Demystifying Naval Matters

One of the reasons I started this blog was that I had observed far too many misconceptions involving naval matters.  I’m not talking about differences of opinion but factually incorrect beliefs that had taken on an air of ‘truth’ and acceptance due to sheer repetition with no one challenging the fallacies.  One of my goals for this blog is to remove the mystery and misunderstanding from these commonly accepted but incorrect beliefs.  Doing so allows us to have discussions that are based on fact and can, therefore, be more logical and productive.
 
Here’s a partial list of some of the misconceptions we’ve corrected, so far, along with links to the relevant posts - a compendium of myths, so to speak.  In no particular order,
 
 
Torpedoes – Most people believed that torpedoes were miracle weapons that would sink any ship, instantaneously, with a single hit by breaking the ship’s back by suspending the ship over a giant bubble of air.  Torpedoes, while seriously dangerous weapons, cannot one-shot kill a ship much larger than a corvette and the bubble-back-breaking phenomenon is purely a myth and does not exist even for a small vessel.
 
See, “Torpedo Lethality Myth”
 
 
Explosive Effects – Most people believe that explosive filler weight is the only thing that determines damaging effects.  In reality, containment, in the form of thicker walls, determines the degree of damage for a given weight of explosive filler.
 
See, “Explosive Effects”
 
 
Armor -  Most people seemed to believe that armor would sink a ship under its weight or, if not, would slow the ship to that of a drifting barge.  We demonstrated that every WWII warship had armor appropriate for its class while maintaining 30+ knot speed and fantastic range.  We also dispensed with the belief that the main function of armor was to provide total immunity to every weapon, past, present, and future.  In reality, the purpose of armor is to mitigate damage and allow the ship to stay in the fight, effectively, for longer periods.
 
See, “Armored Ship Misconceptions”
See, “Armor for Dummies”
 
 
Escorts – So many people have grown up never seeing more than three escorts for a carrier that a common belief had sprung up that that was all that was needed for a carrier in war.  We analyzed the historical escort requirements and the current escort needs and determined that we need around 38 escorts for a carrier group.
 
See, “Escorts”
 
 
Kinetic Energy – There was – and still is! – a widespread belief that kinetic energy, alone, will vaporize a target.  This belief has been applied to supercavitating torpedoes, Mach+ missiles, naval shells, and any other weapon that ‘goes fast’.  We’ve analyzed the kinetic energy effect of several of these weapons and found that the kinetic energy contribution ranges from insignificant to present but not terribly damaging.  Kinetic energy is, typically, simply not all that much of a factor.
 
See, “Supercavitating Torpedo Kinetic Energy”
 
 
Rail Guns – Related to the kinetic energy misconception, most people believed that rail guns would instantaneously vaporize anything they hit.  We demonstrated that rail guns actually have a very small and limited target set that they could be effective against.  We noted the bullet and paper analogy which applies to soft targets and renders rail gun projectiles nearly useless against such targets.  Even a modern, unarmored ship is likely a soft target for a rail gun and nearly immune to significant damage from a rail gun.
 
See, “Rail Guns in Combat”
 
 
Helicopters – We disproved the common assumption - almost article of faith -  that every ship must have helicopters, a flight deck, and hangar.  We noted that helos require a 1/3 larger ship to accommodate flight deck, hangar, and support facilities.
 
See, “Does Every Ship Need aHelicopter?”
 
 
Deployments – Most people believed that ships would conduct deployments during war, just as in peacetime, and that we would need the traditional 4 ships to support 1 deployed ship.  We debunked that belief by examining the conduct and missions of the Enterprise during the first full year of war.
 
See, “War Deployments”
 
 
Sequestration – The Navy tried to sell us on the idea that sequestration was the root cause of the Navy’s problems and we thoroughly debunked that notion.
 
See, “Sequestration is Not theProblem”

 
 
 
 
Looking at the list of myths and misconceptions we’ve debunked and corrected, it’s amazing how much misinformation and erroneous beliefs were impacting naval discussions and preventing us from reaching correct and logical conclusions.  Fortunately, we are now better equipped to examine and discuss naval matters.