Quote:
Originally Posted by JA Boomer
OK, I think we have a problem. And by 'we' I mean the US Navy. We have been discussing this and a few different missions have come up. The need for a surface combatant to provide hulls numbers to support the blue water navy while not costing an arm and a leg with an AEGIS system. The needs for an ASW role surface combatant. Finally a ship for littoral warfare; SOF ops, intell, recon, port security, small boat warfare, ship interdiction, drug interdiction.
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Yep. I agree with you here. We will probably end up with multiple hulls. The littoral mission especially seems very specialized.
I think though that we may disagree on what we need the most. I think you would agree that where the US is currently the strongest is blue water ops by battlegroups. We are without peer there. We have more hi-end air-warfare ships and large carriers than the rest of the world put together. True, eventually the Burkes and Ticos will not replacement but the need is not immediate. Where we are falling down is having ships to do the little, lower profile, less glamorous things like ASW, COIN, MIW, long-range patrol/pirate fighting, maritime security, escort duties, ... For those missions we do not need a "tier I" surface-combatant i.e. a Tico,Burke,Type45, Bazan, ... but we do need a lot of hulls so we can be all the places we want to be. We also need flexability as the range of mission to be covered is pretty diverse. The range of something like NSC as oposed to the LCS would allow it to handle most of those missions without an elaborate logistical tail The conventional hull would hopefully allow the ship to handle more than one of those roles at a time if needed (it can carry more cargo/weight/arms than the LCS).
[quote]"Needs to be a smaller hull, forget the netfires and the mission modules and the anti-mine warfare" [\QUOTE]
Some ability to deal with mine-warfare is clearly very important and is not an area where the US Navy is dominatant. Why would you can that aspect? Netfires allows the ship to target smaller hostile craft over the horizon. Why would you do without that? My guess is that even if LCS is completely cut, Netfires will find itself onboard larger ships operating in waters where the likelyhood of "small boat swarm attacks" is considered high.
I guess what this comes down to is what we perceive the needs of the US Navy to be. If you think that the Navy needs to beef-up its battlegroups with frigates, we should probably just build more Burkes. Why buy a less capable ship to augment the Burke's in essentially the same mission? My opinion (and it is just that, an opinion) is that the Navy needs to address those other roles for which the Burkes are not really suited. The Perry's were once able to handle at least some of these roles but unfortunately, they are at the end of their usefull lives.
You made the comment about "a couple of ESSMs and a deck gun". That is not really what I said. I am advocating keeping the armament flexible, so that the ship can be more easily tuned to the task at hand (besides 32 is way more than a couple).
Even in it's most austere configuration, an NSC-type ship with two helos, ability to deploy small boats, a 57mm gun and a SeaRam system would be usefull to the Navy (just as the emasculated Perrys still are today) for certain missions. If you have the option of increasing that armament to include harpoons, netfires, 30mm guns, torps, uavs, ... when deployments warrant it you become very usefull.