| “ |
 Americans
may be war-weary after Iraq and Afghanistan. But the world is still a
hostile place, and the U.S.Navy is stretched too thin.
I asked how many carriers the Navy had deployed world-wide that day,
and how many it could deploy within 30 days. A Naval officer said three
were deployed that day, and one more could get under way within a
month—a far cry from the 11-carrier fleet mandated by Congress.
And in a new sleight of hand, the Obama administration has changed what
it considers a warship when reporting the size of the Navy's "battle
force." From now on it will include the two hospital ships, Mercy and
Comfort, 10 small coastal patrol vessels and a high-speed transport.
Add those, subtract a few minesweepers, and voilà—the Navy fleet has
grown to 293 from 283 ships.Most of the new additions are lightly armed coastal-patrol craft and not true oceangoing ships. Originally designed to carry Navy SEALs and other special-operations forces, these 179-foot ships turned out to be inadequate for that role. Instead, armed with machine guns, they can be used to support "low intensity conflicts." They were launched in the early 1990s and recalled in 2010 to deal with fatigue damage to their hulls. Their military role is questionable and they're well past their expiration date, yet they sail on for public-relations purposes. [continued] |
” |
Thursday, March 20, 2014
America's Incredible Shrinking Navy
6 comments:
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Anonymous said...
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"mandated by Congress?
Captain Benghazi don't need no steenking Congress. He got a pen an a Uhbamaphone an He make the Law of the Sea. He lower the ocean, if He wants. Just ask Putin about his new harbor he used to to have to rent. Captain Benghazi rule worked out real good for Pootie Put.
I woory about no minesweepers. Mines are the IED's of the sea, and we had to borrow some minesweepers from elsewhere in the last war or two.
Our minesweeping MH-53's are fewer and fewer in number, very old and highly maintenance intensive. The current Uhbamunist geniuses have moved them all to one base, just like the infamous five carriers all docked together, where a few terrs with some satchel charges or even a big dump truck could do some terrible damage to our anti-mine capability.
Lose those helos and say goodbye to oil through Hormuz. My boy the helo pilot has been going there regularly to keep it open, and he says it's surprising how small a big piece of water gets when it's full of supertankers.
The Euros better get ready for some real shit to hit the fan when Uncle Sugar can't answer the bell.
Lt. Col. Gen. Tailgunner dick
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3/21/14, 12:24 AM
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Rodger the Real King of France said...
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It seems that Obama is not just fearful of a military coup, but consciously, or unconsciously, trying to provoke it.
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3/21/14, 6:54 AM
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Mike C said...
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Having spent some time as a contractor working on minehunters I’ll throw my 2 cents in here...
First you gotta understand the history of these things. In my mind, first you have the MCMs or Avenger class minehunters. These basically came first. They are (or were at the time I was spending way too much time in Corpus Christi) primarily mine sweepers, which basically means that they drag big chains along a seaway to make sure that there is nothing there that goes boom. They are wood ships. They are still in use today. Next came the MHCs or Osprey class. They were true mine hunters in that they had the sonar and ROVs to go out and disable the mines. There were fiberglass monsters but were cursed with some really horrible Italian made engines and a design that wallowed horribly in high seas. Basically this meant that crossing the big pond was not something they were really capable of doing. We eventually sold all those off to Greece and Egypt (suckers!). Finally came the LCS class ships. While a few of these have made it out of the shipyards, they are still a ship in search of a mission as cost overruns due to design changes have made them unwieldy. Oh, and they are still just a bigger version of their wooden brethren the venerable MCMs.
So with that in mind, think about the mission. As the Col. pointed out, the Navy has air assets (albeit aging) to hunt for mines, what do they need ships for? This raises the question, what is the difference between a ship based mine hunting asset and an air based one? My opinion is that basically it is one of cost. You can put a MHC and crew out there searching and clearing mines over a large area for a fraction of what it cost to keep one of those noisy flappy things with all the moving parts in the air. Ok, so now you have a case for a MHC class ship, the next question is why isn’t a mine sweeper good enough? Thinking about that mission, a mine sweeper is good enough when they have someplace they think is safe to go. If the area they are sweeping hasn’t been checked out, then they run a risk of running up against something that will go boom, even with their nice non-conductive wooden hull. So in a proper Navy you have a place for MHCs, MCMs, and air assets.
Now if you are a polotician and are looking for money to keep welfare queens voting for you, you can wave your hand, say “we have helicopters to hunt for mines”, sell off your ship mine hunting capability, mollify the Navy by throwing money at a ship class that does nothing, and everyone is happy. Until some towel head figures out how to make mines and drop them off major US seaports – then you have a problem…
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3/21/14, 7:31 AM
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iri said...
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"It seems that Obama is not just fearful of a military coup, but consciously, or unconsciously, trying to provoke it."
Let's all wish him luck because the military executions won't end with him. -
3/21/14, 8:22 AM
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CDR J said...
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Mike C., remember that any ship can be a minesweeper - once.
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3/22/14, 2:49 PM
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Anonymous said...
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Don't forget how the Russkies waltzed into Cam Ranh Bay after the NV takeover of South Vietnam.
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3/22/14, 9:36 PM
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