86 thoughts on “Romney’s Right About The Ships”

  1. By Obama’s logic, the state highway patrol should replace fifty or more cruisers and motorcycles with a double-decker bus that can carry sixty to one hundred officers.

    I think the Navy will one day consider naming a carrier after him, but call it the USS Dunning-Kruger instead.

    2. Well, although that would proclaim that Obama had been promoted to his level of incompetence, it would also imply that he would be competent a level or two below his current position, which is clearly false. He’d be incompetent at any job he could occupy, from community organizer (Chicago is still disorganized chaos) to lawyer to seaman recruit.

      1. He’d be incompetent at any job he could occupy, from community organizer (Chicago is still disorganized chaos)

        You say that as if the function of a “community organizer” is to organize the community. You know better than that.

  2. If the Navy names anything after Obama, it should be either a garbage skow or harbor dredge. I’m leaning in favor of the dredge because Obama sucks so much.

    1. I didn’t mean to say that [s]he should be hauling garbage, I meant that [s]he should be hauled away AS garbage.

  3. Over at the Dignified Rant, Dunn has done a number of posts about fleet size, missions, and maintenance.

    One of the reasons a bigger fleet would be nice is because ships are not getting the time in-between missions for maintenance that they require and over time this is degrading the fleet.

    I’m sure some of you would geek out over his more technical posts.

    http://thedignifiedrant.blogspot.com/

    1. wodun,
      I’m late to this party and you stole my thunder.

      My older son is a Navy Lifer Dog ans he’s literally been on one extended cruise (that’s deployed for you civilian types, not a trip to Bermuda!) He’s on a cruise right now and he was transferred to this current command because they were short handed. It’s the 2nd time in 8 years he’s gotten similar orders.

      He’s NOT in some small rating (job training category for you civilians), he’s a Fire Control Technician. He’s Cruise Missile trained too, he was a strike team leader at his last command. All combatant ships have FT’s. But as with all ratings, they’re UNDER MANNED. They were a little low when ‘W’ left, now they’ve been allowed to get way below manning levels.

      So the problem is NOT just one of ships. A 400 ship Navy takes more than just twice as many squids as a 200 ship Navy.

  4. Romney: “we’ve always had the strategy of saying we could fight in two conflicts at once. Now we’re changing to one conflict.

    Well, actually the US used to have the policy of being able to fight 2 and 1/2 wars at the same time, about 30 years ago that was changed to 1 and 1/2 wars, at the time China was experiencing poor relations with the USSR and was concerned about this reduction in US capability – until it was pointed out that the second war was supposed to be the one against China…

  5. More, cheaper ones is better than fewer expensive ones.

    Ouch! Where do you start with that one? The F22 is supposed to be able to engage several earlier (F15) fighters at once and be victorious. The Abrams M1 is way more effective than smaller cheaper tanks, probably by enough of a margin to justify the fewer numbers.

    With navy ships? Personally I think a revolution in their design is overdue, and that they don’t need to be as large as they are with as large a crew to carry the capabilities that they have.
    But I’m not an expert.

    1. The technology on modern ships is incredible but very expensive. New Navy destroyers are costing over $1 billion each. They’re hosting everything from anti-submarine warfare weapons up to anti-ballistic missile weapons. Perhaps it would be possible to build smaller ships (with smaller crews) that would take a couple of those missions and not try to be all things to all people. Get the production rate up and the per ship cost down.

    3. Ships can only be at one place at one time, and a certain percentage need to be down for repair at any time. If you have twelve “good enough” combat ships, you can have two on station in each of four theaters (the southern Med, Atlantic, Pacific, and antipiracy partol, for example) with four either in the docks or on the way to or from. If you have six “expensive enough” ships, no matter how cool they are individually you only have six and you’re gonna have to let something slide- and since your committments aren’t going to go away on their own, that usually means maintenance and training time get shorted (which eventually means your six ships become five or fewer). This is happening right now: go to Cdr. Salamander’s site and see what he’s saying.

    4. Ouch! Where do you start with that one? The F22 is supposed to be able to engage several earlier (F15) fighters at once and be victorious.

      That does no good if the closest F-22 is halfway around the globe. You still need enough airplanes to cover all theaters of operation.

      Of course, none of our likely enemies are flying F-15s. They might be flying Flankers — and the latest generation of Flankers can outperform the F-22 in a dogfight. (Not surprising, since the F-22 was in development since the 1980’s.)

      And the US hasn’t been involved in air-to-air combat in a long while. Now, we destroy them on the ground. The dominant thinking (or hope) seems to be that we’ll never do air-to-air again. So, we’ve stopped training pilots for it.

      The Air Force and Navy are not in good shape right now. Everything not directly related to the War on Terror has been underfunded (perhaps understandably so, but it’s something that needs to be addressed sooner or later).

      1. The US has not stopped training fighter pilots for air to air combat. Such training goes on practically every day over the Gulf of Mexico.

        1. I have no idea who’s doing what over the Gulf, but I took a big hit when my company lost a contract with the Navy Fighter Weapons School due to budget cutbacks. I assure you, training has been cut back a lot.

      2. Edward, with respect, you are absolutely wrong.

        The current generation of Sukhois (the Su-30 and its derivatives) MIGHT be able to survive a close-in dogfight (i.e. cannon range or less) with an F-22, but they would be most unlikely to reach that range having been blown out of the sky by AMRAAMs long before reaching that range. The whole point of the F-22 is to use low-observables and supercruise to remain undetected while getting the ‘first shot’ with a long range missile (the AMRAAM) before the Sukhois are even aware that they are targeted. This is what makes the plane so expensive, and why the USAF spends so much time training its pilots for precisely this eventuality.

        I should point out that the USAF and the USN’s exercises and tests have shown that (flying against aggressor pilots using Russian and Chinese tactics often in authentic Sukhois and the vastly inferior MiGs) the American aircraft (not only F-22s but F-15s, F-18s, and now F-35s) should expect kill ratios in excess of 8:1, better when the pilots are given more latitude to freelance.

        There is no question that the Sukhois are far more manuverable than their American counterparts, but this is only relevant in very short range dogfights, the kind our pilots are explicitly trained to avoid. Since manned aircraft aren’t going to outmanuver a missile, and Russian aircraft typically posess only the most limited modern ECM capabilities, there is little reason to exect that these aircraft would survive very long in any airspace that the USAF or USN decides to contest.

        Now obviously things can change, and if we do not continue to develop and deploy first-line aircraft this advantage can be eroded or even eliminated over time. One of the reasons that it was so irresponsible to discontinue F-22 production was that it reduced the numbers of these aircraft available. While that is regrettable (Romney has comitted to reversing this appalling decision), it can be remedied.

        Finally, as Cecil pointed out, we train our pilots for air to air operations on a daily basis, and in fact this is one of the reasons why our day to day operational costs are so very high and our pilots are so very good.

        1. manned aircraft aren’t going to outmanuever a missile

          They’ve been doing it for decades. Google “Wild Weasel” and “SAM break.”

          1. SAMs are not air-to-air missiles, and Wild Weasels rely on chaff, jammers, and incredibly dangerous manuvers to spoof (NOT outmanuver….BIG difference) SAMs. Wild Weasels also enjoy the highest death rate due to accidents of any aircraft in the USAF. There is a reason that the USN doesn’t use that particular tactic.

            Modern air-to-air missiles (note: we are talking the 1980s or better, and NOT SAMs, which are crippled by the necessity of being ground launched) can outturn any manned aircraft (which because of their squishy human components, are limited to about 8-9gs, depending upon how little you care about the pilot), and are only getting better as the intelligence we can build into them gets better.

            Air to air missiles were a huge disappointment in the 60s and 70s, but starting with the Israelis, and advancing through their (albeit limited) combat use in the 90s and 00s, they have begun to fulfill their promise. The Russian choice to go with manuverability over electronics is widely viewed (even by their clients like the Indians and Chinese) as more of a necessity (i.e. they cannot keep up with the West in electronics) than a virtue….

    3. Which blue water Navy are we going to fight? The USN is bigger than the next ten navies in the world combined! There are 22 operational aircraft carriers in the world. Of that 22, we operate 11, or half of the total. Our potential enemies, China and Russia, operate two (combined)!

      Of the 22 aircraft carriers on that list, the smallest USN carrier, Enterprise, has two times as many aircraft as the largest non-US carrier. Of the two (TWO!) potential enemy aircraft carriers, one, the Chinese Liaoning, hasn’t trapped one fixed-wing aircraft yet. Even if it were fully operational, it doesn’t have a catapult, meaning her planes will operate at a range / payload disadvantage to USN planes.

      There simply is no “blue water navy” threat to deal with for the foreseeable future.

      1. USN is bigger than the next ten navies in the world combined!

        Great if all ships stayed in the same seas, but they don’t. Chris, we are a target in the world. Yes, we have the best navy, but that doesn’t mean our ships can’t be sunk or that an enemy might have superiority in some local. It also takes time for ships to get where they’re needed. Take too much time and it may not matter by the time they get there.

        Not all ships can go everywhere. We didn’t send an aircraft carrier to Georgia. We basically sent just one combat ship and they were in extreme danger the whole time (I loved it when the little old ladies in Sevastopol were flipping it off.)

        Our navy is one of the biggest deterrents of foreign aggression along with the rest of our military. Using 4% as a goal sounds reasonable to me. Note rich people talk in percentages rather than absolute dollars usually, because that’s what makes more sense. Note that Romney was using absolute dollars in the debate in places where percentage would have made more sense but had less impact on the listeners.

        Note that in most trouble spots that crop up in the world we usually have one carrier near enough to get close enough to react. The oceans are big. One or two others might then follow, but the rest usually are stationed too far away and may be needed in other places anyway. Eleven carriers for seven seas. Do the math.

        1. Ken – why exactly are you lecturing me about Naval operations? I spent five years on a frigate conducting those operations.

          More generally, yes our ships can be sunk. So can theirs, for whoever “they” are. If you outnumber them 10 to 1, they will rather quickly run out of ships.

          Also more generally, we have allies for a reason. When we sent one ship to Georgia, the AAW capability for the task force was provided by a Spanish frigate. They can and do provide useful capabilities that we don’t need to duplicate.

          Finally, in peacetime, you can rarely deploy more than one in three of your ships. The other two are in maintenance, training or transit. If the goal is “one carrier in each of seven seas” then we actually need 21 carriers. Except for brief periods during WWII, we’ve never had that many carriers.

          1. “Ken – why exactly are you lecturing me about Naval operations? I spent five years on a frigate conducting those operations.”

            Because if you really did spend 5 years on a frigate (cleaning heads?) you learned nothing.

            ” If you outnumber them 10 to 1, they will rather quickly run out of ships.”

            Well let’s see – when do you think we will outnumber them 10-1? On station, in combat?

            Or perhaps you think that those ships back home will backfill losses when we fight at 2-1? Well don’t forget the psychological impact of losing 1-2 carriers.

            Or, even if we outnumbered them, in station in combat at, say, 5-1, have you never read about the Battle of Artemisium?
            Or Salamis?

            Clearly not.

            Surely you’ve heard about Midway. Where it was 2.75 carriers against 4, and the resultant loss ratio was 4-1.

            Do you have any idea when battles end?

          3. So, you understand how maintenance is a limiting factor and why we need a certain number of ships to retain current capabilities. Obama wants to cut the number of ships and reduce our capabilities. It fits right into his anti-colonial world view.

      2. The USN is bigger than the next ten navies in the world combined!

        Keeping it that way wouldn’t bother me much — I’d just like it to be less expensive to do so.

        1. Chris: Three words: Littoral Combat Ship. They’re small, fast, cheap and we’ve ordered 24 of them in two classes.

          Chris: 1) Restructuring the LCS (Littoral Combat Ship) program. Right now, we’ve got two expensive, fast but sadly under-gunned ships that are really designed to act as base ships for other (as yet unbuilt) weapons systems. In my view, we don’t need either ship…

          Well, they are fast. Expensive, short-legged, undermanned, undergunned, and fragile. But they’re fast.

        2. Chris: Three words: Littoral Combat Ship. They’re small, fast, cheap and we’ve ordered 24 of them in two classes.

          Chris: 1) Restructuring the LCS (Littoral Combat Ship) program. Right now, we’ve got two expensive, fast but sadly under-gunned ships that are really designed to act as base ships for other (as yet unbuilt) weapons systems. In my view, we don’t need either ship…

          Well, they are fast. Expensive, short-legged, undermanned, undergunned, and fragile. But they’re fast.

        3. How about a supertanker loaded with 550,000 tons of ANFO. Drive that sucker by remote control into an unfriendly Pacific Rim port, and set it off. As big as a nuke, without the bad PR.

          We have a precedent with the Texas City disaster, where the Grandcamp, carrying all of 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate, blew up. It killed 581 people, and leveled Texas City, doing an estimated $700 worth of damage. Imagine what half a million tons of the stuff could do.

          Supertankers costs around $500 million apiece, which is less than half the cost of a Littoral Combat Ship. For delivering a nuclear-scale blast to foreign ports, they can’t be beat.

  8. I am reminded how in the late 70s and early 80s, then Senator Gary Hart proposed scrapping carriers in favor of smaller, more nimble ships that would carry Harrier type jets. The scheme was forgotten when the Royal Navy suffered a number of casualties as a result of not having a big carrier to support the Falklands operation.

    1. I’m not sure what you mean. From what I remember of the Falklands, the British suffered from:

      1. Lack of effective missile defence. If an Exocet was launched, about all the ships could do was fire chaff rockets, manoeuvre away and cross their fingers.

      2. Lack of long-range early warning. That would certainly have benefited from a big carrier deck which could have launched something like an E-2.

      3. The usual ‘fog of war’. Ships were hit because radar officers ignored incoming intermittent targets which turned out to be Argentine aircraft, because one ship manoeuvred in front of another and prevented it from firing a missile that would have downed an attacking plane, and because a ship tried and failed to shoot down an incoming aircraft itself when Harriers were in a position to shoot it down for them.

      A big carrier would just have been a bigger target. Given how close they did come to losing a carrier, having just one carrier with conventional aircraft could have ensured a fast end to the war.

      1. A “full size” carrier would not have been “just” a bigger target, a full size carrier could have operated longer range, conventional take off and landing aircraft (as well as aerial tankers) which would have allowed it to operate much farther from and possibly even out of range of Argentine aircraft.

        A full size carrier would also have a larger compliment of aircraft allowing it to keep more aircraft up on CAP protecting the CVBG at the same time it was generating larger strike packages than the small “ski jump” British carriers could generate.

        1. True, tankers would have been useful, but AFAIR the Argentinians used at least one tanker of their own for attacking the fleet, so staying out of range would have required a long flight each way to the islands and back.

          Looks like the two Harrier carriers between them operated 38 Harriers, which Wikipedia says is the same number of aircraft as the last British conventional carrier. Would fixed-wing carrier aircraft of that time have been able to operate in those conditions? I remember Harrier pilots writing about flying in fog so thick they couldn’t see the carrier’s island from the deck, and a couple of times they landed on helicopter decks of other ships when they couldn’t get back to their carrier.

          1. American CVNs operate their aircraft under far worse conditions than the Brits did in the Falklands, and have been doing so with a very low accident rate for over 50 years. Contrary to what you seem to (erroneously) believe, VSTOL aircraft are MORE dangerous to operate than fixed wing aircraft, particularly in high wind environments (which is what the South Atlantic is known for. An interesting side point here is that smaller ships are inherently less stable in choppy seas than larger ones, hence a small carrier would be inherently less suitable for air operations than a large one.

            As far as aerial tankers, the big issue was not staying ‘out of range’, but allowing the aircraft to operate for longer periods. Given the very small number of aircraft available (at no one time did the Brits have more than 16 aircraft in the sky, and typically it was far less), being able to extend their endurance by even 50% would have had an enormous impact on the effectiveness of the CAP.

      2. Edward,

        1) The British ships in the Falklands did in fact have fairly good (for the time) AAW suites, including the Sea Dart, the Sea Slug (not making it up) and some early model Sea Wolf launchers. Given the reasonably small number of Exocets that they encountered (remember that these ships were designed to operate in a MUCH more hostile environment with Russian strike aircraft launching larger, MUCH faster missiles in very large – typically 30+ – swarms) their poor performance cannot be reasonably attributed to a lack of air defense. As evidence of this, note that numerous Argentine air raids against these same ships typically came to nothing, despite the fact that the aircraft were faster, and (somewhat) smarter than their robotic counterparts.

        2) You acknowlege that lack of AEW (something that a large deck carrier would provide) was a problem, but seem to ignore how big a problem that was. CVNs maintain a constant watch with Hawkeyes out to over 500 nm, effectively eliminating the sort of surprise that the Brits faced. This advantage cannot be overstated. An excellent historical parallel here is the ability British radar in WWII to compensate for the Spitfires extremely poor range by giving early warning of incoming German strikes. This (and the additional economy of force options it provided) was what permitted the RAF to survive in the Battle of Britain.

        3) The very few aircraft that the Brits had on their carriers were Harriers. These aircraft (and any others that would operate from small-deck carriers) were limited in range, duration, and payload, so much so that they were only capable of the most marginal air operations. They were of limited value as light bombers, and useful only against light Argentine aircraft flown by ‘challenged’ pilots operating at the extreme limits of their range in terrible weather. Against a more capable airforce or in a slightly less difficult environment (the South Atlantic is a truly awful environment for attackers), they would have been cut to pieces.

        4) As for the ‘fog of war’, small carriers typically lack C3I facilities (looking at Italian and Spanish carriers as examples) due to their limited size, which helps contribute to the problem. Airspace management is a big issue for task groups, and while training is the biggest part of the solution, facilities to support those trained crews are vital as well.

        5) Small carriers also lack the ability to sustain operations over anything more than short timeframes. They lack fuel capacity (refueling aircraft), and ammunition storage, as well as servicing and repair facilities. The practical result of this is that most small carriers are not able to sustain more than about 6-12 operational aircraft (plus a variable number of helicopters) for more than a few days under anything approaching combat operations tempo. For training exercises, this is problematic, for operations in contested waters, it is a recipe for disaster. Note that the Invincible at the Falklands was only able to operate 1/3 of its aircraft at any given time, which is one reason why the Harriers were so badly overworked.

        Big carriers are high value targets, but they are far better protected, more resilient (passive defense), and capable of far more effective ‘counterpunching’ than their smaller cousins. The navy (which has about another 10 or so ‘small carriers’ (amphibs with the capabilities equal to or exceeding those of the small carriers of the world) certainly does not see them as suitable replacements or even supplements for CVNs. The idea of sending one of these ships into battle without adequate air cover is absolutely insane.

    1. Cute, and yeah, that’s odd convention, given the size of some submarines.
      One explanation I found online is that submarines evolved from torpedo boats (in terms of what kind of ship/boat carries torpedoes). But I also noticed that submarines are repeatedly called “ships” here: http://www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87/faq.html

  10. iirc, traditionally, ‘ships’ carry ‘boats’ and way back in the day, I mean *way* back in the day (Think Mr Holland) subs were to be carried to the theater of employment due to their lack of endurance. That was improved rapidly but the terminology stuck.

    Tanks still use nautical terminology ‘decks, hatches, bulkheads, etc’ because a certain WS Churchill supported their development at a time when he was First Lord of the Admiralty or some such.

    1. Yes, and they were originally manned by naval crews (for a short time).

      I am sure that you all know the story of how tanks got their name? In order to disguise the fact that they wree being shipped into the French theatre, they were referred to as ‘water tanks, bound for Palestine’, or …. tanks

  11. This is a highly fascinating (to me) and complex issue:

    lots of El Cheapo’s or a few uber-weapons.

    I don’t have the answer because I suspect it depends upon the weapon system you’re talking about, the disparity in price, and the theater you are talking about, and the enemy you are fighting.

    So for example Abrahms tanks vs T-72’s manned by Iraqi’s, on the Iraqi desert, in either Gulf War. Abrahms were worth every penny spent….good armor, fire while moving, gun outranges the T-72’s, well trained crew.

    Aircraft:

    The F-22 is a great plane (once they fix the O2 system). Yes it can take on several e/a and kill them all before they know it’s there.

    Under certain conditions.

    But we have only 187. In an all-up, Big Shot, fairly long, no-kidding war with a real opponent (say China), you will lose them all. They boast that if a Raptor is in a bad spot the pilot made a mistake. Well pilots DO make mistakes. So you will lose Raptors in air-to-air. You will boil off more due to accidents, bad luck, Acts of Zeus. Then you will be down to F-15’s and F-16’s and a few A-10’s. There have been several studies/war games done by some Australians showing how the PLANAF could wipe out the entire F-22 force in a very short period of time through sheer numbers and some judicious planning.

    It would be interesting to know the % of GDP each ME-262 cost to build because the Germans could have had scads of them in 1943-ish and we would have been in serious trouble. In the air, you could not lay a glove on them. Only by vultching them during take-off and landing could you drop big numbers of them.

    Then there was the Fighter Mafia push for low cost fighters resulting in the F-16 (and F-18 eventually) and also resulting in the Hi-Low mix which has actually turned out ok for us…when against 5th rate opponents.

    Who knows how that would have worked out had the Warsaw Pact rolled West in the 70’s or 80’s? My prediction there is that all high tech weaponry would be gone within 3 weeks and it would be a battle of bullets, grenades and bayonets. The manufacturing base back then could not, I believe, replace complex high tech weapons fast enough to matter in the first year. The winner would be decided by who could pump in reinforcements faster.

    So the above stream-of-consciousness are some of the thoughts I’ve had over time regarding expensive/complex vs cheap and numerous. A topic I’m happy to explore through exchange.

      1. Well yeah but Ivan would have been scraping Mig-21’s and -17’s out of their bone yard…..

        And their bone yard was MUCH larger than ours.

        1. Given the accident rate on those aircraft, I would argue that they would run out of pilots LONG before we ran out of aircraft/pilots.

          Gives new meaning to the phrase ‘boneyard’….

    2. Hardly necessary to speculate actually….

      This whole high/low argument (so very popular in the late 70s and 80s) was put to the test in Iraq in the first gulf war. The Iraqi army used Russian equipment, trained with Russian doctrine (the Russians used to refer to the Iraqis as ‘our star pupils’, and rated them as better than every other soviet client other than East Germany), and they were wiped out almost without loss by NATO forces using those expensive weapons. The Israelis (using the ‘hi’ part of the hi/lo mix….remember, they use their F-16Is for ground strike, the F-15Is are thei air supremacy birds) compiled an unbroken record of almost embarassing levels of success against arab airforces who often outnumber then 5:1. The militaries of the world that are serious about operational success (as opposed to praetorian guards for the President-For-Life) took the hint, and have been procuring these high-end systems whenever they can afford them.

      The Australian study you refer to is predicated upon the assumption that the Chinese can do two things successfully. One of these is eliminate Guam as an airfield with ballistic missile attacks (certainly possible, but their capability is unproven to say the least), and the second is to knock out USAF tanker aircraft, leaving the F-22s with no operational ability at range. Once again, possible, but that means you have to find the tankers (not so easy, the pacific is a VERY big place), and second you have to get your own strike off to take them out….not always that easy either, as these aircraft are well defended. By the way, the Chinese have been discarding their ‘low mix’ aircraft very quickly and buying more ‘high mix’ aircraft as fast as they can. Seems like they don’t take your co0ncerns seriously either.

      You ignore the fact that low-end aircraft tend to be far, far more accient prone than high-end ones (fewer safety features and lesser avionics), as the Indian experience with MiG-21s demonstrate quite nicely. Large numbers of aircraft also cost more to operate (training, etc., and the number of flight-hours to sustain it), and require larger numbers of pilots (thus diluting the overall quality of the pilot pool) to sustain. Finally, the low-end mix you are suggesting also implies higher casualty rates, which brings up the question of morale and sustainability of operations. Unless you assume that our potential enemies are robots (someday, perhaps that will be the case I suppose….hopefully we get there first), you cannot simply wave away that issue.

      Finally managing complex air operations with large numbers of low-mix aircraft is inherently more demanding. Not only do you have the normal air operation issues (airfields, resupply, etc.) you also have airspace management and air-battle control. AWACS aircraft (or ground-based controllers) have limited capacities, and thus larger battles require more of these essential support units. It is far from clear that the overall costs associated with fielding and operating low-mix air forces (or navies or ground forces) are actually lower in toto than those of high-mix air forces.

      In short, the issues you have raised have been explored in the real world….they don’t stand up.

      1. “This whole high/low argument (so very popular in the late 70s and 80s) was put to the test in Iraq in the first gulf war.”

        I disagree. it was not put to the test because we weren’t playing with a first class opponent. Same holds true with the Arab Israeli conflict you cite.

        Nor have we been in a fight that lasted long enough to put pressure on the manufacturing base…we were never at risk of running out of planes or tanks.

        One major component of the F-22 takes TWO YEARS to manufacture and test (wing box structure I believe).

        So I have to disagree with your post…..none of the issues I mention have been explored in the “real” world – that is to say, a long term conflict with a first class opponent.

        And that is where it counts.

        1. Nor is it likely to EVER happen that way again. The idea of a knock-down, drag-out fight between two first class powers (which is what you are talking about) that doesn’t escalate to something much, much worse (think large mushroom clouds) simply makes no sense…the whole point of war planning be centered around quick wars that can be ended after a set of early victories is the natural outgrowth of nuclear weapons and the phenomenal dangers involved in escalation. The Soviets planned this way during the Cold War (finish the blitzkreig through Western Europe in six weeks or less, then call for peace talks), and the Chinese clearly are looking at similar options in Taiwan and North-Eastern India. The longer a war lasts, the greater the risk that someone will do soemthing stupid that cannot be called back, and then…well you get the idea…

          As far another first-class opponent, that certainly isn’t impossible, but it is rather unlikely. If the US felt compelled to stand up for Taiwan (everyone’s favorite scenario), they are a whole lot more likely to simply blockade China and seize its assets (as well as embargo its cheap commercial products, which would shatter their economy far mroe effectively than the most successful air strikes) than risk vital assets in a frontal attack that the Chinese are expecting. The parallel here is the UK vs Germany in WWI….the RN didn’t bother with the silliness of a direct conflict on the high seas, they simply put their blockade into place, and let it slowly strangle the Germans. Only a colossally stupid set of blunders allowed Jutland to take place almost 2 years later, and after escaping their foolishness, they went right back to the blockade and didn’t try direct conflict again.

          You also ingore that in a fight between two top militaries, the ‘small ship/aircraft’ strategy (i.e. attrition through numbers) requires one side (the ones with the lesser vessels, etc.) to essential trade large numbers of their own people and assets in exchange for smaller number of their opponents people/assets, for example…100 Su-30s for 10 F-22s. The question as to whether any military serious considers this a viable option (the post-war environment would be paralous at best, and the morale issues during the campaign would be problematic) seems to be ignored by the bloodthirsty planners who advocate this sort of silliness.

          Finally, you make the (correct) point that there do exist within the industrial base several key bottlenecks that would make replacing losses difficult if not impossible in a reasonable amount of time. Ignoring for a moment that the Chinese would have WORSE problems in this way (they do not make their own engines despite decades of effort to develop them, their avionics are primitive to the point that their warplanes use imported electronics, and their airframes are still largely imported for all but the simplest designs), your point addresses not high end vs low end (the biggest problems that the Chinese face, for instance, is engines for their LOW-end aircraft), but rather designs which are poorly designed for large-scale production. Given the numerous issues that the Russians have faced with both aircraft and ship production (the latter being even worse than the notoriously corrupt and inefficient Pasagoula shipyards in the US), no to mention the horrific issues that the Chinese have had with quality control in destroyer production, this is hardly something related to the type of vessel or aircraft, but the nature of the manufactering process in general.

          There is a reason that high end foces defeat low end ones…they are simply better. There is also a reason that high-end militaries tend to choose those forces (as the Chinese are attempting to do now), they are wise enough to see that they work better. The Soviet model (the only military that ever truly embraced this approach) failed in every place it was tried (and I should point out that the Iraqis were considered ‘star pupils’ by their Soviet trainers, as were the Egyptians), and while the quality of the opposition certainly had a great deal to do with it, the inability of the force mix to meet even basic standards for efficacy might have more to do with it than you seem able to accept.

          The world’s top militaries (US, UK, France, China, India, and Russia) have all either bet the farm on the high-end model or moved to embrace it as quickly as they can convert their old militaries to encompass it. Can you point to a single counterexample?

    3. There’s also a fear factor aspect. We built the MOAB to intimidate troops in the open, and it worked. F-22’s can’t carry them, although we do have many C-130’s (which like many Navy surface vessels do extra duty in providing humanitarian mission capability). For C-130’s, we are limited in Specter gunship variants, which Iraqi national guard and Taliban fighters agree scare the shit out of them. The Battle of Mogadishu and the attack in Benghazi would have gone differently had one of those been circling.

      Technology gives the edge to US warfighters, and we need it. But the thing that changes the mind of our enemies is basic and raw firepower. Lots of it, the better.

  12. There’s another consideration, too.

    Missions.

    F-22s are primarily tasked with killing things. Warships have lots of other missions, many of which don’t require 50kt speed, Aegis, or F-18s. Missions like boarding civilian ships to visit the locals or inspect cargo for wartime contraband or determine hostile activity. Missions like showing the flag at ports, maintaining presence operations, or training other navies or coast guards.

    Some of these missions really need the USCG more than the USN, but it’s hard to find the proper balance between uniform types, ship designs, and so forth. That’s partly why you see so many passionate arguments online over these issues. How important is VBSS vs. being able to handle a first-world battle group? Is it more of a waste to use Burkes on pirate patrols, or to build cutters that cannot be risked in any theater where ASCMs might start flying with little or no warning?

    On top of that, there are issues regarding the specific designs being built. LCS is defended for its potential versatility and price compared to a Burke. LCS is derided for its multitude of specific flaws and for its price compared to the capabilities that it brings (especially regarding the lengthy/costly delays to the mission modules that it was supposedly built around). Big-deck carriers are dead meat; big-deck carriers are more powerful/efficient than small-deck carriers could ever be (see: Falklands). Large crews cost too much (crew costs are now probably over half of a warship’s TCO); small crews (see: LCS) are unable to keep up with maintenance, turning their ships into scrap years earlier than anticipated. The complexity of the missions and the capability of the various designs just makes it a tougher, more detailed issue to debate.

    For those who are interested in learning more, check out sites like Information Dissemination, Commander Salamander, USNI Blog, etc. (and their blogrolls, which between them catch most of the other major players).

    1. An excellent post.

      As much as I hate saying this, Gerrib actually made an excellent point in suggesting that the European MEKO design might be a good place to build some of these ‘operations short of war or at least low intensity war’ ships as opposed to the mess that is the LCS. Just because high-mix ships make more sense in a high-threat environment doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of cases were some low-mix ships wouldn’t be useful as well. We have a diversity of missions, some diversity of ships isn’t a bad idea.

      Not sure that I think that this applies to aircraft, the duration question alone (ships go on station, after all) tends to make them a different kettle of fish, but your point re: ship missions is very well taken indeed.

      By the way, what are your thoughts regarding the experience with crew fatigue during LCS sea trials?

      1. Crew fatigue is a problem on any minimally-manned ship. My FFG (A Perry-class ship was intended to be minimally-manned, and we were for a time slated to go into the Reserves and thus not getting new crewmembers sent to us. It was, in short, tiring, and maintenance suffered. The problem is when money is tight (and I was in during Bush 41, so money wasn’t supposed to be tight) the US at least skimps on maintenance personnel to keep warfighters.

        Regarding the MEKO – they have (or can have, depending on the options selected) a pretty decent AAW suite. Again, who exactly are we going to fight that has a good air force? The North Koreans can barely get their planes in the air, the Iranians are more bluff than capability, and anybody else is worse than they are. A frigate that can deal with 1 or 2 Exocet-type ASCMs can operate in 90% of the world’s oceans. Back that frigate up with a CVBG and it can go anywhere.

        1. Alas, LCS can’t. A single RAM launcher with a limited magazine, backed up by a 57mm cannon that, last I heard, didn’t even have the proper fire control software to be aimed with anything other than a TV camera–which precludes shooting down incoming missiles.

          ESSM would (probably) fix a lot of the self-defense problems, but that’s far from the only issue.

          There have been quite a few calls for a MEKO or MEKO-like frigate. There have also been some good cases made for an Absalon-like multipurpose ship. As the Undersecretary has pointed out (repeatedly), a frigate isn’t going to be as cost-effective as a Burke in Aegis applications–but, that doesn’t mean that a frigate shouldn’t be able to at least defend itself properly while going about an independent mission.

          1. Whoops–forgot the other point. The reference to other nations’ AFs is a bit misleading; you don’t need the SAMs to vanquish enemy fighters nearly as much as you need them to splash the plethora of missiles that have largely replaced gunfire as the primary naval ordnance.

            ESSM these days is purported to have a range approaching that of your old ship’s SM-1. That would seem to be adequate to me to defend a ship and provide some degree of protection to nearby vessels without having to resort to Aegis.

        2. The experience with the LCS ships and their manning problems is far, far worse than what we have seen in the past. The problem isn’t undermanning per se, in most cases the ships have their manning levels at the design point, but an unusual flaw has cropped up. Apparently the rather lean crew complements provide enough personnel for operations, but nobody gets any rest, and the lack of any slack means that the plethora of nonspecific tasks that always crop up on any operational vessel eats into existing crew responsibilities. The practical effect is that the crew’s efficiency is fine at first, but plummets after only a very short time at sea. Giving the heavy reliance on automation, and the limited berthing capacity (especially in conjunction with the use of mission modules for any real capability), this could become a crippling problem for the LCS with no easy solution in sight.

          Regarding the AAW suite, Big D makes the point I wanted to. Unlike the Perry (which actually provides an area AAW capability), the LCS provides point defense only, and not particularly good point defense at that. The RAM is fine as a last-ditch defense, but without some sort of decent fire control (no joy there), it is useful only against a 1 or 2 missile engagement, and even then only against reasonably slow missiles. Since the trend is towards faster missiles (specifically to defeat point defense systems), this means that absent some serious support (either an Aegis quality vessel and/or a CVBG), the LCS won’t last long in even a moderate threat environment. As for those potential threats, The Iranians and the North Koreans have nothing dangerous in the the way of manned aircraft, but they do have a large enough number of anti-shipping missiles to make life unpleasant at best (hazardous at worst) for a vessel like an LCS. Given a more dangerous foe (or simply one buying weapons from someone who knows their business), the LCS is little better than a target. Keep in mind that the threat against modern warships is more likely to be missiles than manned aircraft, as the latter are more expensive to operate and difficult to procure.

  13. “Missions like boarding civilian ships to visit the locals or inspect cargo for wartime contraband or determine hostile activity.”

    ….dealing with piracy..

  14. This sort of Zerg vs. Protoss debate is always fun, but I think anyone who supports the “big ships and F-22” side of things is missing the key revolution in military affairs: drones.

    When a drone dies you don’t lose the pilot. And the AI that drives these systems will just get better each year. They’ll do more and more without human intervention or supervision.

    The DARPA Grand Challenge for self-driving cars sent cars over miles of undeveloped terrain, and that was 7 years ago. You have to assume we will have “drone” tanks, troop carriers, and other specialized vehicles very soon. Swarms of tanks.

    Same for air and sea. They’re working on drone subs and of course drone bombers and drone recon aircraft are all the rage. Drone dog-fighters are only a matter of time.

    I expect that the US military will move to a modular, drone force over the next 10-20 years. Most operators will never leave the US mainland. We will always need boots on the ground, but any big, capital intensive target will be overwhelmed with enough drones. The F-22 program won’t be able to compete with a drone factory turning out 1,000 units per day.

    1. Just combine three concepts in your head:

      1. All the Americans who have experience controlling whole squadrons of semi-autonomous tanks, planes and ships, thanks to games like Battlefield.

      2. The proven abilities of current drones, and near-term likely improvements.

      3. 3D printing.

      —-
      Considering we have allowed most of our shipyards to go bust, and we don’t produce skilled tradesman much these days, points 1 to 3 above is what America had to work with.

      So what do you think is the most-likely war force of the future?

      1. So what do you think is the most-likely war force of the future?

        Gets a bit like fleas upon fleas doesn’t it? With no pilot aboard the combat aircraft can be smaller for the same performance, so the ships carrying them can be smaller, where does it end, 3-5000 tonne unmanned aircraft carriers?

    2. The problem with depending on drones is that drones are dependent on communications links which can be jammed, spoofed, or severed, as the Iranians so embarassingly demonstrated by hijacking one.

    3. Drones are fine for some things, but they are extremely limited in others. Right now in a communications-friendly environment the drones (which are remotely piloted, NOT AI-driven) are capable, but what happens when the commlink is lost? AI is a fascinating technology, but we haven’t seen any viable demonstrations yet even at the experimental level of true AI-driven combat aircraft, much less more complex weapon systems (Bolos anyone?) No doubt we will, and likely in the next decade, but even then, we are looking at at least one more generation of human piloted weapons before the last of our warmachines become fully roboticized. Note that the next generation of large carriers (the Ford class) uses extensive automation and has roughly half the crew size of the existing Nimitz class. The process is beginning, we just aren’t there yet.

      With that said, a good case could be made for a small carrier with UAVs for light strike operations in a ‘permissive’ environment. Remember that the USN has been VERY aggressive about developing drones for strike deployment (mostly SEAD and EW operations….very, very dangerous these days) in the very near term (by 2020) future.

      1. Key words in your comment: “right now” and “yet”.

        I don’t disagree that AI is no replacement for a soldier at this time. Maybe it never will be. But it could reach “good enough” fairly quickly. Especially considering the American aversion to casualties, and the high cost of training new soldiers.

        AI also has certain advantages. Even if dumber, they can be a lot faster. An AI given the simple command of “roll in and kill everything that moves” might waste some bullets on a house cat and occasionally make a tactical mistake, but their ability to “target, fire, find new target” in microsecond sequence would be a formidable advantage. Plus, no fear.

        1. Call me when you find a politician willing to accept a weapons system that can kill people with no human being in the decision loop. If you think that we have an aversion to combat casualties, just wait till you see what happens when some combat droid smokes a village because of a software glitch. It WILL happen (such is the nature of software) at some point, and somebody’s head will roll. Politicians (in and out of uniform) will push that day back as long as they can…who knows, perhaps they might even be right?

          Technically, it can be done (or will be done soon enough), but this is a lot more than a tactical or technical problem…

          1. That is a good point but other countries are not so kind as us and we are not the only people who know how to use technology.

          2. If you get a serious war, one that threatens the US, not just “US interests” the likely advantages of drone warfare will quickly see such reservations about “collateral damage” evaporate.

      2. A few drones here and there are hard to defend against. Massive drone attacks are easy to counter with EMP because it then becomes cost effective to do so.

        Ground is not taken by air forces. It’s taken by ground forces.

        Germany launched thousands of V2s which had almost no impact on that war.

        Star Trek had an episode about a clean war run by computers. The essential truth of that is and always will be true… war is people vs. people.

  15. I got the answer from Romney’s book which I had an idea about anyway. It’s not that we don’t need sophisticated ships, planes and tanks. It’s that we need more than those things. Our main battle tank, air superiority fighter and best ships don’t fight alone. They need support vehicles as well. We tend to focus on the highlights and forget all the myriad of support vehicles required. Something we have to remember when the actual fighting demonstrates their lack.

    Combat effectiveness is about having the right mix including logistics. Obama actually pointed that out without realizing it. We needed horses in Afghanistan and all marines are riflemen and carry bayonets because without one you are in deep trouble when the fighting gets intense.

    That’s along with the fact that the best equipment in the world is worthless if you don’t have enough to cover the areas needing covering.

  16. Re. Brock’s comment above: I seem to remember an online SF fanfic which had as a central theme the idea that the aliens sent in infiltrators – and then recoiled in horror and left in a hurry when they found out that a good half of the teenage boys in the West spent as much time as they were allowed to, endlessly running combat simulations – for fun. 😉

    Slightly more seriously, it might well be that the elite warriors of 2040 might be recruited from the ranks of Halo contest winners.

    1. The winner should be out the look out for Zando-Zan when he returns home. Of course if he listenes to Centauri, his family wont be in any danger but it might be hard to forget about Maggie.

  17. If there’s anyone reading this thread who is not yet familiar with Arthur C. Clarke’s short story “Superiority”, you should remedy the deficit. I’t easily findable with a fast google search and still as valid today as it was back then.

      2. …if you’re a political hack who can cherrypick “likely enemies” to conform with his chosen idol’s narrative.

      1. I can’t think of any accurate real life equivalent scenarios

        So we should trust our security on your lack of imagination? Let me help you.

        The world is a lot faster today. Our enemies do not have to match us in numbers or superiority to strike a significant blow. They don’t even have to win to hurt us. They only have to expose weaknesses and take advantage of them. We have a lot of them.

        Being faster means another Pearl Harbor, this time in many places at once, could mean we lose the ability to defend ourselves. Distributing your force is the only known method of countering this. To distribute your forces means you have to have enough to distribute.

        China can not and will not match us in aircraft carriers which is the core of our naval forces for decades if ever. They do not have to. They can take out 9% of our navy strength with a single missile or torpedo. Guess what they are focussing on building? Submarines and land based missiles. Guess what we failed to detect with all the escort ships of our aircraft carriers? A submarine that popped up near enough to take out a carrier.

        Here’s another failure of imagination: What happens if our enemies see we lack presence because we have too few ships and just take pieces of land in those areas and then immediately stop fighting? Are we going to push them out or decide it’s not worth it? Did we push Russia out when they took half of Georgia after strongly suggesting we had their back? I believe our land forces are superior to the Russians. That didn’t help if we weren’t there. Note that China isn’t going after Taiwan right now, they’re going after other islands.

        They don’t have to win any big battle. They just have to nibble long enough. Having a presence can put a halt to that nibbling requires enough ships.

        Speaking loudly without a big stick didn’t work in Georgia.

        Peace through strength works. We don’t get a do over if we err on too small.

  18. We cant always think the next war will be like the last but if the next war is like that last one, we should fire up the production of AC130 gunships and A10s.

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