Surface Ships Need More Offensive Punch, Outlook

Scott Kenny said:
Well, yeah.

The various navies hold the captain and group commanders PERSONALLY LIABLE for anything and everything that goes wrong on their ship.
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He or she should be liable to assure comphrensive TTPs are adhered to. Likewise, if subordinates do not follow comphrensive TTPs monitored &assisted by augmented reality (ar) then they need to be held liable.

IMHO this why the usn/onr abandoned AR re back in early 90s because they knew this is what AR would allow and they got scared.
 
@jsport Beware. Trying to solve problems by inventing rules for every possible contingency is a dead end:
- there will always be unforeseen circumstances
- enforcement of a glut of rules will force an organisation to spend more time on monitoring then on its core business - rigidity results
- non-enforcement of rules when there are too many rules to enforce will result in sensible rules not being followed either

Rules and flexibility - find a sensible middle ground.

What is TTP?
 
jsport said:
He or she should be liable to assure comphrensive TTPs are adhered to. Likewise, if subordinates do not follow comphrensive TTPs monitored &assisted by augmented reality (ar) then they need to be held liable.
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They already do that via regular inspections. How well your ship does in inspections is something like 90% of the Commanding Officer's fitness report.
 
TomS said:
I'd rather put a RAM launcher up forward or something. Gives you an extra missile layer so you don't need to use ESSM in the end game.
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Hah. A bunch of reporting today about how DDG 2.0 is going to include replacement of CIWS with RAM or SeaRAM. Probably on the aft position, I suspect, with the forward one for DEWs, but maybe some of the double-ended CIWS ships might get two SeaRAM. I'd also expect this refit to go along with the installation of Mk 38 Mod 3/4, so that these ships have good C-FAC capability without relying on Phalanx Surface Mode.
 
Scott Kenny said:
They already do that via regular inspections. How well your ship does in inspections is something like 90% of the Commanding Officer's fitness report.
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If tasks are evaluated in stit u w accomplishment there is no need for other inspections or very few inspections.
 
jsport said:
If tasks are evaluated in stit u w accomplishment there is no need for other inspections or very few inspections.
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The inspections by higher levels are generally used to make sure people aren't just gundecking the reports of accomplishment and making stuff up. (and funny enough, the word "gundecking" meaning "making stuff up to appear better than your actual capabilities" comes from the navies of Sail, adding a whole deck to ships to make them look more intimidating...)

Again, it's a pretty big part of the ship's CO's performance evaluations, since it's not easy for their boss to spend time around them to see how they are doing in general.
 
TomS said:
Hah. A bunch of reporting today about how DDG 2.0 is going to include replacement of CIWS with RAM or SeaRAM. Probably on the aft position, I suspect, with the forward one for DEWs, but maybe some of the double-ended CIWS ships might get two SeaRAM. I'd also expect this refit to go along with the installation of Mk 38 Mod 3/4, so that these ships have good C-FAC capability without relying on Phalanx Surface Mode.
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It's sensible stuff. It looks like the Phalanx might be recycled into SeaRam for the vessels that can't integrate the full 21 round launcher as well.
But...I can't help thinking that history has a habit of re-inforcing the need for guns to be retained. I guess that real estate and top side margin is pretty limited on the Burkes these days, other wise it wouldn't be a terrible idea to add the RAM/SeaRAM and retain Phalanx on Port and Starboard sides along with the Mk38...

www.twz.com

Navy Wants A Cheap Heavy Torpedo That Can Be Stockpiled Fast

The Navy is eyeing a torpedo that can be procured fast and efficiently to augment the more advanced Mk 48 ADCAP.
www.twz.com www.twz.com

If they can actually manage a solution that costs $500k I wonder if we'll see cheaper LWT's as well...surface ships will need them to combat UUV's. We're going to need to save the Mk.50/54, MU90 and Stingray for the proliferating numbers of subs....
 
timmymagic said:
It's sensible stuff. It looks like the Phalanx might be recycled into SeaRam for the vessels that can't integrate the full 21 round launcher as well.
But...I can't help thinking that history has a habit of re-inforcing the need for guns to be retained. I guess that real estate and top side margin is pretty limited on the Burkes these days, other wise it wouldn't be a terrible idea to add the RAM/SeaRAM and retain Phalanx on Port and Starboard sides along with the Mk38...
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I'm not sure there's a a whole lot of SWAP-C left for adding a pair of Phalanx port&starboard on Burkes. Not if you're putting RAM/SeaRAM on the stern and a big laser forward after the big EW upgrades.


timmymagic said:
www.twz.com

Navy Wants A Cheap Heavy Torpedo That Can Be Stockpiled Fast

The Navy is eyeing a torpedo that can be procured fast and efficiently to augment the more advanced Mk 48 ADCAP.
www.twz.com www.twz.com

If they can actually manage a solution that costs $500k I wonder if we'll see cheaper LWT's as well...surface ships will need them to combat UUV's. We're going to need to save the Mk.50/54, MU90 and Stingray for the proliferating numbers of subs....
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The only way I see this working out, is if the USN makes a dedicated ASuW torpedo for the cheap version. If you're only chasing surface ships, you don't need deep diving abilities, or even the ability to dive below about 750ft/240m. This would let you replace probably half the torpedo inventory in an attack sub with the Cheapo Heavyweight.

For UUVs, there was that 6.5" mini-torp program that was supposed to be able to be loaded into external countermeasures spots on subs as well as deck launchers on surface ships.

But I really think that there's not much reason to keep using the 12.75" torpedoes, like Mk50/54. Limited performance and a warhead so small that the lethal effect is to pop the shaft seals. Really need something with closer to Mk48 performance but not 3500lbs. A re-powered Mk37 body is about right, those weigh about 1300lbs. Replace the Mk32 triple 12.75" tubes with a single 21" tube on each side of the surface ship.
 
Forest Green said:
www.navalnews.com

Should the U.S. Navy Adopt Precision Strike Missiles for the Mark 41 VLS? - Naval News

Naval News asked naval military analysts what are their thoughts on if the U.S. Navy should adopt the U.S Army’s Precision Strike Missile aboard their AEGIS warships equipped with the Mark 41 VLS.
www.navalnews.com www.navalnews.com
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It's really too bad it's too big to twin-pack in a Mk41. If it was ~13" diameter, being able to stick two in a VLS cell would make it rather desirable from the Navy's POV, since there are only so many cells per ship.
 
timmymagic said:
www.twz.com

Navy Wants A Cheap Heavy Torpedo That Can Be Stockpiled Fast

The Navy is eyeing a torpedo that can be procured fast and efficiently to augment the more advanced Mk 48 ADCAP.
www.twz.com www.twz.com

If they can actually manage a solution that costs $500k I wonder if we'll see cheaper LWT's as well...surface ships will need them to combat UUV's. We're going to need to save the Mk.50/54, MU90 and Stingray for the proliferating numbers of subs....
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There is the CRAW torpedo, which is probably big enough to send any D/E boat home, if not actually flood a whole compartment with its HEAT jet.
 
Scott Kenny said:
It's really too bad it's too big to twin-pack in a Mk41. If it was ~13" diameter, being able to stick two in a VLS cell would make it rather desirable from the Navy's POV, since there are only so many cells per ship.
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The USN is never adopting PrSM. It’s a one trick pony that has almost no advantage over SM-6. Well cost certainly, but at the expense of flexibility.
 
Josh_TN said:
The USN is never adopting PrSM. It’s a one trick pony that has almost no advantage over SM-6. Well cost certainly, but at the expense of flexibility.
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Being able to stick a pair of MAKOs or PrSMs into a Mk41 cell is worth the loss in flexibility. SM6 are stupid expensive, and SM6Blk1B may not be very capable of air interception (that's the full 21" version, seems to be heavily optimized for the antisurface role). Plus, PrSMs have more range than SM6.
 
Scott Kenny said:
The inspections by higher levels are generally used to make sure people aren't just gundecking the reports of accomplishment and making stuff up. (and funny enough, the word "gundecking" meaning "making stuff up to appear better than your actual capabilities" comes from the navies of Sail, adding a whole deck to ships to make them look more intimidating...)

Again, it's a pretty big part of the ship's CO's performance evaluations, since it's not easy for their boss to spend time around them to see how they are doing in general.
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Again, w AR, anyone can do anyone's job. The instruction and improvement is a component of every day work. Personalities assure confirmation bias and thus deficiency & AR eliminates all that. Available sailors numbers are dropping while the tasks are becoming more difficult while timeliness to accomplish complex tasks is reducing. It would simply be mad to not adopt AR across the fleet.
 
jsport said:
Again, w AR, anyone can do anyone's job. The instruction and improvement is a component of every day work. Personalities assure confirmation bias and thus deficiency & AR eliminates all that. Available sailors numbers are dropping while the tasks are becoming more difficult while timeliness to accomplish complex tasks is reducing. It would simply be mad to not adopt AR across the fleet.
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A display of those who are afraid to analyze.
 
jsport said:
Again, w AR, anyone can do anyone's job.
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AR = Augmented reality? No. Not in your wildest dreams can it do that.

And I say that as one of the most heavily cross-trained individuals in the US Navy, a Submariner, who got an aircraft mechanic's license before joining. You still wouldn't want me ripping the diesel apart. Or diving into the main condensers. Or rewiring the Ballast Control Panel.

You have specialists for a reason.


jsport said:
The instruction and improvement is a component of every day work. Personalities assure confirmation bias and thus deficiency & AR eliminates all that. Available sailors numbers are dropping while the tasks are becoming more difficult while timeliness to accomplish complex tasks is reducing. It would simply be mad to not adopt AR across the fleet.
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What the Navy has done is gone from being able to fix individual circuit cards in a system either onboard ship or at the nearest Fleet Tender, to remove and replace the card that isn't working right.

Friend of mine has a no-longer-valid Navy Enlisted Classification, Undocumented Electronic Troubleshooter. He was the guy you called when the troubleshooting manual wasn't giving you a fix. He is quite literally one of 3 people allowed to make changes to procedures involving the digital depth detectors on subs, listed by name in the manual. The other 2 people are engineers at the company that makes the units. He's had to dive into the big Ballast Control Panel to troubleshoot stuff after one boat had a hydraulic rupture in Control. His first day back on a boat, his brand new uniform went from pressed and starched to rags.

That NEC was invalidated in the late 1990s or very early 2000s (we met in 2003, IIRC and it had been invalidated before we met).
 
Scott Kenny said:
AR = Augmented reality? No. Not in your wildest dreams can it do that.

And I say that as one of the most heavily cross-trained individuals in the US Navy, a Submariner, who got an aircraft mechanic's license before joining. You still wouldn't want me ripping the diesel apart. Or diving into the main condensers. Or rewiring the Ballast Control Panel.

You have specialists for a reason.



What the Navy has done is gone from being able to fix individual circuit cards in a system either onboard ship or at the nearest Fleet Tender, to remove and replace the card that isn't working right.

Friend of mine has a no-longer-valid Navy Enlisted Classification, Undocumented Electronic Troubleshooter. He was the guy you called when the troubleshooting manual wasn't giving you a fix. He is quite literally one of 3 people allowed to make changes to procedures involving the digital depth detectors on subs, listed by name in the manual. The other 2 people are engineers at the company that makes the units. He's had to dive into the big Ballast Control Panel to troubleshoot stuff after one boat had a hydraulic rupture in Control. His first day back on a boat, his brand new uniform went from pressed and starched to rags.

That NEC was invalidated in the late 1990s or very early 2000s (we met in 2003, IIRC and it had been invalidated before we met).
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Some jobs may not require but many likely do. Single points of failure are always bad.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Being able to stick a pair of MAKOs or PrSMs into a Mk41 cell is worth the loss in flexibility. SM6 are stupid expensive, and SM6Blk1B may not be very capable of air interception (that's the full 21" version, seems to be heavily optimized for the antisurface role). Plus, PrSMs have more range than SM6.
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PrSM is still a 1-2 million dollar round. That’s not enough savings to be relevant. I doubt PrSM has a significant range increase over blk1 SM-6 and I do not see how it could possibly exceed blk2, just going by mass of fuel and diameter of SRM.

Anti surface work at relatively short range simply will not be prioritized, especially when an existing defensive missile can do the job. The primary anti surface weapon now is Tomahawk, because it allows a thousand miles of stand off.
 
Josh_TN said:
PrSM has a significant range increase over blk1 SM-6
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One thing to note is that in the US Army's desired LRPF portfolio, SM-6 would be the anti-ship complement to Tomahawk in MRC batteries, which mean it should have longer range than the PrSM. Block 1B's massive full-bore motor also doesn't appear to be any less capable than that of PrSM (21in v 17in). I'd be suprised if it is.
 
timmymagic said:
It's sensible stuff. It looks like the Phalanx might be recycled into SeaRam for the vessels that can't integrate the full 21 round launcher as well.
But...I can't help thinking that history has a habit of re-inforcing the need for guns to be retained. I guess that real estate and top side margin is pretty limited on the Burkes these days, other wise it wouldn't be a terrible idea to add the RAM/SeaRAM and retain Phalanx on Port and Starboard sides along with the Mk38...

www.twz.com

Navy Wants A Cheap Heavy Torpedo That Can Be Stockpiled Fast

The Navy is eyeing a torpedo that can be procured fast and efficiently to augment the more advanced Mk 48 ADCAP.
www.twz.com www.twz.com
Click to expand...

There just isn't any place to put them. Even squeezing in the Mk 38s is a bit of a challenge. (It's crammed onto a platform abeam of the forward stack with rather limited arcs forward).

The DDG-51s have been running out of arrangeable deck area for years. There are some places that look usable but are not, probably because they would mess with intake air or antennas.

Also, part of the goal here is presumably to save some money and manpower. Getting rid of the Phalanx probably removes some GMGs and adds fewer (if any) GMMs in their place.
 
TomS said:
Also, part of the goal here is presumably to save some money and manpower. Getting rid of the Phalanx probably removes some GMGs and adds fewer (if any) GMMs in their place.
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Depends on who owns the radar/FC on Phalanx.

Though I guess this leads to a new and interesting question: who owns the lasers? Are those a GM job, or FC, or what?
 
Josh_TN said:
PrSM is still a 1-2 million dollar round. That’s not enough savings to be relevant. I doubt PrSM has a significant range increase over blk1 SM-6 and I do not see how it could possibly exceed blk2, just going by mass of fuel and diameter of SRM.
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SM6s were over $4mil each. So a missile that's half or a quarter the cost can be quite attractive. Especially if there's a problem increasing SM6 etc production capacity.




Josh_TN said:
Anti surface work at relatively short range simply will not be prioritized, especially when an existing defensive missile can do the job. The primary anti surface weapon now is Tomahawk, because it allows a thousand miles of stand off.
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Export cost of a Tomahawk Blk5 is also supposedly $4mil, though maybe US purchase is only $2mil.

So PrSMs are between 1/4 and 1x the price of Tomahawks, and if the total production of Tomahawks is limited you could fill shorter ranged slots that way.

But honestly, I was really thinking more in terms of replacing Harpoons.
 
Scott Kenny said:
But honestly, I was really thinking more in terms of replacing Harpoons.
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They already have an Replacement, the Naval Strike Missile.

Slightly less warhead but has both more range, more flexiblity in targets being able to also do land attacks, full Datalink to the ship for loiter fun, and is slightly faster as well.

For like 2mil a pop.
 
Firefinder said:
They already have an Replacement, the Naval Strike Missile.

Slightly less warhead but has both more range, more flexiblity in targets being able to also do land attacks, full Datalink to the ship for loiter fun, and is slightly faster as well.

For like 2mil a pop.
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Oh, right. Those. Keep forgetting about them, they're not in the news I see often enough. (where's that embarrassed emoji?)
 
Scott Kenny said:
SM6s were over $4mil each. So a missile that's half or a quarter the cost can be quite attractive. Especially if there's a problem increasing SM6 etc production capacity.





Export cost of a Tomahawk Blk5 is also supposedly $4mil, though maybe US purchase is only $2mil.

So PrSMs are between 1/4 and 1x the price of Tomahawks, and if the total production of Tomahawks is limited you could fill shorter ranged slots that way.

But honestly, I was really thinking more in terms of replacing Harpoons.
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USN is purchasing upgrade kits for its existing fleet of Blk 4, so it’s cheaper. Harpoon is not worth replacing, and to the extent it is NSM is the natural off the shelf buy. Neither is a VLS weapon, at least in USN usage.
 
Firefinder said:
They already have an Replacement, the Naval Strike Missile.
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LRASM-SL with the Mk 114 will also probably show up at some point once the air-launched stockpile is healthy. It's already been demonstrated on the Paul F. Foster, so all that remains is finding the money.

Not a strict installation Harpoon replacement but doctrinally it's similar.
 
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It needs a Bigger radar. Like... How big is the Floating X Band? Bout 3/4 that size and 4 in a Safeguard style Doom Pyramid right on the centerline where the Drilling derrick be.



And the Army Needs to find its fun pants and get the SLRC program back up and running so we can do Stragetic counterfires and call this thing a Monitor.
 
Forest Green said:
Sort of a budget CG(X)-21. Nice to have one in the North Sea with 512 SM-3 IIBs. ;)
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Firefinder said:
It needs a Bigger radar. Like... How big is the Floating X Band? Bout 3/4 that size and 4 in a Safeguard style Doom Pyramid right on the centerline where the Drilling derrick be.
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This is basically Arsenal Ship 2.0. It doesn't need a lot of expensive high-power radars because it relies on off-board networked targeting data from other sensors (including something like SBX).

There were some folks who talked about the actual 1990s ArShip as essentially an ammunition ship for other combatants that would eliminate the need to physically crossdeck the missiles. This version splits the difference, able to shoot missiles itself based on networked targeting data but also able to UNREP other combatants by having them raft up alongside and transferring missiles by stabilized crane. I think the Navy's experience with SBX has not been great, and this is really unlikely to make any headway (so to speak).
 
Firefinder said:
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It needs a Bigger radar. Like... How big is the Floating X Band? Bout 3/4 that size and 4 in a Safeguard style Doom Pyramid right on the centerline where the Drilling derrick be.



And the Army Needs to find its fun pants and get the SLRC program back up and running so we can do Stragetic counterfires and call this thing a Monitor.
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The radar suite will be mostly for self defense, so an SBX-size panel is overkill. These are envisioned as resupply nodes which can defend themselves, not as combatants or GMD sites.
 
Moose said:
The radar suite will be mostly for self defense, so an SBX-size panel is overkill. These are envisioned as resupply nodes which can defend themselves, not as combatants or GMD sites.
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So, about the same SPY6 as on the Constellation-class, then?
 
Scott Kenny said:
So, about the same SPY6 as on the Constellation-class, then?
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Little more than that, the concept does envision defending against serious Ballistic threats. It's not going to be defending the continent against ICBMs the way a GMD site does, but it will need to defend itself (and maybe someplace like Guam) from intermediate-range threats. So while SBX or LRDR is a bit much, a v3 is a bit light. The model suggests a BMD-capable platform would have v4, maybe even v1.
 

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