Road to 350: What Does the US Navy Do Anyway?

[Griz882]

LSDs are not the answer. Time for them to go.

Well , he’s not recommending them for the fleet, only for a contractor to serve as a “soft power” element under State. You could do the same with a container ship, but with a little work a mothballed LSD probably has a better C3 set up. Paint it white and put a smiley face on the side!

 

[Randy Daytona]

Correct, also that the LSD has the option of well deck to offload heavy equipment such as bulldozers and trucks via boats if the port facilities are wrecked.

 

[Brett327]

permanent, dedicated soft power capability

Tell us why it's a good idea to use a naval vessel for this, and why we should have a dedicated capability that sits unused most of the time. This reminds me of the one guy in every FB thread about a CVN getting decommissioned who thinks it's a good idea to park it somewhere pier side so it can make electricity and fresh water with its magic hot rocks.

 

[Griz882]

All of this reminds me of Thomas Barnett’s, “The Pentagon’s New Map.” In it he argues that the US military must stop thinking of war in the context of war but war in the context of "everything else", i.e. demographics, energy, investment, security, politics, trade, immigration, and so on. To do this he recommended a new force structure of a Leviathan force of young warfighters and a System Administrator force that deals with peacekeeping and soft power acts. This force would be made up of older, more experienced personnel. Considering the crush on defense dollars there is nothing wrong with creating a soft power element of some type to pick up the slack on noncore missions like disaster relief.

 

[Griz882]

Tell us why it's a good idea to use a naval vessel for this, and why we should have a dedicated capability that sits unused most of the time. This reminds me of the one guy in every FB thread about a CVN getting decommissioned who thinks it's a good idea to park it somewhere pier side so it can make electricity and fresh water with its magic hot rocks.

Again, he’s not recommending an active naval vessel, but a mothballed vessel repurposed for disaster relief…no hot rocks involved.

 

[hscs]

Correct, also that the LSD has the option of well deck to offload heavy equipment such as bulldozers and trucks via boats if the port facilities are wrecked.

And that drives A LOT of TLC. And it’s not just the stern dock, it’s the ballast system. Well Deck ops are also high risk.

Remember that they are also old, so lots of other systems are going to require a lot of TLC.

 

[Brett327]

Again, he’s not recommending an active naval vessel, but a mothballed vessel repurposed for disaster relief…no hot rocks involved.

Even worse. The costs involved in getting an old ship seaworthy, then maintaining it with no logistical support would be higher than acquiring a new vessel better suited for the task.

 

[Griz882]

Even worse. The costs involved in getting an old ship seaworthy, then maintaining it with no logistical support would be higher than acquiring a new vessel better suited for the task.

Broadly, I agree. @hscs also makes a great point, there is a lot to break on a well deck. I’m just not convinced that, right now, we could build one in the U.S. but if it were built for a corporation (the contractor) as opposed for the government it could work - or even be built overseas.

Edit to my comment….we do have a few vessels like the USNS John Glenn (T-ESD-2) that, I believe, were added to the aux fleet and designed with this kind of mission in mind. Perhaps build another (or others) dedicated to such disaster relief operations? The design is fairly straightforward.

 

[Lawman]

Again, he’s not recommending an active naval vessel, but a mothballed vessel repurposed for disaster relief…no hot rocks involved.

Or… just a thought…

We could restore and build out enough sea lift so that we don’t have the finite fleet of resources. Then they wouldn’t be unavailable to any tasking outside what it’s currently doing with regard to ROROs and MSVs. Plus we gain something dual use out of that in that we answer a real problem we currently have in getting forces where we needed when we need them.

To your earlier point state already does use a lot of contracting for its RW requirement. Erickson 214s did some outstanding work for us in the Philippines. We could certainly expand that effort but that money is gonna come from somewhere, and I’m not convinced State has the organic brain trust for planning and orchestrating a large air evolution across a geographic area the way the Military can. Kind of a uniquely Military capability to just pick up and drop a task force and get started with all the operational requirements. The fire fighting industry is the only place I’ve seen similar ability. Not a lot of faith in State to replicate that in the short term without some serious lesson learning, and certainly not of they turn on/off as a response as a fiscal measure vs maintain in permanence

Add to that for conventional Army a serious relook at rules in 95-1 where we can fly civies on our aircraft and they can fly our people as crew in theirs. There is a lot of unnecessary restrictions or hurdles to getting work done in that regard.

 

[Brett327]

Broadly, I agree. @hscs also makes a great point, there is a lot to break on a well deck. I’m just not convinced that, right now, we could build one in the U.S. but if it were built for a corporation (the contractor) as opposed for the government it could work - or even be built overseas.

Edit to my comment….we do have a few vessels like the USNS John Glenn (T-ESD-2) that, I believe, were added to the aux fleet and designed with this kind of mission in mind. Perhaps build another (or others) dedicated to such disaster relief operations? The design is fairly straightforward.

As usual with these ideas, they're applied to the problem backwards. Before we get our panties all moist about a well-deck, how about we stop and define requirements first... then we can figure out what kinds of capabilities we need/want/can afford.

 

[taxi1]

with its magic hot rocks

Storing that one away for later use...

 

[Brett327]

Storing that one away for later use...

I cannot take credit for that, but it is a nice image.

 

[haubby]

Having personally brought a SLEP ship back from the dead, I do not recommend using a mothballed ship. It took years to do and the cost financially to the USG and personally for the people involved was just too great. Just design something new and build it if thats the route they take.