US Navy ships and weapon systems

The fire was possible sabotage by a Black sailor: 
https://news.usni.org/2020/08/26/ncis-atf-investigating-sailor-in-uss-bonhomme-richard-fire-criminal-investigation

https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/07/25/after-the-us-navys-bonhomme-richard-catastrophe-a-far-reaching-crackdown-on-fire-safety/

https://news.usni.org/2020/09/01/video-aerial-refueling-for-e-2ds-will-expand-reach-of-carrier-strike-groups

They are going to pin it on the black guy.... typical...

I remember just after Desert Storm there were a couple of low flying helicopters that were detected by AWACS so two F-15s went to investigate... from 5km distant from behind so the targets wouldn't spot them... though also clearly so they couldn't spot the targets properly either, they decided they were Hinds and promptly shot them both down.

Turns out they were Blackhawks carrying Iraqi and US officials... I believe it was the Asian guy on the AWACS who got the blame for that...

Quite a good article on the Norwegian/US Naval Strike Missile.


The Independence class Littoral Combat Ship USS Gabrielle Giffords (LCS-10) is in the waters off Guam taking part in exercise Pacific Griffin, during which she fired off a Naval Strike Missile (NSM). This is a big deal considering giving the LCS more combat punch and a far longer kinetic reach has been a long time coming and the Naval Strike Missile is an incredibly capable and relevant weapon, as is its even more advanced cousin, the Joint Strike Missile. Images and video from the launch were interesting, but one image, in particular, serves as a unique example of one of the basic tenets of low-observable "stealth" design.

The Navy Strike Missile, which is a product of Norway's Kongsberg Defense and Aerospace, was designed with reduced radar cross-section in mind, and especially from the head-on aspect from which it will barrel towards its maritime target. The missile uses passive imaging infrared, not radar, to locate and attack its prey. As a result, it doesn't give away its presence by emitting RF radiation during its terminal phase of flight. It also isn't susceptible to 'soft kill' electronic warfare tactics like jamming. In addition, its small radar cross-section makes it hard to spot on radar as it skims low and fast over the waves.

Generally speaking, warships depend on a missile's radar emissions and its radar signature to detect it and defend against it. Lacking one of these things entirely and manifesting the other in very limited quantities, you can imagine that the Naval Strike Missile is one diabolical and deadly anti-ship cruise missile. Oh, it also has a secondary land-attack capability, too.



https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/30139/this-image-of-a-naval-strike-missile-launch-shows-a-key-tenet-of-stealth-design

oh wow.... how amazing... so I guess the SS-N-14 Metel is a super weapon too... not only can it attack submarines with the torpedo it carries, but the rocket that flys it out to the target has a 300kg HE warhead and an optical guidance system... so it will be a passive anti ship weapon and the payload of 300kgs of HE and an entire torpedo and its volatile unused fuel and of course the HE warhead from the torpedo should add up to a rather potent anti ship capability...

The missile uses passive imaging infrared, not radar, to locate and attack its prey. As a result, it doesn't give away its presence by emitting RF radiation during its terminal phase of flight. It also isn't susceptible to 'soft kill' electronic warfare tactics like jamming. In addition, its small radar cross-section makes it hard to spot on radar as it skims low and fast over the waves.

Hang on.... while the Russian ships were in Syria didn't they show off a dazzler laser based system to defeat optically guided weapons... like ATGMs and of course IR and TV guided weapons from being fired at their ships?

Wouldn't that work too against this brand new weapon?

Also Russian ships are just covered in all sorts of rocket tubes that launch chaff and IR elements and smoke that thermal imagers can't see through...

the USN has many problems: https://ria.ru/20201014/ssha-1579641262.html

Superior western tech a work. Or rather not.

Navy Will Spend Around $30 Million To Scrap Fire-Damaged USS Bonhomme Richard

The amphibious assault ship suffered an explosion while in port earlier this year and subsequent fires raged onboard for four days.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37880/navy-will-spend-around-30-million-to-scarp-fire-damaged-uss-bonhomme-richard

Excellent.... the bigger US carriers remain dangerous because they could carry F-22 performance level fighters if the US ever bothered to develop such a thing.

Reducing performance down to F-35 severely weakened them, but going for smaller ships will make things much much worse.... they will become much easier to take on and defeat even by smaller nations now...

If large numbers of smaller ships was really the solution then the US would fear the Iranian navy much more than it currently does...

Reading the headline one would thing they are actually performing a great doctrinal shift away from carriers, the only thing the plan says is not to build the fifth Ford unit, or not yet, since we have seen this kind of US fake budgetary discussion before. A big no news.

The 2 RN CVs must be also counted as part of USN, for all intents & purposes; USMC F-35Bs recently deployed on it.
A forward deployed CVN in Japan is worth 2-3 CVNs on US W. Coast; 1 more homeported in Australia or Hawaii will ad 2-3 more.
Not counting the Ford CVN that may not be fully combat capable, 10 CVNs with 2 forward deployed+2RN CVs will be=14-16 CV/Ns.

GarryB wrote:Reducing performance down to F-35 severely weakened them, but going for smaller ships will make things much much worse.... they will become much easier to take on and defeat even by smaller nations now...

Not really, it will make them far more efficient in controlling the oceans and far more resilient to damage, fewer fat targets which means smaller nations will be even more outclassed than now

Their ability to carry out land invasions is only thing that will suffer

GarryB wrote:If large numbers of smaller ships was really the solution then the US would fear the Iranian navy much more than it currently does...

Iranian ships are dogshit so nothing would change from them anyway

However this will give ships like Karakurts a whole new purpose, good news for Russian surface fleet

China however will be in addition problems

Four 100K carriers are harder to sink that 12 x 30K ton pipsqueak carriers...

The level of aircraft performance defending a Nimitz class is not comparable to the level of aircraft performance defending the Hermes helicopter carrier...

It'll depend on what enemy threat they'll deal with. An LHA size CVs + their escorts only won't be sent against NK, PRC or Iran.
Trump's Massive Navy Buildup Bets on Savings That Wont Materialize, Experts Say

I bet the same experts will glorify Bidets plan for the navy, which will be the same as Trumps. Because in reality it is the plan of the MIC.

68th American Arleigh Burke-class destroyer entered sea trials

On December 16, 2020, the Arleigh Burke-class USS Daniel Inouye (DDG-118) destroyer USS Daniel Inouye (DDG-118) left the shipyard of the General Dynamics Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine for the first time for sea trials. USS Daniel Inouye became the 68th destroyer of this class and 37th of this class, built by General Dynamics Bath Iron Works (GDBIW). The keel-laying ceremony of DDG-118 took place on 14 May 2018. DDG-118 is built in the current version of the Fly-2A with the Aegis Baseline 9 weapon control system, which includes the AN / SPY-1 radar, the Mk.99 fire control system, the Mk.41 VPU and the SM-3 "Standard" missile defense system, which ensure the destruction of air threats and missile defense.



https://dambiev.livejournal.com/2160075.html

Funny Americans:

The United States is ready to replace some of the nuclear aircraft carriers with lighter analogues

The US Navy is ready to replace part of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier (CVN) with lighter counterparts (CVL). These will be smaller, conventional-fueled aircraft carriers.

Forbes reports.

The desire to develop smaller aircraft carriers in the US Navy arose several years ago. They will have a shorter range, power and speed than atomic ones. But at the same time, they will not cost $ 13 billion, as nuclear-powered supercarriers, but two or three times cheaper. In addition to the price, another reason for the reduction of nuclear aircraft carriers may be the high vulnerability of these warships to the new weaponscreated in Russia and China.

A 2017 study by Californian think tank RAND recommended that the Navy replace some of its 11 100-ton CVNs with CVLs, which would be 40 tonnes. In this case, one supercarrier should be replaced by two lighter, non-nuclear ones.

CVLs are now featured in the Navy's 30-year shipbuilding plan for the first time. It was published last week by the administration of outgoing President Donald Trump. It is possible that his successor Joe Biden, who takes office on January 20, may revise this plan or abandon it altogether.

On the other hand, Trump's plan reflects a consensus among the naval leadership that the fleet should grow at the expense of small ships that can quickly split up, avoiding an enemy strike.

There is no exact information yet on what the CVL will look like, but it is assumed that they will begin to be created on the basis of large amphibious assault ships of the "America" ​​class.

https://en.topwar.ru/178347-ssha-gotovy-zamenit-chast-atomnyh-avianoscev-na-bolee-legkie-analogi.html

Observe the flawed logic of this obvious stunt to juice more money from the Pentagon. Under pressure due to the exorbitant and unjustifiable costs of the Ford Class, the proposal is to go for new lighter carriers that should be "affordable" and "less vulnerable"... but you will need twice as many. Given they will incur in overcosts as any US MIC program and they will not be less vulnerable AT ALL, if only because they will be smaller and far easier to sink, the most likely outcome is a fleet with less capable ships that is more expensive AND more vulnerable. Hats off to them, and may they be successfull selling the dummy to the political leadership

So American warships will be able to saturate enemy air defences with a massive barrage..

Yeah, and as we saw Syria was able to shoot down 71 of the 103 weapons fired at them without an IADS and using separate individual air defence systems that were not working together in a managed system... an organised system probably would have shot down the lot.

And that is Syria... not Russia...

Americas newest anti ship and land attack missile is Tomahawk block 5, while the Russian navys newest anti ship and land attack missile is Zircon...

https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2020/12/white-house-shipbuilding-plan-would-shrink-ford-carrier-class-over-navy-objections/170650/

So the politicians are telling their naval experts that they need to build smaller aircraft carriers...

That is normal.

The drive for smaller carriers normally comes from the accountants and politicians... but the problem is that when the brown stuff hits the rotary air cooling system they expect the same performance... which stinks up the room real fast.

Attention BS warning!


A new doctrinal paper by USN that reads like a wartime pamphlet leaves us jewels of propaganda like these:

Today, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Russian Federation (RF) employ
all instruments of their national power to undermine and remake the international system to
serve their own interests. Each conduct a variety of malign activities incrementally, attempting
to achieve their objectives without triggering a military response. Both nations back their
revisionist activities with regionally powerful militaries and obscure their aggressive behavior
by mixing military and paramilitary forces with proxies. China’s and Russia’s attempts to
exert control over natural marine resources and restrict access to the oceans have negative
repercussions for all nations.

China has implemented a strategy and revisionist approach that aims at the heart of the
United States’ maritime power. It seeks to corrode international maritime governance, deny
access to traditional logistical hubs, inhibit freedom of the seas, control use of key chokepoints,
deter our engagement in regional disputes, and displace the United States as the preferred
partner in countries around the world.

To enable its strategy, China deploys a multilayered fleet that includes the People’s
Liberation Army Navy, the China Coast Guard, and the People’s Armed Forces Maritime
Militia—naval auxiliaries disguised as civilian vessels—to subvert other nations’ sovereignty
and enforce unlawful claims.

Whereas U.S. naval forces are globally dispersed, supporting U.S. interests and
deterring aggression from multiple threats, China’s numerically larger forces are primarily
concentrated in the Western Pacific.

https://media.defense.gov/2020/Dec/17/2002553481/-1/-1/0/TRISERVICESTRATEGY.PDF/TRISERVICESTRATEGY.PDF

I could go on an on, since the document is an unmitigated load of ideological crap and outright lies that in full paranoia spends almost 40 pages complaining about how Russia and China are threatening US by defending their territory without even noticing once that maybe if US would mean their own business and refrain from harassing them right at their doorstep, things would be easier for all.

The conclusion of all this display of stupidity could not be more negative: the political leadership of armed services has been taken over by deranged idiots that fail not only to perceive that respect of subjectivity is the basis of international relationships, but even more fatally, miss the obvious fact that US cannot today or in any foreseeable future defeat both China and Russia in their immediate surroundings. I really struggle to see how this situation is going to change without a sound and very dangerous military defeat of the US that shakes the regime to the point of taking the globalists down.

"Preffered partner"
"Remake the international system to serve their own interests" - instead of washingtons interests. How dare they!

The US Freedom class of littoral combat ship has botched design gear boxes that prevents them from operating
at their rated speed. They cannot use the gas turbines without risking catastrophic failure of the drive
train. This first occurred on the Milwaukee and the US Navy tried to blame the crew. But in the fall of 2020
in a policing operation in the Caribbean the same failure occurred on the Detroit and Little Rock. This prompted
an investigation as opposed to a stupid coverup and the gear box was found to be defective in design and
could not handle the load from the gas turbines. So these ships an only crawl along at 12 knots using their
diesel engines.

Replacing or fixing the gear boxes is not feasible in the initial assessment but the maker of the gear boxes
is supposedly trying to come up with a solution.

The US does not need sanctions to screw up. For all the bitching at Russia I do not see examples similar to
this case being provided by the critics.