I've seen the pictures of rafts of DEs lining the Deleware River waiting their chance at the cutting torch. A sad sight for any sailor, and yes an apparent waste of the blood, sweat and tears of millions not to mention the treasure. The truth is the developements in sound isolation of machinery plus prarrie/masker hull and propellor quieting made all of those ships obsolete. The Dealys, Norfolk, Mitschers, Shermans etc that were built in the 50s and early 60s began the evolution of those technologies. The larger hulls made it possible to incorporate larger and more powerful sonars, that were usable in seastates that were unthinkable in WWII. The increases in technology also required greater generator capacities than the older ships could accomodate. Possibly the most important thing that we gained by building those classes was the ability to design and build warships. If those capabilities are allowed to wither away you will not be able to replace the ships when they finally are used up.
NTU - New Threat Upgrade - was a program that gutted and rebuilt the AAW capabilities of our Terrier/Tarter ships. They were as good, and in some situations better than Aegis. The reason that Aegis won out as the mainstay of the fleet was the age of the hulls on which it was based. The NTU ships were like the FRAMs, all used up.
Aegis is a battle management system that improves a warfare commanders situational awareness. That humans can commit errors even with the most modern systems should be no surprise to anyone. The man who must make life and death decisions in a matter of seconds will always be second guessed by those who would never consider making the commitment to live under that pressure.
The age of Aegis is almost irrelevant. The system is actually much older with it's start around 1961 with RCA. The system grows as improved radars, computers etc become available. The Anti-missile capability is more of a software patch than anything else. So the system is what we need it to be not like all the old systems that were seperate sensors, launchers and communications that needed to be interfaced by the operators.
Trust me when I say deck space for helos is not our problem. Building hybrid helo ships was a waste and most are now gone and will not be replaced. DASH may have been ahead of its time. We are doing alot more work on drones now and I think we could have had it then if we had just stuck it out.
As far as cruisers in the ASW role. One of things we learned in WWII is that the DEs were better with the sonars of the day at prosecuting subs because of their tighter turning radii. The bigger Fletchers and Sumners could loose a squirming sub before they could setup a good attack. This would be especially true of a light cruiser. We did try it with the Albanys and Long Beach, with only marginal success. The reason we had so many leaders (DLGs) was that there were a lot of FRAMs to be led. When they went away these ships usually became CGs allowing our term 'frigate' to be applied to the DEs that were more representative of our allies 'Frigates'.
The CVLs just could not handle the size/weight of aircraft developed in the 50s. They could have been used as helo or support carriers but why, we had gobs of Essex class carriers that required fewer men per aircraft carried to operate. In addition the lower practical limit for all weather carrier ops was about 15,000 tons. These ships had limitations that made them virtually wortless to our navy (We did transfer two to the French and 1 to Spain - That's another sad story. Google USS Cabot and see what her final fate was, not pretty)
The bottom line is we have to look forward not back. The ships of today are excellent in their own right and though 16" guns and such can not be replicated today we have some capabilities that reduce our dependence on these older technologies.
Not really. Not unless you make a "rule" that laid-up ships must be reactivated with their original weapon systems intact, and that they be required to engage vampires with quadruple 40mm mounts.
The British heavily updated HMS Renown and Hood in the 1930's with additional AA and a great deal of armor, reducing Renown's top speed somewhat but leaving her still a very fast, very heavily armed battle-cruiser, and just the thing to deal with raiders like Hipper and Prinz Eugen and the Japanese cruiser divisions that prowled the Indian Ocean from time to time -- both ships, if they'd been available, would have been very welcome in Ironbottom Sound during the desperate night fights with the Tokyo Express. The point being, none of those ships was stuck with her 1921 standards of protection (except Repulse, alone among the British capital ships) or secondary and antiaircraft armament. The same thing was true of the Italian, U.S., and Japanese fleets between the wars.
When you talk about Prairie Masker and hull quieting, I assume you're talking about the improvements of the 60's and 70's (Prairie Masker was 60's technology). You're rearming the submarines but not the opposing surface force.
The larger hulls made it possible to incorporate larger and more powerful sonars, that were usable in seastates that were unthinkable in WWII......
As far as cruisers in the ASW role. One of things we learned in WWII is that the DEs were better with the sonars of the day at prosecuting subs because of their tighter turning radii. The bigger Fletchers and Sumners could loose a squirming sub before they could setup a good attack. This would be especially true of a light cruiser. We did try it with the Albanys and Long Beach, with only marginal success.
As a side issue, I thought the Albany and similar conversions, and the Long Beach, were all AAW ships. The CAG's and CLG's certainly were. I'm unaware of any ASW trials for these ships.
Let's grant for the sake of argument that the larger WW II destroyers may have had difficulty depth-charging furiously maneuvering submarines (and there were a couple of interwar classes that were bigger than either the Fletcher- or the Sumner-class DD's; these mounted as many as eight 5"/38's in early marks of twin shielded mountings and displaced some 2300-2500 tons).
Granted arguendo that a big destroyer or DL might have had difficulty running down an enemy submarine using then-current tactics and weapons (which the arrival of the hedgehog and Y-gun and other early projector weapons was supposed to remedy), nevertheless the tactical situation that gave carrier admirals the biggest headaches after about 1960 involved a mix of SSN's, SSG's, and SSGN's launching coordinated attacks with cruise missiles and tube-launched standoff weapons. Tactics had changed a lot, from the 50's to the 70's, and tactical radii were no longer that big a consideration. A bigger one was whether the ship had space to accommodate a towed TASS/STASS/SURTASS (different monikers, same basic equipment) array.
Absent the need to make high-speed depth-charge runs directly over the target, larger, even cruiser-type hulls were back in the ASW game.
Building hybrid helo ships was a waste and most are now gone and will not be replaced. DASH may have been ahead of its time.
I guess I'll have to take your word on that. People are enamored of drones now, thanks to their success in the Gulf War and the WoT (mind, they haven't yet faced a competent enemy, with the possible exception of Saddam's AAW net), but the sailors I knew in the 70's were fond of telling DASH stories whenever the subject came up. I think that they'd have liked DASH even less if a number of them had gone kerplunk close aboard with Mark 44 war shots still attached........usually they just lost the drone and its exercise round.
The CVLs just could not handle the size/weight of aircraft developed in the 50s.
OK, that's a point. The older carriers certainly couldn't stand up to the pounding they'd take from big, heavy jets like F-4's and F-14's. But it doesn't apply to helicopters, as you noted.
They could have been used as helo or support carriers but why, we had gobs of Essex class carriers that required fewer men per aircraft carried to operate.
Not sure about your point about fewer men per aircraft: the Midways had 4000-man crews and carried 137 aircraft, and the Essex class required 2900-3000 men to operate a fuzzy total of 85-100 aircraft (say 95 just for grins). The two principal CVL classes were the late-war Saipans which had 1500-man crews and carried 48 aircraft (half an Essex, in other words) and the earlier Independence class, which had 1400-man crews and flew 45 aircraft. It seems to me the ratio of crew to aircraft is holding up, and doesn't improve unless you go in the other direction and point to the small CVE's that carried 21 aircraft and had crews of about 500.
Also, sometimes you don't need an entire ASW helicopter wing to support your task group. A smaller ship would make sense, as long as it could keep up with the group. At 33 knots, the CVL's could keep up.
In addition the lower practical limit for all weather carrier ops was about 15,000 tons.
Is that for fixed-wing aircraft? Jets or propeller aircraft (like S2's)? Or would it be true for helicopter operations as well? I don't think so, if a helo or an Osprey can land in the sweet spot amidships and then be towed forward or aft.
These ships had limitations that made them virtually wortless to our navy.....
Gosh, I really don't know about that. With good speed and water-tight integrity, they offered low steaming hours on good hulls that could be "remanufactured" to spec, including (for the DD's and CL's, since you brought it up) the German innovation from WW I, of forefoot auxiliary rudders to help maneuverability.
Possibly the most important thing that we gained by building those [postwar] classes was the ability to design and build warships. If those capabilities are allowed to wither away you will not be able to replace the ships when they finally are used up.
Ah, that sounds like the real reason.....the one the lobby has always trotted out. "The need to feed." Yeah, well.....that's what I've been talking about. And I strongly disagree. That's the rationale that supposedly dictated that our national patrimony be thrown away, squandered, sent to the breakers for two cents a pound, or to the bottom. Because Litton and Avondale Shipyards needed to keep selling us something we already owned in exuberant excess.
We needed weapon systems and upgrades. We didn't need hulls. They sold us hulls because they needed to sell hulls, complete ships, to feed their "need to feed." That's just corporate welfarism, and the problems it was supposed to cure would be better solved by looking at why other nations' shipyards were undercutting ours, so that U.S. shipbuilders needed U.S. Navy contracts just to survive.
Sidebar Moderator, please eliminate my earlier duplicate post above; I screwed it up by dropping an HTML tag. TIA.