HM community

[hscs]

How long would it take to get a ship with mine clearing capabilities half way around the world by sea vs how long could you pack up helicopters with capability and airlift them into theater.

Ship - 27 days @ 15 kts for 10k nm

Airlift - 90 day min lead time to tell AMC you need airlift.
Add 30 days for USN to find $ to pay for said airlift and argue with AMC about priority
Add 5 days for when airlift plane goes 'down' in Rota or Guam when a crew member finds the love of his life
Add 10 days to rebuild big Iron and FCF

My cynicism puts $ on the ship winning

 

[zippy]

Ship - 27 days @ 15 kts for 10k nm

Airlift - 90 day min lead time to tell AMC you need airlift.
Add 30 days for USN to find $ to pay for said airlift and argue with AMC about priority
Add 5 days for when airlift plane goes 'down' in Rota or Guam when a crew member finds the love of his life
Add 10 days to rebuild big Iron and FCF

My cynicism puts $ on the ship winning

Find me mine hunter that can do 15kts with an endurance great then 15 days at sea first... you'll still have the same delays for the Navy scrounging money to find ships to transport the mine hunters, so realistically even when the airlift crew goes med down for 2 weeks mid trip from visiting the whore house on their last RON the helos are probably going to get to theater sooner.

 

[Jim123]

Great... this devolved into a "who sucks worse" thread.

 

[Pags]

Find me mine hunter that can do 15kts with an endurance great then 15 days at sea first... you'll still have the same delays for the Navy scrounging money to find ships to transport the mine hunters, so realistically even when the airlift crew goes med down for 2 weeks mid trip from visiting the whore house on their last RON the helos are probably going to get to theater sooner.

Hence why all the MCM ships are forward deployed. Along with dets from the HM squadrons.

 

[hscs]

Find me mine hunter that can do 15kts with an endurance great then 15 days at sea first... you'll still have the same delays for the Navy scrounging money to find ships to transport the mine hunters, so realistically even when the airlift crew goes med down for 2 weeks mid trip from visiting the whore house on their last RON the helos are probably going to get to theater sooner.

Agreed - even at 10 kts, you still get there in 42 days. And yes, OPNAV needs to find $ for gas, but OPNAV will know exactly what they will pay for. I don't know fuel burn of a minesweeper but I bet the fuel cost will be less than the cost to send 3 x MH53s via airlift. As mentioned, many of these ships are forward deployed.

Also, even though an aircraft can sweep at a much faster speed - a ship doesn't have to come off station every couple of hours.

Airlift is not as easy as everyone thinks. AMC has absurd scheduling and priority rules that includes the customer paying the price of the airlift with the customer being at the mercy of what AMC gives them. This includes paying 'dead head' costs - so you pay for a C17 to fly from the west coast / Hawaii even though the ramp at Charleston or Dover is filled with available a/c. Costs to send 3 x MH53s OTH could run well beyond $3M just to get the planes to theater.

I'll still put my money on the ship.

 

[Uncle Fester]

And like I said, when-if a US flag ship hits a mine in a critical SLOC...

 

[Pags]

Agreed - even at 10 kts, you still get there in 42 days. And yes, OPNAV needs to find $ for gas, but OPNAV will know exactly what they will pay for. I don't know fuel burn of a minesweeper but I bet the fuel cost will be less than the cost to send 3 x MH53s via airlift. As mentioned, many of these ships are forward deployed.

Also, even though an aircraft can sweep at a much faster speed - a ship doesn't have to come off station every couple of hours.

Airlift is not as easy as everyone thinks. AMC has absurd scheduling and priority rules that includes the customer paying the price of the airlift with the customer being at the mercy of what AMC gives them. This includes paying 'dead head' costs - so you pay for a C17 to fly from the west coast / Hawaii even though the ramp at Charleston or Dover is filled with available a/c. Costs to send 3 x MH53s OTH could run well beyond $3M just to get the planes to theater.

I'll still put my money on the ship.

You can always put HM on a ship and would likely want to for real world ops to decrease transit time and increase time in the field. I know HM was always envisioned as a user of ESB.

 

[Pags]

And like I said, when-if a US flag ship hits a mine in a critical SLOC...

 

[fc2spyguy]

Ship - 27 days @ 15 kts for 10k nm

Airlift - 90 day min lead time to tell AMC you need airlift.
Add 30 days for USN to find $ to pay for said airlift and argue with AMC about priority
Add 5 days for when airlift plane goes 'down' in Rota or Guam when a crew member finds the love of his life
Add 10 days to rebuild big Iron and FCF

My cynicism puts $ on the ship winning

Uhh, definitely not a 90 day minimum on an AMC lift. You do get a discount outside of thirty days though! And if you get PRI 1 I guarantee you're going to get the lift that you need. . .

 

[RobLyman]

I hate to throw a grenade in the room and leave, but some of these arguments are so ludicrous. I was the mine warfare officer on a CCDG staff and thus went to mine warfare school. I wasn't an HM pilot, but I did pay attention in class.

Yes, there are MIW assets forward deployed. There is a good reason for that. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses, which I won't discuss on here (both because of the sensitivity and because its been a LONG time sense I was even in the Navy, much less doing MIW).

 

[zippy]

You just qualified to be the Mine Warfare Officer on a staff tour. LOL

Thanks JMTC!

 

[kookylukey]

Little revive of this thread, since they are trying to accelerate the retirement of the 53. From what I can gather by asking around/news articles is that the unmanned will take over mine counter measures? Has there been any talk of the Navy getting the 53K? Seems to sort of be the same case here as with the EP-3, they're trying to retire it, but there's no real working replacement yet.

Since there is such a high chance of getting helos in flight school, really want to have the most up to date info I can get.

 

[SynixMan]

Little revive of this thread, since they are trying to accelerate the retirement of the 53. From what I can gather by asking around/news articles is that the unmanned will take over mine counter measures? Has there been any talk of the Navy getting the 53K? Seems to sort of be the same case here as with the EP-3, they're trying to retire it, but there's no real working replacement yet.

Since there is such a high chance of getting helos in flight school, really want to have the most up to date info I can get.

Even if they delay it again, don't go to a dying community. If you get helos, HSM, HSC, HM in that order, with some coast preference.

 

[croakerfish]

Little revive of this thread, since they are trying to accelerate the retirement of the 53. From what I can gather by asking around/news articles is that the unmanned will take over mine counter measures? Has there been any talk of the Navy getting the 53K? Seems to sort of be the same case here as with the EP-3, they're trying to retire it, but there's no real working replacement yet.

Since there is such a high chance of getting helos in flight school, really want to have the most up to date info I can get.

Expeditionary HSC is currently taking on the mission. As far as what that will actually look like I’m not sure. I don’t think we’ll have all the capabilities of HM but I am the farthest thing from knowledgeable about it.
If you do end up at HM when it sundowns expect to be sent HSC for your DH tour or else redesignate to VRM or something. Or drowned like a sack of puppies at the DH board. That happens too.

 

[ChuckMK23]

Great... this devolved into a "who sucks worse" thread.

I was there at NHA when the HM folks bragged about their "self deploy" capability via C-130 AAR over the pond. What a joke. HM should have been shuttered long ago. HC did more real world contribution with the airframes than HM ever did with exception of End Sweep in the 70's.