thing is, all that fiddling means they are cloning theirs and soon there will be 136 of them on each of the coastlines they don't like much

Petit_Merdeux: Those will come in handy when we attack Alqaedastan.

Because we will never, ever have to attack another navy. We're just that strong that the World has permanently conceded the oceans to permanent US hegemony.

/That was sarcasm, btw.
//Don't make the classic mistake of preparing to fight the same enemy as the last war you fought.

And it only cost us a few trillion dollars....

The Chinese will never expect this.

Animatronik: So let me get this straight: we retired all of battleships because cannon are antiquated in the era of guided munitions, but now we want to build ships with electric cannon because theyre cool??

This doesnt sound too smart.

Part of that was politics, both in the military and in Washington. The Congresscritters wanted the battleships gone because they were too old and made us look bad towards the Soviet military, undercutting our bragging point on how much more advanced we were. On the military side, the Navy only cares about carriers and subs at this point and it's been that way for 50 years. Guns on a ship? Bah, they take away from the sexy, they're not needed! We can do it with missiles, never mind that missiles are more expensive and can be jammed or shot down!

Only really the Marines really want naval gunfire support now. Hell, they wanted one or two Iowas for themselves.

On these: Eh. What's the point of sneaking up on the shore? You have submarines for that if you want commandos and if it's just shelling you can do that from miles out. We'd be better off buying multiple frigates and destroyers (WITH RAIL GUNS still!) then just buying one real expensive toy.

Can we lay off their largest city and listen to their rock-and-roll?

Smoking GNU: If i am not mistaken, The Railguns fitted on those ships have something like a 200 KM accurate range. And the projectiles travel at something like 0.25 light speed.

You are mistaken on that second point. Those projectiles aren't going to be traveling at 46,500 miles per second, unless you meant 0.25% light speed, which is 465 miles per second, still a couple orders of magnitude higher than their projected speed of 3.48 miles per second at the muzzle.

indylaw: I'm glad we're focusing on better ways to defeat non-existent enemies at sea while the illiterate, impoverished hordes fester at home.

Schools? Roads? Lady, what kind of business do you think the feds are in?

The US has a lack of schools and roads? News to me, considering that I drove to work at my employer, a school.

wantingout: sad that all the US has to show for itself is new ways to kill people.

Take away all the innovation from the US in the field of medicine. You'd still be using leeches to treat everything.

GoTarHeels: I like being protected by our Navy but it should be noted that our aircraft carriers are far more often used for humanitarian purposes than for war.

By the way ...

For all the warships in the US Navy, only two currently active in today's fleet have sunk enemy vessels.

TWO. Out of 430.

And, one of the two is the USS Constitution.

/ yes, THAT USS Constitution

What's the other one?

My first, cynical thought was the USS Vincennes, but it didn't *sink* an *enemy* *vessel* (*shot* down a *civilian* *airliner*), and I see that it's been decommissioned.