Russian Heavy Armor river crossing ops.

Pics are via English Russia. 

 

31st MEU. The year so far!

Freakin' Awesome!  Nicely done!

Political Animals...Quote of the week.

Mythical Secretary of State....Who's above your President?

Mythical Chinese Diplomat.....Naval Intelligence!

This is about the most self important bullshit I've ever seen on US politics.  If it even has a whiff of truth about it then we'd be better off being ruled governed by Caligula.  This show is such a bag of shit that its oddly fascinating.

The word Amazing is just not strong enough.

KMW has updated the website.

KMW has done a real neat and attractive update to their their website.  If you have any interest in armor its well worth a look see.

When does the cost of sinking an aircraft carrier become too high?

Was talking with a reader and this question came up.

How much did the Chinese lose in my mythical war?

Easy...

*A couple of regiments of SU-27 type fighters....
*Around 30 J-10's...
*A regiment of TU-22M Backfire bombers...
*A squadron of Fast Attack Missile boats....
*A squadron of Diesel Subs....

They sunk a carrier though and I say that it is well worth the price.  I couldn't bear to give you all the war with anti-ship ballistic missiles included.

Another statement was made that "hey, its ok, even if they sunk our carrier we still win"...they have to rebuild all those planes and ships and retrain aircrew lost.

Uh....we lost a carrier.  We lost aviation mechanics, air crew, nuclear propulsion experts, and sailors that know there stuff....in addition to a small nations worth of aircraft.

And that's the real point.  We can't afford to lose a carrier.  Yeah we have more but that isn't the point.  Every aircraft carrier represents a tremendous amount of national treasure....in people and equipment that just can't be reformed in less than a couple of years at best.

While we're focusing on littoral combat, every other navy in the world is concentrating on two things.  Power Projection in the form of amphibious assault ships and multi-mission frigates.  The reason is simple.  The amphib can perform many of the missions of the carrier without the danger of "placing all our eggs in one high tech basket" and the multi-mission frigate can perform many of the rest without the tremendous cost of a carrier.

As the carrier is currently equipped it is incapable of properly influencing a battle at sea.  While the Navy is seeking a UAV to attack targets on land, it relies on a short ranged missile (Harpoon) to attack other ships at sea.

Put another way.  If the Marine Corps could be accused of becoming a second land army then the Navy could be accused of becoming an air force.

This isn't a slam at the carrier navy.  Its just an observation that we have inflated the value of carriers to such an extent that the costs to destroy one pale in comparison to the need to keep one afloat.  Additionally the mission set of the carrier has become so focused on influencing the land battle that naval warfare has become a secondary consideration. 

Required reading.  Buy Fords not Ferraris.

Its time to bite the bullet and consider downsizing carriers.  A fleet of 20-25 fifty/forty thousand ton carriers might be more useful than what we have right now.

End of watch.

This looks like it might be good!  I think I'll plop down cash to watch this when it hits!

Carrier Navy. Fixing the fleet. Reformatting the DDG-1000.

I love the Marine Corps.

I believe in forcible entry.

I think naval gunfire is important.  But.  And here comes the sacrilege.  I don't think we need a cruiser that is committed to providing those fires.

The USMC provides one of our three forms of forcible entry but it has evolved to a point where another Tarawa or Iwo Jima shouldn't happen.  With the guns on the Burke's, with the airpower from our carriers and LHA's and with the ability to go over or around beach based obstacles we shouldn't dedicate a large ship to this function.

The Zumwalt class should be reformatted as the replacements for the anti-air cruisers that are soon to be retired.  Considering the magazine capacity that these ships have we would have an amazingly capable anti-air arsenal ship that could cripple a strike on our carriers.  By having these ships at the center of our formations along with our carriers and pushing the Burke's out to picket duty we could easily handle any Chinese Alpha stike with ship based assets alone.  

There would be no need to rush fighters into the air to reinforce the CAP.  Those fighters that we do have in the air can focus on killing the launch aircraft instead of attempting to knock down missiles heading toward our ships.

This one move could accomplish...

1.  It would provide a platform that would have instant influence on enemy actions causing them to rethink any current plans on how to destroy a carrier battle group.
2.  It would provide a platform that would have the power generation necessary for the next step in naval firepower...lasers or another form of electronic attack.
3.  It would be a better test bed for reduced manning and automation of the fleet.
4.  It could provide a strategic strike asset if the follow on to Tomahawk has the range desired by the CNO.

If we want to fix the fleet we need to get back to winning at sea.  Winning the blue water battle.  A DDG-1000 reformatted as an anti-air cruiser would be a smart move.

Carrier Navy. Fixing the fleet...first...lets dump the LCS!

The LCS.
  
We have to look back a bit on this one.

The US Navy has suffered probably more than any service during this war on terror.  Not from a deployment stand point (they've been as busy as ever), not from a personnel standpoint but from a "reason for being" standpoint.

The US Army and Marine Corps has been busy on land fighting our nations battles.  The USAF has been in the air supporting those efforts...The Navy has been looking for a role.  While looking for relevance during the past decade they lost sight of their reason for being...that is they forgot that the primary mission is to defeat our nations enemies at sea.

The LCS is suppose to fight the at sea version of counter insurgency.

It sounds good in theory...especially when you had Bush Administration officials talking about generational warfare.  That theory gave way to a savage fact.  Counter insurgency/nation building didn't work on land and its doubtful that it could work at sea.

Luckily for the US Navy, the situation off the coast of Africa provided a test bed for the sea borne version of counter insurgency with a mix of pirate and terrorist activity.  Even without the LCS the tools were plentiful, the will to use them to effect lacking.

This all leads to my belief that the LCS is a ship without a mission.

In my scenario where the Carrier Battle Group was under attack, the LCS could play no role.  At best it could steam to the scene and pick up survivors.  That's all it could contribute.

And now the US Navy is about to build around 55 of these ships!  Ships that add nothing to the Navy's combat power, can only show the flag and specialize in a mission set that has been abandoned.  The Navy should dump this puppy today and focus on winning the nation's wars at sea.  This should be fix number one.  

Next.  Fixing the airwing.