HKDan

Those are legit concerns about China, however I still feel that you are focusing on a absolute worst case scenario. The USN is not standing still in the face of what China has done and is doing. The PLAAF is no more a threat than the PLAN is. Their thousands of aircraft are mostly obsolete and those modern types that they do have(SU-??, and J-10) are heavily outnumbered by what the US can bring to bear. In the air over the next decade I think we can look for the US to improve its position against a Chinese threat significantly with the introduction of the F-35 and hopefully a few more F-22s. There is little chance that China will be able to introduce a 5th generation aircraft in this timeframe and if they do it certainly wont be in numbers. The greatest danger that the US faces in this area is if they dont buy enough airframes(a very real concern).
The anti-satellite and ballistic missile capabilities that China might have at that time are serious though. What the USN is doing to improve its capabilities in the area of countering China's anti-sat capabilities is probably not info for the public domain, as for their ballistic missiles, the USN is doing a lot with the Aegis ships that we have now. The Navy is not the only branch working on that sort of thing. I can only imagine what they will be capable of in a decade. I think it makes far more sense to work on improving what we have now instead of betting the farm on very expensive and not yet mature systems like DDX and CGX.

Galrahn

Instead of guessing about China's Navy, I recommend reading the the latest Intelligence report first.

HKDan

So I guess its pretty clear at this point that they mean to stay the course with LCS.

Dreadnought

They are one cool looking ship I give them that. The artists rendition is my favorite showing her in black camo.

__________________
Fortitude.....The strength to persist...The courage to endure.

Galrahn

Not sure I agree with that. As best I can tell, they are going to build 1-4, they folded the money for 5 and 6 into 1-4, and have removed options for more for FY08, FY09, and won't buy more until FY10... the next presidential administration. The Navy intends to sustain until FY10 using existing platforms.

In other words, right now the Navy is committed to 2 DD(X) and 4 LCS and it looks like they will not get more in FY08, and no more LCS until Fy2010 which is 2009 budget of the new administration in 2009. Despite the fact it is presented as grim news, it is actually what a great deal of people have been recommending for awhile.

B.Smitty

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.


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.

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.