Warships that should never been built?

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14 million guys still out of work in 1940 so spending on anything but the New Deal was probably anthema even without the isolation policy.
To be fair FDR did make expanding the navy and building new ships part of the New Deal and carriers required a lot of new job generating aircraft models every couple years even in peacetime
 
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In defence of the Type 21, as an export design, they had better habitability than their RN contemporaries. Even the senior ratings had their own cabins. (British yards aren't stupid; they tend to provide officers with excellent accommodation in export designs, as they'll be the ones making decisions on what the next design to be bought will be.)

They did have their problems as light, cheap frigates, but they provided experience in building all-gas turbine ships. And their Falklands service I don't think can be fairly criticised.

My thoughts,
I don't disagree with any of that that. (Actually I do disagree with the gas turbines part as the first 6 Type 42s were being built at the same time as the Type 21s and before that there were the Counties, Type 81s, Type 82, the earlier Vosper frigates and the Type 14 converted to an Olympus test bed.)

Plus they were affordable and therefore expendable, which is what flotilla vessels are supposed to be.

However, instead of building a high-low mix of new ships I think they should have only built "high" ships and used existing ships for the patrol frigate role instead of giving them expensive mid-life refits. Or put another way "new-old" instead of "high-low".
 

CalBear

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You mean they never installed the VCS?? Talk about your useless weapon.
There ya' go.

380'+ long, 3,000+ ton warship with ONE 57mm gun, 2x1 30mm Bushmasters 4x1 M2 .50 cal and a CIWS.

As a comparison the IDF's Sa'ar 6 will carry a 76mm gun, two remote operated 30mm guns, a 32 cell VLS for SAM, 16 Gabriel III/IV anti-ship missiles, and two 324mm torpedo launchers, with an SH-60 helo on 295 feet and 1,900 tons full load.

Of course you can also go a bit old school and compare them to the second flight Spruance class ships that the Navy just sort of sank for shits and giggles because they lacked AGEIS.

Things are total wastes of time and money.
 
I don't disagree with any of that that. (Actually I do disagree with the gas turbines part as the first 6 Type 42s were being built at the same time as the Type 21s and before that there were the Counties, Type 81s, Type 82, the earlier Vosper frigates and the Type 14 converted to an Olympus test bed.)

But those older designs were mostly combines steam and gas; it was the Type 21s and 42s that were all gas.

Plus they were affordable and therefore expendable, which is what flotilla vessels are supposed to be.

Going with a yard design saved time and money. Too bad there was nothing available at the time to replace Sea Cat

However, instead of building a high-low mix of new ships I think they should have only built "high" ships and used existing ships for the patrol frigate role instead of giving them expensive mid-life refits. Or put another way "new-old" instead of "high-low".

Something akin to what happened during World War 2. Ships like Faulknor became convoy escorts while newer ships went to the front line...
Of course, some could argue convoy escort WAS the front line....

Regards,
 
That can be blamed on Congress being morons and not allowing for the carrier fleet to expand by changing the law the second the WNT and First London expired since the USN's main rivals in the RN and IJN in the were going to do so (although to be fair Japan was out the treaty system by then).
Politicians were cheapskates then and the American public was firmly isolationist.
14 million guys still out of work in 1940 so spending on anything but the New Deal was probably anathema even without the isolation policy.
To be fair to American politicians of the 1930s...

Congress did pass laws in the early 1930s that required the US Fleet to be brought up to the strength permitted by the First London Naval Treaty. Some of the money to do it was provided by the New Deal legislation.

However, the laws that brought the USN to the strength allowed by the First London Naval Treaty, also prevented its expansion beyond those limits. It took the Panay Incident and the Japanese ordering 2 aircraft carriers in 1937 (which became Shokaku and Zuikaku) to force Congress to increase the aircraft carrier limit from 135,000 tons to 175,000 tons in 1938.
 
There ya' go.

380'+ long, 3,000+ ton warship with ONE 57mm gun, 2x1 30mm Bushmasters 4x1 M2 .50 cal and a CIWS.

As a comparison the IDF's Sa'ar 6 will carry a 76mm gun, two remote operated 30mm guns, a 32 cell VLS for SAM, 16 Gabriel III/IV anti-ship missiles, and two 324mm torpedo launchers, with an SH-60 helo on 295 feet and 1,900 tons full load.

Of course you can also go a bit old school and compare them to the second flight Spruance class ships that the Navy just sort of sank for shits and giggles because they lacked AGEIS.

Things are total wastes of time and money.
Stupid thing is I have an (unbuilt) plastic model of the trimaran type and its got a full VCS. Assuming they designed the kit off of original plans why leave out the weapon that would actually make it semi effective?
 
;)
Stupid thing is I have an (unbuilt) plastic model of the trimaran type and its got a full VCS. Assuming they designed the kit off of original plans why leave out the weapon that would actually make it semi effective?
To keep it within the budget? Or the system was running behind schedule so they planned on adding it later.
 

SsgtC

Banned
Stupid thing is I have an (unbuilt) plastic model of the trimaran type and its got a full VCS. Assuming they designed the kit off of original plans why leave out the weapon that would actually make it semi effective?
The ships were supposed to be modular, with the ability to swap out mission modules as required. So the same hull could serve as an AA ship one mission, then swap out that module for an ASW pack the next and so on and so forth. Except no one ever bothered to actually design and build the modules because they ended up being way more expensive than people thought
 
The Galena has already been mentioned, so I'd like to nominate another Civil War era vessel - the Casco class monitor:

GPOTM40.jpg


You may notice that this monitor is missing something rather important. Well, there's a reason for that.

The Casco class was to be a shallow draft river monitor, designed with the intent of being significantly simpler and faster to produce than the Passaic class. John Ericsson did the initial design work, but reorganizations by the Navy placed Alban C. Stimers, Ericsson's old assistant, above him. Stimers had ideas of his own on how the Casco should be built, and kept overriding Ericsson, who eventually quit. Now fully in control, Stimers made significant design modifications - even worse, his office kept making alterations to the plans while the ships were in the process of being built, leading to ever growing delays and cost overruns

It was only when the first of the Casco class finally came off the slips that it was discovered just how badly Stimer and his designers had screwed up. The vessels only had three inches of freeboard, and that was without guns, or stores. The rear of the ship was submerged even in harbor, and it made less than half of its design speed. An attempt was made to salvage some use of them by building the hulls up to increase freeboard, as well as stripping them of their turrets, but of the 20 ships built, most were immediately mothballed and subsequently scrapped.

True but they're still crap ships, also gotta rip out the missile battery as I don't think CG's are meant to have those.

Some cutters during the Cold War were fitted with Harpoons, or modified to accept them on short notice. And the National Security Cutters were designed but not fitted for a heavier war load. Not that it really matters, as only a handful of Surface Warfare Modules were fitted to LCSs.

Since that require removal of a single Mark 49 RIM launcher on both subclasses it is about a three day yard job (the rest of the system can stay since there is "space and weight saved" policy common on all USCG cutters dating back decades).

Honestly I'm simply trying to find a way to keep them from being the fastest harbor tugs in U.S. naval history. It is either that so use 'em up in SinkEx since sending them into a even a medium risk environment is tantamount to premeditated murder.

The current plan seems to be a hope that the Mine Warfare Module eventually makes it into production, and to then use most of them as minesweepers, something the navy is extremely short on.

You mean they never installed the VCS?? Talk about your useless weapon.

Their originally planned vertical launch missile system, the NLOS, was cancelled by the Army, leaving the Navy in a lurch. After that, the Surface Warfare Module substituted racks for 8 Hellfire missiles. Not exactly in the same category. There have been a few experiments with mounting Harpoon canisters though.
 
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The ships were supposed to be modular, with the ability to swap out mission modules as required. So the same hull could serve as an AA ship one mission, then swap out that module for an ASW pack the next and so on and so forth. Except no one ever bothered to actually design and build the modules because they ended up being way more expensive than people thought

That and the idea that you can easily and quickly swap out whole modules on something like a ship is a ridiculous idea. It's a large moving actual ship, not a Lego set.
 
Of course you can also go a bit old school and compare them to the second flight Spruance class ships that the Navy just sort of sank for shits and giggles because they lacked AGEIS.

Things are total wastes of time and money.
Arguably a pretty big stupid mistake for the USN. Its a shame that the OHP were arguably more versatile then the LCS
 
How about the first 28 ships (that's Flights I and II) of the Burke class DDGs? Seriously, what idiot thought it was a good idea to build a modern major surface combatant without a helicopter hangar? This error was of course corrected with Flight IIA.
 
USS Wasp CV-7 should have never been built as she was(ie a relatively slow poorly protected death trap)if only because the US literally only needed to wait eight more months to build her as a full sized Yorktown class ship. Mind you she was rather impressive in how many aircraft she could carry and she introduced the deck edge elevator (why this wasn't included in Hornet I have no idea).

WASP gets a lot of grief on this forum for being a death trap but the fact is we don't know how she would have handled "normal" damage - say a couple of bombs and an air dropped torpedo while buttoned up and prepared to receive damage. Remember, she took three heavy weight submarine torpedoes at the worst possible time, while conducting flight operations with fuel lines full of AVGAS. IMWO no WWII carrier is going to survive that torpedo salvo at that moment.
 
WASP gets a lot of grief on this forum for being a death trap but the fact is we don't know how she would have handled "normal" damage - say a couple of bombs and an air dropped torpedo while buttoned up and prepared to receive damage. Remember, she took three heavy weight submarine torpedoes at the worst possible time, while conducting flight operations with fuel lines full of AVGAS. IMWO no WWII carrier is going to survive that torpedo salvo at that moment.
My namesake would because of her sheer awesomeness ;)
 
WASP gets a lot of grief on this forum for being a death trap but the fact is we don't know how she would have handled "normal" damage - say a couple of bombs and an air dropped torpedo while buttoned up and prepared to receive damage. Remember, she took three heavy weight submarine torpedoes at the worst possible time, while conducting flight operations with fuel lines full of AVGAS. IMWO no WWII carrier is going to survive that torpedo salvo at that moment.
True enough I suppose...if only Wasp hasn't been detached to refuel just before the Battle of the Eastern Solomons occurred and/or she and her task force had zigged rather than zagged and not been hit by I-19.
 
The ships were supposed to be modular, with the ability to swap out mission modules as required. So the same hull could serve as an AA ship one mission, then swap out that module for an ASW pack the next and so on and so forth. Except no one ever bothered to actually design and build the modules because they ended up being way more expensive than people thought
I once read a online article about a computer simulated skirmish in the South China sea, sparked by a confrontation between a PLAN frigate and the Philippine navy (two old USCG cutters). The USN sent in two LCS with a Burke about 100 miles away with its AShM armed Seahawk on standby. Needless to say the LCS were hopelessly outclassed and i think one was sunk with the 2nd one in its death throes before the person running the simulation decided to risk the Seahawk the simulation crashed before it all finished playing out however.

Edit, Heres the article:https://medium.com/war-is-boring/how-i-lost-the-battle-of-the-south-china-sea-c47b367a1de2
 
The last two Indefatigable class Battlecruiser's should have been built as far superior Lion's, which weren't that much more expensive. They were finished in 1913, Lion and Princess Royal were finished in 1912
 
Too bad there was nothing available at the time to replace Sea Cat.
Page 100 of Royal Navy Frigates 1945-1983 by Leo Marriott...
It was also planned that the last four ships should be equipped with the new Seawolf missile system instead of the original Seacat installation, but this plan was dropped to cost considerations and also to topweight and stability problems associated with the greater weight of the new missile system. As it was, all the ships needed extra permanent ballast as a result of equipment fitted over and above the original design.
I thought that the chapter on Type 23 and future designs said that Argentina was offered a Type 21 armed with the VM40 version of Seawolf, but bought MEKO 360 instead. I thought that it also had an artists' impression of the ship.

However, I had a naval warfare board game called Seastrike and it did have a drawing of the VM40 Seawolf armed Type 21 on the lid of the box.

I haven't looked my copy of the relevant Friedman, but I suspect that being refitted with the GWS25 version of Seawolf was part of the Type 21's staff requirement.
 
I once read a online article about a computer simulated skirmish in the South China sea, sparked by a confrontation between a PLAN frigate and the Philippine navy (two old USCG cutters). The USN sent in two LCS with a Burke about 100 miles away with its AShM armed Seahawk on standby. Needless to say the LCS were hopelessly outclassed and i think one was sunk with the 2nd one in its death throes before the person running the simulation decided to risk the Seahawk the simulation crashed before it all finished playing out however.

Edit, Heres the article:https://medium.com/war-is-boring/how-i-lost-the-battle-of-the-south-china-sea-c47b367a1de2

When Greenert was CNO he pretty much admitted that the LCS was not meant to engage in actual combat. You know, a ship with the word "combat" in the name is not meant to engage in combat - https://breakingdefense.com/2012/04/cno-lcs-couldnt-survive-war-with-china-but-it-can-prevent-one/
 
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