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The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

usni.org

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Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#391

Post by bell-cot »

pzo wrote: post #30

Didn't warfare changed big enough that big navy might be more obsolete? Ukraine-Russia conflict showed that you can make hordes of cheap naval drones that can easily harass your very expensive ships or put them out of combat. By now probably you can still make more advanced but cheaper underwater drones, smart torpedos etc.

> Ukraine-Russia conflict showed...

Hordes of cheap naval drones is what Ukraine had the ability to produce. And long before the current conflict started, Russia's navy was well-known for having very serious maintenance, performance, and survivability issues. They would have proven similarly vulnerable to a very wide variety of weapons.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#392

Post by einpoklum »

irrational wrote: post #385

We don't need ships to go fight the next war. The next war is going to be right here.

Unfortunately, before that war you expect to happen right in the US - current and future administrations will most likely sneak in anohter two, three, ten, fifty other wars, elsewhere.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#393

Post by einpoklum »

ragnot wrote: post #191
Yeul wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NATO exercises always ended with the nukes.

Hence the emphasis on cyber and (US) dollar attack vectors. War without the bullets.

US dollar attack vectors are gradually drying up. Ironically, the more they are used - e.g. in sanctions - the stronger the motivation for detachment from USD as a reserve currency and direct trade in the parties' own currencies. Plus - how much of the world can the US sanction at the same time before it's only the select few that it trades with? Russia + Iran + China + Venezuela + Mexico + Canada + + + ...

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#394

Post by [deleted] »

animal_spirits wrote: post #377
Hasu wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Violence is not inherent to the definition of a coup, and Elon Musk, who is not a government official, who has no official status in the government, has taken direct control of the Treasury's payment systems. An unelected billionaire has illegally and unconstitutionally taken control of the United States government. That is a coup, plain and simple.

There are already thousands of unelected government workers that already have control over these government systems. I understand it is different that one person now has access to them all now, but the unelected part of this story I think is a nothing burger.

[deleted]

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#395

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

einpoklum wrote: post #390
amanda99 wrote: post #341

A lot of folks are saying big ships are outdated. Keep in mind that war is 80% logistics: and if you are going to engage an enemy far away from your landmass (or project power for that matter), you need huge capacity to move materiel to said location, and that normally means ships. An interesting thing to look at is something called the "Fully Burdened Cost of Fuel": for every gallon that the US delivers to a Forward…

> if you are going to engage an enemy far away from your landmass > (or project power for that matter) Here's an idea: How about _not_ engaging far away from your landmass and not "projecting power"? The rest of the world has had quite enough of your projections.

Bad idea. I want the US to continue projecting power because the alternative is worse.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#396

Post by Neonlicht »

ragnot wrote: post #191
Yeul wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NATO exercises always ended with the nukes.

Hence the emphasis on cyber and (US) dollar attack vectors. War without the bullets.

I agree. Mao once said that he was willing to accept US atomic bombs. But that was when China didn't have fancy cities... Both sides are simply too vulnerable in an all out war.

Xi wants to make China great again he doesn't want a nuclear wasteland.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#397

Post by bell-cot »

'Tis sadly interesting that the article, from USNI, never really mentions all the Navy Yards that America once had - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navy_Yard - where the Navy could (and very often did) build and maintain its own warships.

Before the navy yards were shut down, they provided pretty much the exact capabilities which the author bemoans the US desperately needing now. And were extremely useful for keeping private shipyards honest - "You want HOW much? It'll take HOW long? Sorry, we'll just build the ship ourselves."

Similar (and again unmentioned) in Great Britain. Even though the article talks about (Royal Navy Admiral) Jacky Fisher. Who, famously, spent a fair hunk of his career managing such facilities for the RN. And was famous/notorious for squeezing both the RN's and private yards to produce more ships, faster, better, and cheaper.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#398

Post by niceguy1827 »

bombcar wrote: post #287

What exactly would be the cost increase for a ship built in the USA? Is it a 50% increase? 200%? 500%? And what would the dollar amounts be?

Consider this as very much back-of-napkin math, a Chinese 055 destroyer is about a third of the cost of an Arleigh Burke. So you’d be looking at roughly 300%.

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#399

Post by [deleted] »

peepeepoopoo105 wrote: post #6

This will never succeed because the economies of scale are nonexistent without dominance in the commercial shipbuilding market. War planners should have pushed to repeal the Jones Act decades ago, but now Chinese shipbuilding capacity is over 230 times greater than ours because of their success in civilian shipbuilding. The proposed measures in this aricle are too little too late. The only logical course of action at…

[deleted]

Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution

#400

Post by 0xffff2 »

bombcar wrote: post #270
Someone wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If there's a war, and you need ship matériel to the war zone, do you think commercial ships will enter it? Yes, I think so. In wartime, a government can order them to do so. For example ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Mauretania_(1906)#First_Wo... ): “Mauretania was planned to replace the Lusitania on the Transatlantic run after the Lusitania was sunk, but she was ordered by the British government to serve as a…

People think ships for war are all warships, but the most important are transport, and those ships exist in large numbers. In case of war, those ships get commandeered and taken by whoever thinks they can get away with it. Ships are also not nearly as prevalent as they were in WW2 (as international capable jet transport didn't really exist then). Vietnam used troop transports, but I don't think Desert Storm used much…

>Ships are also not nearly as prevalent as they were in WW2 (as international capable jet transport didn't really exist then). Vietnam used troop transports, but I don't think Desert Storm used much beyond airplanes.

As someone who supported loading a whole division's worth of vehicles onto ships during the Iraq war, I would like to know what you're basing that on. Sure, the people go by plane, but the people represent an overwhelming minority of the total tonnage moved to deploy a unit.

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