Posted on 12/01/2016 6:13:01 AM PST by Kaslin
As we contemplate what the next 5, 10, and 25 years will look like for our U.S. Naval Forces, we need to keep in mind why we have a naval force and what we ask of it. The true power of our naval capability is derived from a synergistic combination of Carrier and Expeditionary Groups. We should not rob Peter to pay Paul here. We need them both.
While we certainly need to protect our homeland from foreign enemies, our more likely engagement is away from our homeland. We have to be able to project force when required. We want to walk softly, but be able to credibly carry a big stick.
Being able to rapidly and decisively project combat power anywhere in the world is never more important than now.
Controlling the sea lanes of communication is a traditional U.S. Navy mission dating back to the Barbary pirates off the coast of Tripoli in the late 1700s and the early 1800s. The decisive action finally came when a naval expeditionary force entered the harbor in Tripoli and, under the protection of naval gunfire, landed a contingent of Marines to confront the sponsors of the pirates and let them know, at sword-point, that this would no longer be tolerated.
Today, the uniforms and ships look different, but the fundamentals are similar. Protecting the seas to guarantee safe passage of commerce is still a top priority of the U.S. Navy and its allies. The various maritime chokepoints (Hormuz, Malacca, Panama, Suez) are still teeming with profiteers, and governments around those chokepoints continuously jockey for control/influence. We have to be able to project power and influence.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Also urgently needed: a coherent national strategy and a set of associated doctrines to guide the development and use of our armed forces. For example, a strategy of containment of the Muslim world would call for a different force structure than our current strategy of providing security guarantees for various supposed Muslim allies.
Satellites, GPS, and the ability to hit targets plus or minus a few feet from thousands of miles away means that the US needs to look at new ways to project force across the oceans. A carrier is a huge target in an era in which a rowboat can be targeted.
We urgently need a justification for a huge standing military; Trump was right that “allies” need to foot their shares of the bills.
The failed “Wars Against Islam” highlighted one serious weakness in our 1980s strategies: As Americans have fewer children, fewer want to see them risked overseas in missions with vague goals and enemies as likely to be in the next barracks...
Neither.
Fully amortize the research and production of rail gun and directed energy weapons. Place on drones. Fly five hundred of them toward the enemy and each one sink or splash a target. Enemy gone, cost benefit through the roof.
Nope. Need both. The CBT is for power projection as well as protection of shipping lanes. The ARG is for establishing a beach head. Killing the enemy is only part of the puzzle. Land needs to be held and you can't do that with a rail gun.
Satellites will be gone in the first hour of a global world war.
Shipping lanes cane easily be protected by Cruisers and submarines, especially with the political will to back them up with rapid and complete destruction.
DO you really want to put boots on the ground anywhere in the rest of the world right now. One or two strong carrier groups can handle the rest of the dirty laundry once the majority of the enemy has been killed. Just look at the road of death into Baghdad for that lesson.
It may well be that a containment strategy against the Muslim world is the best approach, while letting the Sunnis and Shias tear each other apart.
Nothing says power like a carrier battle group. This is part and parcel of the gunboat diplomacy that gave the US its status in the world. There are far too many interests to protect and too few cruisers. Subs cannot protect lanes, they need to be visible.
As for BOTG, we go when/where we are needed and we need the ability to sustain combat ops for a minimum of 30 days (MEU) or 180 days (MEF). ARGs are the only way to accomplish this.
That seems to be the whole reason we de-stabilized the area to begin with...
These formations need to be reconsidered for the world we are entering. The battle space is very asymmetric. Relatively inexpensive anti-ship missiles make deploying carriers near targets very risky. Yet, the operating range of the F-35 Albatross is quite limited.
You might think anti-missile defenses can intercept incoming missiles. Think again. From what we learned in the recent confrontation off the coast of Yemen, our destroyers weren’t hit because the missiles sent at them grounded themselves into the water (probably indicating they weren’t long range enough, or else that the decoys deployed by the destroyer overloaded the in-coming missile’s controller). None of the three interceptor missiles (two medium range, usually fired in pairs, and one short range) hit them. To be sure, there was one remaining line of defense, the phalanx anti-missile gun. But, in a high threat environment, ships - especially carriers - would be swarmed.
Between our new Literal non-Combat Ship, too vulnerable to actually be deployed to high threat environments, and the short-range of our new carrier-based aircraft, we have an uber expensive and hardly useful Navy.
Nothing says power like dropping a JDAM on someones house, ask Khaddafy and Reagan.
You can keep your ARGs, but as technology improves, all they will be is a target rich environment for the other sides drone attack with a one shot railgun round right through the ship at the water line.
Submarines can hide and sink whatever needs to be sunk, and a few good cruisers will fly the flag.
The real threat is bombing the house of the leader. Everybody else stands down when you do that.
Not so, just look at al Khaida. They follow a tribal leadership and when one dies, another steps up. ISIS is loosely based on that model.
Subs just cannot protect lanes. Cruisers have been doing protection since they were first deployed but work best in packs, that is the screen for the CBT.
As tech advances for the attack, it does so for the defense. A rail gun is just like any other point-shoot-forget weapon, once it is in the air, the projectile goes to one place. Ships move.
JDAMs are $1 mil/copy.
Wrong, a rail gun is a point-shoot-hit weapon. At the speeds they are currently able to attain, even a jet plane cannot move fast enough to evade. And the one that was tested on a tank in Iraq destroyed the tank and did not even exit the other side. But the entry hole was the size of a pencil.
The rail gun is a game changer for any battlefield. If you can aim at it, line of sight, you can destroy it. A small drone with only one shot capability can sink the largest carrier. All size does is make it easier to hit, and there is no counter weapon for the railgun or directed energy weapon.
The Bush administration seems to have thought that Saddam would be displaced, Iraq subdued, and the UN put in charge as the US moved on to other tasks — like a show down with Iran. But the UN headquarters in Iraq and the designated national administrator were blown up and the insurgency was on. In that manner, we got stuck in Iraq, eventually to downsize and let Shias loyal to Iran come into the control of most of the country.
Not for the sea. I have watched rail gun tests and the amount of energy needed to fire just once requires a vessel that can generate a massive amount of energy. Not your typical tin can. LOS requires closing within ranges that the CBT would have already eliminated the threat, so not practical from a naval warfare standpoint, unless you have plenty of picket ships. Thus far, China is the only one that can approach that size of force.
So, the remaining option is OTH and ships can maneuver out of target. If their tracking is sufficient, then the odds go up, but they are still within reach of the Super Hornet and a pre-emptive strike is on the menu.
And you are looking at third generation rail guns.
The first generation (Israel, Australia and the US out in the outback) were horrible, but each successive generation drops the energy requirements and size. It will become far more manageable, sooner rather than later. Definitely before the twenty year mark the article is talking about.
And drones satisfy the OTH aspect. Fire up a bunch of one shot railgun loaded drones, and it becomes a group of planes trying to hit a swarm of wasps who only need to shoot once. And not even needing to be close, just line of sight.
As for China and their picket force, Taiwan has been preparing for just that kind of battle, and have a huge amount of ship killer missiles waiting to launch on the Chinese. Their losses will be staggering, and the Taiwanese have a lot of missiles.
It is hard to even refer to it as an “insurgency” when the Iraqis are simply fighting to remove foreign troops from their soil. BLM is an insurgency.
Hence the reason the Zumwalt has enough reserve power at full speed to run a small city. Ignore the fact that they can’t keep it in operation.
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