Poor old Navy?

Hard for the Navy to cry poor-old-me when they want stupid gold-plated stuff like this.

Some comments on a Romney Navy

Defense News has some information of what a Romney Navy could look like if it were ever to happen.

Here is what I think of it:

OK:

-Begin a frigate program
-More Super Hornets
-Increase the number of destroyers
-Reserve carrier air wing
-Cut flag ranks (hopefully)


Not OK:

-Continue Littoral Combat Ship (LCS)
-..."no intention to cancel it" (LCS)
-Increase in amphibs
-"Missle defense ship"
-"Essential" to keep F-35 in production

How will it be paid for? Well, the only way I can see is to kill off things that contribute nothing to the defense of the nation.

"The bureaucracy itself has almost doubled what it was during the Reagan administration. The Navy is half the size it was, the Air Force is half the size, the Army is half the size."

The only crisis is no port visits

Is this really a problem?

If so...

...we have a solution.

U.S. Navy's LCS problem

The real U.S. Navy knows that the Littoral Combat Ship is failure.

How to deal with that failure in the coming budget battles is yet to be seen.

“Just because you can put it on a slide, doesn’t mean the physics will cooperate.”

Update on the Spanish support ship rental

More on how Australia will subsidize an extended deployment of a Spanish Navy support ship because Defence/DMO/RAN leadership has dropped the ball on our own support ship sustainment.

I wonder if Spain has some patrol ships we can borrow for either properly enforcing our borders or, depending on the political will, provide more happy-cabby service for illegals.

Maybe this Spanish support ship could make a few runs providing dock-to-dock service for illegals.

Seriously though, it does look like a nice ship.



I wonder how many years it would take for the DMO/RAN to ruin a new ship with their current support methods if Australia were to procure some of these?

Another Defence/DMO/RAN goof up with support ships?

Earlier last month we had this read about the difficulty of Defence/DMO/RAN being able to keep important support ships ready.

And now this joint press release from Saturday.

Maybe if we just teach Defence/DMO/RAN to all speak Spanish we can have a rental agreement with the Armada Española?

Maybe the previous series of messes are being addressed correctly. Although given the consistent behaviour of the Entrenched Defence Bureaucracy, I wonder how?


H/T: Richard

Cdr Salamander... arriving

(The USS Quincy, caught in the searchlights from attacking Japanese cruisers, on fire and sinking as a result of numerous gunfire and torpedo hits. The flames at the far left of the picture are probably from the USS Vincennes, also on fire from gunfire and torpedo damage)



G is doing a nice series with naval thinkers.

God bless 'em. They will need to pull a rabbit out of their hat to paint much hope for the U.S. Navy in the Western Pacific in the coming years.

It is an apt time to mention all of this with the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Midway. As a kid I loved the Walter Lord book Incredible Victory. His famous words are etched in the stone of the WWII monument in DC. I owe my knowledge of Pacific geography to reading the whole Morison series in the 6th and 7th grade. It was in the reference section of our very small county library.

I was also fascinated with a book about the last voyage of the USS Lexington on their way to the Coral Sea and destiny. I was also stunned with the battles around Savo Island (Iron Bottom Sound) and other places: read from the comfort of a hammock on a nice Michigan summer day after doing the chores.

There are a lot of lessons from WWII Pacific battles that apply toward today.

Cdr Salamander is doing his best to raise the red flags. The U.S. Navy and others ignore his thoughts at their own peril.

As I have warned before, the U.S. Navy carrier air wing is fast going obsolete. Which in-turn, puts a whole carrier battle group at risk. We have trimmed down our ASW assets (flying and otherwise) to a dangerous level. For the Western Pacific, the USN best get used to not being able to go some places.

There are also some other problems to consider. What if someday the Chinese Navy doesn't want to be defensive? What if they wage a U-boat war against Alaska, Guam, the Panama Canal, Pearl Harbor and the very vulnerable LA Harbor? A place where most of our just-in-time supply chain goes through?

How many in the days before December 7th, 1941 thought things would never go as bad as they did?

History is full of such examples.

And for those that say wars don't solve anything, tell that to Japan.

Or Carthage.

The (U.S.) Navy was still obsessed with a strong feeling of technical and mental superiority over the enemy. In spite of ample evidence as to enemy capabilities, most of our officers and men despised the enemy and felt themselves sure victors in all encounters under any circumstances. The net result of all this was a fatal lethargy of mind which induced a confidence without readiness, and a routine acceptance of outworn peacetime standards of conduct. I believe that this psychological factor, as a cause of our defeat, was even more important than the element of surprise.

Admiral Turner commenting on the first battle of Savo Island.

$5B Target

Hard to take the U.S. DOD very seriously on providing bang for the buck with this kind of waste.

But at more than $3 billion a pop, critics say the new DDG-1000 destroyer sucks away funds that could be better used to bolster a thinly stretched conventional fleet.

That, and an ever more obsolete-to-the-threat carrier air wing; well, one distinct possibility is this.

The Navy is looking at FA-XX

The Navy needs a new fighter. Or so they say. See this about the FA-XX.

The Dew Line must be there too.

This will probably become more of a discussion when the gold-plated disaster known as the F-35C fails.

A tip for whomever uses the "6th-generation" label: don't do it. It implies (and it seems justified from the do everything hype...including a possible buddy-tanker mission) that it will come with a "6th-generation" price.

Ask the USAF about "5th-generation" success. They spent over $100B to get 120 combat-coded F-22s and an F-35 program that has been run into the ditch.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, take a look at a newer version of the Super Hornet flip-book. The big difference is everything here generally works. The polar opposite of the F-35. Since both the Super and F-35 are not anti-access jets, what we have is a significant superiority of the Super Hornet Block II over any version of the F-35 in all areas of true value.



H/T-Boeing

The Navy's gold-plated fuel program

Good points here.

But Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) pointed out that even at a competitive price, the Navy’s plan to use a “50/50 blend” of diesel fuel and a biofuel supplement would still cost $15 per gallon. Traditional JP-5 jet fuel used in the Navy’s fighter aircraft runs $4 to $5 per gallon on average, Inhofe said.

“Shouldn’t we refocus our priorities and make those things our priorities instead of advancing a biofuels market?” Forbes asked at the time.

Before Mabus could respond, the Virginia Republican took a clear shot at the secretary: “You’re not the secretary of the Energy. You’re the secretary of the Navy.”

Hard to be convinced the USN is serious about fuel costs given the LCS, F-35 and DDX.


H/T-War News Updates

U.S. Navy not serious about cutting budget or improving capability

The power of lobbying. It is one of the reasons the faulty Littoral Combat Ship is still allowed to breath air in the recent DOD FY2013 budget submission. The other reason is that there are 4 stars promoted way above their ability who don't want to be proven wrong. These things will be the weights that drag Navy combat capability down.

4 LCS will be funded.

Meanwhile the Navy will dramatically cut the Joint High Speed Vessel; ordering only 1 in this budget.

At $189M each, the JHSV makes more sense for the Pacific strategy backed by Washington. This vessel would be a huge benefit in low-intensity scenarios throughout the South-Pacific, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia.

Killing the LCS and F-35C requirement gives the U.S. Navy money to spend on platforms that can actually contribute to U.S. power projection.

2008 Navy League Briefing on the F-35

Just a bit of history to review. The 2008 Navy League briefing on the F-35. Amazing claims.

SU-33 carrier ops near Syria

Good video of Russian big SU-33 carrier ops off of Syria.

H/T- NOSINT

USN fuel cost problems

This is probably not far off given the USN wants to pay $26 per gallon for green ship fuel.

H/T- War News Updates

What is normal for the Australian Navy?

This article states more woe with the Australian Navy's fleet readiness.

Since all navies have a percentage of their ships in some sort of repair cycle, I don't know what is considered normal for the RAN.

There are some more severe mentions in the article that point to outright waste.

Two of the navy's newest ships, minehunters HMAS Hawkesbury and HMAS Norman - built by Australian Defence Industries in Newcastle and commissioned in 2000 - were "decrewed" and placed into reserve this year.

If the ships were required to come back into service, the Department of Defence estimates it would take up to five years to bring them back to operational status.

There also seems to be events of rework where repairs were not done right the first time.

Available crew for the ships is still a problem.

Australia is a nation that needs frigates, patrol boats, troop transports and logistics ships. I would like to put submarines on that list but skills are short there too.

How ships that are bigger, more expensive to operate and require more crew (the planned Air Warfare Destroyers and the Canberra flattop amphibs) are going to be sustained over their service life is a big question mark.

I suspect more long-term dock space to park them will be required because this navy and defence community is not skilled enough to keep what they have in an operationally ready status.

The taxpayer generously pays $27B for Defence each year. What they get in return is low value for the money spent.

Navy did not manage AEGIS sustainment properly

On Oct. 13, the Navy’s top two surface type commanders released a message to the Aegis fleet requiring more frequent diagnostic checks, better maintenance and more hands-on involvement by skippers. The goal, according to the message, is nothing less than to “inculcate a culture of SPY self-sufficiency and ownership.”

One would have hoped the Navy was always managing such an important system properly.

I guess not.

Fortunately the diversity bullies are well sustained. Every world-class Navy certainly needs those parasites.

AEGIS is not a system that you have the option of taking care of it some years, and not so much other years; not unlike nukes.

Looks like the past top leadership could not understand their reason to exist. Yet some think Roughead et al were actually worth something. I never saw it.

The Navy can't complain about getting smaller since they continue to field faulty ships

So the Navy will get smaller. 

The cruisers won't be missed. They don't bring enough to the fight in today's terms that can't be done with a Burke.

The Amphibious ship plan was always shaky way beyond what the USMC is hoping for. Most of the big Amphibs are old and don't have a modern power-plant. That, and any Tarawa like scenario is easy to repulse given the wide variety of weapons that would face an amphibious landing.

The Navy is getting smaller, yet they insist on fielding weapons systems and ships that have no value to controlling the Pacific. The carrier air wing is obsolete against emerging threats. The DDX will get sunk. The Littoral Combat Ship is a joke. Lots of savings to be had there by scrapping them.

DOD budget decay increasing

The decay is starting to increase. As the DOD budget fear becomes more real, traditional must-haves are going away.

"Under heavy pressure to find real cuts, U.S. Navy officials are considering decommissioning a nuclear aircraft carrier halfway through its planned lifespan, two Pentagon sources said.


The USS George Washington's three-year-long refueling overhaul, scheduled to begin in 2016, would be canceled under the scheme, and the ship would be decommissioned as its reactor fuel ran out."

As things become worse, expect to see more. So if we don't have money to refurb a ship that is expected to have a 50 year service life, why in the hell are we wasting $15B on a new Ford class nuke carrier?

Australia's naval "strategy" and ship-building industry explained

Via White, Australia's naval "strategy" explained. Here are just a few things.

1. The Air Warfare Destroyer is not a worthy project.
2. The Air Warfare Destroyer is a waste when we could get Burkes for $1B each.
3. The idea that the Air Warfare Destroyer (or some similar projects) provides industry worth may not be accurate. It takes useful (and limited) skills away from non-military sectors.
4. The amphibious flatops are also a waste. One reason is we won't be able to protect them.
5. Sea denial should be the strategy, not force projection. Simply because of our limited resources.

White mentions subs, but given everything stated so far, it is hard to believe we have credible skills to build those at home.

I would quote a few things, but it is all good. He hasn't always hit the mark but this is White's best work.

.

Proper evolution requires strong leadership

Some important words from G.

"If during this decade, 2011 - 2020, the US Navy is unable to significantly evolve ASW for surface forces, I believe the entire force structure of the US Navy will change dramatically as large quantities of high quality and expensive aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, and big deck amphibious vessels become indefensible as investments for seapower in the face of the growth and much improved capabilities of the global submarine force."

I don't see the U.S. Navy evolving ASW significantly. First of all, one would have to have real visionary leadership; which is not present.