General question
I see most frigates and destroyers of NATO from 70s and 80s were equipped with just sea sparrow or similar point defense SAM , one launcher usually.Not area defense SAM like standard
Were the former considered sufficient along with CIWS to counter a salvo of AshM ( even the older shaddocks or Styx)
I see most frigates and destroyers of NATO from 70s and 80s were equipped with just sea sparrow or similar point defense SAM , one launcher usually.Not area defense SAM like standard
Were the former considered sufficient along with CIWS to counter a salvo of AshM ( even the older shaddocks or Styx)
The Royal Navy retired their last diesel electric submarines in 1994.
Albeit the USN did look into adding a plug at some point for assorted stuff when they where still in the original Burke run. Decided against it. With the power of hindsight....
Not smart nor a nerd but...
They are redundant. Modified SSGN can carry the same amount of missiles while being less of a target. Also the munitions/missiles are the main costs.
To be 'fair' this is the same Congress that inserted a line item in the Army budget to continue to build Abrams tanks (at a certain factory) which were immediately put into storage because the Army had neither the crews or budget to put them into service and in fact did not want them. Also the same Congress that cut the F-22 order by half to "save money" (but ended up raising the price per unit significantly so ended up costing more) among other decisions made "for" the military.
So it might be plausible if the right companies got the right contracts.
Randy
No.
Though Styx missiles are hilariously vulnerable to countermeasures, so it’s a bit of a moot point.
And the French in 2001, so non of the Western powers operate mixed fleets, it’s either SSKs or SSNs.
Driftless
Donor
Pork Barrel politics often/always enters the calculations. Contractors/campaign contributors in key districts have more impact than requirements of the service in so many cases.
And let's not forget them demanding the cutting the numbers of zumwalt, B-2, or seawolf numbers....
That being said given how within a few years the tank plant got orders for upgrading a lot of the US army's tanks and a ass load of export orders and the situation in the world presently that was probably the right call for once
The B-2 and Seawolf cuts were very justifiable, neither being necessary in a post-Cold War world. Now, continuing Seawolf production had merits in the fact that the cancellation nearly killed off the submarine industry ahead of the Virginias, and that’s also the reason Congress told the Army to keep buying tanks, but tactically we just didn’t need an expensive submarine designed to penetrate Soviet bastions and skullfuck everything they came across.
F-22 cuts were, once again, not Congress but the DoD. And as I’ve mentioned there are conflicting stories about who, precisely, wanted the Zumwalts gone.
F-22 cuts were, once again, not Congress but the DoD. And as I’ve mentioned there are conflicting stories about who, precisely, wanted the Zumwalts gone.
There's very little justification for any power to build both imo.
Once you have a production line for nuclear both you want to keep it going as the staff are quiet specialist.
The French could theoretically operate both as they build both due to export sales.
I don't think anyone has gotten the idea right. I'm not sure if the idea can be gotten right.
I do think that there's value in projecting missile launchers away from the coast. Especially for island countries.
There's no real benefit in having Arsenal ships for a lot of countries.
Also they are probably a vulnerable target for submarine attacks.
For the seawolfs cuts the initial batch planned of 12 should been made or at least more 688s in the place of the cut boats
Like @CV12Hornet there just wasn't a role for them. The Seawolfs were significantly more expensive than a 688 and without a peer competitor, it was virtually impossible to justify such an expense. And 688s are good boats, especially for when they were built, but they're still older technology. And by this point, even the I-boats still in service are almost screaming deathtraps.
There was certainly a justifiable expense. Keeping the sub industry not on life support and not putting us on the path to for awhile be below 50 attack subs. Naval strategy is build strategy after all. Not to mention with 12 hulls the per unit cost would have been much much lower than with 3
Albeit we weren't quite as bad off as the Brits on that front post cold war in both subs and in general.
RamscoopRaider
Donor
Too many eggs in one basket and too overspecialized. All they can do is spam missiles, and either attack fixed land targets with cruise missiles or serve as a floating magazine to somebody else. Attacking land targets, there are not many that you need more cruise missiles than can be carried by a couple CG/DDG, and those platforms are more flexible. As an extra magazine it runs into the issue that you are going to be putting a lot of your missiles on one platform with limited self defense capability, the arsenal ship goes and the fleet loses a lot more than losing any single one of the missile ships
Generally put you'd be better off just building your CG/DDG slightly bigger to fit a larger VLS farm than specialized Arsenal ships
There may be a role for a small USV arsenal ship, being able to carry say 24-64 extra tubes, enough to increase magazine capacity but not put all eggs in one basket
It definitely hurt the industry, though I'd argue the SSN trough wasn't seen as a potential problem in the early 1990s. However, defense spending is inextricably linked to politics and it was hard for the Navy to justify why they were spending three times the money to build a platform whose explicit purpose is to destroy large numbers of high-end Soviet submarines that no longer exist. Now, building a Flight IV 688 might have been useful, but they would not have incorporated the new designs and technologies that the VACL or even the Seawolf class did. And then while you'd have hulls, they'd still be older hulls.
It would also be hard to justify buying more submarines at all while the Navy was furiously retiring LAs less than 20 years old rather than refuel them, simply because there wasn’t enough money to go around.
I honestly didn't know that was a thing. That more than anything is the proximate cause of the SSN trough.