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The Navy We Need
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WoodlandsOwl Offline
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Post: #21
RE: The Navy We Need
(12-24-2018 06:18 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  
(12-23-2018 11:39 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(12-23-2018 10:39 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  
(12-23-2018 10:05 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Agree about the Fords. As they become more and more vulnerable--it makes less and less sense to sink 14 billion into each one. When you consider the closest thing anyone else has to our carriers would be something similar to our amphibs---10 or 11 Fords seems like overkill.
I am not sure about any Fords until they come up with reliable solutions to their catapult, arresting gear, and ordnance elevator issues. One other problem has come to light, which is that the EMALS catapult system apparently broadcasts electronic emissions like a beacon for detection and homing. I guess I just never understood why steam was so bad.
Of course, I don't know how vulnerable a carrier really is. Against Russia or China, maybe they ave weapons that can attack them. But if Syria or Libya is acting up, we can send a carrier and they are not likely to have anything capable of attacking it.
Quote:I still go back to---what do you want to accomplish with your Navy? Maybe we need to at least consider a more limited mission. We also need to be smarter and faster about how we make spending decisions. By the time the Littoral Combat Ship was ready to deploy---the world we faced didn't really need a pumped up coastal patrol vessel as much as it needed a little blue water frigate with decent over the horizon anti-aircraft and ship killing capability (which the LCS was incapable of either).
The LCS may be a bigger waste than the Fords. At least the Fords are useful if/when everything eventually works (although in this era of stealth, I find the emissions issue troubling). The closest thing I can come to a justification for the LCSs is that somebody thought, "Gee, wouldn't it be cool to have a 40-knot ship." So we sacrificed everything for speed and ended up with something that as no identifiable use.
Honestly---I think the idea was they would be a cheap way to jack up the Navy ship count---and with the modules---they could be used to show the flag and handle a number of different duties. But...like you said--they were really nothing more than kinda pumped up coast guard cutters that were cool cuz they were kinda fast. I think the idea was they had flexibility to handle different missions---but much like the F35---that flexibility meant they really werent great at anything.

Only they aren't all that cheap.

One problem (of many) is that the modules don't work, perhaps because the platform is unsuited to the task. MCM makes no sense because the last thing you want to do is go tooling around a minefield at 40 knots; you need a smaller and more maneuverable platform. ASW doesn't work because those 40-knot engines are way too noisy. The helo decks were built lightly to preserve speed and are not sturdy enough to handle anything our small helos. Basically, everything was sacrificed for speed.

Too bad they don't still do Ethiopian navy days. We could take it there and it could win the ship race. If we could keep the engines running. How many have actually made it through a deployment without having to be towed home?

My input:

NAVSEA screwed up 20 years ago when they let the contractors HII, LOCKMART, BIW, etc dictate the design and later production modifications. NAVSEA should have locked in KPP and held the contractors to the standard, But they didn't because the contractors promised pie in the sky performances in Flight 2 +++++ versions but which they fail to produce. Bait and switch.

How many O-6+ that worked in the PEO for these programs now are on the Board for these contractors?

What do you have in the past 20 years Naval R&D??

A Stealth DDG that has no NGFS.
A Stealth DDG that has a marginal electric power plant.
A LCS that is married to the Pier; Even when its underway it suffers an engineering casualty because the design is fragile.
A CVN that cant launch aircraft at an effective warload.

Its all MilContractor Pork
12-28-2018 05:11 PM
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DustMyBroom Offline
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Post: #22
RE: The Navy We Need
(12-24-2018 06:18 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  
(12-23-2018 11:39 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  
(12-23-2018 10:39 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  
(12-23-2018 10:05 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Agree about the Fords. As they become more and more vulnerable--it makes less and less sense to sink 14 billion into each one. When you consider the closest thing anyone else has to our carriers would be something similar to our amphibs---10 or 11 Fords seems like overkill.
I am not sure about any Fords until they come up with reliable solutions to their catapult, arresting gear, and ordnance elevator issues. One other problem has come to light, which is that the EMALS catapult system apparently broadcasts electronic emissions like a beacon for detection and homing. I guess I just never understood why steam was so bad.
Of course, I don't know how vulnerable a carrier really is. Against Russia or China, maybe they ave weapons that can attack them. But if Syria or Libya is acting up, we can send a carrier and they are not likely to have anything capable of attacking it.
Quote:I still go back to---what do you want to accomplish with your Navy? Maybe we need to at least consider a more limited mission. We also need to be smarter and faster about how we make spending decisions. By the time the Littoral Combat Ship was ready to deploy---the world we faced didn't really need a pumped up coastal patrol vessel as much as it needed a little blue water frigate with decent over the horizon anti-aircraft and ship killing capability (which the LCS was incapable of either).
The LCS may be a bigger waste than the Fords. At least the Fords are useful if/when everything eventually works (although in this era of stealth, I find the emissions issue troubling). The closest thing I can come to a justification for the LCSs is that somebody thought, "Gee, wouldn't it be cool to have a 40-knot ship." So we sacrificed everything for speed and ended up with something that as no identifiable use.
Honestly---I think the idea was they would be a cheap way to jack up the Navy ship count---and with the modules---they could be used to show the flag and handle a number of different duties. But...like you said--they were really nothing more than kinda pumped up coast guard cutters that were cool cuz they were kinda fast. I think the idea was they had flexibility to handle different missions---but much like the F35---that flexibility meant they really werent great at anything.

Only they aren't all that cheap.

One problem (of many) is that the modules don't work, perhaps because the platform is unsuited to the task. MCM makes no sense because the last thing you want to do is go tooling around a minefield at 40 knots; you need a smaller and more maneuverable platform. ASW doesn't work because those 40-knot engines are way too noisy. The helo decks were built lightly to preserve speed and are not sturdy enough to handle anything our small helos. Basically, everything was sacrificed for speed.

Too bad they don't still do Ethiopian navy days. We could take it there and it could win the ship race. If we could keep the engines running. How many have actually made it through a deployment without having to be towed home?

You guys have hit on many issues of the modern navy, but have missed on why we don’t build armored ships any more. Basically, the WW II era Navy realized the compromises inherent in ships with heavy passive armor weren’t worth the reduction in damage control capability and sea going ability. The best comparative example is the cases of the USS Pennsylvania (BB-38), struck by an air launched torpedo on August 12, 1945, and the USS Meredith (DD-726), which struck a mine off Normandy on June 9, 1944. Despite being at anchor, the battleship Pennsylvania (Arizona’s sister ship) nearly sank. The ship was struck in the extreme stern. The presence of an armored deck over the steering gear limited the upward extent of the damage, but did nothing to prevent the fore and aft flooding which nearly sank the ship. In fact, it exacerbated the problem because it was necessary in the design phase to pare weight in the stern to get more armor amidships, which resulted in spaces with reduced headroom (I.e. not enough room to operate emergency pumps) and little resistance to flooding. The destroyer Meredith struck a magnetic mine while patrolling inshore as a defense against fast German attack boats operating off Normandy. The Meredith’s mission closely resembles that of many modern craft of her size (2700 tons, 376 feet long overall). Despite a massive underwater hole and the disintegration of the hull girder (she “broke her back”), the Meredith needed a severe offshore storm and several near misses from an air raid before sinking, 29.5 hours later. With examples like these in hand, the navy concluded that armor was a hindrance to damage control, and that it needed a stronger ship structure coupled with better onboard damage control.

Both ships suffered the type of damage expected from weapons that would be in use post-war. Japanese air dropped torpedoes had a much smaller explosive charge than the type of German magnetic mine in use off Normandy. The fact that the massive Pennsylvania nearly succumbed to what should have been materially insignificant damage was eye opening. The torpedo had little effect on overall hull strength. The US Navy nearly lost a battleship due entirely to uncontrolled localized flooding.

Fast forward to 12 October, 2000. Al Qaeda uses a suicide boat to blast a 40 foot by 60 foot hole in the USS Cole (DDG-67). Despite using a similar amount of a considerably more powerful explosive than what the Germans used and attacking in a similar manner, the Cole’s keel wasn’t even damaged. Damage control efforts had the flooding controlled within minutes despite losing power. The ship was never in any danger of sinking, and could have fired on further attackers if it had been necessary.

Thus, the change in the modern US Navy is away from heavy passive protection toward increased active protection mated to a much stronger hull girder. This girder is attached to frames meant to flex in the face of shock damage or explosion (or heavy seas...we did lose at least four WW II destroyers to capsizing in storms). These frames are in turn attached to very high tensile strength steel plates (HY-80, a plan to develop HY-100 plates was dropped due to the fact they would more than double the cost of the plates).

Would a battleship with thick side armor have survived the type of damage the Cole received? Yes...and no. The battleship would not have had the large hole in her side like the Cole. However, differences in tensile strength between the thick armored plates and the milder steel hull plates would have amplified the shock damage the ship received, resulting in extensive, and difficult to control, for and aft flooding. Limited access to spaces near the armor (drilling access holes in armor plating greatly reduces its effectiveness) would have made control even more difficult. The great “wing” weight represented by the side armor would have also increased angular momentum as the ship took on water. This would have greatly increased the chances of the ship capsizing, from practically zero in the Cole to a near certainty in the battleship if the fore and aft flooding couldn’t be controlled quickly enough.

TL;DR: The modern US Navy trades crew survivability and a greater initial extent of damage for an overall more survivable ship.
12-29-2018 07:57 PM
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DustMyBroom Offline
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Post: #23
RE: The Navy We Need
I nearly forgot about the catapults. That change is an issue of steam. Specifically, catapults require high temperature (I.e. “dry”) high pressure steam to operate on. The nuclear reactor designs used by the US Navy produce saturated, medium temperature steam that is useless for catapult operation. The solution adopted in the Enterprise and all ten Nimitzes was to install a separate boiler specifically to further heat and dry out the excess steam from the reactors. The need to protect this system from damage as a necessary part of catapult operations complicates internal arrangement, especially on the hangar deck. The system’s spare parts alone add several tons of weight that is difficult to stow. The electromagnetic system is supposed to be much lighter, less complicated, and has far fewer moving parts.

Perhaps the biggest fault of steam catapults is their inability to launch lightweight unmanned aerial vehicles. The current solution used in testing is to have the craft do a rolling takeoff, which is considered unworkable in combat. Basically, the Nimitzes can’t operate most UAVs at all (only the heaviest and very very light ones).
12-29-2018 08:39 PM
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