(06-20-2021 09:02 PM)U_of_Elvis Wrote:  I saw an idea the other day that was too logical for the US government to use. Ditch the fancy gun with no ammo and mount MLRS on a stabilized mount on the Zumwalts to give them 70km ground pounding range. It sounded like the marines had tested firing a tracked MLRS from an LHD.
I know it would have been stupid expensive, but it would have been cool to put the Iowa class back to sea with the rear turret replaced with a 96 cell vertical cell launcher to go with the 10 coffin box launchers and 6 x 16in guns.

I have some ideas that I'd like to see.

Your MLRS on a frigate with 2 155mm guns that use Army 155mm howitzer ammo, and counter-battery radar and fire control, for close-in fire support of amphibious and ashore operations. It would be part of the amphibious squadron.

A battleship based on the 1980s battlecarrier concept (1). That replaced the rear turret with 320 VLS cells and an angled deck with ski jump for 20 AV-8s. I would replace 128 of the VLS cells with larger cells (on a 4:1 basis) to carry 32 large missiles, either supersonic/hypersonic anti-ship/anti-surface cruise missiles like the Russian Shipwreck that the Kirovs carried or a short/intermediate-range-ballistic-missile (SRBM/IRBM).

A cruiser to replace the Ticos based on a Des Moines hull, with 8-inch gun mounts fore and aft, 128 regular VLS cells and 16 large cells, and a flight deck in the middle to operate multiple helos and UAVs, with a hangar underneath from which small USVs and UUVs could be launched over the side. It would look something like the WWII flight deck cruiser concept (2).

One thing that killed both the battlecarrier and the flight deck cruiser was headcount requirements, particularly the number of people needed to run the steam propulsion plants. I'd go with something less labor intensive, like the Makin Island hybrid diesel-electric/gas turbine plant. It produces 70,000 HP and drives a 40,000T boxy LHD hull through the water at up to 25 knots. That should be enough to drive a streamlined 20,000T cruiser hull well over 30 knots. And 2 of them would fit in the battleship, and give it 140,000 HP, while a similar turbo-electric plant producing 160,000 HP powered the 90,000T French liner Normandie up to 34 knots so that should give enough speed for a 60,000T battle carrier.

I would also build a mix of nuclear and conventional carriers, in sufficient numbers to form 2-carrier (1 nuke, 1 conventional) carrier battle groups (CVBGs) that would pair up to form the modern version of ADM Marc Mitscher's WWII 4-carrier carrier task forces (CTFs). In that structure, the nukes would be Nimitzes, not Fords, and the conventional CVs would be Kitty Hawks. I would guess that we could construct a Nimitz ($9B) and a Kitty ($6B) for about the cost of a Ford ($14B) and get almost twice the capability for roughly the same bucks. As an interim measure, while waiting for the conventional carriers to be built, I would convert the LHAs/LHDs to interim Lightning Carriers to work with the CVNs. I would guess that their service lives would expire about the time that new conventional carriers could be built and enter the fleet, at which time they'd be swapped out on a 1-for-1 basis.

For sailors for these ships, I'd look to restructure the Navy's existing personnel. CBO says the Navy and Marines together have 234,000 active duty combat personnel, 94,000 active duty combat support personnel, 204,000 active duty admin/overhead personnel, and 97,000 reservists, total 629,000 (3). I would cut admin/overhead in half, move 1/3 to combat, 1/6 to combat support, and the rest to the reserves, plus doubling the reserves. Result would be 268,000 combat, 111,000 combat support, 102,000 admin/overhead, and 194,000 reservists, total 675,000.

I've got more ideas, including completely restructuring our amphibious fleet, but those are enough for now.

(1) https://warisboring.com/the-battlecarrie...t-carrier/
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_deck_cruiser
(3) https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57088