Surface Ships Need More Offensive Punch, Outlook

Fire Scouts sent to mothballs

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy is operating and sustaining 10 MQ-8C Fire Scout unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), having place the rest in storage, from which the service can easily restore them to service. The Navy also has retired its fleet of smaller MQ-8B versions of the Fire.

According to information provided by the Navy’s Program Executive Office for Strike and Unmanned Aviation, the Navy will keep in service 10 MQ-8Cs in service of the 38 procured and keep the remaining MQ-8Cs in Level 2 preservation.
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https://seapowermagazine.org/navy-i...tional-mq-8c-fire-scout-uavs-rest-in-storage/
 
TomS said:
Aha! I found an excerpt from the UNREP Journal article here:

http://ukarmedforcescommentary.blogspot.com/2013/10/vertical-launching-systems-and-type-26.html
The concept for replenishing 15 VLS per hour in Sea State 5, shown in Figures 9, 10, 11 and 12 centers around a transportable VLS rearming device that is stowed and maintained on the Combat Logistics Force (CLF) ship. When the combatant ship comes alongside for at-sea rearming or load adjustment, the rearming device is transported from the CLF ship by the new Heavy Unrep rig to the combatant ship sliding padeye along with a team to operate the rearming device. A swing arm at the base of the sliding padeye is used to position the rearming device onto three low profile rails permanently mounted atop the VLS launcher. A hydraulic power unit on the combatant ship powers the swing arm and also the rearming device after it is on the rails.

The CLF ship will next transfer a loaded VLS canister to the sliding padeye. The canister will be lowered to the swing arm by the sliding padeye and then be released from the transfer rig. The canister will be swung around and be picked off from the swing arm by the rearming device two clamp rings. The canister will be moved by the rearming device to a position over an empty cell. The cell hatch will open and the rearming device will erect the canister to the vertical. The canister will be lowered by a wire rope hoist into the cell. The rig will be disconnected from the end of the canister, the cell hatch will close and the canister will be connected below decks to the VLS circuits. When the VLS rearming or VLS load adjustment is completed, the rearming device and team will be returned to the CLF ship.
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Looks like this is gaining some momentum, 30+ years later:

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2023/02/at-sea-rearming-deemed-a-main-priority-by-secnav/
 
What the USN needs is a shit-ton of OPVs like the Mexican Oaxaca-class. Cheap patrol boats that can show the flag and do 80% of what an Arleigh Burke does for 20% the cost. The new FFGs will be nice but they are still too big and expensive. You can then save wear, tear, and maintenance cost on the big ships and save them for the real emergencies.
 
Desertfox said:
What the USN needs is a shit-ton of OPVs like the Mexican Oaxaca-class. Cheap patrol boats that can show the flag and do 80% of what an Arleigh Burke does for 20% the cost. The new FFGs will be nice but they are still too big and expensive. You can then save wear, tear, and maintenance cost on the big ships and save them for the real emergencies.
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We have a ton of OPVs (around 30 big ones and another 50+ small ones), they just happen to belong to the US Coast Guard.
 
TomS said:
Desertfox said:
What the USN needs is a shit-ton of OPVs like the Mexican Oaxaca-class. Cheap patrol boats that can show the flag and do 80% of what an Arleigh Burke does for 20% the cost. The new FFGs will be nice but they are still too big and expensive. You can then save wear, tear, and maintenance cost on the big ships and save them for the real emergencies.
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We have a ton of OPVs (around 30 big ones and another 50+ small ones), they just happen to belong to the US Coast Guard.
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Which is the problem since the CG while technically being part of the USN is under DHS control and not DoD. You need USN OPVs to do USN tasks.

While range is a factor the LCS also had the same issue and the FFGs will be coming around for longer-ranged missions.
 
Desertfox said:
TomS said:
Desertfox said:
What the USN needs is a shit-ton of OPVs like the Mexican Oaxaca-class. Cheap patrol boats that can show the flag and do 80% of what an Arleigh Burke does for 20% the cost. The new FFGs will be nice but they are still too big and expensive. You can then save wear, tear, and maintenance cost on the big ships and save them for the real emergencies.
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We have a ton of OPVs (around 30 big ones and another 50+ small ones), they just happen to belong to the US Coast Guard.
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Which is the problem since the CG while technically being part of the USN is under DHS control and not DoD. You need USN OPVs to do USN tasks.

While range is a factor the LCS also had the same issue and the FFGs will be coming around for longer-ranged missions.
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The thing is, the current USN combatant force is nominally sized for its wartime tasks, with peacetime presence being a useful secondary capability. Now, we do need to do some rebalancing, because we probably do task them too heavily overseas, but I'm not sure that adding a pile of OPVs would help much.

If you added OPVs to the mix for peacetime "presence" missions, that would only add to the total numbers of ships, crew, and budget needed rather than reduce it, since you can't really cut the high end and still have a satisfactory warfighting force when the balloon does go up. And taking combatants out of the forward deployment zones means they are further away from the area of operations when they are needed, which may happen on short notice. (How much warning time do you think we would get for an invasion of Taiwan?) Also, the high-mix combatants need to deploy and operate forward in peacetime because that's their wartime operating locale, and they need the time and exposure out there, not sitting in port in the US.

A ship like the Oaxaca class is fine for Mexico, which operates close to home and faces almost no conventional naval threat, but would be hopelessly vulnerable to the sorts of threats forward-deployed US forces might encounter with little warning. So, at minimum, a USN OPV needs a larger helo pad and an actual hangar (for an MH-60 class helo, since the USN has no smaller types), CIWS or RAM for self-defense, and quite preferably some sort of 3-D radar and a small VLS for local area air defense weapons. Absent that capability, this "presence ship" runs a real risk of getting sniped by the same sort of low-cost loitering munitions Iran is using on oil tankers around the Gulf of Oman (other countries and even non-state actors are surely taking note).

A USN OPV also needs more endurance than the 30 days the Oaxaca class is designed for, since it will need to be at sea for at least 30 days just to get to its forward operating areas from the US and return. (Or it needs to UNREP, which means you need to add "presence tankers" to the force mix as well.) With these additions, one is rapidly approaching the level of capability and cost of a proper frigate, at which point why not go the rest of the way to FFG-62?
 
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The cheap US ship has to be just as impressive as whatever cheap ship China is building. If China sends an armed frigate and the US an OPV, the US will look bad by comparison. "Fly the Flag" missions still require some capability.
 
The whole idea is to have the cheap ship escorting tankers off Somalia so the armed frigate is actually free to show the flag to China. Right now we have Arleigh Burkes off Somalia, so they end up in drydock when you need them for China.
 
Desertfox said:
The whole idea is to have the cheap ship escorting tankers off Somalia so the armed frigate is actually free to show the flag to China. Right now we have Arleigh Burkes off Somalia, so they end up in drydock when you need them for China.
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Somalia? The piracy threat there has dropped off dramatically. But consider Yemen, just across the Gulf of Aden where there is a real and non-trivial ASCM threat that has already required a competent air defense ship to counter. Not to mention (which I already did) the persistent threat of Iranian loitering munitions going after tankers. And now Iran is talking about a "carrier" ship specifically to launch these sorts of munitions. An OPV can't handle that threat level.
 
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Also the last time the US try to do a cheap ship...

We got the LCS.

And the time before that we got the Perry's which were just as bad with basically the same damn issues. Cracking and shit AAW/ASUW and mediocre ASW.

The new Frigates bout the best we can do.
 
I think Absalons would have been ideal instead of LCS, with maybe some Iver Huifelds mixed in as well, but if we are looking at what is in production right now the Mogamis look promising.
 
apparition13 said:
I think Absalons would have been ideal instead of LCS, with maybe some Iver Huifelds mixed in as well, but if we are looking at what is in production right now the Mogamis look promising.
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In hindsight, probably something like the Absalons would have been smart. But Rumsfeld wanted things that were recognizably not conventional warships, so we got LCS.

I'd be shocked if a USNized Mogami would end up being significantly cheaper than an FFG-62, except for areas where it would have less capability (half as many VLS cells and ASCMs, smaller hangar, etc.) The low ma ning is an echo of the worst ideas of DD-21 and LCS. And I honestly have no idea what JMSDF survivability or seakeeping standards are like. I think the Mogamis are probably not meant to cross an ocean and hang out for a few months at a time.
 
TomS said:
apparition13 said:
I think Absalons would have been ideal instead of LCS, with maybe some Iver Huifelds mixed in as well, but if we are looking at what is in production right now the Mogamis look promising.
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In hindsight, probably something like the Absalons would have been smart. But Rumsfeld wanted things that were recognizably not conventional warships, so we got LCS.

I'd be shocked if a USNized Mogami would end up being significantly cheaper than an FFG-62, except for areas where it would have less capability (half as many VLS cells and ASCMs, smaller hangar, etc.) The low ma ning is an echo of the worst ideas of DD-21 and LCS. And I honestly have no idea what JMSDF survivability or seakeeping standards are like. I think the Mogamis are probably not meant to cross an ocean and hang out for a few months at a time.
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Just a quibble with the Rumsfeld comment.

The LCS was designed or conceived as a ship that would operate in the littoral.

The combination of draft and speed requirements drove the design.

It was not envisioned as a blue water platform.

In short, the Navy thought they would be fighting Iran, Iraq, ... in the Gulf, not a peer in blue water.

The ship was designed for the missions and threats the Navy thought most likely at the time.

In short, the Navy got the threat and concept of operations wrong. They then went about the most convoluted and costly way possible of building for that threat.
 
zevets said:
Arjen said:
@BB1984 had an interesting theory why stanflex (and by extension Absalon) was not suitable for the US Navy's purposes:
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/th...freedom-independence.6234/page-16#post-525841
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thats a phenomenal post, and probably correct, because notably, the LCS was not designed by PEO ships, but instead its own weird bastard organization
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LCS belonged (mostly) to PEO Ships until 2011, when PEO LCS was established. The problem was that up until that point, the mission modules belonged to the separate PEO Littoral and Mine Warfare; PEO LCS was supposed to fix that.
 
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Thanks for the correction! Not a shock then they designed a surface ship with no functional weapons because the weapons folks were another group.

I first heard of the LCS on Washington DC's NPR station - as an ad. You know a defense program is just pure pork, when they think they need to advertise it.
 
Old and decrepit Electric Boat vs brand spankin' new Chinese SSN/SSBN hall. To scale. Those gantry cranes off to the left? Bigger than the one at Newport News.

Electric Boat.jpg


1677202817712.png
 
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The cranes matter essentially not at all to sub work. They are impressive, but they're mostly for lifting segments of their commercial contract builds.

TomS said:
Remember that a big chunk of EB's actual fabrication work happens over at Quonset Point. It's not all in Groton.
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With the 774s a large chunk happens in Virginia as well.
 
Moose said:
The cranes matter essentially not at all to sub work. They are impressive, but they're mostly for lifting segments of their commercial contract builds.

TomS said:
Remember that a big chunk of EB's actual fabrication work happens over at Quonset Point. It's not all in Groton.
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With the 774s a large chunk happens in Virginia as well.
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The comment about the cranes was less about submarines than to point out raw ship building capacity. That crane at NNS is supposedly the largest in the Western Hemisphere. China, by itself, has at least a dozen if not more of them.
 
bobbymike said:
aonestudio said:
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/22/asia/us-navy-chief-china-pla-advantages-intl-hnk-ml/index.html
“They have 13 shipyards, in some cases their shipyard has more capacity – one shipyard has more capacity than all of our shipyards combined. That presents a real threat,”
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Just inexcusable in a nation with a $26 trillion economy.
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In fact America destroyed the commercial ship building capability by itself and gave it to other countries.The result is higher costs and lots of delays for the naval shipbuilding industry.
It's easy to destroy an industry but hard to get it running again.
 

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