Wow! I mean …
wow! The almost universal reaction to
the last post on a PT gunboat was to hugely upgrade it by doubling the size and
adding large guns (up to 76 mm), anti-ship missiles, radar fire control, UAV aviation,
mines, etc. No one was content to let
the gunboat be a simple, small gunboat with the missions listed in the post.
Speaking of missions, no one really objected to the mission
list nor did they amend the list to account for their proposed changes in
weaponry and sensors. Instead, they
instantly jumped to more and bigger hulls and weapons.
Does this sound familiar?
It should. It’s exactly how the
Navy designs ships. They start with a
potentially focused, common sense idea and then instantly double the size, add
every thing and every function they can think of, and gold plate the entire design.
Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against discussing a
large patrol ship (corvette) which is what almost everyone was describing (even the ‘you
should look at xxxx’ references were, invariably much larger vessels), however,
none of the proposed ships retained any real relationship to the original PT
gunboat subject of the post.
Don’t understand why the Navy designs are always so
bad? This is why. We did it, ourselves!
Re-read the post and then the comments and note the instant
upsizing. Not a single person stuck with
the scope and missions of the PT gunboat.
Hey, maybe you didn’t like the gunboat idea. That’s fine but to start designing a vastly
increased substitute without modifying the mission list and CONOPS is exactly
how the Navy gets it wrong.
This was an eye opener!
I honestly didn’t expect that. I guess I have more work to do to hammer home the proper design principles.
I think comes from American culture where we have to have better toys than our friends and neighbors. Good enough isn't good enough, have to out-do the other guy with more horsepower, more wattage, faster processors, etc.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that we cram all manner of extra, unnecessary stuff on our ships but the one thing we don't cram on is firepower. I could almost (but not) go for the gold plating if it was in the form of firepower. Instead, we add outlandish sensors, over the top crew comforts, unmanned everything ... but no firepower. I think that also says something about our society. It says that we've lost the combative, aggressive, confrontational mindset that allowed us to conquer a continent and build a country. Now, we've become passive, squeamish, milquetoast, societal leeches. How's that for some root cause analysis?
DeleteThe British start with a decent design, then they nickle and dime to it death. Instead Gold Plating, they take systems out and mark them FFBNW (fitted for but not with),
Deletebut hey we left space for stuff we have no intention of ever fitting.
"Don't cram on firepower"
DeleteI think that is always a problem in peacetime. We don't really get how much firepower we will really need. Destroyer Escorts started the war with 1.1 inch AA and 3" main guns. By the end of the war we saw 40mms for AA and some were given 5" guns. The armament you listed for a PT boat was later war. The 37mm on the PT boats wasn't even meant for Naval vessels, it was meant for aircraft like the P-39 Air Cobra.
I have no doubt that after the first Burke is sunk by enemy action, we shall suddenly see 3 or 4 CIWS or SeaRAM added, boxes of anti-ship tomahawks on the helipad, and someone screaming to dust off the blue prints for the 8" MCLWG so they can rush it into production.
Let's reel it in then. Mk VI got little mention the first go yet was held up as the modern PT boat. Aside from Mk VI, similar size ships:
ReplyDeleteSwiftships has an 85 footer 26m for the Egyptian coast guard with a little more range and endurance since it doesn't need to nest in a well deck. Metal Shark also has a modified version of USCG's Marine Protector class which also has some more endurance, but less speed. Given we know Ukraine's Mk VI, if ever delivered, are to have 30mm rather than 25mm, I'd say fore and aft 30 x 173 is the modern main armament. If you use Mk 38 mod IV you get an M2 coax too. Again looking at the Mk VI, secondary armament are 2 M2s. Lets take that up a notch and use the 30 x 113 XM914 with coax 7.62 and ability to mount Javelin or 2 Stinger. Put a UAV jammer on it like the Baihrain FRCs or LMADIS. Ship will need to be a little fuller than Mk VI to provide some bunks. Keep a zodiak in a box and maybe a hand launched UAV or some loitering munitions in a box. Basically keep some of the what if designed into the Mk VI.
Okay, you've stuck somewhat closer to the original concept size of 80 ft so that's good. However, I get the impression that you've selected weapons independent of the mission(s). For example, the 30 mm fore/aft guns have no anti-air or land attack capability so what are they intended for? They could be useful against other very small boats. Compare the weapons against the mission list in the original post. You need to either select weapons for the mission list or modify the mission list to reflect the weapons (which is a backwards approach).
DeleteThe original mission list emphasized land attack and, secondarily, barge-busting type work. Thus, the WWII PT gunboat emphasis on explosive weapons like mortars, grenade launchers, cannons, and rocket launchers.
Specific to the Marine Protector version, note the superstructure/cabin. It's huge relative to the size of the boat! Compare that to the cabin on the WWII PT boat which was vanishingly small and left lots of room for weapons. I've posted on ship superstructures and how they negatively impact stealth, visibility, and weapon/sensor placement and this class is a perfect example of those problems. Of course, the class isn't intended for combat so the designers had other goals in mind but the boat would have to be completely redesigned to be effective in the modern PT gunboat role.
In 1939 my father volunteered for the Royal Navy, keen to skipper an MTB (Motor Torpedo Boat). They courteously declined his offer mentioning the fact that he wore glasses. I suspect, though, they didn't want a married man who was nearly thirty. It was job for daring - one might almost say reckless - bachelors in their early twenties.
ReplyDeleteThis is very true. Have you ever read Gunboat 658 by Len Reynolds DSC. A very matter of fact description of exactly how brave/reckless they were. Very honoured to have discovered this when he was my headmaster back in late 70s.
DeleteMany thanks, anon. I had promised myself never to read another book on WWI or WWII. In hopes of making an exception for this book I have added it to my Christmas wish list. (I only hope I don't end up having to make it a present for my wife.)
DeleteI think all agree that our Navy should have a few dozen patrol boats for varied missions. Keep some at Bahrain, maybe some in Italy and Guam, then some on each coast for whatever. A dozen different configurations can be developed (counter-insurency, ship boarding, anti-ship, anti-air, CSAR, intel, EW. I'd man them with US Marines to give them a naval mission that no one else wants, and include two on MEU deployments. Then as the world turns the configuration and location of the boats can quickly change. In Iraq we learned these are vital for river control, and maybe off the coast of Yemen now.
ReplyDelete"I'd man them with US Marines to give them a naval mission that no one else wants"
DeleteThat's an excellent idea!
Include a couple of stinger launchers for anti air/missile defense and I think you could basically move forward with the WW2 configurations. Guns aren't great for anti air with the massive radars needed to guide them. Keep it simple. Most modern vessels don't carry any armor to speak of, 20mm and up could almost pass through completely without a fused explosive payload. At that height, you tear up the engine room and ruin the snipes day.
ReplyDeleteThe basic Sidewinder heat seeking missile weighs just 90 lbs with three times the range and warhead of a Stinger. These can be mounted on a simple rotating pedestal and fired by one man in any direction. Here is a short video of loading one.
Deletehttps://youtu.be/jUYTLubjOT0?t=19
I once wrote about aircraft snipers, and small boats could do this. Sneak into what an enemy considers a safe area at night, maybe up a river. Hide and loiter until a passing aircraft comes within range, then shoot it down, and reload. I see they are 185 lbs missiles in my old article.
Deletehttps://www.g2mil.com/aircommandos.htm
"The basic Sidewinder heat seeking missile . . ."
DeleteThe backblast from something as large as a Sidewinder on something as small as a PT boat might be an issue. Unlike the Sidewinders, Stingers have a small ejection motor that pushes them to a safe distance before the sustainer kicks in.
I suspect some of the enthusiastic response was from seeing a navy warship properly, even powerfully, armed for combat.
ReplyDeleteQuite possible!
DeleteLong time lurker, first time commenter, and only an amateur history fan, but I was going to post something similar. I think some were very disappointed by the 57mm on the Constitution FFG, especially given the recent footage of the 76mm in action, and projected that.
DeleteBut to go back to my original reason for intending to post, any suggestions on historical reading about the original PT boats? As a child a read a fiction book written in the 40s or 50s from my grandmother's house where the protagonist in the Philippines captained a PT boat, dated a nurse, the Japanese were stringing wires between islands to catch the boats, and they sank an escort carrier (!?) Wasn't until years later I tried to find name of the carrier and came up empty...
Thanks to our host everyone for all the thoughtful analysis.
"any suggestions on historical reading about the original PT boats?"
DeleteThere is only one book to even consider. Everything you could possibly want to know about the history, development, weapons, tactics, operations, and construction of PT boats is in the book "American PT Boats in World War II" by Victor Chun.
For a fictional movie, you might consider the John Wayne film "They Were Expendable". It takes liberties but offers some exciting action scenes and some basic understanding of PT boat operations. Plus, it's John Wayne!
ComNavOps, I believe the movie was based on a WW2 book, ending with the extraction of Gen. McArthur from the Philippines. As I recall, the PT sailors enjoyed watching the high Army brass on the voyage to Australia laying on the deck and puking like dogs from seasickness.
DeleteYou once described one of my ideas as overbuilding a ship. In retrospect, the criticism was mostly fair.
ReplyDeleteI saw a program in which a WWII veteran said if you were a young guy who enjoyed engine sounds, those PT boat diesels were a lot of fun at full throttle.
The book America's First Clash with Iran: The Tanker War, 1987–88 by Lee Allen Zatarain covers the use of Mk III patrol boats to counter small Iranian boats. When not in use the boats would be placed on skids on the giant barges, or floating sea bases, the US Navy used at the time. Power lines would be run to the boats so if the sea base was attacked, the boats' Bofors 40 mm guns could be used for base defense.
For a hypothetical Mk VII patrol boat outfitted for the anti-small boat role, the biggest gun could be, as AndyM suggests, a 30 mm chain gun. I'd prefer the OTO-Breda Fast Forty 40 mm gun with a single barrel, unless that is too much for an 80-foot PT boat. The boat also would have two GAU-19/A .50-caliber and two M134 7.62 mm Gatling guns. The idea is when fighting fast boats from a moving PT boat in uneven waters, the window of opportunity to put bullets on the enemy may be brief. That's the reason for rapid fire guns. The crew should be trained against remote-control speedboats as much as possible. The boat should have additional hard points for more weapons, including (but not limited to) the Mk 19 40 mm grenade launcher.
Although this is a gunboat, it could have a trainable launcher mounting one or two 19-cell 2.75-inch rocket pods. This weapon could quickly saturate a speedboat's area if necessary. If someone up high thinks this boat is too low-tech, it could be made compatible with one of the methods to turn a 2.75-inch rocket into a guided missile. If the precision munitions run out, the ordinary 2.75-inch rockets would still work. If testing finds the rocket launchers to be a bad idea for anti-boat work (or just not compatible with the rest of the boat), install another gun in its place.
This boat is not set up for the air defense mission, though if it can house the Fast Forty that would provide it with an antiaircraft capability. I've read elsewhere that 30 mm chain guns aren't set up for air defense, but the XM914 AndyM mentions has at least some anti-aircraft capability (apparently against drones). The boat could also carry handheld Stinger launchers for the crew. It is not intended for the land attack mission, though considering the MK VI - Gunboat Diplomacy article it could be pressed into that role (though it would not be as good as your dedicated land attack gunboat).
"could be pressed into that role (though it would not be as good as your dedicated land attack gunboat)."
DeleteThis is the key sentence in your comment. The various weapon fits you describe are pointless unless they're focused on a single, specific mission/function. For you, you seem to be focused on the anti-small boat role which was not the subject of the post but that's okay. If you want to explore/design an anti-small boat design, ask yourself what the best weapons for that role are? For example, rockets are probably a poor choice - unguided rockets are a horrible choice given accuracy challenges and obtaining and maintaining a guided lock is problematic, I suspect.
A fire-and-forget Hellfire or some even smaller missile would be a better choice.
"put bullets on the enemy"
Bullets are a poor choice for boat sinking. They'll work - eventually - but in combat you want a quick result so you can move onto the next threat. Instead, think explosives. Perhaps the old Mk19 belt fed grenade launcher or whatever the modern equivalent is?
You're also missing the fundamental concept about single function boats. For PT size boats, they're cheap enough to build in quantity which means you can afford to build specialized versions for each function. In my story, I didn't try to use a single boat type to carry out all the functions of the mission. Instead, I envisioned several different specialized boats. The key concept that makes that work is that they operate as a mutually supporting squadron rather than individually which is how most people 'design' ships. No one considers the squadron and then incorporates the changes that suggests. I suspect you've done that in your comment. You've attempted to design an individual boat that can do everything (and nothing well) instead of designing multiple specialized versions to operate as squadrons.
What do you think? Is that a fair assessment?
"You've attempted to design an individual boat that can do everything (and nothing well) instead of designing multiple specialized versions to operate as squadrons.
Delete"What do you think? Is that a fair assessment?"
Not in my view. The boat was envisioned for the anti-small boat mission. You think it isn't a very good concept, and you have your reasons. But the post specifically stated it was for the anti-small boat mission. It was stated it could be used for land attack and might have some anti-aircraft capability, but those were with weapons selected for the primary mission (the only exception being handheld Stinger missiles).
The radar-guided Hellfire missiles would be better at defeating small boats. I don't know whether the 24-cell vertical launch system (VLS) designed for the littoral combat ships would be suitable for a PT boat or if a trainable launcher would be better.
At the time I wrote my first post, I was thinking of keeping the Hellfire missiles aboard the littoral combat ships and Carlton Meyer's diesel-electric corvette concept. Maybe the 24-cell VLS isn't too heavy (or wouldn't make the center of gravity too high) for an 80-foot PT boat. If a PT boat and Hellfires are compatible, that's great. They had heavy torpedoes on the deck in World War Two.
Delete"But the post specifically stated it was for the anti-small boat mission."
Delete??? Here's the relevant quote from the post:
"Pivoting our thinking away from the ship-sinking role for the PT-ish boat (we’ll use the term ‘PT boat’ in a generic sense for the rest of the article) and keeping in mind that the most effective use was as barge-busting gunboats and ISR, we could easily imagine a very useful PT boat component in the Navy, today. "
"You think it isn't a very good concept, and you have your reasons."
I have nothing against a specialized anti-small boat design. I merely pointed out that if that was the case then a different weapons fit might be more appropriate.
Sorry, perhaps I should have used the word "response" instead of "post":
Delete"For a hypothetical Mk VII patrol boat outfitted for the anti-small boat role..."
Phil, thanks for the Tanker War reference. Had not heard of that before and will give it a read.
DeleteYou're welcome.
DeleteThe best multi-role weapon our US Navy needs is to mount the turret of the Swedish (United Defense) 40mm LV-90 along with its small radar for anti-air, anti-drone, anti-missile, anti-boat. This is perfect for anti-whatever, much better than the current 30mm with no radar found on ampbibs and other ships. Here is video:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgCm1bYiPJI
Thank you. That's probably more practical than a Fast Forty for a PT boat.
DeleteThat's a potentially effective choice assuming it could be successfully marinized. You'll recall the German attempt to marinize the MONARC which was the turret from a 155 mm self-propelled gun. The attempt failed.
DeleteThe US attempt to mount the 30 mm gun on the LCS problematic, to say the least. I don't know whether the various problems have been successfully addressed yet or not.
"Fast Forty"
DeleteAs a point of interest, the WWII 40mm Bofors single mount on a PT boat weighed somewhere around 3000 lb (hard to find an exact number because it depends on the exact model). In comparison, the Fast Forty appears to have a weight of around 12,000 lb which is potentially problematic in a PT type boat.
ComNavOps, coming late to the dogfight, A ship of the same size as the PT boat, improved engines, possible replacement of the torpedo tubes with (short ranged, i.e. in visual range missiles), up gunning with newer same weight weaponry, a couple of tiny drones to look over something suspicious at close range. The mounting of Sidewinders (or even carrying Stingers) is good. Build one and find out what is needed to improve it.
DeleteTowards the end of World War II PT boat crews realized they didn' need the heavy torpedo tubes. They just lashed them along the sides and dropped them in the water.
Delete"They just lashed them along the sides and dropped them in the water."
DeleteHere's a link to a photo of a later war PT boat torpedo mechanism: PT Torpedo
The alternate launch mechanism consisted of cradles that were used to secure the torpedoes and then roll them over the side upon launch.
Good idea in general. However, I wonder if it might be better, rather than operating these in the US Navy (at least in some areas), to transfer the up-gunned Mark 6 boats (either at low or no cost) to friendly nations who are on the frontlines in these trouble zones. Plus some training, if they want it. For example, in the South China Sea, transfer boats to the Philippines and perhaps Vietnam. Not sure about Malaysia - they seem like they may be getting a bit chummy with China.
ReplyDeleteMay also make sense to also transfer a smaller number of up-gunned Sentinel class cutters, which have longer ranges and better sea-keeping. For somewhat different missions.
My impression (albeit a bit vague) is that sometimes some of the reluctance to use force in some of these areas is related to the reluctance of our regional allies to support it, fearing blowback on them. Giving them the choice to do it themselves (or not) may help with that?
"fearing blowback on them."
DeleteI think there's a definite fear of that and much of that is due to the inconsistency of US resolve. Occasionally we'll stand up ... for a moment ... but then we quickly revert to our normal passive appeasement mode leaving the other country to deal with the fallout.
Conversely, if we would consistently stand up - forcefully when needed - then there would be no blowback because we'd be there to 'intercept' it.
Good thought!
Eventually drones will prove to everyone that even now, guns aren’t obsolete and you never have enough of them in war
ReplyDeleteCNO, make a new post regarding of this plane https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/super-tomcat-21-new-f-14-tomcat-fighter-never-flew-207851?page=0%2C1
ReplyDeleteAlready did. See, "Super Tomcat"
DeleteFeel free to peruse the archives. Lots of good stuff there!
I think part of the subconscious reason for the expansion of size and power from your readers and from the Navy is the same; People start thinking about what THEY would want to command or what THEY would want on their OWN ship. This results in overkill thinking. I am as guilty of it as anyone. Few of us want the minimum when we are subliminally thinking about our own ass being on the line.
ReplyDelete(This doesn't explain the LCS but does explain the Constellation class's growing debacle.)
We love stories of genuine hero ships like the USS Samuel B Roberts taking on a task force off Samar but we forget it was sunk in process because that wasn't what it was designed for.
"People start thinking about what THEY would want to command or what THEY would want on their OWN ship."
DeleteThat's fine except that the logical result is that every ship is a battleship with a supercarrier flight deck. I might forgive readers (not my readers, they should know better!) for wanting to load up a ship design but supposed professional naval officers MUST know better. Our WWII fathers understood all this and laid out proper fleet structure and ship design for us. All we have to do is follow the lessons they've given us ... but for some reason we refuse.
It's funny. I was the PM to buy the second round of patrol boats for the USN. I had two pages of specifications that came from OPNAV but the most profound one was that the thing had to be trailerable and fit through the door of a C141. The other bits were either fixed (must have Volvo Penta engines) which meant stern drives, etc or they were minor degrees of all boat building specs.
ReplyDeleteThe follow-on patrol boat (version III) was bought by the supergeniuses at NAVSEA CCD and of course they went huge and bought boats that were physically far too large to fit into C141s which admittedly, were mostly completely gone by then. Still, in the opening days of kicking off OIF all the old boats were tasked because they were the only ones that could be flown in.
What blew my mind was dealing with CCD. The fleet whined about armor protection so CCD dropped millions on buying armor kits to armor up the hull/pilothouse and NEVER ran the revised weights by a Naval Architect to see what adding that much topside weight would do to the righting moment.
The level of just stupid ignorance out there was stunning. I ran an IPT with about 12 members with most from the old Brown Water Navy and some with Vietnam small boat experience. It was very clear in the years that followed that the people in Suffolk, Little Creek and Norfolk got all their expert boat advise from LCDRs who had never so much as gotten underway on a small boat.
11.95m length / 3.4m beam / 7,500kg weight / 1,500kg payload HDPE hull patrol boats from Tideman Boat Company
ReplyDeleteCan be rapidly built by the thousands at low cost (<$200K with 6BT engines)
Cummins 6BT inboard engines to reduce cost (the expensive light duty cycle outboards used by Tideman represent a substantial portion of their $260K retail cost- $70K+)
Offensive torpedoes and missiles would be manually aimed or released, then rely upon internal guidance, to limit weight and cost. These boats are too small to deal with the weight and recoil of mortars or cannons. Weapons swapping keeps the weight and cost down, so pick a target type or mission and then choose the weapons to carry.
Target / Armament Variants:
Diesel sub and UUVs: 4 Mk54s
Ship and Shore Targets: 1 AGM-84 in a manually raised / lowered launch tube
Fire Support: gyro stabilized 106mm recoilless rifle
Area Air Defense: 8 Peregrine missiles, XQ-58's miniaturized APG-83 to find and paint targets
Point Defense: 20mm XM301 or FIM-92 forward mount (all mission variants except kamikazes)
Target Scout: miniature helipad for a Camcopter drone
Kamikaze Drone: Mk84 (no point defenses or crew cabin, more fuel)
Larger boats can carry all of those weapons at the same time, but only at much greater cost and reduced numbers. If I want to screen subs, then I don't want my boats carrying the crew or weight to maintain a cannon or anti-ship missiles. I want to blanket an area with boats carrying torpedoes and sonars. When I lose a boat, I only want to lose mission-required weapons and crew. If I think I need more air defense, then I include a boat carrying Peregrines in the squadron to protect the other boats.
kbd512
"manually aimed"
DeleteThis limits you to horizon range which, for a small boat, is on the order of six miles. Is it realistic to expect a boat to be able to approach within six miles of a target without being detected, engaged, and sunk?
CNO,
DeleteMy comment was applicable to manually aiming a gyro-stabilized 106mm recoilless rifle. It's a poor man's naval artillery system, but lighter / cheaper / faster to build, as well as less prone to failure from lack of maintenance than a power operated turret. It's possible to have a modest train rate power-operated mount at acceptable weight, which would be nice to have if cost is nominal. Typical price tags show that cost could be as much as the boat, though. I consider these boats expendable light attack / amphibious assault support assets, similar to the modern day Higgins boat concept. Stabilization adds considerably to accuracy, thus value to its intended direct fire role. Manual aiming is not terribly detrimental to its utility.
There's enough weight margin and physical space for about 20 to 30 shells per boat and a pair of gun operators. An entire squadron is required for useful fire support. Direct fire, max effective range is 2.75km. Max range using high angle fire is 7.5km to 9km. It doesn't make a lot of sense to add the weight and cost of a power operated turret, except for indirect fire. A heavier and more costly power operated turret may detract from magazine depth and will detract from total numbers procured. The moment we start gold-plating the solution, we'll continue to justify weight and size increases until we end up with something the Navy will never risk in a direct fire assault role. Some kind of compromise between mission requirements, cost, and numbers needs to be achieved.
We used manually aimed 106mm on riverine and coastal patrol boats during Vietnam, no stabilization or power operation, so this is still an improvement over that. Israel makes laser guided AT projectiles for the 106 for high angle fire against armored vehicles, but it's not intended for attacking moving targets in this role. We already have Griffin and Javelin missiles for top attack against other small boats or tanks.
For the heavier offensive weapons, I meant that the torpedo or anti-ship missile would first be aimed in the direction of the target, with initial guidance provided by a target scouting drone sent ahead of the squadron to find enemy ships or surfaced diesel-electric submarines by providing coordinates to fly or swim to before the weapons go active during the terminal phase of the attack.
Unless we produce and deploy these boats by the hundreds, they'll never be very effective. If we're willing to take losses, then these things absolutely will have an impact on the local environment. Let's say we have 100 of these things deployed against 3 of China's latest and greatest Type 055 destroyers bearing down on them. We end up losing as many boats as they have anti-ship weapons to fire at them while we unload our own weapons at the same time. They shoot down most of the Harpoons or NSMs. The handful that don't get shot down cripple or sink all of their multi-billion dollar destroyers. We can build small plastic boats powered by pickup truck engines a lot faster than they can build new destroyers. They're going to lose that game, even though our initial losses will be horrendous. We're defending islands, though. At some point, they have to come to us if they're intent on taking the island. Merely finding hundreds of small plastic hull boats will be challenging, unless they're sending most of their fleet, in which case sheer numbers still win decisively, just as they did during WWII.
If those islands are worth defending, then we'll accept our punishment for failing to field modernized Fletchers. We missed that opportunity. War is only two years away. We still have enough time to build and field hundreds of attack boats to pick off their merchant marine ships and smaller vessels to give the rest of our fleet a fighting chance.
kbd512