards and thoses were grab over a century ago. Then sold.

Any new yard is going to be just as if not more expensive as rehabing an older one.

Its a situation thats going to cause millions if not billions easily cause you going to have to buy back and develop the area to modern spec. Doesn't matter if you just grab Mare Island back or new land in where ever. Both going to have a ten plus digit tag for the land alone.

There be no cheap way.
 
I think the old alameda air station is still mostly empty. Unless there’s an active redevelopment on the site, that’s all the space you could want. Of course, it was an air station, and as such lacked the kind of industrial links that could make a viable ship yard with minimal refurbishment. It’d be an expensive blank slate project, but with the atrophy of US shipbuilding going back even before the end of the Cold War, I’d bet too many of the old yard sites, public and private, have been divvied up and redeveloped to immediately turn up our noses at a prospective site like that. I doubt there are any cheap and easy solutions to be had.
 
Rapid Dragon pretty much solves the problem of getting US munitions to the enemy, so US ships don't require as much firepower to the US Navy's detriment.
 
trose213 said:
Rapid Dragon pretty much solves the problem of getting US munitions to the enemy, so US ships don't require as much firepower to the US Navy's detriment.
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Rapid Dragon belongs to USAF, not the Navy, so problem unsolved :cool:
 
trose213 said:
The Navy deciding that they are the only ones who get solve problems are why they are so screwed in the first place.
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More like the Navy not trusting the USAF to have the same tactical priorities, so the Navy has to solve everything itself.

example: USAF can predictably go chasing after any fighters in the area, not bombers. While USN will concentrate on bombers because those are the primary threat to a ship.
 
bobbymike said:
There are some interesting articles about China concerning how deep of a potential demographic/economic collapse is coming.

Is this a recognition they have to move sooner rather than later to take Taiwan?
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My read is that they need to act by 2030 or else they will be operating under an umbrella of U.S. ISR satellites linked to a network of UHF/Link 16 satellites processing high priority target ID in orbit and directly downlinking that information to any munitions or platforms querying it. So near realtime targets after every satellite pass, and enough satellites that the gap is measured in minutes.

Long term, population collapse. So this decade is IMO as good as it gets militarily for the PRC, IMO.
 
Scott Kenny said:
More like the Navy not trusting the USAF to have the same tactical priorities, so the Navy has to solve everything itself.

example: USAF can predictably go chasing after any fighters in the area, not bombers. While USN will concentrate on bombers because those are the primary threat to a ship.
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45 LRASMs isn't tactical
 
trose213 said:
The Navy deciding that they are the only ones who get solve problems are why they are so screwed in the first place.
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I would argue the USN's problem is how long it takes to correct for bad decisions compared to the other services. Everyone was stuck in sand wars for decades, but when it comes to changing buys of vehicles or weapons, ships are the longest lead items.

As far as long range attacks are concerned, I think the USN has developed a rather economical short term solution in the form of Tomahawk blk 5, LRASM, and MALD-N. All of those pretty much hit a target at the 1000mi/1500km mark. While they are all subsonic, they also are all cheap and can be used en mass. At least until HALO comes out with something.

But hopefully the USAF is also creating solutions to attacking surface ships on its own time.
 
trose213 said:
Who do you think is going to end up firing most of those LRASMs?
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The USN, because it has three times as many purchased from what I can tell (~300 va ~100). Hopefully the AGM-158D with a weapon data link has some capability against ships such that the AShM capacity is significantly increased. I’m also hoping HACM and SiAW have anti ship modes, which seems likely in at least the latter case.
 

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