International Naval News & Discussion

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brar_w
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by brar_w »

chola wrote: How can conditions get to this point?
Singha wrote:Chola

In a way its sinic victory. Their constant needling has forced 7th fleet into a tempo that leaves no time for training or upkeep. This is now recorded in the findings. Its the most busy fwd deployed fleet

This is spot on. The US Navy was stretched thin by COCOM demand and the constant budgetary pressures due to the Budget Control Act and the constant delays in budgets passing and signing into law meant that the previous leadership prioritized forward deployments and meeting COCOM demand for ships on station at the expense of readiness and training. In fact standards were quietly relaxed in terms of in what "state" of training and readiness ships could deploy and when questions began to emerge some of those readiness and qualification reports were marked classified. Previous US Navy and DOD civilian leadership lacked the backbone to draw red lines when faced with policy decisions and geographic combatant demand for ships.

To many keen observers of this, the Fitz and McCain incidents were something expected. Luckily for the US Navy the course were reversed when Mattis went to Congress and basically drew the line on readiness and the US Navy likewise responded with putting restrictions on how ships can deploy (raising training and qualifications pre-deployment standards and the ship readiness to sustain operations) and taking them to a level that is now at par with how ships used to deploy during the cold-war. As a result at least in the short term the US Navy may struggle to meet demand for ships at sea as they take longer to get ready to deploy but they will deploy only when training and ship readiness meets those standards. Essentially they have gone to Congress and have gone to the COCOMs and told them that they will deploy only when fully manned, trained and equipped and if that forces there to be less ships to meet day to day peacetime demand then best add to the fleet (hence increasing the 30 year ship target from 307 to 355). There is short term relief on the way with more ships now coming online and orders picking up at much faster pace so the number of new ships able to forward deploy will increase significantly over the next 3-5 years with the DDG-51 Flight IIA restart ships and the DDG-1000's getting their first operational deployment underway in the 2019-2021 time-frame and 3-4 LCS deployments in 2019 followed by 8 forward deployed ships in 2020.

The current USN leadership spent nearly an hour on talking about these changes at this week's Surface Navy Association. In fact, the "release/leak" of this report to the media just days before SNA-2019 was no coincidence - the leadership probably wanted to drive this through the ranks and spend a lot of time talking about the changes they have made. It will be costly but so far the Pentagon leadership previously under Mattis and now under the acting SecDef and the Navy Secretary have backed the move to keep readiness front and center - ahead of COCOM demand and ahead of modernization. It will take a few years though to have all these initiatives begin to show impact but it does appear that there has been a major course correction with the US Navy now finally having leadership that is able to act as a firewall between peacetime demand for forward presence, port visits, and flag-waiving that is set by the individual combatant commanders and the need of the US Navy to properly train and ready their ships prior to deployments. They may even cancel a few carrier deployments in the coming years and dedicate that time to multi-carrier training exercises - something which was very common during the cold-war but has been largely put to the back burner in the post cold-war era. The attitude is shifting slowly to prepare to move away from the permissive environment assumptions that the USN had post Soviet Union collapse to focus more on near peer conflict and this means that some of the presence and COCOM demand missions would need to take a back seat with more time spent exercising for the high end fight.

Here's the commander of the Surface Naval Forces talking about some of these things : https://www.dvidshub.net/video/654711/s ... face-force
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

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Philip wrote:The US is reassessing its naval requirements for thd future and putting billions into large attractive targets for its enemies.Advocates of a new doctrine envisage numbers of light carriers/ amphibs with JSFs, plus large numbers of small unmanned armmed surface vessels which will be controlled by mother ships.
There is some truth mixed in with some untruth here. There are no "advocates" of a new doctrine that envision a light carrier anywhere close to any position to seriously advocate for such in any meaningful capacity. Unless you count opinion of a random commentator somewhere. The Light carrier debate continuous to re-surface and every time it is looked at, it yet again drives the analysis towards a larger carrier that can generate the sortie rates, sustain prolonged operations with a diverse carrier air wing, has the long range that you get from a CVN and leaves plenty of room for growth over the 50-60 year life of the carrier. There is no getting around that..as US presence at forward deployed air-bases shrinks, which is expected, it is the carrier air wing and the aircraft carrier that will have to fill the void along with USAF long range aviation assets. A small carrier cannot do that. Even the brightest minds outside of the US Navy who are known have worked on this analysis almost always mention the need for the amphibious force to complement the CVN not replace it because it just cannot.

Those "large attractive" targets that you mention are the ones that can actually defend themselves and the Aircraft Carrier that they protect. You need a very very large sensor and VLS footprint to successfully protect a strike group and high value assets from the total specturm of attack ranging from anti-ship ballistic missiles, right down to subsonic cruise missiles and practically everything in between. Furthermore, it is the job of those "large targets" to also provide BMD top cover to forward deployed troops which is also something you cannot do with small vessels. They play a very important role in the overall fleet architecture and enable the AC and the small ships and future small and medium unmanned vessels to do what they do best. The USN large surface combatant force essentially provides the enabling capability to project offensive capability (make sure the AC and the offensive force is well defended) while also providing some offensive capability of its own. The way these LSCs operate are different from practically every other destroyer/cruiser type out there but this is the role they serve in the USN (for example, Burke's I believe haven't carried an AShM since the last 20+ ships produced though that is now changing with the SM6 and Tomahawk MST capability that is a useful backup).
Last edited by brar_w on 19 Jan 2019 20:09, edited 1 time in total.
brar_w
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

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chola wrote: HOLY CRAP! I’d like see this come to fruition. lol
Here's another configuration of a similar concept on the SA class. A 30+ foot diameter radar (compared to 14ft on the Flight III DDG-51) with a High-Energy Laser and the possibility to go with 200+ MK-41's. Recently, the US Navy is said to be considering not only the MK41's and MK56's but something like the Virginia Payload Module which would allow for some very large offensive weapons (think IRBM class HGV's) to also find their way on the surface ships. Lets see if they go this way or the way of a smaller (15-16K ton) vessel with stealth and a more balanced design but this still remains very much an option. They expect an RFP for the vessel by late 2022 for a contract award of late 2023. Initial RFI's should come out next year as they solicit early feedback from their suppliers.

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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by chola »

brar_w wrote:
chola wrote: How can conditions get to this point?
Singha wrote:Chola

In a way its sinic victory. Their constant needling has forced 7th fleet into a tempo that leaves no time for training or upkeep. This is now recorded in the findings. Its the most busy fwd deployed fleet

This is spot on. The US Navy was stretched thin by COCOM demand and the constant budgetary pressures due to the Budget Control Act and the constant delays in budgets passing and signing into law meant that the previous leadership prioritized forward deployments and meeting COCOM demand for ships on station at the expense of readiness and training. In fact standards were quietly relaxed in terms of in what "state" of training and readiness ships could deploy and when questions began to emerge some of those readiness and qualification reports were marked classified. Previous US Navy and DOD civilian leadership lacked the backbone to draw red lines when faced with policy decisions and geographic combatant demand for ships.
I posted this from the Vikrant thread:

http://www.atimes.com/article/china-tur ... korea/amp/
Historically, Rand presents 2016 as the peak year for JASDF intercepts, with a total of 1,168 scrambles – the largest number since record-keeping started in 1958. Of these 1,168 scrambles, 73% were in response to approaching Chinese aircraft, the report states.
Aircraft not ships but comparable with the same strategy in wearing down the opposition during peacetime. 73% of 1168 is 852 times in one year.

On the naval front, there are the Coast Guard and Maritime Militia (or something like that) too not just PLAN so I think the situation is almost certainly worse.

(Note: the article states that Korea is getting a much softer treatment. Since SK is pretty useful in conduction world class techniques in everything from chips to entertainment (no kidding here) to China.)

At some point, Japan will simply accept chini aircraft and ships in those spaces. Just as the US made Cheen accept (more or less) the USN off its coast.

“Warfare” based on numbers and the MIC.

What happened to the Fitz must have its counterpart in the PLAN. If the chini tempo against the USN and Japan is so high then the sword must cut them as well.
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by brar_w »

chola wrote: What happened to the Fitz must have its counterpart in the PLAN. If the chini tempo against the USN and Japan is so high then the sword must cut them as well.
Not necessarily. Chinese Navy is not deployed in nearly as large numbers across the globe as the US Navy. Nor do as many ships operate from as far away from home. Also look at force structures, the USN was at a low in 2015-2017 time-frame and is now ramping up and growing so what you saw that was the perfect storm of a low number ships in the fleet (as a consequence of reducing shipbuilding drastically in the immediate period following SU collapse), the budget control act which meant a serious dent in O&S accounts and training, and an ever increasing demand from the COCOMs which the US Navy leadership could not push back against (COCOMs routinely demand more ships than the Navy can supply).

This trend is now reversing with the DDG Flight IIA restart ships coming on-board and leaving on their first operational deployments this year (All are baseline 9.0 ships), LCS ships finally ready to deploy this year, and the DDG-1000's series heading to their first operational deployment in 2021 (all 3 ships will be based out of San Diego and assigned to PACOM). Ashton Carter in his last budget, and Mattis with his 2 budgets have consistently asked for and received significant increases in funding to FULLY fund the O&S and training accounts. This has led the USN to go back to having stricter deployment training and capability requirements and more strictly enforcing them. Ship building is also now increased significantly so more pressure relief is expected to come online by the mid 2020's.

Meanwhile :

US Navy chief hints aircraft carrier could be sent through Taiwan Strait, despite threat of new Chinese missiles
]US Navy chief hints aircraft carrier could be sent through Taiwan Strait, despite threat of new Chinese missiles

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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by chola »

^^^ Yes, the PLAN does not deploy over such long distances but training and historic experience is much lower so I would imagine deploying in heavy tempo even to the waters near Japan and the SCS would create similar strain. But, as you say, the number of ships would alleviate the constant wear on vessel and crew aince they have more to rotate.

They really seem to copy the USN full on with the deck crew on their carrier being color-coded the same way to their masted training vessel. We have the Tarangini/Sudarshini but handling western sailing vessels is part of the IN’s heritage from the Brits. The chinis have no such tradition yet the PLAN persist in copying these things. It helps with seamanship I guess.

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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

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the logo and style is that of a fast china clipper ship that used to ply the pacific route.
I am surprised they have not yet built replicas of Adm zheng giant ships to parade around. those were traditional east asian style albeit very large.

zheng he flagship vs columbus santa maria ship that made landfall in the caribbean .... zheng design beam:length ratio is very high vs a clipper or even columbus/spanish galleon....so top speed would be low .... and need for a lot of sail to push it along. not of use for any fighting but more a show of posture and scale - the traditional dragon tactic.

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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by Austin »

Maintaining Maritime Superiority: Discussion With the Chief of Naval Operations

Ravi Karumanchiri
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by Ravi Karumanchiri »

Fight the Ship
Death and valor on a warship doomed by its own Navy.

By T. Christian Miller, Megan Rose and Robert Faturechi

Design by Xaquín G.V.

February 6, 2019


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Very in depth article by ProPublica, which does very fine work IMO. I haven't read it all, but from what I have, it is well done.
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by Singha »

Thank cheen for overstretch and worn out nature of the 7th fleet the biggest in the USN and heir to the fleet led in rotation by halsey and spruance with carrier guru mitscher under spruance
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by Ravi Karumanchiri »

^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Here's the companion article.....



Years of Warnings, Then Death and Disaster
How the Navy failed its sailors.

By Robert Faturechi, Megan Rose and T. Christian Miller

Design by Xaquín G.V.

February 7, 2019


^^^^^^^^^^^
Includes excellent, detailed reporting, along with hard truths. Definitely worth reading (though I haven't read it all myself, tbc.)
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

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Singha wrote:Thank cheen for overstretch and worn out nature of the 7th fleet the biggest in the USN and heir to the fleet led in rotation by halsey and spruance with carrier guru mitscher under spruance
China would be the last party that is to be blamed for this. Primary reasons -

1. Taking a ship building holiday in the 1990s and into early to mid 2000s. It takes decades to recover shipbuilding lapses which meant that in the 2010's the USN was at dramatically low number of ships just when it needed to increase its ops tempo.

2. Budget Control Act raiding O&S accounts which would be foolish unless accompanied with lowering of the ops tempo or deployment requirements but extremely dangerous when combined with #1

3. The Navy (Pentagon) being comfortable with the arrangement with Congress of funding more ships via their OCO accounts and other means and not addressing readiness or training concerns which were being raised. Politicians see more political "bang for the buck" when they spend money buying and building ships and less when they spend it on addressing boring things like training and maintenance accounts. Civilian and military leadership need to resist this and make a strong case for the latter. Not until the arrival of Mattis as the SecDef did this actually begin to happen with the intensity that it deserved.

4. Leadership not doing enough on #2 or #3 and just going with the flow based on the civilian leadership at the time and not having the backbone to push back and raise issues directly with the powers at be

On the political side, the organizations that are supposed to oversee and help on of these things (like the Congressional Sea Power committees) have basically been rendered ineffective since post sequestration and the budget control act most budget allocation decisions are made by the Party leadership and the negotiated amounts handed over to the agencies. Hopefully after 2021, they will go back to the bottom-up budgeting process but till then it will be the majority/minority leaders essentially deciding how money is appropriated.

In the long run the two incidents have served the USN well, allowing it to course correct and putting some real pressure on the politicos that budget plus-ups do not need to go just to ship building but things like readiness levels, training etc need to be addressed and maintained at all times. In fact when he took office Mattis focused first and foremost on this very thing above all else and across the three services.

High ops tempo can be sustained as long as you are ready and prepared to do it. One of the things you need is a lot of capacity because if you have a small number of ships you are going to have to raid readiness and training to meet COCOM demand - There is just no other way. As I have said in a prior post the US Navy leadership which is a force provider to the COCOM must have the backbone to say NO to COMCOM demand citing readiness and training as a reason. If they keep on adjusting their readiness posture to meet needs beyond "surge" capacity then that is sending a very bad long term message that high ops tempo needs can be sustained without growth which is not where you want to be. Keep in mind that these incidents happened just years from the time when the US Navy was at one its lowest levels in terms of ships since the WWs. This is changing now and is expected to change significantly by the mid 2020's when ALL of the block IIA DDG-51 restart ships will be operational, and initial Flight III ships will also be ready for their first deployments, in addition to the 3 Pacific fleet bound DDG-1000 class ships, and about 8-10 Pacific bound SSCs that will be performing their 20-24 month dual-crew deployments.

In hindsight, no two civilian leaders have done more harm to the USN in the post cold war environment than Ray Mabus and Donald Rumsfeld. Glad that the article points out the former.

ProPublica has done a great job bringing all this together into one comprehensive article and report. A lot of this had been written about in Proceedings for years but more mainstream coverage will hopefully drive this message home.
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

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What the Extended Range SM-6 (21 Inch diameter) will look like (graphic shows it next to the current variant of the SM6).

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http://alert5.com/wp-content/uploads/20 ... a2019.jpeg
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by Austin »

'It's going somewhere, hopefully' - Top US admiral admits the Navy's struggling $500 million railgun project is a lesson in what not to do

https://www.businessinsider.in/Its-goin ... 889835.cms
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by brar_w »

Typical clickbait article from Business Insider. The US Navy railgun project is a Science and Technology program funded by their S&T accounts. It is not an R&D program that had to transition by XYZ and on a particular platform. S&T programs are traditionally slower as they are aimed at taking very low readiness level technology and developing it further. They are not concerned with integrating that technology or missionizing it. If the CNO wanted to go faster, perhaps he should have gone up a notch and transitioned the program to an R&D PO and treated it as something that was bound for a program transition with an appropriate project schedule and adequate funding? Yet the effort under his reign stayed in the S&T sphere and in fact it was only the SCO that picked up the pace and made the hypervelocity projectile go faster.

It is currently finishing up on rate of fire testing and the USN wants to get barrel life up to where it is at par or at least in the vicinity of equally capable non EM guns. The platform that can realistically sustain a 32 MJ railgun with margins for growth is only just entering US Navy service so the point of rushing it is moot. The EMRG effort has been ongoing since the 70's and 80's so the CNO is way off and this isn't just a US challenge. France, others in Europe and around the world have been working on this technology area for decades and yet no one else has yet cracked the code and designed an operational system in this class (32MJ).

Its projectile is already moving and transitioning into service on the 5 inch gun. An RF/dual-mode seeker tender for it has just been floated and it should be getting ready to enter service by 2023 timeframe on the current guns.

At sea testing should follow soon but the main thrust of the effort is in developing the capability to integrate the weapon and make sure that it does not handicap the overall performance of the combat system..so at sea testing will happen soon enough but only after they have solved the problems of power storage (A tender was floated recently), barrel life, rate of fire, and SWaP footprint. Rushing it to sea before that will be pointless and will distract from the overall objective of mastering the technology.

What the CNO was likely hinting at was the lack of progress on a ship suitable to carry it. The DDG-1000 class is no longer in production and the LSC won't be put on contract till 2022-2024 time-frame. The DDG-51 does not have the margins to incorporate the EMRG without significant penalty elsewhere so the only short term transition opportunities is to pull one or more of the Zumwalts from the fleet and modify them. Doing that before the first ship has embarked on its first deployment is going to be politically challenging and the CNO does not have the ability to likely make it happen though he is on his way out and a successor may well have.

I think they will take it slow, test it on an at sea platform and then patiently wait for the Large Surface Combatant contract to be awarded which will result in a ship that has the margins to sustain this as well as a 300-500 kW HEL. Meanwhile technology will transition as appropriate, whether that is the hypervelocity projectile on the Navy and Army guns or a land based smaller railgun weapon system.

The only way they could have gone FASTER was if they accepted risk and if they were willing to put out a half baked railgun into the fleet i.e. with a short barrel life, and with a limited ability to sustain fire. There is some merit to perhaps having done that or at least considered an earlier transition but when the Congress clipped the Zumwalt program to 3 there became no really good solution to a faster transition. Perhaps the CNO needs to look at his own office and the way they have been treating S&T and R&D? The last two CNO's of the US Navy have been utterly disappointing to say the least and have been essentially spending most of their time in undoing the damage done by Rumsfeld and Co with the decisions made in the 2000's...
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by Neshant »

UK Unveils Plan To "Transform" Navy By Converting Ferries Into Warships

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02- ... s-warships
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by Singha »

^^ no money for proper LPH ships.

so merchant marine std Rotterdam class faux LPH is the new goalpost.

more of these, they have a couple, maybe even cheaper stuff - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Albion_(L14)
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

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I dont understand where the media is taking 100 Mt warhead from. The largest yeald single warhead deployed till date on Russian ICBM is 20Mt on SS-18 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-36_(mis ... )_variants

I dont know of any new design that exist in terms of high yeald low mass low volume package of TN weapons.

The Posedian is certain a large diameter system ~ 1 m plus in dia , But the physics packaged should fit in there. Russians do have LIF facility like Americans so they can design new weapons without the need to test it

But practically I dont see a yeald of more than 5 Mt unless they have figured out how to reduce the physics package of a high yead TN weapon.
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by Pratyush »

Austin wrote:I dont understand where the media is taking 100 Mt warhead from. The largest yeald single warhead deployed till date on Russian ICBM is 20Mt on SS-18 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-36_(mis ... )_variants

I dont know of any new design that exist in terms of high yeald low mass low volume package of TN weapons.

The Posedian is certain a large diameter system ~ 1 m plus in dia , But the physics packaged should fit in there. Russians do have LIF facility like Americans so they can design new weapons without the need to test it

But practically I dont see a yeald of more than 5 Mt unless they have figured out how to reduce the physics package of a high yead TN weapon.
They had the ability to conduct a 100 Mt test in the 60s with the Tsar Bombay. The yield of which was dialed down to the achieved 53 Mt.

So 100 Mt ought to be possible for posidon.
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by Singha »

the tsar bomba bless its soul was essentially a collection of smaller 3rd stage devices ignited by a fusion 2nd stage ignited by fission 1st stage.
and diameter(2.1m) much in excess of 1m if that is the dia of this poseidon thing.

and truly what would 100MT achieve at one location. 100 x 1 MT would achieve a lot more damage - which is whole rationale of MIRVs - to cover a wide area with grid of hits than a single large weapon.
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

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US Navy’s Anti-Submarine Drone Ship Sailed Autonomously From San Diego to Hawaii and Back


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The first prototype of an autonomous sub-hunting surface ship, the Office of Naval Research (ONR)’s Medium Displacement Unmanned Surface Vessel (MDUSV), christened Sea Hunter, became the first ship to successfully autonomously navigate from San Diego to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and back without a single crew member onboard, defense contractor Leidos announced in a January 31 press release.

During the round trip of more than 8,300 kilometers, personnel from an escort ship boarded the Sea Hunter periodically to check electrical and propulsion systems. It is unclear whether the submarine-hunting catamaran-style drone ship had to undergo any repairs while at sea. It is also unclear how long it took the autonomous ship to complete the round trip across the Pacific Ocean. The Sea Hunter reportedly arrived in Hawaii at the end of October 2018.

“The Sea Hunter program is leading the world in unmanned, fully autonomous naval ship design and production,” said Gerry Fasano, Leidos Defense Group President. Leidos is coordinating the MDUSV project for the U.S. Navy. “The recent long-range mission is the first of its kind and demonstrates to the U.S. Navy that autonomy technology is ready to move from the developmental and experimental stages to advanced mission testing.”

U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) – a Pentagon organization responsible for developing emerging technologies for the U.S. military’s use — handed over the Sea Hunter to the U.S. Navy in January 2018, marking the end of DARPA’s Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) program.

DARPA originally initiated the ACTUV program in 2010. In 2014, DARPA joined force with ONR to jointly fund a test phase for the ACTUV prototype, with Leidos building the ship’s navigation system and Oregon-based Vigor Works overseeing overall construction. The ship was christened in April 2016 and subsequently underwent open-water trials, which included testing the prototype’s long-range tracking capabilities. Tests also included tracking a submarine from 1 kilometer away, as well as deploying a mine countermeasures payload.

As I explained last February:

Capable of reaching top speeds of up 27 knots, the 132-feet (40 meters) long and 140-ton heavy unmanned autonomous MDSUV trimaran prototype is designed to operate autonomously for 60 to 90 days straight, surveil large stretches of ocean territory and — should an enemy submarine be detected — guide U.S. Navy warships or aircraft to the sub’s location to destroy it (the Sea Hunter does not carry any weapons systems).

The robot ship reportedly uses a fifth-generation medium-frequency hull-mounted sonar system to conduct active and passive sonar searches. DARPA has also been working on developing non-conventional sensor technologies to enable the correct identification of surface ships and other objects while at sea.


The U.S. Navy reportedly awarded Leidos a potential $43.5 million contract to develop a second drone ship, tentatively designated Sea Hunter II, which is currently under construction at a shipyard in Mississippi. According to Leidos, the sister ship will incorporate lessons learned during the first Sea Hunter build, evolving mission requirements, and further development of autonomy features.
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by Austin »

Singha wrote:
and truly what would 100MT achieve at one location. 100 x 1 MT would achieve a lot more damage - which is whole rationale of MIRVs - to cover a wide area with grid of hits than a single large weapon.
The difference is the same as hitting a target with 10 kg bomb versus 1500 kg bomb

A larger yeald weapon would create a larger tsunami plus you can use it to detonate at further away from target rather then get close to it

In the end it depends on the physics package and yeald to weight ratio something that won’t get disclosed
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by Singha »

Toi

TEHRAN: Iran's state TV is reporting that the country's President Hassan Rouhani has unveiled the first Iranian made semi-heavy submarine.

The Sunday report said the Fateh, "Conqueror" in Persian, is capable of being fitted with cruise missiles.

Since 1992, Iran has developed a homegrown defense industry that produces light and heavy weapons ranging from mortars and torpedoes to tanks and submarines.

The Fateh has subsurface-to-surface missiles with a range of about 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles), capable of reaching Israel and U.S. military bases in the region.
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by chola »

The Iranian SSK Fateh:


With the stated ability to launch missiles under water.

A small sub of 550 tons reportedly irregardless of Iranian propaganda calling it “semi-heavy.”

Still a very credible if not amazing effort by a nation under embargo. We know how hard it is to make these things.

I’d like to see that sub-launched missile. Not an easy thing to develop if they didn’t buy it off the shelf from Cheen or Roos.
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by brar_w »

From the IN thread:
Philip wrote: In numerous naval exercises conducted by the US, small diesel boats apart from its N-subs have "sunk" its CVs.
In exercises, aggressor T-38's kill F-22A's, does this mean that a T-38 actually stands a chance in actual war when confronted with a force of F-22As? When you train and wargame with allies you experiment with, and run various scenarios and TTP's to see what works, and to stress the red and blue team crews. The point of the whole exercise is to get out of the box and put your crews in tough positions to extract the most training value. The point is not to spend millions training to see who is superior at killing or protecting a carrier. It is not a jousting contest.

When you fight or deploy in a high intensity conflict zone you err on the side of the caution and pack your force with as much capability as you can muster and as far as the USN and its deployments are concerned this would mean a larger escort count than normal (during actual conflict), a higher submarine count, a tremendous number of ASW assets on the surface, below surface and in the air and support from allies. You also have the ability to stand off with a carrier and move around. One of the deployment models wargamed during the CVN-21 studies was the deployment of 4 carriers with a surface and sub-surface force complement that was 50% larger than routine and was supported by sea power capability from allies.

The equation of a Ballistic Missile to a carrier equally applies to a number of deployed airfields able to sustain high intensity ops. The reason those trades do not work in practice is because the carrier is very well protected with hundreds of VLS at its disposal along with a heck of a lot of offensive capability. To target a deployed carrier and its support wing thousands of miles from land using complex ISR infrastructure at a time when active and passive means are being used to degrade or deny that capability is not something that is very easy. The CAW has plenty of stand-off capability at its disposal. From initial TLAM, and in the near term, hypersonic salvos, to stand off munitions ranging from 100 km to 1000 km launched from its aircraft.
Philip wrote:The US's 12 CVs will be extremely vulnerable in the next great naval clash as gheir carrier aircraft have gor the F-18 around 400km radius of combat anc 700km for the F-35 still not fully operational.

I guess one way to drive home your point is to completely make up numbers in the hope that no one will notice. The F-35C has a mission combat radius (in A2G strike role while carrying 2 x 2000 lb bombs plus missiles) of 600+ nautical miles or 1200 km. In A2A configuration this probably improved by 15% or so. The F/A-18E/F kitted in its normal configuration with EFT's has a radius of about 1000 km which will improve when the now funded CFT's come to the fleet. The E-2D can stay up for around 6-hours and can now take hits from a tanker and add to its time on station.

The USN is now fully invested in a mission tanker in the MQ-25 and it along with the V-22s from the Marines can add much needed stand off range to the tactical fighters when operating in partnership with the massive USAF tanker fleet.

That said, longer ranged combat aircraft is on the drawing board of the USN so expect the NGAD to have a combat radius in the 1000 nautical mile vicinity which would allow it to play an escort to the AF B-21's for example.
Philip wrote:The Chins claim that the Sov. era radar has made stealth passe.
Which would obviously explain why anyone with the resources or the capability is developing LO or VLO fighters, UAV's, bombers and what not :roll:

Noticed the J-20, Su-57, KF-X, TF-X, SCAF, Tempest, ShinShin and the AMCA? All must not have gotten the memo from Chins...
Philip wrote:The advent of unmanned carrier strike aircraft will make it possible for current smaller amphib class vessels to possess an expanded air capability.Why there is a body of thought wanting smaller light Essex type CVs
There is no "serious" body of thought only some in the media. The US Navy looked at no fewer than 75 different carrier designs under the CVN-X concept phase, ranging from small "Essex type " all the way to carriers that were 20-25% larger than the current Ford and also looked at both conventional power, nuclear and a hybrid of the two. They looked at conventionally powered smaller carriers, nuclear powered smaller carriers and even stealthy carriers. It was a thorough analysis. The Ford was not the design they shortlisted but a compromise, the original design study led them to something that was more capable and larger. There are models at display at the US naval academy of the top dozen or so designs that were shortlisted as part of the CVN-X study. I've provided pictures of some of those in the past.

The reason why the Essex like carriers don't work for them is very simple to grasp and I have articulated them here earlier. The notion that an ambhib is a carrier is deeply flawed. Yes it looks like a carrier, can carry STOVL aircraft but it does not fight like a carrier nor can it. This is true for USMC LHA class, JC class or anything similar. There are physical limitations in the vessel and wing complement to perform the missions the USN CVN does.

I've provided a more detailed explanation of this earlier but will reference one point here:

CVN-21 (Ford design) magazine is 23 times larger than that of the LHA-6 (375K ft^3 vs just 16K ft^3) the next biggest vessel in the US Navy/MC. This translates to a weapons carriage capacity of roughly 3000 tons on the Ford. This in addition to roughly 3 Million gallons of fuel that it carries, nearly 100% of which is available to the air-wing (because the carrier is nuclear powered). All in this translates to a 2-week at sea sustain combat ops (medium intensity deployment).

You can park 18-20 F-35B's on Juan Carlos or a USS Americas but besides providing some air-defense and some low intensity strike support they are not going to be able to support sustained operations without some serious resupply at frequent intervals which then ends up consuming valuable surface based and air resources depending upon how you resupply ships. There is a reason that the USMC's primary use of the F-35B is forward force protection and CAS with support from land and sea deployed assets.

There is good reason why the US Navy after a long and protracted analysis of alternatives stuck to a CVN and stuck to something that largely resembles the Nimitz class in capacity. No one capable of a serious analysis, or actually coming from a familiarity of the various trades and studies is speaking of going back to the Essex style carriers.

In fact, China is looking to be in the same spot if the CVN illustrations from the Diplomat are to be believed. They probably too conducted their analysis and derived to the same conclusion.

For other carrier operators you can start at looking at the capability of the CVN and then scaling back some of the qualitative and quantitative abilities and derive to something smaller based on unique needs. The brits and even the IN seem to have landed on a 65K ton model as optimal, while the French optimized their fairly compact carrier to support a decent sized air-wing with a fairly large (for its size) magazine and fuel capacity thanks to the choice to go to nuclear power.

Part of the appeal (to the USN and decision makers in the US at large) of the 100K CVN is that they can dial up or dial down the carrier air-wing over the 50-60 year life of the ship both in terms of quality and quantity. The carrier design offers that flexibility which something like the CDG just doesn't because of its physical limitations in terms of max carrier air wing size and flexibility. It does work for the French though who are limited by their overall size and don't have the resources to maintain that surge capacity. For example: If more ASW capability is needed because of a certain threat or in a certain region you can deploy more ASW helos without the combat ops or real estate eating into the fighter or AEW footprint. Same with more Electronic Attack aircraft or more AEW aircraft etc. You can consistently dial up one aspect of the offensive/defensive mix without upsetting the numbers on the other...The USN and the policy makers deciding on these things value this and are willing to pay for the added flexibility and to have options down the road. Just as the CAW was dialed down post SU collapse it can be dialed up both in terms of a larger quantity of deployed aircraft but also as far as the qualitative capability is concerned (more unmanned for example, or longer ranged OCA/DCA assets like a modern version of the F-14 mission). You can do that on the existing Nimitz/Ford classes because there is that margin built in. On a smaller carrier you lose that flexibility and as such as times and threats change you may not be able to respond the way you like without resorting to essentially designing a new carrier from scratch. The Ford is big and is packed with technology because it as a design will be in service for well above 100 years. You need the flexibility and room to grow if you are going to be able to pull that off.
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by chola »

More on the Iranian Fateh. Too small to have a VLS. The stated missile capability must be a canister launched through the torpedo tubes.

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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by Prem »

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/01/no ... otherwise/
Ultimately, the Navy got its two-carrier deal, but at a heavy price: It agreed to defer the midlife refueling of an older, Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that participated in the U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. Two U.S. defense officials confirmed to Foreign Policy that the aircraft carrier in question was the USS Harry Truman; experts say the move would be akin to retiring it.
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by brar_w »

The "Defer" or "Retire" a current CVN argument/budget request is a budget trick used by the USN to under fund some vital accounts knowing that the money will be appropriate by the Congress. Their track record of using this trick to get a top line funding increase is actually pretty good and the last time they tried it was during Obama years and the Congress re-appropriated the balance. This year too they are likely to NOT fund the Truman overhaul and also try to cut one or two amphibs knowing full well that they will be funded back by the Congress likely over and above whatever they used the money for instead. Also, the argument will likely still work as long as they can convince the Congress that they can get Kennedy out into the fleet by 2024-25 because if they can then they have enough carriers to stay compliant with US law which requires the Navy to maintain 11 ACs.

https://twitter.com/luke_j_obrien/statu ... 2866918400
Last edited by brar_w on 03 Mar 2019 01:42, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by Philip »

Chola, there's a good Iranian v-clip taken from the sub showing the launch just a few feet below the sea surface in what appears to be an orange canister.After a few hundred yards, the missile ignites and takes off from the canister.It is supposed to be a Chin derivative with a short range of about 30+ km, but useful in the confined Gulf waters.The sub probably can fire a couple or at the most 4 such missiles.No VLS capability at all.
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by MeshaVishwas »

https://maritimebulletin.net/2019/03/09 ... te-taiwan/
Navy Command said they’re going to get compensation from tanker owner. No explanation given yet on cause or causes of collision.
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by MeshaVishwas »

^^
What a beauty!
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by negi »

Iranian SSK is a great effort and coincidentally a nice dig at the Astute class. :D
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by chola »

Recent picture of the Turkish LHD/Light Carrier Anadolu:
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Construction began in 2016, it is the first of two. The second one will be the Trakya. They are based on Navantia's Juan Carlos' design.

They are intended to operate 16 F-35Bs each. We'll see if Unkil ever releases them to the Turks.

I have to admire Turkey's vision and boldness. They even announced a Kuznetsov-sized 300M STOBAR program to be laid down by 2029!

Judging by the Anadolu and other projects, their execution is no joke. They get things done and in good time. This is a brand new carrier force coming into being and worth watching.
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by brar_w »

The US Navy along with the Sea Power Congressional committees has released its 30-year ship building plan.

FY 2020 U.S. Navy 30-Year Shipbuilding Plan


I'm still reading the full document and the supplementals but so far some key findings -

- They will end DDG-51 Flight III program in 2024 after buying just 30 ships
- The large ship side of the budget will then shift to buying the new Large Surface combatant which could be a Zumwalt derivative. The USN plans to produce 60 such heavy ships at around 3 ships a year in odd years and 2 a year in even years..
- 7 CVN (Ford Class) carriers to be procured in the next 30 years to replace 7 outgoing Nimitz Class carriers (not counting the three CVN's that have already been procured i.e. CVN 79-81)
- Budgets 55 battle force ships to be purchased in the next 5 years
- projects 20 FFG(X) frigates and 38 new class frigates over the next 30 years
- Buys 28 Virginia class SSN's and 33 SSN-X (Virginia class replacement) - Virginia class procurement to end in 2032 followed by SSN-X procurement in 2033 at the same buy rate (2 per year)
- USN becomes a 314 ship Navy in 2024 and 355 ship Navy in 2034 (I believe currently it is at 302 ships)
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Re: International Naval News & Discussion

Post by gpurewal »

brar_w wrote:The US Navy along with the Sea Power Congressional committees has released its 30-year ship building plan.

FY 2020 U.S. Navy 30-Year Shipbuilding Plan


I'm still reading the full document and the supplementals but so far some key findings -

- They will end DDG-51 Flight III program in 2024 after buying just 30 ships
- The large ship side of the budget will then shift to buying the new Large Surface combatant which could be a Zumwalt derivative. The USN plans to produce 60 such heavy ships at around 3 ships a year in odd years and 2 a year in even years..
- 7 CVN (Ford Class) carriers to be procured in the next 30 years to replace 7 outgoing Nimitz Class carriers (not counting the three CVN's that have already been procured i.e. CVN 79-81)
- Budgets 55 battle force ships to be purchased in the next 5 years
- projects 20 FFG(X) frigates and 38 new class frigates over the next 30 years
- Buys 28 Virginia class SSN's and 33 SSN-X (Virginia class replacement) - Virginia class procurement to end in 2032 followed by SSN-X procurement in 2033 at the same buy rate (2 per year)
- USN becomes a 314 ship Navy in 2024 and 355 ship Navy in 2034 (I believe currently it is at 302 ships)

How are they addressing the manpower issue that was brought up in the articles (enjoyable reading btw) posted by Ravi Karumanchiri earlier in the thread?
-Fight the Ship
-Years of Warnings, Then Death and Disaster

I know that automation is being implemented, but it still seems like the USN is lacking the desired staffing for the number of ships they have in force. In addition, some of the key staff in the CiC or other departments lack the training to operate the equipment.
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