Posted on 10/25/2016 7:03:28 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Sure. Assuming one just happens to stumble on a US Navy vessel unaware in the middle of the ocean out of the blue and want to deliver a sucker punch.
So you are saying that it is easy to sink a CVN? LOL. You know nothing about it. You know nothing about damage control and motivated sailors.
And cover the rest of the deck with guns. Those guys, when they design a warship, by God, they design a WARSHIP!
I wish that were true but it isn’t anymore.
Actually this is not a new concept but old concert going back to the start of carriers
The Lexington and Saratoga CV2 and CV3 of the US Navy were based on battle cruiser hulls and they weren’t just carriers
They carried 8 8inch guns in 4 2 gun turrets ...they’re intended to basically be armed equal to a cruiser
These 8 inch gun turrets were pulled off during World War II but their initial idea was to have them far more heavily armed
And each of those guns fires more guns.
But, but, but, the Littoral Combat Ship!!
What a piece of poop that was!
Because its air wing was Sh#t.
I know a lot about CVNs and every other class of US warship.
“So you are saying that it is easy to sink a CVN”
It would be hard to sink a CVN. Maybe not so hard to disable it into a non factor. Our adversaries have been thinking about how to do this for 40 years or more.
Any large ship built in the 80s is got to be behind in technology, and about half worn out.
DarthVader, I don’t see it. It isn’t bravado.
The Russian Navy has a carrier which is a joke. They have 1 active Kirov class. They have 3 Slava class cruisers. They have a half dozen or so Udaloys, which seem like decent ships, and under 20 frigates and a bunch of smaller vessels like corvettes which may be able to get out in blue water but...who is going to supply and fuel them?
The Russians have extremely limited infrastructure to do that, while the US has 15 fleet oilers and 12 Ammunition ships.
There is an old saying that is 100% true: Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics.
The US Navy may not have much in the way of heavy non-carrier vessels anymore except for the Ticonderoga class, but the US has over sixty extremely capable Arleigh Burke class vessels which I believe are the finest in the world.
Their sub force, which has higher quality than the surface components, is very small in number, with the Akulas being the most numerous in quantity with higher quality. I discount both their cruise/ballistic missile subs, which are even lower in quantity. And there are a good number of diesel subs.
The US Navy has 40+ Los Angeles attack subs which are far superior in nearly all respects in both quantity and quality.
Bottom line, if there is a sneak attack involved, sure. A fleet like the Russians have could do some damage. But if it isn’t a sneak attack...how many of those Russian vessels that carry those 7 ton missiles (that can do mach 1.5 for 800 miles or so) are not going to have a hat on them? How many of those dozen or so Akulas aren’t going to have a Los Angeles class looking out for them?
Sure. It only takes one to get through somewhere, but that goes both ways.
No, the biggest threat to the US Navy (and military) is liberalism, Democrats, and the perfumed princes they have put in charge over warriors. It isn’t a 7 ton Soviet era missile.
“I always felt that their navy was simply a propaganda tool so they could simply say they had a Navy too”
Very much agree with that. I never saw a coherent strategy with them, but what you said makes sense.
Before Reagan, we had some EXTREMELY worn out ships in the US Navy, some dating back to WWII and Korea. I did a detachment to the USS FDR back in the mid seventies for a week or so, and that ship was a floating piece of crap. I spent a week on the USS Lexington, and that was even worse.
Near the end of their service lives, the conventional carriers were getting quite crusty as well.
I think it was a testament to our shipyards that we were able to string a lot of those vessels out that far, but...one can only do so much.
“excellent analysis-es both”
Broken clock theory sir!
“but...who is going to supply and fuel them?”
Just read a good book about the USN in WWII. The book described the immense advantage the USN had with underway refueling and damage control.
Foreign navies had nothing like it and did not understand it. You nailed it about logistics. That’s a place a Russian fleet would be hurting.
I want to be clear-I don’t discount the dangers from any missiles anywhere, but none of this stuff operates in a vacuum, as I am sure you well know.
To deliver the ordinance these folks are enamored with, something has to get in range to deliver it. It doesn’t just appear in the air where the great capabilities of the missile itself is all that counts.
It is everything...EVERYTHING associated with it from production, maintenance, TRAINING (both in support personnel AND in the pointy end of the spear) that comes into play.
That is why all these third world sh**holes can buy top of the line hardware, and it fails to deliver most of the time unless they get lucky or deliver a sucker punch when we aren’t looking.
THAT is what I see as the big danger. Our military is going to be so caught up with sensitivity training, sexual and racial quotas and all the other BS that they simply will be in a constant state of having their guard down, as that shameful incident with our patrol boats taken by the Iranians amply displays.
And that was with American shipyards, not some eastern bloc one where nobody gave a damn about the work.
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