Its interesting that there is a MASSIVE difference between the level of concern involving China in the US media vs the Australian media. The Australians seem to think war with China is could happen at any time---but is most likely to occur within 3 to 10 years. The Aussies are becoming increasingly concerned that they are nowhere near ready....and their biggest fear is we arent either.

(11-19-2021 12:45 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Its interesting that there is a MASSIVE difference between the level of concern involving China in the US media vs the Australian media. The Australians seem to think war with China is could happen at any time---but is most likely to occur within 3 to 10 years. The Aussies are becoming increasingly concerned that they are nowhere near ready....and their biggest fear is we arent either.

Australia is much closer and has fewer people to deal with the problem. Plus there’s been a fear of Asia among Australians since at least the early days of WWII. To give you an idea of how close, remember the Battle of the Coral Sea? The coral in the Coral Sea is the Great Barrier Reef. And the Japanese launched air raids on Darwin from New Guinea.

It is interesting how they dealt with it. They decided that they needed way more European immigration, so as soon as WWII ended they chartered as many ships as they could, parked them in ports all around Europe, and for the equivalent of ten pounds sterling, you could book passage to Australia for you and your family, and a grant of land when you got there—I think it was 2 hectares (4 acres). The so-called “ten pound poms” (Pommie is Aussie slang for European—originally English—immigrants) were the major factor in growth of the Australian population in the late 40s and early 50s.. The ships quickly filled up with Eastern Europeans who had spent ten years running from Hitler and now were running from Stalin. Most of them sailed to Melbourne, where the passengers tended to settle in ethnic neighborhoods. Greeks here, Czechs there, Poles over yonder, and so forth. Because of the size of the land grants, the Melbourne suburbs are way spread out. What we call Aussie rules football is basically a Melbourne-area phenomenon, and the various teams represent the various neighborhoods, so the games tend to be like a mini-World-Cup game atmosphere in the stands.


As far as their fear that we aren’t ready, that is legitimate because we aren’t

(11-19-2021 12:45 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Its interesting that there is a MASSIVE difference between the level of concern involving China in the US media vs the Australian media. The Australians seem to think war with China is could happen at any time---but is most likely to occur within 3 to 10 years. The Aussies are becoming increasingly concerned that they are nowhere near ready....and their biggest fear is we arent either.

Like the man stated IF Afghanistan was any indicator with Dumb & Dumber leading our troops and taking orders from the dumbest President in US history then Taiwan & Australia need not count on this clown show for anything other than throwing up a white flag.

Hypersonic Weapons on Track to Deploy on Attack Submarines in 2028

Quote:ARLINGTON, Va. — The Navy is still on track to deploy hypersonic weapons on its attack submarines in 2028, a service official said Thursday.

While the first Zumwalt-class destroyer will get a hypersonic weapon in 2025, the first Virginia-class submarine will deploy with hypersonics in 2028, Strategic Systems Programs director Vice Adm. Johnny Wolfe said today at the annual Naval Submarine League symposium.

“We are on a path and we’ve been hitting our milestones. We’ve been doing everything that we told Congress we were going to do. We’re going to deploy Conventional Prompt Strike – well for the Army it’s called Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon – or the all-up round. It is going to be exactly the same for the Army and the Navy and the Navy – whether it goes on Zumwalt or whether it goes on Virginia – it is the exact same round,” Wolfe said.

“We’re going to deploy it to the Army in FY-23 – they’ll deploy their first battery. We’re on a path to get to the first Zumwalt in ’25,” he added. “And then we’re on a path to get to the first Virginia class in ‘28, once that submarine comes out with Virginia Payload Module. And we’re looking at ways – can we accelerate that even sooner and to the block buys with the Virginia.”

Wolfe said that while the Navy originally intended to field hypersonics on the four guided-missile variants of the Ohio-class submarines in 2025, it had to alter plans due to budget cuts that prevented the service from building an underwater test facility. Because of the delay and the impending retirement of the Ohio-class boats, the Navy opted to put the weapons on the Virginia-class submarines instead.

“We’ve got to restart this year our in-air-launch testing. We got put on pause because of budget, because of some budget cuts. But we’re going to restart that this year. And that in-air-launch testing really is to make sure that we understand ultimately how we’re going to get to Virginia. We’re going to resume building and we are going to build an underwater launch test facility that is going to be absolutely critical to proving this before we get to the first Virginia class,” Wolfe said.
“And that’s going to give us, again, a full-up test facility so that we understand how that system’s going to work as it comes out.”

Asked how the Navy could speed up the timeline to place hypersonics on the Virginia-class boats, Wolfe said it depends on completion of the underwater facility.

“We’re trying to leverage Zumwalt even though it’s different – it’s a surface platform – but a lot of the things that we’re going to test on Zumwalt are still going to be applicable to Virginia. And we’re looking at how we can get that learning to get to a platform sooner,” Wolfe said. “But a lot of it’s going to be driven by how much budget do we have to get the underwater launch test facility done, to get the rounds into production, so that if we’ve got a platform that’s available earlier, the weapons system will be ready to go on that.”

The Zumwalt-class destroyer will be the first at-sea platform to field hypersonic weapons in 2025, USNI News previously reported. Wolfe said the Navy and the shipbuilders are still figuring out the maximum number of hypersonic weapons the Zumwalt destroyers can carry.

As the service gears up for this timeline, the Navy will perform two all-up round flight tests in Fiscal Year 2022.

“We’re going to do all of the other testing around it to make sure it is safe, and make sure that we understand all of these sensitive munitions, and all of the things,” Wolfe said. “And we’re going to start ramping up to where we get to five advanced payload modules, which will go into the DDG-1000 and go into the Virginia.”

The Navy recently performed several tests for Conventional Prompt Strike, the name for the service’s hypersonic weapons program. Late last month, the Navy announced it performed the second of two first stage tests of the solid rocket motor in Utah.

“If you just look at where we’ve been at here in the last year, we’ve actually had three successful solid rocket motor static tests here recently. We did three of them. We did two first stage and we did one second stage. We’ve completed our first slug test that proves that we understand the capability to actually eject this weapon – because it’s got to be cold launch, right,” Wolfe said.
“So we just came through understanding all of that technology on how we’re going to do cold launch and that was extremely successful. We’ve completed our first vibration test vehicle, which is really the first full-up vehicle that we’ve built in the new facility that was stood up to produce this weapon. We’ve done that. And we’ve actually had it out, we’ve actually shipped it out to prove all the logistics as well.”

Wolfe also pointed to a recent test at Wallops Island last month, when the service launched three rockets in one day, as an example of how the Navy can now experiment with multiple technologies at once that may be at different phases of development. The three-rocket test featured 21 experiments, he said.

To ensure sailors continue to field the most updated technology, the Navy adds in time for the program to receive new technology into its schedule ahead of time.

“We’ve got technology insertion points on two-year centers. So every two years, when we have a technology that’s ready – that’s either been proved in labs and we’ve got confidence in it, or that we’ve done sounding rocket tests – whatever it is, when it’s to the right technology readiness level, we’ve already had pre-designated insertion points planned in the program that we’re going to cut it in,” Wolfe said.
“When a technology’s ready, we’re going to figure out how to get it into the system because that’s how we’re going to stay ahead of what everybody else is doing. That’s how we’re going to continue to put capability in our warfighter’s hand.”

Pentagon officials have recently voiced concern over a hypersonic test China performed over the summer. Outgoing Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John Hyten told reporters last month that the U.S. has conducted nine hypersonic tests in the last five years, while China has performed hundreds during the same timeframe.

“Single digits versus hundreds is not a good place. Now it doesn’t mean we’re not moving fast for the development process of hypersonics. But what it does tell you is that our approach to development is fundamentally different than it used to be,” Hyten said at the time.

Wolfe argued that the U.S. understands the hypersonic technology, but has only recently had an urgent need for it due to a strategy focused on countering China and Russia.

“We’ve been looking at hypersonics for 20 plus years okay, alright. It’s just up until we’ve gotten to this point of great power competition and we’ve watched what China’s doing from the [anti-access and area denial], right, and [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command] and we watch what Russia’s now doing in the Atlantic – I will tell you it’s not a fact of do we understand the technology. We understand the technology. We just never had a need prior to this to really take that technology and turn it into a system that we can” use, Wolfe said.

The admiral said the industrial base buildup has already started so it can keep up with demand once the military starts fielding hypersonics on the designated platforms.

“We’ve got to do everything that we can do in parallel, not serial, with a sense of urgency so that when we have successful flight tests coming up here and we get ready to deploy this system to the Army, to DDG-1000, and ultimately Virginia, we have already got the capacity to be able to meet the demand of what the [combatant commanders] are going to want. So we’ve really started that.”

While Wolfe is focused on offensive hypersonics, he said he often confers with Missile Defense Agency director Vice Adm. Jon Hill to share information that could help MDA determine the best ways to defense against the hypersonic capabilities of Russia and China.

“Every time we test some of our systems, right, you can count on the fact that I’m talking to Adm. Hill at the Missile Defense Agency so that the learning we get for our offensive systems, he gets that learning to understand what does that mean to him in the missile defense world so that he can start to look at how he would counter what China and Russia are doing in hypersonics,” Wolfe said.

Guam Needs SM-6 Missile for Hypersonic Defense, Navy Admiral Says

Quote:Guam “would absolutely need” the Navy’s SM-6 missile for its defense against a hypersonic missile attack, the program executive for Aegis ballistic missile defense said Thursday.

Rear Adm. Tom Druggan called the SM-6 “our leading defense capability for hypersonic missile defense.” It is “a fantastic missile, just absolutely great missile” because of its versatility.

Speaking at the United States Naval Institute’s maritime security series at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, he added that “we really need HMD [hypersonic missile defense]” for Guam.

Druggan was speaking days after Russia successfully destroyed one of its older satellites in a missile test, scattering more than 1,500 articles of debris in space. Meanwhile, China over the summer performed a hypersonic missile test that U.S. defense officials have recently described as concerning.

Although he would not detail his recommendations to Congress on Guam, Druggan said one question that needs to be answered is whether it is worthwhile to have a “multi-mission ship [like an Aegis destroyer] tethered” to the island. This would be similar to what the Navy does from Rota, Spain, in providing European defense.

Druggan, whose current post is at the Missile Defense Agency, explained that having one ship assigned to the missile defense mission actually meant having at least two others on schedule to replace it when it comes off station for necessary maintenance. This has an impact on overall Navy operations because the Aegis destroyers can be assigned to a host of missions other than missile defense.

In terms of manpower, Druggan said that if three destroyers were involved in meeting the ballistic missile requirement, then that would involve about 900 sailors. If it were Aegis Ashore on a rotational basis, he said that would require about 100 sailors to meet the mission.

Former U.S. Indo-Pacific Command chief Adm. Phil Davidson earlier this year said building Aegis Ashore on Guam would “free up” three Navy destroyers for other tasking.

“The Guam defense system brings the same ability to protect Guam and the system itself as the three DDGs it would otherwise take to carry out the mission,” Davidson said at the time. “We need to free up those guided-missile destroyers, who have multi-mission capability to detect threats and finish threats under the sea, on the sea and above the sea, so that they can move with a mobile and maneuverable naval forces that they were designed to protect and provide their ballistic missile defense.”

Other questions remain over what kind of missile defense is needed for Guam, with its large air base and naval facilities, in terms of denying North Korea, deterring China and denying China.

“With each one of those [threats], you come up with a different set of options,” Druggan said.

Among the options under consideration, Druggan said “Aegis is an acceptable alternative” because it addresses ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missile threats. It’s also integrated with other air defense systems and networked with sensors globally and in space.

“We’re doing it 360 degrees; we do it reliably with the right level of firepower; we’re doing it at the network level” at sea and on land, he said.

He called it a “robust capability.”

Another “rich and valid discussion to have” is “where would we put launchers” for cruise missile defense, for instance. He asked rhetorically whether a naval missile designed for cruise defense over water is optimal for defense over an island like Guam, or should it be an Army system that can operate over land and some water.

Other considerations specifically for Guam include should Aegis Ashore get installed, whether its configuration with a single deck house containing all capabilities – like what is now operating in Romania and under construction in Poland – would be survivable in an all-out attack.

The threats in Europe that Aegis Ashore is defending against are coming from Iran, particularly. Druggan noted the systems there are not designed to counter Russia’s missile arsenal.

Posing the follow-up question to himself, Druggan asked “do you want to disperse it or do you [want] it mobile?”

When asked about progress on Aegis Ashore in Poland, he said the project is “behind schedule,” but has “good momentum now.”

“We’re not going to wait” until construction is complete before setting up and testing systems as was done in Poland, Druggan said. “We’re working parallel” to the continued building.

In the recent past, the Army Corps of Engineers overseeing the project said it withheld payment to the Polish contractors unless they brought the work back on schedule and to budget.

With a history dating back into the 1970s of “build little, test little, learn more,” Druggan sees Aegis as “a perfect place” to introduce machine learning and artificial intelligence into Navy practice. He added that with this experience, sailors to captains on Aegis vessels are culturally comfortable with systems that can operate from manual control to auto special.

But in all cases, accountability rests with the commander and would, in Druggan’s opinion, remain so when operating with artificial intelligence and machine learning. “Warfighters want a vote [on what to do in combat as part of their ethos]. …That’s ground to be plowed,” he said.

He added, “it is the CO who is accountable for any weapon that leaves; and so when we get to AI, we can’t blame the algorithm for the mishap. It’s not in our military ethos, not in our warrior ethos” to believe otherwise.

One thing Im really interested in is the guided "smart" round for the 5-inch, 76mm, and 56mm Naval guns that are standard on most every US warship. These guided projectiles have the potential to be able to shoot down hyper-sonic missiles and conventional cruise missiles for $50-25K a round (perhaps less) as opposed to over 4 million dollars per SM-6 fired. Better yet---they are smaller than missiles---meaning the typical naval warship could carry 500 or more of these guided shells to augment their anti-aircraft/missile defenses. A vessel with 30 to 90+ VLS tubes and another 500 "smart" shells would be very difficult to overwhelm with a missile attack.

The typical navy 5 inch gun can fire 20 rounds a minute. A modern 76mm naval gun can fire around 80 rounds per minute. A modern 56mm naval gun can fire over 200 rounds a minute. Even at hyper sonic speeds, a naval guns with a 6-15 mile effective range could get off numerous defensive rounds against an incoming wave of missiles. Its the kind of cheap innovation that potentially can render billions in enemy weapons largely worthless against defended targets.

Littoral Combat Ship Minneapolis-Saint Paul Delivers to Navy After Combining Gear Fix; Navy Resumes Delivery of Freedom-Class

Quote:The Littoral Combat Ship Minneapolis-Saint Paul (LCS-21) delivered to the Navy after almost a year of waiting for a fix to the gearing mechanism that connects the ship’s gas turbines and diesel engines, Navy officials said today.

Minneapolis-Saint Paul had completed its acceptance trials in 2020, but the Navy did not take delivery of the ship while the service was assessing the larger class-wide defect in the RENK AG-built combining gear that came to light after two combining gear casualties aboard USS Detroit (LCS-7) and USS Little Rock (LCS-9). Without the gears that combine the power of the ships’ Rolls Royce MT-30 turbines and diesel engines, the Freedom-class ships can’t achieve their top speed in excess of 45 knots.

The fix to the combining gear, announced on Wednesday by Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday, now lifts the Navy’s restriction – implemented in January – on accepting new deliveries of the Freedom-class LCS from shipbuilder Lockheed Martin.

“I feel confident that we have applied that technical rigor to address this problem. And I look forward to delivering LCS 21… as well as the rest of the Freedom variants of the LCS class,” Jay Stefany, acting assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, told reporters on Thursday.

Cooperstown (LCS-23), the next ship in line for the fix, is finalizing the repair to its combining gear and is expected to deliver to the Navy by January, Program Executive Office for Unmanned and Small Combatants Rear Adm. Casey Moton told reporters at the same roundtable.

After Minneapolis-Saint Paul was taken from the Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard in Wisconsin to Escanaba. Mich., to prove out the repair techniques that will be applied to the rest of the class.

“On LCS-21, it took us a little under six months, it’s an extensive process,” Moton said.
“We think LCS-23 will probably only take four to five months.”

The Navy now has a path to repair the remaining ships to be delivered – Cooperstown (LCS-23), Marinette (LCS-25), Nantucket (LCS-27) and Beloit (LCS-29).

Cleveland (LCS-31), the final Freedom-class ship, “already has the gear fix because of where that ship was in the production schedule. Her gears were actually delivered with the fix already installed,” Moton said.

While the fix is set for the ships under construction, questions remains as to how much of the cost will be shouldered by the Navy or Lockheed Martin.

Moton declined to say how much the repair would cost ,citing ongoing contract negotiations that would determine the cost responsibility.

The Navy is still also working through how it will address the fixes for the eight in-service ships with the RENK AG combining gear. The decommissioned Freedom (LCS-1) and USS Fort Worth (LCS-3) were designed with a different gearing mechanism built by U.S. company Philadelphia Gear.

“Specific plans for incorporating the fix for in-service ships are under Navy assessment,” Moton said.

Until then, the remaining Freedom-class LCS are under a Naval Sea Systems Command advisory restricting operations of the LCS to either turbines or diesels – not both.

As for the ships in the yard, the service will keep them in the Great Lakes over the winter to wait out the freezing of the Saint Lawrence Seaway to the Atlantic Ocean and transiting to their homeport in Mayport, Fla.

“Our plan for Minneapolis-Saint Paul is to keep the ship there over the winter. And then she will sail away in the spring and head to her commissioning which is going to be in Duluth in the spring,” Moton said.

Next Generation SSN(X) Attack Sub ‘Is Going to Carry a Lot of Torpedoes,’ Says Admiral

Quote:ARLINGTON, Va. – The next U.S. nuclear attack submarine must require less maintenance, be fast, quiet and packed with torpedoes, the service’s director of undersea warfare said on Thursday.

The SSN(X) nuclear attack boat will be more focused on the war in blue water than the multi-mission Virginia-class submarines, which are designed to operate closer to shore for missions like signals intelligence and special operation missions.

“Virginia remains the most capable multi-mission submarine in the world – bar none,” Rear Adm. Doug Perry, the director of the undersea warfare division on the chief of naval operations staff (OPNAV N97), said last week. “But we must maintain our undersea advantage by investing for future capabilities. And we know we need to start that work today to make sure we can deliver SSN(X) in time of need, and without lots of technical or schedule risk.”

In 2019, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the SSN(X) boats could cost up to $5.5 billion per hull. The current Virginia-class boats cost about $2.8 billion per hull, while the Block Vs with the 80-foot Virginia Payload Module will cost about $3.2 billion.

“The Navy indicates that the next-generation attack submarine should be faster, stealthier, and able to carry more torpedoes than the Virginia class—similar to the Seawolf-class submarine. CBO therefore assumed that the SSN(X) would be a Seawolf-sized SSN, which displaces about 9,100 tons when submerged, and would have an all-new design in keeping with the Navy’s description of it as a fast, lethal next-generation attack submarine,” the CBO wrote.

Before Virginia, the Navy developed the Sea Wolf-class to be a deep-diving submarine with a weapons room that can field about 50 torpedoes.

Perry said, in broad strokes, SSN(X) would take the heavily-armed Seawolf template, combine the stealthy technology developed for Virginia and keep the time in maintenance to a minimum.

Outside of a classified initial draft capabilities document, “we don’t know the specific characteristics that will be in SSNs. But we do believe that the next submarine will have a large horizontal payload capacity. You can read that as it’s going to carry a lot of torpedoes. And we know how to do that. It’ll be fast. And it’ll have acoustic superiority. That’s both sensors to hear the other ships out there as well as stealth – staying quiet,” Perry said.

“We know how to do all of these things, but we have to integrate them into one platform.

Speed and large payload? We did that on Seawolf, and we need to pull that forward to a modular construction submarine.”



Part of the development of more offensive submarines, the Navy restarted the Mk-48 Advanced Capability (ADCAP) heavyweight torpedo in 2016.

“The heavyweight torpedo will remain the weapon of choice for the submarine for this for the foreseeable future, primarily due to its inherent stealth, its destructive effects in the battlespace, and [it’s] pretty difficult to defend against and it also [preserves] the stealth of launch platform,” Perry said.

The development of the Navy’s Acoustic Superiority Program began on Virginia-class USS South Dakota (SSN-790), which commissioned in 2019, Perry said. The package includes a large vertical array mounted on the hull just aft of the sail, a special exterior coating and machinery quieting improvements inside the boat.

Based on the timing of the construction of the Columbia-class, the new class would come just as the construction of the class of 12 nuclear ballistic missile submarines is ending in the 2040s and in the short term design work should begin soon.

“With Columbia 95 percent design complete, now is the time to begin transitioning that experienced design workforce,” Perry said.
“Fielding any new class submarine is challenging, but we got to strike while the iron is hot.”

The Virginia boats now – and the Columbia boats in the future – are built in a teaming arrangement between Huntington Ingalls Industries and General Dynamic Electric Boat. Each yard builds part of a boat and the components are barged to each yard for final assembly, with EB being the lead yard for the design of each class. Perry said that the workforce would be key to making SSN(X) affordable.

“This maintains a steady demand signal for the shipyard workforce, which is a key element of developing and sustaining a resilient submarine industrial base,” Perry said.

The Navy is also considering how it will leverage unmanned undersea vehicles with its new class.

“We know the ability to influence the battlespace and leverage the seafloor is to get to the bottom of the ocean you will need UUVs,” Perry said.
“That requires a submarine interface that will drive what SSN(X) has to be in terms of a dimension for an interface that will launch and recover [UUVs]. It may be a torpedo tube it may be something different.”

On the other end of construction, the Navy is working to increase the amount of time the submarines can operate by reducing time in maintenance.

“SSN(X) has to have high operational availability, [we’ve] got to be able to keep that ship at sea. And that gets to sort of the class maintenance plan. We’ve learned a lot from operating [the Los Angeles class], then Seawolf and Virginia. We are analyzing those class maintenance plans with PEO Subs and making sure that the class maintenance plan we’ve come up with gives us the highest operational building availability possible,” Perry said.
“That’ll be really part of our calculus as we define the work through the capability development document and [requirements] process and defining what SSN(X) needs to be.”

(11-30-2021 03:37 PM)CrimsonPhantom Wrote:  Littoral Combat Ship Minneapolis-Saint Paul Delivers to Navy After Combining Gear Fix; Navy Resumes Delivery of Freedom-Class

Quote:The Littoral Combat Ship Minneapolis-Saint Paul (LCS-21) delivered to the Navy after almost a year of waiting for a fix to the gearing mechanism that connects the ship’s gas turbines and diesel engines, Navy officials said today.

Minneapolis-Saint Paul had completed its acceptance trials in 2020, but the Navy did not take delivery of the ship while the service was assessing the larger class-wide defect in the RENK AG-built combining gear that came to light after two combining gear casualties aboard USS Detroit (LCS-7) and USS Little Rock (LCS-9). Without the gears that combine the power of the ships’ Rolls Royce MT-30 turbines and diesel engines, the Freedom-class ships can’t achieve their top speed in excess of 45 knots.

The fix to the combining gear, announced on Wednesday by Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday, now lifts the Navy’s restriction – implemented in January – on accepting new deliveries of the Freedom-class LCS from shipbuilder Lockheed Martin.

“I feel confident that we have applied that technical rigor to address this problem. And I look forward to delivering LCS 21… as well as the rest of the Freedom variants of the LCS class,” Jay Stefany, acting assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, told reporters on Thursday.

Cooperstown (LCS-23), the next ship in line for the fix, is finalizing the repair to its combining gear and is expected to deliver to the Navy by January, Program Executive Office for Unmanned and Small Combatants Rear Adm. Casey Moton told reporters at the same roundtable.

After Minneapolis-Saint Paul was taken from the Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard in Wisconsin to Escanaba. Mich., to prove out the repair techniques that will be applied to the rest of the class.

“On LCS-21, it took us a little under six months, it’s an extensive process,” Moton said.
“We think LCS-23 will probably only take four to five months.”

The Navy now has a path to repair the remaining ships to be delivered – Cooperstown (LCS-23), Marinette (LCS-25), Nantucket (LCS-27) and Beloit (LCS-29).

Cleveland (LCS-31), the final Freedom-class ship, “already has the gear fix because of where that ship was in the production schedule. Her gears were actually delivered with the fix already installed,” Moton said.

While the fix is set for the ships under construction, questions remains as to how much of the cost will be shouldered by the Navy or Lockheed Martin.

Moton declined to say how much the repair would cost ,citing ongoing contract negotiations that would determine the cost responsibility.

The Navy is still also working through how it will address the fixes for the eight in-service ships with the RENK AG combining gear. The decommissioned Freedom (LCS-1) and USS Fort Worth (LCS-3) were designed with a different gearing mechanism built by U.S. company Philadelphia Gear.

“Specific plans for incorporating the fix for in-service ships are under Navy assessment,” Moton said.

Until then, the remaining Freedom-class LCS are under a Naval Sea Systems Command advisory restricting operations of the LCS to either turbines or diesels – not both.

As for the ships in the yard, the service will keep them in the Great Lakes over the winter to wait out the freezing of the Saint Lawrence Seaway to the Atlantic Ocean and transiting to their homeport in Mayport, Fla.

“Our plan for Minneapolis-Saint Paul is to keep the ship there over the winter. And then she will sail away in the spring and head to her commissioning which is going to be in Duluth in the spring,” Moton said.

Next Generation SSN(X) Attack Sub ‘Is Going to Carry a Lot of Torpedoes,’ Says Admiral

Quote:ARLINGTON, Va. – The next U.S. nuclear attack submarine must require less maintenance, be fast, quiet and packed with torpedoes, the service’s director of undersea warfare said on Thursday.

The SSN(X) nuclear attack boat will be more focused on the war in blue water than the multi-mission Virginia-class submarines, which are designed to operate closer to shore for missions like signals intelligence and special operation missions.

“Virginia remains the most capable multi-mission submarine in the world – bar none,” Rear Adm. Doug Perry, the director of the undersea warfare division on the chief of naval operations staff (OPNAV N97), said last week. “But we must maintain our undersea advantage by investing for future capabilities. And we know we need to start that work today to make sure we can deliver SSN(X) in time of need, and without lots of technical or schedule risk.”

In 2019, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the SSN(X) boats could cost up to $5.5 billion per hull. The current Virginia-class boats cost about $2.8 billion per hull, while the Block Vs with the 80-foot Virginia Payload Module will cost about $3.2 billion.

“The Navy indicates that the next-generation attack submarine should be faster, stealthier, and able to carry more torpedoes than the Virginia class—similar to the Seawolf-class submarine. CBO therefore assumed that the SSN(X) would be a Seawolf-sized SSN, which displaces about 9,100 tons when submerged, and would have an all-new design in keeping with the Navy’s description of it as a fast, lethal next-generation attack submarine,” the CBO wrote.

Before Virginia, the Navy developed the Sea Wolf-class to be a deep-diving submarine with a weapons room that can field about 50 torpedoes.

Perry said, in broad strokes, SSN(X) would take the heavily-armed Seawolf template, combine the stealthy technology developed for Virginia and keep the time in maintenance to a minimum.

Outside of a classified initial draft capabilities document, “we don’t know the specific characteristics that will be in SSNs. But we do believe that the next submarine will have a large horizontal payload capacity. You can read that as it’s going to carry a lot of torpedoes. And we know how to do that. It’ll be fast. And it’ll have acoustic superiority. That’s both sensors to hear the other ships out there as well as stealth – staying quiet,” Perry said.

“We know how to do all of these things, but we have to integrate them into one platform.

Speed and large payload? We did that on Seawolf, and we need to pull that forward to a modular construction submarine.”



Part of the development of more offensive submarines, the Navy restarted the Mk-48 Advanced Capability (ADCAP) heavyweight torpedo in 2016.

“The heavyweight torpedo will remain the weapon of choice for the submarine for this for the foreseeable future, primarily due to its inherent stealth, its destructive effects in the battlespace, and [it’s] pretty difficult to defend against and it also [preserves] the stealth of launch platform,” Perry said.

The development of the Navy’s Acoustic Superiority Program began on Virginia-class USS South Dakota (SSN-790), which commissioned in 2019, Perry said. The package includes a large vertical array mounted on the hull just aft of the sail, a special exterior coating and machinery quieting improvements inside the boat.

Based on the timing of the construction of the Columbia-class, the new class would come just as the construction of the class of 12 nuclear ballistic missile submarines is ending in the 2040s and in the short term design work should begin soon.

“With Columbia 95 percent design complete, now is the time to begin transitioning that experienced design workforce,” Perry said.
“Fielding any new class submarine is challenging, but we got to strike while the iron is hot.”

The Virginia boats now – and the Columbia boats in the future – are built in a teaming arrangement between Huntington Ingalls Industries and General Dynamic Electric Boat. Each yard builds part of a boat and the components are barged to each yard for final assembly, with EB being the lead yard for the design of each class. Perry said that the workforce would be key to making SSN(X) affordable.

“This maintains a steady demand signal for the shipyard workforce, which is a key element of developing and sustaining a resilient submarine industrial base,” Perry said.

The Navy is also considering how it will leverage unmanned undersea vehicles with its new class.

“We know the ability to influence the battlespace and leverage the seafloor is to get to the bottom of the ocean you will need UUVs,” Perry said.
“That requires a submarine interface that will drive what SSN(X) has to be in terms of a dimension for an interface that will launch and recover [UUVs]. It may be a torpedo tube it may be something different.”

On the other end of construction, the Navy is working to increase the amount of time the submarines can operate by reducing time in maintenance.

“SSN(X) has to have high operational availability, [we’ve] got to be able to keep that ship at sea. And that gets to sort of the class maintenance plan. We’ve learned a lot from operating [the Los Angeles class], then Seawolf and Virginia. We are analyzing those class maintenance plans with PEO Subs and making sure that the class maintenance plan we’ve come up with gives us the highest operational building availability possible,” Perry said.
“That’ll be really part of our calculus as we define the work through the capability development document and [requirements] process and defining what SSN(X) needs to be.”

Ive always been curious as to why a torpedo cannot be easily defeated with the same concept we use to defeat a missile. Why are there no anti-torpedo torpedos?

As for the LCS---if they can at least get the propulsion issues worked out---you can always add weapons to the platform to make them more useful. If you can arm them with "smart shells" for the 57mm gun and add 8 to 12 VLS cells---you've at least got a platform thats dangerous in a blue water scenario and has some enhanced survivabilty. If you can then add a large long range drone like the Bell 247 that can carry missiles, torpedos, sonobouys, or recon modules to its air component---you've got a pretty useful platform for merchant interdiction, scouting, or even ASW work. Ships like that could be very useful if satellite capabilities get taken out. At the very least---they can be a reasonable stop gap low end warship until better options can be built in adequate numbers.

(06-15-2021 11:08 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(06-15-2021 10:42 AM)49RFootballNow Wrote:  I suspect that there's at least enough competency left in the Navy leadership to be ready to protect that group if needed.

I'm not sure. Given the parade of idiocy coming from that leadership in recent years, I don't have much confidence.

With respect to having an underwater buddy or two, I don't think carriers go anywhere without them these days.

As a retired USAF officer I agree. Too many G.O.s promoted the last 15 years who are political animals and not warriors.

(11-30-2021 03:49 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(11-30-2021 03:37 PM)CrimsonPhantom Wrote:  Littoral Combat Ship Minneapolis-Saint Paul Delivers to Navy After Combining Gear Fix; Navy Resumes Delivery of Freedom-Class

Quote:The Littoral Combat Ship Minneapolis-Saint Paul (LCS-21) delivered to the Navy after almost a year of waiting for a fix to the gearing mechanism that connects the ship’s gas turbines and diesel engines, Navy officials said today.

Minneapolis-Saint Paul had completed its acceptance trials in 2020, but the Navy did not take delivery of the ship while the service was assessing the larger class-wide defect in the RENK AG-built combining gear that came to light after two combining gear casualties aboard USS Detroit (LCS-7) and USS Little Rock (LCS-9). Without the gears that combine the power of the ships’ Rolls Royce MT-30 turbines and diesel engines, the Freedom-class ships can’t achieve their top speed in excess of 45 knots.

The fix to the combining gear, announced on Wednesday by Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday, now lifts the Navy’s restriction – implemented in January – on accepting new deliveries of the Freedom-class LCS from shipbuilder Lockheed Martin.

“I feel confident that we have applied that technical rigor to address this problem. And I look forward to delivering LCS 21… as well as the rest of the Freedom variants of the LCS class,” Jay Stefany, acting assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, told reporters on Thursday.

Cooperstown (LCS-23), the next ship in line for the fix, is finalizing the repair to its combining gear and is expected to deliver to the Navy by January, Program Executive Office for Unmanned and Small Combatants Rear Adm. Casey Moton told reporters at the same roundtable.

After Minneapolis-Saint Paul was taken from the Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard in Wisconsin to Escanaba. Mich., to prove out the repair techniques that will be applied to the rest of the class.

“On LCS-21, it took us a little under six months, it’s an extensive process,” Moton said.
“We think LCS-23 will probably only take four to five months.”

The Navy now has a path to repair the remaining ships to be delivered – Cooperstown (LCS-23), Marinette (LCS-25), Nantucket (LCS-27) and Beloit (LCS-29).

Cleveland (LCS-31), the final Freedom-class ship, “already has the gear fix because of where that ship was in the production schedule. Her gears were actually delivered with the fix already installed,” Moton said.

While the fix is set for the ships under construction, questions remains as to how much of the cost will be shouldered by the Navy or Lockheed Martin.

Moton declined to say how much the repair would cost ,citing ongoing contract negotiations that would determine the cost responsibility.

The Navy is still also working through how it will address the fixes for the eight in-service ships with the RENK AG combining gear. The decommissioned Freedom (LCS-1) and USS Fort Worth (LCS-3) were designed with a different gearing mechanism built by U.S. company Philadelphia Gear.

“Specific plans for incorporating the fix for in-service ships are under Navy assessment,” Moton said.

Until then, the remaining Freedom-class LCS are under a Naval Sea Systems Command advisory restricting operations of the LCS to either turbines or diesels – not both.

As for the ships in the yard, the service will keep them in the Great Lakes over the winter to wait out the freezing of the Saint Lawrence Seaway to the Atlantic Ocean and transiting to their homeport in Mayport, Fla.

“Our plan for Minneapolis-Saint Paul is to keep the ship there over the winter. And then she will sail away in the spring and head to her commissioning which is going to be in Duluth in the spring,” Moton said.

Next Generation SSN(X) Attack Sub ‘Is Going to Carry a Lot of Torpedoes,’ Says Admiral

Quote:ARLINGTON, Va. – The next U.S. nuclear attack submarine must require less maintenance, be fast, quiet and packed with torpedoes, the service’s director of undersea warfare said on Thursday.

The SSN(X) nuclear attack boat will be more focused on the war in blue water than the multi-mission Virginia-class submarines, which are designed to operate closer to shore for missions like signals intelligence and special operation missions.

“Virginia remains the most capable multi-mission submarine in the world – bar none,” Rear Adm. Doug Perry, the director of the undersea warfare division on the chief of naval operations staff (OPNAV N97), said last week. “But we must maintain our undersea advantage by investing for future capabilities. And we know we need to start that work today to make sure we can deliver SSN(X) in time of need, and without lots of technical or schedule risk.”

In 2019, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the SSN(X) boats could cost up to $5.5 billion per hull. The current Virginia-class boats cost about $2.8 billion per hull, while the Block Vs with the 80-foot Virginia Payload Module will cost about $3.2 billion.

“The Navy indicates that the next-generation attack submarine should be faster, stealthier, and able to carry more torpedoes than the Virginia class—similar to the Seawolf-class submarine. CBO therefore assumed that the SSN(X) would be a Seawolf-sized SSN, which displaces about 9,100 tons when submerged, and would have an all-new design in keeping with the Navy’s description of it as a fast, lethal next-generation attack submarine,” the CBO wrote.

Before Virginia, the Navy developed the Sea Wolf-class to be a deep-diving submarine with a weapons room that can field about 50 torpedoes.

Perry said, in broad strokes, SSN(X) would take the heavily-armed Seawolf template, combine the stealthy technology developed for Virginia and keep the time in maintenance to a minimum.

Outside of a classified initial draft capabilities document, “we don’t know the specific characteristics that will be in SSNs. But we do believe that the next submarine will have a large horizontal payload capacity. You can read that as it’s going to carry a lot of torpedoes. And we know how to do that. It’ll be fast. And it’ll have acoustic superiority. That’s both sensors to hear the other ships out there as well as stealth – staying quiet,” Perry said.

“We know how to do all of these things, but we have to integrate them into one platform.

Speed and large payload? We did that on Seawolf, and we need to pull that forward to a modular construction submarine.”



Part of the development of more offensive submarines, the Navy restarted the Mk-48 Advanced Capability (ADCAP) heavyweight torpedo in 2016.

“The heavyweight torpedo will remain the weapon of choice for the submarine for this for the foreseeable future, primarily due to its inherent stealth, its destructive effects in the battlespace, and [it’s] pretty difficult to defend against and it also [preserves] the stealth of launch platform,” Perry said.

The development of the Navy’s Acoustic Superiority Program began on Virginia-class USS South Dakota (SSN-790), which commissioned in 2019, Perry said. The package includes a large vertical array mounted on the hull just aft of the sail, a special exterior coating and machinery quieting improvements inside the boat.

Based on the timing of the construction of the Columbia-class, the new class would come just as the construction of the class of 12 nuclear ballistic missile submarines is ending in the 2040s and in the short term design work should begin soon.

“With Columbia 95 percent design complete, now is the time to begin transitioning that experienced design workforce,” Perry said.
“Fielding any new class submarine is challenging, but we got to strike while the iron is hot.”

The Virginia boats now – and the Columbia boats in the future – are built in a teaming arrangement between Huntington Ingalls Industries and General Dynamic Electric Boat. Each yard builds part of a boat and the components are barged to each yard for final assembly, with EB being the lead yard for the design of each class. Perry said that the workforce would be key to making SSN(X) affordable.

“This maintains a steady demand signal for the shipyard workforce, which is a key element of developing and sustaining a resilient submarine industrial base,” Perry said.

The Navy is also considering how it will leverage unmanned undersea vehicles with its new class.

“We know the ability to influence the battlespace and leverage the seafloor is to get to the bottom of the ocean you will need UUVs,” Perry said.
“That requires a submarine interface that will drive what SSN(X) has to be in terms of a dimension for an interface that will launch and recover [UUVs]. It may be a torpedo tube it may be something different.”

On the other end of construction, the Navy is working to increase the amount of time the submarines can operate by reducing time in maintenance.

“SSN(X) has to have high operational availability, [we’ve] got to be able to keep that ship at sea. And that gets to sort of the class maintenance plan. We’ve learned a lot from operating [the Los Angeles class], then Seawolf and Virginia. We are analyzing those class maintenance plans with PEO Subs and making sure that the class maintenance plan we’ve come up with gives us the highest operational building availability possible,” Perry said.
“That’ll be really part of our calculus as we define the work through the capability development document and [requirements] process and defining what SSN(X) needs to be.”

Ive always been curious as to why a torpedo cannot be easily defeated with the same concept we use to defeat a missile. Why are there no anti-torpedo torpedos?

Explanation here

Long story short, too difficult to track and kill a torpedo under water with another torpedo. Navy killed the program

My understanding of submarine doctrine is if they are fired upon, snap a shot back in the direction of where they think the torpedo came from then escape the incoming and try to detect the other sub before they can re-acquire you.

(11-30-2021 04:46 PM)bobdizole Wrote:  Long story short, too difficult to track and kill a torpedo under water with another torpedo. Navy killed the program

My understanding of submarine doctrine is if they are fired upon, snap a shot back in the direction of where they think the torpedo came from then escape the incoming and try to detect the other sub before they can re-acquire you.

Pretty much has to rely on sonar (aka sound) to find another torpedo with a torpedo. We've made them small enough and "cheap" enough to put on torpedoes meant to kill ships/subs, just not small and cheap enough to put on torpedoes to kill other torpedoes.

How do our Navy vets feel about the NSM? I here it slices and dices and does payroll all at the same time and will make even the LCS's effect warfighting platforms. Now how much of that is real and how much is BS.

(11-30-2021 04:56 PM)49RFootballNow Wrote:  How do our Navy vets feel about the NSM? I here it slices and dices and does payroll all at the same time and will make even the LCS's effect warfighting platforms. Now how much of that is real and how much is BS.

It's probably an improvement over what we have now, but the USN as never taken cruise missiles as seriously as they should, and as a result we lag far behind the supersonic/hypersonic ship-killer missiles that Russia and China have had for years.

In part that reflects a difference in concept of operations (CONOPS). Russia and China have never had anything remotely approaching the level of carrier-based aviation that we have had since WWII, and they developed missiles to counter that. On the US side, the political influence of the airdale navy has probably held back our development of cruise missiles. In my opinion we need both.

I can assure you that standing watch on an LST in the Med during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, with 2 twin 3-inch guns that could only shoot astern, and facing a Russian destroyer, which had enough anti-ship missiles to put a half dozen of us on the bottom in a couple of minutes, was not a comfortable feeling. It was not helped at all because I knew personally of one opportunity we passed up to get anti-ship missiles. That's a funny story that I would like to share, but it was classified SECRET at one time and I don't know if it has been declassified.

(06-23-2021 02:44 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  What we need IMO is to build a bunch of cheap ASW frigates. The Knoxes and Perrys were very limited ships, but they contributed greatly to winning Cold War I. Then we forgot about ASW. I'd build 80 or so of something like this:

- 3500-4000T
- Stealth profile
- CODLAG or IEP propulsion for quiet running, 2 shafts, 30 knots
- 1x 76 mm Super Rapid STRALES/DART
- 1-2 Phalanx CIWS
- 4 fixed reloadable torpedo tubes (2-12.75" and 2-21", one of each to each side, like Knox layout)
- 2 ASW rocket depth charge launchers similar to Russian RBUs
- 32-cell VLS for 32 quad-packed ESSM, 12 VL-ASROC, and 12 NSM
- VDS
- Bow mounted multi-frequency sonar
- SQR-20 Multi-function towed array
- Wide aperture lightweight fiber optic passive sonar array (like Virginia class side arrays)
- 2 helos (or at minimum, 1 helo and 1 drone)
- TRS-3D/4D radar

This would be an ASW specialist, with self-defense ASuW and AAW. The Knox hull could be a starting point, modified to accommodate 2 shafts.

As a former TM3 on-board a Perry class, I 10000000% agree. Stood my watches in SONAR. Great times.

(11-30-2021 10:45 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(11-30-2021 04:56 PM)49RFootballNow Wrote:  How do our Navy vets feel about the NSM? I here it slices and dices and does payroll all at the same time and will make even the LCS's effect warfighting platforms. Now how much of that is real and how much is BS.

It's probably an improvement over what we have now, but the USN as never taken cruise missiles as seriously as they should, and as a result we lag far behind the supersonic/hypersonic ship-killer missiles that Russia and China have had for years.

In part that reflects a difference in concept of operations (CONOPS). Russia and China have never had anything remotely approaching the level of carrier-based aviation that we have had since WWII, and they developed missiles to counter that. On the US side, the political influence of the airdale navy has probably held back our development of cruise missiles. In my opinion we need both.

I can assure you that standing watch on an LST in the Med during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, with 2 twin 3-inch guns that could only shoot astern, and facing a Russian destroyer, which had enough anti-ship missiles to put a half dozen of us on the bottom in a couple of minutes, was not a comfortable feeling. It was not helped at all because I knew personally of one opportunity we passed up to get anti-ship missiles. That's a funny story that I would like to share, but it was classified SECRET at one time and I don't know if it has been declassified.

Newport class by chance?

Many classes of ships, such as the LST weren't designed to be competition one-on-one in a fight against a destroyer. Hopefully you had some more capable ships accompanying yours there in the Med at the time. I did installations, repairs, troubleshooting, alignments, and testing on all types of weapons systems - GFCS, MFCS, UBFCS - on DDGs, DLGN/CGNs, FFs, and other types of ships that also had some electrical/electronic weaponry on them such as the AFS-2 Sylvania during the mid-70's to mid-80's.

(12-01-2021 01:12 AM)ODU BBALL Wrote:  Newport class by chance?

Yes.

Quote:Many classes of ships, such as the LST weren't designed to be competition one-on-one in a fight against a destroyer. Hopefully you had some more capable ships accompanying yours there in the Med at the time.

We didn't.

Obviously, as you note, we weren't designed or intended to fight a destroyer. But our destroyers in that era didn't have ship-to-ship or ship-to-shore missiles either. We simply did not have the missiles. We were totally dependent on air cover, and the carriers were off somewhere else doing their thing. They would have gotten some aircraft over to us eventually, and those aircraft would have sunk the Russians, but not before the Russians sunk us.

(12-01-2021 07:26 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-01-2021 01:12 AM)ODU BBALL Wrote:  Newport class by chance?

Yes.

Quote:Many classes of ships, such as the LST weren't designed to be competition one-on-one in a fight against a destroyer. Hopefully you had some more capable ships accompanying yours there in the Med at the time.

We didn't.

Obviously, as you note, we weren't designed or intended to fight a destroyer. But our destroyers in that era didn't have ship-to-ship or ship-to-shore missiles either. We simply did not have the missiles. We were totally dependent on air cover, and the carriers were off somewhere else doing their thing. They would have gotten some aircraft over to us eventually, and those aircraft would have sunk the Russians, but not before the Russians sunk us.

Our destroyers did have torpedo tubes if the ships were within range. I worked on those as well. In the mid/late 70's I did Harpoon Missile System installations (most of them were canister launch) on several destroyers.

(12-01-2021 08:54 PM)ODU BBALL Wrote:  Our destroyers did have torpedo tubes if the ships were within range. I worked on those as well. In the mid/late 70's I did Harpoon Missile System installations (most of them were canister launch) on several destroyers.

I don't think that torpedoes figure as prominently in the USN weapons mix as they once did, at least not for surface ships, and I think that is a significant mistake.

(12-01-2021 10:53 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-01-2021 08:54 PM)ODU BBALL Wrote:  Our destroyers did have torpedo tubes if the ships were within range. I worked on those as well. In the mid/late 70's I did Harpoon Missile System installations (most of them were canister launch) on several destroyers.

I don't think that torpedoes figure as prominently in the USN weapons mix as they once did, at least not for surface ships, and I think that is a significant mistake.

Yeah, they are more into missiles like the HARPOON for long distance (over the horizon) ship to ship warfare.

I used to work on the MK 32 Surface Vessel Torpedo Tubes back in the mid 70's to mid 80's -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_32_Su...pedo_Tubes

(12-02-2021 01:22 AM)ODU BBALL Wrote:  

(12-01-2021 10:53 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-01-2021 08:54 PM)ODU BBALL Wrote:  Our destroyers did have torpedo tubes if the ships were within range. I worked on those as well. In the mid/late 70's I did Harpoon Missile System installations (most of them were canister launch) on several destroyers.

I don't think that torpedoes figure as prominently in the USN weapons mix as they once did, at least not for surface ships, and I think that is a significant mistake.

Yeah, they are more into missiles like the HARPOON for long distance (over the horizon) ship to ship warfare.
I used to work on the MK 32 Surface Vessel Torpedo Tubes back in the mid 70's to mid 80's -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_32_Su...pedo_Tubes

We had Mk32s on the destroyer that I was on before I was on the LST.

What concerns me is that they are hard to reload (you can't really reload them in the middle of a fight) and they only operate the smaller 12.75" (324mm) torpedos. My idea would be fixed tubes like the Knoxes had (since we basically use homing torpedos now, you don't really have to aim the tubes) port and starboard, stacked 324mm and 533mm, operating of a torpedo room like subs have with loading equipment so you can reload on the go. You'd only have 4 tubes instead of 6 with two Mk32s, but you'd be able to reload them a lot easier plus you'd have the bigger and longer range 533mm torpedos like subs use and like the Russians have. So you'd have a torpedo magazine, like subs, and you'd reload as you fight.

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

Lots of food for thought there.

The part about reading between the lines of the incident reports is interesting. There is a very strong rumor that on one of the destroyers that got hit by a merchant, either McCain or Fitzgerald, don't remember which, the OOD (in charge of driving the ship) and the CIC Watch Officer (in charge of the ship's information center) were two female officers who were involved in some sort of lovers' triangle dispute and were not speaking to each other. They should be talking back and forth extensively any time another ship gets anywhere close, but didn't say anything to each other until there was a collision.

In addition to those two, the Port Royal, a Ticonderoga class cruiser, ran aground right in front of Honolulu Airport in broad daylight. Two other Ticos, the Lake Champlain hit a Korean fishing boat and the Antietam ran aground off the coast of Japan. Fitzgerald, McCain, and the Ticos are all equipped with the newest and most sophisticated AEGIS radar systems.

And of course, the Bonhomme Richard burned down at the pier because the Navy couldn't put out the fire.

These events are all indicative of poorly trained watchstanders and other personnel. A part of the problem is that the Navy doesn't have enough ships to cover all its commitments, so ships and sailors spend a bigger part of their time on deployments, leaving less time for training and maintenance. In the 1980s we had between 500 and 600 ships, and we kept around 100 deployed for various commitments, so you were deployed about 15-20% of the time, and had 80-85% of the time for training and maintenance. Today we have about 250-300 ships, but are still trying to keep 100+ deployed for various commitments. That's 35-40% of the time deployed and 60-65% of the time for training and maintenance, and that's simply not proving to be enough.

And a lot of that training is now taken up not on seamanship and professional craft but on woke diversity, inclusion, and equity (D-I-E, because that's what happens to you) training. Sailors may not know how to drive ships or put out fires, but they know how to sing Kumbaya.

Here's what I'd do:

1) Build back up to 600 ships so we can cover commitments with less strain. I've already outlined my concept of a 600-ship fleet:
-12 carrier battle groups (CVBGs) each with a nuclear carrier, a smaller conventional carrier, and 10 surface ship escorts
-8 surface action/hunter-killer groups (SAG/HUK), each with a battleship and a ASW helicopter carrier and 10 surface ship escorts
-10 amphibious squadrons/amphibious ready groups (PhibRons/ARGs), each with 6 smaller and cheaper conventional amphibious ships, and convert the existing LHAs/LHDs to some of those small carriers and the existing LPDs to anti-ballistic missile ships
-12 ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), 20 guided missile submarines (SSGNs), and 60 nuclear attack submarines (SSNs),
-120 littoral combatants, including 30 ASW corvettes, 30 missile patrol boats, 30 mine countermeasures ships, and 30 AIP patrol submarines (SSKs)
-Enough auxiliary and support ships to support the missions of all of the above
By following ADM Zumwalt's high/low mix approach of building some of the ferociously expensive gold plated ships that the USN wants to build and filling out the numbers with cheaper single-purpose ships, I would cut the estimated cost per ship in half, from $2.8B to $1.4B, and could therefore build 600 ships for the same $840B that the USN's proposed 300 new ships will cost.

2) Get our allies to cover some of what have previously been our commitments. We already have the Quad alliance (India, Japan, Australia, USA) in the Pacific. India can cover a lot of our commitments in the Indian Ocean (and they hate the Chinese more than we do), and Japan and Australia (who also hate the Chinese) can cover some of our WestPac commitments. The AUKUS submarine deal may be a step in the right direction, but I am not sure that nuke subs are what the Aussies need. They don't have any domestic nuclear industry or infrastructure to support nuke subs, and I think they'd be better served by long-range AIP conventional subs. I think there is a work-around to get them what they really need (something like the German Type 216s) and also help us grow our nubmers (with 216s for our SSKs) and get the French to settle down (buying a bunch of cheaper French Barracuda-class nukes instead of spending a fortune on larger Virginia replacement that the USN wants). There is also a proposed CANZUK (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK) alliance as a response to China and Brexit. I think we should do all that we can to encourage that, including some sort of possible associate membership. In the long run, maybe we go for some sort of associate membership in the Commonwealth as a whole. If we put together an alliance with the Quad and the Commonwealth (or CANZUK if not the entire Commonwealth), then UK (2 carriers) could cover a lot of our commitments in the European/NATO area, India (2 carriers and building) could cover a lot of our Indian Ocean commitments, Australia and Japan (4-6 possible jump-jet carriers between them) could cover a lot of our WestPac commitments. In particular, if we brought the whole Commonwealth onboard, Malaysia and Singapore could pretty much give China all it could handle in the Malacca/Sunda Straits area (where the vast majority of China's exports and all of its oil imports must transit). Australia apparently has the goal of replicating China's A2/AD (anti-access/area denial) system to protect its northern flanks (not too worried about threats from New Zealand or Antarctica, but if you want to know a bit more about how much they worry about Asian threats, look up "ten pound poms" and do a little research). Such a system would not only protect Australia, but would constitute a major threat to China's access to the Malacca/Sunda Straits.

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.

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

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

Lots of food for thought there.

The part about reading between the lines of the incident reports is interesting. There is a very strong rumor that on one of the destroyers that got hit by a merchant, either McCain or Fitzgerald, don't remember which, the OOD (in charge of driving the ship) and the CIC Watch Officer (in charge of the ship's information center) were two female officers who were involved in some sort of lovers' triangle dispute and were not speaking to each other. They should be talking back and forth extensively any time another ship gets anywhere close, but didn't say anything to each other until there was a collision.

In addition to those two, the Port Royal, a Ticonderoga class cruiser, ran aground right in front of Honolulu Airport in broad daylight. Two other Ticos, the Lake Champlain hit a Korean fishing boat and the Antietam ran aground off the coast of Japan. Fitzgerald, McCain, and the Ticos are all equipped with the newest and most sophisticated AEGIS radar systems.

And of course, the Bonhomme Richard burned down at the pier because the Navy couldn't put out the fire.

These events are all indicative of poorly trained watchstanders and other personnel. A part of the problem is that the Navy doesn't have enough ships to cover all its commitments, so ships and sailors spend a bigger part of their time on deployments, leaving less time for training and maintenance. In the 1980s we had between 500 and 600 ships, and we kept around 100 deployed for various commitments, so you were deployed about 15-20% of the time, and had 80-85% of the time for training and maintenance. Today we have about 250-300 ships, but are still trying to keep 100+ deployed for various commitments. That's 35-40% of the time deployed and 60-65% of the time for training and maintenance, and that's simply not proving to be enough.

And a lot of that training is now taken up not on seamanship and professional craft but on woke diversity, inclusion, and equity (D-I-E, because that's what happens to you) training. Sailors may not know how to drive ships or put out fires, but they know how to sing Kumbaya.

Here's what I'd do:

1) Build back up to 600 ships so we can cover commitments with less strain. I've already outlined my concept of a 600-ship fleet:
-12 carrier battle groups (CVBGs) each with a nuclear carrier, a smaller conventional carrier, and 10 surface ship escorts
-8 surface action/hunter-killer groups (SAG/HUK), each with a battleship and a ASW helicopter carrier and 10 surface ship escorts
-10 amphibious squadrons/amphibious ready groups (PhibRons/ARGs), each with 6 smaller and cheaper conventional amphibious ships, and convert the existing LHAs/LHDs to some of those small carriers and the existing LPDs to anti-ballistic missile ships
-12 ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), 20 guided missile submarines (SSGNs), and 60 nuclear attack submarines (SSNs),
-120 littoral combatants, including 30 ASW corvettes, 30 missile patrol boats, 30 mine countermeasures ships, and 30 AIP patrol submarines (SSKs)
-Enough auxiliary and support ships to support the missions of all of the above
By following ADM Zumwalt's high/low mix approach of building some of the ferociously expensive gold plated ships that the USN wants to build and filling out the numbers wit cheaper single-purpose ships, I would cut the estimated cost per ship in half, from $2.8B to $1.4B, and could therefore build 600 ships for the same $840B that the USN's proposed 300 new ships will cost.

2) Get our allies to cover some of what have previously been our commitments. We already have the Quad alliance (India, Japan, Australia, USA) in the Pacific. India can cover a lot of our commitments in the Indian Ocean (and they hate the Chinese more than we do), and Japan and Australia (who also hate the Chinese) can cover some of our WestPac commitments. The AUKUS submarine deal may be a step in the right direction, but I am not sure that nuke subs are what the Aussies need. They don't have any domestic nuclear industry or infrastructure to support nuke subs, and I think they'd be better served by long-range AIP conventional subs. I think there is a work-around to get them what they really need (something like the German Type 216s) and also help us grow our nubmers (with 216s for our SSKs) and get the French to settle down (buying a bunch of cheaper French Barracuda-class nukes instead of spending a fortune on larger Virginia replacement that the USN wants). There is also a proposed CANZUK (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK) alliance as a response to China and Brexit. I think we should do all that we can to encourage that, including some sort of possible associate membership. In the long run, maybe we go for some sort of associate membership in the Commonwealth as a whole. If we put together an alliance with the Quad and the Commonwealth (or CANZUK if not the entire Commonwealth), then UK (2 carriers) could cover a lot of our commitments in the European/NATO area, India (2 carriers and building) could cover a lot of our Indian Ocean commitments, Australia and Japan (4-6 possible jump-jet carriers between them) could cover a lot of our WestPac commitments. In particular, if we brought the whole Commonwealth onboard, Malaysia and Singapore could pretty much give China all it could handle in the Malacca/Sunda Straits area (where the vast majority of China's exports and all of its oil imports must transit). Australia apparently has the goal of replicating China's A2/AD (anti-access/area denial) system to protect its northern flanks (not too worried about threats from New Zealand or Antarctica, but if you want to know a bit more about how much they worry about Asian threats, look up "ten pound poms" and do a little research). Such a system would not only protect Australia, but would constitute a major threat to China's access to the Malacca/Sunda Straits.

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.

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.