Future Battleship/Capital Ship Discussion

[IDonT]

Bazan Class Frigate



Nassen

[IDonT]

HMS Daring



French Forbin FFG



Italian Andrea Doria FFG



Dutch DeZeven FFG



German Sachen FFG


CHinese Langzhou DDG

[Rick DeBay]

As a long time battleship reactivation nut and friend of Stearman, what other conclusion did you think he would arrive at?

Do you have any specific criticisms of the paper, or are they all ad hominem?

[gunnut]

French Forbin FFG



Italian Andrea Doria FFG

Those gun arrangements are funky.

[Gun Grape]

Do you have any specific criticisms of the paper, or are they all ad hominem?

I'm saying that he had an answer in mind from the beginning. A long time USNFSA member and battleship reactivation advocate is going to develop a answer that fits his preconceived notions.

Do you really think that he would come to a conclusion that he has been wrong all these years and the Navy's current trend is correct, or some other system is the right path.

Its not something that I accuse only him of doing. We all do it.

If An Air Force B-52 pilot or AF officer on the SDB program was asked to develop the best means of fire support in support of an amphibious operation. The Air Force will play a staring role and it will include B-52s launching JSOWs
as "The best option".

A submariner would have Ohios launching some form of Tom or Navalized GMLRS.

Its the nature of our species. Not some Shawn Welch is a .......

[Rick DeBay]

I'm saying that he had an answer in mind from the beginning. A long time USNFSA member and battleship reactivation advocate is going to develop a answer that fits his preconceived notions.

That's the definition of an Ad Hominem. You are "attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief of the person making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim. The process of proving or disproving the claim is thereby subverted, and the argumentum ad hominem works to change the subject." [...and I'm demonstrating LAZY, by quoting, ugh, Wikipedia].

It's like saying I don't believe Galileo, he may have a beef against the church, so all his experiments are ignored.

Do you disagree with the data that Col Welch examined? Is there a flaw in his analysis? Did he make an error in the conclusions he drew from the analysis?

If no one can find error, then they must accept that it is a valid solution. Unless you disagree with the scientific method, in which case we have to back up to before Aristotle to find an argumentative basis.

[Silent Hunter]

I think a helicopter or two is a requirement.

[Gun Grape]

It's like saying I don't believe Galileo, he may have a beef against the church, so all his experiments are ignored.

Oh BS. I havn't called into doubt "all" of Col Welch's work or anything he has said or done except for this thesis paper.

Do you disagree with the data that Col Welch examined?

Yes I do

Is there a flaw in his analysis?

Many, And most of it is regurgitation from the Stearman site. Everything from some inflation of various weapon cost such as TacTom. Inflating the contribution of BBs to the rest of the fire plan in various operations cited. Comparing apple and oranges in magazine capacity aboard the various ships IRT precision and dumb rounds and the effects of both.

Did he make an error in the conclusions he drew from the analysis?

Yes because he skewed the analysis to favor the outcome that he had from
the beginning. As noted in his abstract statement.

This study was undertaken with the realization that my son, Specialist Adam
Lloyd Welch, and son-in-law, Infantry Second Lieutenant Andrew White, may somedayrequire timely, accurate and lethal Naval Surface Fire Support – the kind of fire support that comes only from a gun. It is my desire that this study stimulates serious action to create a viable and effective naval fire support capability within our Navy to support Soldiers and Marines.

Nah, he wasn't looking for the best solution based on the data present. He was looking for data that fit his "We need Battleships/large guns" outlook.

If no one can find error, then they must accept that it is a valid solution. Unless you disagree with the scientific method, in which case we have to back up to before Aristotle to find an argumentative basis.

Lots of error. And we don't need to go back to Aristotle just every other study done on NSFS and Fire Support in Amphibious operations conducted in the last 50 years.

90% of this stuff was gone over by M-21, Rick and Myself a few years ago.
Want to go over it again? or You could just read the various BB reactivation threads

[Rick DeBay]

Oh BS. I havn't called into doubt "all" of Col Welch's work

In the example I should have substituted 'planetary observations' for 'all.'

Everything from some inflation of various weapon cost such as TacTom. Inflating the contribution of BBs to the rest of the fire plan in various operations cited. Comparing apple and oranges in magazine capacity aboard the various ships IRT precision and dumb rounds and the effects of both.

I'll compare his sources to others for the weapon costs. I don't know how I can find information on the engagements. How were the magazine capacities exaggerated? What should I be looking for?

90% of this stuff was gone over by M-21, Rick and Myself a few years ago. Want to go over it again? or You could just read the various BB reactivation threads

My first impression of those threads were of an extended pissing match, with a lot of thread drift. I'll try to see if I can find some wisdom in the pool.

Given that artillery is the king of battle and the god of war, I can't see how it wouldn't prove useful regardless of the setting.

[Rick DeBay]

I think a helicopter or two is a requirement.

For spotting? Or transportation between ships or shore? It probably wouldn't be needed for ASW.

[B.Smitty]

The fire requirements are already partially defined by the USMC. This sets the range requirements for shore bombardment as between 41nm and 63nm, with a time-on-target of 2.5 minutes (I'm using the initial requirement set, not the later one where it was 2.5 minutes to launch ordinance).
Volume and weight of fire was not defined, so I propose the equivalent of a Marine Artillery Regiment. I'm assuming a forced landing that requires major naval artillery support will be by an entire Marine Expeditionary Force, which normally enjoys the support of a MAR (more or less). To simplify I'll make an MAR equivalent to 96 M777 howitzers.

Isn't a MAR 72 guns nowadays? Didn't they drop the 4th battery per Bn when they thought they were gonna get MLRS?

With OMFTS/STOM, a MEF likely won't be assaulting a single beach, they will launch several geographically dispersed, vertical and amphibious assaults. They may be 63 nm inland, but could span tens or hundreds of miles of coastline. So packing a MAR-equivalent into a single ship doesn't make much sense. Better to disperse it into as many ships as possible, so they can be spread out to cover various assaults.

For "time-on-target" do you mean 2.5 minutes from request to rounds on target? Or is that just flyout time? If it's the former, then, realistically, there will only be a 1 - 1.5 minutes for munition flyout (once delays for passing the request up the chain are accounted for), and that doesn't consider deconfliction with air assets in the area.

If your munition only has 90 seconds to go 63nm, it'll need an average ground speed of around Mach 4 (2800 mph or 4100 fps or 1250 meters per second) over the entire flight. With a ballistic trajectory, that means an even higher airspeed. This is a lot to ask for any munition system (gun launched or missile).

The ship needs to operate in a hostile littoral environment, and it should be difficult to mission kill. Therefore it must be able to defend itself against missile, torpedo, and air attacks, and be able to survive a hit(s) from most credible threats. If needed, it should be able to leave the area at a good speed, even with one propulsion unit disabled.

A better way to preserve mission capability is, again, to split the mission up amongst multiple ships, so even if one gets hit, the rest can continue fighting. The more the merrier.

For blue-water missions, I'd require terminally guided ballistic rounds with a range of 200nm+. This number was cobbled together from the maritime strike range of an F/A-18 plus the range of a Harpoon. A future objective would be to meet the greater range offered by the Lightning-II.

we have AShMs, aircraft and submarines for ASuW. There really is no need for anything else.

[Gun Grape]

Isn't a MAR 72 guns nowadays? Didn't they drop the 4th battery per Bn when they thought they were gonna get MLRS?

Yes they dropped the 4th Battery but went from 6 gun Batteries to 8 gun ones.

[B.Smitty]

Yes they dropped the 4th Battery but went from 6 gun Batteries to 8 gun ones.

Really? I thought they were still at 6 guns per battery.

[B.Smitty]

I saw this recently,

"After Desert Storm, the configuration of the Regiment changed dramatically. The Fourth Battalion of each regiment was disbanded and the four remaining battalions all became structured to accomplish all standard tactical missions. All self-propelled howitzers were replaced with towed 155mm M198s. Thus, all of the artillery units in the Marines looked the same. At the same time, the battery structure of each battalion was changed from a 3X8 structure to a 4X6 structure, meaning that each battalion consisted of four batteries of six guns each. The change appeared to have little impact to most Marines outside of the artillery because the 3X8 battalion and the 4X6 battalion each contained 24 guns. What they did not see was that a great deal of flexibility as lost as well. In the 4X6 organization, each battery contained only one FDC, which controlled all six howitzers. Once a battery displaced, another battery was required to respond to whatever unit the displacing battery had been supporting, as well as their own.

In the early1990s, one of the four batteries in each battalion was disbanded to make structure room for a battery of MLRS (Multiple Launched Rocket System) in each artillery regiment. But the decision was made not to procure MLRS, and the lost structure was never regained. The current Marine artillery regiment at the time of this paper contains four battalions of towed 155mm howitzers. Each battalion contains three batteries of six guns each."

http://stinet.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTR...c=GetTRDoc.pdf

Have they updated it since then?

[Gun Grape]

Really? I thought they were still at 6 guns per battery.

Not at the time that the GS Battery was dropped from the DS Battalions.

But you are correct, for about the last 10 yrs they have been 6 gun batteries.

Rick may have been using data that he got from me. I don't remember the time frame of the size units but that number comes from the Arty T/E of the late 80s.

Or I had what is commonly referred to as a "Brain Fart" and gave him bad dope

Sometimes we forget to level the bubble before we fire.