to a USNFSA piece that I have reposted below the current essay which is posted below my comments which are lengthier than I intended. LOL What else is new? LOL
Well sort of responds to it. Doesn't really address some of Reilly's more hysterical and derogatory statements. For good reason. Those will be taken up privately to further erode the USNFSA credibility as regards reality. And they have alieninated ALOT of people and there are consequences to be paid.
But notice how he brings up the cost issue right from the beginning and over and over and over. The USN is mandated by DOD and Rumsfeld to hit a certain budget target. Which of course the USN knows is inadequate. What they have done this year is cut things out like the JFK and shipbuilding funds.
Then let Congress ADD funding. LOL Its perfect.
The same strategy seems to be at work here as the USN to my knowledge has never directly, publicly responded to any USNFSA offering before.
They state just like with the JFK that they are too costly to have in-servivce.
And let Congress decide. Again perfect.
AS Ive said for alonggggggggg time if you want something convince Congress because they have, can, do and will fund anything THEY WANT.
I said about a year ago that the FY 2006 budget needed to be the time to either get the Battleships back or bury the issue. Looks like belatedly this may happen.
Awful late in the game though for the proponents.
Its do or die time. IMHO
A coupla other thoughts:
1.) Nothing new in the USNFSA piece.
2.) The Admiral didnt address forced-entry operations(Amphibious) (Interesting no?)
You can thank the USMC's OMFTS for that I think. But then thats a whole nother subject. LOL
3.) The Admiral devotes a paragraph to magazine limitations, resupply annd safety.
He also mentions safety elsewhere. The USN has previously down-played the safety issue. But I was told beginning fifteen years ago(after the IOWA incident) and continuing to this very day by certain people with considerable USN experience that this was if not the most important issue then certainly in the top two. Cost of course being the most often stated reasoning.
June 13, 2005
Building a new Navy
By Charles S. Hamilton
Passionate advocates of returning our Nation's two battleships to service maintain that these two ships could be brought back into service quickly, safely and economically to meet Marine Corps requirements for long-range, precise firepower ashore.
The battleships and the Sailors who manned them served our Nation with pride and distinction through some of the darkest days of the Republic. We must continue to honor that service and recognize their achievements, but we should not confuse our fondness for those ships with an assumption of their appropriateness for the task at hand.
If reactivated, the battleships would not be able to fire munitions "as far as 115 miles in a life-saving time of only three minutes." Such munitions just do not exist, nor could they be quickly developed, tested and fielded within the next few years. The current range of an unguided 16-inch round is only 20 nautical miles ? half the distance the Navy has fired the latest generations of smart rounds for our new naval guns. The notion that super long-range 16-inch gun rounds are within our grasp is illusory.
And given today's battlefields, particularly the densely populated urban jungles in which our Marines and Soldiers currently fight, it would be folly to assume that a battlefield commander would employ a high-yield "dumb" weapon at long ranges without the utmost confidence that it would not inflict massive collateral damage. Without that confidence, such a weapon would have dubious utility. Developing a hardened guidance and control system that could withstand the punishing muzzle energy of the 16-inch guns, if at all possible, would not be a simple or cheap two-to-three-year effort.
The Navy's solution is the next-generation destroyer, DD(X), with its two fully automated 155mm guns capable of firing 10 Global Positioning System-guided rounds per minute up to 83 nautical miles from an expandable 920-round magazine. To provide sustained fire for major combat operations, DD(X) can employ imaginative new feature called an unlimited magazine. Because of DD(X)'s design, with its two forward-mounted guns and expansive flight deck aft, the ship can simultaneously conduct fire missions while being resupplied. Pre-loaded pallets are brought aboard and quickly placed directly into the fully automated magazine, much like a clip is used to reload a semi-automatic handgun or rifle. At no point do sailors have to labor with loading or assembling the ammunition, which increases the firing rate, reloading time and safety to the crew.
DD(X) will use a devastating new tactic called "multiple simultaneously round impact" in which the ship fires six to eight rounds at different trajectories depending on the range of the target. Each round steers to precise aim points, landing in a particular pattern at the same time in a no-notice, lethal salvo that catches targets unaware and unprepared from the very first shot. Hostile forces will no longer be able to hunker down in bunkers or flee an area during the time it currently takes our spotters find the proper range, adjust their shots and fire for effect. DD(X) will deliver this powerful firepower at more than four times the range and with more than 20 times the accuracy of a battleship.
The Navy's current strategy will outfit its current world-class ships with the best weapons possible and develop a long-term solution, DD(X). This approach is designed to spread capability throughout the Fleet, rather than concentrate it in two ships that cannot be everywhere at once. Given the current resource-constrained wartime budget, spending the billions of dollars to reactivate the battleships, develop advanced munitions, and pay the very high costs to operate them would come at the expense of other vital programs.
The mighty ships of the Iowa Class served this nation well in the 20th century. It is now time to build the ships that will do so in the 21st.
Rear Adm. Charles S. Hamilton is the Navy's Program Executive Officer for Ships.
Heres the original USNFSA piece that is refered to in the above offering:
June 6, 2005
Battleships fit for duty
By Dennis Reilly
The 2006 National Defense Authorization Act would strike the battleships USS Iowa and Wisconsin from the Navy register and turn them into museums. This sounds attractive, but it would in fact erect monuments to folly, placing the lives of thousands of our Marines at risk. It would void the previous law, PL104-106, that instructed the Navy to keep two Iowa-class battleships readily available until the Navy certifies to Congress that it has fire-support capability that equals or exceeds that of the Iowa-class battleships. The Navy is unable to do this. Instead, it has taken steps detrimental to reactivation of these ships.
Why this reaction? Simply put, there has been a failure of strategic insight on the part of leadership. A July 2002 meeting between then Navy Secretary Gordon England -- now up for confirmation as deputy secretary of defense -- and the U.S. Naval Surface Fire Support Association focused on reactivating the battleships to provide the fire support that was then and is now missing. Mr. England stated that there was no need for that kind of firepower, as the only remaining threat was terrorism. When I brought up North Korea, China, Iran, and the impending war with Iraq, the Secretary replied: "We do not regard such scenarios as realistic." Iraq is now history. Fortunately we did not have to fight our way ashore.
The world, however, remains a dangerous place, and the threat of terrorism is still but one head on the hydra. While North Korea continues to churn out nuclear weapons, some 12,000 well-dug-in artillery tubes along the DMZ hold Seoul hostage with the threat of overnight obliteration. China's rapidly escalating military capabilities, alliances and thinly veiled threats are alarming. China clearly feels free to choose the time and means -- including force -- to resolve the Taiwan issue. How events will unfold in these places and in others, such as Iran, is anyone's guess. But one thing is sure. Should there be conflict in these areas, the Marines will be involved, and it will not be an antiterrorist action.
Based on its vision, the Navy has focused on the development of a destroyer, the DD(X), equipped with two long range guns. No doubt this would be useful in breaking up terrorist camps scattered about the Pacific littorals, but it is not the gun you would want to bring to a major conflict. The small mass delivered to target makes these rounds ineffective against hardened positions. The cost per round forces the Navy to admit that high-volume fire is unaffordable. Lacking armor, the ship is highly vulnerable, despite its low-radar cross section. The cost -- Congress demands a cap of $1.7 billion per ship -- is out of proportion to its usefulness.
What can a supposedly antiquated battleship bring to the fight? During the Vietnam War, the New Jersey was on station for 6 months. It wreaked havoc on the DMZ and in the North, including destruction of the deeply buried North Vietnamese Army (NVA) command headquarters. Had this ship been deployed throughout that war, a fair fraction of the 2,000 aviators killed, missing in action or captured as prisoners of war would have been spared. No statistic conveys the impact of the New Jersey's assault on the NVA better than the fact that North Vietnam demanded the withdrawal of the ship -- not the B-52s -- before it would continue with the Paris peace talks.
Technology now allows battleships to do far better. GPS guidance will ensure one-shot, one-kill of hard targets such as the North Korean gun emplacements and Chinese missile batteries. Shells weighing 525 pounds can reach as far as 115 miles in a life-saving time of only 3 minutes. Over the longer term, the battleship's potential is truly revolutionary. Studies show that its massive firepower could be projected to at least 460 miles. With enhanced firepower and the ability to steam between Inchon and the Formosan Straits in less than a day and a half, two modernized battleships would have a chilling deterrent effect on aggressive designs by either the Chinese or the North Koreans.
The Navy has misled Congress regarding the battleship's firepower, costs, survivability -- the Nevada survived two atom bombs -- and condition of equipment. The reality is that these ships could meet Marine Corps fire-support requirements in the near future. Nothing else can. Cost effective? Each battleship, with a reactivation and modernization cost of only $1.5 billion, has firepower equivalent to two aircraft carriers using only one-eighththemanpower. Moreover, the battleships' response is all-weather, is generally faster and is impervious to air defenses.
As Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously said, you go to war with the army you have. If in the future our brave Marines are getting butchered because of insufficient fire support, "the Army we have" then will be a result of the actions taken today. What should be done? Reactivate the battleships now. Would you rather have a museum or a live Marine?
Dennis Reilly, a physicist, serves as science advisor to the U.S. Naval Fire Support Association.
Well sort of responds to it. Doesn't really address some of Reilly's more hysterical and derogatory statements. For good reason. Those will be taken up privately to further erode the USNFSA credibility as regards reality. And they have alieninated ALOT of people and there are consequences to be paid.
But notice how he brings up the cost issue right from the beginning and over and over and over. The USN is mandated by DOD and Rumsfeld to hit a certain budget target. Which of course the USN knows is inadequate. What they have done this year is cut things out like the JFK and shipbuilding funds.
Then let Congress ADD funding. LOL Its perfect.
The same strategy seems to be at work here as the USN to my knowledge has never directly, publicly responded to any USNFSA offering before.
They state just like with the JFK that they are too costly to have in-servivce.
And let Congress decide. Again perfect.
AS Ive said for alonggggggggg time if you want something convince Congress because they have, can, do and will fund anything THEY WANT.
I said about a year ago that the FY 2006 budget needed to be the time to either get the Battleships back or bury the issue. Looks like belatedly this may happen.
Awful late in the game though for the proponents.
Its do or die time. IMHO
A coupla other thoughts:
1.) Nothing new in the USNFSA piece.
2.) The Admiral didnt address forced-entry operations(Amphibious) (Interesting no?)
You can thank the USMC's OMFTS for that I think. But then thats a whole nother subject. LOL
3.) The Admiral devotes a paragraph to magazine limitations, resupply annd safety.
He also mentions safety elsewhere. The USN has previously down-played the safety issue. But I was told beginning fifteen years ago(after the IOWA incident) and continuing to this very day by certain people with considerable USN experience that this was if not the most important issue then certainly in the top two. Cost of course being the most often stated reasoning.
June 13, 2005
Building a new Navy
By Charles S. Hamilton
Passionate advocates of returning our Nation's two battleships to service maintain that these two ships could be brought back into service quickly, safely and economically to meet Marine Corps requirements for long-range, precise firepower ashore.
The battleships and the Sailors who manned them served our Nation with pride and distinction through some of the darkest days of the Republic. We must continue to honor that service and recognize their achievements, but we should not confuse our fondness for those ships with an assumption of their appropriateness for the task at hand.
If reactivated, the battleships would not be able to fire munitions "as far as 115 miles in a life-saving time of only three minutes." Such munitions just do not exist, nor could they be quickly developed, tested and fielded within the next few years. The current range of an unguided 16-inch round is only 20 nautical miles ? half the distance the Navy has fired the latest generations of smart rounds for our new naval guns. The notion that super long-range 16-inch gun rounds are within our grasp is illusory.
And given today's battlefields, particularly the densely populated urban jungles in which our Marines and Soldiers currently fight, it would be folly to assume that a battlefield commander would employ a high-yield "dumb" weapon at long ranges without the utmost confidence that it would not inflict massive collateral damage. Without that confidence, such a weapon would have dubious utility. Developing a hardened guidance and control system that could withstand the punishing muzzle energy of the 16-inch guns, if at all possible, would not be a simple or cheap two-to-three-year effort.
The Navy's solution is the next-generation destroyer, DD(X), with its two fully automated 155mm guns capable of firing 10 Global Positioning System-guided rounds per minute up to 83 nautical miles from an expandable 920-round magazine. To provide sustained fire for major combat operations, DD(X) can employ imaginative new feature called an unlimited magazine. Because of DD(X)'s design, with its two forward-mounted guns and expansive flight deck aft, the ship can simultaneously conduct fire missions while being resupplied. Pre-loaded pallets are brought aboard and quickly placed directly into the fully automated magazine, much like a clip is used to reload a semi-automatic handgun or rifle. At no point do sailors have to labor with loading or assembling the ammunition, which increases the firing rate, reloading time and safety to the crew.
DD(X) will use a devastating new tactic called "multiple simultaneously round impact" in which the ship fires six to eight rounds at different trajectories depending on the range of the target. Each round steers to precise aim points, landing in a particular pattern at the same time in a no-notice, lethal salvo that catches targets unaware and unprepared from the very first shot. Hostile forces will no longer be able to hunker down in bunkers or flee an area during the time it currently takes our spotters find the proper range, adjust their shots and fire for effect. DD(X) will deliver this powerful firepower at more than four times the range and with more than 20 times the accuracy of a battleship.
The Navy's current strategy will outfit its current world-class ships with the best weapons possible and develop a long-term solution, DD(X). This approach is designed to spread capability throughout the Fleet, rather than concentrate it in two ships that cannot be everywhere at once. Given the current resource-constrained wartime budget, spending the billions of dollars to reactivate the battleships, develop advanced munitions, and pay the very high costs to operate them would come at the expense of other vital programs.
The mighty ships of the Iowa Class served this nation well in the 20th century. It is now time to build the ships that will do so in the 21st.
Rear Adm. Charles S. Hamilton is the Navy's Program Executive Officer for Ships.
Heres the original USNFSA piece that is refered to in the above offering:
June 6, 2005
Battleships fit for duty
By Dennis Reilly
The 2006 National Defense Authorization Act would strike the battleships USS Iowa and Wisconsin from the Navy register and turn them into museums. This sounds attractive, but it would in fact erect monuments to folly, placing the lives of thousands of our Marines at risk. It would void the previous law, PL104-106, that instructed the Navy to keep two Iowa-class battleships readily available until the Navy certifies to Congress that it has fire-support capability that equals or exceeds that of the Iowa-class battleships. The Navy is unable to do this. Instead, it has taken steps detrimental to reactivation of these ships.
Why this reaction? Simply put, there has been a failure of strategic insight on the part of leadership. A July 2002 meeting between then Navy Secretary Gordon England -- now up for confirmation as deputy secretary of defense -- and the U.S. Naval Surface Fire Support Association focused on reactivating the battleships to provide the fire support that was then and is now missing. Mr. England stated that there was no need for that kind of firepower, as the only remaining threat was terrorism. When I brought up North Korea, China, Iran, and the impending war with Iraq, the Secretary replied: "We do not regard such scenarios as realistic." Iraq is now history. Fortunately we did not have to fight our way ashore.
The world, however, remains a dangerous place, and the threat of terrorism is still but one head on the hydra. While North Korea continues to churn out nuclear weapons, some 12,000 well-dug-in artillery tubes along the DMZ hold Seoul hostage with the threat of overnight obliteration. China's rapidly escalating military capabilities, alliances and thinly veiled threats are alarming. China clearly feels free to choose the time and means -- including force -- to resolve the Taiwan issue. How events will unfold in these places and in others, such as Iran, is anyone's guess. But one thing is sure. Should there be conflict in these areas, the Marines will be involved, and it will not be an antiterrorist action.
Based on its vision, the Navy has focused on the development of a destroyer, the DD(X), equipped with two long range guns. No doubt this would be useful in breaking up terrorist camps scattered about the Pacific littorals, but it is not the gun you would want to bring to a major conflict. The small mass delivered to target makes these rounds ineffective against hardened positions. The cost per round forces the Navy to admit that high-volume fire is unaffordable. Lacking armor, the ship is highly vulnerable, despite its low-radar cross section. The cost -- Congress demands a cap of $1.7 billion per ship -- is out of proportion to its usefulness.
What can a supposedly antiquated battleship bring to the fight? During the Vietnam War, the New Jersey was on station for 6 months. It wreaked havoc on the DMZ and in the North, including destruction of the deeply buried North Vietnamese Army (NVA) command headquarters. Had this ship been deployed throughout that war, a fair fraction of the 2,000 aviators killed, missing in action or captured as prisoners of war would have been spared. No statistic conveys the impact of the New Jersey's assault on the NVA better than the fact that North Vietnam demanded the withdrawal of the ship -- not the B-52s -- before it would continue with the Paris peace talks.
Technology now allows battleships to do far better. GPS guidance will ensure one-shot, one-kill of hard targets such as the North Korean gun emplacements and Chinese missile batteries. Shells weighing 525 pounds can reach as far as 115 miles in a life-saving time of only 3 minutes. Over the longer term, the battleship's potential is truly revolutionary. Studies show that its massive firepower could be projected to at least 460 miles. With enhanced firepower and the ability to steam between Inchon and the Formosan Straits in less than a day and a half, two modernized battleships would have a chilling deterrent effect on aggressive designs by either the Chinese or the North Koreans.
The Navy has misled Congress regarding the battleship's firepower, costs, survivability -- the Nevada survived two atom bombs -- and condition of equipment. The reality is that these ships could meet Marine Corps fire-support requirements in the near future. Nothing else can. Cost effective? Each battleship, with a reactivation and modernization cost of only $1.5 billion, has firepower equivalent to two aircraft carriers using only one-eighththemanpower. Moreover, the battleships' response is all-weather, is generally faster and is impervious to air defenses.
As Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously said, you go to war with the army you have. If in the future our brave Marines are getting butchered because of insufficient fire support, "the Army we have" then will be a result of the actions taken today. What should be done? Reactivate the battleships now. Would you rather have a museum or a live Marine?
Dennis Reilly, a physicist, serves as science advisor to the U.S. Naval Fire Support Association.
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