[knarf]

I know nuthin' from nuthin' ... but after reading the article, I conclude there is too much electronics and computers and not enough men.

I have this image of one guy in a circular, or semi-circular "cubicle" responsible for a bank of computers. I don't know HOW the innards are configured, but that's the image I see.

My knowledge of naval warfare comes from movies that show a bunch of guys, fluidly in each other's way, talking, communicating .. being involved with a .. or many decisions .. and accomplishing a task.

If my fantasy is close to correct ... what happens when the guy in the cubicle freezes, or runs into a situation he could use some input ... ?

I don't know ... I'm just thinkin' stuff.

[knarf]

Chime in, bro ...

[Leaning Right]

I conclude there is too much electronics and computers and not enough men

It goes back to the old argument, is it better to have a few high-tech weapons or a many low-tech weapons?

I don't know the answer to that one. But I will point out that Germany produced about 1000 Tiger Tanks. The Soviets produced about 50,000 T-34's. And we all know how that turned out.

[IMR 4350]

I helped build the Spruance class destroyers.

Unless things have changed, everything on a ship is pretty much squared off. Simple to build and a lot less wasted space.

I got to sit in one of the chairs in the control room. It was just a temporary chair while work was being done, didn’t want to give the navy a used chair, but it was the same type of chair.

Didn’t want to get up. Kind of a Lazy Boy feel.

[CPO retired]

Looks like there aren’t enough spare bodies in the crew. Many of the jobs I did aboard ship had twice as many people present as were actually needed to to the job as “spares”, to replace casualties and fight fires and flooding.

I could manually operate the dead reckoning tracer (DRT) in the combat information center (CIC), with the electronic “bug” not working, and calculate closest point of approach, range and bearing info on surface contacts.

20 year old eyes looking through properly collimated binoculars could see and estimate range on targets out to the horizon. One of our lookouts could see masthead and range lights at night out to where part of the ship was over the edge of the horizon. Sometimes he picked them up before the radar operator was reporting them.

What does this new vessel do without GPS? (After the Chinese knock ours out).