The Navy can make it work with the right leadership

Solomon has found some good reading about the state-of-the-state of the U.S. Navy and its planning. Go there and then read all the attached links to his post.

While one could say various scenarios of doom-and-gloom, this could be the U.S. Navy's finest hour. There really are some great opportunities to do the right thing and come out the other end with a fightin' Navy.

The PowerPoint is a bit much. Anytime an Admiral and their staff use corporate group-speak and other words that are not in the dictionary; fire them. That is a kind of down-sizing that is good for the defense of the nation.

The brief makes the simple overly-complex.

Yes we know sailors have to be manned to certain levels and trained properly.

And do it safely.

We know that various ships need various maintenance cycles and resourcing.

This affects how many ships you can put on a roster to deploy.

Here are some savings and value-added things that the Navy can do in the allegedly scary budget times:

Manning can't be determined until you know that all the slots you have are actually needed.

There is a great opportunity to get rid of some useless slots.

We have too many admirals.

The F-35 contributes nothing to the U.S. Navy and USMC. Get rid of it. This frees up money and manning for things that are useful in a war.

There will be less carriers and less needed carrier air wings. Deal with it. Every combat aircraft that will fly off of a carrier can carry a wide variety of precision guided munitions making the wing able to serve more targets per day than before the year 2000. Even when you count in, "The carrier myth".

Cut the strike-jet squadrons in the carrier air wing from 4 to 3. Retire the classic Hornet asap. All 3 strike squadrons will be Super Hornets. 1 of the 3 when deployed will always be a USMC squadron.

Carriers on deployment can be bulked up as needed with an additional squadron in cause of a Team America: WORLD POLICE bomb the permissive-threat. Simply because we won't be doing this against China.

Scrap DDX now. This is a huge eater of manpower and sustainment money.

Ditto with the LCS.

Ditto with all cruisers.

Keep building Burkes.

Build a cheap and simple Frigate.

That is a small start.

And, it would help to ensure that we have a well trained and well sustained Navy within tough budget times.

This will work.

For now.

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Small appendix:

What weapons would the Super Hornet be qualified for in addition to what it is doing now?

1.Harpoon
2.SLAM-ER
3.JASSM-ER
4.AMRAAM with an AIM-9X-like seeker
5.M-77