SECDEF Talks About New Frigate to Follow LCS

[mikeCK]

Well, here is your P-3 replacement

http://www.janes.com/article/34618/pose ... production

[hellfish6]

Using the LCS hull is pointless. They'd be far too overpowered, and those pump jets are a big chunk of what makes them so expensive in the first place (and the hull itself is apparently the cause of a lot of the maintenance issues). LM2500 gas turbines, like damn near every other combat ship, are plenty powerful for whatever hull we end up with.

The German Sachsen-class or the Danish Absalons are what we should be looking at for OTS solutions (though, admittedly, they're a little large). I know that USN's been pretty impressed with the Absalons off Somalia and Syria.

[mikeCK]

Can't believe it got to the point that the US Navy felt there was no need for any ship fitting between a destroyer (which has basically taken over the role of the cruiser as well)and a littoral combat ship

[jdkbph]

ORIGINAL: mikeCK

Well, it's all hypothetical since right now, the only way a US destroyer or cruiser can sink an enemy ship is to launch it's 8 harpoons from "glued on" box launchers and hope that 2 or 3 make it through so the enemy ship will be damaged

We can always fart in their general direction....

JD

[NakedWeasel]

I always carry harsh language and a social finger for backup.

[Apocal]

ORIGINAL: NakedWeasel

The P-3's are long in the tooth, and cannot be everywhere. Helo's don't have the range, speed, or endurance necessary to prosecute distant ASW threats. Blue water ASW can occur anywhere that isn't littoral, or on land. I'm not sure what you mean about reliability- the S-3s we had aboard weren't exactly "hanger queens". If you mean their ASW capability was in question, I can't really speak to that, either- I was a snipe, not a brown shoe.

When I said, "we aren't going to be facing a serious sub threat in the middle of the Pacific" that's a reference to PLAN's sub fleet being less than ten percent nuke boats with the range to even reach the Pacific, their dearth of long-range surveillance assets to cue those subs onto targets (it requires blind luck to position yourself to catch a fast task force otherwise) and their massive, absurd focus on littoral combat systems like mines, diesel-electric subs, mines, a few more mines, short-range strike aircraft and, just be sure, some more mines.

As a practical matter, P-3s were everywhere they were needed and they're being replaced with even longer-ranged nd in-flight refueling capable P-8s. Either one can fly out over 2000 miles from whatever airbase and support our strike group for over twelve hours, hand-off with the next guy coming on station and keep the process going without affecting our cycle times. Literally everything the S-3 was supposed to do, with the sole exception of hunting subs 2000 miles away from the nearest available airbase,

And I say "supposed to do" because the S-3s sonobuoy receiver was either broken or out of calibration constantly, the Navy could never fix the problem, so it was stripped from the airframe. S-3s were never capable of doing the job they were built for. And we no longer even have the long-range detection systems that the requirement for S-3s were built for: SOSUS doesn't work so well in shallow-water against modern D/E subs with AIP, they aren't so noisy we're going to be finding them hundreds of miles away like in the 70s and 80s with Soviet fast attack boats surging through the GIUK gap at 25-40 knots.

The Hoovers had multiple roles too, maritime EW surveillance, ASuW strike, land interdiction. It was also the CSG's most capable tanker. It was a capability that is missed. It was a platform that we had at our disposal, and has left a gap.

The Hoover wasn't rated to carry Mavericks until extremely late in its service life, I want to say like 2002 or thereabouts. And I never saw a single one launch a strike overland during OEF or OIF, since they were mostly blind to threats and practically defenseless. And the Superhornet fitted for tanking gives around as much gas as the S-3, maybe a bit more, I can't recall. Enterprise swapped over to using Superhornets as preferred recovery tankers in 2006, the only reason we'd use S-3s is because they spent most of cruise unemployed: whenever we needed surveillance, we'd use a P-3 since it carries Mavericks as well, longer endurance, better radar and comms gear (was actually tied into the Link system) and the ship didn't have to mess around with its launch and recovery cycle to get it overhead. Just call Bahrain or Rota or Singapore or Kadena and get them overhead.

[mikmykWS]

That's interesting. I'm always amazed when reliability stuff comes up.

Mike

[xavierv]

This "LCS" looks capable enough to me

Lockheed Martin Multi-Mission Combatant, export variant of the Freedom class LCS, equipped on this scale model with AEGIS, Thales Sonar, MK41 VLS, Oto Melara 76mm and Millenium 35mm guns

From
http://navyrecognition.com/index.php/ne ... ?task=view


Even this tiny one comes with VLS and Harpoons

[erichswafford]

Forgive my ignorance, but rather than develop our own LRASM, why not just license produce something from Europe? Thanks to a complete lack of spare time at the moment, I'm unable to recall any specific examples and maybe there aren't any.

Is there anything out there which would be suitable for the mission (ASM 100+ nm range or so)?

PS - Great info, Apocal. We need more info on doctrine. I know USAF pretty well, but USN is a mystery to me. I do know this, when we needed something done fast, we'd ask the Navy (or Marines). All we'd get from USAF was excuses for why they couldn't fit it into their schedule. And I'm talking seriously mission-critical $hit. I'd love to say exactly what I'm talking about, but no sense trying to get myself in trouble. It was already investigated a long time ago, but it really made my blood boil at the time.

[Dimitris]

LRASM [reportedly] has some properties that current European systems lack. VL launch and autonomous AI being the primary two.

[Primarchx]

How does NSM stack up compared to LRASM, D?

[NakedWeasel]

The LRASM is based on the JASSM, has a range of approximately 300km. The Kongsberg JSM is based on their NSM, has a range of approximately 290km. The main differences appears to be sensors and avionics, and warheads. The LRASM has an advanced active/passive radar seeker, with two-way datalink, and autonomous AI navigation. The LRASM has a much larger warhead, approx. 1000kg.
The JSM utilizes an advanced IIR seeker, with autonomous target recognition. The JSM follows a very complex course for stealthy ingress to target. The JSM has a warhead of approx. 125kg.

Really, we'd be lucky to get both weapons, The LRASM is the more capable ship/sub launched weapon. JSM is a better weapon for fighter aircraft, as it's sized to fit in the F-35 internal bay.

[Juramentado]

ORIGINAL: Apocal


The Hoover wasn't rated to carry Mavericks until extremely late in its service life, I want to say like 2002 or thereabouts. And I never saw a single one launch a strike overland during OEF or OIF, since they were mostly blind to threats and practically defenseless.

Buddy-Lasing for VS-38 (Google Books) Excerpt

[orca]

A LCS with some teeth?

http://www.navytimes.com/article/201407 ... an-missile

Sorry- just saw someone else posted this

[NakedWeasel]

Navy: Cost for newest ship will decline

http://www.military1.com/navy/article/4 ... ll-decline