Navy: The Cruisers Must Go, That Others May Stay (BS: Without Aegis, Carriers Sunk By Silkworms)

DoD Buzz ^

[Oztrich Boy]

And that's the problem...we have an entire FLEET of what are essentially Cruisers. At 8,500 - 10,000 tons many of these ships are bigger than the Cruisers being retired and certainly as big as any Cruiser-class ship we've ever put to sea.

You noticed that, huh?

And it's the manpower demands that are the US Navy's problem.

Back in the 17th Century when Samuel Pepys reorganised the Royal Navy he introduced the idea of rating ships into classes by crew size - even when that was changed to number of guns it amounted to much the same thing.

Now today Tico cruisers, Burke "destroyers" (and Burke derived ships of the Korean, Japanese navies) run 300-400 crew. Which isn't a pronlem for ROKN and JMSDF as they use these ships as cruisers.

There are actually destroyers these days - the large AAW "frigates" Spanish F-100, Dutch LFC, German F-124, Framco/Italian Horizon, and similarly sized British, Korean, Japanese ships actually called destroyers running crews of 200-250

Then these navies have actual frigates similar size but 150-200 crew, similar to the Perry's

Below them: "light frigates", 100-150 crew; corvettes with less combat capability and 50-100 crew

Below these surface combatants is the LCS 35-50 crew.

The future US Fleet: Cruisers and the LCS, Is everyone at BuShips completely stoned?

[Army Air Corps]

Ping.

[Nachum]

Thanks Army Air Corps

The list, Ping

Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list

http://www.nachumlist.com/

[muffaletaman]

I HAVE HAD A MINOR REVELATION...

How did President Reagan win the cold war against Russia?

To a certain extent, by out-spending them into oblivion. Their meager economy couldn’t keep up with let alone meet the challenge of the mighty US economy, when it came to spending on the US military and growing our military might.

Yes, we spent a ton of money - but it was cheaper than going to war with the Soviet Union. And the Soviet Union faded into the dustbins of history. (Let’s not discuss Russian resurgence for the moment...)

Obama is doing the inverse. He is spending the US into oblivion, and consequently hollowing out the mighty US military.

He is singly-handedly ending our unintentional US hegemony.

He is losing for us and our posterity, the uniqueness and gift to the world, from the founders, of the US and it’s ideals.

“What a maroon! What an ingoranimus!”

... to quote the great philopher and thinker, Bugs Bunny!

http://www.hark.com/clips/nsvdjzkfdz-what-a-maroon

IMHO

[muffaletaman]

BTW...

A philopher is a non-human philosopher.

I thought EVERYONE knew that!

:-)

[lentulusgracchus]

(Art.) Under questioning from Forbes, Burke said that it would take a fleet of 500 ships to meet the “demand” from the various military areas of operation around the world. If everything goes the Navy’s way, it hopes to build a fleet of 300 ships by 2019.

Need: Ronald Reagan's and Sec. Lehman's 600-ship Navy.

Reality: Obama's 300-ship cripple job as he sets us up to lose a major war.

[lentulusgracchus]

The future US Fleet: Cruisers and the LCS, Is everyone at BuShips completely stoned?

I think BuShips/NavShips and CNO are trying to get to some combination of ship types that will get the job done, even while assorted budget-cutters hand them their heads year after year.

The Bushy RiNO crowd, led by Poppy and Dick Cheney, want to cut and slash every year, so silver-haired ladies who are the core of the GOP can have more and more tax cuts.

The DemonRats want to cut the budget because they lust for a wet-dream total-war victory for international Communism over the hated USA, and they don't care if Russia or China does the honors, as long as we lose.

[central_va]

Wait till we have a Muslim CO and crew on one of our nuclear subs.

Easy to track too. 5 times a day they steady up on 090 true.

[Travis McGee]

What should we expect when we elect a Communist traitor mole to be POTUS?

[tanknetter]

The Burke-class "Destroyers" are 90+% of the size of these Cruisers, newer, more capable and easier to maintain.

Remember that the Ticonderogas are really Spruance-class destroyer hulls with Aegis and larger CinC facilities. In fact, the first four were originally assigned DDG prefixes, which is why DDG-47 through DDG-50 were "skipped" and the Burkes started with DDG-51.

The last ships that could have been really considered "cruisers" and then only by a stretch of the traditional sense of the word were the Belknaps and Leahys. Even those started life as "Destroyer Leaders" (DLGs), commonly referred to as Frigates (until "Frigate" was applied to Destroyer Escorts). The last true cruiser was the USS Long Beach (CGN-9).

The big reason why the Ticos wear the "Cruiser" monicker is to keep the "Cruiser" name in Naval Service and permit at-sea surface combatant billets for O-6 SWOs.

The Ticos have a somewhat larger missile capacity (of negligible use in today's environment - if we want to rain massive amounts of Tomahawks down on an enemy the Ohio-class SSGNs are a much better option) and somewhat larger CinC facilities than the Burkes. But they also tend to be overweight and are at greater risk to combat damage (significant amount of aluminum in their structures, a pretty high center of gravity).

Going further, there are 22 Ticos left in the fleet (the first five, which didn't have VLS, were retired years ago) to support 10 (and about to be 9) active carrier strike groups. That's a hair over two ships per CSG. USS Port Royal is really messed up, as mentioned. USS Princeton was never quite right either after eating that mine in Desert Storm - I assume that she'll be one of the seven as well.

Given that additional Burkes are now being built, it seems to me that the Navy can absorb the "hit" from retiring these ships early. The overall capability is still there, just in a somewhat reduced state ... unlike say what the Royal Navy did to itself with ditching the Invincibles and Harriers/Sea Harriers.

[pabianice]

Mixed feelings. The Ticos never lived up to their promise and have suffered a nearly endless list of operational and maintenance problems. Word from the deck plates is that the class wavers on the edge of not being seaworthy nor having full weapons capabilities. For all practical purposes, the Burkes are in better shape and have nearly the same fighting capability. The real loss has been our virtual abanonment of ASW and AMW while third world maniacs have been slowly obtaining forth generation SSKs. If we do get into a Middle East war, the Navy is going to take some terrible damage.

[MindBender26]

LOL

[Mr. Peabody]

They’re part of our anti-missle defense and therefore must go.

It all fits together with the Obama mindset.

[DesScorp]

Oh come on. The Burke’s have an excellent Aegis system, and will fill the Tico’s role just fine. There are no more massive fleets of Soviet ships to go up against, no waves of Backfire bombers with antiship missiles. Even if China went to war with us... which they aren’t... the Burkes could more than handle all of the missile threats. We’re hyperventilating for nothing here. Instead of crying about the Ticos, we should be asking the Navy why they aren’t building real frigates again instead of the disgraceful wastes that are the LCS program. THAT’s what you all should be getting your panties in a wad about. We’re buying lightly armed Coast Guard cutters for the Navy at Destroyer prices.

[Mariner]

"Is everyone at BuShips completely stoned? "

Yes, I think they are.

the only REAL deficiencies are:

1. A capable, combat Frigate of 4,000 tons.

2. An additional 40 or so small subs...even conventional. Yes we need the nuke subs for Blue Water...but for patrolling the South China Sea, the US Coast and the Persian Gulf? 2,000 tons of conventional boat is PLENTY for the job.

[GATOR NAVY]

USS Princeton was never quite right either after eating that mine in Desert Storm - I assume that she'll be one of the seven as well.

Maybe FY 14 but not the first round.

FY 2013 decommissioning schedule:
Oct. 31: frigate Crommelin
Feb. 15: frigate Underwood
Feb. 27: frigate Curts
March 15: carrier Enterprise
March 15: frigate Carr
March 22: frigate Klakring
March 31: cruisers Cowpens, Norfolk-based Anzio, Vicksburg and Port Royal
Aug. 30: frigate Reuben James

11 Navy ships to be decommissioned in 2013

On a side note, I was a plankowner on Commelin (FFG-37). With her passing only one of the seven ships I was on from 1982-2006 will still be in commission.

[lentulusgracchus]

the only REAL deficiencies are:

• 1. A capable, combat Frigate of 4,000 tons.
  
• 2. An additional 40 or so small subs...even conventional.

I agree with both, except that anything ~4000 tons should be rated DDG or DLG ..... given the tonnage and the likely role, similar to the old Farragut class DLG's. With VLS and AEGIS they'd be capable of accompanying CBG's in places where FF's/FFG's can't go now because of lack of Aegis, or in some cases, removal of their old Standard launchers (which probably shouldn't have been done -- they can't defend themselves now against anything much more capable than a J-6 or an old Samlet).

Agree on the submarines. A lot of times, you don't need a Seawolf or even a Virginia, all you need is a nukey-boat (like the French Rubis design, which several years ago the Canadians were going to acquire and operate); and sometimes, you don't even need a nukey-boat, a leather-lunged conventional like the Kockums-designed HMAS Collins and her sisters will do, with their 50-day endurance rate. Even a lowly Scorpene ..... the Collinses have the same fire-control system the Virginias get, btw.

The Japanese have some great conventional-submarine designs with exotic batteries we might benefit from having a look at, too.

[lentulusgracchus]

Further to my last ..... the little ships were the backbone of the Royal Navy, too, back in the salad days of "rum, sodomy, and the lash".

I counted up 71 Royal Navy light cruisers in the 3500-5000 tons' range (with a few over-7000-ton late-war experimental "big cruiser" examples) in the World War I edition of Jane's. The little ships were where it was at, although the battleships and battlecruisers got all the ink.

In fact, big armored cruisers, heavy cruisers if you will, were very few -- they put their budgets into smaller ships capable of lugging 4" - 6" batteries around the world at 28 knots.

[mulder1]

Surface ships are obsolete.

[MindBender26]

Like land warfare in RVN, if I could see I could kill it