Modified *USS Grayback* as a nuke with
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Originally Posted by
carl
I have. I remember reading that during the Vietnam War, there was some kind of agreement between the US and the North Vietnamese...
No need to be embarrassed or ashamed. You didn't have anything to do with it and you couldn't have prevented that. Many far worse things tha happened there. If one wishes to be embarrassed or ashamed of anything that occurred in or about Viet Nam, one could start with the fact that the Brothers Kennedy started the totally unnecessary war to boost the US economy and to prove the Democratic Party could be tough on Communism. It was a war in which we had no business and in which there was no real US interest.
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Since you know, the only thing I can conclude is that you delight in faking obtuse.
I'm not the one being obtuse nor am I faking anything. I mentioned Carrier qual only with respect to you and your comment:
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"Us airplane drivers keep a close eye on the fuel gauge for when it gets low we have to land, on land to get filled up again. Islands are land. They also form needed bases for for ships to fill up too."
I said nothing about using carriers to mess with China, in fact I think that would be sorta dumb. That's why I suggested that the nuke boats, SSBN, SSN and particularly the SSGNs. None of which most other nations can really counter and which don't have a refueling problem. Nor would I send Bones, B2s or 52s -- or F15Es for that matter -- anywhere until the Tomahawks had pretty well done in the relevant -- not all, just relevant -- ADA systems.
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"I still think land bases and islands are as useful to navies and naval power as they ever were."
They are if you're going to use Carrier Battle Groups and surface warships though I'm unsure why you would do that in anything above mid intensity conflict (where they have their uses). In a high intensity fight, the Carrier and surface ships are big fat targets and an impediment until a lot of sanitizing in the objective area has occurred.
They always told me the Generals and Admirals prepared for the last war -- no one mentioned that civilian Pilots did so as well. :D
My fellow curmudgeon Bill Sweetman not withstanding, the F35 brings some new capabilities for later phase of operations while the production models of the X-47B as AQ-whatevers, will aid in the initial effort, not least because they'll have twice the range and loiter time of the 18s or 35s -- and even that can and will be extended by by Buddy Tanking refueling from other AQ-whatevers. Then there's the X-37...
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... I prefer to judge for myself and if they recognize the importance of conveniently placed island and land bases, I figure they are seeing what has been plainly evident throughout the whole history of sea fighting.
Do they recognize importance or are they parroting conventional wisdom based on 30-40 year old concepts and capabilities? Good for you arriving at your own judgements; bad for them that they, like some Gen-Gens and Admirals are still looking behind instead of ahead. Both the FlagOs and the punditocracy have a vested interest in as little change as possible; makes 'em look smart. Fortunately, as Ernie King said on 30 December 1941; "When they get in trouble they send for the sons-of-bitches." So we do that and the young SOBs discard the old ways and get with the program. We may not have as much time in the future but we know that and people are thinking...A tongue in cheek reference to old ways; 30-40 year old concepts... ;)
History can never be more than a 'sorta, maybe' guide, militarily one should not let it cloud thinking or ever dictate what one can or will do. In fact, one should do their best to avoid what went before lest they establish a pattern that can be circumvented. Though it's quite okay to let folks think one is planning on doing that old, tired thing while he or she actually contemplates something entirely different. We do that fairly well..:cool:
Last battles refought with missing fundamentals are fundamentally lost battles.
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Originally Posted by
carl
As far as the importance of land bases and island bases go, you're wrong.
As I wrote earlier, that happens. Rarely. And not on this.
I didn't write they generically were unimportant. You do a lot of standing broad jumps at wrong conclusions. I didn't write they were all unnecessary, merely that the ones you've mentioned are not totally critical and that there were workarounds. You might also consider the issue of when which Islands may be a detriment and when they might be beneficial...
In any event, I'll now go a step farther and suggest that for a variety of reasons (not least including who can best cope with time:distance issues and net weapon available numbers) we're better off without that outer perimeter you and John Foster Dulles like. Ducks sitting and all that. Recall that Pearl Harbor was an attack on US Soil and it got a response. An attack on Taiwan or the Philippines will NOT get such a political response -- nor should it.
You may have seen me rail against the FOBs in Afghanistan -- that's a tactically unsound approach that violates the fundamentals of avoiding tieing down force to fixed locations, avoiding tactical repetition and not providing easy targets as well as several others. The Islands you want -- as opposed to all the other places available in the pacific -- are FOBs and they are as dumb as the bases in the 'Stan. Fixed Bases are targets and they severely inhibit the most important fundamental, Maneuver and it's ally, Flexibility.
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Some people fight the last battle, some recognize the fundamentals, and some fall in love with the latest and greatest gimmick and tool and think that changes the fundamentals.
And some learned the fundamentals the hard way and know that some, not all, new tools will not change everything but can and will aid in accomplishing those fundementals and changing, if slightly, the way business is done. :wry:
Some also are far too old, experienced and cynical to fall in love with much of anything... :rolleyes:
A lot of new stuff is borderline worthless for warfighting -- but some of it has great merit and applies directly to those fundamentals. Note the subject of my last comment and Google it. Not much new under the sun -- or sea. Nothing I've mentioned is really new except possibly the X-37 which is only kinda new; all those items have been seen and used before and all the current iterations have been in development for years except the X-47B which the Navy is moving big bucks to -- do those stodgy Admirals know something...
As an aside, it is important to realize with fundamentals that one cannot pick and choose those one likes -- you have to take them all, they're part of an inseparable total package...
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Oh. I thought of something else. In any kind of sea fight with anybody, you are going to have to move supplies with surface ships. I can't think of one where that didn't happen. And when you do that, you have to defend them from air attack. Subs can't do that. You need surface ships or aircraft...which brings us to the need for land bases conveniently located.
At the risk of sounding Clintonesque, define 'conveniently.'
Define also 'sea fight.' Sub surface, surface, above the surface or way, way, way above the surface... :eek:
You may not think so but the Navy thinks it fights in all those and does so simultaneously. They consider themselves a Sea service. They also have well over 50 year experience at it and that matters a great deal -- plus they have a lot of experience dealing with 'inconvenience'...
All unduly bellicose, the Chinese, hopefully, will be smarter than we are likely to be and none of this is likely to be problematical for a good many years if ever. You worry too much... :wry: