arealdeadone | 07 Sep 2020 9:05 p.m. PST |
Well there you go turns out that most of the Arleigh Burke DDGs that form the mainstay of USN destroyer/cruiser force were never delivered with ability to fire Harpoon anti-shipping missiles. Only 27 of the earliest Arleigh Burkes are equipped with Harpoon AShMs (though some of these may be retired). The remaining 40 newer ones in service and 9 more being built do not have Harpoons. Instead they can use Standard SM-2s SAMs as anti shipping missiles in the role but these are of limited use only. link Note the supposed upgrade to Standard SM-6 missiles to include Anti-Surface Warfare capability has not yet been implemented.
link link The three new Zummwalt DDGs also lack Harpoons (these things are total white elephants). So total number of Harpoon launching ships in USN is 49 (22 x Ticonderoga and 27 x Arleigh Burke). 11 of the Ticonderoga's will be retired between now and 2026 and it's possible some of those early Arleigh Burkes will come off line in the next few years. There are plans to reintroduce anti-shipping Tomahawks and new missiles but procurement is very, very slow!
link |
Thresher01 | 07 Sep 2020 9:57 p.m. PST |
That is appalling. I suspect our enemies were aware of that, but probably not the general public here. Even the little, Danish Willemoes Fast Attack Craft could carry up to eight of them, on a single, small hull. link Clearly, the bean counters are involved in ALL of the above, and could cause us to lose a battle, or an entire war, due to such silliness, and criminal neglect. |
emckinney | 07 Sep 2020 11:00 p.m. PST |
You can't even blame the beancounters. USN ship design and acquisition decisions have been appalling for decades, and the immensely expensive ships have been so poorly thought-out that they can't even be explained by something mundane like, "Oh all of the people involved in those decisions were enemy agents." If you were an enemy agent, you wouldn't introduce such blatantly stupid flaws because it would be too likely to blow your cover. Nearly 20 years ago, a senator got it right: "The Navy doesn't have adult supervision for its acquisition decisions." |
David Manley | 08 Sep 2020 4:23 a.m. PST |
One of the interesting development paths that never happened is a VLS version of Harpoon. That would seem to have been a no brainer, but if such a beast has ever been contemplated it had never come to pass. That said, isn't LRASM supposed to be Mk41 compatible? |
Thresher01 | 08 Sep 2020 5:09 a.m. PST |
How hard can it be to strap on some launchers to the deck, or island bulkheads, and to bolt them into place? If the Danes can add or remove them at will, as needed for different weapons loadouts for their missile boats, then surely we could as well for our much larger vessels. |
David Manley | 08 Sep 2020 5:41 a.m. PST |
The Danes have the benefit of their Stanflex modularity system. But yes, bolting on Harpoon actually isn't that expensive or difficult, we've shipped old mountings (ex T22B3 I think) on to T45 which was a fairly straightforward activity. I suspect the USN could do the same in short order if there was a need |
Defender1 | 08 Sep 2020 7:00 a.m. PST |
In answer to David's question above I pulled this from the Lockheed-Martin website. " The successful LRASM Boosted Test Vehicle (BTV) flight on 4 Sep '13 at WSMR Desert Ship Range, demonstrated a LRASM launch from a MK 41 VLS canister using the proven Mk-114 booster. Lockheed Martin is investing in the surface-launch LRASM effort to reduce program risk and accelerate time to fielding an OASuW capability on US Navy surface combatants. LRASM can be employed from DDGs and CGs with only software modifications to existing launch control systems. LRASM is the low-risk and low-cost solution for our naval warfighter." |
Tgerritsen | 08 Sep 2020 10:05 a.m. PST |
This has been true for some time- not sure why this is coming up now. The Navy has been low on Harpoons now for years and rather than increase their orders, the promise has been that they will field new generation missiles (though they have been very slow in coming). To cover the shortfall, the Navy decided to reduce the number of platforms (and some ships that can fire Harpoons ship without them, or with less than the number of Harpoons they are rated to carry). The sub fleet got rid of underwater launched Harpoons way back in 1997, only adding them again in 2018. link The Navy has not planned for fighting a peer force for a number of years. Whether this is due budget constraints, complacency, or a focus on the wrong type of warfare (littoral conflicts against waves of gun boats) is up to interpretation. |
LostPict | 10 Sep 2020 5:12 p.m. PST |
Here is the Navy's plan to address your concerns: link Don't forget carrier / amphib airpower and the silent service's attack submarines. |
arealdeadone | 10 Sep 2020 5:52 p.m. PST |
The silent service itself is under pressure with a reduction in hull numbers from 51 to 42 boats expected by 2028. Though those numbers aren't all deployable. In 2013 for example, the Navy could deploy a mere 8 attack subs to western Pacific. link The Navy really lost its way in the last 30 years. And the issue is not just ship building, but also the capabilities of those ships as well as the maintenance capabilities and training needed to ensure ships are capable of performing missions. |
LostPict | 10 Sep 2020 6:56 p.m. PST |
I agree that the USN needs lots more money, more Sailors, more ordinance, more ships and more planes to met the expanding missions and OPTEMPO. That largely depends on Congress and the American people. Wrt to deployers for any Navy take the total number of ships and divide by 3 to get the average available deployable force. Double that for 6 months in an emergency (with a big decrease in deployers after the surge). For the US Navy this is exacerbated by the need to operate globally. Allocate 6O% to the PACFLT and of that allocate a third of to WESTPAC (20% of available deployers) with the balance to the Indian ocean, the Persian Gulf, and eastern Pacific. So those 8 SSNs represents just part of the force that could be brought to bare in an emergency, but is inadequate on day one of a surprise emergency. What that article neglected to mention is that of those 400 subs in the world roughly a quarter are USN and a bunch more are Allied or neutral. Additionally, The US Navy intends to fight as part of a joint coalition force in the event of war with a near-peer competitor. The US Navy is far better positioned today than it was the day the Berlin Wall fell. The American people have been able to largely ignore Great Power competition in the intervening 30 years and will need to decide whether to diminish or maintain dominance. The US Navy will sail into harms way in any case, but it would be great to have more resources to take to the fight. I am biased since I served as an officer for most of the last 30 years and still work for the US Navy. |
arealdeadone | 10 Sep 2020 8:40 p.m. PST |
The US Navy is far better positioned today than it was the day the Berlin Wall fell. I would beg to differ. It has lost huge amounts of maintenance capability (sale of yards and lack of investment in others), lost huge numbers of ships. It has lost a number of capabilities or had others degraded:
1. Long range carrier based strikes. 2. Antishipping capability degraded on destroyers. 3. Mine Counter Measures reduced to next to nothing 4. Long range carrier ASW (loss of S-3 Viking without replacement). 5. Lost convoy escort capability through reduction in escort numbers including all frigates! And the allies aren't what they used to be especially in the Atlantic where frigate and submarine numbers have collapsed and operational capability not maintained. In the Asia Pacific, Philippines and Thailand are now very close to China, Malaysia is neutral and slipping towards China. The South Koreans have at times gone out of their way to compromise their own defence to appease China (eg cancellation of THAAD order). Even Australia is going through the pain of trying to figure out what to do with China who is Australia's largest trading partner and cornerstone of the Aussie economy. What that article neglected to mention is that of those 400 subs in the world roughly a quarter are USN and a bunch more are Allied or neutral. Not correct USN has a mere 51 attack subs ie 12.75% of total. This will decrease to 42 by 2028. China has about 70 (though some are coastal and others are obsolete though being retired). |
Rev Zoom | 10 Sep 2020 11:41 p.m. PST |
Read the following from Naval News and you'll see that matters are well in hand: As of Sept 29, 2019: "Independence-class Littoral Combat Ship USS Gabrielle Giffords (LCS 10) is the first U.S. Navy vessel to fully integrate the Naval Strike Missile next generation anti-ship and land attack cruise missile." |
arealdeadone | 14 Sep 2020 3:55 p.m. PST |
Turns out Naval Strike Missile procurement is still very, very slow despite all the propaganda: link Here's some Navy weapon procurement quantities from the FY20 budget.(1) The quantities shown are eyeball annual averages of the six year period FY19 FY24, inclusive. Weapon Qty
Comment Tactical Tomahawk 200 (Includes new missiles and modernization upgrades) Standard SM-6 140 RAM 120
ESSM 190 Trending up to 300/yr projected for FY23 and FY24 Mk48 Torpedo 70 LCS Naval Strike Missile 20 Trending up to 26/yr in FY23 and FY24 LCS Hellfire 109 LRASM 48 Constant purchase quantity across the FY19-FY24 period So by 2024 only a mere 100 Naval Strike Missiles procured. So much for LCS anti ship capability. Greater number of air launched LRASMs are being procured. But the numbers are still low as they need to be fired from warships, F/A-18E/Fs and P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft. This is a 560 km range stealth cruise missile.
I don't know if the USN intends to use these weapons in an old school saturation method or whether they intend to use low numbers for ultra precise hits.
Though the latter does assume that the enemy is completely incapable of shooting down or spoofing/jamming any cruise missiles. Though this is probable as the Russian high end defence systems that also form the basis of Chinese air defences, have miserably failed to stop any Israeli missiles over Syria.
If it's swarms, there's not enough missiles being acquired. If it's ultra precision with extremely low or no probability of Chinese being able to stop them, then their navy will be sunk twice over.
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