Posted on 12/13/2013 11:57:25 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
Past fears that carriers were vulnerable to new technologies werent proven right nor were they proven wrong.
Over at The National Interest this week, former Naval Diplomat shipmate U.S. Marines say there are no former Marines, just Marines; are there former shipmates? Bryan McGrath wades into the debate over Tom Rickss Washington Post column urging the U.S. military to get smaller to get better.
Let me wade in as well; the waters fine. Ricks takes aim at the U.S. Navys fleet of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers in particular. He cites the expense of CVNs, but Bryan zeroes in mainly on the question of flattops vulnerability in a threat environment populated by exotic armaments such as anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles, stealth tactical aircraft, and so forth.
Bryan mocks Ricks observation that CVNs look much like their distant ancestors. But the point is that carriers have enormous radar cross-sections. They dont have that sleek, angular, unearthly appearance that typifies stealth aircraft and ships. Radar essentially shouts and listens for the echo. A bulky hull featuring lots of flat surfaces, sharp edges, and protuberances is bound to reflect electromagnetic radiation the shout returning that echo to the adversarys radar set and thence to his fire-control system and anti-ship weaponry. In that sense, the look of a ship does matter, as Ricks observes.
The games afoot once the ship is detected. To delay detection and targeting, shipbuilders have incorporated gee-whiz measures into the design of the Gerald R. Ford, the U.S. Navys latest supercarrier. Cutting down on its RCS helps. Still, short of conducting a true-to-life Philadelphia Experiment on a grand scale, theres only so much you can do to disguise a 100,000-ton behemoth. While it represents the vanguard of carrier
(Excerpt) Read more at thediplomat.com ...
Never having heard of Project Habakkuk, I looked it up. VERY interesting. And, oddly enough, I work in a plant that manufactures particleboard. In this weather, there’s a few tons of Pykrete just laying about the place.
Political correctness put the COLE at that pier in Yemen. We had things that could have helped that ship, but they were all in warehouses gathering dust. Someone I know just mentioned the name and got threatened.
I’m sorry. I never pass up the chance to post a pic of my old ship. I was in Turret 2 when that pic was taken. I figure we need to bring back 2 Battleships. Even being so old they are much more useful than the deathtraps that are, the LCS’s.
One costly component of drones that is overlooked is the cost of the communications satellites needed to operate them. Think tens of billions of dollars.
The first rule of naval warfare is never use active sonar and radar for search in wartime. It is the best way to get killed. It is like screaming “here I am shoot me”. Active sonar and radar are for targeting purpose when you are ready to shoot to kill, for targeting solutions.
I know, we'll rent them from China!
Oh, wait... :)
One could recline the pilot and get greater G-force tolerance. My recollection is the Apollo astronauts endured about 40 Gs lying on their backs.
Need to make a rescue swimmer drone that would be fearless!
I just imagine a bolter on that, with the bolter going into the meat grinder!
The Obama will be a Kenyan aircraft carrier.
I would look at a ramjet powered drone, with rocket powered launch. smallish fold out fins, enough to get good g-turn rate at high speed. Electrical power by Ram air turbine and/or chemical batteries. You want it to be fast so your target doesn’t move or hide before you can kill it.
If you want to kill something, your drone starts to look a lot more like ordinance. If you want to loiter and observe, then it looks a lot like a globalhawk or predator.
In a situation where you are not sure, you start off looking and may thus find something you want to kill, you get a UCAS looking equipment, and off load the ordinance function to something it carries.
And many factories that weren't empty. Singer, for example, quit making sewing machines and started making machine guns. Today Singer makes sewing machines in Brazil and China. We couldn't quickly retool these factories if we wanted to because they just don't exist in the U.S. anymore.
Video on the right.
http://kryptonradio.com/2013/08/27/video-of-the-day-flying-model-s-h-i-e-l-d-helicarriers/
Thanks. That’s cool. People are so damn ingenious.
If you had a bolter on that angled deck, that big ass fan is gonna suck you down.
I say keep building these floating fortresses. They allow us to take the war to the enemy without having to build land-based airfields.
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