The UK’s new £200 million polar research ship will not be called Boaty McBoatface. The decision was announced early on Friday morning by the UK science minister, Jo Johnson. Instead, the new ship will be called the RRS (Royal Research Ship) Sir David Attenborough—a name that also picked up a few votes in the same poll that saw Boaty McBoatface come out way on top. Showing at least a little bit of political savvy, Jo Johnson didn’t completely discard the people’s choice: RRS Sir David Attenborough will be outfitted with a number of remotely operated underwater vehicles (see gallery above), and one of those will be called Boaty McBoatface. Hopefully they’ll paint a dorky face on the front of its torpedo-like frame. ……… The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) had originally planned to name the new ship via an online poll. Shortly after the poll began in March, James Hand, a former BBC radio presenter, proposed the name Boaty McBoatface. The name went viral and quickly picked up tens of thousands more votes than any other. The final tally was 124,109 votes for Boaty McBoatface, 34,371 for Poppy-Mai, and then a handful of others at around 10,000 (Sir David Attenborough picked up 10,284 votes). ……… Yesterday, following the naming debacle surrounding the ship, the UK’s parliamentary science and technology committee began an investigation into “science communication” and NERC’s approach to naming the ship. You have to hand it to the science minister: if you’re going to take a huge political hit by ignoring the public’s choice, naming the ship after one of the few universally loved Britons is really quite smart. No one’s going to complain about a ship being named after Sir David—and it’s his 90th birthday this weekend. Damn you, Jo Johnson, damn you!
This is an outrage, and clearly it must not be allowed to stand.
The internet has spoken — and “RRS Boaty McBoatface” is the people’s choice to name a $300 million state-of-the-art polar research ship.
Over 7,000 names were submitted to the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) poll which closed April 16, but “Boaty McBoatface” won easily with 124,109 votes. It all began when the NERC invited the public to christen the 129-meter long icebreaker, the largest and most advanced British research vessel to date. They asked for names that were inspirational, such as a historical figure or a landmark. However, after former BBC presenter James Hand cheekily suggested the Boaty moniker it quickly became the crowd favorite over more traditional names like “RRS Henry Worsley” after the British explorer who died in January while attempting a solo, unaided mission across the Antarctic. ……… It spawned countless silly riffs. A UK train service from Portsmouth to Waterloo was briefly renamed “Trainy McTrainface” much to the amusement of its passengers. ……… There’s no guarantee that they will follow through on the public’s choice but whatever its name, the vessel will be setting sail for Antarctica in 2019.
I think that an MP should bring this up during question time, because it would be epic.
A state-of-the-art research vessel in search of a name is getting some help from the general public and their top choice is flying in the face of British nautical convention.
Britain’s National Environmental Research Council (NERC) launched an online voting contest, asking for inspirational names of historical figures, landmarks and movements to christen the £200-million ship ($375-million CAD). The internet responded, and the current frontrunner is none-other than RRS Boaty McBoatface.
The 15,000-ton, 128-yard-long Royal Research Ship is currently under construction on the coast of Merseyside and is gearing up to be launched for a research mission to Antarctica in 2019.
The much more appropriate RRS Henry Worsley, RRS David Attenborough and RRS Pillar of Autumn are the current runners-up, though Boaty McBoatface is outpacing its closest competitor 10-1 with over 22,500 votes.
The online poll has proven to be so successful that NERC reported the high traffic caused the website to temporarily crash Sunday.
It appears that, much like many things on the internet, the meme started as a joke:
A man who suggested naming a new £200m ship Boaty McBoatface has apologised. The suggestion has attracted more than 27,000 votes in an online poll of names for the Royal Research ship, causing the website to crash. Former BBC presenter James Hand said he found the list of possible names “really funny” so decided to “throw one into the ring”. He “apologised profusely” to the Natural Environment Research Council. There is no guarantee the ship will be given the name that tops the poll, with the final decision to be made by the chief executive of the NERC. Other names in the running are RRS Pingu, RRS Usain Boat and RRS David Attenborough. A NERC spokesperson said staff were “very much enjoying hearing everyone’s ideas”. Mr Hand said: “I read the story about naming the ship on the BBC website on Thursday and some of the entries were really funny – my favourite was Clifford The Big Red Boat. “I thought I would throw one into the ring. By Friday night it was leading by a couple of thousand, and when the site crashed on Sunday it was leading by 8,000. It’s been utterly bizarre.” Boaty McBoatface is 25,000 votes ahead of the second place suggestion, RRS Henry Worsley. The boat is being built at the Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead on Merseyside and when completed in 2019 it will study ice sheets, ocean currents and marine life as part of the Cambridge-based British Antarctic Survey. “I’ve apologised profusely to the people behind the website,” the former Good Morning Jersey host said.
For more than two years, the Navy’s intelligence chief has been stuck with a major handicap: He’s not allowed to know any secrets. Vice Adm. Ted “Twig” Branch has been barred from reading, seeing or hearing classified information since November 2013, when the Navy learned from the Justice Department that his name had surfaced in a giant corruption investigation involving a foreign defense contractor and scores of Navy personnel. Worried that Branch was on the verge of being indicted, Navy leaders suspended his access to classified materials. They did the same to one of his deputies, Rear Adm. Bruce F. Loveless, the Navy’s director of intelligence operations. More than 800 days later, neither Branch nor Loveless has been charged. But neither has been cleared, either. Their access to classified information remains blocked. Although the Navy transferred Loveless to a slightly less sensitive post, it kept Branch in charge of its intelligence division. That has resulted in an awkward arrangement, akin to sending a warship into battle with its skipper stuck onshore. Branch can’t meet with other senior U.S. intelligence leaders to discuss sensitive operations, or hear updates from his staff about secret missions or projects. It can be a chore just to set foot in colleagues’ offices; in keeping with regulations, they must conduct a sweep beforehand to make sure any classified documents are locked up.
What the f%$# is wrong with the military?
The guy is forbidden by to do his job, and as opposed to doing the sane thing, and transfer him to a new post where he can do his job, you cripple a crucial department.
The idea that anyone in the Pentagon would allow this to happen for more than 2½ years is an indication that the bureaucracy and the general officer corps have become a dysfunctional carrerist dystopia.
Then came the new U.S. missile defense in Europe. All Russian protests and warnings against stationing such capabilities have not been able to deter the U.S. for proceeding with it. Should the missile defense project go forward Russia will have to invent new means to reintroduce a significant second strike capability. Both sides, Russia says, would be better off by not introducing these new capabilities. To strongly send that message the Russian military scientists went back into the archives to find some old crappy idea that could overcome missile defense and be horrible enough in its effects to recreate some deterrence. The scientists came back with an odd idea the “human rights activist” Andrej Sakharov once promoted:
At the height of the Cold War, August 12, 1953 have been produced successfully tested the new Soviet weapons of terrible destructive force – a thermonuclear bomb. One of the creators of the bomb, the newly elected member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, the 32-year-old Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov suggested as a “means of delivery” to use the developed nuclear submarines of project 627, equipping each of them a giant torpedo under the 100-megaton thermonuclear charge (approximately 6000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima). As conceived by the young academician exploding the U.S. coast ocean, these torpedoes were to cause a tsunami of unprecedented power, the height of 300 meters, which would be simply washed off American cities, causing irreparable damage to the United States.
The planned U.S. “missile defense” systems would have some difficulties hitting such a torpedo. Thus the Kremlin decided to reuse this old Sakharov idea to scare the U.S. off from its current “missile defense” course:
On November 10, 2015 President Putin held a regular meeting with his generals in Sochi to discuss development of the Russian strategic forces. The president used the occasion to complain again about U.S. missile defense plans and to warn that Russia will do whatever it takes to preserve the strategic balance.
The meeting was filmed (vid) by a major Russian TV station and “just by chance” the cameraman caught a power point page (also at 1:46 min in the video) one of the attending Generals was reading:
Russian television cameras caught a page in a briefing book describing the development of a new nuclear weapons system called Status-6. It’s nothing less than an underwater drone designed to carry a thermonuclear weapon into foreign ports. If detonated, Status-6 would be capable of dousing cities like New York in massive amounts of radioactive fallout.
“Massive amounts of radioactive fallout” or, in the old version, a 300 meter high tsunami – choose whatever you like better but you will probably be hit with both.
I think that this is deliberate leak, intended as a warning regarding the US plans for BMD.
That range would require nuclear propulsion, which I do not see as particularly feasible, since using some derivative of Russian thermionic reactors developed for space would mandate a much slower speed, as the output of such a system tops out at a few kW.
The depth and speed are certainly achievable though, given that the crush depth of the (manned) Alpha class boats appears to be above 1000 m, and the speed of modern heavyweight torpedoes (and I am not counting the supercavitating ones here, those are exclusively short range) are in excess 60 kts, at ranges in excess of 50 km.
As to the warhead size, the Tsar Bomba had a 50 MT yield, and that was a two stage weapon, with the tertiary stage eliminated because of fallout concerns, though with a weight of 30 tons, I cannot see it on a large torpedo unless its weight could be reduced by about ¾.
A more realistic scenario, at least to the degree that the end of the world can be called “realistic”, is to place SSBNs relatively close to the US (say 2000-3000 miles), and fire missiles on depressed trajectories, but that is not as “sexy” as some sort of new Russian “super-weapon”.
Of course, we could avoid such idiocy if the United States as a nation was not so dedicated to maintaining the perception of American hegemony in all aspects of power in the guise of “Exceptionalism”.
This happened in the USSR before its collapse, and the explanation at that time was that excessive military spending was sucking the marrow out of their society, and it appears that this is what is happening in the US now.
Specifically, Canada has two needs, to replace its tired F/A-18s. but it also needs to replace much of its navy, which is well past its “sell by date”.
While Canadian firms stand to lose business with the country’s withdrawal from the F-35 program, its maritime industry is expecting a potential windfall from the change of direction in defense. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised to put more money into Canada’s ailing naval shipbuilding program, including any savings from selecting a cheaper alternative to the F-35 fighter jet. Maritime industry officials said that could mean more ships and more work. Trudeau promised the shift in defense priorities during the recent federal election campaign. His government was elected Oct. 19 and took power Nov. 4. The previous Conservative Party government had launched the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (NSPS) in 2011. That outlined an ambitious CAN $30 billion plan (US $23 billion) to construct new vessels for the Royal Canadian Navy and Canadian Coast Guard. NSPS would see construction of 28 major warships and 116 smaller vessels. Conservative Party Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who was defeated by Trudeau, had earlier dismissed the Liberal promise to spend more money on shipbuilding as unnecessary, noting that his government originally put enough funding into NSPS. But the shipbuilding strategy has been dogged by concerns from industry. Defense analysts, the Royal Canadian Navy and the country’s Auditor General Michael Ferguson have all warned there is likely not enough money to build all the needed vessels. Before the Conservative Party government was defeated, Defence Minister Jason Kenney acknowledged that the NSPS plan, supposed to build up to 15 replacement ships for the Navy’s frigates and destroyers, might actually only finance 11 vessels.
Trudeau may very well have backed himself into a win-win scenario for canada.
The missiles were launched from their flotilla in the Caspian Sea, probably because they could get permission from the countries in the flight path, Iran, Iraq, and (of course) Syria, which makes it rather different from the US/NATO airstrikes who have been conducted without Syria’s permission:
Russia added a new dimension to its military campaign in Syria with warships firing cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea, while President Vladimir Putin urged the U.S. and countries in the region to form a coalition against Islamic State and other militant groups. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported that Russian bombers had hit 112 targets in Syria since the campaign began on Sept. 30 and that “the intensity of the strikes is increasing.” Naval vessels in the Caspian 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) away fired 26 missiles at 11 objects on Wednesday, destroying them all, Shoigu said. Russia should “continue to work with our foreign partners,” Putin told Shoigu in a meeting shown on Rossiya One state television. “Without the participation of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United States of America, Iran, Iraq and neighboring states of course, this work is unlikely to be carried out successfully.” Russia is flexing its muscles in its first military campaign outside the former Soviet Union in three decades as it supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is also backed by Shiite-dominated Iran in the fight against predominantly Sunni groups. While the bombing campaign has escalated tensions between Moscow and NATO members, Shoigu said Russia is ready to accept what he called U.S. proposals on coordinating strikes against Islamic State, a notion dismissed later on Wednesday by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter. ‘Precision’ Strikes A video released by the Defense Ministry in Moscow showed what it said was a Russian naval strike group launching missiles from the Caspian that streaked across the night sky, then traced a route across Iran and Iraq, hugging terrain from as low as 50 meters, before hitting targets in Syria within a range of accuracy of as little as three meters.
While these missile strikes might or might not make a big difference in the war in Syria, this is a significant milestone: This is the first combat use cruise missiles by a non-US military as far as I can tell.
As such this constitutes a major development, particularly when one considers the fact a that there are about ½ dozen export customers.
Also, there is a variant in which the missile is stowed in what appears to be a commercial shipping container, which makes detection that much more difficult.
Finally, while I understand why they launched this from the Caspian, I was completely unaware that Russia had a significant naval presence there.
It’s the the largest completely enclosed body of water in the world, and only ⅓ as salty as the oceans.
After some Googling, I determined that the Russians have a canal between the Don and the Volga, which allows moderately sized ships to transit between the Black and Caspian seas.
It appears that the missiles were launched from ships in the 1000-2000 ton range, which is in the range of Corvettes or small Frigates.
China’s government has passed new guidelines requiring civilian shipbuilders to ensure their vessels can be used by the military in the event of conflict, state-run media said on Thursday. The regulations require five categories of vessels including container ships to be modified to “serve national defence needs”, the state-run China Daily newspaper said. The regulations “will enable China to convert the considerable potential of its civilian fleet into military strength”, it said. The report said that China had about 172,000 civilian ships at the end of last year, suggesting the measure could be a major boost to China’s navy. China’s government will cover the costs of the plan, it added.
This is actually more significant than the Chinese naval expansion.
You cannot project power if you cannot support it, and the fact that the Chinese are implementing something very much like the US Maritime Security Program implies that they are getting serious about power projection.
For the past week or so, there have been rumors that divers in Sweden finding a sunken Russian sub, possibly related to the contretemps late last year when the Swedes were hunting what they thought was some sort of Russian submersible.
Sweden said on Tuesday the wreck of a submarine found off its coast appeared to be a Czarist-era Russian vessel that collided with a Swedish ship about a century ago. “We are most likely talking about the Russian submarine the Som (Catfish) which sank after a collision with a Swedish vessel in 1916 during World War I and before the Russian revolution,” the Swedish Armed Forces said. Speculation had been swirling about the origins of the vessel after Swedish divers announced Monday that a submarine had been found about 1.5 nautical miles off the coast of central Sweden. The announcement came nine months after a high-profile hunt for a mystery submarine in Swedish waters, suspected to be Russian, and some speculated that the divers had chanced upon a modern Russian vessel. The Swedish military however quashed rumors and said the vessel was old, referring to the design of the submarine and the lettering on the outer shell seen in the pictures of the wreck taken by the divers. The military added it did not think a full technical analysis was necessary. ……… Stefan Hogeborn, a diver with the Ocean X Team that made the discovery, said the mini-sub was “completely intact” with “no visible damage to the hull” and the hatches were closed. “It is unclear how old the submarine is and how long it has been laying at the sea floor, but the Cyrillic letters on the hull indicate that it is Russian,” he said in a statement on Monday. Ocean X Team said the vessel was around 20 meters (66 feet) long and 3.5 meters wide (11.5 feet), adding it was planning a new expedition to study the wreck more closely.
Right now, I so want to fly to Sweden and go SCUBA diving in the Baltic.
You have a submarine, history, and the marvelous preservative properties of the Baltic.
This is like the biggest military history-gasm this decade.
A US Navy guided missile destroyer was damaged by a surface-to-air missile that exploded shortly after launch during an exercise off the U.S. Atlantic coast on Saturday USNI Reports.
The US Navy confirmed that a Raytheon made Standard Missile-2 (SM-2) test missile exploded after suffering a malfunction as it was fired from the guided-missile destroyer USS The Sullivans (DDG 68) during a planned missile exercise off the coast of Virginia. There were no injuries and only minor damage to the port side of the ship resulting from missile debris. The ship returned to Naval Station Norfolk for assessment.
Thankfully, there were no injuries.
BTW, the explosion appears to be of the missile booster, not the warhead.
In descending order, the likely causes of this are:
Cracks in the propellant, causing an uncontrolled burn.
A flaw in the engine casing.
A flaw in the nozzle.
Something else (Yeah, I know it’s kind of a catch all)
What the navy is probably doing now, in addition to collecting bits of the missile and figuring out what happened, is pulling all the missiles from that production lot for inspection, and they will probably increase inspections more generally.
My (slightly) informed guess (I used to work on missiles at Lockheed-Martin Missiles and Fire Control) is that this was an older missile, and that cracks developed over time as a part of the aging process, but opinions are like assholes, everyone has one.
The V-22 is more expensive to buy and to operate, it is slower than the C-2, it must fly at lower altitudes because it lacks pressurization, and its internal volume (7.6 m3) is far less than that of the Greyhound (24 m3).
The Navy will buy V-22 Osprey tiltrotors to replace its aging C-2A Greyhound turboprop aircraft in flying carrier on board delivery (COD) missions. Breaking Defense obtained a Jan. 5 memo, signed by Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert, and Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford. It stipulates that the Navy will buy four V-22s each year from fiscal 2018 to 2020. The MOU marks a major triumph for the Naval Air Systems Command V-22 program office, the Marine Corps and other Osprey advocates, who have argued for years that the Navy should replace its aging conventional take off C-2As with vertical take off and landing V-22s. “The Navy is responsible for modifying these V-22s into an HV-22 configuration for the COD mission,” the MOU states. “The parties agree that subsequent documents will provide details on the concept of operations and milestones. A memorandum of agreement will detail reimbursable Marine Corps support for the Navy’s HV-22 transition, which includes training and potential deployment of Marine MV-22 aircraft and personnel to support COD requirements.” The Navy-Marine Corps agreement must be ratified in the next defense budget and by Congress. It also depends in part on a prospective third V-22 multiyear procurement contract that would begin in fiscal year 2018. C-2A maker Northrop Grumman has proposed building a modernized version incorporating features of the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye tactical early warning aircraft.
I guess that a bunch of admirals concluded that there was better opportunity for them to score lucrative post-security jobs with defense contractors with the ruinously expensive Osprey than there would be with the cheaper Greyhound.
Seriously, our military-industry complex is circling the drain.
It’s really beginning to evoke the Arthur C. Clark story Superiority, which describes how military superiority is sacrificed at the alter of technological whiz-bang:
But I cannot be held responsible for my future actions if I am compelled any longer to share my cell with Professor Norden, late Chief of the Research Staff of my armed forces.
In a major step in validation of indigenous defence technologies, the Indian built nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine Arihant completed its harbour trials and entered the sea here on Monday. Built under the highly secretive Advanced Technology Vessel project monitored directly by the Prime Minister’s Office, the nuclear-powered submarine emerged from the breakwaters of the Visakhapatnam Harbour under the watchful gaze of a low flying helicopter. The 112 metre, 6000 tonne partially submerged Arihant glided into the Bay of Bengal as part of its sea trials, sailing north along the coast before disappearing into the mist.
The Arihant class is kind of an odd hybrid: It only carries 4 Polaris class missiles or 12 shorter range missiles, and at 6000 tons it’s on the smallish size for a missile boat.
It is also the first indigenously designed and built nuclear submarine for the Indians, so it represents a big step forward.
The first prototype of the Navalaized Tejas Indigenous Combat Aircraft (LCA) developed for the Indian Navy has took off saturday (December 20, 2014) from the Ski-Jump facility of Shore Based Test Facility (SBTF) at INS Hansa in Goa. LCA (Navy) is designed with stronger landing gears to absorb forces exerted by the ski jump ramp during take-off, and cable arrested landing.
I’m dubious of the suitability of tailless (or canardless) design on an aircraft carrier, but this does represent a step forward for the Indian Navy.
Japan has decided to power its new batch of Soryu-class submarines with Lithium-ion batteries instead of air-independent propulsion (AIP) technology — a move that could raise eyebrows after similar types batteries were faulted for fires aboard the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. However, experts brush aside those concerns and instead say this type of technological leap increases power and performance, while reducing maintenance. It also could make Japanese subs more marketable overseas. Yasushi Kojima, a spokesman for the Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF), said the change would affect the next four remaining Soryu-class submarines in Japan’s 10-boat class. ……… The existing Soryu-class diesel-electric submarines (16SS) use AIP technology based on Kockums Stirling engines license-built by Kawasaki Heavy Industries, allowing them to stay submerged for long periods. The engines power Sweden’s smaller Gotland-class submarines for up to two weeks at 5 knots. The current Soryu-class submarines are propelled by a large electric motor that has three power sources: diesel engines, the AIP engines and main storage batteries. Diesel engines, which require oxygen for combustion, power the boats on the surface or while snorkeling. The boats can snorkel for extended periods to limit their detectability while transiting submerged (only the snorkel mast is above the water) or for short periods to quickly recharge their batteries after operating underwater. The AIP engines — which burn small quantities of diesel fuel and liquid oxygen — are used for long-range underwater cruising at low speed, and to keep the batteries topped off. The batteries are used for ultra-quiet operation as well as high-speed underwater operations, which quickly depletes them. By shifting to Lithium-ion batteries, the new Soryus would retain their main propulsion diesels, but be equipped with more powerful and far lower maintenance batteries than lead-acid types widely in use.
LiIon batteries have at least 4x the energy density of lead-acid batteries, and I would assume that the spaces for the LOX tanks and Sterling engines would be changed to battery storage.
If you assume twice the volume of batteries, and 4x the energy density, it means that you could have about a 2 week undersea patrol before it would have to surface or use the snorkel.
I think that this might give an underwater patrol performance approaching that of the AIP system, with a much longer underwater dash range, and logistical issues would be simpler, as a tanking up the submarine with liquid oxygen is not something that can be done at sea or at a foreign port.
My (barely educated) guess is that this change is being considered because they expect their submarines to range further from their home ports in the future, and the ability to refuel at sea from Japanese or allied tenders would be an important part of this, and that they feel that losing some underwater endurance is worth this.
If this is indeed the case, it reflects a major change in the Japanese military posture.
Since the end of WWII, this sort of power projection has been an anathema to both the JSDF and the Japanese government.
It happens every year, and in addition to the regular denizen of the harbor, the USS Constellation,.we saw the US Coast Guard barque that is the last tall ship in active service, as well as a replica of a 16th century Spanish galleon from Seville.
No clue as to how the pix will format on thus post.
It looks like it’s designed to sit on the sea floor
It’s the Dolphin II class submarine, and in addition to being really ugly, it has 10 torpedo tubes, 6 of the standard 21 inch (533 mm) size, and 4 with a 26 inch (650 mm) tubes.
The obvious question is why the Dolphin II might need larger tubes, and the obvious answer is that it is used to launch the Popeye Turbo submarine launched cruise missle, which is alleged to have a 1500 km range, though it could also be used to deploy relatively large mines
As such, this constitutes a fairly formidable 2nd strike capability with nuclear weapons, along with the ability to launch conventional strikes at a fairly long range.
When combined with its AIP (Air Independent Propulsion) system, which uses liquid oxygen and methanol reacted into hydrogen, which can allow for the boat to remain submerged for up to a month.
Of course, this assumes that Israel has nuclear weapons, but this assumes that Israel has nuclear weapons, which it neither conforms nor denies. (Yeah.right)
Did you ever work a job that required two people, but your stingy employer insisted that one was enough? Then you understand the problem with the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship. One of the LCS’s supposed advantages is its much smaller crew compared to other vessels. Where a Navy frigate might have 200 sailors, the frigate-size LCS has just 40—although, to be fair, two different 40-person crews take turns running the ship. LCS is a jack-of-all-trades warship that can carry different modules for various missions—anti-submarine warfare, surface warfare or mine-hunting. The idea was that automation would enable fewer sailors to operate the $400-million LCS for all these missions. This saves on manpower costs as well as on precious shipboard space for crew accommodations. But a new Government Accountability Office report proves what any Burger King worker already knows—cutting your workforce by 80 percent without also decreasing its workload … isn’t always a great idea. When the GAO studied USS Freedom’s recent 10-month deployment to Singapore, the auditors found that crews worked too hard. “Freedom crews averaged about six hours of sleep per day compared to the Navy standard of eight hours,” the GAO stated. “Some key departments, such as engineering and operations, averaged even fewer.” And this happened despite the Navy temporarily adding 10 extra sailors to the crew and sending contractors aboard.
Also note that with short crewing like this, damage control is marginal, there are no reserves to allow the crew to continue operating the ship while performing repairs, so this ship is likely to have a glass jaw.
This is particularly troubling, as it will be operating in coastal waters, the threats are varied, everything from shore based defenses to guys in Zodiacs packing RPGs.
When one looks at doing more with less from a naval perspective, repurposing an existing hull for a new mission seems like a good way to get the capabilities that you need.
Among the many striking displays at the recent Navy League Sea-Air-Space Exposition was this marvel — an amphibious warfare ship adapted for Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD), with three times the radar size and missile capacity of current BMD vessels, as well an electromagnetic rail gun that can launch shells to the edge of space. The concept from Huntington Ingalls Industries’ (HII) is based on the hull of the LPD-17 San Antonio Class, a component of the three-ship “Amphibious Ready Groups” that stage Marines at forward, sea-based positions. In this incarnation, HII has removed the Marine’s berthing, vehicles, helicopters and landing craft, and installed air defense equipment with greater range and capacity than any ship in the fleet. Atop the superstructure is a massive S-band phased array radar, over 21 feet on each side. Compare that to the 12.5 ft. diameter of the SPY-1 radars aboard Ticonderoga Class Cruisers and Arleigh Burke Class Destroyers. For radars, larger size means greater range and better resolution and these arrays have three times the area of those which equip current BMD vessels. Starting behind the superstructure and continuing along the periphery to the stern is a vertical launch system (VLS) with 288 cells to carry surface to air missiles (SAMs), Tomahawk cruise missiles or Vertical-launch Anti-submarine rockets (VLAs). For comparison, Ticos have 122; later Burkes 96 and earlier Burkes 90. So, that’s triple the average missile load to start, with plenty of room to install more. Plus, the ship is taller than the surface combatants, which means it can hold future missiles of greater length and range. Forward of the superstructure, you see what looks like a standard five inch gun, the kind one finds on the Ticos and Burkes. But an engineer responsible for this design explains that’s not what it represents. In fact, it’s an electromagnetic rail gun.
Certainly, there is a lot of capability there.
The well deck of an LPD has a lot of volume, and assuming that the necessary power and maintainability issues can be resolved, it could be promising.
The potential inclusion of a rail gun is troubling though: It is precisely this sort of “bleeding edge” technology that creates the delay-price increase-quantity reduction death spiral.
Of course, this is just an industry proposal right now.
It’s not particularly surprising. The F-35C is the most expensive variant, and it has no potential exports (the only operator of catapult equipped carriers are the US, the French, and the Brazilians), so it is not surprising that the navy requested a “break” from the JSF program:
OSD TOLD THE NAVY: YOU CAN’T TAKE A ‘BREAK’ FROM THE F-35C: According to a congressional source, in its 2015 budget proposal, the Navy asked to take a three-year “break” from its production of the F-35C, its variant of the Joint Strike Fighter. Concerned this was a first step toward walking away from the program permanently, OSD told the Navy: no way. It’s an open secret that the Navy would prefer to invest more in its F-18 fighters rather than buy the F-35C. But if the Navy pulled out of the program, the unit cost — already under scrutiny — would go up for the Air Force and the Marine Corps.
The Navy did not get their “time out” because Office of the Secretary of Defense understood that a 3 year break constituted a cancellation of that variant, because in 3 years it will cost even more, and the DoD budgets will be under more stress.
This is, to quote Joe Biden, “A big f%$#ing deal.”
Basically, the V-22 is too expensive, lacks sufficient internal volume, is a maintenance hog, and lacks sufficient range.
One of the proposals is to update the C-2, which is based on the E-2, with the propulsion and aerodynamics updates that have been applied to the latest version of the Hawkeye.
Competition is the mother of invention, and with a handful of prime contractors chasing fewer new programs, none are willing to pass on a chance to compete, even if it means dusting off an old product. An example is the U.S. Navy’s emerging requirement to renew its carrier-onboard-delivery (COD) fleet. Northrop Grumman is proposing to remanufacture the existing C-2 Greyhounds, while the Bell Boeing team is offering new V-22 Osprey tiltrotors. Now Lockheed Martin has entered the fray with a proposal to take U.S. Navy S-3 Vikings out of desert storage, refurbish them and fit them with a new, larger fuselage suited to the cargo role. Retired from carrier decks in 2009, the twin-turbofan S-3 was designed for anti-submarine warfare but was also used for cargo delivery, electronic intelligence and aerial refueling.
It’s most famous use was delivering a Commander Codpiece (George W. Bush) to a carrier deck to announce “Mission Accomplished”.
Lockheed Martin’s KC-3 proposal for the Navy COD mission would reuse the S-3’s cockpit, wing, tail, engines and landing gear, but mate them to a new wider and longer fuselage with a rear loading ramp. “We’ve done the high-level engineering on whether it can take the cat and trap loads, and we believe it will,” Fearnow says. “We’ve run the concept past the Navy and responded to the RFI [request for information].” The KC-3, with its new aluminum fuselage, would actually be lighter than the S-3, once all of its mission avionics are removed, says Fearnow, but more work needs to be done on engineering the modification and assessing the condition of airframes and engines in storage. “We’re not completely there yet. We believe it can be cost-competitive, but we have off-ramps in case we do not go forward,” he notes.
Note that the unrefuelled range of the C-2 Grayhound is 2,400 km (before upgrades) and its top speed is 635 km/h, the V-22 has a 1,627 km range and a 509 km/h top speed, and the S-3 has a range of 5,121 km and a top speed of 795 km/h.
If I were running the Pentagon, I would probably go with upgraded/new C-2s, they will almost certainly be the cheapest to acquire, would probably have the lowest operational cost, and they the fewest changes to existing operations.
