Congress to Air Force: Build more F-22s! Also Faster Carriers.

[Kellhound]

You already used couple times more bombs in Vietnam, than used in the whole WW2. What more did you have in mind for the "easy win"?

Ability to bomb the right targets. A large portion of the bombs dropped were against low value, but acceptable, targets.

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Depends what you mean by effective, it doesn't make them less capable of doing their job but it does make them less capable of doing it without getting shot down which is an issue any subsonic jet faces with MANPADS, they were a factor of consideration in the retirement of the Harriers and so the issue will be even more profound for less maneuverable craft like the A-10 or Su-25. Generally speaking you can improve a planes survivability by upgrading the countermeasures, but if you reduce the planes radar/heat signatures it will make the countermeasures more effective and the two are multiplicative, so you get to a point where the best option is just to replace the plane, I.E Harriers with F-35 (Which then gets delayed lol).

The A-10 already has a very small heat signature for a jet, and the engines are armored and protected by the tails. Further, the A-10 is one of the most maneuverable combat aircraft in the world, it just isnt fast.

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How would you do this? xD

Again, talking about the NVA not the VC.

[Rukh]

Let me guess, representatives from Georgia and Texas are advocating a lot more be made for "self defense"? :P

[Smauldy]

Absolutely ridiculous how much money we waste in America on the military industrial complex. The reasons we can't have good infrastructure, affordable college and healthcare is due to greed, brainwashing(right wingers telling people it's communism) and waste on projects like the F-35.

[Deleted]

And it'll stay that way as long as the US invest in that strategy.

It will stay that way until the EU decides to contest it.

[Kellhound]

What's the differentiated purpose of a Cruiser fleet in the modern era where it seems like Destroyers could do everything a Cruiser could do in blue water?

The difference between a cruiser and a destroyer is (and has been, see the "Cruiser Gap" of the 1970s) murky at best.

Put it this was, the only US cruisers are the Ticonderoga Class at 9600 tons displacement, 10:1 length/beam ratio, 2 5" guns and 122 VLS tubes. The Flight IIa Burke Class Destroyers are 9800 tons displacement, 7.7:1 length/beam ratio, 1 5" gun and 96 VLS tubes. The Zumwalt Class Destroyers are 14500 tons displacement, 7.5:1 length/beam ratio, 2 6" guns, and 80 VLS tubes.

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I predict we'll scale to only having carriers, submarines, destroyers (doing what cruisers were already doing), and a handful of littorals. Cruisers and frigates don't really serve much of a purpose with what our destroyers are capable of.

Frigates are in massive need actually. For all practical purposes the USN has gone to an all cruiser surface force, which is very expensive to build and operate, especially since most naval missions do not require a 8000 ton+ warship.

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Absolutely ridiculous how much money we waste in America on the military industrial complex. The reasons we can't have good infrastructure, affordable college and healthcare is due to greed, brainwashing(right wingers telling people it's communism) and waste on projects like the F-35.

My college has been affordable and so is my healthcare, and I would rather the Feds spend $$$ on defense than projects that rightfully should be financed at the state or local level.

[SodiumChloride]

Absolutely ridiculous how much money we waste in America on the military industrial complex. The reasons we can't have good infrastructure, affordable college and healthcare is due to greed, brainwashing(right wingers telling people it's communism) and waste on projects like the F-35.

Corruption is a bigger problem than your military spending IMHO.

Public option for Healthcare insurance? Blocked.

[ringpriest]

What's the differentiated purpose of a Cruiser fleet in the modern era where it seems like Destroyers could do everything a Cruiser could do in blue water?

A quarter of the VLS cells in the whole fleet, for a start - large ships are also easier to maintain, more surviable, and have a higher top speed. Then there's the ability to serve as a flagship - i.e. actually have room for a flag officer and staff; with no cruisers (or DD with flag capbility) in the fleet, you can't dispatch a task group without attaching a carrier, LHA, or other command ship.

[starlord]

ask for new icebreaker ships to replace 2 50 yr old ones though & its like pulling teeth.

[Skroe]

What's the differentiated purpose of a Cruiser fleet in the modern era where it seems like Destroyers could do everything a Cruiser could do in blue water?

In short, history and size.

read this

Basically pre 1975 the US defiend ship classes like this, biggest to smallest:


Pre-30 June 1975 Post-30 June 1975
Cruiser (CA/CLG/CGN) Guided Missile Cruiser (CG/CGN)
Frigate (DL/DLG/DLGN) Guided Missile Cruiser (CG/CGN), Destroyer (DD) or Guided Missile Destroyer (DDG)
Destroyer (DD/DDG) Destroyer (DD)/ Guided Missile Destroyer (DDG)
Ocean Escort (DE/DEG) Frigate (FF) / Guided Missile Frigate (FFG)
Patrol Frigate (PF) Frigate (FF)

Post 1975 it became this


Cruiser (CA/CLG/CGN) -> Guided Missile Cruiser (CG/CGN)
Frigate (DL/DLG/DLGN) -> Guided Missile Cruiser (CG/CGN), Destroyer (DD) or Guided Missile Destroyer (DDG)
Destroyer (DD/DDG) -> Destroyer (DD)/ Guided Missile Destroyer (DDG)
Ocean Escort (DE/DEG) -> Frigate (FF) / Guided Missile Frigate (FFG)
Patrol Frigate (PF) -> Frigate (FF)

The rationale was on paper, the US had a "cruiser gap" with respect to the Soviet Navy. Really, it just had "cruisers" as "Destroyer Leaders" or "Frigates". Even the word "frigate" typically means something much larger than they do in the US now, which is the smallest warship.

The Modern US Cruiser, the Ticonderoga class, began their lives as Destroyers and were reclassified as Cruisers. The hull of the Ticonderoga is actually the same hull (with some mods, including length) of the Spruance-class destroyer that preceded the Arleigh Burke-class. Historically Cruisers also sometimes/often times had a "cruiser" hull form optimized for speed. The last US ship to have such a hull was the nuclear powered Virginia Class cruiser that was retired in 1996 (it was pre-Aegis, pre-VLS by just a few years, and was due for an upgrade but canceled to save money).

The chief practical difference between the modern US Cruiser, the Ticonderoga, a late Cold War ship, and the Modern US Destroyer, the Arleigh Burke class, which is a post-Cold War platform is driven by their size. The Ticonderoga are longer and have a bigger deck house. This supports the larger facilities (the radar, the screens, the rooms) needed for it to fulfill it's air defense role. It also has about 30 more VLS tubes. The Arleigh Burke destroyer can and does participate in the Air Defense role, but physically it isn't big enough to support the radar or facilities of the Ticonderoga . Hypothetically, you could lengthen and build a Ticonderoga -sized deck house on a Burke and turn it into a cruiser. THey're very similar in that regard.

However that's unncessary and in the years ahead, "destroyer" and "Cruiser" will blur even more. The Flight III Arleigh Burke class, the first of which is being procured this year (and will enter the fleet around 2020), as a program, replaced the CG(X) program, the next generation cruiser (the DDG(X) is the DDG-1000 Zumwalt program, CG(X) was going to be a larger Zumwalt derivative). It is going to be equipped with a new radar that using Digital beam forming, and new computers that allow it to do a Ticonderoga-style air defense role in a smaller package.

The current plan is to have Carrier Strike Groups have 1 Carrier, 1 Cruiser as the Air Defense Leader, and a number of Flight III Burkes with SM-6s performing the air defense role.

THe biggest "problem" is the incoming shortage of VLS tubes (and as ringpriest said, things to fill them with). RIght now every cruiser has 122 VLS tubes, every DDG-51 class destroyer has 96,the Zumwalt has 80, the four Ohio SSGNs have 154. As the Cruisers and SSGNs are retired between 2025 and 2035, the Navy will lose a huge number of VLS tubes as it replaces 122 VLS ships with 96 VLS ships, and the Ohi SSGNs with the Virgina Payload Module in the Virgina Class Attack sub.

And furthermore there is the issue of what you're putting int hem. The Three Zumwalts will have only Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles for point defense, and Tomahawks for land attack (due to their role), and while they can fire the SM-6, will probably not carry it because they won't be used in the air defense role (they are not Aegis ships and can't share targeting with other Aegis ships). The Flight III Burkes will likely carrying heavy SM-6 and SM-3 loads, and comparatively few tomahawks, to perform the retiring cruiser's air defense role and the Ballistic Missile Defense role. The older Flight II and non-Ballistic Missile Defense Flight IIA Burkes will probably have a mix of more tomahawks and SM-6s. Oh and now you probably want to fit the LRASM in there somewhere too.

As you can see, this is why the Navy would love one missile for anti-air, anti-ship and land attack. And while it's great and important the SM-6 can now do all three, and the tomahawk can do anti-ship and land attack, using an SM-6 for that is hysterically expensive "per-shot".

Looking beyond FLight III burkes and a potential Flight IV, the plan is, starting around 2028 to begin a new program for a Large Surface Combatant that will replace all cruisers and destroyers in one class. If, conceptually, radars get smaller and lighter, ships get more automated, air defense gets more automated, and ship-based weapons beyond 2030 are to any degree different than what they are today (say, relying on Lasers for point defense and air defense, rail guns, for land attack and anti-ship purposes, meaning you need a missile for Ballistic Missile Defense, and long range anti-ship/anti-air/land attack), then we'll see a final merger of the role. If it is on either side of the 10,000 tons displacement like today's Burkes and Ticonderoga (the Flight IIIs and the Cruisers have near identical displacement) or if it'll be even larger, like the 14,500 ton Zumwalt, is anybody's guess.

Perhaps that ship will be called a "destroyer" and a larger ship, around 24,000 tons, derived from the San Antonio class, but armed to the teeth with 288 VLS tubes could become a "battlecruiser" or something. It's a proposal on paper, and could easily be built. Navy just has to fork over the money.


San Antonio Class


Ballistic Missile Defense ship concept from last fall, note the giant radar. I imagine Russia would be thrilled about a couple of these off it's shores.

Oh well, probably won't get funded anytime soon. The ship building budget is stretched thin as it is.

It's funny really. The Navy rightly gets a hard time about the living clusterfuck that is the LCS, the delays and cost explosion of the too-big-to-tfail Ford Class Carrier, and the problems of DDG-1000 development. But on the other hand, with the Areligh Burke class Destroyer, the San Antonio class Amphibious Transport Dock (which is becoming the basis of the LR(X) class), the Virginia Class Attack Sub, it also has some tremendously well designed, extremely capable and extremely cost effective platforms.


But to answer you question in summary Reeve, cruiser and destroyer are historical, largely political terms that have meant many different things over the years (as has frigate). Today's Ticonderoga started life as Destroyers and the Burke class is larger and faster than what has historically been called a Cruiser. The difference is mostly in terms of role, with modern Cruisers size being leveraged for bigger air defense facilities. And with the Flight III Burkes being built now to replace the Ticonderoga-cass, they'll have effectively merged as new technology made that size less needed (one Ticonderoga will be kept per carrier strike group to assign targets).

If you look in other Navy's, there is no consistency with ours either.

This is one of the Royal Navy's newest ships, the Type-45 Air Defense Destroyer. It is a little smaller than a Arleigh Burke, but is designed entirely around Air Defense. If it were in the US Navy, it would be called a Cruiser.


This is the Royal Navy's concept of the BAE Global Combat Ship, the UK's next big ship building program. They call it a 'frigate', but it is 40% larger than the last true US "frigate", the Oliver hazard Perry-class, and twice the size of the Littoral Combat Ship. In terms of role, it's a surface combat and land attack ship that can also do air defense, like a US-destroyer. It's basically is a downsized US-destroyer with fewer VLS tubes.


And then there is Japan. What do you think of their Izumo-class 'Helicopter Destroyer' (in the background, the preceding Hyuga in the forground)


Oh hey look at this:



Yeah. Japan has a 'destroyer' for 'helicopters' that could easily launch F-35Bs if it wanted to.



Or hell rip it up and put a couple of catapults in there, and you got yourself a full fledged light-carrier.

Moral of the story: classification names are historic and political, and little more.

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Let me guess, representatives from Georgia and Texas are advocating a lot more be made for "self defense"? :P

Nope all over.

Large parts of the F-22's fuselage was builtin liberal Massachusetts in the North East.

Raytheon, maker of the Tomahawk cruise missile (among other things), is one of the largest employers in my state and a huge source of federal dollars, as the world's fifth largest military contractor and largest producer of guided missiles.

The town I grew up in had a big, gated Raytheon research facility across the street from the supermarket.

Defense spending is a 50 state enterprise.

[Rukh]

Nope all over.

Large parts of the F-22's fuselage was builtin liberal Massachusetts in the North East.

Raytheon, maker of the Tomahawk cruise missile (among other things), is one of the largest employers in my state and a huge source of federal dollars, as the world's fifth largest military contractor and largest producer of guided missiles.

The town I grew up in had a big, gated Raytheon research facility across the street from the supermarket.

Defense spending is a 50 state enterprise.

Interesting information. My main point is it seems weird for legislature to be pushing a specific military budget item. Seems like the airforce should be making that decision. Buy more X! Just seems like a corporate handout at first glace. The reason I pointed to legislators from Texas and Georgia was they were the two states mentioned in the OP where the factories had been halted for production of the F22s.

[starlord]

Interesting information. My main point is it seems weird for legislature to be pushing a specific military budget item. Seems like the airforce should be making that decision. Buy more X! Just seems like a corporate handout at first glace. The reason I pointed to legislators from Texas and Georgia was they were the two states mentioned in the OP where the factories had been halted for production of the F22s.

Usually how it works is that the air force goes, hey we need more X. Congress says ok, but they have to be this many built for this much etc.

[Skroe]

Absolutely ridiculous how much money we waste in America on the military industrial complex. The reasons we can't have good infrastructure, affordable college and healthcare is due to greed, brainwashing(right wingers telling people it's communism) and waste on projects like the F-35.

This country spends hundreds of billions per year on infrastructure, and more on education and healthcare (far more) than defense.

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/numbers

Infrastructure -> $297 Billion = 50% Local, 37% State, 13% federal spending.

Education -> $1.01 trillion = 64% Local, 29% state, 13% federal (adds up to more than 100% cuz of federal xfers)

Healthcare -> $1.49 trillion = 10% Local, 15% State, 75% Federal spending.

Defense -> $831 billion = 0% Local, 0.1% State, 99.9% Federal Spending.


It's like people forget we're a federal country with a highly devolved shared-sovereignty system and there are State and Local taxes too.

There is more to what America spends it's money on than the federal budget. A lot more.

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total


$4. trillion Federal spending
$1.6 trillioN State Spending
1.8 trillion local spending
-0.7 trillion in intergovernmental xfers (Federal->State/Local)
Total Spending = $6.7 trillion.

On top of what the federal budget is, we spend an additional $2.7 trillion on stuff, zero percent of it on Defense. That's fine. That's great. It should look like that. But that's very different than most other countries which have one or two budget levels. We got three, and the burden is not shared evenly between them.

[SodiumChloride]

And then there is Japan. What do you think of their Izumo-class 'Helicopter Destroyer' (in the background, the preceding Hyuga in the forground)


Oh hey look at this:



Yeah. Japan has a 'destroyer' for 'helicopters' that could easily launch F-35Bs if it wanted to.



Or hell rip it up and put a couple of catapults in there, and you got yourself a full fledged light-carrier.

Moral of the story: classification names are historic and political, and little more.

I wonder how expensive the Izumo is to run and it's range ...

There is a reason the US Navy moved over to nuclear reactors instead of continuing to use fossil fuels for their carriers.

Given the size of the Izumo, it's nearly the size of the nuclear powered Nimitz ...

[Deleted]

In regards to the bit about Destroyers and Cruisers, A cruiser was historically a ship designed for forward operation, it would 'cruise' this typically meant it was armed like a battle ship, as its roles were to either act like the tip of the spear, or as 'light' battleships in fleets.
Destroyers on the other hand were support and escort ships, designed to engage smaller and faster targets, that otherwise would be hard to engage for capital ships - the name comes from 'torpedo boat destroyer'.
If any parlance is meant to be retained, a Cruiser is a anti Air, land, and shipping vessel - whereas a destroyer is a support ship, that reasonably can engage Air, shipping, but not land, it should probably engage subs too.
as one can realize, this distinction is now nonsensical.

[Dreknar20]

you don't need for anything

And how would you know we don't need it. "If you want peace, prepare for war"

Only a dumbfuck would start preparing right before hostilities.

[Deleted]

This country spends hundreds of billions per year on infrastructure, and more on education and healthcare (far more) than defense.

The problem is, while the states generally fix 'their' infrastructure needs, its primarily the bits that are the purvey (pretty sure that is the wrong word) of the federal government that are breaking apart.

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And how would you know we don't need it. "If you want peace, prepare for war"

Only a dumbfuck would start preparing right before hostilities.

If the US were only interested in maintaining its current geographical position, it could cut away two thirds of its fleet, three quarters of its army and just get rid of the Air force and the marines.
But they don't want that, they want to be the hegemon - then you need way more.

[Skroe]

Interesting information. My main point is it seems weird for legislature to be pushing a specific military budget item. Seems like the airforce should be making that decision. Buy more X! Just seems like a corporate handout at first glace. The reason I pointed to legislators from Texas and Georgia was they were the two states mentioned in the OP where the factories had been halted for production of the F22s.

This in a word, is politics.

The US military, of course, is civilian lead like most developed countries in the world (if not all) by now. Uniformed military members are subjugated by an elected official (the President) and his politically appointed subordinates (Secretary of Defense, and below them the Secretary of the Air Force, Navy, Army, etc). The most senior general is less senior than a political assignment. THat is fine. That's the foundation of civilian control of the government. Calling these "political assignments' is not derogatory. It is meant to imply that say, John Kerry's job as secretary of state is tied to the fact that there was political action (an election) that lead to Obama being President who is thereby given the authority to appoint whoever he likes into these jobs. This contrasts with say, the director of the FBI, which is not a political job and will serve between administratons.

So with that in mind, keep in mind that the military and civilians leadership don't always get along. In fact, they often don't. With the Obama Administration, the military leadership thinks basically nothing of his second term team who believe in a really stupid foreign policy. With the Bush Administration the first 6 years, they thought that Donald Rumself and the neocons didn't care about 'reality' versus their ideology (they were so closed minded as to be inflexible when events on the ground undermined their defense vision). Every Administration has problems. That's not particularly unusual. Those are just the two most recent.

However when the President makes his budget request, the civilian leadership always wins. The Navy may think "well we need more of X" but the secretary of the Navy, keeping in mind the President's "vision" for Defense (I hate that word in this context, but w/e) will overrule and request fewer or none. So the budget doesn't reflect that desire because as a matter of policy, the Administration, which runs the government, including the military, doesn't want it, no matter if the uniformed services actually do.

The way in recent times, the military has gotten around this, is through one and one meetings with key committee members, who then ask them during testimony, on the record, what else they need and if they're short changed. And because they're under oath, the uniformed service member can't lie, so they say "we need more X". This is then reflected in something called the "Unfunded Priorities", a kind of wishlist, that the Military has started submitting of things not in the official administration budget request (which never reflects the final budget by the way, just what the administration wants), that it would really really like.

This year for instance, the official budget asks for no more F/A-18E/Fs because the Obama Administration is highly politically, trying to shut down the F/A-18 line (they've really want to scrap a carrier before they're out). The Navy doesn't like this one bit, but can't argue in the official budget. So they submitted an "unfunded priorities" list for 18 more of them to keep the F/A-18 line open, and sure enough, the House Budget asks for 18 more F/A-18s.

This is how sausage is made in a highly political US government, because all things being equal, civilians would respect the priorities of the services. But the services also don't always get it right either. Had it been solely up to the services, 6 years ago the Arleigh Burke class (for example) never would have been restarted, to protect the DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class, no matter that at the time, the ship order had already been cut from 24 to 12 (and subsequently to 3).

The fact is, for all the shit Congress gets, they do have some people who are highly specialized and are very on top of this kind of stuff. For example right now, the Ohio Replacement Program, to replace the Ohio Ballistic Missile Subs built in the 1980s and 1990s, has to start by 2020 in order to replace the Ohios that will start retiring past 2025 and not have a gap in our nuclear deterrent. Currently, it is funded within the Navy Ship building budget of about $15 billion a year, and because of that, it grows and grows and consumes Navy ship building to the point he Navy builds little more than the Ohios. The Obama Administration hasn't acted on this, but Congress has been aware of how insane and stupid this is for years, because other ships will be retiring in the 2020s too and will need replacement (like the Cruisers, or the first 4 Nimitz carriers, or the last Los Angeles class attack subs), meaning that unless the Ohios are funded separately, outside of the ship building account, the Navy by 2030 could be dramatically smaller. So Congress has been sounding the alarm that the Ohios need a separate "National Deterrent Fund" pot of money for several years now - something Obama has resisted but the services would love - that by law, is looking more and more likely to finally happen.

So just be aware of "the dance" of how things go. Just because the Navy can't say directly it wants something in the budget, doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't really, really want it. Through illustraitng short falls, testimony and submitting lists of unfunded priorities, they can imply how important it is, but they can't call a crap budget crap.

[Tijuana]

I am no expert, but it would seem the outrageously superior capability of the F-22 could be part of why we don't need so many. Allegedly it can take on 10 F-15s at once, and the F-15 has never lost a fight.

Also, I wonder if the military is thinking unmanned aircraft is the future.

[Skroe]

I wonder how expensive the Izumo is to run and it's range ...

There is a reason the US Navy moved over to nuclear reactors instead of continuing to use fossil fuels for their carriers.

Given the size of the Izumo, it's nearly the size of the nuclear powered Nimitz ...

I don't know the range of the Izumo off hand, but I think for Japan it is probably just fine. Keep in mind, US defense posture has it operating very far from home, and often far from resupply and even safety. That's why (in part) our ships are large and have such endurance. Japan's fleet would never operate during war time very far from Japan. It would operate in the Western Pacific, the Sea of Japan, the South China Sea, maybe the Yellow Sea, but within a day or two, at most, from Japan. By contrast it could take a carrier at cruising speed about 7 days to make it from San Diego to Japan, and a few more days to position in one of the seas along the coast of the Asian continent.


The Izumo is highly automated though, much more so than the older Nimitz class (although the Ford class is highly automated as well). So it is very economical to own on that basis alone. Fuel just isn't expensive - people are even more so. A full US carrier strike group costs about $25 million a day to operate ($7 million for the carrier alone). That's just fuel, personnel, maintenance and stores cost.

For a numbers person like me, stuff like that is fascinating.

[kaid]

The difference between a cruiser and a destroyer is (and has been, see the "Cruiser Gap" of the 1970s) murky at best.

Put it this was, the only US cruisers are the Ticonderoga Class at 9600 tons displacement, 10:1 length/beam ratio, 2 5" guns and 122 VLS tubes. The Flight IIa Burke Class Destroyers are 9800 tons displacement, 7.7:1 length/beam ratio, 1 5" gun and 96 VLS tubes. The Zumwalt Class Destroyers are 14500 tons displacement, 7.5:1 length/beam ratio, 2 6" guns, and 80 VLS tubes.

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Frigates are in massive need actually. For all practical purposes the USN has gone to an all cruiser surface force, which is very expensive to build and operate, especially since most naval missions do not require a 8000 ton+ warship.

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My college has been affordable and so is my healthcare, and I would rather the Feds spend $$$ on defense than projects that rightfully should be financed at the state or local level.

Yes crusisers or destroyers as big as cruisers while potent combat craft are like a industrial logging machine when all you want is a hatchet for some jobs. Frigates are great for drug interdiction/customs/light merchantile and anti piracy type operations small crews smaller ships and don't cost a freaking ton to operate.