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

Randy Daytona said:
Interesting take from Ryan Szymanski. One of the big items is the sustainment in both strike and defense that a big ship can provide while smaller ships run out of missiles and/or fuel and must retire from the area, although perhaps the reload capability of VLS cells at sea will become normalized and alleviate that concern.

As Spekkio mentioned above, and I wondered about a decade ago in Ship Photo of the Day, would we see a return to non-aircraft carrier capital ships when technology improved? The carrier replaced the battleship 85 years ago when airplanes could outrange guns - have/will we reached the stage where hypersonic missiles and cruise missiles turn the table? And if not this “battleship”, is there a place for a 20,000 - 25,000 ton large cruiser?

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We went through this in the late 40s, early 50s. See “Revolt of the Admirals”.
 
Randy Daytona said:
Interesting take from Ryan Szymanski. One of the big items is the sustainment in both strike and defense that a big ship can provide while smaller ships run out of missiles and/or fuel and must retire from the area, although perhaps the reload capability of VLS cells at sea will become normalized and alleviate that concern. And yes, the original design only shows 128 VLS cells, but the volume of the much bigger ship allows for growth, especially if the helicopter facilities are deleted.
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I would argue going the other way, with more less expensive ships and other launchers to 'distribute lethality' across a larger number of platforms making your strike capability more resilient to attack. A lot easier to hit 2 or 3 ships than a dozen augmented by land-based launchers spread out over many possible island bases.

And let's be realistic, the new 'battleships' may be laid down but I seriously doubt if even one hull ever touches the water.
 
Randy Daytona said:
Interesting take from Ryan Szymanski. One of the big items is the sustainment in both strike and defense that a big ship can provide while smaller ships run out of missiles and/or fuel and must retire from the area, although perhaps the reload capability of VLS cells at sea will become normalized and alleviate that concern. And yes, the original design only shows 128 VLS cells, but the volume of the much bigger ship allows for growth, especially if the helicopter facilities are deleted.

As Spekkio mentioned above, and I wondered about a decade ago in Ship Photo of the Day, would we see a return to non-aircraft carrier capital ships when technology improved? The carrier replaced the battleship 85 years ago when airplanes could outrange guns - have/will we reached the stage where hypersonic missiles and cruise missiles turn the table? And if not this “battleship”, is there a place for a 20,000 - 25,000 ton large cruiser?

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These things are essentially disposable. Fill the inside with flotation, make the containers the package, make sure they can float when the ship is sunk.

1028 TEU = 1,028 containers, and so on.

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123412131 said:
If the concern is sustained strike capacity, a carrier does that far better than the proposed BBG(X) design, which offers only a 33% increase in VLS cells over a modern DDG.
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False dichotomy. It's not an either / or decision.

Blue-water engagement against a gaggle of Renhais / Luyangs being different than a ship to shore strike package targeting key infrastructure.
 
Spekkio said:
False dichotomy. It's not an either / or decision.

Blue-water engagement against a gaggle of Renhais / Luyangs being different than a ship to shore strike package targeting key infrastructure.
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It is an either/or decision because the industrial base is already capacity-constrained and that won’t change until the US invests heavily in its shipyards. As it currently stands, we can opt for carrier strike capability or the BBG(X). If we wanted to do both, it would likely require tens of billions in expansion and modernization at Bath, Newport News, and Pascagoula, or else the program starts competing directly with CVN, LHA, DDG, submarine, and RCOH timelines.

The cost-benefit analysis if we’re designing this thing for surface combat against enemy ships doesn’t track either. For the cost of a single BBG(X) at the reported 12.6 billion dollars per vessel (a conservative estimate), China could produce 14 Type 055 destroyers. That’s 128 VLS cells vs 1568. That’s not an exchange ratio the United States Navy can accept in a far-east scenario, especially with our disadvantages in shipyard capacity. If we’re going off the Navy’s procurement timeline, with service entry likely in the late 2030s, that 14v1 number stops being hypothetical. At roughly two Type 055s per year during active production, China can get there inside the BBG(X) development window while still building other combatants in parallel at a rate we aren’t currently capable of matching.

As currently presented, it’s supposed to fill a niche where it’s a cost-ineffective replacement for roles a DDG or SSN already cover. We don’t need another surface combatant that fails to address the issues of operating under the threat of A2/AD missiles, least of all a 20 billion dollar one that’ll require manpower the navy just doesn’t have.
 
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