Copied from a post I made in the Spin Room:
I believe that I am the senior retired Navy officer on here, and as such I feel compelled from time to time to comment on Navy news events. This time, I am afraid to announce three whoppers, none of them good.
1. The Navy is sending a Carrier Strike Group (CSG) into the South China Sea, and area which China claims as its territorial waters. China has in the past attacked US aircraft and seized unmanned vessels in the area. Looks like potentially a high-risk area, right? So what comprises this CSG that the Navy is sending—1 aircraft carrier (USS Ronald Reagan, Nimitz class), 1 cruiser (USS Shiloh, Ticonderoga class), and 1 destroyer (USS Halsey, Burke class). Basically, we are inviting China to provoke an incident by sending such a small force into perhaps the highest risk area in the world. I have previously discussed my proposed Navy fleet that I would build for about the same money as the Navy’s proposed shipbuilding plan, but using ADM Elmo Zumwalt’s high/low mix philosophy to build a few top-of-the line ships and fill out the numbers with cheaper single-purpose ships. Based on my fleet proposal, the carrier task force (CTF) that I would send on an operation like this would consist, at a minimum, of
a. 1 nuclear carrier (Nimitz class),
b. 1 conventional carrier (modernized Kitty Hawk class),
c. 1 cruiser (larger and more capable replacement for Ticonderoga),
d. 2 AAW destroyers (could be Burkes),
e. 3 general purpose (GP) escorts (something like the Navy’s FFG(X) but a more generalized ASW/ASuW weapons and sensor suite like the FREMM that it is based on), and
f. 4 ASW frigates (anti-sub specialists).
I will frankly be surprised if China does not provoke some sort of incident.
2. The Navy has finally decided to study the multiple problems with the woefully inadequate Littoral Combat Ships (LCS). To lead the study the Navy has chosen a Naval Reserve officer who has multiple engineering degrees, but who has not been to sea since 2000, and has been spending his Naval Reserve time since then pushing papers in the administration of the Naval Reserve program. This token step appears to be the Navy’s surrender and admission that after $30B the LCSs need to go away ASAP.
3. The Secretary of the Navy (SecNav) has issued new guidance, available at
https://www.scribd.com/document/51137054...-pom-23-1, that says, among other things:
a. The Navy cannot afford to develop simultaneously new air, surface, and submarine assets, and directs that only one be pursued and that development stop on the other two.
b. The Navy cannot afford to maintain its current shore infrastructure and directs a facility footprint reduction of 1 percent per year for the next 10 years (should be 10% per year for 5 years, focused on the DC metro area, with half the resulting savings transferred to combat and combat support)
c. Defund the sea-launched cruise missile project—the one place were we are seriously behind both Russia and China.
d. Renewed and greater emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
I would strongly suggest that if you are under the age of 50, you need to start learning Chinese and Russian immediately, and probably need to do so if you are older, because the Navy we are building will not be able to protect you from either one.
