Posted on 03/02/2021 10:21:48 AM PST by Army Air Corps
It’ll be like the JSF of the seas. Or is that LCS?
Ummm...Godzilla.
Guaranteed stop and watch whenever I am channel surfing.
The red one is an icebreaker.
Obviously the current lover Hollywood has for repeating formulas is nothing new.
I learned to hate “Diehard”. It’s a great movie but led to an unending stream of much dumber movie clones inflicted upon us.
As an aside, I find the names of the SpaceX drone ships humorous...
—
Those name come from ships in Iain M Basks “Culture” Series. Those ships are space ships like no other.
The General Contact Unit (River Class) “Just Read the Instructions” can be found in Player of Games (2083AD), as can its sister GCU “Of Course I Still Love You”.
GCUs are relatively small ships measuring in ovoid shape less than 20 km. The ships are held together by overlapping fields generated by the Minds that run the ships and choose their own ship name.
General Contact Units (GCUs) are fast, independent, general-purpose vessels which the Culture’s Contact group uses for diplomacy, espionage, subversion and sabotage. The Culture has no policy of non-interference and, to the contrary, often tries to change the course of civilizations of whose behavior it disapproves or which it considers in need of advancement.
GCUs typically have a crew of Contact members, numbering around 300. GCUs’ Minds are sometimes somewhat eccentric ...
In the early stages of a conflict, GCUs are able to act as warships until GOU (General Offensive Unit) and ROU (Rapid Offensive Unit) types become available. Because the Culture is more advanced than most other space faring civilizations, GCUs are usually very effective in combat ...
LOL, I had no idea...have never read them. Maybe I will have to do just that...:)
A few thoughts. The Future Combat Systems family of vehicles used the same concept. The problem with the concept is that, it was as if you wanted a formula race car and a limo built with the same mix-and-match parts. The program was a spectacular waste of money. Not knowing what it takes to design a mission specific ship, I can’t say whether this concept works for ships but not for tanks. On the other hand, I’d hate to sail in something where a lot of compromises were made so that the same hull could do other missions. What that means to me is that none of the ships will be optimized for whatever their job will be.
Twenty-six knots is a tad slow. On the other hand, since we are well past the gun era it may be that it isn’t necessary or even possible to outrun a more capable vessel.
Russian ships are considerably more armed than the competition. Possibly, because they are more of a coastal defense fleet rather than a blue water navy which must carry more fuel and supplies and, therefore, less armament.
I read the one line description of the propulsion system and have no idea what they intend. The Independence class has a combined propulsion system and it has been an ongoing headache to the point where the navy has tried several times to decommission the ships to stop the hemorrhaging cost. But, Congress...and we know what experienced sailors and military experts they are...has refused to let the navy sideline these turkeys.
Lastly, when we read about Russian arms, it’s mostly an article about plans. They simply don’t have the economy necessary to build most of the stuff they have plans for. They did, apparently, build a nuclear powered robotic submarine super bomb that can cruise indefinitely and then detonate off the Eastern Seaboard of the US and potentially kill most of the people living this side of the Appalachian Mountains. Or, so they claim. You only build a civilization destroying weapon when you no longer have the ability to defend yourself with conventional weapons. The demographic collapse of the Russian population that happened after the Soviet Union fell apart means that in just two or three years, the Russian army will be less than half the size it is today. Russia won’t be building much in the way of conventional weapons as they are, for all practical purposes, a dead nation. A recent submarine accident where technicians were working on a new system killed about ten men. When you look at the men and their ages and ranks, they were almost all senior captains...working, apparently, as technicians. One the men killed, grabbed the two young men and shoved them through a hatch to safety and then slammed it behind them. That was just stunning. I have to think he did this because he knew there were damned few competent young men.
His best one is not in the Culture series - its called the “Algebraist”. No fancy ship names but is search (during a background war of conquest) for a mythical wormhole entrance that connects all planets in all star systems in the Universe. Bad guy gets put down spectacularly from unexpected quarter.
Okay, now I will have to check that out. I stopped reading SciFi and have been reading mostly history, political and biographies for some time now.
Gotta get back into it...thank you.
Yeah I’m reading prehistory stuff now - SF makes a good change of pace - either that or reread The Portable Johnson & Boswell
I just finished reading the whole Sparrowhawk series...boy, did that ever seem relevant today.
It definitely is not comparable to the Little Crappy Ship. That was a fiasco that was overdesigned with little capability. Comparable in size to the current Russian corvettes with none of the capability. This was from the “From the Sea” nonsense, allegedly to improve littoral capability.
Did they ever get the 57mm to work?
The red one looks like it’s wearing a mask.
The Naval equivalent of the F-35 perhaps?
On a $61 billion budget?. Nah. I don’t think so.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.