Navy Construction
Feb. 6th, 2009 02:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chris_gerribPer the always-interesting blog Information Dissemination, I read of a call by Congressman Gene Taylor of Mississippi to rationalize US Navy ship construction. My first thought on reading the statement was "amen." Congressman Taylor calls for:
1) Restructuring the LCS (Littoral Combat Ship) program. Right now, we've got two expensive, fast but sadly under-gunned ships that are really designed to act as base ships for other (as yet unbuilt) weapons systems. In my view, we don't need either ship, but Taylor calls for picking a common design and building it.
2) Stop building any more DDG 1000 ships. The last thing the Navy needs is a 14,500 ton "destroyer." (That's the size of a WWI dreadnought).
3) Build more Burke-class destroyers. These 8,500 ton destroyers are as capable as any other navy's cruiser.
4) Use an existing amphibious ship as the hull platform for any new large combatants.
5) Most intriguing, build a new guided-missile frigate for the Navy based on the Coast Guard's Bertholf class "national security cutter."
Although this ship in Coast Guard service is lightly armed, with just a dinky gun and close-in anti-missile system, at 4,000 tons one could surely shoehorn in some missiles and sonar. The result would be a ship that could sit off the coast of Somalia and chase pirates, or 80% of the other current Navy missions. I especially like the Bertholf design in that its well deck, which supports small boat operations, alleviates one of the main weaknesses of the Perry-class frigates, namely inadequate support for small boats. All I can hope is that common sense finds the Admiralty.
1) Restructuring the LCS (Littoral Combat Ship) program. Right now, we've got two expensive, fast but sadly under-gunned ships that are really designed to act as base ships for other (as yet unbuilt) weapons systems. In my view, we don't need either ship, but Taylor calls for picking a common design and building it.
2) Stop building any more DDG 1000 ships. The last thing the Navy needs is a 14,500 ton "destroyer." (That's the size of a WWI dreadnought).
3) Build more Burke-class destroyers. These 8,500 ton destroyers are as capable as any other navy's cruiser.
4) Use an existing amphibious ship as the hull platform for any new large combatants.
5) Most intriguing, build a new guided-missile frigate for the Navy based on the Coast Guard's Bertholf class "national security cutter."
Although this ship in Coast Guard service is lightly armed, with just a dinky gun and close-in anti-missile system, at 4,000 tons one could surely shoehorn in some missiles and sonar. The result would be a ship that could sit off the coast of Somalia and chase pirates, or 80% of the other current Navy missions. I especially like the Bertholf design in that its well deck, which supports small boat operations, alleviates one of the main weaknesses of the Perry-class frigates, namely inadequate support for small boats. All I can hope is that common sense finds the Admiralty.
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Date: 2009-02-06 09:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-06 10:25 pm (UTC)The US Navy has a love for battleships, whatever they are actually called.
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Date: 2009-02-07 08:33 pm (UTC)Mostly b/c I don't think the Navy gets the same boner about SSBN/SSGN's that I might.
I mean, you can't use it for 'power projection' so how important could it possible be? ^_^
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Date: 2009-02-07 05:19 am (UTC)I don't see the Navy moving away from VLS and the Burkes and Spru-cans were the shallowest draft vessels that can mount the system in it's current incarnation with the current load-outs.
Other than that I've honestly ignored what the surface fleet has been doing b/c it mostly seems like a lot of flop and twitch. When they have a plan, they can come back and feel free to talk to me.
Meanwhile I'm going to practice picking off Ticos and Burkes. ^_^
EDIT: Amen on the building more Burkes, though. That's a Grade A ship there. I mean, go modernize the design and all, but damn, what a package.
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Date: 2009-02-07 08:07 pm (UTC)Bottom line - the surface fleet needs to stop flopping and twitching 'cause they can't go fight Ruskies anymore and get a plan to fight who we need to.
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Date: 2009-02-07 08:30 pm (UTC)I'm not certain what the surface fleet does anymore. They don't do ASW worth a snot (b/c they don't practice it), they don't have anti-ship missiles(No Harpoon, No TASM), and from what I've been hearing from my SSGN brothers, they suck at strike now too (waaay to many TLAM's don't complete mission due to wrong programming).
Um, guys? If you don't unscrew yourselves, you're going to _die_ come a shooting war. And we might be able to train more people, but ship building takes time we won't have.
Grr.
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Date: 2009-02-07 08:31 pm (UTC)They still use the one armed bandit for most stuff, but have an 8 cell VLS for the Evolved Sea Sparrow that looks like it sticks a meter or so above the deck.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adelaide_class_frigate