[Zdmlscid]

Fire Support!

Never leave home without it

[Gabbavnf]

By the way, it is an honor and gives old Gramps a lil lead in his pencil, to speak from authority, to hear those who speak from authority, as oppossed to us all reading an article and trying to sound like we know what we are doing!


Of course, I could speak of my active duty, but it has been 29.5 years since I got out

Me and Wittlich served same Command, but still, makes me feel just like a man


Glad we have these chats, to help inform some of the fine Poly members why things are needed

[Jerwittdergut]

They're also considerably less useful. Ship Guns died in World War 2, get over it. Unless you are talking about guided munitions, which for the sake of economy they shouldn't be using for extended fire support anyway, NGFS is just as accurate as CAS, and much safer. They also have the added bonus of dominating the arteries the world depends on.

Ship guns are alive and well, just not in the primary role.

"Industrial-military-congressional complex" is what Ike called it. So?

[zoppiklonikaa]

Originally posted by Patroklos


Unless you are talking about guided munitions, which for the sake of economy they shouldn't be using for extended fire support anyway, NGFS is just as accurate as CAS, and much safer. They also have the added bonus of dominating the arteries the world depends on.

Ship guns are alive and well, just not in the primary role. In other words, they're virtually useless.

How are you using ship guns in Iraq or Afghanistan?

[Optosypoeds]

These days missiles are cheap as are speed boats. I'd be surprised if the Iranians didn't have several hundred speed boats with portable anti-ship missile launchers on them. Hell, they could probably sink an aircraft carrier task force very cheaply just by swarming a couple of hundred such speed boats.

[tattcasetle]

Originally posted by Patroklos
Is this your admission you have not backed up your claim in th slightest?

I am going to give you a chance to simply withdraw this stupidity since it is Friday and I am feeling charitable. If you're feeling charitable, consider hopping off the short bus and answering a simple question. The condescending douchebag routine works for me, it doesn't for you. Consider modeling your behaviour after someone else.

You may think it is a stupid question to ask operation details about what goes on with ships no one cares about in far reaches of the world, but not all of us make a career of scrubbing toilets in floating tin cans and some of us have never been exposed to being an imperialistic pawn. So rather than trying to deflect a simple, innocuous question, answer the damn thing before I take you to task.

[DarrenBent]

I'm not aware of Naval gun systems being used in any important activities that are not easily replaced. To my knowledge they are only being used sparingly and only because they're there, not because they are needed.

I'm looking for you to teach me something but clearly you know nothing and know that getting into an argument with me about this would be a losing proposition for you.

[Peptobismol]

Originally posted by Patroklos
When was the last time a naval vessel shot down an enemy aircraft with its flashy SAMs? When was the last time an ICBM was used? When was the last time our engineers had to build runways under fire?

I think you are smart enough to tell us why you think they are useless, not just simply that you think they are. If you are serious, this should be a trivial request and make it worth my time to type out a rebuttal to your one liner. They are useless because they've no use.

They're not as accurate as precision guided weapons, they're not as deadly either. They're restricted to coastal or near-coastal regions. The guns on the remaining naval ships are sufficiently small to be increasingly useless. The US' main opponent now and in the future is not an organized military ,but a paramilitary organization with underground fighters.

Now, why don't you show me a single use they've got. From the googling I've done, the Royal Navy used it a tiny bit in the Iraq invasion but the US Navy hasn't used it in the invasion or support of the invasion since.

This is clearly why you're squirming and not answering. If Naval gunfire support was truly important, the US wouldn't have gotten rid of its battleships.

[9V42h1eT]

They're not as accurate as precision guided weapons, they're not as deadly either. As I stated earlier, there are indeed no precision guided munitions for naval guns, but then I don't see you saying field artillery is useless either.

And yes, they are just as deadly as field artillery, and have many specialized rounds as well. Rounds that are timed to explode after impact, rounds that explode so far over the ground, rounds that are inert but penetrate, HE, radio taged, star shot, ect. Ground based artillery has these rounds as well, but there isn't any ground based artillery before and when the Marines are landing in myraid scenarios.

They're restricted to coastal or near-coastal regions. 90% (or 80%, something around there) of the worlds population lives withing 100 miles of the shore, a current Burke 5" can reach 10-12 miles inland depending on the coastal features. Not that that matters, as it is intended for close to the coast work anway. Once we get something like an ERGM, which is inevitable, that just makes guns more useful.

The US' main opponent now and in the future is not an organized military ,but a paramilitary organization with underground fighters. And why is that? Because with the capabilities the US wields conventional war is always rolling snake eyes these days maybe? The reason we don't have to use naval gunfire is very likely the fact that we have naval gunfire.

Of course we use ground based artillery almost every day in Iraq and Afghanistan, what if we were in a country doing the same work that had extensive coastlines?

Now, why don't you show me a single use they've got. From the googling I've done, the Royal Navy used it a tiny bit in the Iraq invasion but the US Navy hasn't used it in the invasion or support of the invasion since. Again, just because they are not being used does not mean they are worthless. I have never used my spare tire, is it worthless?I have never had to use my surge protector, is it useless? I can't think of a singe time the US has used a ship based SAM to shoot down an enemy aircraft, are they worthless?

As for when they could be useful, Oerdin's scenario is a good point. While his characterizatio of the prospects of success for that sort of thing were ridiculously inflated, that is primarily because of naval gun fire. From the horizon to the effective range of a 50cal, the primary defense against such small boats is the 5"/54 cal gun system, which can either shoot HE rounds or more importantly a relatively new round which is basically a huge shotgun shell full of ball bearings. We are not going to be shooting missiles at jet skiis.

Even if the surface contact is large enough for missiles, it might be too close. We also might be engaging aircraft/shooting down missiles at the same time so the guns will cover the surface threats. Or maybe we are launching ASROCs at subs at the same time, the VLA can only launch so many missiles so fast. What if it is bad weather and we can't get a surface radar lock on surface ship for a missile?

THe 5" is the backup for the CIWS in the role of shooting down incoming missiles.

Another one would be what I already mentioned, artillery support for landing Marines. Aircraft have their uses, but sustained on demand support will never go out of style. Add to that that a loitering aircraft can't change its payload if the situation changes, an offshore ship can do so in seconds.

Even basic things like battle space illumination are done by gunfire, unless you know of another way to get a flare over a target seven miles away.

Gun systems are durable. Nothing particularly complicated or breakthrough about them, they work. So while your sophisticated radars and missiles might not survive that first hit (or even a sandstorm), your gun will.

This is clearly why you're squirming and not answering. If Naval gunfire support was truly important, the US wouldn't have gotten rid of its battleships. Thats funny coming from you who has failed to support your ill concieved one liner.

In any case, we got rid of battleships because guns were LESS important, not unimportant. Missiles will never be a fire support weapon, they are to expensive and to few. And the trend now is to get away from missiles if possible for that very reason. Thats is why the rail gun (which the DDG-1000 alone will be able to mount) is being developed to greatly increase range so those cheaper rounds can be used longer. Things like the ERGM, while not entering the fleet anytime soon, are the future.

[LxtdK9i4]

Whatever happened to those proposed ships with Maglev railguns,? Stand off 200 miles and lob shells in.

[hexniks]

I have to agree with Patroklos. Naval gunfire is the cheapest, best and most flexible method of close support for landing troops.
Why in the hell would we be shooting a $1million dollar cruise missle to take out a machine gun when a $500 5" shell will do the same thing and be there in seconds as opposed to minutes.

Further, I see no one who has debunked the need for naval guns to thwart the massed sppedboat scenario that Asher detailed. Patroklos is right on the money again that at 500 yards a 5 incher is highly effective and a missle nearly useless (not to mention the cost factor of the missle again, but hello!).

Finally, and even perhaps most importantly, the survivability and ability to continue fighting after the ship has taken damage, may well be the best reason to keep naval guns. If you need a computer to aim the missle and the computer is gone then you have lost the percision of the weapon and it becomes nearly useless over any distance or if any percision is required. A naval gun can be aimed manually (albiet no where near as accurately as if it had its computer, but you CAN aim it).

Clearly, the cost of having these weapons is justified by their utility.

[KevinDonae]

Originally posted by Asher

Because it costs ONE TRILLION DOLLARS to construct the boats to shoot $500 shells? Not to mention the excessive maintenance on all of these additional boats.

I don't think the approach you want to take here is cost effectiveness. These boats are obscenely expensive for the "spare tire" scenario Patty admits is the case...

Quick math exercise: How many cruise missiles can you build with one trillion dollars? So...are you saying we should only fire land based cruise missles or build more aircraft carriers to carry planes to drop air launched cruise missles?

Or are you saying that we should just go with what we have and hope it never wears out?

Asher, I must say that you are just not being clear here.

The firepower needs to be there in the future and the DD platform is probably the cheapest way to delver it in the long run and naval guns are clearly cheaper to use. Not to mention (which, of course you didn't eithier) the needed utility of the naval guns that I posted about above.

Long term cost effectiveness...survivability...more cost effective to operate...more diverse in mission capability. Clearly this is the best path to persue.

[bushomeworkk]

I'm all for advancement of military technology. I'm a hardcore technologist and I respect the technology involved on these new ships.

I'm not sure spending a trillion dollars on them is wise. For all of the niche uses these guns still have, it's an outmoded military tool. Just as wooden ships weren't too useful in World War 1, ships with big guns as a primary weapon are not too useful today. There's a paradigm shift in modern combat and I worry that too often the Navy frontliners like Patty don't realize when the time has passed.

[NutChusty]

Originally posted by Lonestar
No one has spent a trillion dollars on "niche tools" or "Guns", that would be more than the entire US DoD budget. Budgets are yearly...
Work out the cost, it's estimated to be like $813B for these. You always know they go overbudget.

Second, Naval Gunfire support is not "niche" far from, going back...

(1)My own 2004-05 deployment we were preparing to put over a 1000 Marines on the ground in Somalia after a LNG tanker, the Feisty Gas(I thought they were talking about food issues when I first heard of it) got hijacked by Somali pirates. With no air support(The Bon Homme Richard only had 3 Harriers), virtually the entire show was going to be run from the guns from one USN CG, two USN DDGs, and one FN FFG. Hardly "Niche". Yes, that is niche and you don't need a $2.6B ship to do that.

Guns are here to stay, for a long long time. As long as they're cheap. Which this boat is not. I don't know why you're surprised it got canned.

Guns on boats may be useful, but a $2.6B boat with guns is just outrageous.

[Andoror]

This is precisely why you shouldn't be spending one trillion dollars on spare tires. Because it costs ONE TRILLION DOLLARS to construct the boats to shoot $500 shells? Please provide a source on it costing one trillion dollars, Thanks.

Of cours the gun system doesn't cost one trillion dollars, the most advanced Air search radar for HVU defense (X and S band technology demonstrator), SAMs, anit ballistic missiles, ASW package, strike, integrated propulsion (technology demonstrator) AND gun system costs 3 billion dollars.

There are far better uses for all of that money than tons of guns that may be useful in contrived situations but could also easily be replaced by, say, cruise missiles. So why do we and every advanced military still have field artillery? Why is it in constant use in Afghanistan and Iraq?

Wait a second -- they already have been replaced by cruise missiles in modern engagements. Your willful ignorance is amusing. It has been explained to in rather simple and easy to understand logic why this comment by you is retarded.

Whatever happened to those proposed ships with Maglev railguns,? Stand off 200 miles and lob shells in. These are those ships, they have the extra generator capacity built in to accomodate those when they finish development. The first few CG-47s didn't have VLS for the same reason.

So it's useful if the enemy has deadly anti-air defenses but no anti-ship capability to speak of. Quite a small window of usefulness. No, shore based anti ship missiles, while potentially dangerous, are the inferior position and surmountable with a combination of air and sea strike warfare.

Not to mention the excessive maintenance on all of these additional boats. We are going to build more hulls now than before Asher, you fail.

I don't think the approach you want to take here is cost effectiveness. These boats are obscenely expensive for the "spare tire" scenario Patty admits is the case... As has been pointed out to you already, this is not a gun boat. In any case, I did not admit that, I simple totally crushed your "because it hasn't been used it is valueless," arguement. Again, have ICBMs been valueless because we never used them? Is your health insurance valueless if you don't use it? Surely the shallowness of your postion is apparent to you.

Just as wooden ships weren't too useful in World War 1, ships with big guns as a primary weapon are not too useful today. Please explain why you thing the AGS is the "primary weapon" of this class? Do you know anything about the DDG-1000 that isn't derived from your imagination?

[casefexas]

The "guns aren't needed, just use missiles" stance reminds me of the lack of ACM training leading into Vietnam.