via Marine Corps Times.
I see the Aviation Mafia and the Amos sycophants are hitting hard while trying their best to legacy build a failed Commandant.
The facts are more stark than these two want to admit. IF SHIPS MUST STAND OFF 100 MILES OFFSHORE BECAUSE OF THE REACH OF ANTI-SHIP MISSILES THEN HOW SAFE ARE AIRCRAFT WHEN SYSTEMS LIKE THE S-400 HAVE RANGES OF OVER 300 MILES?
Amphibious Assault is still alive.
It just won't be simple, easy and accomplished by the Marine Corps alone. That dream is dead. If we're going to storm a beach then it will be all hands on deck, we won't be able to transport everyone by helo. We're going to have to do it old school style and create corridors for amphibs to make dashes to shore, covered by USAF, USN, and USMC fighters...get shore bombardment from the DDG-1000, effectively maneuver once we get feet dry and then have the Army push a Stryker Brigade or two through the gap while we reconstitute and get ready to do it all over again at another location.
The Amos cabal sees the writing on the wall.
Dunford is going to tear down their house of cards.
In their white paper titled “Are the Marines Procuring Their Way to Irrelevance?” retired Col. James G. Magee and retired Maj. Richard G. DuVall, both say that Commandant Gen. Jim Amos’ focus on the development of the Amphibious Combat Vehicle 1.1 to replace the decades-old Amphibious Assault Vehicle and the further procurement of additional F-35 joint strike fighters is misguided and does not suit the service’s future needs.Don't you dare buy a bit of the bullshit that these two are shoveling!
The proliferation of advanced missile technology today means ships must maintain a minimum stand-off distance of 100 miles from shore to preserve an adequate strike warning system.. That stand-off distance presents a significant modernization hurdle for a Corps seeking to deliver amphibious forces ashore.
Given current technology, modifying and procuring existing helicopter lift is the best option to get men and armor ashore, Magee and DuVall believe.
I see the Aviation Mafia and the Amos sycophants are hitting hard while trying their best to legacy build a failed Commandant.
The facts are more stark than these two want to admit. IF SHIPS MUST STAND OFF 100 MILES OFFSHORE BECAUSE OF THE REACH OF ANTI-SHIP MISSILES THEN HOW SAFE ARE AIRCRAFT WHEN SYSTEMS LIKE THE S-400 HAVE RANGES OF OVER 300 MILES?
Amphibious Assault is still alive.
It just won't be simple, easy and accomplished by the Marine Corps alone. That dream is dead. If we're going to storm a beach then it will be all hands on deck, we won't be able to transport everyone by helo. We're going to have to do it old school style and create corridors for amphibs to make dashes to shore, covered by USAF, USN, and USMC fighters...get shore bombardment from the DDG-1000, effectively maneuver once we get feet dry and then have the Army push a Stryker Brigade or two through the gap while we reconstitute and get ready to do it all over again at another location.
The Amos cabal sees the writing on the wall.
Dunford is going to tear down their house of cards.
If you take the modern equivalent of an Iowa class battleship, replace the 5"/38 guns with modern 5" guns and the fire control systems to run them, along with rolling-airframe missiles and CIWS (or 30mm Goalkeeper or something like the Russian Kashtan system), and park it close to shore and unleash hell. Let the tin cans sit off the coast for surface-shore missile support (linked to CIC on the battleship). It is disgusting what we have lost since WWII and Korea. Instead of advancing and upgrading what we had, we scrapped it (literally).
ReplyDeletewell i was going to put it in a post, but we lost it but we're getting it back. the DDG1000 is a gun cruiser. the Navy is working on electromagnetic rail guns and lasers. we already have the LCAC. we have destroyers that can knock down anything flying, we have cruise missile subs that can dessimate a shoreline and yet the Marine Corps says we can't get close to shore?
DeleteFYI Arleigh Burke Flight III will probably not be compatible with the BAE/GE railguns, because they do not have IEP propulsion which is what the UK T45s and the US Zumwalts have to power advanced new systems. That would be a good start. DCNS also had a concept for a small LCS called the swordship, with 155mm artillery for shore bombardment.
DeleteIMO all future main USN combat ships should be outfitted with IEP to power future systems like more advanced radars such as AMDR, lasers and railguns.
The USN should also consider building a class of ships akin to the Fast Battleships but armed with missiles and very powerful rail-guns, they would replace the ticonderoga class as the USN cruiser element, and provide a BMD capability.
If shore based bombardment is such a big requirement, cant you take Civilian Ships like you used to in WW2 and outfit them with your old retired or mothballed artillery? Long Toms, 175mm's, 203mm's etc. Have a ship like this embedded with every battlegroup. 2 turrets of 203's with 3 in each turret and another 2 turrets of 175mm's. The civilian ship has already been built, if not, just simply copy the civilian design most favorable to your usage. In an open sea environment, the carrier battlegroups cover with protect the ship, and in the littorals, it can reign down fire without having to risk your uber expensive destroyers. Keep the systems and electronics on that ship to a bare minimum to save on the cost. Basically a Barge with turrets on it.
DeleteTake some time to read through this: http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/files/2007-05_JFSC_Thesis_NFS_and_DDG-1000.pdf
ReplyDeleteThere is no way that the DDG1000 will be able to perform naval gunfire support the way we used to do it. The ship is a lightly armored tin-can compared to the old warships and will be very vulnerable to shore fire, and a single 155mm with restricted magazine capacity is not going to cut it.
From the report "In weight of ordnance delivered to the target in one day, a single Capital Surface
Warship equals or exceeds the capabilities of a single aircraft carrier. The aviation strike
package in this analysis is forty FA-18 Super Hornet aircraft all carrying max ordnance
loads operating under ideal conditions. This assumes no aircraft diverted for local air
defense or offensive counter air operations. CSW major caliber gun ranges extend to 400
miles with a scramjet or rail gun. This analysis does not address missiles that would be
carried by the surface warships, nor does it address tactical timeliness, ordnance
suitability, or cost of aircraft losses penetrating a hostile air environment. Even without
considering those additional factors, the capabilities of the CVN and CSW are significant.
For one day’s firing, the Extended Range Munition-equipped DDG-51 and the
DDG-1000 provide 4% to at most 11% of the weight of ordnance of the CSW. More
importantly, they quickly run out of munitions. The number of rounds carried by each
ship is limited and can be fired within an hour at the maximum sustained rates of fire.310
Moreover, these smaller shells provide much less lethality in a major combat operation
against a competent foe presenting a target rich environment."
Rail guns right now are really young technology, and are flat trajectory weapons, they do not look good for lobbing heavy shells over obstructions like conventional artillery. Missiles get really expensive really fast, and have limited magazines backing them up. How long will a destroyer or sub launching surface-to-shore missiles take to exhaust their stores? Hours at most, more than likely minutes...then have to pull out of the combat area to resupply.
As for air defense, we have never seen a saturation attack (like the Russians train and build for) against a modern air-defense cruiser. The aegis ships have amazing capacities, but once they blow their missile cells they are nothing but a beer can with a target painted on it.
Sol,
ReplyDeleteYou are correct to point out that if an adversary has advanced surface-to-surface missiles that will push the fleet out beyond 100nm, then they will also have advanced surface-to-air systems that will be able to target helo/tilt rotor aircraft. Even SA-6s and 8s can handle low altitude targets that travel at 3-5nm per minute.
My question to the Corps is where, when, and why will we have to conduct a large scale forcible entry/amphibious assault against a near peer with advanced anti access capabilities? Not amphibious operations, but opposed amphibious operations. There was very little support for Lejune and his transformational ideas in the 1920s, but there was a very specific need to secure advanced naval bases in support of War Plan Orange. Let's face it, frontal assault against a well defended enemy is a bad idea whether at the Marne, Gallipoli, or Oki. But it was absolutely necessary in the context of the WWII Pacific, for the Navy to operate with exterior logistical lines.
The Greeks, Romans, and British all used amphibious operations, they just knew to land where the enemy WASN'T. Gallipoli being the noted exception.
The Marines were on the verge of irrelevance following WWI, but men like Lejune and Ellis found a way to make the Marines so relevant as to create a separate service post WWII. If the Marines are facing the same challenge today, my feeling is it's because they have allowed USSOCOM/JSOC to become the perceived US "911 force". True or not- SEALs, 160th, and AFSOC can solve all of America's problems- that perception used to belong to the Marines.
i think we have to look at it from the basic premise.
Deletedo we need to have the ability to conduct an opposed amphibious assault? i say yes. hopefully we can plan the amount of resistance we meet due to landing where they ain't but the idea that we can get everyone ashore with helicopters is to make the Marine Corps irrelevant in my opinion!
why are some so anxious to do away with the ground combat element or seriously neuter it by taking away ground transport?
The United States needs the ability to conduct an opposed amphibious assault. The question is how large? MEU is X amount, MEB is X amount, more than that is unacceptable in the current environment. If you can't justify more than 3:1 to 10:1 advantage force foe an assault, then you're not preparing your planners for the current modern battlefield.
DeleteWe can do it. It will be bloody.
The USA is not going to get a numerical force advantage of 3:1-10:1 against the russians or chinese, especially if they have to airfreight or even seafreight the forces arround, let alone making an opposed landing.
DeleteAnd god forbid that country have a force of some 60 frigates, many of which carry 32+ long-range SAMs, 60 missile boats and about 60 submarines, a few carriers, airborne sea-air patrolls, and in excess of a 1,000 fighter planes, many of which are comparable to the F16. And that is before you throw the Russians into the mix. And they will probably end up operating a fleet of a few thousand modern fighter planes.
At this point we arent even talking about carrier launched planes, we are talking about dozens of airbases in foreign countries, with hundreds of fighter planes. Russia and india alone is to order 500 T-50s, india will probably (almost certainly!) end up operating an airforce of arround 1,000 5th/4th gen planes, and if india is to do that, russia will probably do the same, china will probably end up with at least double that, which gives a red team force of at least 3,000 planes, and probably a few hundred strategic bombers armed with long-range missiles.
Not to mention by 2030, ASEAN is predicted to have GDP of about 10Tn dollars, and what about all these other emerging superstates, the south american union, an arab union? All these could realistically be quiet hostile, many of the states that make these already are! Unless the US changes, I don't think it will be strong enough to do any of this!
All it will take is for one other power to intervene, and the US-EU is screwed, completely screwed. And these other countries will have their own interests too. Unless we can achieve far higher growth rates than we currently are, the west will fade into obscurity!
Riding on the coattails of your Super State theory, the US sort of has a loose framework: Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK.
DeleteThese states already cooperate militarily in ways where units are fashioned in a way after the US: the NSA/Echelon SIGINT program, the Special Forces are organized similarly (a large airborne/air assault/commando formation serve as recruiting pools for elite Special Operations groups like Special Forces, SAS, JTF2.
Their foreign policies align almost perfectly (aside from the occasional hiccup like Kiwi objection to nuclear weapons), they fly many of the same types of aircraft as the US.
We can call it Oceania *wink*
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DeleteJacobite.NZ.....Whoa....when did India end up as a Red Team ?
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Deletelol never said that, what I meant was that if India is going to have like 1,000 fighter planes, russia which is much larger will probably have at least the same amount and seeing how china which is several times the size of russia, and knows that russia and india are quiet close, will probably want to have at least twice as many, which gives 3K for team red (russia-china), at minimum, of which probably at least half will be 5th Gen, going from russian and indian orders for T50s.
DeletePoint being, the balance of power is going to shift, not just economically, but militarily, and it is going to happen fast, look how fast they have built there modern destroyers and frigates, look how fast it took to make their missile boats and submarines. It wasn't that long ago that they didn't really have any area defence equiped ships, now that is I believe most of their major surface combat vessals.
No idea why posts were removed lol.
Apparently its a Marine Corps centric blog and not a Visit Australia for Job Opportunities Blog.heheh.
DeleteI think he means it is not a politics blog lol, truth is that at that china will surpass the GDP PPP of both the EU and US, if growth rates remain arround the same, within about 15 years. By that time ASEAN is predicted to have a GDP of 10Tn (ppp I think), which will be arround half that of the USA, also india should have GDP of around 5tn, and china of about 41Tn. If japan can somehow manage to grow at just 3% it will have a GDP of 7.3tn, and ANZ a GDP of 2tn, all figures PPP. So maybe Japan+ANZ+South korea will have an economy arround the size of ASEAN. And russia 6.1Tn.
DeleteThat is how much the balance of power is going to shift, ASEAN is probably going to be more of a power in the asia pacific than ANZ+SK+Japan combined. It is going to be half the size of the USA. It would take ANZ+SK+JAP+ASEAN+USA+IND to match china+russia. Or everyone else in asia+usa+Europe to match China+russia+ASEAN, and india and the middle east are the kingmakers.
Putting things into these perspectives, the pivot to asia will not do much, and I don't think we will see anymore big landings, unless they are chinese ones. And it is going to be very hard to maintain an equal balance of power, unless growth rates change!
*mistake* And india, and it would take india to maintain an economic balance with russia china and ASEAN.
DeleteSo its going to be impossible to maintain an equal balance of power, even if china slows down when it matches the productivity of american workers on a per capita basis, it will still be about 1.5times larger than the EU and USA combined when that hapens, and by that time the ASEAN GDP might be around the level of americas, aproaching twice. So china and ASEAN will be maybe 2.5x (China alone 3x the USA) the GDP of the EU and USA combined within 40-50 years if historic rates remain at present levels. The sinosphere is already 50% of world gdp, it will probably reach 75% before too long. How can you possibly fight against that? The only thing that could possibly change this is if growth rates change drastically....
All I can say, is I hope they don't copy american foreign policy, and 'intervene' in foreign countries all the time to 'bring a better form of government' and 'freedom'. Thankfully my country has alot of asian migrants, so I think it is quiet unlikely that they would hurt us too much.
Hope this one doesnt get deleted....
One thing about Purchasing Power Parity is that when it comes to International Transactions, this concept just melts away. And ASEAN with China is all about trade, Trade that must be dealt in and paid for in Hard US Dollars and not the Purchasing Power Parity Currency. If we were to take PPP now, India Overtook Japan as the worlds third largest economy in April, 2014.
DeleteBut here lies a rider.........India's Rupee currency tumbled down from a respectable 38-40 to a dollar when times were good to a consistant 45 which we were used to and now to 60 to a dollar. That plain sucks. I now have to pay sooooo much more for my computer hardware which is being imported from Thailand and Taiwan etc.
The same way my Govt. now has to make those enormous WEAPONS PURCHASES in hard US Dollars as well as Interest and Principal Paymets to the world bank, IMF etc. Every time India or ASEAN with China pays for Arab Oil, its in US dollars and not in PPP currency. And that is the reason why I usually do not go with PPP because our economis are sooo linked up, and all those link ups are in US dollars and not in some Universal PPP Credit System
Btw, in real currency terms where rupee converts to dollar taking into account real life opportunities and problems, India's GDP is just 1.8 trillion US dollars. In PPP terms it is closer to 5.5 trillion. But when it comes to buying weapons, paying depbt and purchasing energy....3 of our bigggest foreign payments, it is thr 1.8 that counts and not the 5.5. The same is true for China, ASEAN, ANZAC etc. Those humble folks at Lockheed and Northup and all those gentle Arabs just wont accept PPP Universal Credits.
DeleteTo some degree PPP is not that good, but when these countries start their own defence industries, and with economies that large they will, and they will rely on them primarily for their armaments, as india is starting to do, then this will at least partially translate into lower cost military equipment. So I think in the long-run it is going to hold true.
DeleteAnd FYI americas allies get shafted over defense imports, they give you a cut back product, charge you much more often, try and give you lots of strings. But I guess so does Aerobus, in the contract with the UK, the refueling plane requires them to use special tyres, they are the same tyre the comercial planes use, but these are sold for more money. So relying on foreigners for equipment is not always very good, because of these things.
But the point still remains, that the balance of power is changing and it is changing fast. And I think countries will soon start trading with each other in their own currencies, my country now trades directly in yuan with china, its much better because we dont need americas approval for trade.
Just to clarify, are you Australian or from New Zealand ?
DeleteI did not know if any country had that deal with the Chinese Yuan. If you are australian, the thougt of having all that Australian Metal and Ore trade bypassing the US dollar would have had you Invaded by the Mericans by now.