USN Warship Numbers: What is ideal? (re-titled)

[maxim]

I think the USN should decide whether they want more destroyers or a new design

They have to develop at some point a new design - they still built ships based on a 1980s design, for sure massively improved.

Perhaps rather than aiming at a new destroyer, a new cruiser design should be the focus of getting this laser weapon to sea?

The question what would be the difference between a cruiser and a destroyer? For sure the Ticonderoga class has to be replaced soon. But up to now all attempts to develop a new cruiser design failed.

And are laser weapons really useful?

[navydavesof]

I think the USN should decide whether they want more destroyers or a new design

They have to develop at some point a new design - they still built ships based on a 1980s design, for sure massively improved.

Perhaps rather than aiming at a new destroyer, a new cruiser design should be the focus of getting this laser weapon to sea?

The question what would be the difference between a cruiser and a destroyer? For sure the Ticonderoga class has to be replaced soon. But up to now all attempts to develop a new cruiser design failed.

And are laser weapons really useful?

Fascinating for sure! I would say a Burke at either the length of a Tico or 600" with the same beam. 128-160 VLS and 2 large guns (not 5". 5" are medium guns").

No, lasers are not really useful, nor will they be for about 20-25 years. Also, on the rail gun front, we have given up on that.

[Haijun watcher]

Defense News

With $294 million in contracts, the US Navy keeps its promise to upgrade cruisers
By: David B. Larter ? 21 hours ago
WASHINGTON � The Navy is putting its money where its mouth is when it comes to modernizing its cruisers.
General Dynamics NASSCO in San Diego and BAE Systems Norfolk have both received roughly $147 million contracts to modernize the cruisers Cowpens and Gettysburg, which have been in layup since Fall of 2015.
The contracts appear to fulfill a promise made to Congress three years ago that they would not move to decommission the aging warships, which serve in the fleet as the primary air defense platforms for protecting the aircraft carriers, something lawmakers were skeptical of when the Navy first advanced its cruiser modernization plan.
The contracts, aimed at the maintenance, modernization and repair of the hulls, come as the ships enter their last year in the program known as the "2-4-6 plan," which allowed the Navy to lay up two cruisers a year, for no more than four years and allow no more than 6 of the ships to undergo modernization at any one time. Both Cowpens and Gettysburg were put into phased modernization in 2015, meaning they'll need to come out in 2019.
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[navydavesof]

Good. The only thing better would be to give them the armored upgrade with a blistered hull and the Mk45 Mod3 155mm/60caliber guns.

[maxim]

The modernisation of the old cruisers is a step to convert the US Navy into a fleet of museum ships. Priority should have the development of a new type, a 21st century design.

[navydavesof]

I can agree a new CG is needed for sure. However, before making museum equivillancies, let�s use the ships to their designed service life first. Then if we�re trying to squeeze 50 years of service life out of a 35 year hull, then we have a case against keeping the Ticos.

[SumGui]

We certainly need new Task Force Command capable ships to replace the Ticonderoga's - rather those end up being called CG or something else.

Until we get them, the Tico's will need to stand their watch until properly relieved.

[Haijun watcher]

This issue goes back to the lack of enough proper escorts for convoys of transports, and many here have such a low opinion of the LCS to even begin to fill that role. Maybe the completion of more of the latest flight of AEGIS DDGs frees up older members of the Arleigh Burke class for convoy duty?

Furthermore, the issue of MSC ship numbers is related to the greater topic of a 355 ship USN fleet.

Defense News

�You�re on your own�: US sealift can�t count on Navy escorts in the next big war
By: David B. Larter ? 7 hours ago

WASHINGTON � In the event of a major war with China or Russia, the U.S. Navy, almost half the size it was during the height of the Cold War, is going to be busy with combat operations. It may be too busy, in fact, to always escort the massive sealift effort it would take to transport what the Navy estimates will be roughly 90 percent of the Marine Corps and Army gear the force would need to sustain a major conflict.
That�s the message Mark Buzby, the retired rear admiral who now leads the Department of Transportation�s Maritime Administration, has gotten from the Navy, and it�s one that has instilled a sense of urgency around a major cultural shift inside the force of civilian mariners that would be needed to support a large war effort.
�The Navy has been candid enough with Military Sealift Command and me that they will probably not have enough ships to escort us. It�s: �You�re on your own; go fast, stay quiet,�� Buzby told Defense News in an interview earlier this year.
Along with Rear Adm. Dee Mewbourne at Military Sealift Command, who would get operational control of the whole surge force in a crisis, Buzby has been working to educate mariners on things that might seem basic to experienced Navy personnel but are new to many civilian mariners.
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Today, the Maritime Administration estimates that to operate both the surge sealift ships � the 46 ships in the Ready Reserve Force and the 15 ships in the MSC surge force � and the roughly 60 U.S.-flagged commercial ships in the Maritime Security Program available to the military in a crisis, the pool of fully qualified mariners is just barely enough.

They need 11,678 mariners to man the shops, and the pool of available, active mariners is 11,768. That means in a crisis every one of them would need to show up for the surge, according to a recent MARAD report to Congress. By contrast the U.S. had about 55,000 active mariners in the years prior to World War II, with that number swelling to more than 200,000 at the height of the war, according to most sources.

That means that significant losses among the available pool of mariners would likely dissuade some from volunteering (bad) and would mean the loss of mariners with critical skills needed to operate the fleet for months or even years in a major contingency (worse). And even without losses, MARAD estimates the country is about 1,800 mariners short if any kind of rotational presence is needed. (To read more on this, click the link below.)

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[navydavesof]

This issue goes back to the lack of enough proper escorts for convoys of transports, and many here have such a low opinion of the LCS to even begin to fill that role. Maybe the completion of more of the latest flight of AEGIS DDGs frees up older members of the Arleigh Burke class for convoy duty?

Fascinating but unfortunate. I wonder if the solution is a few more big AAW/ASW surface combatants or several smaller ones. The Perry FFGs were specifically armed and procured for North Atlantic convoy ops in the event of WWIII. This leads back to an appropriately armed FFG problem; Absalon, slightly modified NSC, or a modernized Perry-class FFG. It appears the only way to arm any of these ships to have a chance in a modern conflict would be 32 Mk41 VLS loaded for the threat; in this case it appears to be around 16-20 VLASROC and 12-16 cells for 48-64 ESSM.

However, this requires the powers-that-be to get hot on the issue. However, we are now 11 years into LCS being in the water and having little to no use. I would however like to see the detailed designs to the FFG variants of both LCS classes and see if they really offer possibility. One of the earlier variants with 16 VLS on either side of the helo hangar and either a phased radar or a combined SPQ-9B and TRS-3D looked like it had great potential.

My real choice for a slight redesign and uparming is the National Security Cutter equipped with 32 VLS and associated gear.

...only if we had a General Board to define and refine mission requirements to issue to the contractors.

[Haijun watcher]

slightly modified NSC

I would have thought that during wartime, the USCG'sLegend class cutters would have just supplemented the United States Navy when it came to a lack of ASW escorts, not to mention the remaining Hamilton class WHECs.

[navydavesof]

slightly modified NSC

I would have thought that during wartime, the USCG'sLegend class cutters would have just supplemented the United States Navy when it came to a lack of ASW escorts, not to mention the remaining Hamilton class WHECs.

I believe you're right. We currently have 3 Hamiltons left, and they can rack up Harpoons, but they don't offer any AAW abilities to speak of. The NSC, however can. They have a great radar suite, and with the installation of 2 Mk41 VLS, they could begin embarking effective weapons. With a lengthening of the helo hangar over the landing pad but not lengthening of the hull, space could be developed to support another 16 VLS between the stack and the aft CIWS mount.

[Haijun watcher]

More on the US Navy's Sealift capacity problem, plus a reminder of the looming retirement of the last Los Angeles class attack subs:


Defense News

The US Navy will have to pony up and race the clock to avoid a sealift capacity collapse
By: David B. Larter ? 15 hours ago

The U.S. surge sealift fleet, the ships needed to transport up to 90 percent of the Army and Marine Corps� gear if the U.S. had to fight a war against a great power, will be facing a full-blown modernization crisis by the end of the 2020s if the Navy can�t arrest its decline, according to a Navy report send to Congress earlier this year.

The sealift fleet, already hampered by rising maintenance costs and personnel shortages, will begin to dip below what the Defense Department has determined is its required capacity starting in the early 2020s. But the force will start a precipitous decline as the bulk of the Ready Reserve Force ships hit their 50-year service lives starting in 2028.

That date corresponds to the expected nadir of the U.S. Navy�s attack submarine fleet, when the retirement of the Los Angeles-class boats drops the overall number of attack boats from today�s 52 to only 42 subs.
The shortfall in surge sealift ships, combined with a shortage of Navy surface ships to escort them and subs to watch their back will rapidly create a dire situation for DoD. And while Defense Secretary Jim Mattis� Defense Department pours money into making the force more lethal, by the end of the 2020s it will face the prospect of cascading down a sealift capacity cliff that will leave the U.S without the capacity it needs to bring its more lethal capabilities to bear.

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[Haijun watcher]

400 ships as the new goal?!!!!

Defense News

Moveover, 355-ship Navy: New report calls for an even larger fleet
By: David B. Larter ? 1 day ago
PARIS � The U.S. is woefully short of ships and even the Navy�s target goal of 355 ships is well short of what the country needs to prepare for two simultaneous major conflicts and maintain its rotational presence requirements with excess capacity for surge operations and combat casualties.

That is the major finding of a new study from the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, an organization prominent in the Trump era because of its knack for influencing administration policy.

The study calls for a force of 400 ships, 40 percent larger than today�s force, and an increase of about 12 percent over the Navy�s current 30-year shipbuilding plan. The plan would require another $4 to $6 billion annually in the shipbuilding budget to get to 400 ships by 2039, the study estimates.

The study, conducted and written by Thomas Callender, a retired submarine officer and analyst at Heritage, acknowledges the difficulty of achieving a 400-ship fleet under budget constraints and with a limited industrial capacity in the U.S. But, Callender said, the study was based solely on current demands on the fleet, as well as the National Security Strategy and what Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has laid out in the National Defense Strategy.

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[navydavesof]

400 ships as the new goal?!!!!

Fascinating!

Well, if the Navy is going to pursue this kind of action, it will have to go to the High/Low mix. The way forward with that would likely be the limiting of the super-ultra-mega-duper-shootdownthemoon-buttholepuckering capabilities of SPY-1 and full scale AMDR radars. In the world of naval architecture, there are many obstacles standing in the path of construction. Those range from engineering to cost and, most of the time, the uncertainty of naval authorities ("oh, but add this...oh, yeah, that sounds like a good one, too, add that! Oh, no, wait, I can't make up my mind, add this other thing too that requires you to cut the ship in half while under construction,"). Along the lines of cost, the biggest obstacle is what's known as the "Billion Dollar Systems". Those are typically Nuclear Power, Aegis's SPY-1D radars, and SQS-89). This is the biggest reason why I shy away from the Aegis-ed up Perry FFG, now realized as the Spanish F-100; it involves four SPY-D radars. The cost of a ship's hull is normally around 1/3 the overall delivered cost. Norman Friedman even pointed out that an empty Spruance-class ship would have likely been cheaper and a better deal than a delivered LCS.

So, what can we do here? Take the best non-billion dollar systems and put them into the hull of an uncomplicated and survivable ship. In my mind, the best conventional hull is the Legend/Berthoff-class NSC or the F-100 without SPY-1 radars. The COMBATSS-21 (a derivative of the Mk99 Aegis FCS) can be driven by a number of good, low-cost radars on the market such as the SPQ-9B and the TRS-3D/4D or the SMART-S. A small and relatively cheap hull/towed sonar suite derived from the SQS-56 and TACTAS is available. One of if not both of these ship types could be built simultaneously at multiple yards (Bath, Pascagula, HII) producing capable lower cost but very capable ships helping to meet at least the 355 ship goal at 20 ships per year.

[maxim]

That is only a report - there is not even anything done to achieve a 355 ship fleet.

[navydavesof]

That is only a report - there is not even anything done to achieve a 355 ship fleet.

Indeed. Maxim holds the best point!

[Haijun watcher]

Looming budget woes and another reminder of the lacking sealift platforms/capacity problem:

Defense News

Will looming budget cuts bust up the Navy�s plans for an enormous fleet?
By: David B. Larter ? 1 day ago
11015
Ships with the Ronald Reagan and John C. Stennis carrier strike groups transit the Philippine Sea during dual carrier operations Nov. 16. The Navy's plan to build a gigantic fleet may be under pressure with new cuts in the offing. (U.S. Navy photo by MC2 Kaila Peters)

WASHINGTON � After several years of increasing spending and virtually unprecedented shipbuilding budgets, the U.S. Navy�s party could be coming to a screeching halt in the 2020 budget, according to analysts and insiders who spoke to Defense News.
Conversations with more than a dozen insiders, lawmakers and analysts reveal a far less friendly upcoming budget cycle for the U.S. Navy than the previous three, and anxiety is growing about just where the ax is going to fall.
The president�s announcement that the Pentagon�s topline budget is likely coming down to $700 billion in 2020 from 2019�s $719 billion has some seapower advocates and analyst pointing to the shipbuilding budget as a place that DoD might look for savings.
�If the FY20 budget request comes in a $700 [billion] then it could be bad news for shipbuilding, because that�s one of the fastest ways to take money out of the budget at the last minute, which is what they are trying to do,� said defense budget analyst Todd Harrison with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

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Defense News

US Army warns of crippling sealift shortfalls during wartime
By: David B. Larter ? 5 days ago

WASHINGTON � The U.S. Army is pushing Congress to act on a looming sealift shortfallthat will create �unacceptable risk in force projection� within the next five years if the Navy doesn�t act quickly, according to a document from the Army�s G-4 logistics shop obtained by Defense News.
In response to a committee inquiry, the Army in February sent a warning to the House Armed Services Committee in an information paper noting the nation�s surge sealift capacity � which would be responsible for transporting up to 90 percent of Army and Marine Corps equipment in the event of a major war � would fall below its requirement by 2024.
�Without proactive recapitalization of the Organic Surge Sealift Fleet, the Army will face unacceptable risk in force projection capability beginning in 2024,� the document said, adding that the advanced age of the current fleet adds further risk to the equation.
�By 2034, 70% of the organic fleet will be over 60 years old � well past its economic useful life; further degrading the Army�s ability to deploy forces,� the document reads.

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[InchHigh]

The problem is not that there is a lack of funding, the problem is that what is being delivered is vastly overpriced and incapable of performing even the most basic naval missions.

[navydavesof]

The problem is not that there is a lack of funding, the problem is that what is being delivered is vastly overpriced and incapable of performing even the most basic naval missions.

Daaaaaaaaaaaaamn. Speaking that truth!

[maxim]

The prices are the reality, likely the funding or the ambitions have to be adapted