As ComNavOps sits in his parlor, waiting and hoping that
Santa brings him a 16” triple gun mount, he can’t help but imagine what gifts
he’d like Santa to bring the Navy. Here’s
a few thoughts:
What do you hope Santa brings the Navy?
- A new design, smaller, focused destroyer so that the Navy can finally stop building obsolete Burkes
- A dedicated, long range fighter aircraft
- A CNO with an ounce of integrity, courage, and intelligence
- A dozen new dry docks
Dedicated ASW corvettes by the dozen, minesweepers, let's see...lots and lots of ammo and a plan to practice with it...
ReplyDeleteA most useful gift, indeed!
DeleteMunitions paired to more available platforms.
Delete- LRASM/JASSM on P-8
- NSM and Spike-NLOS on MH-60 and potentially AH-1Z
- Quad packed GMLRS/SDB etc
- The 6.75 inch torpedo everywhere including quad packed VLA.
- Guided 5" Zuni rockets.
Great stocking stuffers!
Delete* A design for a fast-attack boat broadly along the lines and cost of the British Astute-class in lieu of SSN(X), and two new submarine shipyards to build two or three of them per year (in addition to everything else we're currently building at existing shipyards)
ReplyDelete* Expansion of AUTEC to host more "DACT-but-with-submarines" activities than it currently does
* Some sort of truth serum which flag officers would be required to imbibe daily
Who wouldn't want a fast attack boat under their tree?!
Delete"A new design, smaller, focused destroyer so that the Navy can finally stop building obsolete Burkes"
ReplyDeleteWhy did the Navy insist on taking the FREMM design and turning it into the Constellation class?
FREMM was far from perfect, but it was a much better GP frigate than what the Constellation is. With some tweaks it could have been a pretty decent ship. But it seems that the ASuW and ASW capabilities were trashed (57mm popgun and no hull sonar) to make it an undersized AEGIS platform. I simply do not understand.
"FREMM was far from perfect, but it was a much better GP frigate than what the Constellation is."
DeleteIf one makes a list of all the things the Navy needs, a general purpose frigate would be at the very bottom of the list.
Hmm.. Well:
ReplyDeleteCommon sense program research, design, development, and testing.(i.e. test on land, use either a decommissioned boat or modify one close to retirement and use it to test new gadgets).screw it, how about Common sense in general.
Professionalism over Pronouns
Applying, living the Navy Core Values, instead of just knowing what they are.
Formation of an advisory board that is comprised of retired SWOs, Aviators, and Submarine commanders and identify the deficiencies that are plaguing the Navy as whole and offer solutions. Once this advisory board, they announce their collective findings to the Armed Services Committees of both the House and the Senate. It's asking a lot but I think it something that should be done sooner rather than later.
20-year service life's of surface combatants
Go back to the basics: ASW, MCM, Seamanship, 3M Maintenance, Shipboard Fire Fighting
Overhaul how recruiting is carried out.
Develop strategies before the equipment.
"Formation of an advisory board that is comprised of retired SWOs, Aviators, and Submarine commanders and identify the deficiencies that are plaguing the Navy as whole and offer solutions. Once this advisory board, they announce their collective findings to the Armed Services Committees of both the House and the Senate. It's asking a lot but I think it something that should be done sooner rather than later."
DeletePut some chiefs on that board.
"20-year service life's of surface combatants"
DeleteThe only problem I have with this is the resulting numbers. Let's say you determine that the capabilities that are required of our Navy dictate a fleet size of 500 (I am picking an arbitrary number, just to illustrate a point, you can pick any number and get a comparable result). if you build everything for a 20-year life, then you end up having to build 25 ships a year to maintain that fleet. Unless you can come up with some fairly incredible cost savings, you have blown the annual shipbuilding budget completely out of the water.
What I am fine with is 20-year lives for certain smaller combatants, up to 30, 40, and 50 year lives for larger ships. Maybe carriers and battleships 50 years, cruisers and large auxiliaries 40 years, destroyers and amphibs 30 years, small combatants (corvettes, patrol ships, and mine warfare ships) 20 years, probably averaging out somehwere between 35 and 40 years. Then you can support that 500-ship fleet with something on the order of 12-15 ships a year, which is still an increase over current building but probably doable.
Again, don't misinterpret this. I'm not arguing for or against 500 ships. Whatever the number is, the impact is similar.
"20-year service life's of surface combatants"
DeleteThis used to be much more the standard than today's unworkable, supposed longer lived ships. The reality, today, is that we almost always early retire our ships anyway.
"The only problem I have with this is the resulting numbers."
No, the problem you have with this is failing to understand history (we used to have short lives as standard), reality (we early retire anyway but waste a lot of money 'future proofing' ships that never get upgraded), and all the benefits (more shipbuilding, more yards, more yard work, a younger fleet, a more modern fleet, and cheaper costs).
"Unless you can come up with some fairly incredible cost savings"
Incredible cost savings are easy to find:
-Build single function ships. Take a Burke and strip out everything that isn't pure AAW and you could build it for 1/3 - 1/2 the cost.
-Stop building ships without CONOPS (save $30B on Zumwalt program, save $??B on LCS, save $10B per ship on carriers, cut all ship costs by 1/3 - 1/2, ... do I need to go on?
Short lives are the only approach that makes sense.
I think shorter design lives make sense for a lot of ships, particularly smaller combatants. And I agree tat you can get something like the cost savings you mention on those ships. So we agree there.
DeleteI'm not sure you can get similar cost savings for carriers, because a primary driver is that they have to be so large, whether built for 20 years or 50. So generally longer lives for larger ships would seem to make sense.
That's why I put forth a variable life by ship type, generally longer for larger ships:
20 years - small combatants
30 years - destroyers, submarines, amphibs
40 years - cruisers, auxiliaries
50 years - carriers, battleships
That would produce an average (weighted for cost) life of about 35 years.
I would also tend more toward single purpose along with shorter lives at the smaller end of the scale. What seems to be very badly needed is a bunch of single-purpose ASW frigates and/or corvettes. I am okay with a mix of smaller, single-purpose ships and larger multi-purpose ships.
"Incredible cost savings are easy to find:
Delete-Build single function ships. Take a Burke and strip out everything that isn't pure AAW and you could build it for 1/3 - 1/2 the cost.
-Stop building ships without CONOPS (save $30B on Zumwalt program, save $??B on LCS, save $10B per ship on carriers, cut all ship costs by 1/3 - 1/2, ... do I need to go on?"
I hate to disagree with CNO, since you're nearly always right, but neither of these really has anything to do with the designed service life of the ship. You can do either one (or both) for either a 20 year ship or a 50 year ship.
I do agree that leaving out attempts to "future proof" the ship will save something. Do we have any idea how much?
One of the concerns I've had about these ideas is that at least some of the things that distinguish a military ship from a civilian ship (like more robust construction and higher speed) would also be needed for a ship with a shorter service life. Do we really have an idea how much we'd save.
I do know why no hull sonar. If you make them in Marinette then to get to the ocean they have to go through the Welland Canal. Either that or over Niagara Falls.
ReplyDeleteMaximum draft that will pass through the Welland is 26.5 feet. The Italian FREMM ASW version draws 28.7 feet. And I really don't think we need a bunch of ASW frigates on the Great Lakes.
I don't know whether that claim is true or not. If it is, it further illustrates the folly of designing and building ships to a business case instead of a combat case.
DeleteThe 26.5 feet for Welland and 28.7 feet for the Bergamini class are admittedly both from Wikipedia. For a little more rigorous source, https://www.seaforces.org/marint/Italian-Navy/Frigate/Bergamini-FREMM-class.htm lists draft for the Bergamini at 8.6 meters (28 feet), and the Welland Canal site, https://www.wellandcanal.com/, indicates that the canal has been dredged to 9.1 meters (29 feet). The St. Lawrence Seaway site, https://www.seaway.dot.gov/about/great-lakes-st-lawrence-seaway-system, suggests 8.9 meter depth (28 feet, 6 inches) to transit the locks. That would suggest that it could be doable, but would be a very tight squeeze with not a lot of margin for error, probably not something tat you would ideally design for.
DeleteIt seems to me that if we wanted a design based on the FREMM, we would build that with the hull sonar at a yard with more direct ocean access.
DeleteIt would seem that a good ship to build at Marinette would be a modern Garcia class (415 x 44 x 25 ft, 2600 tons, give it twin screws with IEP or CODLAG for quiet running when doing ASW, replace aft 5 inch gun with enlarged helo hangar and deck to operate H-60 or so, possibly replace fwd 5 inch with 3 inch/76mm Strales to save weight, possibly replace ASROC with 32-cell Mk-41 to operate 12-16 VL-ASROC, 32 quad pack ESSM, and 8-12 NSM).
Santa could also bring an updated St. Lawrence Seaway that could handle Post-Panamax vessels. length -366m, beam -49m, and draft -15m. Helping the Navy and commerce in general.
Delete"Santa could also bring an updated St. Lawrence Seaway"
DeleteYou want Santa to dredge a channel?! That's asking a lot! :)
The USS Little Rock was stuck in Montreal due to ice. I would avoid the st. Lawrence.
Deletehttps://news.usni.org/2018/04/02/littoral-combat-ship-uss-little-rock-leaves-montreal-three-months-trapped-ice
I think the main driver against growing the canal is wanting to avoid invasive species that would come with it, I'd still do it. I would like to see a smaller frigate/bigger corvette designed to bring Captas-4 to the fleet in broader numbers and on a combatant with more ASW and less AAW focus. Use the same gensets from Connie except 12V rather than 20V. Use the 1.7MW motors from the Koean FFX Batch II/III except use the LM2500+G4 from connie in CODLAG rather than CODLOG. Now your crew can cross train engineering for 2 classes.
DeleteA carrier-based, fixed wing ASW aircraft.
ReplyDeleteThe Sea Lance or some other anti-submarine missile with a longer range than the VL-ASROC.
DeleteSerious research and development in modern naval armor.
DeleteA modern replacement for the Mk45 5-inch gun, which is almost 50 years old. A rate of 32 rounds per minute should be reasonable. I bring this up because you've written the Mk45 is not effective against aerial targets and speedboats due to its slow rate of fire. This is a 5-inch gun that fires up to 32 rounds per minute.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otobreda_127/64
A mount with a single barrel could be used with frigates, large Coast Guard cutters, and other ships. A mount with two barrels could be installed on destroyers and as secondary gun armament on battleships.
I'd rather have multiple ammo type feeds than 2 barrels.
DeleteMultiple ammo feed is a good thing. I've heard the Russian Terminator tank has dual 30 mm guns because they had difficulty developing a good dual feed system. My suggestion for two 5-inch barrels is to better defend against swarm attacks.
DeleteWhat do you hope Santa brings the Navy?
ReplyDelete1) One LCS with all those military bigwigs on it for a party or whatnot.
2) A whole bunch of torpedoes (good ones, no lightweight) in the same time and place, aimed at said ship.
We could blame it on Putin or sunspots or climate change later on.
I think there are too many bigwigs for one LCS. Maybe several?
DeleteWhat do you hope Santa brings the Navy?
ReplyDeleteHere is my wish list
1) change Navy's mental state from "been politically correct" to "pragmatic thinking".
2) Imbibe "Common Sense" into Navy's brass that Navy structure and functioning should be design to function in War time situations and must not reflect Peace time "All is Well" mindset of civilians.
3) Resurrection of "Fleet Problems" Exercises.
4) Collaboration with Japanese Navy/South Korean Navy for design and manufacturing a fleet of Conventional powered Submarines (SSK) design specifically to operate in Western Pacific Ocean especially in First and Second Islands Chain.
5) deployment of SOSUS type system in First and Second Islands Chain to have a detail Acoustic under sea map of this region.
1) New admirals in favor of CONOPS before designing ships and weapons. 2) Also admirals with appreciation of mine mitigation ! 3) Also a way is found to increase submarine construction with sustainment in mind ! 4) Also why not consider a fleet of AIP (SSKs). 5) Also a way is found to minimize or eliminate concurrency . ( Produce just enough prototypes and test thoroughly !)
ReplyDeleteComNavOps for President 2024.
ReplyDeleteMom! You said you'd stop doing that!
DeleteA new shipyard or two. We can't even maintain what we have. Adding more ships won't help if you can't maintain them. Without all those basic facilities we just building on a foundation of sand.
ReplyDeleteTo someone: I accidentally removed a comment about a squadron of subs and a tender, I think. My apologies! Please repost.
ReplyDeleteThanks, yeah the idea of having a squadron or two of AIP subs with mobile resupply to supplement the nucs really intrigues me. 1) after reading your article on how effective the Taiwanese subs would be against China, how would we use them? 2) Which of the current AIP subs (Japan, Sweden, Germany) would best fit this CONOPS?
DeleteHow about training sailors to do maintenance again? All I see out of ships company is operators. It seems the LCS motto of "Operators not maintainers" has permeated the entire fleet and Navy as a whole.
ReplyDeleteMaybe a refocus of education for the masses. Not everyone needs to go to college to be a success in life. Tradesmen make a healthy living....but no one is breaking down the door for those jobs anymore.
One more.....for the Navy to sort out the ships maintenance schedules. Hard to keep a workforce employed when the Navy has no real plan for maintaining the ships they have. The "feast and famine" way of scheduling maintenance is hell on the civilian workforce in private yards.