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

From our SWO and SWO adjacent folks, I'm curious what the argument is to man/train/equip a distinct FFG platform. Does it have different capabilities than our DDGs? Is it a cost vs capacity thing? Not to be reductivist here, but what's the relative cost per VLS tube for these platforms? Bottom line, why not just have more DDGs?
 
Brett327 said:
From our SWO and SWO adjacent folks, I'm curious what the argument is to man/train/equip a distinct FFG platform. Does it have different capabilities than our DDGs? Is it a cost vs capacity thing? Not to be reductivist here, but what's the relative cost per VLS tube for these platforms? Bottom line, why not just have more DDGs?
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Because DDGs are too damn expensive. They’re over twice what the FFG was supposed to cost. But you get less than half the VLS cells so…maybe? But capability wise…no, DDGs are just far more capable across the board. They also need about 50% more crew than a FFG.

In a purely CSG centric battle, DDG makes more sense. You want the best shooters, with the best sensors and networks, with the most VLS cells as missiles are flying around everywhere and everything and everybody really wants to fucking kill the carrier and everybody on it.

As you get to more distributed naval operations, and also operations below the level of a shooting war (eg presence ops) the FFG starts to make sense when needing more hulls also really matters.

Was the FFG62 design the right level of capability and bang for the buck? No idea. But an all DDG Fleet stirs up something like the old F15/F16 hi/lo mix argument.
 
BigRed389 said:
Because DDGs are too damn expensive. They’re over twice what the FFG was supposed to cost. But you get less than half the VLS cells so…maybe? But capability wise…no, DDGs are just far more capable across the board. They also need about 50% more crew than a FFG.

In a purely CSG centric battle, DDG makes more sense. You want the best shooters, with the best sensors and networks, with the most VLS cells as missiles are flying around everywhere and everything and everybody really wants to fucking kill the carrier and everybody on it.

As you get to more distributed naval operations, and also operations below the level of a shooting war (eg presence ops) the FFG starts to make sense when needing more hulls also really matters.

Was the FFG62 design the right level of capability and bang for the buck? No idea. But an all DDG Fleet stirs up something like the old F15/F16 hi/lo mix argument.
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I knew you'd have something thoughtful to say. I'm convinced. Appreciate it!
 
ChuckMK23 said:
What a dumpster fire. Our acquisition process across the board just sucks. First the debacle with LCS and now this.
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Don’t forget the Zumwalts….

I wonder how much is an acquisition problem and how much is the lack of institutional shipbuilding knowledge beginning when Reagan and Wall Street failed to protect and subsidize that vital industry in the name of free trade?
 
Well, only 42% of the S-3s…..just kidding.

Would say that there’s a major change in what we build now. Suspect bigger changes right now.

We bought those DDG1ks and the new frigates, but nothing seems to hold weight. It’s just an updated system.

I’ll go crazy enough to say that if we had a simpler transmission system on the LCS ships, some VLS tubes, and some rudimentary radar/sensors (SPQ9, sonar), we may be in better shape.

We need to get out of the SWO mentality of adding more PMS to ships, when we need less. We have way too much of it. The H60 increased phase hours by 33% in about 15 years. Why have the SWOs gone the other way?
 
Lawman said:
So how far along to completion are the 2x Hulls they decided to not cut?

Seems like 2x ships of a unique class are going to be a sustainment and training drag on themselves even if they are admittedly a lot less complicated projects.
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Not far. Quoted number is roughly 10%.

And yes, this is going to be a shitshow.
At best they’ll be test beds or other experimental platforms. Which we actually really legitimately need too, but this is an ass backwards way to get there.
 
Randy Daytona said:
Don’t forget the Zumwalts….

I wonder how much is an acquisition problem and how much is the lack of institutional shipbuilding knowledge beginning when Reagan and Wall Street failed to protect and subsidize that vital industry in the name of free trade?
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I’d call it more of a capacity problem.

Some stuff still chugs along. DDG51 is basically looking like it’ll be the fucking B52 of the surface force. We do ok and doing the old stuff or moderate changes to the old stuff.

We really suck at doing new hard shit. Especially anything substantially different. You need PMs and senior engineers (who report to programs not nebulous “tech warrants”) who are empowered to ruthlessly squash all of the silo owners who will come out of the woodwork trying to bog shit down. We don’t question our “requirements” enough. Just my opinion.
 
BigRed389 said:
We really suck at doing new hard shit. Especially anything substantially different. You need PMs and senior engineers (who report to programs not nebulous “tech warrants”) who are empowered to ruthlessly squash all of the silo owners who will come out of the woodwork trying to bog shit down. We don’t question our “requirements” enough. Just my opinion.
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Kelly Johnson really nailed it:

“Starve before doing business with the damned Navy. They don't know what the hell they want and will drive you up a wall before they break either your heart or a more exposed part of your anatomy.”
 
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