|
Rabhadh posted:I'd say money was a big factor, France bankrupted itself a couple of times during the century thanks to terrible goverment control and terrible kings making terrible decisions. A few things have already been touched on but I'll add some more. Really, Louis the 14th was a hard act to follow. Although there were some successes, a lot of the military conflicts in 18th century didn't result in big gains. I mean, of course there were victories, but many of them hardly seemed worth the cost. In addition, a large portion of the French budget came from the sale of venal offices. Basically, you could buy a title for a big lump sum payment and in return you would get a salary/pension, plus lots of other benefits like carrying a sword and putting a weather vane on your house. But the real big problem was you also were exempt from many taxes. So basically, the king took out a really bad loan with lots of long term benefits to the office holder in exchange for a one-time payment. Also, it was really hard for the king to borrow money because every now and then he would cancel all or some of his debts. So when he did borrow, he paid really really high interest. On top of that, the king farmed out tax collection. You could buy a contract to collect taxes where you send the King the minimum you promised and then keep whatever else you could get. Finally, the whole system was completely unwilling to be reformed. So the king had to keep selling more and more venal offices, which hosed him over more every time. So the king passed special taxes to pay for a war, but the small/no gains of war meant the king kept getting further and further in debt every time. A very interesting book on the subject is called deficit to deluge. http://www.amazon.com/From-Deficit-Deluge-Origins-Revolution/dp/0804772819/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336064841&sr=8-1 lilljonas posted:Well, the real problems kicked in during the Napoleonic Wars, so just at the very end of the century, but the French navy mostly put up a fight by starting out with many ships. They had less experienced crews and commanders than the British. For long stretches of time they couldn't even afford to put their ships out of dry docks, which means that their personell didn't get any experience of actually sailing, and many ships fell into disrepair and slowly rotted away. Britain plowed enormous sums into their navy, but it also paid off. They also enforced absurdly draconian punishments on their crews, which was horrible, but also meant that they were more disciplined and simply fought better due to being better drilled. This is generally true too of the navy. A few successes covered up big fundamental problems with the navy. Often, the revolution gets he blame for ruining a perfectly good French navy but that's not really the case. At the same, the navy wasn't completely useless during the Revolution/Napoleon. They did win some very small battles, although the mostly got beat or surrendered the entire fleet without firing a shot, like at toulon. Another good book on the subject! http://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Political-Conflict-French-1789-1794/dp/0521893755/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1336064548&sr=8-2
|
#
?
May 3, 2012 18:21
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 9, 2024 23:08 |
|
|
Nenonen posted:Modern torpedoes don't hold the same advantage in bang-for-buck ratio because anti-ship missiles, whether surface or air-launched, are faster and have a greater range while battleship guns have become obsolete. Torpedoes still hold their place as submarine launched anti-surface and anti-submarine weapons, but as far as light boats go, some type of anti-ship missile is a better choice. A small boat just couldn't get close enough to, say, a carrier group to launch torpedoes at it. To expand on this a little bit: a modern navy vessel trades away good old armor for a lot more situational awareness and acceleration potential than vintage craft. Surface ships using missiles instead of torpedoes cut down the awareness factor a lot because of the range and speed while underwater munitions small and cheap enough to be carried by for example irregular forces would probably both be slow, unguided and therefore comparatively easy to outmaneuver. So you're back to good old mines to blow poo poo up from under the waterline on the cheap (they never went away of course) and/or crazy attack profiles if lasers and the like are going to finally fulfill their defensive potential.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2012 19:46
|
|
|
Mans posted:Yes, that was the main battle plan, unless you met an Eastern Roman Empire fleet. You wouldn't want to meet them. What was special about the Eastern Roman Empire's navy? I ask cause my understanding of them is that they'll "basically" Rome for a couple of centuries after Rome's fall. And Rome's navy was put legionnaires on boats, board other boats (maybe use a grappling hook). Epiphany: Was it that naptha thing?
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2012 20:09
|
|
|
As a rough comparison, the mk48 has about twice the size warhead as the excocet that hit the uses stark. An explosion under the keel also buckles the ship under the big air bubble its created, so you get more distructive effect than an anti ship missile into the superstructure. Both will ruin your day. You have to get much much closer to fire a torpedo, which means a sub. A surface boat big enough to launch one will be detected before its in effective range. Anti ship missiles otoh can be stand off weapons launched from way the gently caress out or from concealed shore locations. Either way, I'm of the opinion that surface ships are gigantic floating bulls eyes and would get blown the gently caress up when engaged by a moderately competent enemy.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2012 22:10
|
|
|
BirdOfPlay posted:What was special about the Eastern Roman Empire's navy? I ask cause my understanding of them is that they'll "basically" Rome for a couple of centuries after Rome's fall. And Rome's navy was put legionnaires on boats, board other boats (maybe use a grappling hook). I'm assuming he was talking about Greek fire which, as you might imagine, would gently caress your poo poo up if you're standing on a bunch of wooden boats.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2012 22:36
|
|
|
Greek fire aside, the Eastern Roman Empire had quite a capable navy in its own right in terms of ships and organization, especially compared to anything going in Western Europe.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 02:21
|
|
|
It's a crime that the history of the Eastern Roman Empire isn't more well known. At the turn of the millennium they were the most dominant power in the Mediterranean and Europe in general..
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 03:09
|
|
|
Algol Star posted:Isn't this basically what happened in the run up to WW1? Boiled Water posted:I doubt it. Without aircraft carriers power projection becomes hideously difficult. Will the carrier lose its dominance whilst we still have jet aircraft? No. Will the carrier lose its dominance and be replaced by something else once those aircraft are advanced enough to be flown remotely? Absolutely. When you don't have a pilot your aircraft can be a third of the size and you don't need to worry about gforces so much when taking off; the ships off the future will be smaller and faster, but carry just as many aircraft as todays largest carrier.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 03:18
|
|
|
Hey if anyone is interested I just posted the latest episode of my Korean history podcast. It's about the Mongol invasions of Japan in the 13th century.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 06:21
|
|
|
duckmaster posted:Will the carrier lose its dominance whilst we still have jet aircraft? No. A carrier is only useful as long as you're up against someone who can't fight back in any meaningful way (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya etc). Go up against someone with a semi-decent submarine force, and you're pretty much hosed. See HMS Gotland. Wikipedia posted:Gotland managed to penetrate the massive defensive measures of a carrier battle group undetected and snap several pictures of the USS Ronald Reagan during a wargaming exercise in the Pacific Ocean, effectively "sinking" the aircraft carrier. The exercise was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the US Fleet against modern diesel-electric submarines, which some have noted as severely lacking.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 08:19
|
|
|
In the context of carriers being vulnerable to modern submarines (and missiles, ofc), it's worth noting that the Iranian military has concentrated their efforts since 2001 to building up a submarine navy, anti-shipping missiles and air defense capabilities. Those guys know what's up.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 09:19
|
|
|
Yeah, Gotland is pretty similar to what the Iranians are getting. That's basically why the Americans wanted to do exercises with her - gearing up for a Hormus strait clusterfuck.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 10:26
|
|
|
You're overselling it a bit. You know who else had a huge submarine force? The USSR. Who do you think is supplying pretty much everyone, Chinese, Iranians, Indians, etc with these great subs? Most of the USN has been spending the last 50 years and whole %s of American GDP specifically on fighting submarines, it was a big part of the "transport our armies across the Atlantic before the Europeans are overun" thing. I'm going to be that they can handle whatever submarine threat the Iranians might bring to the table.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 11:28
|
|
Throatwarbler posted:You're overselling it a bit. You know who else had a huge submarine force? The USSR. Who do you think is supplying pretty much everyone, Chinese, Iranians, Indians, etc with these great subs? I don't man, Diesel-electrics are pretty quiet. My information is purely second-hand though. On the other hand, I don't know how much stock I'd put in the Iranian Navy's ability to operate or maintain their Kilos as well as the Soviets.
|
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 12:03
|
|
|
Yeah I was under the impression that the whole reason the US navy leased the HMS Gotland was because they had no or very little experience against small diesel eletric subs, but comparatively lots against big nuclear subs.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 12:10
|
|
|
Alchenar posted:It depends on where we are talking about. In terms of Western Europe, it's mainly chaotic ramming and boarding by small ships with a cannon being fired once or twice. This gradually gets a bit better: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sluys but really Naval Battles are few and far between - there aren't really any states developed enough to maintain battle fleets that go in search of each other. This is actually a question of intent and need rather than development, as well as historical interest. The fighting that happened between forces loyal to William Rufus and those loyal to Robert Curthose that happened in 1088 is given mention in chronicles, but no detail is provided. After this period, until the late 12th century, there is little fighting on the Atlantic coast because it's not contested. The crown of France doesn't really get access to the sea until then, and the Spanish crowns and Anglo-Normans/Angevins have no beef. It isn't until Philip Augustus starts pushing toward the Flemish ports that you see the start of a riverine war along the Seine with Richard I. The loss of Normandy and subsequent re-focus of English royal efforts to Britain and Ireland, and French attention toward consolidation and crusade, meant that the channel was again largely uncontested, save for the ever-present efforts against piracy. In the Med, from the 11th century, the Islamic powers never really developed a strong navy for any length of time. As I understand it, whenever they tried some Christian power or other would squash them flat before long, as at Acre in 1190. In the late Middle Ages, where our available naval information is much stronger, it was a mix of Italian and Iberian galleys that controlled the waters. As for the actual conduct of naval combat, ramming was rare, save in special circumstances. Rams of the ancient fashion were no longer fitted to medieval galleys, and ships that relied exclusively on wind, like cogs, were ill-suited to ramming, though they still did it from time to time. Ranged weapons, fire in the form of fire ships or flaming missiles, and boarding were the chief tools of a captain. To add a little colour, here's a quick account of a sailing ship ramming from the 15th century Castilian volume El Victorial quote:Then did the whaler strike a fair blow. So soon as the saw that the English were to the leeward of them, they set their sail so that they scudded before the wind, and passed between them very swiftly, paying no more heed to them all than does a swift courser manoeuvring between great and heavy horses. And although she was of ordinary size, the whaler ran against one of the whalers which were persuing the captain's galley, took her on the beam near the prow, broke her bowsprit, cut her stay, and altogether disabled her. Well do I believe she killed men aboard the English ship in this ramming; and her crew would have taken her, but that they did not dare cast the grappling irons on her, since they were in the midst of the English; but rather let her float off, and themselves got to safety. Rodrigo Diaz fucked around with this message at 14:42 on May 4, 2012 |
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 13:07
|
|
|
Shimrra Jamaane posted:It's a crime that the history of the Eastern Roman Empire isn't more well known. At the turn of the millennium they were the most dominant power in the Mediterranean and Europe in general.. It's definitely the most interesting. The eastern portion rubbed up against another powerful civilization for the longest time. It always had the best intrigue and dangerous existential threats. The western part was just endless campaigns against "barbarians" until the system fell apart from mostly self inflicted malfeasance and corruption.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 13:09
|
|
|
Rabhadh posted:Yeah I was under the impression that the whole reason the US navy leased the HMS Gotland was because they had no or very little experience against small diesel eletric subs, but comparatively lots against big nuclear subs. This is correct, because they were getting their asses kicked so hard they even extended the lease to get more practice.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 14:12
|
|
|
It's always hard to evaluate ASW success based on media reports. The USN will always want to keep ASW success a secret so as not to tip their hand to future adversaries. I have to wonder whether the Iranian Navy can train to a professional standard high enough to threaten first world navies. I don't care how fantastic your sub is, one idiot dropping a wrench at the wrong time can have people dropping sonobuoys on your head in very short order. You can't sit in dock for nine months of the year and then go out and clear the seas of all ships not loyal to the Caliph.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 15:37
|
|
|
Diesel boats are a very real threat in the small shallow Persian gulf. One could very possibly get in to hit a carrier. Would the attacking sub get away? Oh gently caress no. If were talking capability, Iran us a threat. If we're being real, we don't want to fight them because even a single hit could destroy our aura of invincibility and power projection. We don't want to fight them because its a giant hill piece of property that would require the entire us land force to take, and be impossible to hold against irregular forces. Here's a scenario: a diesel boat fires and hits a carrier, shore based asms come in against the fleet to mixed success. A gigantic response comes from the remaining ships, the Iranian air capability is destroyed in the first week followed by round the clock visits from b52s against military installations while the b2 flattens the nuclear facilities. Meanwhile, whover the CIA has been prepping for the coup comes in to pick up the pieces, surrender and sign contracts with western oil companies to repair and sell off the national oil assets. Its a giant mess, no one really wins and thousands die.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 16:23
|
|
|
Sounds like the oil companies win.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 16:59
|
|
Shimrra Jamaane posted:Sounds like the oil companies win. Hasn't that been the status quo since the seventies?
|
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 17:01
|
|
|
Acebuckeye13 posted:IIRC, that's actually one of the US Navy's larger concerns, which has led to the creation and deployment of the new Littoral Combat ships over the past few years. (Which themselves are the Navy's current equivalent of the F-35 debacle.) Did someone say modern torpedoes ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oUNt47G-08 The modern torpedo is designed to explode under the keel of the ship. The explosion creates a cavity under the ship while it punches the hull upwards, the keel breaks, the blast shatters the middle of the ship, and even if the hull somehow survives that, it then drops back down into the void left by the explosion and gets bent the other way really hard as it crashes back down. Very few ships can survives this and fewer would be battleworthy.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 18:16
|
|
|
Just where did the HMS Gotland engage the Ronald Reagan? I was under the impression that diesel-electrics have a pretty limited range (relative to surface ships and nucs), so it wouldn't get the chance to lurk under a carrier if you were in the middle of the North Atlantic and launching strikes with tanker-supported aircraft.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 18:22
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:Just where did the HMS Gotland engage the Ronald Reagan? San Diego.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 18:29
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:Just where did the HMS Gotland engage the Ronald Reagan? I was under the impression that diesel-electrics have a pretty limited range (relative to surface ships and nucs), so it wouldn't get the chance to lurk under a carrier if you were in the middle of the North Atlantic and launching strikes with tanker-supported aircraft. But if you've got tanker support in place for that, just fly from Germany or Guam/Okinawa (depending on which side of the planet you're on), which is closer anyways to your target and unsinkable. For supporting a major operation, you need shorter flight times so as to increase the number of sorties you can put up, which means parking in the Persian Gulf or East/South China Seas, in range of D-E subs.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 20:16
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:Just where did the HMS Gotland engage the Ronald Reagan? I was under the impression that diesel-electrics have a pretty limited range (relative to surface ships and nucs), so it wouldn't get the chance to lurk under a carrier if you were in the middle of the North Atlantic and launching strikes with tanker-supported aircraft. A Kilo Class can only go a relatively short distance while submerged before it has to come near the surface to recharge its batteries, particularly if it intends to run at any reasonable speed (e.g., fast enough to actually get near a carrier). Realistically a diesel-electric is a threat to carriers only in an ambush situation, where the Kilo knows where the carrier will be so it can lie in wait and avoiding having to maneuver much. This opportunity would be quite rare in the open ocean, but in enclosed waters like the Persian Gulf or if the US carrier launches sorties from near the coast, they could be very dangerous because they are nearly silent while loitering. Another alleged threat to carriers, supersonic ASMs like the Sunburn, have the same problem of limited range. A surface ship or aircraft attempting to use them to attack a carrier with them would probably be detected and destroyed before it was in range, and camouflaged coastal installation could only rely on the carrier coming within a couple hundred kilometers of the site to be useful. All things considered it's probably best to keep carriers out of the littoral zone and use the long-range of carrier-based aircraft to keep itself out harm's way. This has been further reinforced by China's claimed development of an anti-ship ballistic missile, the DF-21D. If the claimed capabilities are accurate, the weapons system could deny a large area of the seas near China to US carriers, and demands a major change in naval strategy.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 20:27
|
|
|
EvanSchenck posted:A Kilo Class can only go a relatively short distance while submerged before it has to come near the surface to recharge its batteries, particularly if it intends to run at any reasonable speed (e.g., fast enough to actually get near a carrier). Realistically a diesel-electric is a threat to carriers only in an ambush situation, where the Kilo knows where the carrier will be so it can lie in wait and avoiding having to maneuver much. This opportunity would be quite rare in the open ocean, but in enclosed waters like the Persian Gulf or if the US carrier launches sorties from near the coast, they could be very dangerous because they are nearly silent while loitering. This isn't an issue is it? I mean carriers aren't exactly known for being easy to plot new courses for.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 20:38
|
|
|
I agree with everything the above poster said, but to clarify, a couple hundred kilometers within the coast of Iran is the majority of the Persian Gulf, and all of the Strait of Hormuz. If those ASMs are even reasonably effective, they could deny the Gulf to American surface traffic and thus strangle world oil supply. Repeating my earlier post, a shooting war *could* damage carriers, but it'd be suicidal for the Iranians to try. A post-American-carrier-sunk USN might look very different however.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 20:39
|
|
|
Boiled Water posted:This isn't an issue is it? I mean carriers aren't exactly known for being easy to plot new courses for. I probably should have been more specific about the performance characteristics, because the actual numbers make it clear why this is an issue. The Kilo Class has a maximum submerged range of 400 miles... provided it keeps its speed at 3 knots, which is about as fast as most people walk. It can run faster if necessary, but that severely reduces their endurance. At the maximum submerged speed of 21 knots, it can only go about 13 miles. They can go farther and faster if they run at snorkel depth, but that increases the risk of detection by a huge degree and negates all the advantages of silent running that make a D-E sub useful in the first place. Carriers are not nimble, but they don't need to be if they're trying to avoid something that maneuvers like a Kilo Class. Ron Jeremy posted:I agree with everything the above poster said, but to clarify, a couple hundred kilometers within the coast of Iran is the majority of the Persian Gulf, and all of the Strait of Hormuz. If those ASMs are even reasonably effective, they could deny the Gulf to American surface traffic and thus strangle world oil supply. Repeating my earlier post, a shooting war *could* damage carriers, but it'd be suicidal for the Iranians to try. I discussed this somewhat in another thread in D&D, but the main problem with this is Iran doesn't have any ASMs that are a credible threat to US military vessels. They showed interest in acquiring Sunburns from Russia, but there's no evidence that they were able to get any. Their inventory of ASMs consists of domestic copies of Chinese subsonic ASMs like the Silkworm, which US countermeasures would have little difficulty defeating. This arsenal would be capable of seriously damaging civilian tanker traffic and effectively closing the Strait of Hormouz, at least until the US response neutralized their coastal defense radar and command infrastructure. At any rate, it's been reported that the Chinese ASBM developments have caused the USN to plan on avoidance of littoral waters and pull back to blue-water operations. This is a major shift, since in the past decade or so the USN has been invested a great deal in littoral capabilities, such as the LCS program.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 21:13
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:Just where did the HMS Gotland engage the Ronald Reagan? I was under the impression that diesel-electrics have a pretty limited range (relative to surface ships and nucs), so it wouldn't get the chance to lurk under a carrier if you were in the middle of the North Atlantic and launching strikes with tanker-supported aircraft. The Gotlands (and quite a few other D-E subs nowadays) use Stirling engines to power themselves underwater. They can stay under the surface without snorkeling or surfacing for up to two weeks, which is a big thing.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 22:48
|
|
|
SeanBeansShako posted:Hasn't that been the status quo since the seventies? I'd say at least since Rockefeller and Standard Oil, really.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 23:11
|
|
|
Kemper Boyd posted:The Gotlands (and quite a few other D-E subs nowadays) use Stirling engines to power themselves underwater. They can stay under the surface without snorkeling or surfacing for up to two weeks, which is a big thing. These sorts of systems can't really compare directly. Like Evan said above about the kilo class, air independent systems can provide a much longer underwater endurance, but not much in the way of mobility. The target would pretty much have to stumble over the sub, but could ambush in a narrow choke point like the straight of Hormuz. Wrt Iranian missiles, you're probably right. I'm just skeptical of the actual capability of anti missile defenses like the rim and the phalanx.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2012 23:21
|
|
|
Ron Jeremy posted:These sorts of systems can't really compare directly. Like Evan said above about the kilo class, air independent systems can provide a much longer underwater endurance, but not much in the way of mobility. The target would pretty much have to stumble over the sub, but could ambush in a narrow choke point like the straight of Hormuz. The whole point of a submarine is to stay undetected below the water. How do you "lay in ambush in a narrow chokepoint" when the Americans also know where the chokepoints are? Do the Iranians even have any good undersea charts of the waters off their coast? You be your rear end the Americans do, since they and the Russians have been sailing their subs all over the world doing things like charting underwater terrain, a thing that you need a big force of submarines to do and something you pointedly do not share with even your own civilian agencies, let alone foreign powers. The whole "take a picture of an American carrier during exercise" story is a cute marketing ditty for the Swedish companies that want to export submarines, pretty much all non-US companies selling everything from submarines to fighters have a story like it, but doesn't really mean anything other than the Americans run meticulous exercises. If in an exercise my team assaults and captures a position with no casualties, I don't just end the exercise and go home because I think I've got this thing nailed down, we go back to our starting positions and keep tweaking the parameters of the exercise until something goes wrong, and them we build and learn from that. It's the same for air to air combat, when the newest American fighters go up against a simulated enemy and then notionally shoots them all down with BVR missiles, they don't just declare victory, return to base and take the rest of the day off, of course they are going to continue on to dog fighting at close range with short range missiles, guns, etc. I'm sure at one point in the exercise a Mig-19 is going to shoot down an American plane with cannons or something, but you probably shouldn't conclude that cannon armed Mig-19s are some existential threat to the American air force. So in an ASW exercise, of course the enemy sub is going to get through and "kill" a carrier at one point. It would be a pretty pointless exercise and a huge waste of money if it didn't. How many times was the sub detected and killed instead? That the Americans a) understand the importance of all this, b) have such a professional and apolitical military that they don't care when "Swedish SSK kills Carrier" becomes a headline, and c) actually have/are willing to spend the money to do these kinds of huge exercises is what makes the US armed forces such a terrifying enemy. TL;DR: USA USA USA
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2012 01:48
|
|
Throatwarbler posted:The whole point of a submarine is to stay undetected below the water. How do you "lay in ambush in a narrow chokepoint" when the Americans also know where the chokepoints are? While Iran=!China, there is a legitimate threat to an American CSG from diesel-electric submarines. As the blog post notes: ASW fixed wing air is largely gone, escort ships are fewer and, in many respects, less capable(only certain blocks of the Arleigh Burke class have towed sonar) and what ASW assets exist also have collateral duties within the CSG which detract from their ability to defend against the submarine threat. Like I said earlier, I don't know how much stock I'd put in the Iranian Navy's ability to maintain and operate their subs anywhere remotely as well as the Chinese or Soviets/Russians do or did but the threat exists nonetheless. Submarines are pretty hard to detect and American systems are far from infallible.
|
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2012 02:24
|
|
|
Veins McGee posted:http://www.informationdissemination.net/search?q=asw I'm not sure I "get" this blog post? His whole point seems to revolve around the fact that the carrier deployed off the Chinese coast today is deployed with fewer escorts and ASW helicopters than a carrier would have during the cold war. What's so surprising about this? The cold war is over and the US and China are not at war. Is the writer also terrified that the US is now more vulnerable than ever to a massive Soviet armoured attack across central Europe that it was in 1985? If the US went to war against Iran it would deploy more ASW escorts and helicopters to its carrier groups than it currently does to the one off China. There, crisis averted. 
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2012 03:58
|
|
|
I just skimmed through but it seemed some of the assets were not maintained/decommissioned, and reaction time/which side initiates hostilities might preclude instant beefing up to Cold War status.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2012 04:13
|
|
Throatwarbler posted:I'm not sure I "get" this blog post? His whole point seems to revolve around the fact that the carrier deployed off the Chinese coast today is deployed with fewer escorts and ASW helicopters than a carrier would have during the cold war. What's so surprising about this? The cold war is over and the US and China are not at war. Is the writer also terrified that the US is now more vulnerable than ever to a massive Soviet armoured attack across central Europe that it was in 1985? His point should be pretty obvious: The threat to a CSG from diesel-electric subs exists and is credible. The Navy isn't well practiced nor as capable at finding subs as they used to be. If you had read it, you would see him casting some doubt on some doom/gloom study wrt to China's submarine fleet while highlighting that the Navy is inherently less capable at defeating or neutralizing submarines than they used to be. Once again, this isn't to say the Iran's 3 submarines are going to wreak havoc in the event of a shooting war with the US but that their threat is far from negligible. The author is also pretty levelheaded in his analysis of topics related to the US Navy or seapower in general. It's pretty easy to go 'hurr...they'd just send more ships' until you realize how stretched the US Navy is. This argument also ignores the fact that the poo poo we have isn't especially great at finding subs.
|
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2012 04:16
|
|
|
the JJ posted:I just skimmed through but it seemed some of the assets were not maintained/decommissioned, and reaction time/which side initiates hostilities might preclude instant beefing up to Cold War status. What assets? I read one of the articles that that article linked to and it seems to indicate that the S3 might be one but no more details are given. Here: quote:Even with only 4 escorts I think the Nimitz CSG is adequately protected against air attack, even noting the strike group has the ships necessary to protect from ballistic missile attack if necessary. This is a CEC force, the way I see it, they are better prepared with these 4 ships than any 20 ships together would have been during the cold war. I also think given the payload options of the Hornet force, the strike group could also adequately defend itself from an attacking enemy surface fleet. The problem is, among the four escorts only the USS Princeton (CG 59), the most important AAW defense ship of the Nimitz CSG escorts, has all the right tools for ASW. Of the other three escorts, none have all of the equipment that would best be utilized for ASW, and with only 4 helicopters to go around, the best you can hope for to be actually conducting an ASW patrol is 1 from the surface ships, and probably no more than 1 from the aircraft carrier, for a grand total of 2. I'm assuming Princeton is a Ticonderoga class cruiser, the US has like 60 of those, if things in Iran really heated up you think they can't re-assign a couple more to the Gulf? "Cold War Status" means 200+ Soviet submarines, I don't think "beefing up to Cold War status" will be necessary to counter the threat of 3 Iranian diesel subs. quote:His point should be pretty obvious: The threat to a CSG from diesel-electric subs exists and is credible. The Navy isn't well practiced nor as capable at finding subs as they used to be. If you had read it, you would see him casting some doubt on some doom/gloom study wrt to China's submarine fleet while highlighting that the Navy is inherently less capable at defeating or neutralizing submarines than they used to be. Once again, this isn't to say the Iran's 3 submarines are going to wreak havoc in the event of a shooting war with the US but that their threat is far from negligible. The original argument was about Iran, the fact that Iran has 3 submarines not 200 is quite relevant. Your article that the USN of today is less capable of dealing with enemy submarines today than it was during the cold war, fine, I remind you my original post was a response to this statement: quote:Go up against someone with a semi-decent submarine force, and you're pretty much hosed. I disagree. Where are you on this question? Throatwarbler fucked around with this message at 05:06 on May 5, 2012 |
|
#
?
May 5, 2012 05:00
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 9, 2024 23:08 |
|
|
Ron Jeremy posted:A post-American-carrier-sunk USN might look very different however. I wonder what a "modern" navy would look like if the Pacific War never happened.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2012 05:35
|
|
