tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579907756656776056.post9134523241072606165..comments2024-03-28T07:56:09.239-07:00Comments on Navy Matters: A2/AD CombatComNavOpshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09669644332369727431noreply@blogger.comBlogger55125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579907756656776056.post-31418535616938530232015-06-20T11:08:03.653-07:002015-06-20T11:08:03.653-07:00War is expensive. In a war, you are going to need ...War is expensive. In a war, you are going to need to produce lots of strike weapons. It is a moot point to say we go to war with 3000 Tomahawks. <br />An arsenal ship loaded with VLS is an expensive target but even 200 tomahawks are still so much cheaper than your $3B Burke. Even that Virginia is $2.2B before weapons fit out. <br />There is no need for light carriers. Do you even need a VLS. It can just be a cruise missile with solid rocket boosters to bring it up to altitude and speed for the turbofan. 2000-3000km, 2000lb warhead, this thing is going to be big. It sounds like a re hatched stealth version of a P1000 Vulkan. Put a turbofan in to go farther but at subsonic speeds. Built in cranes on deck and you can reload the launch tubes at sea from the cargo holds. Now the arsenal ships may start to look like a modified Slava cruiser.. In any case, for those hardened sheltered air bases you are going to need heavyweight FAE warheads.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579907756656776056.post-67175799021264949052015-06-10T14:08:30.773-07:002015-06-10T14:08:30.773-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.B.Smittyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12650152449414871058noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579907756656776056.post-71531730441821376272015-06-10T12:01:48.272-07:002015-06-10T12:01:48.272-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.B.Smittyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12650152449414871058noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579907756656776056.post-21843322019135611972015-06-10T10:07:26.711-07:002015-06-10T10:07:26.711-07:00"Boeing has built over 250,000 JDAM kits and ..."Boeing has built over 250,000 JDAM kits and is building 40 per day. We just need to find ways to deliver them."<br /><br />Given the 15 mile range of the JDAM, the "need to find ways to deliver them" is an understatement of epic proportion!ComNavOpshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09669644332369727431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579907756656776056.post-5725862941783046402015-06-10T10:04:34.167-07:002015-06-10T10:04:34.167-07:00"It may be better for to just develop a cheap..."It may be better for to just develop a cheaper cruise missile carrying aircraft (say 767-based)."<br /><br />Smitty, the use of a commercial airliner as the basis for a cruise missile "carrier" is interesting but seems to suffer from a significant survivability issue. I assume you envision a JASSM-ER missile with a 500 nm range. Thus, the aircraft would have to penetrate to within 400 miles of the Chinese coast to hit fixed targets from the shore to 100 miles inland. That's a lot of penetrating by a slow, large, non-stealthy aircraft. <br /><br />Now, for anti-shipping, that might be a viable option.<br /><br />This option also potentially suffers from a concentration/risk issue. I assume you envision a lot of missiles on a single aircraft. That's risking losing a lot of weapons in a non-survivable platform. To be fair, the same can be said of many other platforms to varying degrees.ComNavOpshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09669644332369727431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579907756656776056.post-59813965950924236742015-06-10T09:56:15.220-07:002015-06-10T09:56:15.220-07:00"The need for volume fires has not gone away...."The need for volume fires has not gone away. This means that surface ships must carry the great bulk of the Navy's VLS throughput capacity."<br /><br />Or we build more SSGNs so that we can cycle them in and out of the combat area.ComNavOpshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09669644332369727431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579907756656776056.post-60304947877571347442015-06-10T09:00:40.701-07:002015-06-10T09:00:40.701-07:00We need weapons with at least 1000nm capability, p...We need weapons with at least 1000nm capability, preferably 1,200-1,500 nm capability. The Navy lacks aircraft capable of lifting weapons with that range, and every US airbase in the range is covered by Chinese and North Korean missiles. <br /><br />Give the Chinese credit for intelligence and assume that they will, at an absolute minimum, hit our strategic bomber bases at Diego Garcia and other OCUNUS locations. <br /><br />Subsequent US strategic air strikes will then face formidable surface-to-air and air-to-air threats. Attrition seems unlikely to favor us.<br /><br />I expect the situation to spiral out of hand and either we will blink first, or there will be a nuclear exchange.<br /><br />GAB<br /><br /> Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579907756656776056.post-24741543701645856672015-06-10T08:36:34.217-07:002015-06-10T08:36:34.217-07:00I also not that a suitable medium to intermediate ...I also not that a suitable medium to intermediate range ballistic missile could be made weighing 3-5 metric tons and 6-9 meters in length.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579907756656776056.post-79348705218473235412015-06-10T08:29:32.428-07:002015-06-10T08:29:32.428-07:00Scott,
Conventional military wisdom can and shoul...Scott,<br /><br />Conventional military wisdom can and should be challenged to prevent the disasters such as the summer of 1914.<br /><br />No well reasoned argument should be rejected except on merrit.<br /><br />GABAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579907756656776056.post-59913658324011143022015-06-10T08:14:30.230-07:002015-06-10T08:14:30.230-07:001) The USA also has treaty commitments to defend T...1) The USA also has treaty commitments to defend Taiwan, Australia, Japan, and South Korea all of which are in range of Chinese IRBMs launched from the mainland or first island chain.<br /><br />2) The list of nations with submarine launched ballistic missile capability is larger than you think. India and Israel are two examples. The emphasis on "guess" is a real issue.<br /><br />3) The correct strategic counter to short and intermediate range ballistic missiles is to deploy similar systems; arguably this is a prerequisite to arms control discussions.<br /><br />GABAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579907756656776056.post-36079404788280963732015-06-10T01:13:18.912-07:002015-06-10T01:13:18.912-07:00And the bigger cargo ships could hold from 400-600...And the bigger cargo ships could hold from 400-600 of the ISO based VLS containers for a total of 10k-15k Tomahawks per. Though the cost for missiles + launchers for those would be 26-40 billion respectively. Though I think it would suffice to break any A2/AD situation. Just try stopping 15K cruise missiles ;) And lets be realistic, its just 1 year of the cost of the war on terror!atshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11410880091736531848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579907756656776056.post-29948371491132315092015-06-10T01:00:23.362-07:002015-06-10T01:00:23.362-07:00If you are going the armored box route, you aren&#...If you are going the armored box route, you aren't going to use a carrier. Instead, design a 3 high shipping container with standard VLS cells. Grab random panamax container ship, put ~128 VLS 40' containers each containing 3x8 cells, sail out, fire.<br /><br />New build panamax ships cost ~$60 million or so. 3 stack modified container is likely to cost ~100k. A Mk41 8-cell block costs ~$6 million per (which honestly seems QUITE insane!) or ~18 million per container. Total cost for 128 containers: 2.3 billion! Total VLS cells: 3072! (basically as many tomahawks as we have in inventory!) Total cost for missiles: 6.2 Billion for tomahawks! Total cost all up for containerized missiles: 8.5 billion!<br /><br />Cost of 16 panamax ships: 960 million. Total cost all up: 9.46 billion. For that you get 16 ships each with 192 Strike missiles. If you want more missiles, its just a matter of money to buy more containers and missiles. <br /><br />AKA if you want an arsenal ship with missiles, its all about containers and the ships are basically free! <br /><br />atshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11410880091736531848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579907756656776056.post-19393377798341850382015-06-10T00:11:51.523-07:002015-06-10T00:11:51.523-07:00The USN has developed a viable method for reloadin...The USN has developed a viable method for reloading VLS at sea they just haven't deployed it yet (page 12): https://www.navalengineers.org/SiteCollectionDocuments/2009%20Proceedings%20Documents/AD%202009/Papers/MillerMO.pdf<br /><br />atshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11410880091736531848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579907756656776056.post-52705453472573964422015-06-09T16:38:56.883-07:002015-06-09T16:38:56.883-07:00RESPONSE to Jim Whall, PART 3 of 3:
Jim Whall: ...RESPONSE to Jim Whall, PART 3 of 3: <br /><br /><strong>Jim Whall:</strong> <em>"C) our stand off weapons programs aren't perfect, but seem to be in better shape than our current platform programs."</em><br /><br />Stand-off weaponry launched from air, sea, and land platforms needs greater funding priority. But greater numbers of stand-off weapons can only go so far in the absence of procurement of greater numbers of platforms which are optimized to launch those stand-off weaponry types in high volumes.<br /><br /><strong>Jim Whall:</strong> <em>"D) With increasing debt and demand for superficial austerity, the defense budget isn't going to be trending upward."</em><br /><br />The money for all this new stuff has to come from somewhere. But if the money does come from somewhere, would we spend it on platforms and systems that don't work?<br /><br /><strong>Jim Whall:</strong> <em>"Things like a modernized B-52 and/or a 767 wouldn't, couldn't replace the need for a modern day strike bomber as represented by LRS-B. Maybe they are complete flights of fancy."</em><br /><br />If the LRS-B program is managed with a strong sense of realism as to what is and is not possible, then we will see the airplane in service by 2025. If it isn't, we won't. <br /><br /><strong>Jim Whall:</strong> <em>"But I guess I'm coming in with the idea that even if LRS-B comes to fruition it will be a truncated buy due to all of the above factors. So we need to think out of the box, and maybe weirdly out of the box, if we want volume of fire. I'm thinking about how in WWII we used modified merchant ships to become escort carriers; or how we kept older hulls in service during the cold war in order to keep numbers up. I think that we won't have enough money to fund the best option all the time. So maybe we have to come up with some stuff to fill the ranks."</em><br /><br />There is no magic solution to supplying volume fires at long range which are also by necessity long-range guided precision fires. It will take a lot of money combined with a policy of enforcing strong program management discipline to supply all that will be needed in the future. <br /><br /><strong>Jim Whall:</strong> <em>"With all this said, I'm just a civilian whose military knowledge comes from reading the Economist, boards like this, and Google U. So I realize I might have huge gaps in that knowledge. "</em><br /><br />I am not a veteran myself. My personal background as one who follows defense issues is that prior to a career move into supporting project control systems for management of large-scale technology development programs, I worked as an engineer developing Neat Technical Stuff (NTS) in support of national security objectives. <br /><br />Many of my opinions concerning defense topics and issues are not in conformance with the popular conventional wisdom. So my advice here is take my opinions, and everyone else's opinions, for what they might be worth to you from inside your own personal frame of reference.<br /><br />END of PART 3 of 3. Scott Brimnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579907756656776056.post-1726748178217398212015-06-09T16:26:20.346-07:002015-06-09T16:26:20.346-07:00RESPONSE to Jim Whall, PART 2 of 3:
Jim Whall: ...RESPONSE to Jim Whall, PART 2 of 3: <br /><br /><strong>Jim Whall:</strong> <em>"B) The F-35 is going to happen, and its going to end up eating budgets the way my son eats popcorn. The jet itself is expensive. ALIS isn't working, and the maintenance cost on them seems quite high. This is all true even more so for NAVAIR."</em><br /><br />Come what may, IOC for each F-35 variant will be declared per the current schedule. But once IOC is declared for a version -- B, A, and C in that order -- the design configuration for that version's mechanical, avionics, engine, and structural systems will be locked down. <br /> <br />Development of the F-35's major software blocks will continue forward post-IOC; but after IOC, only minor configuration changes and easy-to-implement technical fixes to the basic airframe and its onboard hardware systems will be allowed. Any serious issues of any major significance which affect each version's design will be lived with through a combination of maintenance work-arounds and the imposition of operational restrictions. <br /><br />Major configuration changes which might force a costly series of changes and adjustments to the F-35's support infrastructure will not be done except in those cases where the aircraft simply cannot fly without the needed modifications. Manual work-arounds for any missing ALIS functionality will be developed and implemented. Money spent on the F-35 will go into producing as many F-35's as possible under the constrained levels of funding that be available over the next decade. I see 1200 F-35 airframes being produced, maybe 1500. <br /><br />Concerning the F-35's ability a decade from now to fight effectively deep inside a high-threat A2/AD weapons engagement zone, the airplane will not have enough range, endurance, all aspect stealth, and combat envelope performance to engage with the most effective of the IADS and the A2/AD threats it will be facing. In strike operations conducted within a high-threat A2/AD environment, the F-35 will penetrate only as far into the weapons engagement zone as is necessary to bring the target within range of its standoff weaponry, but no farther. The F-35 will let loose with the smart stuff and then boogie out of there as fast as it can. The smart standoff weaponry is where the necessary high performance VLO stealth and the complicated A2/AD avoidance capabilities will reside, not aboard the F-35 itself.<br /><br />In the year 2025, the F-35 will be too few in number and too expensive to employ on a routine basis for day-to-day low-threat airpower missions like the ones now being conducted. Against less capable adversaries, the F-35 is limited by its need for adequate in-theater support facilities, its range, its endurance, and its in-field operations and maintenance costs. In the year 2025, some large portion of the responsilbility for handling low-threat non-A2/AD CAS and ISR missions will fall upon a combination of the USN's legacy F-18 E/F fighters, the USAF's legacy F-15E fighters, and the USAF's legacy B-1, B-2, and B-52 bombers. <br /> <br />What lines of evidence support my speculation that a post-IOC F-35 configuration lock-down is coming? (1) The Navy is slowing procurement of the F-35C which indicates to me at least that they want more time to do as much development work as possible before the inevitable lock-down occurs. (2) DOD wants to quickly ramp up production of the F-35 to lower its unit costs, buying 450 F-35s in a block. The Pentagon could not do this without imposing a post-IOC design freeze and follow-on configuration lock-down in order to limit post-production modifications to production aircraft. (3) The simple fact that unless F-35 cost growth is constrained, little else is possible if we want American airpower to evolve as quickly as it needs to evolve in response to emerging A2/AD threats.<br /><br />END of PART 2 of 3. Scott Brimnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579907756656776056.post-70821350252761933902015-06-09T16:22:35.384-07:002015-06-09T16:22:35.384-07:00Jim Whall: Scott Brim said, "But it will not,...<strong>Jim Whall:</strong> <em>Scott Brim said, "But it will not, as many people now suppose, be possible to simply marry a series of stand-off weaponry types to a cheap launching platform and voila, our problems with fielding expensive new platforms are resolved."<br /><br />"Scott; I agree with your point. I guess I'm looking at things with a few assumptions in place: "</em><br /><br />==============================<br /><br />I will respond point by point, but in three succeeding posts due to this forum's space limitations: <br /><br />RESPONSE to Jim Whall, PART 1 of 3: <br /><br /><strong>Jim Whall:</strong> <em>" A) that our current acquisition program is broken, and likely won't be fixed any time soon. The last time I can remember a program coming in roughly on time or on budget I believe it was the SuperHornet. That's a long time ago now."</em><br /><br />One of the most important reasons why the acquisition process is broken is that the process has become the product, and those who manage the process -- the DOD transformationalists and the acquisition professionals who support the DOD transformationalists -- have become the primary customers for the DOD 5000 process. <br /><br />Senator McCain is studying changes to Goldwater-Nichols which might have some positive, although somewhat limited, impacts on DOD 5000. But these changes won't be nearly enough to improve the acquisition process to the extent it needs to be improved. <br /><br />Since DOD 5000 isn't going away -- not now, not ever -- something else has to happen. <br /><br />In my view, knowledge is power. The true warriors of the armed services who understand both military technology and warfighting doctrine must also become experts in managing the DOD 5000 acquisition process. They must then use their knowledge of the ins and outs of DOD 5000 to wrest control of the process from the transformationalists and the acquisition professionals. This objective can be accomplished only if the very highest officials in the Department of Defense actively support the true warriors in their quest to gain direct control over DOD 5000. <br /><br />Under this approach to acquisition reform, the true warriors will know themselves what DOD 5000 levers need to be pulled, and which DOD 5000 buttons need to be pushed when and where, so as to move their projects through the acquisition process in an acceptably short period of time.<br /><br />In other words, these true-warrior acquisition professionals will traverse the DOD 5000 landscape with the same gusto and determination they apply when traversing a battlefield's terrain. <br /><br />END of PART 1 of 3. Scott Brimnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579907756656776056.post-29796119146170112242015-06-09T13:47:05.112-07:002015-06-09T13:47:05.112-07:00Anon,
Paragraphs. They mean something.
In paragra...Anon,<br /><br />Paragraphs. They mean something.<br />In paragraph #1 I clearly indicated that, without a deck load of ABLs, Supercarriers are tough buggers.<br />...<br />That means very hard to sink.<br />In paragraph #2 I was speaking of an Armed Fast Barge.<br />I called /that/ a very vulnerable basket.<br />Why did I go from a Supercarrier to a Armed Fast Barge?<br />Because the navy would not send a 15 billion dollar Supercarrier and ~2700 men to do the job of a 1 billion dollar ship and ~30 men.<br />They'd much rather build new battleships (and they're firmly against that idea), it'd cost less and would have more use!<br /><br />Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing the ABL. I think the concept is very valid for small ships where you cannot devote the below deck space.<br />I just know they're not going to permanently use up the deck of a Supercarrier for that purpose... since installing ABLs on a carrier would perforate the flight deck, requiring hundreds of millions of dollars to repair if they tried to remove them. Not to mention that drilling holes through the armored flight deck would be... a very trying task indeed.<br /><br />- Ray D.Ray D.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579907756656776056.post-38785519341100497902015-06-09T10:54:28.404-07:002015-06-09T10:54:28.404-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.B.Smittyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12650152449414871058noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579907756656776056.post-32716462620300936142015-06-09T09:53:27.938-07:002015-06-09T09:53:27.938-07:00Smitty,
How would China (or the USA) immediately ...Smitty,<br /><br />How would China (or the USA) immediately identify the national origin of a submarine launched ballistic missile fired from an untracked SSBN?<br /><br />During the cold war it was pretty easy because there were "two sides" - in the 21st century, the number of players has increased radically.<br /><br />Even during the cold war, SRBMs and IRBMs were very contentious. Much more than the mythical DF-21, the real threat to allied airpower in Asia is the ballistic missile.<br /><br />GABAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579907756656776056.post-38010734808540276292015-06-09T09:25:42.809-07:002015-06-09T09:25:42.809-07:00"But it will not, as many people now suppose,..."But it will not, as many people now suppose, be possible to simply marry a series of stand-off weaponry types to a cheap launching platform and voila, our problems with fielding expensive new platforms are resolved."<br /><br />Scott; <br /><br />I agree with your point. I guess I'm looking at things with a few assumptions in place:<br /><br />A) that our current acquisition program is broken, and likely won't be fixed any time soon. The last time I can remember a program coming in roughly on time or on budget I believe it was the SuperHornet. That's a long time ago now. <br /><br />B) The F-35 is going to happen, and its going to end up eating budgets the way my son eats popcorn. The jet itself is expensive. ALIS isn't working, and the maintanance cost on them seems quite high. This is all true even more so for NAVAIR. <br /><br />C) our stand off weapons programs aren't perfect, but seem to be in better shape than our current platform programs. <br /><br />D) With increasing debt and demand for superficial austerity, the defense budget isn't going to be trending upward. <br /><br />Things like a modernized B-52 and/or a 767 wouldn't, couldn't replace the need for a modern day strike bomber as represented by LRS-B. Maybe they are complete flights of fancy. <br /><br />But I guess I'm coming in with the idea that even if LRS-B comes to fruition it will be a truncated buy due to all of the above factors. So we need to think out of the box, and maybe weirdly out of the box, if we want volume of fire. <br /><br />I'm thinking about how in WWII we used modified merchant ships to become escort carriers; or how we kept older hulls in service during the cold war in order to keep numbers up. I think that we won't have enough money to fund the best option all the time. So maybe we have to come up with some stuff to fill the ranks. <br /><br />With all this said, I'm just a civilian whose military knowledge comes from reading the Economist, boards like this, and Google U. So I realize I might have huge gaps in that knowledge. <br /><br />JFWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16095723023404412328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579907756656776056.post-52403264139245878772015-06-09T07:42:59.630-07:002015-06-09T07:42:59.630-07:00If an aircraft carrier is "one very vulnerabl...If an aircraft carrier is "one very vulnerable basket," the Navy has more problems than can be addressed here. Aside from its air wing, which is undersized but that's another story, a carrier is fairly well protected with 2-3 ESSM launchers and 3-4 Phalanx/RAM systems. <br /><br />I think an Armored Box Launcher (ABL) would be a viable method to achieve the distributed lethality the Navy proposes. For example, one could put 4 or so launchers on the aft end of the flight deck of an LCS and turn it into an one-off special weapons platform.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579907756656776056.post-43214123994678252242015-06-08T22:44:05.827-07:002015-06-08T22:44:05.827-07:00Anon,
There's probably space for several doze...Anon,<br /><br />There's probably space for several dozen ABLs on the deck of a Supercarrier if they wanted to stick them on there.<br />But why would they do that to a 15 Billion dollar warship that would blow up if so much as looked at wrong (If its deck was covered by ABLs, at least. Carriers are actually tough buggers otherwise.)?<br />Cost and Effect, it's not worth the price.<br /><br />If they were just going to slap ABLs onto a ship, they'd do so to any old fast 30kt+ barge and have a DD or CG provide remote targeting data. Total cost would be... maybe $1B for the same number of missiles.<br />I'm not familiar with the price of the ABL, since they haven't been manufactured in ~25 years or so and my own designs are so radically different, but I digress.<br />The problem there is you've put all your eggs in one very vulnerable basket. We simply don't have enough missiles to make that worthwhile in the case of losses (and there will be losses when the ship cannot defend itself).<br /><br />- Ray D.Ray D.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579907756656776056.post-12333675954301523752015-06-08T20:54:44.733-07:002015-06-08T20:54:44.733-07:00Aside from using Burkes and Ticos as special weapo...Aside from using Burkes and Ticos as special weapons platforms carrying 60+ cruise missiles or bombers, one could put a whole bunch of cruise missiles on an aircraft carrier using armored box launchers. <br /><br />There's probably enough space on the flight deck for 6-8 armored box launchers and the hanger could easily hold another dozen or more. Missiles could be stored in the ammunition holds on the carrier when not in a launcher.<br /><br />This would enable an aircraft carrier, the ultimate arsenal ship, to launch a half dozen salvos of 24 to 32 missiles.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579907756656776056.post-46982561397595908762015-06-08T13:06:18.659-07:002015-06-08T13:06:18.659-07:00B.Smitty: "I'm not holding my breath on...B.Smitty: <em>"I'm not holding my breath on that LRS-B price."</em> <br /><br />In theory -- as such theories go -- LRS-B will use no technology which does not already exist, and whose problems and issues 'as such' are reasonably well understood. <br /><br />In other words, at this point in time, the LRS-B's technology management envelope is well-bounded in comparison with where the B-2, the F-22, the F-35 were at similar points in their development.<br />Achieving successful A2/AD counter measures over the next two decades will require fielding a variety of advanced stand-off weaponry types. But it will not, as many people now suppose, be possible to simply marry a series of stand-off weaponry types to a cheap launching platform and voila, our problems with fielding expensive new platforms are resolved.<br /><br />The performance effectiveness of a particular standoff weaponry type is in part a function of how close the launching platform can get to the target.<br /><br />What we should be trying to do is to maximize the total combat effectiveness of the end-to-end ordnance delivery chain. To do that, we need to look at the launching platform AND at its proposed weaponry loadouts to see what features each should have to maximize end-to-end comat effectiveness of the combined total system. Scott Brimnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5579907756656776056.post-11131995190871683322015-06-08T12:40:24.065-07:002015-06-08T12:40:24.065-07:00@ Jim
I agree. Avoiding a peer war with China (an...@ Jim<br /><br />I agree. Avoiding a peer war with China (and I would argue Russia as well seeing that tensions are rising) is the priority.<br /><br />In a sense, the US has already wrecked itself even without the wars. <br />- Manufacturing is a fraction of what it once was. <br />- De-regulation of finance resulted in the 2008 Crash. <br />- American scientific leadership, I've read many articles is in danger. <br /><br />There are other problems that I see. There seems to be a lack of public willingness to invest in the future, whether that be in infrastructure, education, research, or pretty much anything that benefits society. <br /><br />Then there's the short term mentality. Too many corporations loyal to the quarterly profit. Likewise, there's too many people going - widget: Made in USA $30, Made in China $10 and then they buy the Made in China one. Then they complain there's no manufacturing jobs. That leads to a downwards cycle because wages go down too, as does innovation. <br /><br />You could argue in a way, that's what happened to the rest of Europe. Germany in a sense "won" in that they retain a powerful industrial base. AltandMainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01014823246265859953noreply@blogger.com