(12-02-2021 09:46 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(11-18-2021 11:37 PM)BigTigerMike Wrote:  

China has a much healthier economy that the Soviets did, at least on the surface. But there are huge problems underneath. Historically, China has seldom been a unified country because it's basically a bunch of people who don't like each other. The warlike Han in the north don't get along well with the commercial/industrial Shanghai and the Yangtze Valley, and neither of them like or are liked by the secessionist south, not to mention Tibet and the Uyghurs in the west. So what they do is export a lot of cheap consumer goods and use the cash flow to finance a bunch of make-work projects with little or no economic utility (remember the empty cities) to keep the peons too busy to revolt. So their banks have massive loans out to deals that will never generate a nickel of revenue. And the whole thing depends on imported oil from the Mideast, that has to come by sea through Malacca/Sunda, and PLAN (the Chinese navy) may be huge in numbers, but it is not a blue-water navy that can protect that shipping. We do that for them now. Pull the USN out of the Indian Ocean, and let pirates start hijacking tankers bound for China, and the whole thing collapses--their economy dies and their people starve to death. We hold all the cards, but we refuse to play them.

The problem there is that pirates don't tend to discriminate about who they attack. Other nations (including some allies) would be subject to having their shipping disrupted as well.

(12-02-2021 11:05 AM)vandiver49 Wrote:  There is no reason to build the Navy back up to 600 ships. The issue has always been parsing the obligations the USN has continued to maintain despite the Cold War ending 30 years ago. Until Mahan's naval doctrine is challenged, nothing will change.

If we are going to keep our obligations at a level that requires 100 ships to be deployed at any given time, then we probably need 600 or close to it. If we are to reduce our obligations, do we find someone else to pick them up? Who? Otherwise, we punt the field for Russia and/or China (probably the latter) to fill the void at some point. Is that what we want?

I say build our numbers, going high/low mix to keep a lid on costs, and start to build alliances and hand things off to them, and hope that we meet somewhere in the middle. Maybe the sweet spot is 450 ships, with 60-80 deployed, and UK/India/Australia/Japan covering 40-50 ships worth of our current obligations.

(12-02-2021 11:42 AM)ODU BBALL Wrote:  The problem there is that pirates don't tend to discriminate about who they attack. Other nations (including some allies) would be subject to having their shipping disrupted as well.

Those other nations can provide some of their own security. Europe is already doing it with Operation Atalanta off Somalia. China would have an extremely long supply chain to cover, and it passes through or around some places that are not very friendly to China (around India, Malacca/Sunda) so that is a particular challenge to them. PLAN would basically have to reconfigure from a force to harass and intimidate neighbors around the SCS to a blue-water force. That would at least slow China's ambitions for a few years. To support such a fleet China has been working seaport deals all over south Asia, east Africa, and even the Mediterranean. We are asleep at the wheel.

(12-02-2021 11:42 AM)ODU BBALL Wrote:  

(12-02-2021 09:46 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(11-18-2021 11:37 PM)BigTigerMike Wrote:  

China has a much healthier economy that the Soviets did, at least on the surface. But there are huge problems underneath. Historically, China has seldom been a unified country because it's basically a bunch of people who don't like each other. The warlike Han in the north don't get along well with the commercial/industrial Shanghai and the Yangtze Valley, and neither of them like or are liked by the secessionist south, not to mention Tibet and the Uyghurs in the west. So what they do is export a lot of cheap consumer goods and use the cash flow to finance a bunch of make-work projects with little or no economic utility (remember the empty cities) to keep the peons too busy to revolt. So their banks have massive loans out to deals that will never generate a nickel of revenue. And the whole thing depends on imported oil from the Mideast, that has to come by sea through Malacca/Sunda, and PLAN (the Chinese navy) may be huge in numbers, but it is not a blue-water navy that can protect that shipping. We do that for them now. Pull the USN out of the Indian Ocean, and let pirates start hijacking tankers bound for China, and the whole thing collapses--their economy dies and their people starve to death. We hold all the cards, but we refuse to play them.

The problem there is that pirates don't tend to discriminate about who they attack. Other nations (including some allies) would be subject to having their shipping disrupted as well.

We need a Navy large enough to defend both of our "ocean moats" that protect the US. Any blue water navy that can do that wont have much issue with pirates attacking its shipping.

How difficult would it be to build a large relatively cheap stealthy autonomous VSTOL drone capable of carrying an anti-ship missile or a recon pod? How difficult would it be to build a quiet relatively long range underwater drone capable of effectively locating enemy vessels. It would be nice if the underwater drone could fire missiles and torpedoes---but even if it cant---it would still be a game changer.

Frankly, my concern is either of the above two development would make a large expensive manned conventional fleet extremely vulnerable. A cheap long range stealth drone that can fire missiles and can land on a small combatant like a frigate or LCS would be a game changer. An extremely quiet underwater drone than can hunt enemy ships and subs autonomously would be a game changer. I dont think the development of either of those potential threats are that far away and they need to be part of the calculus deciding what of any future Navy would look like a decade or two from now.

(12-02-2021 12:50 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(12-02-2021 11:42 AM)ODU BBALL Wrote:  

(12-02-2021 09:46 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(11-18-2021 11:37 PM)BigTigerMike Wrote:  

China has a much healthier economy that the Soviets did, at least on the surface. But there are huge problems underneath. Historically, China has seldom been a unified country because it's basically a bunch of people who don't like each other. The warlike Han in the north don't get along well with the commercial/industrial Shanghai and the Yangtze Valley, and neither of them like or are liked by the secessionist south, not to mention Tibet and the Uyghurs in the west. So what they do is export a lot of cheap consumer goods and use the cash flow to finance a bunch of make-work projects with little or no economic utility (remember the empty cities) to keep the peons too busy to revolt. So their banks have massive loans out to deals that will never generate a nickel of revenue. And the whole thing depends on imported oil from the Mideast, that has to come by sea through Malacca/Sunda, and PLAN (the Chinese navy) may be huge in numbers, but it is not a blue-water navy that can protect that shipping. We do that for them now. Pull the USN out of the Indian Ocean, and let pirates start hijacking tankers bound for China, and the whole thing collapses--their economy dies and their people starve to death. We hold all the cards, but we refuse to play them.

The problem there is that pirates don't tend to discriminate about who they attack. Other nations (including some allies) would be subject to having their shipping disrupted as well.

We need a Navy large enough to defend both of our "ocean moats" that protect the US. Any blue water navy that can do that wont have much issue with pirates attacking its shipping.

How difficult would it be to build a large relatively cheap stealthy autonomous VSTOL drone capable of carrying an anti-ship missile or a recon pod? How difficult would it be to build a quiet relatively long range underwater drone capable of effectively locating enemy vessels. It would be nice if the underwater drone could fire missiles and torpedoes---but even if it cant---it would still be a game changer.

Frankly, my concern is either of the above two development would make a large expensive manned conventional fleet extremely vulnerable. A cheap long range stealth drone that can fire missiles and can land on a small combatant like a frigate of LCS would be a game changer. An extremely quiet underwater drone than can hunt enemy ships and subs autonomously would be a game changer. I dont think the development of either of those potential threats are that far away and they need to be part of the calculus deciding what of any future Navy would look like a decade or two from now.

That drone would have to be much bigger than what we have now. A missile large enough to be a threat to a surface ship is a lot bigger than the hellfires the MQs carry now(almost 4-to-1 ratio). And a single missile fired would not pose much a threat to modern missile defense systems.

I think you are spot on with developing underwater drones though. The navy is currently working on one for EW purposes, but can't imagine it would be a challenge to add a couple torpedo tubes to them eventually. The question becomes how do you control them. Subs rely on stealth and any wireless communication would give away it's presence. I think the MK-48s use a fiber optic to control the torpedo while the sub maneuvers away from the launch point.

Snakehead: USN's largest UUV

(12-02-2021 12:50 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(12-02-2021 11:42 AM)ODU BBALL Wrote:  

(12-02-2021 09:46 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(11-18-2021 11:37 PM)BigTigerMike Wrote:  

China has a much healthier economy that the Soviets did, at least on the surface. But there are huge problems underneath. Historically, China has seldom been a unified country because it's basically a bunch of people who don't like each other. The warlike Han in the north don't get along well with the commercial/industrial Shanghai and the Yangtze Valley, and neither of them like or are liked by the secessionist south, not to mention Tibet and the Uyghurs in the west. So what they do is export a lot of cheap consumer goods and use the cash flow to finance a bunch of make-work projects with little or no economic utility (remember the empty cities) to keep the peons too busy to revolt. So their banks have massive loans out to deals that will never generate a nickel of revenue. And the whole thing depends on imported oil from the Mideast, that has to come by sea through Malacca/Sunda, and PLAN (the Chinese navy) may be huge in numbers, but it is not a blue-water navy that can protect that shipping. We do that for them now. Pull the USN out of the Indian Ocean, and let pirates start hijacking tankers bound for China, and the whole thing collapses--their economy dies and their people starve to death. We hold all the cards, but we refuse to play them.

The problem there is that pirates don't tend to discriminate about who they attack. Other nations (including some allies) would be subject to having their shipping disrupted as well.

We need a Navy large enough to defend both of our "ocean moats" that protect the US. Any blue water navy that can do that wont have much issue with pirates attacking its shipping.

How difficult would it be to build a large relatively cheap stealthy autonomous VSTOL drone capable of carrying an anti-ship missile or a recon pod? How difficult would it be to build a quiet relatively long range underwater drone capable of effectively locating enemy vessels. It would be nice if the underwater drone could fire missiles and torpedoes---but even if it cant---it would still be a game changer.

Frankly, my concern is either of the above two development would make a large expensive manned conventional fleet extremely vulnerable. A cheap long range stealth drone that can fire missiles and can land on a small combatant like a frigate of LCS would be a game changer. An extremely quiet underwater drone than can hunt enemy ships and subs autonomously would be a game changer. I dont think the development of either of those potential threats are that far away and they need to be part of the calculus deciding what of any future Navy would look like a decade or two from now.

Not sure why you copied my post to give yours. My post was merely addressing the pitfalls of removing the US Navy from the shipping lanes under the premise that it would punish China and make their navy more stressed. While I don't disagree that those things could happen, I was simply pointing out that that wouldn't be the only result from doing so, and some of the other results weren't desirable ones.

(12-02-2021 09:46 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  What do we have to do to make these things happen? Basically, decide to win Cold War II the same way we won Cold War I. Truman bribed up an alliance to stop Russian expansion further into Europe, and Reagan turned up the heat on their economy to bring the Evil Empire to its knees. We need to promise the same kinds of economic cooperation and mutual military protection to the Quad, CANZUK, and Commonwealth countries that we did to Europe after WWII. Move as much as we can of the manufacturing base that we have exported to China either back home or to our allies. Even better if we bring folks like Indonesia, the Philippines, and possibly even Taiwan into the deal. Then turn up the economic heat on China.

China has a much healthier economy that the Soviets did, at least on the surface. But there are huge problems underneath. Historically, China has seldom been a unified country because it's basically a bunch of people who don't like each other. The warlike Han in the north don't get along well with the commercial/industrial Shanghai and the Yangtze Valley, and neither of them like or are liked by the secessionist south, not to mention Tibet and the Uyghurs in the west. So what they do is export a lot of cheap consumer goods and use the cash flow to finance a bunch of make-work projects with little or no economic utility (remember the empty cities) to keep the peons too busy to revolt. So their banks have massive loans out to deals that will never generate a nickel of revenue. And the whole thing depends on imported oil from the Mideast, that has to come by sea through Malacca/Sunda, and PLAN (the Chinese navy) may be huge in numbers, but it is not a blue-water navy that can protect that shipping. We do that for them now. Pull the USN out of the Indian Ocean, and let pirates start hijacking tankers bound for China, and the whole thing collapses--their economy dies and their people starve to death. We hold all the cards, but we refuse to play them.

This is a fundamental misreading of why we won the Cold War.

The Russian/Soviet system stayed in power because it was a coalition of allied one-party dictatorships that would aid each other against any internal revolts. See East Germany in 1953, Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968, the Soviet oil embargo against Poland in 1981.

However, the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia was seen by many as a step too far even by many Communist party members because their system prided itself on its adherence to written law. Albania withdrew from the Warsaw Pact. Yugoslavia and Romania stopped cooperating with the rest of the Eastern Bloc. This weakened the Eastern Bloc's governments' ability to cooperate with each other to confront the next crisis.

Similarly, China (and North Korea) had supported the USSR against the West until the 70s. Nixon's visit in 1973 changed that.

When Russia invaded Afghanistan in 1980, it did so without the support of its Warsaw Pact allies. Romania actually publicly refused to support the USSR's position in the UN. China actually provided material support to the Afghan rebels.

Further, this one-party system had a very well defined ideology. This ideology was at odds with human nature and would easily lose in the marketplace of ideas, but the one-party system was a police state that ruthlessly suppressed competing ideas.

When Gorbachev instituted glasnost in 1986, the marketplace of ideas came open.

And among the people in Poland, communism lost. The Solidarity movement called for general strikes in 1988 and became more powerful than the Communist Party. Economic sanctions (like the Bloc used against Poland in 1981) were no longer enough. Unlike Hungary in 1956, the Soviets could not send in their army because their army was busy in Afghanistan. Unlike Czechoslovakia in 1968, the rest of the Bloc could not send in their armies because they were too small to be effective after the defections.

After Solidarity forced the Polish Communist Party to the negotiating table in August 1988 and announced free elections, opposition groups in the rest of the Bloc used the same strategies. By the end of 1989, the USSR was the only Eastern Bloc country that had not effectively ended their 1-party system.

Gorbachev presided over this disaster in the Eastern Bloc. But the USSR still could have stayed together. Three things prevented this from happening:
1) once started, glastnost was impossible to rein in. More and more Soviets atrocities were revealed to the people, strengthening opposition movements.
2) the Baltics, Georgia, and Armenia used the same strategies as Solidarity and were only being kept in the USSR by force
3) Under pressure from opposition groups, the USSR allowed semi-free elections at the local level.

The semi-free elections led to Boris Yeltsin (a former Politboro member who had resigned from the Communist Party) being elected President of Russia (sort of like a governor in the USA, except his state had 50% of the population). When the inevitable hardline coup against Gorbachev was launched (from their point of view, he was a disaster), Yeltsin was able to defeat the coup. This put the anti-Communist Yeltsin at the center of real power and he outlawed the Communist Party and allowed the SSRs to




In short, we won the Cold War because the Soviets 1) the Soviets were deprived of allies they could call on in a crisis, 2) the Soviets allowed both internal dissent and free elections at the same time, leading to a crisis.

China isn't going to make mistake #2.

As for #1, it would be foolish of the USA to hand ready-made allies to China in the Persian Gulf. The wealthy oil republics would love to ally with the repressive Chinese dictatorship. Rather than enduring American lectures about human rights every time they want weapons, they could use Chinese intelligence technology to expand a police state over their own people and strengthen their hold on power.

I think this is a very interesting interview with a New S Wales senator and retired major Gen in the Aussie armed forces. He believes the Aussies are 3 years away from even being able to defend themselves (and thats only IF they really concentrated their budget on that cause---which is not the current case). He also is concerned that the US could effectively be eliminated from the fight for the region in a single day if the Chinese strike hard and fast. He says the key to watch for US readiness is the 2021 defense budget that eventually gets passed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg6japunx0A

(12-02-2021 05:51 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  I think this is a very interesting interview with a New S Wales senator and retired major Gen in the Aussie armed forces. He believes the Aussies are 3 years away from even being able to defend themselves (and thats only IF they really concentrated their budget on that cause---which is not the current case). He also is concerned that the US could effectively be eliminated from the fight for the region in a single day if the Chinese strike hard and fast. He says the key to watch for US readiness is the 2021 defense budget that eventually gets passed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg6japunx0A

Things like this is why we need Trump or someone like him in charge. He got the NATO countries to increase their military budgets.

Apparently, the most dangerous place for an aircraft carrier is in port. First the Russians only operating carrier was damaged by fire a couple of years ago while undergoing work in port. Then a US Amphib/carrier was damaged beyond repair by a massive fire while in port. Now a Chinese amphib/carrier has suffered a major fire while in port. So many major carrier fires in port so close together sure seems odd.

Navy, Marines Need to Retool Training to Meet Threat of China’s Rapid Military Expansion, Service Leaders Say

Quote:The speed China has expanded its military has changed the way the Navy and Marine Corps must approach training, service leadership said during a panel at the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference Tuesday.

Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday took the stage to discuss how the two sea services are adapting training models as they strive to compete with the country’s adversaries and meet the demands of a more technological age.

“We cannot be comfortable going at a comfortable deliberate pace anymore,” Berger said. “I think we could in the past. We cannot do that going forward.”

China, which the Pentagon has identified as the United States’ top military challenge, is pushing the U.S., Berger said, which is new. China has more people and more ships, which means training has to teach Marines and sailors how to think.

Both Berger and Gilday said the repetitive training model is still important, but training needs to move beyond that mindset. For Berger, that means training simulations need to put leaders in positions where they must learn to respond and adapt depending on the situation, including being able to talk to leadership.

Gilday spoke about the human performance aspect of “reps and sets,” something the Marine Corps’ Human Performance Branch is also looking at as part of the Marine Corps Talent Management 2030, USNI News recently reported.

While repetitive exercises are still a crucial component of training, what Gilday would like to see better identification of deficiencies so that sailors can improve.

“What we’re really after is warfighting proficiency, which reps and sets is an element of that,” he said.

In looking at training, the exercises that the fleet performs need to be based on the physical environments, as well as data-driven, Gilday said, adding that they need to be informed by how the U.S. fights as well as how its adversaries fight. They also need to be reliable and have a recording capability, he said.

Using an analytical framework when approaching training can help the Navy figure out what works and what does not, Gilday said.

But even as the Navy and Marine Corps train, sometimes together, they need to be able to try and think like the adversary, Berger said. That can be difficult because the Marine or sailor is taught under the culture of the Marine Corps or Navy.

“We need help creating a force-on-force construct that allows us to train against each other. Free-thinking but replicating the adversary, we want to plug into the model. We don’t have that yet,” he said. “We need it.”

Training also needs to account for the human aspect of service members. Take education, as an example, Berger said, which he identified as an area where the Marine Corps is moving too slowly.

Currently, Marines who show up on the same day for an educational program graduate together on the same day. That does not account for individuality in learning styles or encourage people to take on more educational challenges, the commandant said.

Aviation schooling is a model that could be adapted. Those who enter flight school on the same day may graduate on different timelines depending on how well they learn, he said.

Berger also highlighted the need to develop a baseline for tracking human performance and training, pointing to the Peloton networked exercise machines as an example. When a person uses one of the bikes, they can log into their profile, even if they are using a bike at a hotel. Being able to take a profile from place to place, or in the military’s case unit to unit, can help speed up the training process so Marines or sailors would not have to start over at a new unit, Berger said.

With training also comes recruitment, something the Marine Corps lays out in Talent Management 2030. But this also applies to civilian employees, Gilday said.

Right now, in the area of cyber, a person needs a four-year degree to get a job. But there are people, particularly focused on hacking, who might not earn that degree. The Navy needs to be able to adapt in order to find talent that might be overlooked, Gilday said.

The Marine Corps is also looking at recruiting, Berger said, but its challenge is not losing the reason a person might want to join the force. It is often for the culture and ethos, he said, not to develop skills.

Still, young Marines are now entering the force already digitally savvy, which means they can be connected with opportunities that would allow them to develop skills like cyber while also receiving the desire to serve, the commandant said.

The Navy is also looking at those inside the force to see who might have certain aptitudes for different careers, Gilday said, using cyber as an example.

The Department of the Navy is also looking to shape the force to be more diverse, looking at race, ethnicity and gender, but also different life experiences, he said. Both services need that diversity in order to maintain their sailors and Marines and prevent them from seeking other service branches or the civilian workforce.

“I think the Navy and Marine Corps [have] the opportunity to be the most diverse services in the Department of Defense, and I really think that we’re working hard to change the way we attract and recruit talent,” Gilday said.

(12-02-2021 01:19 PM)bobdizole Wrote:  

(12-02-2021 12:50 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(12-02-2021 11:42 AM)ODU BBALL Wrote:  

(12-02-2021 09:46 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(11-18-2021 11:37 PM)BigTigerMike Wrote:  

China has a much healthier economy that the Soviets did, at least on the surface. But there are huge problems underneath. Historically, China has seldom been a unified country because it's basically a bunch of people who don't like each other. The warlike Han in the north don't get along well with the commercial/industrial Shanghai and the Yangtze Valley, and neither of them like or are liked by the secessionist south, not to mention Tibet and the Uyghurs in the west. So what they do is export a lot of cheap consumer goods and use the cash flow to finance a bunch of make-work projects with little or no economic utility (remember the empty cities) to keep the peons too busy to revolt. So their banks have massive loans out to deals that will never generate a nickel of revenue. And the whole thing depends on imported oil from the Mideast, that has to come by sea through Malacca/Sunda, and PLAN (the Chinese navy) may be huge in numbers, but it is not a blue-water navy that can protect that shipping. We do that for them now. Pull the USN out of the Indian Ocean, and let pirates start hijacking tankers bound for China, and the whole thing collapses--their economy dies and their people starve to death. We hold all the cards, but we refuse to play them.

The problem there is that pirates don't tend to discriminate about who they attack. Other nations (including some allies) would be subject to having their shipping disrupted as well.

We need a Navy large enough to defend both of our "ocean moats" that protect the US. Any blue water navy that can do that wont have much issue with pirates attacking its shipping.

How difficult would it be to build a large relatively cheap stealthy autonomous VSTOL drone capable of carrying an anti-ship missile or a recon pod? How difficult would it be to build a quiet relatively long range underwater drone capable of effectively locating enemy vessels. It would be nice if the underwater drone could fire missiles and torpedoes---but even if it cant---it would still be a game changer.

Frankly, my concern is either of the above two development would make a large expensive manned conventional fleet extremely vulnerable. A cheap long range stealth drone that can fire missiles and can land on a small combatant like a frigate of LCS would be a game changer. An extremely quiet underwater drone than can hunt enemy ships and subs autonomously would be a game changer. I dont think the development of either of those potential threats are that far away and they need to be part of the calculus deciding what of any future Navy would look like a decade or two from now.

That drone would have to be much bigger than what we have now. A missile large enough to be a threat to a surface ship is a lot bigger than the hellfires the MQs carry now(almost 4-to-1 ratio). And a single missile fired would not pose much a threat to modern missile defense systems.

I think you are spot on with developing underwater drones though. The navy is currently working on one for EW purposes, but can't imagine it would be a challenge to add a couple torpedo tubes to them eventually. The question becomes how do you control them. Subs rely on stealth and any wireless communication would give away it's presence. I think the MK-48s use a fiber optic to control the torpedo while the sub maneuvers away from the launch point.

Snakehead: USN's largest UUV

Yes the drone aircraft would have to be bigger to do what I propose. A first step could be an off the shelf item like the Bell-247 that has the range and lift to carry a pod and weapons but lacks stealth. Still---it would extend the range and utility of smaller Navy vessels like the LCS and coming frigate. The big steps forward with the 247 is its big enough to carry a real anti-ship payload, has a range of over 2500 miles, is almost twice as fast as a helicopter, its wings swivel fold to have the same flootprint as a MH-60 helicopter, and it can operate completely autonomously if need be. Frankly, it seems to me it should not be that hard to merge the VTOL technology of the F35B with the the current MQ-24 tanker drone (which is somewhat stealthy). Another option would be just to scale down the F-35B to create a smaller drone version of itself. That would be ideal. The tech exists. Its just a matter of building a stealth VTOL drone with autonomous capability. I think we are going to need that long range autonomous capability because I think satellite capability may be an early casualty of any peer level conflict. If that happens---the process of locating enemy vessels is going to have as much in common with 1943 as it has with 2021.

Bell 247
https://www.bellflight.com/products/bell-v-247

(12-06-2021 02:21 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(12-02-2021 01:19 PM)bobdizole Wrote:  

(12-02-2021 12:50 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(12-02-2021 11:42 AM)ODU BBALL Wrote:  

(12-02-2021 09:46 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  China has a much healthier economy that the Soviets did, at least on the surface. But there are huge problems underneath. Historically, China has seldom been a unified country because it's basically a bunch of people who don't like each other. The warlike Han in the north don't get along well with the commercial/industrial Shanghai and the Yangtze Valley, and neither of them like or are liked by the secessionist south, not to mention Tibet and the Uyghurs in the west. So what they do is export a lot of cheap consumer goods and use the cash flow to finance a bunch of make-work projects with little or no economic utility (remember the empty cities) to keep the peons too busy to revolt. So their banks have massive loans out to deals that will never generate a nickel of revenue. And the whole thing depends on imported oil from the Mideast, that has to come by sea through Malacca/Sunda, and PLAN (the Chinese navy) may be huge in numbers, but it is not a blue-water navy that can protect that shipping. We do that for them now. Pull the USN out of the Indian Ocean, and let pirates start hijacking tankers bound for China, and the whole thing collapses--their economy dies and their people starve to death. We hold all the cards, but we refuse to play them.

The problem there is that pirates don't tend to discriminate about who they attack. Other nations (including some allies) would be subject to having their shipping disrupted as well.

We need a Navy large enough to defend both of our "ocean moats" that protect the US. Any blue water navy that can do that wont have much issue with pirates attacking its shipping.

How difficult would it be to build a large relatively cheap stealthy autonomous VSTOL drone capable of carrying an anti-ship missile or a recon pod? How difficult would it be to build a quiet relatively long range underwater drone capable of effectively locating enemy vessels. It would be nice if the underwater drone could fire missiles and torpedoes---but even if it cant---it would still be a game changer.

Frankly, my concern is either of the above two development would make a large expensive manned conventional fleet extremely vulnerable. A cheap long range stealth drone that can fire missiles and can land on a small combatant like a frigate of LCS would be a game changer. An extremely quiet underwater drone than can hunt enemy ships and subs autonomously would be a game changer. I dont think the development of either of those potential threats are that far away and they need to be part of the calculus deciding what of any future Navy would look like a decade or two from now.

That drone would have to be much bigger than what we have now. A missile large enough to be a threat to a surface ship is a lot bigger than the hellfires the MQs carry now(almost 4-to-1 ratio). And a single missile fired would not pose much a threat to modern missile defense systems.

I think you are spot on with developing underwater drones though. The navy is currently working on one for EW purposes, but can't imagine it would be a challenge to add a couple torpedo tubes to them eventually. The question becomes how do you control them. Subs rely on stealth and any wireless communication would give away it's presence. I think the MK-48s use a fiber optic to control the torpedo while the sub maneuvers away from the launch point.

Snakehead: USN's largest UUV

Yes the drone aircraft would have to be bigger to do what I propose. A first step could be an off the shelf item like the Bell-247 that has the range and lift to carry a pod and weapons but lacks stealth. Still---it would extend the range and utility of smaller Navy vessels like the LCS and coming frigate. The big steps forward with the 247 is its big enough to carry a real anti-ship payload, has a range of over 2500 miles, is almost twice as fast as a helicopter, its wings swivel fold to have the same flootprint as a MH-60 helicopter, and it can operate completely autonomously if need be. Frankly, it seems to me it should not be that hard to merge the VTOL technology of the F35B with the the current MQ-24 tanker drone (which is somewhat stealthy). Another option would be just to scale down the F-35B to create a smaller drone version of itself. That would be ideal. The tech exists. Its just a matter of building a stealth VTOL drone with autonomous capability. I think we are going to need that long range autonomous capability because I think satellite capability may be an early casualty of any peer level conflict. If that happens---the process of locating enemy vessels is going to have as much in common with 1943 as has with 2021.

Bell 247
https://www.bellflight.com/products/bell-v-247

I think you are 100% correct on that.

New Defense Bill Saves 2 Cruisers, Approves 13 Battle Force Ships; Adds 12 Super Hornets

Quote:Congressional authorizers are approving 13 battle force ships and saving two of the seven aging Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers the Navy tried to decommission, according to a draft of the National Defense Authorization Act.

An agreement reached by the House and Senate armed services committees authorizes 13 battle force ships, an increase of five ships from the eight the Navy sought in the Fiscal Year 2022 budget request.

The Fiscal Year 2022 policy bill, released today, authorizes funding for three Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, two Virginia-class attack boats, one Constellation-class frigate, two Expeditionary Fast Transport vessels, two John Lewis-class fleet oilers, two Navajo-class towing, salvage and rescue ships, and one T-AGOS(X) ocean surveillance ship.

The legislation also seeks to prevent the service from retiring all seven of the cruisers the Navy asked to decommission in its budget request. According to text of the legislation, the Pentagon cannot use any authorized money for FY 2022 “to retire, prepare to retire, inactivate, or place in storage more than 5 guided missile cruisers.”

Neither the text of the legislation nor the explanatory statement specified which cruisers the Navy could decommission. The House previously passed an amendment in its version of the bill that said the Navy could only retire USS Port Royal (CG-73), USS Vella Gulf (CG-72), USS Hué City (CG-66) and USS Anzio (CG-68). USS San Jacinto (CG-56), USS Lake Champlain (CG-57) and USS Monterey (CG-61) were spared in the House version, but it’s unclear if the Navy will be able to choose which five it can decommission under the bill.

Lawmakers also agreed to authorize money for 12 F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, despite the Navy’s pleas to end the production line. The addition of the 12 Super Hornets is meant “to mitigate the Navy’s strike-fighter shortfall and bolster tactical fighter aircraft capacity,” according to a summary of the bill.

While the Navy had planned to buy more Super Hornets in a multi-year procurement between FY 2022 and FY 2024, the service’s FY 2021 budget submission called for an end to the production line of the Boeing-built aircraft after that budget year. The Navy at the time said it would instead use that money to invest in its Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program, which includes a sixth-generation fighter.

Navy officials have argued the service doesn’t need to buy more Super Hornets and that any fighters it purchases now could not stand up to the threats they might face at the end of their service lives. But the committee has voiced concern about the Navy’s push to end a mature production line to develop new technologies.

The bill also includes language that would keep the Navy’s Board of Inspection and Survey (INSURV) reports, which assess the health of the service’s ships, going in perpetuity. The reports were set to end as of Oct. 1, 2021 if Congress did not address the matter, USNI News previously reported.

According to the explanatory statement accompanying the bill, authorizers agreed to eliminate the mandate that a classified version of the INSURV report go solely to the congressional defense panels. It also calls for the chief of naval operations to brief authorizers about the new Naval Safety Command the service is reorganizing. The statement cites the fire that destroyed the former amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) as the reason for the Navy’s decision to revamp its safety apparatus.

“We understand that based on the Navy’s investigation into the USS Bonhomme Richard fire the Chief of Naval Operations intends to restructure the Naval Safety Center into the Naval Safety Command with a more senior flag officer in command and a mandate to ensure safety best practices and lessons learned are more fully incorporated across the Navy,” the joint statement reads.

“Accordingly, we direct the Chief of Naval Operations to provide a briefing to the Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and the House of Representatives, not later than March 1, 2022, on the roles and responsibilities of the Naval Safety Command. This briefing shall include an assessment of the appropriateness of such Command, or another command, to conduct minimal or no-notice inspections of battle force ships undergoing depot maintenance for compliance with applicable safety, firefighting, and other procedures.”

The bill also calls for a report on the health of the Virginia-class attack submarine program, requiring the Navy secretary to provide congressional defense panels with the document within 120 days of the National Defense Authorization Act becoming law.

This version of the NDAA includes a $25 billion increase to the Pentagon’s budget, a move that comes after both House and Senate armed services committees approved similar increases in their marks of the bills. While the House passes its version of the NDAA in September, the policy bill has faced numerous hurdles in the Senate and has yet to receive a vote on the floor.

Authorizers’ release of the bill comes several days after President Joe Biden signed a second continuing resolution, as lawmakers also struggle to reach a deal on the FY 2022 spending bills. The current CR funds the government through Feb. 18, 2022.

But it’s unclear where appropriators will fall in their negotiations. Senate appropriators included a $24.7 top line increase to national defense spending in their draft of the spending bill, but the House Appropriations Committee followed the Biden administration’s budget and allotted $753 billion for national defense spending, with about $715 billion going to the Pentagon.

Cyber Presence Operations Key to Pentagon’s Gray Zone Conflict with China

Quote:Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday believes the best way to counter Chinese gray zone cyber operations is to “be in the way” as the Navy is by operating forward in the Indo-Pacific region.

“I see the Chinese in the physical [domain], in the maritime,” a global commons, the CNO said Saturday at the Reagan National Defense Forum. Gilday, the former commander of U.S. 10th Fleet, which is the Navy’s cyber operational arm, said he sees “cyberspace as another global commons [where the Chinese} are flagrantly disregarding international norms.”

“We have to be out there” in cyberspace in the same manner physical presence.

Picking up on the idea of “getting in the way,” U.S. Cyber Command chief and National Security Agency director Army Gen. Paul Nakasone added that “presence matters; we’ll [CYBERCOM] be there” even with small special operations teams. “This is not the future; it’s now.”

“2018 was a pivotal year for us” in locking in a doctrine of defending forward, he said. “This is a domain that our adversaries could move into quickly,” and that requires round-the-clock vigilance.

“We call that persistent engagement” and that means being on offense as well as defense.

Alex Karp, the chief executive officer of Palantir Technologies, added that despite America’s commanding lead in cyber software, “we have worthy adversaries.”

“We play fair” in developing these technologies, Karp said. And he found strength in the private sector being “willing to admit when we’re wrong” and build from there, something other nations don’t routinely do.

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, said the “single best thing” Congress and the executive branch has done in cyber was “to loosen the rules of engagement.” He said that policy change gives the flexibility necessary to Nakasone “to do what … [he] needs to do to defend” the United States.

He added this was particularly necessary because 80 percent of the nation’s critical infrastructure – from water and electrical systems to pipelines and financial transactions – are in the private sector. All this infrastructure would be at risk from cyber attack if Taiwan became the flashpoint for conflict between the U.S. and China.

“We should do nothing to slow down decision-making” in CYBERCOM’s ability to act, Gallagher said.

Nakasone and Gilday said several times during the forum session that “deterrence is about imposing costs” on an adversary. The CNO described effective cyber deterrence as requiring a “punishment pillar.”

“We’re trying to deter decision-makers [in China, Russia, North Korea and Iran] from doing something stupid,” he added.

In addition, Nakasone suggested there’s value in identifying cyber bad actors. “Let’s publish the top 25 malware” software products the Chinese have deployed. “That is [also] getting in the way.”

To confuse an adversary when they are hit, Gilday said “you don’t have to take credit for everything.” He wanted to leave doubt in an adversary’s mind over whether the cyber intrusion came from the U.S., one of its allies or partners, or even a rogue actor.

“Don’t bet against America. This is about capabilities,” he added. Gilday wanted U.S. cyber capabilities to be as “devilish and fiendish as we can be.”

During the session, Karp returned often to Silicon Valley’s reluctance to do business with the Defense Department but its willingness to do business with China. He said that split thinking made little sense to him. “We’ve been battling the Valley” over this issue for several years. He repeated questions he raised last year in a CNBC interview: “why are you doing something with an adversary that you’re not doing” with the U.S. government?

Karp said, “we’re already on the unpopular side” with that stance in the software business community.

The Manhattan Project, with its uniting of government, academic and industry expertise, should be the model for future cyber security efforts, Karp said.

Assessing other nations’ software, he added: “there really is no other number one than America.”

MQ-25A Unmanned Prototype Now on Carrier George H.W. Bush for At-Sea Testing

Quote:THE PENTAGON – The prototype for the Navy’s unmanned refueling tanker is now aboard a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier ahead of at-sea testing.

Rear Adm. Andrew Loiselle, who leads the chief of naval operation’s air warfare directorate (OPNAV N98), told USNI News in a recent interview that as of Tuesday, the T-1 prototype is aboard USS George H. W. Bush (CVN-77) for the ship’s carrier qualifications.

The tests for the Boeing-built MQ-25A Stingray are the next steps in providing a capability for the service to operate at longer ranges in regions like the Indo-Pacific, as it adjusts to a strategy focused on conflict with peer competitors like China and Russia.

“We’re making some great progress with T-1 and reducing risks for the program. And so the primary goal of this is to look at [performance] on the flight deck, in relevant flight deck wind conditions,” Loiselle said. “When you look at the intake on that thing up on the top of the aircraft, I’m very interested to know how that thing’s going to behave from an engine perspective with 25 plus knots of wind from all directions.”

Loiselle, who became the top aviation requirements officer in June, described MQ-25 as a crucial component of the Navy’s effort to gear up for operating at longer ranges, like those it would face in the Indo-Pacific region.

The prototype – which Boeing originally built for the Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program that was later retooled into a tanker – has already performed overland tests refueling an F/A-18F Super Hornet, an E-2D Advanced Hawkeye and an F-35C Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter.

The Navy plans to have warrant officers operating the tankers, with the first 10 currently going through “processing” ahead of a training that will be specific to the MQ-25A, Loiselle said. He noted that the Navy’s approach to unmanned aerial systems includes more autonomy than that of the Air Force.

“That degree of autonomy leads us to believe air vehicle operators are the way to do this. And then when we look at from a manpower perspective of what the training tracks are and the complexity of current tactics requiring people to stay in a given field in order to get the expertise necessary for the high-end fight, it’s hard to pull people out and have them do something different. Doesn’t mean that we couldn’t do it in a surge time or something along that path. But the thought is that an individual operator is going to be capable of controlling multiple drones simultaneously because of the autonomy involved.”

Loiselle said the Navy tried to make the MQ-25 requirements simple to expedite how fast it could get the aircraft out to the fleet, but now he is recommending other potential missions for the tanker.

“We kind of went skinny on the initial requirements for this in order to be sure that we’re able to go fast. So MQ-25 is capable of significantly more than we are asking it to do at [initial operational capability]. So at IOC, it needs to be able to operate around an aircraft carrier and be able to conduct aerial refueling and that’s as far as we went,” Loiselle said.
“The rest of it will be spiral developed because it’s got significant additional capabilities with a mission bay and weapons phase that, you know, we plan to take use of in the future. But we expect that thing to be able to pass around 15,000 pounds of gas 500 miles away from the carrier. And so you know, you can split that up and use it however you want to be able to use it. And so it’s got some significant capabilities that I think we’re going to look at adding in the future. But right now – that stuff – that’s all stuff I’m proposing and looking to get funded.”

Boeing beat out Lockheed Martin and General Atomics for the contract to build the carrier-based drone in 2018. The first few Engineering Development Model aircraft, currently under construction, are slated to come off the production line next year, while IOC is scheduled for Fiscal Year 2025.

While the Navy is currently focused on the refueling requirement, Loiselle said the service sees a future for the MQ-25 program to perform more missions like intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

“It’s something that on the last launch of the night, I can shoot that thing. And it’s – instead of me launching all my helicopters from all my destroyers – I’ve got an airborne asset that can stay up all through the night and provide that recognized maritime picture overnight. [It] saves me all the wear and tear on – I mean, I’m still going to be launching some helicopters, but I don’t need as many to be doing that,” he said. “And then I’m working on the manned-unmanned teaming portion of that. Now if the helicopters get a contact here and they can have an MQ-25 overhead moving at five times the speed of a helicopter, then that allows me to get those information points into the operational picture on a much more rapid manner.”

Tim Walton, a fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, said a future variant of the MQ-25 could help the Navy have an aircraft aboard its carriers that can operate at longer ranges and perform other missions.

“The MQ-25 has a great deal of potential not only for ISR, but also for other missions such as strike or airborne electronic attack,” Walton, who recently co-authored a report about aerial refueling, told USNI News.

Walton’s report argued that the U.S. military needs to invest more money in the aerial refueling mission to remain competitive against China in the Indo-Pacific.

For example, the Navy would need “far more” MQ-25 tankers or help from the Air Force if it were operating an aircraft carrier outside the range of China’s DF-26 missile – which is reportedly 4,000 kilometers – with four F-35Cs, according to the report.

“The addition of the MQ-25A to the [carrier air wing] will increase the operating range of other carrier aircraft; however, the increased standoff distance that carriers and other ships may need to maintain from dangerous threats, such as land, sea, and air-launched cruise, ballistic, and hypersonic missiles, may offset the opportunities enabled by the MQ-25A,” the report reads. “Moreover, the small number of MQ-25As currently planned for procurement may drive the Navy to operate MQ-25As as ‘recovery tankers’ that provide fuel to aircraft in exigencies to help them recover aboard the carrier, rather than ‘mission tankers’ that accompany aircraft on missions far from the carrier.”

Loiselle said discussions about expanding the MQ-25A program of record “are nascent and in pending budget and top line” review.

“Right now we don’t really know where we sit for [Fiscal Year 20]22, so it’s very hard for me to say where things are going to end up in the future right now,” he said.

As for China’s capabilities in the region, Loiselle pointed to the Navy’s pursuit of MQ-25 and the sixth-generation fighter program as evidence that naval aviation is seeking to keep up with the evolving threat environment.

“Just because we’ve had the next iteration of offensive capabilities doesn’t mean that there isn’t going to be a next iteration of defensive capabilities that match those requirements. So we look very closely at it. You can see the advent of the MQ-25 to extend the range of our current fighters. You can see the NGAD program coming up looking to operate at extended ranges. And so we’ve clearly recognized this and we have acquisition strategies in place that are going to mitigate” worries about China’s missile capability and potential targeting of U.S. aircraft carriers.

(12-13-2021 12:16 PM)CrimsonPhantom Wrote:  MQ-25A Unmanned Prototype Now on Carrier George H.W. Bush for At-Sea Testing

Quote:THE PENTAGON – The prototype for the Navy’s unmanned refueling tanker is now aboard a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier ahead of at-sea testing.

Rear Adm. Andrew Loiselle, who leads the chief of naval operation’s air warfare directorate (OPNAV N98), told USNI News in a recent interview that as of Tuesday, the T-1 prototype is aboard USS George H. W. Bush (CVN-77) for the ship’s carrier qualifications.

The tests for the Boeing-built MQ-25A Stingray are the next steps in providing a capability for the service to operate at longer ranges in regions like the Indo-Pacific, as it adjusts to a strategy focused on conflict with peer competitors like China and Russia.

“We’re making some great progress with T-1 and reducing risks for the program. And so the primary goal of this is to look at [performance] on the flight deck, in relevant flight deck wind conditions,” Loiselle said. “When you look at the intake on that thing up on the top of the aircraft, I’m very interested to know how that thing’s going to behave from an engine perspective with 25 plus knots of wind from all directions.”

Loiselle, who became the top aviation requirements officer in June, described MQ-25 as a crucial component of the Navy’s effort to gear up for operating at longer ranges, like those it would face in the Indo-Pacific region.

The prototype – which Boeing originally built for the Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program that was later retooled into a tanker – has already performed overland tests refueling an F/A-18F Super Hornet, an E-2D Advanced Hawkeye and an F-35C Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter.

The Navy plans to have warrant officers operating the tankers, with the first 10 currently going through “processing” ahead of a training that will be specific to the MQ-25A, Loiselle said. He noted that the Navy’s approach to unmanned aerial systems includes more autonomy than that of the Air Force.

“That degree of autonomy leads us to believe air vehicle operators are the way to do this. And then when we look at from a manpower perspective of what the training tracks are and the complexity of current tactics requiring people to stay in a given field in order to get the expertise necessary for the high-end fight, it’s hard to pull people out and have them do something different. Doesn’t mean that we couldn’t do it in a surge time or something along that path. But the thought is that an individual operator is going to be capable of controlling multiple drones simultaneously because of the autonomy involved.”

Loiselle said the Navy tried to make the MQ-25 requirements simple to expedite how fast it could get the aircraft out to the fleet, but now he is recommending other potential missions for the tanker.

“We kind of went skinny on the initial requirements for this in order to be sure that we’re able to go fast. So MQ-25 is capable of significantly more than we are asking it to do at [initial operational capability]. So at IOC, it needs to be able to operate around an aircraft carrier and be able to conduct aerial refueling and that’s as far as we went,” Loiselle said.
“The rest of it will be spiral developed because it’s got significant additional capabilities with a mission bay and weapons phase that, you know, we plan to take use of in the future. But we expect that thing to be able to pass around 15,000 pounds of gas 500 miles away from the carrier. And so you know, you can split that up and use it however you want to be able to use it. And so it’s got some significant capabilities that I think we’re going to look at adding in the future. But right now – that stuff – that’s all stuff I’m proposing and looking to get funded.”

Boeing beat out Lockheed Martin and General Atomics for the contract to build the carrier-based drone in 2018. The first few Engineering Development Model aircraft, currently under construction, are slated to come off the production line next year, while IOC is scheduled for Fiscal Year 2025.

While the Navy is currently focused on the refueling requirement, Loiselle said the service sees a future for the MQ-25 program to perform more missions like intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

“It’s something that on the last launch of the night, I can shoot that thing. And it’s – instead of me launching all my helicopters from all my destroyers – I’ve got an airborne asset that can stay up all through the night and provide that recognized maritime picture overnight. [It] saves me all the wear and tear on – I mean, I’m still going to be launching some helicopters, but I don’t need as many to be doing that,” he said. “And then I’m working on the manned-unmanned teaming portion of that. Now if the helicopters get a contact here and they can have an MQ-25 overhead moving at five times the speed of a helicopter, then that allows me to get those information points into the operational picture on a much more rapid manner.”

Tim Walton, a fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, said a future variant of the MQ-25 could help the Navy have an aircraft aboard its carriers that can operate at longer ranges and perform other missions.

“The MQ-25 has a great deal of potential not only for ISR, but also for other missions such as strike or airborne electronic attack,” Walton, who recently co-authored a report about aerial refueling, told USNI News.

Walton’s report argued that the U.S. military needs to invest more money in the aerial refueling mission to remain competitive against China in the Indo-Pacific.

For example, the Navy would need “far more” MQ-25 tankers or help from the Air Force if it were operating an aircraft carrier outside the range of China’s DF-26 missile – which is reportedly 4,000 kilometers – with four F-35Cs, according to the report.

“The addition of the MQ-25A to the [carrier air wing] will increase the operating range of other carrier aircraft; however, the increased standoff distance that carriers and other ships may need to maintain from dangerous threats, such as land, sea, and air-launched cruise, ballistic, and hypersonic missiles, may offset the opportunities enabled by the MQ-25A,” the report reads. “Moreover, the small number of MQ-25As currently planned for procurement may drive the Navy to operate MQ-25As as ‘recovery tankers’ that provide fuel to aircraft in exigencies to help them recover aboard the carrier, rather than ‘mission tankers’ that accompany aircraft on missions far from the carrier.”

Loiselle said discussions about expanding the MQ-25A program of record “are nascent and in pending budget and top line” review.

“Right now we don’t really know where we sit for [Fiscal Year 20]22, so it’s very hard for me to say where things are going to end up in the future right now,” he said.

As for China’s capabilities in the region, Loiselle pointed to the Navy’s pursuit of MQ-25 and the sixth-generation fighter program as evidence that naval aviation is seeking to keep up with the evolving threat environment.

“Just because we’ve had the next iteration of offensive capabilities doesn’t mean that there isn’t going to be a next iteration of defensive capabilities that match those requirements. So we look very closely at it. You can see the advent of the MQ-25 to extend the range of our current fighters. You can see the NGAD program coming up looking to operate at extended ranges. And so we’ve clearly recognized this and we have acquisition strategies in place that are going to mitigate” worries about China’s missile capability and potential targeting of U.S. aircraft carriers.

If you marry a stealth MQ-25 with VTOL capability----and add in some of the strike/recon capabilities discussed in the article---you are over the target with what I'd like to see. Now you're talking about something that can take off from cruisers, destroyers, and LCS platforms---which gives these vessels all sorts of new very flexible and dangerous capabilities. Essentially---these vessels all become little recon/strike carriers. The Bell-247 is kind of a cheap functional stop gap option that could potentially fill many of those functions while my imaginary VTOL MQ-25 goes from imagination to reality. In a Pacific war where satellite capabilities are limited or eliminated---having a fleet of vessels that launch long range aircraft that can cover a lot of ground much faster than a chopper (say 350 to 650 mile per hour)---with a range of 1000 to 2000 miles, the ability to stay aloft for over 12 hours---and the ability to operate AUTONOMOUSLY without a satellite uplink----then even a crappy LCS with 1 or two of these on board becomes a very useful and dangerous vessel.

Thats the direction I hope we take because it makes the hulls we already have so much more lethal---but at a relatively low cost.

(12-13-2021 07:02 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(12-13-2021 12:16 PM)CrimsonPhantom Wrote:  MQ-25A Unmanned Prototype Now on Carrier George H.W. Bush for At-Sea Testing

Quote:THE PENTAGON – The prototype for the Navy’s unmanned refueling tanker is now aboard a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier ahead of at-sea testing.

Rear Adm. Andrew Loiselle, who leads the chief of naval operation’s air warfare directorate (OPNAV N98), told USNI News in a recent interview that as of Tuesday, the T-1 prototype is aboard USS George H. W. Bush (CVN-77) for the ship’s carrier qualifications.

The tests for the Boeing-built MQ-25A Stingray are the next steps in providing a capability for the service to operate at longer ranges in regions like the Indo-Pacific, as it adjusts to a strategy focused on conflict with peer competitors like China and Russia.

“We’re making some great progress with T-1 and reducing risks for the program. And so the primary goal of this is to look at [performance] on the flight deck, in relevant flight deck wind conditions,” Loiselle said. “When you look at the intake on that thing up on the top of the aircraft, I’m very interested to know how that thing’s going to behave from an engine perspective with 25 plus knots of wind from all directions.”

Loiselle, who became the top aviation requirements officer in June, described MQ-25 as a crucial component of the Navy’s effort to gear up for operating at longer ranges, like those it would face in the Indo-Pacific region.

The prototype – which Boeing originally built for the Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program that was later retooled into a tanker – has already performed overland tests refueling an F/A-18F Super Hornet, an E-2D Advanced Hawkeye and an F-35C Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter.

The Navy plans to have warrant officers operating the tankers, with the first 10 currently going through “processing” ahead of a training that will be specific to the MQ-25A, Loiselle said. He noted that the Navy’s approach to unmanned aerial systems includes more autonomy than that of the Air Force.

“That degree of autonomy leads us to believe air vehicle operators are the way to do this. And then when we look at from a manpower perspective of what the training tracks are and the complexity of current tactics requiring people to stay in a given field in order to get the expertise necessary for the high-end fight, it’s hard to pull people out and have them do something different. Doesn’t mean that we couldn’t do it in a surge time or something along that path. But the thought is that an individual operator is going to be capable of controlling multiple drones simultaneously because of the autonomy involved.”

Loiselle said the Navy tried to make the MQ-25 requirements simple to expedite how fast it could get the aircraft out to the fleet, but now he is recommending other potential missions for the tanker.

“We kind of went skinny on the initial requirements for this in order to be sure that we’re able to go fast. So MQ-25 is capable of significantly more than we are asking it to do at [initial operational capability]. So at IOC, it needs to be able to operate around an aircraft carrier and be able to conduct aerial refueling and that’s as far as we went,” Loiselle said.
“The rest of it will be spiral developed because it’s got significant additional capabilities with a mission bay and weapons phase that, you know, we plan to take use of in the future. But we expect that thing to be able to pass around 15,000 pounds of gas 500 miles away from the carrier. And so you know, you can split that up and use it however you want to be able to use it. And so it’s got some significant capabilities that I think we’re going to look at adding in the future. But right now – that stuff – that’s all stuff I’m proposing and looking to get funded.”

Boeing beat out Lockheed Martin and General Atomics for the contract to build the carrier-based drone in 2018. The first few Engineering Development Model aircraft, currently under construction, are slated to come off the production line next year, while IOC is scheduled for Fiscal Year 2025.

While the Navy is currently focused on the refueling requirement, Loiselle said the service sees a future for the MQ-25 program to perform more missions like intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

“It’s something that on the last launch of the night, I can shoot that thing. And it’s – instead of me launching all my helicopters from all my destroyers – I’ve got an airborne asset that can stay up all through the night and provide that recognized maritime picture overnight. [It] saves me all the wear and tear on – I mean, I’m still going to be launching some helicopters, but I don’t need as many to be doing that,” he said. “And then I’m working on the manned-unmanned teaming portion of that. Now if the helicopters get a contact here and they can have an MQ-25 overhead moving at five times the speed of a helicopter, then that allows me to get those information points into the operational picture on a much more rapid manner.”

Tim Walton, a fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, said a future variant of the MQ-25 could help the Navy have an aircraft aboard its carriers that can operate at longer ranges and perform other missions.

“The MQ-25 has a great deal of potential not only for ISR, but also for other missions such as strike or airborne electronic attack,” Walton, who recently co-authored a report about aerial refueling, told USNI News.

Walton’s report argued that the U.S. military needs to invest more money in the aerial refueling mission to remain competitive against China in the Indo-Pacific.

For example, the Navy would need “far more” MQ-25 tankers or help from the Air Force if it were operating an aircraft carrier outside the range of China’s DF-26 missile – which is reportedly 4,000 kilometers – with four F-35Cs, according to the report.

“The addition of the MQ-25A to the [carrier air wing] will increase the operating range of other carrier aircraft; however, the increased standoff distance that carriers and other ships may need to maintain from dangerous threats, such as land, sea, and air-launched cruise, ballistic, and hypersonic missiles, may offset the opportunities enabled by the MQ-25A,” the report reads. “Moreover, the small number of MQ-25As currently planned for procurement may drive the Navy to operate MQ-25As as ‘recovery tankers’ that provide fuel to aircraft in exigencies to help them recover aboard the carrier, rather than ‘mission tankers’ that accompany aircraft on missions far from the carrier.”

Loiselle said discussions about expanding the MQ-25A program of record “are nascent and in pending budget and top line” review.

“Right now we don’t really know where we sit for [Fiscal Year 20]22, so it’s very hard for me to say where things are going to end up in the future right now,” he said.

As for China’s capabilities in the region, Loiselle pointed to the Navy’s pursuit of MQ-25 and the sixth-generation fighter program as evidence that naval aviation is seeking to keep up with the evolving threat environment.

“Just because we’ve had the next iteration of offensive capabilities doesn’t mean that there isn’t going to be a next iteration of defensive capabilities that match those requirements. So we look very closely at it. You can see the advent of the MQ-25 to extend the range of our current fighters. You can see the NGAD program coming up looking to operate at extended ranges. And so we’ve clearly recognized this and we have acquisition strategies in place that are going to mitigate” worries about China’s missile capability and potential targeting of U.S. aircraft carriers.

If you marry a stealth MQ-25 with VTOL capability----and add in some of the strike/recon capabilities discussed in the article---you are over the target with what I'd like to see. Now you're talking about something that can take off from cruisers, destroyers, and LCS platforms which gives these vessels all sorts of new capabilities. They all become little recon/strike carriers. The Bell-247 is kind of a cheap functional stop gap option that could potentially fill many of those functions while my imaginary VTOL MQ-25 goes from imagination to reality.

Drone swarms could be very useful for Cruisers and Destroyers.

I'm waiting for the day when a shoe box size drone pops off the top of Police Cars to provide a video link back to the station/ over watch for officers.

COVID Epidemic Among 'Fully Vaccinated' US Navy Crew Knocks USS Milwaukee out of Action

Quote:The USS Milwaukee was supposed to be participating in a counternarcotics operation in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific Ocean. Instead, it is tied up at a pier at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, cooling its heels.nThe reason is that the ship was hit with a COVID outbreak. But it wasn’t just any outbreak; it was an outbreak among a crew that was fully immunized.

A coronavirus outbreak aboard the USS Milwaukee, whose entire crew was “100 percent immunized,” has forced the ship to remain in port after a scheduled stop in Cuba barely one week into its deployment, the Navy announced Friday.

An unspecified “portion” of the Milwaukee’s 105-person crew is isolated aboard the ship at Naval Station Guantánamo Bay, according to Cmdr. Kate Meadows, a spokeswoman for U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command. The Navy does not disclose infection counts “at the crew/unit level,” she said in an email.

Some of the personnel who tested positive for the virus have displayed mild symptoms, Meadows said. Officials have not determined whether the highly transmissible omicron variant — which has demonstrated an ability to evade coronavirus vaccines, leading to a surge in breakthrough infections — is responsible for the Milwaukee’s outbreak.

Meadows would not disclose whether any of those infected had received booster shots or if Navy leaders may seek to require them in a bid to prevent future outbreaks during the deployment. “Boosters,” she said, “are not yet mandatory but recommended.”

The fact that the Navy refuses to disclose the number of cases leads me to believe that the number is very close to “all.” That the Navy isn’t forthcoming with the number of sailors with “boosters” is also an indication that number is “all.” We also have a sure sign that the Navy is grasping for straws on how to handle a mass infection of vaccinated sailors.

Meadows said Saturday that the ship’s commanders are working with senior military leaders to make that determination and that, in the meantime, they have imposed a mask mandate for all personnel aboard.

“When in danger, when in doubt; run in circles, scream and shout.”

There are so many glaring questions that need exploration. For instance, if the symptoms are “minor,” why was the ship pulled out of a major deployment? Is the new normal for our Navy running for port when there is a COVID outbreak? What is being done for the infected sailors in Guantanamo that could not be accomplished while underway?

As many of us have said from the earliest days of the pandemic scaremongering, the virus is with us forever. We need to learn to live with it as part of the landscape. The fatally flawed strategy of focusing on a vaccine rather than on therapeutics has been a multi-billion dollar boondoggle and a waste of time. All of these sailors were “fully vaccinated,” and yet there was an outbreak.

The idea that we can have a Navy warship rendered combat ineffective by a virus for which the crew has been vaccinated is just not acceptable. It is not only a failure of “public health,” which is something of a redundancy these days but a failure of military leadership.

Feminist Left Largely Silent as Patriotic Female Naval Officer Achieves Historic First

Quote:Read More: https://t.co/SFqAlrW2y8

?️ by: MC3 Jeffrey F. Yale pic.twitter.com/BDE6DuD8yd

— U.S. Navy (@USNavy) August 20, 2021

Quote: Capt. Amy Bauernschmidt, who assumed command of the Abraham Lincoln in August, is the first woman to skipper a U.S. aircraft carrier. https://t.co/szStacMevy

— Stars and Stripes (@starsandstripes) January 4, 2022