Bob,
My man, my man! I can tell you have had it with the Navy! Trust me, I understand. My near-term career has been adversely affected by my interest in bettering the Navy, because my officer in charge does not like my opinions. (I should never have shared them!!!)
carr wrote:
One of the problems that the Navy has is that every ship it designs is an attempt to build a multi-purpose, do-everything, win-a-war-single-handed, wonder-machine. While I have no problem with that, in theory, the reality is that it costs a bizillion dollars. ...
...Well, take a look at the requirements list. While not quite a win-a-war-single-handed design, it's a stand-and-take-on-all-comers design, for sure...
...Thus, the ship concept becomes a dedicated fire support ship with minimal self-defense (ESSM and short range guns) and that's all.
Well, that's what this ship does! "Effective AAW self defense" is ESSM in quad packs in Mk41 VLS tubes. "Engage small coastal defense craft in individual or swarm situations" means that it can defend itself against small boats, that's all.
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What if the concept were modified to assume that this ship would act as part of a group with the group providing air defense, anti-small boat defense, anti-swarm defense, mine clearing, etc.? Think about it ... There is no reasonable tactical scenario in which this ship would operate totally unsupported so why not take advantage of that support in the design?
The small one with 155mm guns and a single helo hanger is exactly that. This is a big-boy design, greater than 10,000 tones, possibly even built on something as large as a Des Moines-class hull in order to support 12" guns.
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You take an amphib size hull (San Antonio or, maybe, an old Austin or Tarawa that we're going to scrap), structurally reinforce it as needed, add your 8/10/12" guns, drop in an 8-cell VLS (32 ESSM), and let it go at that.
A Tarawa-class ship?! Oh, my. That's a lot more than what I have in mind. Not to mention, my idea has an inherent "cool" factor to it, too.
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But, we can't afford a single-purpose ship in today's stretched-too-thin Navy!!!! We have to multi-task!!!
Yeah, that is pretty dumb. This large NGFS ship would provide a ship that can defend itself (ESSM) while being able to resupply (2 H-60 family helos) and can get into a fight with the shore...or other ships...(deck and side protection), and be able to have a pretty good air picture (SPS-48 and 1-2 SPQ-9B).
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Well, think about what that means. Multi-tasking, aside from the combat requirements, just means showing the flag, squashing pirates, drug interdiction, and various other crap jobs that can be performed by a garbage scow. Any ship can perform those kinds of multi-tasking. Besides, you could build several of these ships for the cost of an LCS.
I don't think the requirements I listed call for all of that, especially in a ship big enough to mount 12" guns, however, it would be a fantastic basing point for special operations forces.
What would be required is a pretty heavy communications suite. In order to really keep in positive communications with adjacent forces (troops on the ground and any surrounding aircraft) the ship needs to be...as one might say...a C4I god.
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Instead of a 5 billion dollar wonder-machine, we build a $100M floating gun barge that gets towed into place when needed.
I think my light NGFS with 3 155mm guns would be under $600 million.
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Having said the above, this is Dave's WIF and he can design whatever he wants and he knows that I'll contribute whatever I can to his design. I'm just throwing out an alternative since he asked for thoughts.
Thanks, Bob! I would like to see you debate my OIC, but I think he might just yell a bunch. He did not even like it when I suggested I take my unit swimming once a week for physical training! Talk about closed minded!
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