Trump's Navy

[AdamG]

The U.S. Navy’s current fleet design does not match today’s conditions, much less those expected over the next 20 years. Today’s fleet—a mix of ship types that are simply evolutionary improvements and larger versions of designs from two or more decades ago—is too small, and the ships on average are too large. It is time for the Navy to make broad, significant changes in the fleet’s design.

The rapid rise of global connectedness—and the technological progress and proliferation that it has sparked—raises new challenges for designing a fleet with the capabilities required to execute its missions across the globe. The ability to detect warships at long ranges or even globally is no longer a U.S. monopoly. Commercial space sensors are burgeoning, and their data is available in the marketplace. Many nations have sophisticated military space programs, distributed networked sensor fields, and long-range unmanned aerial vehicles that can search far from shore. Sensor capability is advancing faster than the ability to elude detection. Long-range precision-guided weapons are proliferating and can be brought to bear in numbers against what these sensor systems detect. Weapon speed is increasing while weapon signature is decreasing.

The current fleet was not designed with this threat environment, where losses likely will be significant, in mind. The fleet concentrates too much capability in too few manned hulls that are too large. Not enough are forward deployed to provide sufficient firepower to achieve warfighting success. And the fleet is too expensive per unit to be able to afford enough capacity to meet global requirements and wartime resiliency.

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proce...qDAgYmzonMQnn0

[Bill Moore]

Adam,

If this article is correct, then are just pissing money away by investing in capital ships that need to be manned by thousands of sailors. Since adversary sensor and long range targeting capabilities are increasing according to the article, would be better off cutting the capital ships by at a least a third and invest in unmanned vessels that are "relatively" much less expensive (certainly less expensive overtime considering the cost of manning ships) and easy to mass reduce to replace war time losses? The services can be incredibly innovative, but they don't have the moral courage to innovate themselves out of their current molds. The proposed change, admittedly somewhat flippant coming from a ground pounder, would be a huge change that would have significant repercussions across the force. Instead of Navy Aviators dominating the top leadership positions, we would see ADMs who commanded unmanned vessels and fleets emerge to the top. Crazy talk I know.

[AdamG]

Adam,
Crazy talk I know.

If the enemies and scenarios of the day after tomorrow aren't defined at the start, I raise an eyebrow.

[AdamG]

Washington (CNN)The terrorist behind the 2000 attack on the USS Cole is believed to have been killed in a US airstrike in Yemen on Tuesday, according to a US administration official. Jamel Ahmed Mohammed Ali Al-Badawi was an al Qaeda operative who the US believes helped orchestrate the October 12, 2000, attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors.
The official said all intelligence indicators show al-Badawi was killed in a strike in Yemen as a result of a joint US military and intelligence operation.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/04/polit...-st=1546725552

No Quarter.


For those too young to remember, this was an unprovoked attack - the mess deck was driven upwards by the force of the blast and crushed many of the 17 casualties as they were sitting down to a meal.

https://www.911memorial.org/uss-cole-bombing

https://gcaptain.com/cole-ddg-tribute-crew-lost-years/

[AdamG]

The U.S. Navy, without fanfare or notice, tested a new weapon last summer that could revolutionize surface warfare. The hyper velocity projectile (HVP) is a Mach 3 shell fired from existing guns on cruisers and destroyers. A guided projectile, HVP can drop high explosives on enemies on the ground up to three times as far as conventional ship gun ammo with a high rate of precision. It can also intercept incoming anti-ship missiles, providing an economical alternative to increasingly expensive anti-missile interceptors.

According to USNI News, the guided missile destroyer USS Dewey fired 20 new HVP projectiles during the 2018 Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercises. Although the test was unclassified it was not reported at the time by the U.S. Navy. It was the first known use of HVPs at sea by a warship.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/mil...shells-rimpac/

[AdamG]

Bonus - OSINT via Social Media.*

The USS Fort McHenry is the first U.S. ship to enter the Black Sea since a naval standoff between Russian and Ukrainian forces near the annexed Crimea Peninsula in November. Romanian and U.S. officials say the dock-landing ship arrived at the port of Constanta on January 7 and will remain there until January 10. It will then hold joint sea maneuvers with a Romanian frigate in territorial and international waters. It wasn't immediately clear how many U.S. military personnel were involved.

https://www.rferl.org/a/us-warship-r.../29696810.html

Ex-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst earlier called weak the Western response to Russia's November 25 attack on Ukrainian naval boats, suggesting this would give Putin a green light for further escalation. The diplomat suggested that the U.S. provide Ukraine with a number of specific weapons to bolster its coastline defenses against Russian aggression.

A warship of Russia's Northern fleet entered the Black Sea on Wednesday, January 9. The vessel in question is the Severomorsk (619) anti-submarine Udaloy-class destroyer, according to Andriy Klymenko, an expert with the Ukraine-based Maidan of Foreign Affairs Foundation. "For the first time since the start of Crimea occupation, a warship of the Russian Northern fleet – not just a landing ship of another fleet but the one that is part of the Russian navy's main strike force – has entered the Black Sea waters," * the expert wrote on Facebook, also posting the relevant photos of the destroyer.

https://www.unian.info/politics/1040...sea-photo.html

[AdamG]

Analysis of an accident

The Fitzgerald had been steaming on a secret mission to the South China Sea when it was smashed by a cargo ship more than three times its size.The 30,000-ton MV ACX Crystal gouged an opening bigger than a semitruck in the starboard side of the destroyer. The force of the collision was so great that it sent the 8,261-ton warship spinning on a 360-degree rotation through the Pacific.

https://features.propublica.org/navy...crash-crystal/

[davidbfpo]

AdamG,

A friend forwarded the link to this accident and it is a grim reading in places. It appears that those who ordered the ship to sea will avoid any repercussions.

A RN ship, the Antarctic patrol ship, HMS Endurance had an accident and the Officer in Charge (not the Captain who was on Xmas leave) has written two articles on their experience (a third has yet to appear). There was a National Geographic documentary on their patrol, but has yet to be found (which he explains in Part Two).

Part One:https://wavellroom.com/2018/12/16/ma...hms-endurance/

Part Two:https://wavellroom.com/2019/01/05/ma...-2-priorities/