Posted on 11/02/2019 6:11:18 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Like a Christmas wish list, the Navy wants a fleet of 355 ships. It just can’t afford it.
“Will we get to 355 ships?” asked Admiral Robert Burke, the Navy’s Vice Chief of Naval Operations, at a recent conference. “I think with today’s fiscal situation, where the Navy’s top line is right now, we can keep around 305 to 310 ships whole, properly manned, properly maintained, properly equipped, and properly ready.”
The $205.6 billion for Fiscal Year 2020 that the Navy has requested – bigger than the economies of the majority of nations on Earth – would seem to be plenty. But even if Congress approves that amount, it would only bring the Navy’s battle force of warships and support vessels to 314 by 2024. That’s more than the current 280-strong force, but only about four-fifths of the 355-ship goal by 2047.
Burke’s conclusion was logical: more money equals more ships. “If our top line does not go up, if it remains where it is now and is projected to remain in the future defense plans, that’s about where we can get to and do it right, in terms of man those ships and maintain them and have all the ordnance for them and generate readiness,” he said. “We would need an increased top line.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalinterest.org ...
559 when I was active in 1975
I liked the Thunderbolt and Lightning. Have you ever heard of the B-34?
In time of war the President is authorized and empowered, in addition to all other existing provisions of law:
First. Within the limits of the amounts appropriated therefor, to place an order with any person for such ships or war material as the necessities of the Government, to be determined by the President, may require and which are of the nature, kind, and quantity usually produced or capable of being produced by such person
Don’t forget Congress’ sexual harassment/assault funds. There is NO way we taxpayers should be paying that!
If only Japan was able to see into the future.
Does that include civilian merchant ships that were pressed into service? That number seems very misleading.
The Navy tincans did Yeomans work that day. “Last Stand Of The Tin Can Sailors” is a great account Halsey was chasing Japanese carriers with no planes. The boys at Leyte Gulf rose to the challenge. RIP and Thanks.
Much as with computers, in modern infocentric warfare, 26 is an eternity.
That said, these mothballed ships were cruisers of the modern type with minimal hull armor. Their hulls are worn out and need replacement. Replacement costs a significant part of the price of a new ship and results in an old, slow, limited combatant that’s more a liability than an asset.
They wanted to scrap the Truman and not do her midlife refit & refuel and Trump and congress said no way. Truman is in port with major electrical issues delaying her deployment and extending the USS Lincoln’s deployment. The delays cause a cascade effect on other ships awaiting their turn in dry dock. The USS Ford can’t deploy because only 4 of her 9 electro magnetic weapons elevators work. Our problem is ship yards that can do quality work in a timely manner.
And why the USN can’t build a new class of cruisers is beyond me. The LCS class has been a waste of resources and the Zumwalt class seems to be headed the same direction.
This has been investigated and experiments have been run. Modern jet fighters weigh quite a lot and the F-35 vertical takeoff version destroys any temp decking surface.
If I posted this item there would be a manic depressive calling for my ZOT.
Just saying.
We can’t build new cruisers because we don’t have any on the drawing boards. It will take about a decade to design, build and fit out just one.
Also, to be fair, mission and size creep has kind of rendered cruisers pointless. Our current Zumwalt ‘destroyer’ is the size (but not displacement) of some battleships that fought in WW2.
Our ships should be used to patrol our coastal waters and protect our merchant ships.
Wow. Did they ever. I read that book, and it left an impact on me. IIRC, they knew the battlewagons were coming, and every Man Jack of them knew they were the only thing in the way of those IJN ships having their way with the landing transports, but...they got in the way anyway.
Balls the size of bowling balls.
I heard they just found the wreck of the USS Johnston (DD-557) which was sunk at Samar, and it was a complete splintered wreck.
The Battle of Leyte Gulf was astonishing, and is largely unknown by the American public today. It was like nothing else. The scale of the battle was huge. The stakes were high. The sub-plots were astounding.
Halsey, itching for a fight, taking the bait, and through a common clerical error which threw gasoline on the fire, ends up to his dying days fighting what he viewed as slander by people who questioned his actions, all under the shadow of the words “The world wonders”.
On the other side, almost simultaneously, the Davids of the US Navy in Taffy3 against the Goliaths of the Imperial Japanese Navy and their battleships, darting in, really, the unbelievable parallel to “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (A poem known to every man of that day)
The destroyers of Taffy 3 with bones in their teeth sailed directly at the Japanese battlewagons, their five inch guns like the sabres of the Light Brigade being flashed in the air, they “Volley’d and thunder’d” like hooves, as the superstructures of the battleships flashed with impacts. They sailed under full steam to what many of them, like the calvary in Tennyson’s poem, assumed was going to be their certain death...”Someone had blunder’d”.
Halsey, in full pursuit to the north, gets the communication from his boss who is trying to discreetly ask what Halsey was up to without ruffling his feathers, ending with Halsey losing it on the bridge of the New Jersey and throwing his hat to the floor in white hot anger and shame as “All the world wonder’d” in Hawaii what was going on.
You could not make this up.
And then, Typhoon Cobra just a month or two later.
With the way they could use computer graphics to recreate that, with the real, unadulterated story line from history, that would be quite the production.
“The Battle of Leyte Gulf”.
Alas, Hollywood would likely screw it up. I want to see the Midway movie, but I fear they will butcher it.
Probably have transgenders flying the Devastators in Torpedo 8.
I somewhat get the impression with these stories is that most of our defense mustering strategy is based on costly innovations that have to go through lengthy testing and practical shakedowns before we even see working units or platforms.
Shouldn’t we base the bulk of our force on more “off the shelf” technology options for these missions?
I know stealth technology, rail-guns, lasers pew pew, spaceships and robot donkeys are neato, but these tech ideas are extremely cutting edge.
Shouldn’t we simply focus on the military as an effective force that can meet the missions we are reasonably fielding. I don’t mean stop innovating, but we’ve been developing all these “new type” weapons. Are we able to meet current and near future threats effectively?
They found much of the ship but it was far from complete and as was described, the superstructure parts that were found were literally swiss cheesed from hits.
Here’s the video from the team that discovered it. The Johnston is the deepest warship wreck ever discovered and explored in history.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb_801AIhU0
Some of the Navy is already working on this, as the LCS turned out to be an expensive boondoggle that with mission creep didn’t work out. The LCS was supposed to replace the Navy’s frigates and the Navy has finally admitted it can’t. The FFG[X] program is a crash program to buy an off the shelf, already in use frigate design from another country. This is because LCS precluded a new frigate design so we don’t have any designs under development and we don’t have the 5-10 years needed to design and start to build a new frigate. We need new frigates yesterday, so we’re going to buy an off the shelf design, adapt it to American weapons, computer and propulsion and build them here. That’s the fastest way for us to get the surface combatants we need.
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/53637
Link above is to the actual CBO report for those interested in reading it.
The money talk in the article is a little confusing but basically CBO estimates shipbuilding options as:
355 ship fleet = $103-104 billion per year shipbuilding budget from now through 2047. There are two different pathways described to getting there. One gets you there sooner but both cost about the same.
280 ship fleet = $91 billion per year shipbuilding budget from now through 2047. This is funding at current levels.
230 ship fleet = $82 billion per year shipbuilding budget from now through 2047. This is a reduction to historic funding levels for shipbuilding.
So, spend $12-13 billion more per year until 2047 ($360-390 billion net increase) and get to the 355 ship goal sometime between 2027 and 2037 OR spend the current amount per year and maintain the present 280 ship fleet OR spend $9 billion less per year ($270 billion net decrease) and shrink the fleet from 280 to 230 ships. The delta between the two extremes is $660 billion over 30 years, a tidy sum.
A quick scan of the document reveals the well known fact that the majority of the system lifecycle cost is in its operation and sustainment. Interestingly, the option to procure the vessels and place them into war reserve storage to save on these costs (until needed to meet contingency requirements) is not discussed at all.
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