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Cyrano4747 posted:Amphib assaults aren’t used to take a healthy peer adversary down. They’re used to either tip over one that is wobbling or force it to commit resources where it doesn’t want to. Very well said.
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Mar 26, 2019 15:50
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https://warontherocks.com/author/scott-cuomo/ i'll post this again. this guy is only a ltcol, so he doesn't have any real say in policy, but he's going to georgetown to get a phd on the govts dime. one of his coauthors is a princeton grad and i think lse masters. i forgot where the other two went to school. he was a guest on two episodes of a podcast(all marine radio, forgive the stupid name) where he explains his idea in greater depth. the interview is pretty interesting and, in his mind, it's an evolution from higgins boats->amtraks->helos. some items i remember from the article/interview 1- forcible entry from the sea is, at best, a very difficult proposition. it'll take the better part of a month to get prepped, embarked and get to the target area. the entire time the MEB(or mebs) are being tracked. by the time they arrive, they'll face an array of irbms, air power, submarines, mines, surface combatants and so forth such that they'll likely be degraded before they even launch amtraks. even if they do make it ashore intact, the navy can't supply enough to sustain the assault. 2- in the specific instance of the scs(but it applies in other litorrals), we are the good guys. the chinese are not. however, the chinese are persistent in the area. we are not. we make our fon patrols or do our overflights and leave. but, as soon as we leave, the chinese are out there bullying the locals. distributed forces, partnered with local nations, solves this. 3- distributed forces, with the ability to call on the entire might of us air/sea power, embedded or partnered with local forces, are persistent and lethal. 4- the marine corps is kind of bankrupting the navy with the amphib fleet. the marine corps is bankrupting itself buying f-35bs, finding a replacement for the aav, and so forth. in putting all of our eggs in big deck amphibs and $100mil jets and concentrating all those people together(an lha has like 2500 guys on it or something), we've created something that we will probably never use and can't afford to risk. etc
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Mar 26, 2019 16:21
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Phanatic posted:This whole thing assumes your adversary is completely incapable of doing anything about your CVBG. Which describes the entire world except maybe China, using systems that we've never seen used like that.
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Mar 26, 2019 16:25
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bewbies posted:Their only job was to create a beachhead, and a limited one at that. Not that this wasn't important, but it wasn't really the "succeed or the entire operation collapses" thing that we tend to think it was. Madness. It wasn't the ONLY "succeed or the entire operation collapses" thing, which we tend to think it was. It was one of many. Godholio fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Mar 26, 2019 |
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Mar 26, 2019 16:27
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i mean Dieppe got guys ashore in a beachhead right? i kind of get the point that the initial beachhead is a relatively easy part.
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Mar 26, 2019 16:41
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vains posted:
It is kind of astonishing that ~1/10th of our total number of warships are amphibs, especially under the assertion that the assault phase is the easy part. Especially given how many are LHAs/LHDs. In the Falklands the British used container ships as ghetto helicopter carriers, cruise ships as troop transports, and ro/ro ferries to load cargo onto landing craft and rafts. It mostly worked fine, with ship-to-shore logistics being the weakest link, and the Navy appears to have solved the problem of unloading civilian ships onto landing craft with the with the ESD ships. You can get a zillion of those for the price of an amphib. e: also the Royal Navy at the time felt much better about the survivability of the cruise ships than their LPDs, because they had way more lifeboats and a torpedo or mine would sink either one immediately. Mortabis fucked around with this message at 16:53 on Mar 26, 2019 |
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Mar 26, 2019 16:46
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:i mean Dieppe got guys ashore in a beachhead right? i kind of get the point that the initial beachhead is a relatively easy part. Even at Dieppe the brits had complete, uncontested control of the sea and could make a credible show of locally dominating the air.
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Mar 26, 2019 16:47
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vains posted:1- forcible entry from the sea is, at best, a very difficult proposition. it'll take the better part of a month to get prepped, embarked and get to the target area. the entire time the MEB(or mebs) are being tracked. by the time they arrive, they'll face an array of irbms, air power, submarines, mines, surface combatants and so forth such that they'll likely be degraded before they even launch amtraks. even if they do make it ashore intact, the navy can't supply enough to sustain the assault. Like I said, amphibious operations are far more useful when they aren't forced. It's not about "storm the beach of Iwo Jima." Instead, it's about "hey, things are getting tense, let's put 3500 Marines ashore in an afternoon before the shooting even starts to let them know we're serious." vains posted:4- the marine corps is kind of bankrupting the navy with the amphib fleet. This reminds me of how the USAF seems to think that fighter jocks ruling the skies is all that matters while ground attack aircraft are an embarrassing afterthought. Yes, the navy's big thing is sea control, fighter planes, and nuclear subs, but it isn't the Cold War any more. vains posted:the marine corps is bankrupting itself buying f-35bs, finding a replacement for the aav, and so forth. The cost of the EFV program when it was cancelled was just a bit more than the cost of a single B-2. Which will get more use over the next 20-30 years?
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Mar 26, 2019 16:51
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Cyrano4747 posted:Even at Dieppe the brits had complete, uncontested control of the sea and could make a credible show of locally dominating the air. those are a requirement for getting the guys ashore and are harder than actually getting the guys ashore, i think is the point
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Mar 26, 2019 16:54
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Mortabis posted:It is kind of astonishing that ~1/10th of our total number of warships are amphibs, especially under the assertion that the assault phase is the easy part. Especially given how many are LHAs/LHDs. In the Falklands the British used container ships as ghetto helicopter carriers, cruise ships as troop transports, and ro/ro ferries to load cargo onto landing craft and rafts. It mostly worked fine, with ship-to-shore logistics being the weakest link, and the Navy appears to have solved the problem of unloading civilian ships onto landing craft with the with the ESD ships. You can get a zillion of those for the price of an amphib. How are you going to get one of these:  Onto one of these?  The big advantage of modern amphibious shipping is their huge open well deck. You can fill them with all sorts of stuff - AAVs, LCACs, Mike boats, you name it - and get them all in or out fast:  To my knowledge civilian cargo ships don't have this.
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Mar 26, 2019 16:57
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Cessna posted:Like I said, amphibious operations are far more useful when they aren't forced. It's not about "storm the beach of Iwo Jima." Instead, it's about "hey, things are getting tense, let's put 3500 Marines ashore in an afternoon before the shooting even starts to let them know we're serious." If nobody's shooting at you then you don't need armored landing vehicles. Cessna posted:This reminds me of how the USAF seems to think that fighter jocks ruling the skies is all that matters while ground attack aircraft are an embarrassing afterthought. Yes, the navy's big thing is sea control, fighter planes, and nuclear subs, but it isn't the Cold War any more. I'm not so sure the USAF actually believes that. Cessna posted:The cost of the EFV program when it was cancelled was just a bit more than the cost of a single B-2. Which will get more use over the next 20-30 years? These kinds of statements make accountants cry. The marginal cost of an additional B-2 was a fraction of that. But to answer your question, definitely the B-2 and it isn't close. Related: federal cost accounting is so pathologically hosed I think it was deliberately designed to be awful. Amphibs are clearly very useful things but we have like 30 of them. What are we going to do with 30 of them?
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Mar 26, 2019 16:57
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Cessna posted:How are you going to get one of these: 
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Mar 26, 2019 17:00
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^^^ lol, nopeMortabis posted:These kinds of statements make accountants cry. The marginal cost of an additional B-2 was a fraction of that. But to answer your question, definitely the B-2 and it isn't close. Fortunately, it is good to look upon a weeping accountant. And depending on how you define “use,” wouldn’t be so sure about B-2 usage over amphibs. Amphibs get used in actual missions quite a lot, they just arent saving private ryan and thus don’t nt get much attention. One of the fun thing about amphibs: Watching marines use the following systems firing from the deck: Stinger teams, HIMARS, LAV cannons, Tow missiles, Javelins, HMGs, etc.
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Mar 26, 2019 17:09
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The Navy even has a few of these heavy-lift ships but I have to imagine that they'd be combat ineffective. Slow, take metric fuckloads of fuel, etc.
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Mar 26, 2019 17:21
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Just take a cargo container ship, don't put containers on it, you got yourself an aircraft carrier, bing bong so simple.
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Mar 26, 2019 17:31
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Mortabis posted:If nobody's shooting at you then you don't need armored landing vehicles. If only there was a hard line between "war" and "not war." The fact is that there isn't - there's this whole big blurry area in the "low intensity conflict" phase of operations, and you don't get a time-out to turn in your unarmorder landing craft for armored vehicles when someone starts shooting at you later. There's a big range between "storm the beach at Iwo Jima" and "welcomed with open arms and flowers." Have a little bit of protection is very useful in that range. quote:I'm not so sure the USAF actually believes that. I will admit I was being flippant, but my main point stands. Having control of the seas is great, as is the ability to deploy carriers and subs. But the fact is that amphibious ships are very useful, either in peace or war. While they may not have the shiny prestige of a CVN or SSBN let's not start thinking that there is no reason to have them. quote:Amphibs are clearly very useful things but we have like 30 of them. What are we going to do with 30 of them? B-2s are clearly very useful things but we have like 21 of them. What are we going to do with 21 of them? That said, there's no doubt that "defense" spending is ludicrously out of control.
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Mar 26, 2019 17:32
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mlmp08 posted:Just take a cargo container ship, don't put containers on it, you got yourself an aircraft carrier, bing bong so simple. 
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Mar 26, 2019 17:33
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I can only lol at the idea of trying to use that thing for amphibious operations.
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Mar 26, 2019 17:34
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I was saying that in jest to the idea that all you need for an LHD/LHA is a ship with a flat top on it that can submerge itself.
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Mar 26, 2019 17:34
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It's not all you need, but it is sufficient (though not ideal) for merely transporting helicopters to the invasion site.
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Mar 26, 2019 17:38
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Cessna posted:I can only lol at the idea of trying to use that thing for amphibious operations. Isn't that it's purpose? Not in the initial assault, but in bringing the heavy stuff ashore after the beachhead is taken. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USNS_Montford_Point_(T-ESD-1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expeditionary_Transfer_Dock
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Mar 26, 2019 17:39
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Mortabis posted:It's not all you need, but it is sufficient (though not ideal) for merely transporting helicopters to the invasion site. That makes you like... 10% ready? Where do you hold the troops? Conduct maintenance? store arm/munitions? Hold ship survival and redundant systems? Care for wounded? Run communications? Put your point-defenses? House and man sensors? Hold a mix of ground/surface vehicles and helicopters? And so on. That's reminiscent of saying you don't need buildings, because there's flat ground right over there.
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Mar 26, 2019 17:42
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mlmp08 posted:I was saying that in jest to the idea that all you need for an LHD/LHA is a ship with a flat top on it that can submerge itself. Oh, I know, just riffing off of that.
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Mar 26, 2019 17:43
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AlexanderCA posted:Isn't that it's purpose? That's an entirely different mission. I'll quote lolwikipedia here: quote:Since the 20th century an amphibious landing of troops on a beachhead is acknowledged as the most complex of all military maneuvers. The undertaking requires an intricate coordination of numerous military specialties, including air power, naval gunfire, naval transport, logistical planning, specialized equipment, land warfare, tactics, and extensive training in the nuances of this maneuver for all personnel involved. But, hey, let's half-rear end it with a ship built for an entirely different purpose.
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Mar 26, 2019 17:48
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mlmp08 posted:That makes you like... 10% ready? Where do you hold the troops? Conduct maintenance? store arm/munitions? Hold ship survival and redundant systems? Care for wounded? Run communications? Put your point-defenses? House and man sensors? And so on. The case I'm suggesting is that you reduce the amphib fleet by some amount and make up the difference in lost shipping that you'd otherwise need for ship-to-shore logistics with less expensive modified civilian vessels,, so that you can roll the savings into other Navy programs. You can't hold the troops on the modified container ship and that's why it's not sufficient. You still need the big deck for an initial helicopter assault. But once that takes place, this ship shows up and the helicopters fly ashore. Cessna posted:That's an entirely different mission. I'll quote lolwikipedia here: Thank you, we all know this, but the fact remains that the British accomplished it with a grand total of 2 LPDs and 6 LSTs, and that was without securing air superiority. Certainly they would have liked to have more, I'm sure, but at what point do you hit diminishing returns? What is the right number of them to have in the US Navy?
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Mar 26, 2019 17:51
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Yeah, what if someone had thought of a transport that's not as fancy as an amphib just to do stuff like flow forces and logistics ashore at a fraction of the cost. That'd be wild.  
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Mar 26, 2019 17:55
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Cessna posted:That's an entirely different mission. I'll quote lolwikipedia here: I was replying to you saying this: Cessna posted:I can only lol at the idea of trying to use that thing for amphibious operations. I'm not arguing they're replacing well-dock ships. But the US navy seems to think they're part of the future of amphibious operations in a larger sense. I didn't know if you were aware they're actually new navy ships not commercial offshore vessels, which they resemble.
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Mar 26, 2019 18:05
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Mortabis posted:Thank you, we all know this, but the fact remains that the British accomplished it with a grand total of 2 LPDs and 6 LSTs, and that was without securing air superiority. Certainly they would have liked to have more, I'm sure, but at what point do you hit diminishing returns? Yes, they did. I suspect they would have done it faster and more efficiently if they had had better equipment. I also suspect that having a more capable fleet might have deterred Argentinians from invading at all. Mortabis posted:What is the right number of them to have in the US Navy? Less than we have now, but that doesn't mean I think they should be replaced with half-assed cargo ships.
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Mar 26, 2019 18:07
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AlexanderCA posted:I'm not arguing they're replacing well-dock ships. But the US navy seems to think they're part of the future of amphibious operations in a larger sense. In that case I misunderstood what you were saying.
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Mar 26, 2019 18:09
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Cessna posted:Yes, they did. I suspect they would have done it faster and more efficiently if they had had better equipment. I also suspect that having a more capable fleet might have deterred Argentinians from invading at all. If the RN were to go back in time and create a fleet that would have deterred the Argentinians they would not have chosen more amphibs. quote:Less than we have now, but that doesn't mean I think they should be replaced with half-assed cargo ships. Okay, so they should just be retired without retaining any of their capabilities at all? This is a valid suggestion, I just want to make sure that's what you're saying. My suspicion however is that we have excess "assault" capacity and insufficient logistics capacity, or at least that the ratio between them is unbalanced.
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Mar 26, 2019 18:12
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Mortabis posted:If the RN were to go back in time and create a fleet that would have deterred the Argentinians they would not have chosen more amphibs. There was a period of about a month - March of 1982 - during which it became clear that the Argentinians had their eyes on the Falklands. That's less time than it takes to move an amphibious task force from the UK to the islands. It would have been amazingly useful for the UK to have had some sort of amphibious shipping during that timeframe. Rather than leave the island to be defended by about 60 Marines and a bunch of civilian volunteers - well, imagine if the had the ability to drop a Regimental landing team on the island before the Argentinian invasion. Do you think Argentina would have gone ahead with their attack? As it is, the initial Argentinian attack used a bit over 500 men. There's no way that would have succeeded against any sort of defense. The fact is that the Argentinians took advantage of what was mentioned above: Cyrano4747 posted:Amphib assaults aren’t used to take a healthy peer adversary down. They’re used to either tip over one that is wobbling or force it to commit resources where it doesn’t want to. The Argentinians knew the Falklands were practically defenseless and that no defense was going to arrive in time before they landed their own troops. But if the UK had the ability to move troops to defend the islands before the shooting started it is highly doubtful the war would have happened at all, and there's no way the Argentinian assault would have been successful. Mortabis posted:Okay, so they should just be retired without retaining any of their capabilities at all? No, I am saying that I generally agree that we have plenty of amphibious assault ships to meet any realistic threat in the forseeable future and may well have an excess. I do not have an exact number that I can quote the excess as being, sorry. Mortabis posted:My suspicion however is that we have excess "assault" capacity and insufficient logistics capacity, or at least that the ratio between them is unbalanced. What are you basing your appraisal of a MAGTF's logistic's capability on?
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Mar 26, 2019 18:36
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Cessna posted:There was a period of about a month - March of 1982 - during which it became clear that the Argentinians had their eyes on the Falklands. That's less time than it takes to move an amphibious task force from the UK to the islands. The distance from the UK to the Falkland Islands is huge, and there was not enough time to deploy extra troops there no matter how many ships they had (and they had enough ships to do that). The Argentines actually moved up their invasion plans because they were concerned the UK was deploying a nuclear submarine to the area, and they didn't believe they could accomplish their invasion against a submarine threat.
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Mar 26, 2019 18:47
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Cessna posted:Like I said, amphibious operations are far more useful when they aren't forced. It's not about "storm the beach of Iwo Jima." Instead, it's about "hey, things are getting tense, let's put 3500 Marines ashore in an afternoon before the shooting even starts to let them know we're serious." the marine corps doesn't exist to evacuate embassies and distibute humrats. the raison d'tere of the marine corps is to conduct forcible entry from the sea. given the array of weapons that any peer/near peer adversary can throw against us, this is becoming increasingly difficult. we didn't even conduct an amphibious assault in gulf war 1, and we pulled out all the stops in that one. no matter the technical challenges of hitting a cvn with a df-21, the math is in their favor. even if they have to launch 10000 $1million missiles to sink one cvn, they still came out ahead(just to be clear, if a meb or 2 mebs are landing, multiple cvns are going to be in support). even if the df-21 doesnt work as advertised, the f-35/fa-18, have such a small combat radius that a $13billion dollar ship would have to operate within range of a host of other land, air, sea or submarine weapons that cost a fraction of itself. the entire point that the authors of those articles are trying to get across can be asked and answered in 1 question: is the united states willing to roll the dice on what would be required to complete this mission? for the record, thats tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. if the answer is no, then a different solution needs to be found. all the authors are doing is proposing a different solution to the problem of "how you get marines to the fight": forward positioned, distributed and embedded reinforced platoons and companies which operate with our allies, either on land or at sea in smaller amphibious capable ships, to control various key littoral terrain. this turns the problem on its head: from "how do we get marines to the fight?" to "we're already there and we're lethal enough that the calculus of dollars/lives is in our favor" edit: i'm not saying that they're right. i agree with their assessment that landing marines is going to be very difficult if we ever have to kick the door in and their solution is interesting. regarding the efv: who cares? either it's a gross overmatch for the country being invaded and you could do it with helos, amtracs or lcacs OR you have the fundamental problem of "how do i get my 5000 sailors/marines and $20billion + esg close enough to the shore to land marines without getting sunk?". vains fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Mar 26, 2019 |
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Mar 26, 2019 18:52
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Ships that sail 24/7 seem slow but their constant no-stop movement style will sneak up on your rear end quick. An LHD at “economic” cruise speeds can go from vicinity of London to the Falklands in roughly 3 weeks. That of course assumes a high state of readiness.
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Mar 26, 2019 18:55
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Mortabis posted:The distance from the UK to the Falkland Islands is huge, and there was not enough time to deploy extra troops there no matter how many ships they had (and they had enough ships to do that). The UK force sent to relieve the Falklands sailed on April 5th. SAS troops landed on South Georgia on April 21. Yes, the landings at San Carlos took longer, but that's because they ran into Argentinian defenses. If they'd flat-out dashed there they could have made it in about three weeks, tops. And given that Argentina was signalling that they had designs on the islands for over a month before the attack, I think the UK could have beaten them to the punch. The US certainly could have done this. Also, the UK was moving troops across the world, from the UK to the South Atlantic. Given the number of US bases overseas it is more likely that US troops wouldn't face as large of a distance. We're talking "Okinawa to Taiwan" rather than across the globe. quote:The Argentines actually moved up their invasion plans because they were concerned the UK was deploying a nuclear submarine to the area, and they didn't believe they could accomplish their invasion against a submarine threat. And I'd imagine they'd have scrapped the invasion - and the war - entirely if they'd known there was a regiment of troops on the islands.
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Mar 26, 2019 19:18
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Cessna posted:The UK force sent to relieve the Falklands sailed on April 5th. The UK used the QE as a troop transport. Why couldn’t they have used the QE as a troop transport earlier?
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Mar 26, 2019 19:27
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vains posted:the marine corps doesn't exist to evacuate embassies and distibute humrats. the raison d'tere of the marine corps is to conduct forcible entry from the sea. Of course. Yes, I had to memorize the mission of the Marine Corps myself. The phrase is: "The Marine Corps shall be organized, trained, and equipped to provide fleet marine forces of combined arms, together with supporting air components, for service with the fleet in the seizure or defense of advanced naval bases and for the conduct of such land operations as may be essential to the prosecution of a naval campaign." But the tricky part is that their mission statement ends with the phrase "and shall perform such other duties as the President may direct," which can include the things you mentioned above. quote:given the array of weapons that any peer/near peer adversary can throw against us, this is becoming increasingly difficult. we didn't even conduct an amphibious assault in gulf war 1, and we pulled out all the stops in that one. This misses the point entirely. We didn't land troops because there was no need to. This is because the troops on ship had already presented a credible threat to the Iraqis, forcing them to use troops to defend those beaches. This tied down a disproportionately large number of Iraqi units that otherwise would have been defending Kuwait itself. That's a win in any numbers game, and it would not have been possible without amphibious assault capability. quote:regarding the efv: who cares? either it's a gross overmatch for the country being invaded and you could do it with helos, amtracs or lcacs OR you have the fundamental problem of "how do i get my 5000 sailors/marines and $20billion + esg close enough to the shore to land marines without getting sunk?". - Amtracks are old. They were old and dogged out when I worked on them in the 90's. They can only be rebuilt so many times, and even with upgrades they are well past their shelf life. As it is, those hulls are are at or past their 47th birthday. And, bluntly, they are large targets in an increasingly hostile world. They were designed and built before even the Sagger gained fame in the Yom Kippur war - their survivability in an ATGM heavy was is tenuous at best. - Helos are great, but they have their own problems. They take up a lot of space on ship and are relatively fragile in their own way. - LCACs are great as well, but they can't deal with any defenses at all, and their ability to operate ashore is zero. The fact is that all of these elements - AAVs, helos, LCACs, and other shipping - are all parts of a solution. Dropping one entirely leads to problems. Cessna fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Mar 26, 2019 |
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Mar 26, 2019 19:30
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Phanatic posted:The UK used the QE as a troop transport. Why couldn’t they have used the QE as a troop transport earlier? Because QE was still moving paying passengers around on cruises. It is a lot easier to move a military ship in peacetime than it is to take control of civilian shipping for a non-war.
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Mar 26, 2019 19:32
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By the time the British knew the landings would take place there wasn't enough time to reinforce. This is known because the option was discussed. A larger fleet wasn't necessary to reinforce either; Hermes and Fearless were plenty sufficient.
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Mar 26, 2019 19:58
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Generally, I feel like the best alternative to warships isn't planning to take over civilian businesses and just cram poo poo in there and hope it works. If it's WWIII, I got it, but that shouldn't be plan A for a nation that can afford it.
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Mar 26, 2019 20:45
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