Posted on 12/05/2005 12:55:30 AM PST by txradioguy
WASHINGTON -- U.S. Marines, while fighting valiantly in Iraq, are on the verge of serious defeat on Capitol Hill. A Senate-House conference on the Armed Services authorization bill convening this week is considering turning the Navy's last two battleships, the Iowa and Wisconsin, into museums. Marine officers fear that deprives them of vital fire support in an uncertain future.
Gen. Michael W. Hagee, the current commandant of the Marine Corps, testified on April 1, 2003, that loss of naval surface fire support from battleships would place his troops "at considerable risk." On July 29 this year, Hagee asserted: "Our aviation is really quite good, but it can, in fact, be weathered." Nevertheless, Marine leaders have given up a public fight for fear of alienating Navy colleagues.
The Navy high command is determined to get rid of the battleships, relying for support on an expensive new destroyer at least 10 years in the future. This is how Washington works. Defense contractors, Pentagon bureaucrats, congressional staffers and career-minded officers make this decision that may ultimately be paid for by Marine and Army infantrymen.
Marine desire to reactivate the Iowa and Wisconsin runs counter to the DD(X) destroyer of the future. It will not be ready before 2015, costing between $4.7 billion and $7 billion. Keeping the battleships in reserve costs only $250,000 a year, with reactivation estimated at $500 million (taking six months to a year) and full modernization more than $1.5 billion (less than two years).
On the modernized battleships, 18 big (16-inch) guns could fire 460 projectiles in nine minutes and take out hardened targets in North Korea. In contrast, the DD(X) will fire only 70 long-range attack projectiles at $1 million a minute. Therefore, the new destroyer will rely on conventional 155-millimeter rounds that Marines say cannot reach the shore. Former longtime National Security Council staffer William L. Stearman, now executive director of the U.S. Naval Fire Support Association, told me, "In short, this enormously expensive ship cannot fulfill its primary mission: provide naval surface fire support for the Marine Corps."
Read the rest here:
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/robertnovak/2005/12/05/177720.html
My understanding is the rail guns can only launch small projectiles albeit at extraordinary velocities. The power supply is huge, the capacitors slow to charge, and current and voltage hard to switch. Heat management is difficult. Think 8,000 cubic feet of capacitors. More like a power supply for plasma research than something everyday like a sixteen inch gun.
And what is your plan? What idea do you have to support the Commandant since he's going to Congress and saying in essence this fancy new boat won't protect my Marines?
It sure sounds like he's thought this out more than you have.
Gen. Michael W. Hagee, the current commandant of the Marine Corps, testified on April 1, 2003, that loss of naval surface fire support from battleships would place his troops "at considerable risk." On July 29 this year, Hagee asserted: "Our aviation is really quite good, but it can, in fact, be weathered."
From LTC North's column on saving the Battleships:
"The Navy claims that the "firepower problem" -- Marines call it "steel on target" -- will be solved by a new, five-inch, Extended Range Guided Munition (ERGM). Under development at great cost since 1996, the Government Accountability Office said in 2004 that the ERGM program is rife with cost overruns and that "its problems have led to test failures and delays."
In truth, the ERGM should have been scrubbed in March 2000 when the Marines told Congress that neither ERGM nor any other five-inch round would meet Marines' lethality requirements. Worse still, a May 2001 internal Navy report admitted that ERGM won't meet Marines' volume of fire requirements either. Both needs can easily be met by existing 16-inch guns on the battleships."
http://www.military.com/Opinions/0,,FreedomAlliance_041405,00.html
Oh, well -- since you say so!
OKAY, EVERYBODY, YOU CAN GO HOME. STRATEGERIST SAYS THE DEBATE'S OVER.
Yeah, right.
And let me know when you figure out how to get Wisconsin and Iowa to Afghanistan.
If you don't think so, go to Lebanon and say the words "New Jersey", and see what reaction you get...
Well, since the military budget isn't infinite, there's a series of tradeoffs.
This debate comes up all the time on naval-oriented boards, to the groans of all; pretty much universally the really knowledgeable naval people think it's sort of silly to even consider recommissioning the Iowas.
And everything the New Jersey did in Lebanon was done 100 times better in Afghanistan by B-52s.
LOL!...good point!
Good post. The A-10 was to have been retired prior to GWOT, but they have been a very effective weapon on Afghanistan and Iraq.
USS Iowa still needs repair to "B" turret, attendant on the loading accident that put her out of commission.
…pretty much universally the really knowledgeable naval people think it's sort of silly to even consider recommissioning the Iowas.
The "Crusader" SP gun program was killed by your boy Bush.
Too much money. Priority lower than his Park Avenue tax cuts.
You would have had a heck of a time getting the Crusader into Afghanistan and then operating it there.
The arrival of the GPS bomb and then finally getting air-ground coordination and communication working is really transformative.
Before it, there was airpower, effective, but a lot of promises and claims that never panned out. Now, there's AIRPOWER.
It's simply a lot easier to have an orbiting B-52 or B-1 overhead in a lot of areas of the world than get a big 155mm SP gun to that area of the world and keep it supplied and running. And the kicker is now that you're not really losing any speed in fire support.
One hundred times better? Let's review. Mission duration for the B-52's was measured in hours. They had to come from CONUS, or from Diego Garcia. With a BB on the scene, flight time is 50 seconds. How fast can you dial up the battlewagon's gun boss and give him the coordinates of whatever you want to make Go Away?
The cost of repairing that turret is far less IMHO than banking on an unproven system that already has problems.
Besides...LOL!...think of the boost to the employment rolls and the economy by hiring the people to work on the ships.
As usual the Marine makes the most sense. Do not then expect to drop Marines off on the beach 10 years from now with these pretty little "boats" to back them up.
It was killed by Rummesfeld.
Get your facts straight and quit hiding behind the main topic to launch stupid rants against the President.
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