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the US Navy's warship production is in its worst state in 25 years. Why

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Re: the US Navy's warship production is in its worst state in 25 years. Why

#11

Post by ein0p »

ianburrell wrote: post #9
ForOldHack wrote: post #6

lower-cost warships. They have lost the ability to build horse carriages too, but then they are both kind of useless, and think of the money they save? They have saved a hell of a lot of money complaining while doing nothing.

There are diminishing returns with cheaper warships. The LCS cost $400 million each but Burke destroyer, $2 billion, could sink a dozen of them. Aircraft carrier, $13 billion plus planes, could sink all of them. More importantly, the destroyer could protect the carrier from attack. Small warships are useful for low-intensity conflict but Red Sea conflict shows that they need more defense and offense.

And a couple of $5M apiece hypersonics could easily sink a destroyer, even with a conventional payload. Red Sea has shown just how useless warships are nowadays against an adversary with any kind of long range anti ship capability. The entire strike groups had to hightail outta there once the more potent stuff started flying

Re: the US Navy's warship production is in its worst state in 25 years. Why

#12

Post by autoexecbat »

ein0p wrote: post #11
ianburrell wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are diminishing returns with cheaper warships. The LCS cost $400 million each but Burke destroyer, $2 billion, could sink a dozen of them. Aircraft carrier, $13 billion plus planes, could sink all of them. More importantly, the destroyer could protect the carrier from attack. Small warships are useful for low-intensity conflict but Red Sea conflict shows that they need more defense and offense.

And a couple of $5M apiece hypersonics could easily sink a destroyer, even with a conventional payload. Red Sea has shown just how useless warships are nowadays against an adversary with any kind of long range anti ship capability. The entire strike groups had to hightail outta there once the more potent stuff started flying

That's just lack of political will to engage and collateral effects on non-combatants.

The carrier group could have stayed in position and inflicted enormous damage in retaliation, but no one wants nukes used

Re: the US Navy's warship production is in its worst state in 25 years. Why

#13

Post by ianburrell »

ein0p wrote: post #11
ianburrell wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are diminishing returns with cheaper warships. The LCS cost $400 million each but Burke destroyer, $2 billion, could sink a dozen of them. Aircraft carrier, $13 billion plus planes, could sink all of them. More importantly, the destroyer could protect the carrier from attack. Small warships are useful for low-intensity conflict but Red Sea conflict shows that they need more defense and offense.

And a couple of $5M apiece hypersonics could easily sink a destroyer, even with a conventional payload. Red Sea has shown just how useless warships are nowadays against an adversary with any kind of long range anti ship capability. The entire strike groups had to hightail outta there once the more potent stuff started flying

The Red Sea has shown how important warships are. They have been successful at shooting down missiles and drones and protecting ships. I think a single cargo ship has been hit and sunk.

The Houthis have mostly been using drones which don't work well against ships. But they have used a few Iranian anti-ship missiles.

The Eisenhower withdrew in June and Roosevelt arrived in July.

Re: the US Navy's warship production is in its worst state in 25 years. Why

#14

Post by AlotOfReading »

ein0p wrote: post #11
ianburrell wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are diminishing returns with cheaper warships. The LCS cost $400 million each but Burke destroyer, $2 billion, could sink a dozen of them. Aircraft carrier, $13 billion plus planes, could sink all of them. More importantly, the destroyer could protect the carrier from attack. Small warships are useful for low-intensity conflict but Red Sea conflict shows that they need more defense and offense.

And a couple of $5M apiece hypersonics could easily sink a destroyer, even with a conventional payload. Red Sea has shown just how useless warships are nowadays against an adversary with any kind of long range anti ship capability. The entire strike groups had to hightail outta there once the more potent stuff started flying

Look at the implications of what you're arguing though. Without protection, you don't have wartime logistics. Without logistics, you don't have force projection. Without force projection, you're missing a central pillar of US international relations and the current world order.

Shipbuilding deeply tied into the US military's goals.

Re: the US Navy's warship production is in its worst state in 25 years. Why

#15

Post by sillywalk »

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #3

I realize the answer to this is probably very obvious to others but hope they can explain it here: why is the US not nationalizing warship production? And more ports? The infra for air cargo (airports, atc) is largely government owned, why can't water cargo infra be?

> why is the US not nationalizing

That is essentially blasphemy in terms of US politics.

And the corruption. The amount of dollars the war-industry has spent to buy members of congress. The revolving door between military / civilian brass & the war industry. How projects subcontracted over as many congressional districts as possible.

Re: the US Navy's warship production is in its worst state in 25 years. Why

#16

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

pjot wrote: post #2

In Alabama the LCS was being built - it took roughly twenty years end to end to deliver. Aside from giant cost and time overruns since it was completed there’s been a struggle with learning to effectively use the ship. All in all though seeing a tri-hull warship on your morning commute is a cool treat. It had been front and center of Austal’s hangar doors for a long time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Mobile_(LCS…

Isn’t this entire class of ships due to be decommissioned, due to huge cracks and other issues?

Re: the US Navy's warship production is in its worst state in 25 years. Why

#17

Post by [deleted] »

pjot wrote: post #2

In Alabama the LCS was being built - it took roughly twenty years end to end to deliver. Aside from giant cost and time overruns since it was completed there’s been a struggle with learning to effectively use the ship. All in all though seeing a tri-hull warship on your morning commute is a cool treat. It had been front and center of Austal’s hangar doors for a long time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Mobile_(LCS…

[deleted]

Re: the US Navy's warship production is in its worst state in 25 years. Why

#18

Post by walleeee »

autoexecbat wrote: post #12
ein0p wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a couple of $5M apiece hypersonics could easily sink a destroyer, even with a conventional payload. Red Sea has shown just how useless warships are nowadays against an adversary with any kind of long range anti ship capability. The entire strike groups had to hightail outta there once the more potent stuff started flying

That's just lack of political will to engage and collateral effects on non-combatants. The carrier group could have stayed in position and inflicted enormous damage in retaliation, but no one wants nukes used

A single well-placed rocket/missile/drone crater in the deck of a carrier, without sinking or even seriously wounding it, is enough to render it useless and put it out of comission for months if not longer. Keeping a carrier group in a place where this is even remotely likely is a huge risk from a naval strategy perspective.

Re: the US Navy's warship production is in its worst state in 25 years. Why

#19

Post by ein0p »

ianburrell wrote: post #13
ein0p wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a couple of $5M apiece hypersonics could easily sink a destroyer, even with a conventional payload. Red Sea has shown just how useless warships are nowadays against an adversary with any kind of long range anti ship capability. The entire strike groups had to hightail outta there once the more potent stuff started flying

The Red Sea has shown how important warships are. They have been successful at shooting down missiles and drones and protecting ships. I think a single cargo ship has been hit and sunk. The Houthis have mostly been using drones which don't work well against ships. But they have used a few Iranian anti-ship missiles. The Eisenhower withdrew in June and Roosevelt arrived in July.

Yeah, so important that commercial traffic is impacted to this day, in spite of billions of dollars in ammo and other costs.
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