That doesn't even make any sense.

Wasn't Teddy Roosevelt's navy his big stick, not a cuddly pillow?

The US military was more effective and efficient than any aid agency and far far better than the UN during the Tsunami disaster. I have no issue with the military carrying out such missions as an adjunct to its primary role. Either way, we need more ships and a larger military budget, especially if we are going to expand the mission into Aid missions.

Remember that even when we are providing Aid, the military will still be carrying out military missions in that area. Plus we gather inteligence and suppress priracy and lawlessness. Win.

Perhaps that Tsunami aid that was misused by NGO's as posted in a previous thread should have gone to the US, Australian and New Zealand militaries instead.

Actually, as far as rainbows...

LargeCanine: The US military was more effective and efficient than any aid agency and far far better than the UN during the Tsunami disaster. I have no issue with the military carrying out such missions as an adjunct to its primary role. Either way, we need more ships and a larger military budget, especially if we are going to expand the mission into Aid missions.

Remember that even when we are providing Aid, the military will still be carrying out military missions in that area. Plus we gather inteligence and suppress priracy and lawlessness. Win.

Perhaps that Tsunami aid that was misused by NGO's as posted in a previous thread should have gone to the US, Australian and New Zealand militaries instead.

You are tragically confused about the purposes for which the government of these United States was established.

4.5 acres of sovereign American territory, anytime, anywhere:



/gives me warm fuzzies

Tartan69: gives me warm fuzzies

I think the US could do fine with a big fat "0" on that chart, but to be fair about half of the American carriers there appear to actually be amphibious assault ships. The kind that can launch Harriers and helicopters, but not much more. Though they'll get a nice little boost with the new F-35.

Churchill2004: You are tragically confused about the purposes for which the government of these United States was established.

As expensive a deployed armed presence is, you just can't buy that kind of power projection and PR for trade deals etc. T.R. was right about the Navy a century ago. It is the most important diplomacy tool in the toolbox. When you can show up with an entire Carrier Battle-Group on a country's doorstep, it makes them think twice.

I know you dislike the standing armed forces thing, but the U.S. Navy is a really effective bargaining tool.

Churchill2004:You are tragically confused about the purposes for which the government of these United States was established.


I think not. The military is a tool of US foreign policy. Don't get me wrong, the military should NOT be converted into a soft and fuzzy thinking charity/aid agency, but the military has proven to be an effective organization to help after major disasters, earning gratitude and provoking outrage from some quarters who were embarrassed by comparison.

Consider: The US military has a world spanning logistical network that can go anywhere in the world. They can build bases, shelter, roads and bring in supplies where needed AND protect these assets with intrinsic force. Charities on the other hand need to be protected - by someone.

Now, as I noted above, while we are there..... we can do other - military - stuff. Intelligence gathering, black ops, force deployment in areas that we would normally not be allowed to go. 'Gee, that is convenient. Help these folks here while we squish some pirates nearby. Been meaning to do tha, but the locals were reluctant to let us before.'

Now, if we do this, we need to spend more to add this capability on top of what we already have. All too many people would love to use this notion to destroy warmaking capabiility.

LargeCanine: The military is a tool of US foreign policy.

No, actually it exists "to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions", per the Constitution of the United States. Oh, and only the Congress is allowed to tell them to do so.

subbie, I lol'd

Though to be fair, Quincy really did look like a demon-possesed, constipated naked mole rat.

And... whoops! Wrong thread.

/I'll head on over to the ugly dollar thread

The military is actually a tool of corporate capitalism, making sure there is a new market for corporate production and goods where there once wasn't one, especially where traditional means of capitalism don't work. It's been going like that for...hmmm?? Forever? Yeah, since man domesticated animals and understood farming.

I think the Navy is soft enough. How many terrorists have been killed by torpedoes since the war started?

That's what I thought.

USS Harry S Truman and the Giuseppe Garibaldi of the Italian Navy.

Churchill2004: but to be fair about half of the American carriers there appear to actually be amphibious assault ships. The kind that can launch Harriers and helicopters, but not much more.

Actually you are correct, all the Tarawa and Wasp class ships on the left-hand side of the chart are indeed amphib only "Harrier carriers". But they are equivalent to all the other non-US carriers, save for the Russian Admiral Kuznetsov, the Brazilian Sao Paulo, and the French Charles De Gaulle. The two French ships (the Brazilians bought their carrier from the French in 2000) have catapults, but the Russian ship can only launch interceptors without large bomb loads due to their lack of catapults (they still rely on the ski jump). Excellent for fleet defense, but not good for power projection. The de Gaulle is also the only non-US nuke-powered carrier (although it is apparently in drydock for repairs half the time). Even then, the Nimitz-class US carriers displace over 100k tons, while the Admiral Kuznetsov displaces 70k and the de Gaulle and Sao Paulo both displace under 40k.

You can find a good summary here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_by_type (new window)

Do you know who else looked like a demon-possesed, constipated naked mole rat?

/lol

hazeleyedwolff I think the Navy is soft enough. How many terrorists have been killed by torpedoes since the war started? That's what I thought.

Let's be honest, there are more than just terrorists out there that would do harm to the US. Granted I think 10+ Nimitz-sized carriers might be a bit overkill, but I'm ok with us being safe rather than sorry.

PS. Carriers don't shoot torpedoes

LargeCanine: Now, if we do this, we need to spend more to add this capability on top of what we already have. All too many people would love to use this notion to destroy warmaking capabiility.

Jesus Christ.

Tartan69

It's almost as if other countries have realized that massive conventional wars are a thing of the past, and the US didn't get the memo?

El_Dan: Tartan69

It's almost as if other countries have realized that massive conventional wars are a thing of the past, and the US didn't get the memo?

The U.S. issued the memo. Please see the comparative picture on worldwide carrier inventory, and consider how much more effective any one of our carrier groups is at projecting power than every other nations' in the world combined.

Oh, and as for the headline, Try reading this. (new window)

"Hmmm, let's see, what would be the ideal ship to send to a disaster, now what kind of ship would we want?

Something with its own inexhuastible power supply?

Something that can produce 900,000 gallons of fresh water a day from sea water?

Something with its own airfield? So that after producing the fresh water, it could help distribute it?

Something with 4 hospitals and lots of open space for emergency supplies?

Something with a global communications facility to make the coordination of disaster relief in the region easier?"

The U.S. Navy provided for by the Constitution was intended to protect American international shipping interests. As soon as the Treaty of Ghent was signed, American political leaders knew we'd be out of the loop as far as the British trade system was concerned. Early Presidents, like Jefferson, used the Navy as a heavy-handed force to combat piracy in the Mediterranean. We've been using the Navy as an instrument abroad since 1803

There is no cannibalism in the US Navy. Absolutely none, and when I say none, I mean there is a certain amount, more than we are prepared to admit, but all new ratings are warned that if they wake up in the morning and find any toothmarks at all anywhere on their bodies, they're to tell me immediately so that I can immediately take every measure to hush the whole thing up. And, finally, necrophilia is right out.

Actually this isn't anything too new. The navy has been able to play "good cop/Bad Cop" for quite some time

Good Cop:


Bad Cop

I enjoyed my time on the Bird Farm, JFK.

Boojum2k: The U.S. issued the memo.

Excellent answer boojum. Speaking to your point, the reason nobody wants to start one of those big wars is because they know they'll get smoked by the US. Peace via the big stick.

let me get out of this military pork spending circle jerk before I get spooge on my Christmas sweater...

Our largest issue today is that the U.S. Navy has only 280 ships we need about 600 to do our job effectively considering that 90% of world transportation of goods happen on the High Seas.

Littoral warfare will dictate the needs of smaller more capable more automated ships that can be in more places. A good portion of the 280 ships above are tied to the carrier most of the time in some way. We need the rail gun and we need to convert more Ohio class sumbarines to missle/SEAL boats.

/That is all.

Boojum2k: Nice find.

"It follows than as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."

- George Washington

Phil Moskowitz: Jesus Christ.

Never met him.

Stryyder: Our largest issue today is that the U.S. Navy has only 280 ships we need about 600 to do our job effectively considering that 90% of world transportation of goods happen on the High Seas.

Littoral warfare will dictate the needs of smaller more capable more automated ships that can be in more places. A good portion of the 280 ships above are tied to the carrier most of the time in some way. We need the rail gun and we need to convert more Ohio class sumbarines to missle/SEAL boats.

/That is all.

Completely agree. IMO, our navy acquisition system is a hostage to congressional arbitrariness. We should be have a steady construction and replacement of ships instead of this feast/famine paradigm. The new DDX is impressive on paper but expensive as hell. We need lots of hulls to project power. The "Sea Fighter" looks interesting. Fast catamaran with 26 personel using a lot of off the shelf tech.

El_Dan It's almost as if other countries have realized that massive conventional wars are a thing of the past, and the US didn't get the memo?

Churchill2004: LargeCanine: The US military was more effective and efficient than any aid agency and far far better than the UN during the Tsunami disaster. I have no issue with the military carrying out such missions as an adjunct to its primary role. Either way, we need more ships and a larger military budget, especially if we are going to expand the mission into Aid missions.

Remember that even when we are providing Aid, the military will still be carrying out military missions in that area. Plus we gather inteligence and suppress priracy and lawlessness. Win.

Perhaps that Tsunami aid that was misused by NGO's as posted in a previous thread should have gone to the US, Australian and New Zealand militaries instead.

You are tragically confused about the purposes for which the government of these United States was established.

Not if you consider the US to be a super-power. This is what super-powers *do*.

Churchill2004: LargeCanine: The military is a tool of US foreign policy.

No, actually it exists "to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions", per the Constitution of the United States. Oh, and only the Congress is allowed to tell them to do so.

Please don't reproduce or speak to impressionable minds. Libteriantard. Grow up, join reality. It's not so bad.

Rainbow



Ponies



:D

LargeCanine: The "Sea Fighter" looks interesting. Fast catamaran with 26 personel using a lot of off the shelf tech.

Is this the next generation from Rumsfeld's "street fighter" destroyer project? If so, I am glad it lives to fight another day. I think the DDX project and program do have some great technology, but the price tag on that ship seemed a tad steep for something that's supposed to get into a country's littoral environment. There was some study published, yeah I know no source and I'm too damn lazy to look, that war-gamed the US Navy tangling with either "AQ of Indonesia" (motorboats and mobile missile launchers), or the Chinese Navy (green water cruiser navy with some submarines in the mix). The net/net is that the US won, of course, and that the Littoral Combat Ships designed around the street fighter concept were key to the victories. The downside? Navy commanders treated the street fighter squadrons(?) like cannon fodder. An example they cited showed that, while a ChiCom sub would uncork a torpedo and sink one such vessel, the others in the squadron saw this and sunk the bastard. I wonder if that thought process is why the US Navy is resistant to the idea of the street fighter concept?

I still wish the US Navy had kept these around:

Boojum2k: Oh, and as for the headline, Try reading this. (new window)

"Hmmm, let's see, what would be the ideal ship to send to a disaster, now what kind of ship would we want?

Something with its own inexhuastible power supply?

Something that can produce 900,000 gallons of fresh water a day from sea water?

Something with its own airfield? So that after producing the fresh water, it could help distribute it?

Something with 4 hospitals and lots of open space for emergency supplies?

Something with a global communications facility to make the coordination of disaster relief in the region easier?"

In terms of price performance ratios, a carrier group is totally useless for disaster relief.

If the American government were at all serious about saving lives, they would do something like bill Gates is doing, not wasting money on useless hardware that gives internet tough guys the warm fuzzies.

NewportBarGuy: Churchill2004: You are tragically confused about the purposes for which the government of these United States was established.

As expensive a deployed armed presence is, you just can't buy that kind of power projection and PR for trade deals etc. T.R. was right about the Navy a century ago. It is the most important diplomacy tool in the toolbox. When you can show up with an entire Carrier Battle-Group on a country's doorstep, it makes them think twice.

I know you dislike the standing armed forces thing, but the U.S. Navy is a really effective bargaining tool.

But alas, there State department has been gutted and Generals tend to make lousy diplomats, as Colin Powell demonstrated.

hazeleyedwolff: I think the Navy is soft enough. How many terrorists have been killed by torpedoes since the war started?

That's what I thought.

Maybe we should sail one of these carrier groups up the Indus River and see if they can smoke out Bin Laden in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
/Made this remark before

The real story here is that carrier groups are totally useless from a strategic point of view. The only real fig leaf the Navy has is the big bad bugaboo China, which might, someday in the future, build a bunch of carriers and use them to attack Taiwan. However, there is no real sign that they will, it's just speculation.

Taiwan's population is slightly larger than Sri Lanka's. That's why we have carriers. Think about it.

Ex Parte Gilligan: Rumsfeld's ideas about the Army didn't make any sense, but he was right about the Navy.

America's Navy is about like Brezhnev's tank divisions. Wrong hardware, wrong war.

Magorn: Actually this isn't anything too new. The navy has been able to play "good cop/Bad Cop" for quite some time

Good Cop:


Bad Cop

To what specific benefit to the United States and its citizens?

Ex Parte Gilligan: LargeCanine: The "Sea Fighter" looks interesting. Fast catamaran with 26 personel using a lot of off the shelf tech.

Is this the next generation from Rumsfeld's "street fighter" destroyer project? If so, I am glad it lives to fight another day. I think the DDX project and program do have some great technology, but the price tag on that ship seemed a tad steep for something that's supposed to get into a country's littoral environment. There was some study published, yeah I know no source and I'm too damn lazy to look, that war-gamed the US Navy tangling with either "AQ of Indonesia" (motorboats and mobile missile launchers), or the Chinese Navy (green water cruiser navy with some submarines in the mix). The net/net is that the US won, of course, and that the Littoral Combat Ships designed around the street fighter concept were key to the victories. The downside? Navy commanders treated the street fighter squadrons(?) like cannon fodder. An example they cited showed that, while a ChiCom sub would uncork a torpedo and sink one such vessel, the others in the squadron saw this and sunk the bastard. I wonder if that thought process is why the US Navy is resistant to the idea of the street fighter concept?

I still wish the US Navy had kept these around:

Here are a couple articles about Sea Fighter

Military.com (new window)

Global Security (new window)

Sea Fighter is basically a modular design that can carry Marines of cruise missiles or anything in between. Built in a record 2 years too.

I dunno if Sea Fighter and Street Fighter are the same. Perhaps (speculation alert) one of the reasons the Navy is resistant to small highly automated ships is that they are commands that don't justify a full Captain in command. Fewer hulls means fewer Captain slots and if those hulls are small crewed ships, well, that's inconvenient.

ummm... the global security url won't take. Well here it is without the hyperlink

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/x-craft.htm

ilambiquated: Ex Parte Gilligan: Rumsfeld's ideas about the Army didn't make any sense, but he was right about the Navy.

America's Navy is about like Brezhnev's tank divisions. Wrong hardware, wrong war.

That's idiotic.

Here's how the "get rid of the Navy" scenario works.

We get rid of the Navy, with its current ability, even now, to fight and conclusively hand out ass-whippings to every other Navy in the world damn near simultaneously.

Within a very, very, short time piracy (state-sponsered and non-) explodes, with pissant little thug nations demanding tolls to use the most efficient trade routes (after all, what are we going to do, nuke them? as that's all the effective power projection threat we'd have left).

Malaysia and their local buddies, for example, can get by against just sanctions, they're dirt poor anyway. If they decide to close the Malacca Straits a lot of the developed world gets cold and hungry really fast.

Eventually, to counter the rise in piracy and collapse of international seagoing trade, a bunch of nations, friendly and not, would start building navies. Once everyone else has navies and we don't, that makes the Atlantic and Pacific (our most effective and cheapest national defense assets) less dependable as we won't own them outright.

So, to defend our huge open sea borders we end up having to build a bigger army to guard the beaches, build more aircraft to try and fight the battle off-shore, or, rebuild the Navy we stupidly got rid of.

It's a biatcheaper in time, money, manpower, trade/economic considerations, etc. to just maintain and improve the one we have, as explicitly allowed by the Constitution.

Which, by the way, makes it the only continuous (and non-every 2 year funded) standing military force envisioned by our Founders.

A side benefit is being able to counter idiotic accusations that the "US is a bunch of monsters" with example after example of the UN and other "touchy-feely" NGO's showing up a day late and a dollar short when lives are on the line, and then their ending up relying on the "eeeeevil" US Navy for transpo and supplies, which, due to its global presence, was onsite within days or hours of disasters occuring.

One of the things that is supposed to make the US who we are as a people morally is (voluntarily) helping out the other guy when he needs it. Is that a "real" benefit to us? Maybe not, but I like going to bed knowing that at least some of my tax dollars are actually helping people.

And humanitarian ops are effective training for everything but the shooting part of what the Navy does (training we'd be doing anyway), so helping folks isn't a total loss on the balance sheet.

Even if you want an isolationist US, you can't have that in the really, real world without a powerful Navy to keep folks from interfering with you.

Anyway, as long as this is simply a formalizing of what the Navy has been doing since forever already, I don't see a big downside.

My beloved Marine Corps' "new" 'three-block war' concept is similar; the Marines have always mixed helping the innocent with killing the bad guys (CAP program / "strategic hamlet" in Vietnam, for a recent example), it's a results driven policy.

Humanitarian actions do not necessarily result in a loss of warfighting ability and can in fact enhance it.

LargeCanine: Ex Parte Gilligan: LargeCanine: The "Sea Fighter" looks interesting. Fast catamaran with 26 personel using a lot of off the shelf tech.

Is this the next generation from Rumsfeld's "street fighter" destroyer project? If so, I am glad it lives to fight another day. I think the DDX project and program do have some great technology, but the price tag on that ship seemed a tad steep for something that's supposed to get into a country's littoral environment. There was some study published, yeah I know no source and I'm too damn lazy to look, that war-gamed the US Navy tangling with either "AQ of Indonesia" (motorboats and mobile missile launchers), or the Chinese Navy (green water cruiser navy with some submarines in the mix). The net/net is that the US won, of course, and that the Littoral Combat Ships designed around the street fighter concept were key to the victories. The downside? Navy commanders treated the street fighter squadrons(?) like cannon fodder. An example they cited showed that, while a ChiCom sub would uncork a torpedo and sink one such vessel, the others in the squadron saw this and sunk the bastard. I wonder if that thought process is why the US Navy is resistant to the idea of the street fighter concept?

I still wish the US Navy had kept these around:

Here are a couple articles about Sea Fighter

Military.com (new window)

Global Security (new window)

Sea Fighter is basically a modular design that can carry Marines of cruise missiles or anything in between. Built in a record 2 years too.

I dunno if Sea Fighter and Street Fighter are the same. Perhaps (speculation alert) one of the reasons the Navy is resistant to small highly automated ships is that they are commands that don't justify a full Captain in command. Fewer hulls means fewer Captain slots and if those hulls are small crewed ships, well, that's inconvenient.

You'd think having more postings available for junior grade officers would be a good thing as far as developing effective leaders.

Stick a bunch of fire-breathing butter bars in those PT boats on steroids and let Darwin prune them out.

Reading the "Wooden Ships and Iron Men"-type book series out there, I'm struck by how young the Captains (billet not rank) of the smaller ships were. They learned their jobs in the sloops, barks, cutters and frigates before gradually, after proving themselves, getting command of the Ships of the Line.

Personally, if the Navy gets me on the beach in one piece I'm happy, but it'd be nice to know the guy driving the boat holding the bulk of my gear has the maximum experience available in "not sinking" under his belt.

matthew8762: LargeCanine: Ex Parte Gilligan: LargeCanine: The "Sea Fighter"

etcetc...

You'd think having more postings available for junior grade officers would be a good thing as far as developing effective leaders.

Stick a bunch of fire-breathing butter bars in those PT boats on steroids and let Darwin prune them out.

Reading the "Wooden Ships and Iron Men"-type book series out there, I'm struck by how young the Captains (billet not rank) of the smaller ships were. They learned their jobs in the sloops, barks, cutters and frigates before gradually, after proving themselves, getting command of the Ships of the Line.

Personally, if the Navy gets me on the beach in one piece I'm happy, but it'd be nice to know the guy driving the boat holding the bulk of my gear has the maximum experience available in "not sinking" under his belt.

Complete agreement. imo we need a mix of larger 'blue water' ships capable of projecing power and 'brown water' small ships to screen the larger ships and operate in the litoral.

matthew8762:
Here's how the "get rid of the Navy" scenario works.

We get rid of the Navy, with its current ability, even now, to fight and conclusively hand out ass-whippings to every other Navy in the world damn near simultaneously.

Within a very, very, short time piracy (state-sponsered and non-) explodes, with pissant little thug nations demanding tolls to use the most efficient trade routes (after all, what are we going to do, nuke them? as that's all the effective power projection threat we'd have left).
...

Calling Maylasia "pissant, thug, and dirt poor" etc kinda reveals your hand dunnit?

First, guarding the Straits of Malacca is a nice thing to do, but not really anything we absolutely have to do. Why shouldn't the locals charge money for ships passing through their waterways? We're talking about trade between Europe and Asia. Why is it my problem?

Second, the ability to beat all navies at the same time is obviously unnecessary.

Third, the idea that the American Navy is really contributing to disaster relief is really nuts, sorry.

And if we want to counteract the claim that we're a bunch of monsters, cutting military spending and might be a good starting point. Another idea would be to stop foaming at the mouth and insulting our own allies (Freedom fries WWIII etc) adhere to the Geneva Conventions, etc.