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Originally Posted by JMH
The money to fund a new Navy that is able to win a Naval and air war against China in 2020 is not going to come from Congress, so it needs to come from the Navy. A new generation of kinetic energy and Laser weapons needs to be developed and deployed on CGX and DDX size warships if the Navy hopes to survive long enough to win in a confrontation with China in 2020. Forty DDX and CGX destroyers would more than make up for the loss nine Ticonderoga class cruisers, (which could be brought back into service if needed).
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Hmm.. I don't really see a new generation of kinetic and laser weapons as being super high priorities for shipborne use.
Rail guns might make NGFS a more viable proposition someday, but i think there's a lot of R&D still ahead of them, especially in the area of projectile guidance survivability during launch.
Other than that, improvements in shipborne kinetic weapons seem to have reached a point of diminishing returns. AGS isn't THAT much better than the 5"/62, IMHO.
Lasers (non-blue-green) and water don't mix. Plus, they are LOS only. They're basically just super-fast reacting CIWS. They make more sense on aircraft, IMHO. Though i can see them on laser-based DIRCMS turrets for blinding IR guided AShMs.
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Originally Posted by JMH
Because the Navy is not able to provide adequate Naval gunfire support, it would be rather foolish for the Marines to conduct a large scale amphibious assault. Consequently, the effects from the loss of Austin class LPDs and Tarawa class LHA's until they are replaced by more capable LHDX and San Antonio class LPD's would be rather insignificant.
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The Navy will have somewhere around 100 5" mounts on the Burkes and Ticos, without even considering DDG-1000. That's a lot of potential NGFS.
Plus, those phibs can do a LOT more than just large scale amphibious assault.
You're talking about basically disbanding 4+ ARGs until someday, hopefully, the money rolls around to buy new LHA(R)s and LPDs.
That's a lot of capability lost in the interim.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JMH
It is irresponsible to keep deploying the Oliver Hazard Perry class FFGs to high threat areas, when in effect they have been reduced to ASW patrol gunboats by the removal of all Standard and Harpoon missiles, which leaves them very vulnerable to air, anti-ship missile attack and surface attack. But than again, perhaps if a few FFG-7 class Frigates are sunk and or damaged by Iranian anti-ship missiles, Congress might actually increase funding for the US Navy, but that would be rather callous if the human cost is any consideration. Whatever the case, the Navy needs to get laser weapons and kinetic energy weapons deployed at sea on missile cruisers and destroyers by 2020 if the Navy expects to survive and win in an all out naval and air war with China in 2020.
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Are FFGs deployed regularly to high threat areas? Where are these high threat areas?
FFGs today are far more cost-effective platforms than destroyers or cruisers for the types of GWOT roles the Navy finds itself performing all the time today.