Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the unfortunate end state from that line of thinking, is that the US as a country is a 'zombie', a hollowed out shell, where there are no industries left. The US can't compete purely on cost. We don't have the numbers of people, or education to keep up with the world. We'll end up being just a few financial and IT companies that only have corporate headquarters here, and the bulk of the work is off shore. Of…
> I think the unfortunate end state from that line of thinking, is that the US as a country is a 'zombie', a hollowed out shell, where there are no industries left. An article from 2016, "Think nothing is made in America? Output has doubled in three decades": * https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-manufacturing-dead-outp... Manufacturing share of GDP has declined, the number of jobs has declined (due to automation),…
The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution
281–290 of 469 posts
Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. Patriot has intercepted Kinzals in Ukraine (and older versions of Patriot at that), so the tech is well established. SM3/SM6 missiles on Aegis equipped ships can defend themselves against hypersonic missiles.
Patriot has not reliably intercepted Kizhals, they needed an uneconomic interceptor ratio which in a ship would lead to interceptor depletion and failure; at the same time Kizhals is even slower than something like the DF-21 or DF-ZF. It's a similar story for SM-2/3, in the Red Sea they faced massive interceptor depletion and had to leave, and even then many missiles were not intercepted, we just got lucky that they…
Depletion is the problem with destroyers. Something like an arsenal ship (think instead of 90-120 missiles, being loaded out with 300) would make more sense. Cheap drones are more of a depletion problem than are hypersonics.
Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
I appreciate the worry for everyone else. Truly it makes a huge difference in global politics. Like parent I am still surprised how paranoid the US seems. It’s almost like growing up overprotected you become extremely fearful. There is almost no practical cost to US with going into war so the result is that US is constantly fighting and makes it the core focus of the society (along with innovation and more positive s…
The rest of the world should be very scared if the US isn't ready to go to peer-state war. - Europe has under-invested in its military for 30 years. - Japan by constitutional decree. - South Korea is rapidly building out an armaments industry, but they're also still at war. - The UK is gutted and unable to afford much of anything. - India and Pakistan are laser focused on each other. If China or Russia feel in an exp…
Pax Americana protects the global maritime order.
I believe, but cannot prove, that hegemony and "forever war" are inextricable. a la "if you want peace, prepare for war".
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I'm not justifying or defending Pax Americana or American exceptualism. IMHO, there is no justice, fairness, ethical, or moral defence. Statecraft, world affairs, empire, hegemony are amoral. And while the status quo sucks, for some a lot more than others, I think we'll miss it when it's gone.
Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rapid Dragon cannibalizes our existing military transport capacity and can't achieve the same kind of economies of scale and high operational tempo that would be possible with a commercial airliner platform. Commercial airliners are designed to land, swap passengers, refuel, and take off with very little down time. Meanwhile, military aircraft are notoriously high maintenance.
I'm not understanding the connection you are making with commercial aircraft. Do you mean rapid dragon should have been developed to work with our commercial airliner fleet rather than our military transport aircraft? How would that work? I don't see rear cargo ramps on commercial aircraft (there may be some, but I don't know of them).
And the 747 at least could open the front and rear.
Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution
#285I don't share the confidence in large ships being the future of naval anything. Even in the 90s, surface ships were easy pickings for submarines and antiship missiles. Smaller ships acting as drone carriers combined with arsenal ships can allow local power projection to keep shipping lanes open. Submarines and aircraft remain the safest, and best way to deliver offensive firepower. The aircraft carrier does have a ro…
But submarines require a shipbuilding revolution too! The total number of submarines in US Navy service has been steadily decreasing over the last decade or so. We don't have the industrial capacity to build submarines faster than our old ones are decommissioning. The issue actually isn't with carriers, I believe we're more or less on schedule with carrier building. The issue where this is most apparent is submarines…
Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution
#286I don't share the confidence in large ships being the future of naval anything. Even in the 90s, surface ships were easy pickings for submarines and antiship missiles. Smaller ships acting as drone carriers combined with arsenal ships can allow local power projection to keep shipping lanes open. Submarines and aircraft remain the safest, and best way to deliver offensive firepower. The aircraft carrier does have a ro…
>Submarines and aircraft remain the safest, and best way to deliver offensive firepower. Until drones carrying drones carrying drones becomes a thing.
Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution
#287And what would the dollar amounts be?
Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
> get good at things by doing them repeatedly and optimising In an environment where information is shared freely and widely. > So of course if we build a couple of naval ships every decade, maybe a giant train line every 30 years or similar, it will be done terribly. That's a reasonable explanation but it's not exclusive. You can still face these challenges and not do a terrible job. There is plenty of evidence this…
>In an environment where information is shared freely and widely. Umm, no. Ever heard of loose lips sinking anyhing?
Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s a pretty realistic China/US war scenario. China invades Taiwan and then the US responds militarily. I’m not saying that this is a particularly likely scenario, but it’s far from impossible.
The nature and number of the naval assets that China is building suggests that China invading Taiwan is actually very likely. Westerners who don't understand why China would want to do that get hung up on their lack of understanding, think it an irrational act (bad for trade, etc) and therefore unlikely for China to do. What they're missing is the concrete evidence of China preparing to do it. Those amphibious landin…
At this point in time, USA's isolationists may succeed in withdrawing from its foreign commitments. In which case, per your comment elsethread, realizing they no longer have USA's protection, Taiwan may capitulate.
Re: The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
close ship on ship battle is dead but large ships are needed for large long range weapons that can hit opposing targets that cannot be seen. a wwi battleship could ignore a small drone of today - a much larger system is needed to sink a ship.
Can a large ship, or any ship, intercept a hypersonic missile? Because that's the reality of today.
1. Ballistic missiles: most ballistic missile systems are hypersonic. We've had ballistic missiles since WW2, the very first American ballistic missile (the redstone) was hypersonic, and that was back in the 1950s. This is not new. People make a lot of missile like the Khinzal, but this is just an air-launched version of the Iskander missile, which is from the 1990s.
2. Hypersonic glide vehicles: normal ballistic missiles drop a re-entry vehicle that just falls to earth. It might have some stabilizing fins, and some ability to make minute adjustments to its course to improve accuracy, but this is limited. In a hypersonic glide vehicle, the re-entry vehicle is meant to be more of a glide body, and is able to make actual maneuvers and turns. The technology here is also not new. For example, the Space Shuttle is an example of a hypersonic glide body. Research in this field has been around for a long time, though it's only in the last few years that countries have begun actually fielding weapons featuring glide vehicles. The annoying part with this is that the term "hypersonic glide vehicle" implies that the reason these are so difficult to intercept is because of their speed. But it's actually the opposite: in order to maneuver, a hypersonic glide vehicle actually has to travel slower than a traditional ballistic re-entry vehicle! The advantage of a HGV is not its speed, but its ability to maneuver, which makes it harder to intercept.
3. There are also hypersonic cruise missiles. These are missiles that use ramjet or scramjet engines to fly at hypersonic speeds. These tend to be even slower than HGVs, and will have much shorter ranges because they have to consume fuel to maintain this speed. Several of these are in development, but I don't believe any have been fielded. The main advantage of these is even further maneuverability, and a lower flight altitude which should make them harder to detect. Additionally, because they are flying in the atmosphere, it requires a different type of interceptor to defeat.