Logistics will be a major issue in a war with China. Of course, logistics are a major issue in any
war so that wasn’t exactly the world’s most earth-shaking statement, was it? Nevertheless, it’s true. Now, what does the Navy/nation lack in
regards to China war logistics?
Well, we lack a large, ready merchant fleet to carry
supplies to Guam, Taiwan, Japan, etc.
Moving on to a seemingly unrelated topic (which you know
we’re going to directly relate to shortly!), we’ve discussed ship prototypes
and the Navy’s near total unwillingness to explore ship designs, tactics, and
CONOPS via the use of prototypes (see, “Prototypes”).
So, to summarize … we lack a merchant logistics fleet and we
don’t make use of prototypes. Could
those two things be related? Of course
they are!
One major advantage China has over us is that all their
merchant ships are constructed with military adaptations built in. In a war, China will have an easily
convertible merchant fleet available for military use.
Here’s thought … why don’t we copy China for once and build
a military-convertible merchant fleet?
Let’s start with a single prototype, funded by the
government. It would be a merchant ship
that has military adaptations and ‘convertibility’ built in. We could try it out by practicing rapidly
converting it to military use (troop transport, military supply transport,
military vehicle transport, oiler, or whatever other use we might need).
Once we debug and prove out the concept, we can embark on a production
program in which the government subsidizes (or totally pays to build) a
convertible merchant ship and then loans/leases it to commercial shipping
companies with the agreement that they maintain it to acceptable standards. If war arises and we need it, we have a well
maintained, readily convertible, military logistics fleet and if war
does not occur during the ship’s lifespan, the commercial shipping company gets
a nearly free ship to use. Win, win.
 |
| Logistics Fleet in Waiting? |
This potentially solves multiple problems.
- We establish a well maintained, readily convertible logistics fleet.
- We strengthen our commercial shipping industry.
- We increase demand for new merchant ships and encourage the growth of our shipbuilding industry while possibly gaining new shipyards to meet the increased construction.
- The Navy/government gets a fleet of ready logistics ships while off-loading the yearly operating costs to the shipping industry.
General cargo $17 million
Container $68.2 million
https://news.usni.org/2019/05/17/study-says-navy-logistics-fleet-would-fall-short-in-high-end-fight.
ReplyDeleteThis article is from 2019
There was a proposal for 100 additional replenishment ships. Also the idea of using commercial vessels for logistical purposes is a valid one in my non-expert opinion !
PB
Good post. Creating/managing the logistics tail for a war in WestPac will be a nightmare, even if we got moving on it right away. Which we won't.
ReplyDeleteThere is a good article below on just how serious the Chinese are in integrating their civilian shipping into the PLA(N) to support a Taiwan invasion. Provides an interesting contrast to how the West is sitting on it's hands...
https://warontherocks.com/2022/10/mind-the-gap-part-2-the-cross-strait-potential-of-chinas-civilian-shipping-has-grown/
In the US it’d cost around 3x more to build those ships than the listed cost. Our wages have been similar to Japan and South Korea for decades but our labor productivity is awful. So prices are 2x-3x higher. You could order them from Japan or South Korea for that, though.
ReplyDeleteWe have about 10x more ships owned by US companies than are flagged US. There are lots of union requirements and other rules that make operating under the US flag ~2x as expensive as a flag of convenience. So the first step would be to change the rules to narrow that cost then maybe add a kicker from the government to get more US flagged ships.
In general we’ve always treated shipbuilding and operating as protected industries. When ships were simple and made out of wood this was fine. Once they switched to steel our protected industry failed to adopt the best global practices during normal times because they could still sell inferior ships for internal use and no one could import better ones. We’ve had a few times with wars where the shipbuilding ramped up and modernized some, but that quickly decays once wartime demand ends.
From an Oct 2022 article (http://kobobuilding.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-build-a-cargo-ship/),
Delete"The average price of a cargo ship is $21 million. ...
The cost of building a cargo ship ranges from $10 million to $100 million. The cost will depend on the size of the ship, the materials used and other factors."
Bear in mind that military logistics use would NOT want excessively large ships. Somewhat smaller ships would disperse the risk. Thus, we would want ships on the lower half of the cost spectrum.
As a parallel program, why don't we buy say 50-100 ships in the used marketplace, and devote a robust budget to service and maintain them? Even if they're kept as a reserve fleet? That too could serve to rejuvenate our shipyards.
Delete"why don't we buy say 50-100 ships in the used marketplace"
DeleteI'm all for that except for one thing ...
"Even if they're kept as a reserve fleet?"
We've eliminated our reserve fleet because the Navy isn't willing to pay for even the minimal upkeep required. The Navy has all but abandoned ship maintenance among actively warships. Can you imagine how little maintenance a reserve fleet of used merchant ships would get?
The key tenet of my concept is that the yearly operating and upkeep costs of the merchant ships would be borne by commercial shippers. They get a free ship and only have to pay for maintenance. The Navy gets a reserve of well-maintained merchant ships, ready for conversion.
Now, an alternative to building new merchant ships to turn over to industry would be to buy good used ships and turn them over to industry. Honestly, though, for the relatively small price difference I'd rather build new ships.
This is basically what we are doing with the tanker program replacing red hill. The government subsidizes additional cost to keep the ships with the Jones Act shipping companies. That works great in that they can maintain their own fleets and standardization is a bit less important in the short term. We could work to get our house in order and get commercial ships aligned with the Navy fleet. The seabases are already based off Alaska class tankers. I'm doubtful their is a domestic market for anything that big, but we could certainly grow dual use tug/barge combinations that are both inland waterway and seaworthy. One trick coming up is commercial ships are going to start using LNG, Ammonia, and even all electric. Some will have some wind capability. They will be great commercially, but less so for dual use. Comes back to the same thing over and over. We need a national maritime strategy. I'm sitting here designing an LSM and using EPA Tier 4 IMO Tier 3 compliant engines.
DeleteThose regulations are onerous and unnecessary. More importantly, from a combat/war perspective, they're contraindicated. We want vessels that are as simple, basic, reliable, and repairable as possible. The emissions controls and processes that these regulations add to engine design make the engine more complex, harder to maintain and repair, and (I suspect) less efficient.
DeleteOne can, I suppose, debate the worth of the regulations for purely commercial vessels but for ships that are intended to be converted to war use, these are clearly counterproductive. This is an example of the need to revise our laws and regulations in order to support national security. When we find ourselves in a war, a few stray emissions will be the least of our concerns.
We already grant waivers. It does us no favors. And I am more focused on emissions rather than fuel type when saying that. Less emissions is one less thing to track. Not living a double standard is called being a good citizen and respecting the law. If you think some kids considering the life won't notice, you are wrong. If you think allies and other countries who see our ships more than our own citizens do won't notice, you are wrong.
Delete"Less emissions is one less thing to track."
DeleteWe're trying to develop a wartime logistics fleet. Emissions are irrelevant during war. Simplicity reigns supreme in war. Ask the Tiger tank.
Probably there would be a need for 4 distinct prototypes, a dry/bulk carrier, a container carrier, a ro-ro carrier and a fluid carrier. All 4 types would be needed to sustain a longer conflict and should be i the 15000-30000 ton range. In the end all 4 design could be acquired abroad, but building them in the US will cost a lot.
ReplyDeleteOne of the purposes of a prototype would be to determine what types of ship we need. For example, I suspect that a container ship would not be useful as the containers themselves are counter-productive in terms of weight, movement, handling, and disposal at the end location. Also container ships tend to be quite large.
DeleteThe other types all seem useful. 15,000 tons would seem to be about the right size as a good balance of capacity and dispersal of risk.
There is no reason why we can't build them for $50M-$70M apiece. We just built the largest container ship ever in the US for $250M. A ship a quarter of that size ought to cost no more than $50M-$70M.
I’m torn about containers. They are so efficient but Navy ships would have to be redesigned to handle them. Right now they are optimized for pallets. Or the container ships need to carry a lighter load so pallets can be unloaded from the containers at sea.
DeleteIn many ways roll on/roll off makes more sense for the AF, Army, and Marines in East Asia.
The military has containerships and moves plenty of containers. Just not by air. We probably won't need as many vs the other types. Plus even a feeder size ship probably moves enough for the purposes we are talking. LSMs can carry like 50 containers. I am sure LSM will have some similar ability as they are leaning toward an open deck design.
Delete"I’m torn about containers. They are so efficient"
DeleteDon't forget about the receiving site. In war, the receiving site will likely be subject to attack and may well not have the handling and movement capability to deal with containers. Pallets can be dealt with by hand, if need be, whereas containers cannot.
We cannot assume the luxury of a fully equipped and functioning receiving site. No competent peer enemy will also that luxury.
The Matson Kanaloa Class would be perfect and versatile https://investor.matson.com/news-releases/news-release-details/matson-takes-delivery-first-kanaloa-class-vessel-lurline
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely not! In fact, this would be the definition of an inappropriate ship. It's a monster! It's pushing up near the size of a supercarrier! It appears to cost $250M. It would be the epitome of too much risk in one asset.
DeleteWe need a small to medium size vessel along the lines of a WWII Liberty ship. Something that is cheap, easy/quick to build, and disperses the risk.
It has 1/7 the capacity of the largest container ships now. Its asset is speed vs a smaller feeder type, but yes its a whopper for what the military will likely need as a pure container. Now as a plug and play ship. There is a lot we could do with pre-fab modules. They looked into this when landing on tanked for the ESBs. Good reasons to use a tanker instead, but there are still good reasons for a container based vessel. Ic could make a whopper helo deck.
DeleteAs I recall, during WW2 the Kaiser shipyard built a ‘Liberty Ship’ in around 5 days.
ReplyDeleteWhen we wanted them by the hundreds we just opened new shipyards and trained up welders by the thousand.
Seriously doubt we could do anything like that these days.
Who did you think would be manning these ships Conops? (I probably should have said ‘crewing’). A domestic crew would cost so much it would make the operation uncommercial and a foreign crew may well not wish to serve during wartime. I guess we could subsidize the operating costs as well as the construction costs, although we’d probably be in breach of any number of international agreements and the government would then get sued by everyone who said they were losing out.
But in principle not a bad idea at all.
I don't like to say "we can't do that". I believe we could if we have the will. It's probably more correct to say the we doubt we would, rather than could.
Delete"Who did you think would be manning these ships"
DeleteWhat an odd question to even ask. During war, we have a population of 350M to draw from via draft. In WWII, with a much smaller population, we managed to crew 6000 Navy ships plus thousands of merchant ships in addition to manning entire armies. Crewing ships is a non-issue.
During peacetime, manning merchant ships is an issue for the shipping companies. We need to revise our legal and regulatory burden so as to make shipping economically attractive (meaning profitable). If it's profitable, shipping companies will off pay and incentives sufficient to attract crews.
There are a lot of potential stumbling blocks in this concept but manning isn't one of them.
I think the key to this has been hit on repeatedly- the need to have a cohesive maritime strategy, and to reshape laws and regulations however is necessasary in order to best support it.
ReplyDeleteAnother reason to look at and support the idea CNO has put forth- if in fact the WestPac war does take place, Id expect (or at least hope) that it would bring lots of manufacturing out of China and back to the US, as well as slash Chinese exports around the world. Having a capable merchant fleet able to step in and help fill the vacuum left by the consequences of that war could help reassert the US in the maritime world. Of course, the laws and regulations would have had to become US flag friendly as well, but a govt-supplied merchant fleet would be a good start.
Kaiser's one-time publicity stunt of building a ship in 5 days was not indicative of how long it normally took to build a Liberty Ship, which was about 42 days by 1944.
ReplyDeleteIf we build automated hull fabrication plants, then it becomes practical to build a ship per week, with a level of precision and process control that no reasonable amount of human labor could ever match. Modern technology can do that for us if we decide that reducing hull construction time is a national priority.
I'm not sure how much faster fitting out could be accomplished, but that is where we can employ greater numbers of workers. Each compartment of USS Saratoga (CV-60) consistently required 240 to 300 man-hours to complete (running averages throughout the project, regardless of what went right or wrong). There were around 3,000 compartments in total, so 720,000hrs to 900,000hrs of labor.
During WWII, everyone threw more labor at the problem of construction times for ships, aircraft, vehicles, and munitions. In a total war / fight for survival scenario, without the benefit of much automation machinery, that was quite sensible. However, it also meant that labor wasn't available for other tasks, such as manning the ships, aircraft, and vehicles. While many of the people working in the factories were older men or women, and the services preferred to send healthy young men off to war, build times can only be substantially reduced by great numbers of workers or through automation. Commercial shipbuilding firms use a lot of robotic plate handling, cutters, fixturing tools built into the machines used to weld and bend plate, welding, and painting robots to reduce head count and increase productivity.
Labor grand total for all parts of Saratoga came to 55,200,000hrs, with 16,000 people employed, so 3,450hrs of labor per person on average, or 143.75 days. Assuming 12 hour work days and all days are work days, 287.5 days is the minimum time required unless there are multiple shifts and more workers added to the project.
Every carrier built has been seriously delayed by materials availability or accidents during construction, such as fires. Some time was lost to rework, but inspecting every part as it was built reduced that to an inconsequential amount of time. Some major components and materials for Saratoga were delayed by as much as 15 months. In one instance the steel supplier had produced and stored the steel required, but was unaware that construction started, so they never shipped it. Vertical integration is the most expedient way of solving that problem, and it almost always reduces marginal cost by a lot.
Back to automated construction, robotic laser welding through the thicknesses of plate involved will be around 1 meter per minute. If you have 60km of welds to complete and 50 welding robots, then all welding takes 20hrs. Machining and fixturing the steel for welding will take much longer, but with enough of the right kinds of robots, total welding time is measured in hours. If that's still not fast enough, then add more robots.
A CAM program should be used to figure out how to minimize production time by minimizing materials movement, out-of-sequence work, and head count. We probably need an assembly line of some kind. I don't think anyone's ever built an assembly line for ships before, probably due to cost, but if delays are causing $7B ships to turn into $13B ships, maybe we need to create one.
This concept would apply to an even greater degree to construction of a large merchant marine fleet. When we can build ships about as fast as we build aircraft, we no longer have a supply problem.
kbd512
"If we build automated hull fabrication plants" ...
Delete"Labor grand total for all parts of Saratoga"
I'm not sure why you're focusing on a carrier build which would be the polar opposite of a simplistic merchant ship.
More than automation, what can reduce build times and labor hours is SIMPLICITY. We don't need crew lounges, fiber optic networks, multi-media game rooms, barber shops, full featured gyms, etc. on a basic, bare bones cargo hauler. Crew comforts aside, we don't need the extensive military requirements, either. We also don't need to build in future-proofing. This is not a 50 year lifespan ship. It's a 10 year life or so. In other words, if we resist the military tendency to overdesign, overequip, and gold-plate every ship, we can build a basic merchant ship for an affordable (nearly free) cost and in a short time frame.
"A CAM program should be used to figure out how to minimize production time by minimizing materials movement, out-of-sequence work, and head count. "
DeleteIm gonna guess that to a large extent, thats already being done. The problem is all the changes that the Navy adds mid-build, the accounting games that delay build completion, and a general lack of urgency. Without changing the process at all, Im sure we could cut warship build times by 25-50%, if there was a WWII mentality urgency, that would eliminate a majority of the previously mentioned issues...
Global Bulk Cargo Vessel Fleet and Build Rates:
Deletehttps://agtransport.usda.gov/stories/s/Bulk-Vessel-Fleet-Size-and-Rates/bwaz-8sgs/
How soon do we want these ships, and how many different ship yards around the world would the Navy need to coordinate with to get these ships built in a reasonable amount of time?
If we had 2 ship yards entirely devoted to building these ships at a rate of 1 every 6 months, or 4 per year, it would take 25 years to build 100 new merchant marine ships. We build fewer than 10 ocean-going cargo ships per year, at present. We do have around 150 ships that the merchant marine believes are "militarily useful" for carrying various different kinds of cargo.
As of 2023, there are 103,000 workers involved in ship building in the US. During WWII, the industry employed 650,000 workers. I don't think it's practical to add another 500,000 workers, so we probably need to try a different approach to increasing production rates.
If we're not going to create an assembly line process to do this, then I don't see it getting done any time in the near future. Available yard capacity is already spoken for.
In the near-term, the most practical way to reduce the number of ships required, assuming we want these ships available during the next 5 years, is also to make each one larger, so they can carry more. A small / expendable Liberty Ship facsimile would have to be built by the hundreds to represent much aggregate ocean-going transport capacity.
That brings me back to the carrier's hull design. It's large enough to be militarily useful, it's not a design which needs to be reinvented, and we don't have to build all that structure on top of the hangar deck. The practice we get from building the exact same hull design 100 times in a row should also reduce the marginal cost of each ship as we get faster at doing it. I don't see much point to reducing build quality to pinch a few millions, either. If your son was on that ship, you'd want it to be well-built and survivable.
How much electronics and combat systems we include to drive up the cost of each ship is the Navy's prerogative. The major cost of the Saratoga seems to be related to all the combat systems they added to it, and the many months of installation effort that required. If we cut out all or most of that, then each ship won't cost meaningfully more than a commercial ship with equivalent carrying capacity.
kbd512
"...build a Liberty Ship, which was about 42 days by 1944."
ReplyDeleteThats pretty quick. If we're building simple logistics ships, I cant see why we couldnt do that again today. With the modular techniques used today vs the keel-to-mast used then, I feel we could shave quite a bit off of that. The question is, how many would we need?? How many lines putting out a ship a month would we need? And would the cost of these robotocized lines be worthwhile or even necessasary? Would additional shifts and workers suffice?
I just wanted to see what the Chinese had already put in place and it looks like it some of the RoRo vessels are in 15,000 to 20,000 ton range. 140 to 180m long. 24 to 32 m beam.
ReplyDeleteFrom globalsecurity.com
"In 2018 there was a public demonostration of Dual use naval asset, merchant fleet and military integration. 20,000 gross tonnage roll-on/roll-off (RORO) ship ChangDalong, with 2000 regular auto capacity. RORO engineering standard upgraded to support transport of MBT and other armored vehicles.
Plaque translation:
Carrying out national defence requirement of 20,000 ton car ro-ro ship.
140.5 m long
24.4 m wide
8 level car parking
3rd and 5th level of aft/rear section is 4.5 m high. Suitable for carrying heavy military equipment.
Developed and installed kitchen, restroom, shower modules/containers and other support facilities to satisfy troop and crew living requirements during voyage.
Addition of helicopter platform, life saving, and firefighting equipment
Reserved military command and communication equipment interface connections
After carrying out national defence requirements, the ship is capable of long distance delivery of two fully equipped mechanised battalions. The ship is a "Dalong" passenger rolling ship built to implement national defense requirements. The ship has an 8-deck vehicle deck, a helicopter take-off and landing area, and a military command post and long-distance life support equipment are reserved; equipped with a first side thruster, two tail side thrusters, and good maneuverability. The ship usually carries out the cargo task of the Weifang Yingkou route."
Another set of RoRo vessels are described in the article.
"The carriers, 182.8 meters in length, 32.2 meters in width and 14.95 meters in depth, have a deadweight tonnage (DWT) of 14,500. Equipped with three adjustable decks, they can hold cars of different heights. Each of the two ships cost $53 million."
MLW
If it is going to be a prototype, The pentamaran designs for naval sealift, RoRo or RoPax ships from BMT would be my choice to try something that may appeal to commercial interests and create a niche for American shippers.
ReplyDeleteThe ships would be faster than current ships but they don't use any technology that doesn't already exist. (standard engines, standard wateriest, etc)
https://www.boatdesign.net/attachments/pentamaran_hull_form-pdf.78160/
MLW
This seems more like a gimmick than solid engineering but I'm not a naval engineer so who knows? That said, the experience of the trimaran LCS has been less than stellar with DOT&E reporting various types of sailing and seakeeping problems and limitations (see the annual DOT&E reports for information). That doesn't fill me with confidence that a pentamaran would be any more successful.
DeleteStill, an interesting idea.
If a pentamaran is good would a heptamaran be better? Or a nonamaran?
dodecamaran
Delete:)
MLW
waterjets (sic)
ReplyDeleteMLW
One concern is that commercial requirements may have diverged from military sealift requirements.
ReplyDeleteI agree completely that ships used for military sea lift should be relatively small compared to modern container ships, since some will be sunk and we don't want a single ship, when it sinks, to take a large fraction of our entire Tomahawk inventory to the bottom with it.
On the other hand, there's a reason that modern commercial ships have become so large -- economics. The larger ships cost significantly less in operations and maintenance costs (fuel, crew, and so on) per ton of payload than the smaller ships. And of course, in commerce, economics is everything. While I don't have figures, these savings may be enough to overcome the smaller ship even if the smaller ship is free.
"On the other hand, there's a reason that modern commercial ships have become so large -- economics."
DeleteWhy are we considering this concept? For war, of course! During war, the economics become utterly irrelevant. The only thing that matters is mitigation of risk and maximizing the successful delivery rate. You do that by dispersing the risk which means smaller ships and more of them.
The Liberty ship is a good conceptual basis for sizing. It was large enough to be useful and small enough (small enough cargo load) to not be a disaster if one was sunk.
I don't know why we're agonizing over this. We had it all figured out in WWII but we seem intent on reinventing the wheel. History has solved this problem. We can move on to the next problem. Why are we so determined to ignore the lessons of history?
Commercial ships can outpace subs now for one. Bigger gets them there quicker. This was true in WWII also which is why the ocean liners hauled ass across the Atlantic with the soldiers on board. Size and speed can be an asset. Yes, 1312' feet long and 190' wide is too big.
Delete"why the ocean liners hauled ass across the Atlantic"
DeleteThat was a unique situation, for that time period, in that the subs of the time were very slow compared to the fastest commercial ships. Now, nuclear subs are faster than any commercial ship and speed is no longer a protection and certainly not a protection from missiles!
Size equals easy detection and a massively sized commercial ship will have subs and missiles directed at it in short order. No amount of speed by a commercial ship will suffice to make it survivable.
We need to balance size and dispersal of risk. There's a balance point. We want a ship to be big enough to be useful but no bigger so that we don't risk catastrophic loss if the ship is sunk.
"During war, the economics become utterly irrelevant."
DeleteOf course that's true, but it's not the point. The point is that you are relying on commercial shippers, during peacetime, to operate and maintain these ships. And during peacetime, economics is everything. I'm concerned whether operating these ships in peacetime will be economic, even if the ships themselves are subsidized.
"during peacetime, economics is everything"
DeleteWhich is why I stated in the post,
"we’d simultaneously revamp our shipping-related laws and regulations to further encourage domestic shipping"
This is a multi-part concept. One part is providing free/cheap ships to industry and the other is making the economics of shipping attractive via regulatory reform.
Recognize, of course, that providing free/cheap ships is already making the economics of shipping quite attractive!
We aren't going to have to worry about Chinese SSNs for a minute yet. Russia might have 15 that could get to sea if they had to. We are almost exclusively dealing with SSKs.
Delete"Commercial ships can outpace subs now for one."
DeleteExcept, today there are a lot of submarines equipped with antiship missiles that can outpace any commercial ship.
The single greatest consumable by tonnage is fuel, so we could build a fleet of tanker submarines to carry fuel. They'll be more difficult to interdict than cargo ships. They don't need to dive to fantastic depths or achieve great speeds, so a lower yield strength steel is fine. If the plan is to keep most of our ships well away from littoral waters, out in the open ocean, then there's plenty of ocean for them to work with.
ReplyDeleteThe surface fleet consumed 78M bbls / 3.276B gal of fuel in 2020. Let's assert that 2/3rds of that total must be delivered underway, so 2.184 billion gallons. If each tanker sub carries 8M gal and we build a fleet of 25, then 273 refueling runs per year to deliver that much fuel, so 10.92 trips per tanker, or 1 trip per month.
If the sub achieves 10 knots and we allocate 12 days for one-way transit to join a battlegroup, then it has a radius of action of 2,880nm. This sort of 2 to 4 week mission is within the capabilities of fuel cell AIP to deliver. It'll be much larger than most submarines, but crew will be minimal, exposure to anti-ship missiles is reduced, and the fuel carried is sufficient to refill the bunkers of a carrier and six destroyers.
kbd512
CNO,
DeleteThe fuel tank dimensions need to be 50ft diameter by 550ft in length, so 8,078,381gal capacity, or about the same size and volume as an Oscar II class submarine's hull, which is 59.75ft diameter by 508.5ft in length.
Average fuel consumption for the Arleigh Burke seems to be around 1K gal/hr, so 168K gal/wk (reports to Congress indicate 4.83M gal burn per ship per year, which equates to 201.25 days of deployment at 1K ga/hr), so 1M gal/wk for 6 ships. Kitty Hawk burned around 1.4M gal/wk (34M gal over a 170 day deployment, so 200K gal/day). The air wing consumed about 660K gal/wk. This adds up to about 3.06M gal/wk, or 6.12M gal every 2 weeks. 8M gal capacity seems reasonable to support 1 battlegroup while allowing for a 2 week transit time.
Separating the fuel and ordnance resupply can simplify design requirements. This sub only needs to be a good tanker with a "towed refueling hose array". It doesn't need an escort. If we forego the temptation to add weapons, it can be operated like a civil submersible, possibly taking on fuel from countries that might otherwise reject the idea of allowing American warships to use their ports.
Kitty Hawk carried around 2,000 tons of aviation ordnance. We don't need large resupply ships for weapons and spare parts. Our destroyers can't reload their VLS cells at sea, so there won't be a significant tonnage of ordnance replenishment, and we already have enough merchant marine ships for that kind of resupply mission.
The only capability we don't have at the present time is a ship with enough bunkerage to resupply the amount of fuel that an entire battlegroup requires to operate for 2 weeks or more. If you add up the average fuel consumption for the escorts and air wing over 2 weeks, even with a nuclear powered carrier, it's a multiple of what our replenishment ships actually store in their bunkers. Maybe that was acceptable decades ago, but now we need a conga line of replenishment ships to refuel every few days to avoid dropping below 50% to 60% of bunker capacity, because if that happens operations have to be curtailed or we risk running dry. A ship or sub that has sufficient fuel replenishment capacity to sustain the battlegroup for 2 weeks keeps the number of resupply missions within the realm of sanity, and reduces the opportunities for our enemies to interdict those ships.
kbd512
FYI, your comment went to the blog's spam folder. This has been a rare but recurring occurrence from time to time for everyone. About 1% of comments go to spam for no reason I can discern. I have no control over this. I make it a point to check the spam folder several times a day and I transfer the comments to the publish folder as soon as I see it. In the future, if a comment doesn't immediately show up, this is the likely explanation. Be patient and it will appear as soon as I see it. Sorry and thanks for understanding!
DeleteSo besides being smaller and perhaps more versatile with the cargo what other requirements would be needed for a military cargo vessel? These would be the cost drivers as the Admirals keep adding on things to appease their constituents--the industrial complex.
ReplyDeleteFirst what we don't need:
We don't need them to do 33 knots to keep up with the fleet. They are not UNREP, they are cargo and will make their own convoy.
We don't need them to have expensive radar systems, the commercial ones are just fine.
Do need:
Ensure they can communicate with military escorts.
Some self-offloading capability in case ports are damaged (which they very likely will be).
Possible provision:
Some extra berthing space for military supply people to coordinate and provide security during wartime.
A secure arms locker for small arms and .50 cals for security
Maybe deck space for non-deck penetrating CIWs
The other thing they will desperately need are crews properly trained for moving in a military convoy--which merchant marines currently don't. But then neither does the Navy really. When was the last exercise in military convoys? Probably not since I last used a Commodore 64 computer.
And the Navy must also decide how said ships will be escorted. A single Burke would be fine for command and control but to truly defend a military convoy would require the modern equivalent of a Destroyer Escort...and the soon to be billion dollar frigates won't be.
I think the capabilities of our LSMRs are great, but I constantly hear they are too big. Even scaled down, its pretty much industry standard that we could get a ship that can keep up with the large amphibs. The trick is that is much faster than a WWII convoy. We'd need something the size of a pepped up OPC or NSC to keep pace and or sprint and drift.
Delete"So besides being smaller and perhaps more versatile with the cargo what other requirements would be needed for a military cargo vessel?"
DeleteThis would be the purpose behind a prototype - to see what the requirements are and to what degree they need to be included in the base design.
"Some self-offloading capability in case ports are damaged (which they very likely will be)."
And this is why a container ship is probably not a good idea. The receiving site may well not have the capability to handle and move containers.
Intermodal Conex was developed specifically for military logistics to allow transfer of material from stateside to the forward areas without having to constantly unload, unpack, reload, and repack at each stage of transport as it transitioned from truck to train, aircraft, or ship, and back again. We'd be wise to continue using that system, as we have an entire dedicated infrastructure in the armed forces to make use of it. I'd suspect a standard container ship may not be the best answer to offload at a port lacking the dedicated cranes. However, the army developed the Flat Rack system. A Conex mounted on a large skid that a truck with an articulated boom can directly pull from the ground onto the deck of the truck. Allowing the Conex containers to be stored on the ground and easily moved. A better option may be something akin to a RO/RO cargo vessel with flat racks secured in the standard vehicle bays allowing the Palletized Load System trucks at the far end end to simply drive into the hold, load, and drive off with the flat racks. We can also bring forklifts that are setup to specifically lift individual conex's and mount them on appropriate trucks and trailers, etc. Or move them around the port as needed.
ReplyDeleteSee 'SRB's' comment below to see a possible problem with this approach.
Deletehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palletized_Load_System
ReplyDeleteThe additional advantage of the flat rack system is it can act as a 20 foot flat bed, and thus carry bulk outsize cargo instead of an intermodal container. As a Combat Engineer myself, we had engineering mission modules deviled for the system, dump truck, even an asphalt laying setup. So it's very modular and easily adapted. The British Army uses a very similar system as well, which they're replacing with a modified version of our system, allowing for possible NATO compatibility.
ReplyDeleteI haven't had time to read through the comments, just the posting...
ReplyDelete...but I think this is a brilliant idea.
Lutefisk
"I haven't had time to read through the comments"
DeleteWhat????! Thoroughly reading this blog should be your number one priority!
"...but I think this is a brilliant idea."
Well, you got that right! :)
Was stationed on the Charleston LKA 113, for a year, was a great general cargo carrier. We always did all of our assault offloads anchored out. Had a great cargo transfer system, including flight deck and landing craft. Crew was around 120 with berthing for another 500 or so. Top speed was only 20 knots but with modern power plant you could easily up the speed. Would be nice to have a forward support ship that can off load cargo with out port facilities as those may not always be available. LOA 576, Beam 82, Draft 26. 18,500 full load displacement. General speaking these ships were pretty much built to commercial specs.
ReplyDeleteYou could get a ship of that length up to 32 knots without using a stupid amount of power. I had to look up the hull speed calculation as its so long since I had to use it.
Delete1.34 x sq root of the waterline length in feet for reference.
A handy calculator can be found here.
https://www.omnicalculator.com/sports/hull-speed
Hull length is one of the reasons you can't go too small in your choice of ship if you want reasonable performance.
"Hull length is one of the reasons you can't go too small in your choice of ship if you want reasonable performance."
DeleteBe cautious making a statement like that! From the same reference you cite, we see the limitations of the hull speed calc:
"Although the physics behind hull speed is sound, it is heavily dependent on the hull's shape. Long and thin hulls with piercing designs can easily break their hull speed without planing.
A hull's design can enable it to circumvent the workings of hull speed. It is for this reason that hull speed is not used in present-day ship design; naval institutions nowadays favor more modern measurements of speed-to-length ratio, such as the Froude number."
A ship's length to width ratio offers further useful information about speed.
Also, the calculated hull speed is NOT a hard limit as so many people seem to think. It's just the point at which further increases in speed become increasingly inefficient.
"Had a great cargo transfer system, including flight deck and landing craft."
DeleteThanks for sharing your experience! Perhaps you'd consider a longer comment describing some details of the cargo handling system? Maybe offer your thoughts on the best way to implement cargo transfers, today, from offshore (assault scenario) or at a limited facilities port?
I guess what I'm asking is, please consider giving us the benefit of your experience!
There is an alternative. You can build a surface effect ship (hydro-foil or hovercraft), which goes, say, 300 mph, and still gets fuel economy in the railroad range
DeleteAs I remember it, cargo holds 1,3 and 4 had elevators. cargo hold 4 had an elevator up to the flight deck on the fantail. Hold 2 was of the open type and was the fast load/unload hold as there were no landing craft stored above it. Each hold had a couple of forklifts for moving cargo around. The main kingposts were rated at 60 ton capacity and the other kingposts were 30 ton. We also carried 4-8 LCM for cargo/vehicle transfer to shore. During teamwork 80 (NATO), we carried the support battalion for the marine MAGTF that was landed in Trondhiem Norway (sept-oct 80). We hauled all the units trucks 2.5/5 ton and other vehicles and trailers, as well as 500+ troops. They were all carried ashore by LCM. There was also a beach party with a couple of dovers and endloaders that went in first to prep the landing area. The landing operation its self took around 10 hrs. Also during the operation we refueled several escorts at sea as well as vertreps. The ships were actually very handy ships, although I dont think the Navy really much cared for them. The whole class was always part of the reserve fleet and we had to fill out half the crew with naval reservists to deploy. The only improvements I would make to them would be updated ship/shore connectors, modern crane system and diesel gensets and propulsion pods. The engineering plant used in the Charleston class was the same as the Iwo Jima class LPH and Blue Ridge class command ships. Hope this helps.
DeleteI should like to propose a thought experiment. On the theory that what is sauce for the goose, is also sauce for the gander, it will refer, not to the United States Navy, but to the United States Army.
ReplyDeleteSuppose that the Army decides that it has the right to move coal from the Powder River Basin, in Wyoming, to electric power plants in Texas and the Midwest, a distance of a thousand miles. They propose to use their equivalent of the Liberty Ship, the 2-1/2 ton truck. Now, the 2-1/2 ton truck has many virtues, notably the same order of off-road capability as a Jeep, and the ability to simply go around destroyed small bridges, etc. It is associated with the Red Ball Express in France, in 1944, which, in fact, moved mostly fuel, and kept Patton rolling under extremely difficult conditions.
Of course, coal is actually moved by the railroads, in 20,000 ton unit trains (10,000 ft long), at $20-30 per ton. A train, crewed by two men, would have to be replaced by 800 trucks and 1600 men.
At prevailing freight rates, the crew could expect to make about five or ten dollars a day, before gasoline, and other expenses, were deducted. It of course be impossible to recruit civilian drivers, either American citizens or illegal immigrants, on this basis, and the driving would have to be done by conscripted Army privates.
Conscription of perhaps four million men, for no better purpose than to gratify the Army’s love of trucks, would probably occasion draft riots. If a serious attempt was made to pass the costs on to the electric utilities, they would probably react by going 100% wind/solar. You cannot just wish the economy into the shape of the 1940’s.
Now, the Ever Given, a Suezmax (*) ship of 220,000 tons, has a crew of twenty-five, mostly Indian and Chinese. It has one big 11-cylinder diesel engine of 79,000 Hp, giving it a speed of 22.5 knots. Unlike a navy cargo ship, it does not have onboard cranes, being designed to operate between two big entrepôt ports, Singapore and Rotterdam, which have giant gantry cranes far more efficient than anything which could be mounted on shipboard.
(*) In the light of experience, the bow thrusters need to be souped up a bit, but this is not a fundamental difficulty.
At a very rough estimate, the Ever Given might replace eighty Liberty ships, loaded and unloaded by traditional stevedorage, with a total seagoing crew of 3200 (Size, speed, greater proportion of time spent at sea).
Now, in the case of the Pacific Ocean, the Great Circle route from East Asia to the eastern United States runs through Prince Rupert, British Columbia. Vancouver, British Columbia, can function as a secondary port, for more complex cargos, such as automobiles, which really do need the resources of a port city, rather than a mere glorified ferry landing in a fishing village.
On the other side of Canada, Halifax, Nova Scotia, is the closest North American Atlantic port to Gibraltar. Of course, the Canadians, with Chinese funding and technical assistance, could probably build a rail line (with tunnel) out to St. John’s, Newfoundland.
Whether you like it or not, the tendency of America’s maritime commerce is to become increasingly “Canadianized.” This puts ocean trade very largely outside of the authority of the United States Navy and the United States Coast Guard. It’s none of our business how a container arrives at a warehouse in, say, Edmonton, Alberta, or Winnipeg, Manitoba. A proposal such as yours can only accelerate the transition.
That may be the most convoluted, meandering comment I've ever come across! Your point, if any, totally escapes me. Feel free to try again but perhaps a bit more succinctly?
DeleteAh, I am the author of the famously meandering comment. I’m afraid I’m still getting used to blogger, and not exactly in control of the system. Oddly enough, your Bundeswehr counterpart, whose views are more or less opposite to yours (he doesn’t think Germany should have a navy, period), said much the same thing. His sacred cows are equal and opposite to yours.
ReplyDelete