Posted on 01/24/2018 8:52:09 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
The Chinese are a good 15 yrs or more behind us in both technology and force size. They won’t catch us unless we sit on our asses and get complacent
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Or use sequestration to squeeze the mil below WWI size, cut essential training, stop buying spare parts and use a lot of the rest for Social Justice, LBGQxyz awareness, and lower standards so far that a 34 year old mom can become an Army Ranger.
So as you see we are not sitting on our asses growing ever more complacent, but rushing to the forefront of political correctness and social justice in ways the PLA, PLAN, and PLAF cannot possibly hope to match in their lifetimes.
No argument about NObama from me. But one ship does not a navy make and I’m sure that weapon can be supplied with ammunition.
It can’t because we didn’t buy any ammo for it and the program was cancelled, tooling destroyed. We would have to start an all new development program now to make ammo for it. Cute, huh?
I would also point out the recent Keystone Kops incidents with US Navy destroyers hitting large merchant vessels. The entire Navy at this point has huge problems.
I wish them luck with their EMALS system. If it works as well as ours does at the moment they’ll have just enough energy to push that AWACS into the water.
We probably could still get ammo but it cost a million bucks per she’ll. Kinda like that $60k hammer they used to talk about.
Not defending the Navy on this one, but the Navy is juggling budget priorities. They *may* have concluded that saving the investment in the DD-1000 was more important than the gun rounds — which can be adapted from pre-existing rounds until the real-deal is ready.
How many times has the Airforce or the Navy fielded a fighter only to have the engine it was designed for canceled? I can think of a few.
They cancelled the ammo contract *after* the ship was constructed. Investment was already made and could not be lost.
In fact, the ship was in commission for three weeks before they cancelled the ammo.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a23738/uss-zumwalt-ammo-too-expensive/
Also, the AGS is physically unable to fire standard 155mm artillery rounds, nor can standard 155mm rounds be adapted to the AGS. The AGS would have to be replaced.
The ship will either get the ammo (eventually), or switch over to a rail gun. Either way the ship is a technological test-bed now that the rest of the vessels will never be built. It’s a modern USS Langley.
I’m not saying that I agree with what is being done here. But now it’s making the best from a series of bad decisions.
Thing is, Langley was never used in a position where it could face combat. We’re deploying Zumwalt *already*.
(Quibble) Langley converted over to an auxiliary carrier and was sunk by the Japanese, so it’s hard to tell what plans the Navy might have had. She was forward deployed with the Asiatic Fleet. The DD-1000’s are being tried out as surface raiders. The crews need t I be trained and the bugs worked out (there are many). They do have large VLS cells, so they are a credible threat on paper.
Reportedly the VLS cells don’t work either because the software has some serious problems. It has the radar cross section of a 50 foot fishing boat... as well as the armaments of a 50 foot fishing boat at current.
“one-off rocket propeller “
Journalist speak for JATO?
And what good does all those nuclear weapons do in a non-nuclear war? (i.e.: Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Mexico (sooner or later), ad naseam)?
Well relative to that I would say it is a whole lot cheaper. 8>)
Non nuclear until it becomes nuclear. We say we will never initiate the use of nukes. That is our policy.
Policies change.
I would not allow my country to die from 1000 cuts if I could drop one bomb and scare the living sh#t out of the entire world.
The message is clear and simple. “Do NOT f##k with us.”
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