A US ship claiming to to help “enforce” the freedom of navigation principle headed for safer waters when challenged.

We are wasting our money and time trying to provoke China for no reason over the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea. Pure saber rattling as usual.

We borrow billions more dollars to enforce an idea we don’t even agree with just to pester the Chinese. It’s the ultimate cynicism.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/23...-china-sea

lol---The Chinese claim to the Paracel Islands is disputed and even the UN says the nine dash line has no legal basis. There is nothing to base China's claim to the entire South China Sea. Its like India claiming the entire Indian Ocean or Mexico claiming the entire Gulf of Mexico. If the US vessel was within a 100 miles of those islands, it would have been some 1400 miles from mainland China. Some provocation.

(03-23-2023 11:22 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  lol---The Chinese claim to the Paracel Islands is disputed and even the UN says the nine dash line has no legal basis. There is nothing to base China's claim to the entire South China Sea. Its like India claiming the entire Indian Ocean or Mexico claiming the entire Gulf of Mexico. If the US vessel was within a 100 miles of those islands, it would have been some 1400 miles from mainland China. Some provocation.

As usual, you don’t know what you are talking about and have probably never actually looked at a map of the places you trying to speak authoritatively about.

The Parcel Islands are about 250 miles from Hainan Island, which is less than 20 miles off mainland China. That’s not 1400. Or even close. If the US warship were within the 100 miles you mentioned of Parcel Islands, that could have been potentially within 150 miles of a large Chinese city, but I can’t claim to know exactly where this occurred.

The US has no claims to the islands. Yet we are borrowing money to sail billion dollar warships by them to aggravate the Chinese. These weren’t container ships, commercial boats, or civilian craft.

1,400 miles lol. You weren’t even close man.

Lol. Got me there. I missed that pretty badly. Point is, we are still hundreds of miles off their coast. Not like we sailed a spy balloon across their entire county or flew our planes into their drone.

(03-23-2023 11:22 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  lol---The Chinese claim to the Paracel Islands is disputed and even the UN says the nine dash line has no legal basis. There is nothing to base China's claim to the entire South China Sea. Its like India claiming the entire Indian Ocean or Mexico claiming the entire Gulf of Mexico. If the US vessel was within a 100 miles of those islands, it would have been some 1400 miles from mainland China. Some provocation.

well if the UN says it

(03-24-2023 06:42 AM)shere khan Wrote:  

(03-23-2023 11:22 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  lol---The Chinese claim to the Paracel Islands is disputed and even the UN says the nine dash line has no legal basis. There is nothing to base China's claim to the entire South China Sea. Its like India claiming the entire Indian Ocean or Mexico claiming the entire Gulf of Mexico. If the US vessel was within a 100 miles of those islands, it would have been some 1400 miles from mainland China. Some provocation.

well if the UN says it

Do you think the UN is biased in favor American interests or against American interests?

In 2016, the aircraft carrier USS John Stennis and its strike group were denied port entry into Hong Kong. Suppose the USN had responded by laying on a port visit to Kaohsiung. How would China have respnded?

We have to continue to sail into those international waters. Not doing so will give China legal legitimacy in claiming those waters are theirs.

What we need to do instead of sending one ship through on a FONOPS trip is to send a carrier battle group through. In the Navy that I would build that would be 2 carriers, 2 logistics support ships, and about 10 escorting cruisers/destroyers/frigates. And keep them plus a surface action/ASW hunter-killer group (battleship, ASW helo carrier, 2 logistics ships, 10 escorts) and an amphibious ready group (amphibious squadron with 4000 Marines embarked) operating in the area regularly. And when China complains, tell them to learn to like it.

(03-24-2023 12:18 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  What we need to do instead of sending one ship through on a FONOPS trip is to send a carrier battle group through. In the Navy that I would build that would be 2 carriers, 2 logistics support ships, and about 10 escorting cruisers/destroyers/frigates. And keep them plus a surface action/ASW hunter-killer group (battleship, ASW helo carrier, 2 logistics ships, 10 escorts) and an amphibious ready group (amphibious squadron with 4000 Marines embarked) operating in the area regularly. And when China complains, tell them to learn to like it.

Is there anyone even arguing for a larger fleet based on something similar to what you've suggested? I would hope so---especially since the current plan seems lacking---focusing on retiring a decades worth of recently built LCS vessels, concentrating on high end expensive vessels, and leaving us with no replacement vessels for the low end duties for over a decade. Seems to me---step one is bringing more ship yards on line. That allows more capacity for ship building, repair, and perhaps even the ability to perform a renovation/upgrading of the current LCS fleet to keep them viable for lower end missions (freeing up more capable vessels for front line duties).

Is there any information on the "readiness" of the new Chinese Navy? They have new vessels but do they have well trained sailors? My guess..lots of greenhorns.

(03-24-2023 01:40 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(03-24-2023 12:18 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  What we need to do instead of sending one ship through on a FONOPS trip is to send a carrier battle group through. In the Navy that I would build that would be 2 carriers, 2 logistics support ships, and about 10 escorting cruisers/destroyers/frigates. And keep them plus a surface action/ASW hunter-killer group (battleship, ASW helo carrier, 2 logistics ships, 10 escorts) and an amphibious ready group (amphibious squadron with 4000 Marines embarked) operating in the area regularly. And when China complains, tell them to learn to like it.

Is there anyone even arguing for a larger fleet based on something similar to what you've suggested? I would hope so---especially since the current plan seems lacking---focusing on retiring a decades worth of recently built LCS vessels, concentrating on high end expensive vessels, and leaving us with no replacement vessels for the low end duties for over a decade. Seems to me---step one is bringing more ship yards on line. That allows more capacity for ship building, repair, and perhaps even the ability to perform a renovation/upgrading of the current LCS fleet to keep them viable for lower end missions (freeing up more capable vessels for front line duties).

They are expanding capacity in Wisconsin for frigate production. They took a known quantity in an Italian frigate and started producing it there, so hopefully it will keep costs in line vs a clean sheet design. Current projections are being able to deliver the Constellation for $1B vs $2B for a new Burke.

With the Ticos going away there is may be a little bit of a gap in AAW command and control, the Ticos were always the carrier group air warfare commander and was an 0-6 command vs an 0-5 typical for the Burke. They will have to expand the air warfare command and control role of the Burke Flight III to fill the ticos role, then the constellation class joins the carrier group in an ASW role.

Given how crap our clean sheet take was I’m guessing pulling the Italian design forward was the right decision but it will take time for them to roll out hulls.

(03-24-2023 03:12 PM)U_of_Elvis Wrote:  They are expanding capacity in Wisconsin for frigate production. They took a known quantity in an Italian frigate and started producing it there, so hopefully it will keep costs in line vs a clean sheet design.

That's not exactly what they are doing, unfortunately. The known quantity Italian frigate, the FREMM, is a capable general purpose (GP) frigate, with emphasis on anti-surface (ASuW) and anti-submarine (ASW) warfare, two areas where the US Navy is sorely lacking capability. Unless you want to send a Burke out to chase subs, and risk losing your anti-air warfare (AAW) capability, there really is no ASW capability. Instead of taking a known ship that plugged a major hole, the USN modified the Constellation to an Aegis (fancy anti-air radar) platform, but without enough missile slots to be an effective AAW ship. My guess is that, particularly since they are planning to build 20 of them, they are seen as cheaper replacements for the Ticonderogas, which the Navy has been trying to get rid of for several years. The problem is that the Connies have 32 missile slots, whereas the Ticos have 122, so there is a tremendous decrease in capability.

The other problem is that the Italian FREMM has a hull mounted sonar dome that draws 8.7 meters (28 feet, 7 inches) of water while the Welland Canal has a max allowable draft of 8.1 meters (26 feet, 6 inches). That meant that unless you can go over Niagara Falls, you can't get to sea from the Great Lakes with a FREMM. So another change is the removal of the sonar dome, which drastically reduces the ASW capability of the Connies.

So you need ASuw and ASW, you adopt a good ASuW/ASW design, modify it to be an AAW ship with not enough AAW missiles to be effective. And without getting into details, they sacrificed a lot of other tradeoffs to make the change to Aegis. As for Aegis itself, it is an amazing system when operating properly, but the Navy is apparently having significant issues keeping it up. I would have preferred a mix of APAR/EMPAR/MFRA (on the FREMM) and SMART-L (on the closely related Horizon class) radars. That would require some offsetting weight reductions, but those can be managed. For one thing, the FREMM really has too much superstructure for good design, partly because of the need to make room for a lot of habitability improvements--some good, some not so.

It's really difficult to figure out the thinking on this.

What I would have done instead:

Replace the Ticos with 20 of a new true cruiser design in the 15,000T range to include Aegis, more missile cells (my target is 192, with 64 convertible into 16 hypersonic/ballistic missile launchers), some larger caliber guns (8 inch probably) and a large flight deck for operating helos and maybe 100 UAVs (with a hangar underneath, from which USVs and UUVs can be launched and recovered over the side). See the WWII era flight deck cruiser at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_deck_cruiser for a drawing of what it would look like.

Keep 40 Burkes as Aegis AAW destroyers. Enhance their AAW capabilities, maybe giving up some of their limited ASuW and ASW capabilities as trade-offs.

Build 60 FREMMs at a cost of about $750MM each as ASuW/ASW GP escorts.

Build 80 ASW frigates at a cost of about $500MM each.

Because of the depth problem for sonar domes, I would build any destroyers/frigates on the east or west coast. To keep Fincantieri/Marinette in business, I would also build about 30 each of ASW corvettes enhanced for shallow-water ASW and patrol boats (based on Swedish Visby) and allocate those between Marinette and Austal.

One problem we have building a larger fleet is shipyard capacity. To build the 600-ship fleet that I have envisioned, we probably need 1 more nuke sub yard, a new conventional (AIP) sub yard, and 2-3 more surface ship yards. One idea I have with adopting foreign designs is that the much longer production runs that the US offers versus European/Asian home navies would provide economic incentives for builders like Fincantieri and Naval Group and Navantia and Damen and ThyssenKrupp to develop US shipyards like Naval Group did at Itaguai to build the Brazilian Riachuelo class and Brazilian nuke subs.

(03-24-2023 01:40 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(03-24-2023 12:18 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  What we need to do instead of sending one ship through on a FONOPS trip is to send a carrier battle group through. In the Navy that I would build that would be 2 carriers, 2 logistics support ships, and about 10 escorting cruisers/destroyers/frigates. And keep them plus a surface action/ASW hunter-killer group (battleship, ASW helo carrier, 2 logistics ships, 10 escorts) and an amphibious ready group (amphibious squadron with 4000 Marines embarked) operating in the area regularly. And when China complains, tell them to learn to like it.

Is there anyone even arguing for a larger fleet based on something similar to what you've suggested? I would hope so---especially since the current plan seems lacking---focusing on retiring a decades worth of recently built LCS vessels, concentrating on high end expensive vessels, and leaving us with no replacement vessels for the low end duties for over a decade. Seems to me---step one is bringing more ship yards on line. That allows more capacity for ship building, repair, and perhaps even the ability to perform a renovation/upgrading of the current LCS fleet to keep them viable for lower end missions (freeing up more capable vessels for front line duties).

Agree except that there really is no way to make the LCS a viable warship of any sort.

(03-24-2023 03:49 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(03-24-2023 03:12 PM)U_of_Elvis Wrote:  They are expanding capacity in Wisconsin for frigate production. They took a known quantity in an Italian frigate and started producing it there, so hopefully it will keep costs in line vs a clean sheet design.

That's not exactly what they are doing, unfortunately. The known quantity Italian frigate, the FREMM, is a capable general purpose (GP) frigate, with emphasis on anti-surface (ASuW) and anti-submarine (ASW) warfare, two areas where the US Navy is sorely lacking capability. Unless you want to send a Burke out to chase subs, and risk losing your anti-air warfare (AAW) capability, there really is no ASW capability. Instead of taking a known ship that plugged a major hole, the USN modified the Constellation to an Aegis (fancy anti-air radar) platform, but without enough missile slots to be an effective AAW ship. My guess is that, particularly since they are planning to build 20 of them, they are seen as cheaper replacements for the Ticonderogas, which the Navy has been trying to get rid of for several years. The problem is that the Connies have 32 missile slots, whereas the Ticos have 122, so there is a tremendous decrease in capability.

The other problem is that the Italian FREMM has a hull mounted sonar dome that draws 8.7 meters (28 feet, 7 inches) of water while the Welland Canal has a max allowable draft of 8.1 meters (26 feet, 6 inches). That meant that unless you can go over Niagara Falls, you can't get to sea from the Great Lakes with a FREMM. So another change is the removal of the sonar dome, which drastically reduces the ASW capability of the Connies.

So you need ASuw and ASW, you adopt a good ASuW/ASW design, modify it to be an AAW ship with not enough AAW missiles to be effective. And without getting into details, they sacrificed a lot of other tradeoffs to make the change to Aegis. As for Aegis itself, it is an amazing system when operating properly, but the Navy is apparently having significant issues keeping it up. I would have preferred a mix of APAR/EMPAR/MFRA (on the FREMM) and SMART-L (on the closely related Horizon class) radars. That would require some offsetting weight reductions, but those can be managed. For one thing, the FREMM really has too much superstructure for good design, partly because of the need to make room for a lot of habitability improvements--some good, some not so.

It's really difficult to figure out the thinking on this.

What I would have done instead:

Replace the Ticos with 20 of a new true cruiser design in the 15,000T range to include Aegis, more missile cells (my target is 192, with 64 convertible into 16 hypersonic/ballistic missile launchers), some larger caliber guns (8 inch probably) and a large flight deck for operating helos and maybe 100 UAVs (with a hangar underneath, from which USVs and UUVs can be launched and recovered over the side). See the WWII era flight deck cruiser at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_deck_cruiser for a drawing of what it would look like.

Keep 40 Burkes as Aegis AAW destroyers. Enhance their AAW capabilities, maybe giving up some of their limited ASuW and ASW capabilities as trade-offs.

Build 60 FREMMs at a cost of about $750MM each as ASuW/ASW GP escorts.

Build 80 ASW frigates at a cost of about $500MM each.

Because of the depth problem for sonar domes, I would build any destroyers/frigates on the east or west coast. To keep Fincantieri/Marinette in business, I would also build about 30 each of ASW corvettes enhanced for shallow-water ASW and patrol boats (based on Swedish Visby) and allocate those between Marinette and Austal.

One problem we have building a larger fleet is shipyard capacity. To build the 600-ship fleet that I have envisioned, we probably need 1 more nuke sub yard, a new conventional (AIP) sub yard, and 2-3 more surface ship yards. One idea I have with adopting foreign designs is that the much longer production runs that the US offers versus European/Asian home navies would provide economic incentives for builders like Fincantieri and Naval Group and Navantia and Damen and ThyssenKrupp to develop US shipyards like Naval Group did at Itaguai to build the Brazilian Riachuelo class and Brazilian nuke subs.

Serious question Owl since you are a Navy man. Do you see the continued need for an overwhelming AA defense in the modern age? I know the Ticos were built to stop a massive sea raid by Badgers and Backfires hurling a large amount of anti-ship missiles in the middle of the Atlantic. Do you think a weapons platform with 122 SAMs is still needed?

(03-24-2023 04:59 PM)bobdizole Wrote:  

(03-24-2023 03:49 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(03-24-2023 03:12 PM)U_of_Elvis Wrote:  They are expanding capacity in Wisconsin for frigate production. They took a known quantity in an Italian frigate and started producing it there, so hopefully it will keep costs in line vs a clean sheet design.

That's not exactly what they are doing, unfortunately. The known quantity Italian frigate, the FREMM, is a capable general purpose (GP) frigate, with emphasis on anti-surface (ASuW) and anti-submarine (ASW) warfare, two areas where the US Navy is sorely lacking capability. Unless you want to send a Burke out to chase subs, and risk losing your anti-air warfare (AAW) capability, there really is no ASW capability. Instead of taking a known ship that plugged a major hole, the USN modified the Constellation to an Aegis (fancy anti-air radar) platform, but without enough missile slots to be an effective AAW ship. My guess is that, particularly since they are planning to build 20 of them, they are seen as cheaper replacements for the Ticonderogas, which the Navy has been trying to get rid of for several years. The problem is that the Connies have 32 missile slots, whereas the Ticos have 122, so there is a tremendous decrease in capability.

The other problem is that the Italian FREMM has a hull mounted sonar dome that draws 8.7 meters (28 feet, 7 inches) of water while the Welland Canal has a max allowable draft of 8.1 meters (26 feet, 6 inches). That meant that unless you can go over Niagara Falls, you can't get to sea from the Great Lakes with a FREMM. So another change is the removal of the sonar dome, which drastically reduces the ASW capability of the Connies.

So you need ASuw and ASW, you adopt a good ASuW/ASW design, modify it to be an AAW ship with not enough AAW missiles to be effective. And without getting into details, they sacrificed a lot of other tradeoffs to make the change to Aegis. As for Aegis itself, it is an amazing system when operating properly, but the Navy is apparently having significant issues keeping it up. I would have preferred a mix of APAR/EMPAR/MFRA (on the FREMM) and SMART-L (on the closely related Horizon class) radars. That would require some offsetting weight reductions, but those can be managed. For one thing, the FREMM really has too much superstructure for good design, partly because of the need to make room for a lot of habitability improvements--some good, some not so.

It's really difficult to figure out the thinking on this.

What I would have done instead:

Replace the Ticos with 20 of a new true cruiser design in the 15,000T range to include Aegis, more missile cells (my target is 192, with 64 convertible into 16 hypersonic/ballistic missile launchers), some larger caliber guns (8 inch probably) and a large flight deck for operating helos and maybe 100 UAVs (with a hangar underneath, from which USVs and UUVs can be launched and recovered over the side). See the WWII era flight deck cruiser at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_deck_cruiser for a drawing of what it would look like.

Keep 40 Burkes as Aegis AAW destroyers. Enhance their AAW capabilities, maybe giving up some of their limited ASuW and ASW capabilities as trade-offs.

Build 60 FREMMs at a cost of about $750MM each as ASuW/ASW GP escorts.

Build 80 ASW frigates at a cost of about $500MM each.

Because of the depth problem for sonar domes, I would build any destroyers/frigates on the east or west coast. To keep Fincantieri/Marinette in business, I would also build about 30 each of ASW corvettes enhanced for shallow-water ASW and patrol boats (based on Swedish Visby) and allocate those between Marinette and Austal.

One problem we have building a larger fleet is shipyard capacity. To build the 600-ship fleet that I have envisioned, we probably need 1 more nuke sub yard, a new conventional (AIP) sub yard, and 2-3 more surface ship yards. One idea I have with adopting foreign designs is that the much longer production runs that the US offers versus European/Asian home navies would provide economic incentives for builders like Fincantieri and Naval Group and Navantia and Damen and ThyssenKrupp to develop US shipyards like Naval Group did at Itaguai to build the Brazilian Riachuelo class and Brazilian nuke subs.

Serious question Owl since you are a Navy man. Do you see the continued need for an overwhelming AA defense in the modern age? I know the Ticos were built to stop a massive sea raid by Badgers and Backfires hurling a large amount of anti-ship missiles in the middle of the Atlantic. Do you think a weapons platform with 122 SAMs is still needed?

Owl may have a different answer----but---the Russians and Chinese still have long range bombers so I would think you still need those large anti-aircraft missile magazines as the saturation threat hasnt really gone away. Not to mention you have other air threats like long range ballistic missiles like the China's DF-21 and DF-26---and hypersonics. That said, enemy subs are probably just as big a threat as air attack.

(03-24-2023 05:17 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(03-24-2023 04:59 PM)bobdizole Wrote:  

(03-24-2023 03:49 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(03-24-2023 03:12 PM)U_of_Elvis Wrote:  They are expanding capacity in Wisconsin for frigate production. They took a known quantity in an Italian frigate and started producing it there, so hopefully it will keep costs in line vs a clean sheet design.

That's not exactly what they are doing, unfortunately. The known quantity Italian frigate, the FREMM, is a capable general purpose (GP) frigate, with emphasis on anti-surface (ASuW) and anti-submarine (ASW) warfare, two areas where the US Navy is sorely lacking capability. Unless you want to send a Burke out to chase subs, and risk losing your anti-air warfare (AAW) capability, there really is no ASW capability. Instead of taking a known ship that plugged a major hole, the USN modified the Constellation to an Aegis (fancy anti-air radar) platform, but without enough missile slots to be an effective AAW ship. My guess is that, particularly since they are planning to build 20 of them, they are seen as cheaper replacements for the Ticonderogas, which the Navy has been trying to get rid of for several years. The problem is that the Connies have 32 missile slots, whereas the Ticos have 122, so there is a tremendous decrease in capability.

The other problem is that the Italian FREMM has a hull mounted sonar dome that draws 8.7 meters (28 feet, 7 inches) of water while the Welland Canal has a max allowable draft of 8.1 meters (26 feet, 6 inches). That meant that unless you can go over Niagara Falls, you can't get to sea from the Great Lakes with a FREMM. So another change is the removal of the sonar dome, which drastically reduces the ASW capability of the Connies.

So you need ASuw and ASW, you adopt a good ASuW/ASW design, modify it to be an AAW ship with not enough AAW missiles to be effective. And without getting into details, they sacrificed a lot of other tradeoffs to make the change to Aegis. As for Aegis itself, it is an amazing system when operating properly, but the Navy is apparently having significant issues keeping it up. I would have preferred a mix of APAR/EMPAR/MFRA (on the FREMM) and SMART-L (on the closely related Horizon class) radars. That would require some offsetting weight reductions, but those can be managed. For one thing, the FREMM really has too much superstructure for good design, partly because of the need to make room for a lot of habitability improvements--some good, some not so.

It's really difficult to figure out the thinking on this.

What I would have done instead:

Replace the Ticos with 20 of a new true cruiser design in the 15,000T range to include Aegis, more missile cells (my target is 192, with 64 convertible into 16 hypersonic/ballistic missile launchers), some larger caliber guns (8 inch probably) and a large flight deck for operating helos and maybe 100 UAVs (with a hangar underneath, from which USVs and UUVs can be launched and recovered over the side). See the WWII era flight deck cruiser at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_deck_cruiser for a drawing of what it would look like.

Keep 40 Burkes as Aegis AAW destroyers. Enhance their AAW capabilities, maybe giving up some of their limited ASuW and ASW capabilities as trade-offs.

Build 60 FREMMs at a cost of about $750MM each as ASuW/ASW GP escorts.

Build 80 ASW frigates at a cost of about $500MM each.

Because of the depth problem for sonar domes, I would build any destroyers/frigates on the east or west coast. To keep Fincantieri/Marinette in business, I would also build about 30 each of ASW corvettes enhanced for shallow-water ASW and patrol boats (based on Swedish Visby) and allocate those between Marinette and Austal.

One problem we have building a larger fleet is shipyard capacity. To build the 600-ship fleet that I have envisioned, we probably need 1 more nuke sub yard, a new conventional (AIP) sub yard, and 2-3 more surface ship yards. One idea I have with adopting foreign designs is that the much longer production runs that the US offers versus European/Asian home navies would provide economic incentives for builders like Fincantieri and Naval Group and Navantia and Damen and ThyssenKrupp to develop US shipyards like Naval Group did at Itaguai to build the Brazilian Riachuelo class and Brazilian nuke subs.

Serious question Owl since you are a Navy man. Do you see the continued need for an overwhelming AA defense in the modern age? I know the Ticos were built to stop a massive sea raid by Badgers and Backfires hurling a large amount of anti-ship missiles in the middle of the Atlantic. Do you think a weapons platform with 122 SAMs is still needed?

Owl may have a different answer----but---the Russians and Chinese still have long range bombers so I would think you still need those large anti-aircraft missile magazines as the saturation threat hasnt really gone away. Not to mention you have other air threats like long range ballistic missiles like the China's DF-21 and DF-26---and hypersonics. That said, enemy subs are probably just as big a threat as air attack.

the role still seems vital and with missiles like the SM3 that can make interceptions of ballistic missiles outside the atmosphere they are giving more versatility to the platform to extend that bubble of protection to ballistic threats. Seems relevant with current Korean activity.

(03-24-2023 04:05 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(03-24-2023 01:40 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(03-24-2023 12:18 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  What we need to do instead of sending one ship through on a FONOPS trip is to send a carrier battle group through. In the Navy that I would build that would be 2 carriers, 2 logistics support ships, and about 10 escorting cruisers/destroyers/frigates. And keep them plus a surface action/ASW hunter-killer group (battleship, ASW helo carrier, 2 logistics ships, 10 escorts) and an amphibious ready group (amphibious squadron with 4000 Marines embarked) operating in the area regularly. And when China complains, tell them to learn to like it.

Is there anyone even arguing for a larger fleet based on something similar to what you've suggested? I would hope so---especially since the current plan seems lacking---focusing on retiring a decades worth of recently built LCS vessels, concentrating on high end expensive vessels, and leaving us with no replacement vessels for the low end duties for over a decade. Seems to me---step one is bringing more ship yards on line. That allows more capacity for ship building, repair, and perhaps even the ability to perform a renovation/upgrading of the current LCS fleet to keep them viable for lower end missions (freeing up more capable vessels for front line duties).

Agree except that there really is no way to make the LCS a viable warship of any sort.

Was it you that said the coast guard won’t even take them?

How is towed array performance vs the dome removed from the frigate? I’m assuming the constellation can integrate a helicopter dipped array and helicopter dropped sonar buoys and would need to rely on that for ASW in shallow water, which would be non optimal with only one helo on board giving them about 8 hours of flight operations on a good 24 hour day.

(03-24-2023 04:59 PM)bobdizole Wrote:  Serious question Owl since you are a Navy man. Do you see the continued need for an overwhelming AA defense in the modern age? I know the Ticos were built to stop a massive sea raid by Badgers and Backfires hurling a large amount of anti-ship missiles in the middle of the Atlantic. Do you think a weapons platform with 122 SAMs is still needed?

Need? Absolutely. And not only against bombers, but also antiship missiles. I'm proposing to replace Ticos with 122 VLS slots with new cruisers with 192. And I'm keeping the Burkes, and open to ways to increase their AAW capabilities. One thing for sure--a Connie with 32 VLS slots is not a relacement for a Tico with 122, even if it does have Aegis.

As someone pointed out, there is also a huge and growing submarine threat, and a need to upgrade seriously our ASW capability. That's the reason I'm wanting ASW frigates and a return to GP ASuW/ASW FREMMs instead of Connies.

(03-24-2023 06:13 PM)U_of_Elvis Wrote:  

(03-24-2023 04:05 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(03-24-2023 01:40 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(03-24-2023 12:18 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  What we need to do instead of sending one ship through on a FONOPS trip is to send a carrier battle group through. In the Navy that I would build that would be 2 carriers, 2 logistics support ships, and about 10 escorting cruisers/destroyers/frigates. And keep them plus a surface action/ASW hunter-killer group (battleship, ASW helo carrier, 2 logistics ships, 10 escorts) and an amphibious ready group (amphibious squadron with 4000 Marines embarked) operating in the area regularly. And when China complains, tell them to learn to like it.

Is there anyone even arguing for a larger fleet based on something similar to what you've suggested? I would hope so---especially since the current plan seems lacking---focusing on retiring a decades worth of recently built LCS vessels, concentrating on high end expensive vessels, and leaving us with no replacement vessels for the low end duties for over a decade. Seems to me---step one is bringing more ship yards on line. That allows more capacity for ship building, repair, and perhaps even the ability to perform a renovation/upgrading of the current LCS fleet to keep them viable for lower end missions (freeing up more capable vessels for front line duties).

Agree except that there really is no way to make the LCS a viable warship of any sort.

Was it you that said the coast guard won’t even take them?

How is towed array performance vs the dome removed from the frigate? I’m assuming the constellation can integrate a helicopter dipped array and helicopter dropped sonar buoys and would need to rely on that for ASW in shallow water, which would be non optimal with only one helo on board giving them about 8 hours of flight operations on a good 24 hour day.

FWIW---I think its wasteful to just give up on the LCS before we have any replacement entering service. Its never going to be a great vessel---but I think it can end up being quite a useful vessel if its updated and used correctly.

First, get the engine issue repaired. Second, ditch the modules. They dont work. I'd add at least 12-16 VLS cells. Give it the best off the shelf existing towed array it can function with to give it some organic ASW ability. If you have 16 cells, and allocate 4 cells for long range Tomahawks, 2 for torpedoes, and the rest for mid-range Evolved Sea Sparrow anti-aircraft missiles (32 missiles will fit in the remaining cells)--you have a vessel that can at least defend itself. The vessels already have 2 deck mounted 4-cell boxes containing a total of 8 Naval Strike Missiles for anti-ship missions.

Where I would use the vessel is as an operations platform to deploy anti-submarine drones and anti-submarine helicopters and autonomous Bell 247 VTOL drones. The LCS vessels are kinda noisy and dont make good ASW platforms on their own----but using them as a hub for ASW choppers and autonomous drones could make them quite useful. They could carry extra fuel to keep the surface drones running. They could service and monitor underwater ASW drones. They could use their chopper and Bell 247's drones to drop sonar buoys or dipping sonars. Using these other assets on top of their organic towed array would give the vessel a pretty decent ASW picture when all the information is tied together. Then once the vessel acquires a target, it has the ability to prosecute it on its own from its VLS or attack with its chopper or drones---or it could simply direct other fleet assets to the target.

Furthermore, in a peer conflict----its entirely possible that each side will blind or eliminate the satellite capability of the other. Having 30+ additional vessels, even if they are not particularly capable warships on their own---but are relatively fast and can launch multiple autonomous long range Bell-247 drones that can carry recon pods and scan wide swaths of ocean could be very helpful if we are forced to go back to WWII era methods of situational awareness at sea (ie---scout planes and subs).