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Bullwinkle58 -> RE: Time to Bring Back the Battleships? (5/19/2016 6:54:32 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Revthought
quote:
ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
Let me address some of what you said... some of it I agree with, some of it I don't necessarily disagree with, I just think it does not tell the whole story.
1. The Millennium Challenge
No doubt a lot has changed since this exercise; however, I would like to point out that, at least from my recollection, the exercise was not quite as you described. It was meant to simulate the full start of a war with a country like Iran.
Yes it was. A quarter-bil-a-buck and years was spent getting ready for it. It was not going to be canceled. But it had assumptions about the pre-attack moves that would not be true in a hot war. We've known since the tanker wars of the 1980s that the Strait of Hormuz and the PG are dangerous. We would not send, in RL, the MC TF through without prep. We'd use the Air Force. We'd insert SEALs to deal with cruise missiles. We'd do an AA system take-down. There was nothing in the scenario that demanded go in Right Now except the exercise timetable itself. All war games are artificial. The ones I participated in at sea sure were.
In fact, the exercise began with blue team issuing a diplomatic ultimatum to red team as would be done in a real world scenario. Blue team assumed that Gen Van Ripper--the man in charge of Red team--would act how Blue expected Iran to act, which is to do nothing until they were attacked; however, coming on the heals of Bush's preemptive doctrine, Van Ripper decided to act "preemptively."
He did. See above though.
So he located the Blue forces and took the initiative by launching a full scale attack on Blue, overwhelming their defenses--and only a portion of that was with "suicide" boats. Mostly it was overwhelming Blue with ASCMs launched from patrol boats, the air, and the ground.
Because Blue was in tactical range of those assets. See my previous post re "waiting for B2s". The USN had not forgotten Preying Mantis. The wargame required them act as if they had.
Most of the "suicide" damage was done during the following day, after the carrier had already been sunk.
By cruise missiles in range because of the wargame rules.
What is more, on day 3 Blue was magically re-floated and the rest of the exercise scripted, the results of which were used initially to justify pre-established American doctrine.
See above on $250 million and years of prep.
2. Virginia Class
While the USN certainly would argue your point, the Virginia was absolutely designed around it's cruise missile capacity and it's littoral role. Much of the ships design is dedicated to this.
Baloney. The 688I had a great deal of Tomahawk capability already. The Virginia was built because the 688s were wearing out. I would argue the single biggest reason to build the Virginias was advancements in core design re lack of refueling need. There has ben no change in the ASW threat between the peak 688 years and now. The Virginias are just better, modern boats in many ways. Sensors, processing capability, crew habitability, ease of logistics, etc. But the Virginias were designed to do every mission a 688 could already do. Think putting SEALs ashore started with the Virginias? Nope. Littoral? I've got old friends who went on to command 688s, and they went to littoral regions to a degree that would stun you. The USN sold the Virginias as "modular" because that sounds all sexy and hip to Congress, but they're just really good SSNs in an era we need a follow-on class to the Cold War 688s.
This is a very sharp departure from the last (and most advanced) actual purpose built SSN--the Seawolf;
The Seawolf was a dinosaur design that had no mission after the USSR fell. I've told the story here before about attending a briefing with V.Adm. White, then ComSubLant, in 1982 or 83 in Kings Bay. All officers in from patrol were there. He described the Seawolf, then in design, as a retention tool to the nuc JOs. We had never heard of it. I still recall his face when he said "fifty fish so you won't have to run the Gap to reload." It was a happy face. When the Red Fleet fell apart there was no need for a sub that good, in the small numbers we could afford. The need was for more of average good. Thus Virginia. I will say it should scare the bejeezus out of any adversary that we could build a boat that good--in 1982. We could do better now if we needed to mob a bastion.
However, the Navy not only decided the Seawolf is too expensive, which fair enough (I'm no proponent of inflated military spending), but also they wanted something to fit more in-line with what my original post was responding to--"we need force projection more than anti-ship capabilities in the modern navy."
As I said, the 688 could project force ashore too. But SSNs primarily exist to protect CVBGs, and sink enemy ships. Always have. Still do. That there are relatively few targets does not change their role. Someday there may be.
3. MK48
No doubt the MK48 can sink ships; however, nearly every other ocean going navy has traditional torpedoes that function just as well as the MK48.
Every Western navy except the RN uses the Mk 48. It's the standard. No one except the RN has a torpedo even close. As I said, China has tried to copy it for decades, but it turns out that the material science, chip coding, and QA needed to make a fish that can work at 10 feet as well as thousands of feet against both subs and skimmers is non-trivial. And that's to copy the Mk 48 I knew in 1984. They're a lot better now.
They chose to arm their submarines with SLASCMs because it extends the submarine's standoff range to up to 300km.
Amateurs talk of tactics; professionals of logistics. Amateurs talk of weapons; professionals talk of targeting. The Soviets had Charlies and Charlie IIs bristling with sub-launched monsters when I was at sea and before. Great ranges, great speeds, great. How do you aim them? I spoke to OTH targeting before. The Soviets thought RORSATs would do the trick, supported by Bears. Both sensor platforms have problems. We know the satellite tracks and Bears shoot down real good. But even if you have the data you've got to get it onto the boat in real-time. That is hard and it's dangerous for the sub. Not to mention the Allied SSN right behind the SSGN listening for launch transits.
Not only that, with super cav torpedoes, their torpedoes far out range the MK48 and close target so quickly that typical anti-torpedo countermeasures are much less likely to be deployed, let alone work.
Super-cav torpedoes, the grist of Popular Mechanics. The Shkval has been in wardroom training since the early 80s. It's a typical Russian response to the problem of having crap computer industries. So make a bigger hammer. As I said, the Mk 48's ranges are classified. The Shkval 2 is quoted at a max of less than 10 NM and more probably about half that. It doesn't re-attack. It's loud as hell. But mostly it's short-range and that's the most heavily-patrolled ASW zone. But if a Russian SSN got to 5 NM and launched one it would probably hit a carrier. Once. There are no really good skimmer torpedo countermeasures except don't let the launching sub launch. In the case of the Shkval there probably wouldn't be a second try.
4. Surface Forces
None of this, of course, addresses the USN's weakness in terms of anti-surface warfare. The USN currently uses the Harpoon system--a system dating to the year of my birth some 38 years ago.
Problems with the Harpoon:
Speed
Harpoons are subsonic. With a speed of .7 mach it is the slowest ASCM currently in use; this gives opponents ample warning and increases the likelihood the ordinance will be interdicted. By contrast, Russia, China, and even Iran have modern ASCM capable of mach 3.
Range
Harpoons have a range of 70nm, while both Russia and China can stand off at a range of between 194nm and 300nm. In the world of naval tactics, this disparity is the absolutely terrible. Russia, Chinese, Iranian (almost whomever you pick) land, air and sea forces can stand off over a 100 miles outside the range of any USN anti-surface ordinance.
In other words, they can kill us from a place that we cannot kill them back.
I'm not a fan of the Harpoon. It's obsolete. But we have counters. They're called carrier air-wings. Navies without carriers go to cruise missiles because that's what they have. Carriers are better. Carriers supported by SSNs are the best. Skimmer cruise missiles share the targeting problems subs do, with the exception of needing to come shallow to communicate. But you still need external OTH sensors to shoot 300nm. The Earth is curved.
Supply
Not every USN surface combatant carries harpoons. That's right, the Arleigh-Burke, for example, has zero anti-surface capability.
Is has a really good gun. Who are we facing that gun can't handle? Standard missiles also have an anti-surface mode.
This violates the idea of the distribution of deterrence in modern naval tactics. In other words, it makes choosing targets for any potential enemy really easy.
I'm not sure what this means.
On top of this, assuming in a shooting war any anti-surface capable USN ship lives long enough to close within 70nm of an adversary's navy, these ships only hold 7 or 8 harpoons. So about enough for a single exchange of fire.
What navy are you talking about? Kind of the crux. We can see such a navy building a long, long time out. Enough time to develop really fast, big cruise missiles if we need them. Right now we don't need them. We do need about 50% more SSNs. We need a replacement for the Ohios. And we need a fighter we can afford. Way more than a bunch of missile-toting skimmers designed for 1985 and the Red Banner Fleet.
Needless to say the navies of the world who still build themselves around the idea of sea denial can vastly out perform the USN in this regard as well.
Again, who exactly is that? And who among that group are we not friends with? There isn't such a list. And again, gotta say for the umpteenth time, you want sea denial, SSNs are the way to go, hands down. We've got the best SSNs in the world.
Conclusion
*I* think the USN is seriously inadequate in terms of preparedness to fight either large surface denial navy still around--both China and Russia.
Neither are large per se, both are primitive in many respects. Neither has projection capability beyond close-in waters. In a full-scale war--highly unlikely---either or both would live a matter of weeks at best.
From what I read, there is growing recognition of that within the navy and some steps are being taken to rectify this. Until the new generation of missile comes online in 2021 (sure thing just like the F-35) there are no real stopgaps... though their working on dual purposing AAM systems.
We never stopped working. I saw something about a peace dividend, but it's been awhile now.
In 2021 the new missile will help (there will probably be a sub launch variant too), but until the USN decides that it is worth designing ships around actual sea denial, it will only go part way to addressing the "issue."
Full-scale war, full-scale SSN employment, open ROEs? Any enemy navy dies very quickly, either at sea or the pier. Any enemy. Any combination of enemies. It's just numbers, experience, and capability. We have needs, sure, but in the naval realm there's no navy in the world in the same order of magnitude. That is not the case on land in every respect though. I worry a lot more about sustainability and depth in the Army than I do in any way about the Navy. If Russia rolled into the Baltics I don't know . . .
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