"US Navy Struggles to Change" Topic

As a fan of powerful vessels, but not a fan of political interference in shipbuilding strategies,I found this article useful. There is a focus on sea going drones, with photos, and a new way of thinking about battlegroups, destroyers, and the role of unmanned vessels.

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Looks like we have to lose a war before anybody will consider change. Kind of like the battleship admirals prior to Pearl Harbor.

Well maybe they'll start looking at the new platforms when they lose some of the big ones. Keep adding ships when current ones aren't getting maintained and where are all the crew for these new ships coming from? Yeah, the USN is going along right on schedule.

Yes DF, I was reminded of the battleship admirals of the 1920s and 30's.

The newest carrier Enterprise will launch in a couple of years, its name a potent symbol. But we could have built a lot of new gadgets with that money. It's making me rethink the balance of power. I still think the battles groups can create an intimidating presence anywhere in the world. They are like mobile bases that can deploy as needed.

But how vulnerable are they against a clouds of drones or missiles? Supposedly defensive measures exist, but who knows? Losing one of these would be a major blow in many ways.

We do need to rethink our smaller vessel functions, IMO.

Striker, you are right. And note the political interference whenever the Navy tries to halt a bad program like the LCS class. We build ships in states with powerful Congressmen and they get re-elected. As at Jacksonville, where we are rehabbing a couple of these highly defective ships because Congress would not let the Navy ditch them.

The USN was the most powerful fleet on the seas. But as we see smaller class ships packing cruise missiles. As well as the proliferation of drones. Will or have caused some critical changes. I don't think we will see what we saw in '20-'30s. Modern Military Leaders seem to like the high tech … because it works…

Generally, when politics get involved with the Military it is not necessarily be a good thing.

Nothing like a good click-bait article to get the blood running. I only see one side of the discussion in this article. To be frank, the Navy is desparate for more of the old and new stuff and needs a lot more money to keep up with the joneses.

The Navy is building a smorgesbord of capanility with big decks, amphibs, mutimission destroyers / frigates, subs, and lots of large, medium, and small unmanned air, surface and submersible vehicles.

Figuring out how to use the new stuff in conjunction with the old stuff is still gelling. LCS is a great example of poor requirements development. It was built to fight pirates when the long term need was to fight a peer competitor. Until the unmanned stuff fits into a battle plan you will see it lag compared to building more DDG-51s, Constition class frigates, Viginia SSNs, Columbia class SSBNs, and Ford Class carriers. Same for the new light amphib.

I can tell you that my part of the civilian weapons development industrial complex are busy as bees developing new stuff for all of these while extending the reach, volume of fires, and lethality of existing platforms.

If you want details, we are looking to hire. ;-)

Lost Pict, I did not intend to post click bait! I took it as a legitimate concern. I am a big fan of the USN as you may recall.

Its a valid concern, I didn't mean to offend. IMHO the article qualifies as click-bait in that it has a volatile title and only discusses one side of the issue. Its interesting that RADM Selby is only quoted as far as his discussion supports the premise. I met him awhile back and he discussed both sides of these kind of dilemnas. Its hard to think that building a lot more DDGs, FFs, SSNs, and replacement SSBNs and CVNs is a mistake when this is exactly what the PLAN is doing. This is kind of a "have you stopped beating your wife" dilemna. We know we want lots of unmanned stuff in the fleet, but have not yet defined the CONOPS, force mix, and quanities. The Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the Warfare centers are doing lots of 6.2 to 6.4 efforts in these areas (including yours truly), but nothing has bubbled up yet as a shiny weapons program ready for acquisition. (Beyond the armed aerial drones you hear so much about). Everything is still at the prototype and EDM level abd looking for OPNAV sponsors.

PS I have serious reservations about replacing all the Nimitz class CVNs, but they are an excellent platform for swarms of long range, large weaponized drones.

PPS I am a big fan too!

This is very helpful, thanks,LP. No offense taken…I do have nightmare visions of various weapon system swarms and the big ships.

In history, the French Victorian Navy's "Juene Ecole" doctrine under Admiral Aube sought to counter Britain's superiority in major ships by building large numbers of small craft to launch torpedoes and overwhelm the battleships. This did not happen or even become a successful threat. It did cause the big ships to carry a lot of mixed caliber guns and pushed the development of the torpedo boat destroyer, shortened to destroyer. It was an age of technology development, of new ideas and responses leading up to the classic dreadnought era.