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

[Griz882]

True, in the South and Central Pacific the USA largely worked for a USN chain of command.

MacArthur had a large force that gets lost between Guadalcanal and the Philippines doing yeoman work in New Guinea. Frankly I know very little of that campaign as much of my interest has been on campaigns led by the USN.

“Terrible” Turner probably landed more soldiers across shore lines than Kruger (under McArthur) and certainly more than a thing the ETO saw. Pushing all of this back to the future (pardon the pun) it is clear that the Navy is key to any Pacific war strategy and Miley is right to know who will not just carry that fight, but carry ground fighters to that fight.

 

[wink]

My father in law, was an Army officer with commands in Vietnam and retired as an O-6. When he learned I was attending an Amphibious Warfare school (don't remember the actual course name) in Coronado he was keen to tell me all about the Army in WW II PTO and that he had even attended "Landing School" at Little Creek in the '50s.

 

[Randy Daytona]

Interesting article from DefenseOne

White House Shipbuilding Plan Would Shrink Ford Carrier Class Over Navy Objections

“The Trump administration is poised to unveil a 30-year shipbuilding blueprint calling for one less big-deck carrier but dozens more warships than previous fleet plans — a course critics say is unaffordable and would lead to massive cuts to the Air Force and Army.”

White House Shipbuilding Plan Would Shrink Ford Carrier Class Over Navy Objections

Critics say the bulked-up fleet plan would cut dangerously into Army, Air Force budgets — if Congress and the Biden administration followed it.

www.defenseone.com

 

[Randy Daytona]

Article on the size of China’s fleet. Although it takes a while to get to the parts about China’s fleet being smaller in tonnage and missile launch tubes, it is nevertheless quite an accomplishment in building a fleet so fast. What is particular interesting is their shipyards and ship building capacity.

China has built the world's largest navy. Now what's Beijing going to do with it?


In 2018, China held 40% of the world's shipbuilding market by gross tons, according to United Nations figures cited by the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, well ahead of second place South Korea at 25%.

China has built the world's largest navy. Now what's Beijing going to do with it? | CNN

At some point between 2015 and today, China has assembled the world's largest naval force. And now it's working to make it formidable far from its shores.

www.cnn.com

 

[Renegade One]

...30-year shipbuilding blueprint calling for one less big-deck carrier but dozens more warships than previous fleet plans...

Forget all about "1 less carrier and dozens more warships". Standby by heavy rolls...the DOD budget is likely to be a major bill-payer for, well, you know.

 

[Brett327]

Forget all about "1 less carrier and dozens more warships". Standby by heavy rolls...the DOD budget is likely to be a major bill-payer for, well, you know.

Remember that The DoD budget is the administration’s opening argument to Congress. What is proposed vs what gets authorized is often very different.

 

[Renegade One]

Remember that The DoD budget is the administration’s opening argument to Congress. What is proposed vs what gets authorized is often very different.

Budget...authorization...whatever. I still believe huge reductions are in store.

 

[Brett327]

Budget...authorization...whatever. I still believe huge reductions are in store.

Remember last year, when everyone got all excited because DoD budget submission called for decommissioning Truman and her CVW so they could save on the cost of RCOH? Congress said, no fucking way. Most of the seemingly draconian line item proposals will suffer the same fate.

 

[Renegade One]

Well, it's a new congress, and both houses...as well as the Executive branch... have made a shit-ton of campaign promises, all of which cost a metric buttload of money. Something has to be the offset. You appear to think that the CV/CVW numbers are some sort of sacred cow. I fear they (and much else) are instead "meat on the table". We'll see, I guess.

 

[BigRed389]

Well, it's a new congress, and both houses...as well as the Executive branch... have made a shit-ton of campaign promises, all of which cost a metric buttload of money. Something has to be the offset. You appear to think that the CV/CVW numbers are some sort of sacred cow. I fear they (and much else) are instead "meat on the table". We'll see, I guess.

I mean...yeah there's a $1.9T elephant in the room.
That said, it's not like deficit spending is a one party issue, both sides are miserably guilty of blowing out budgets to try to cram it all in.

Remains to be seen how it will play out, but I suspect that there will be bipartisan opposition in Congress from key states to chopping an entire CVN and CVW, that is a huge amount of local spending and jobs at risk otherwise.
That increased spending is also absolutely going to have DOD spending included in it. I wouldn't be surprised to see horse trading happen to float DOD requirements across the various stimulus programs and normal base budget to keep high priority stuff.

The bigger question in the longer term though should be whether 11 CVNs is the right answer at all, or if a different mix of CV types is the better one to support the spectrum of requirements.

 

[Brett327]

Well, it's a new congress, and both houses...as well as the Executive branch... have made a shit-ton of campaign promises, all of which cost a metric buttload of money. Something has to be the offset. You appear to think that the CV/CVW numbers are some sort of sacred cow. I fear they (and much else) are instead "meat on the table". We'll see, I guess.

From the content of your post, you don’t seem to have the first clue about how any of this works. Back in your cave, Spike.

 

[Randy Daytona]

I mean...yeah there's a $1.9T elephant in the room.
That said, it's not like deficit spending is a one party issue, both sides are miserably guilty of blowing out budgets to try to cram it all in.

Remains to be seen how it will play out, but I suspect that there will be bipartisan opposition in Congress from key states to chopping an entire CVN and CVW, that is a huge amount of local spending and jobs at risk otherwise.
That increased spending is also absolutely going to have DOD spending included in it. I wouldn't be surprised to see horse trading happen to float DOD requirements across the various stimulus programs and normal base budget to keep high priority stuff.

The bigger question in the longer term though should be whether 11 CVNs is the right answer at all, or if a different mix of CV types is the better one to support the spectrum of requirements.

Speaking of changing the mixture of CVN’s to light carriers, an article in Proceedings was recently published about possible changes:

A Case for Light Carriers

By Norman Polmar
March 2021. Proceedings. Vol. 147/3/1,417

A Case for Light Carriers

The U.S. Navy already has viable light carriers. It just needs to build more of them.

www.usni.org

 

[wink]

From the content of your post, you don’t seem to have the first clue about how any of this works. Back in your cave, Spike.

What he said is essentially true. Unless campaign promises are never kept, or we print all the money ever needed, or our society does not change it's priorities, I fail to see how something doesn't have to give. Splain for me please. If you just say campaign promises mean nothing and the new congress and administration will disregard them, fine, has happened plenty. I'd argue it was a factor in Trumps election. Think no one in the DEM party hasn't considered that?

 

[Brett327]

If you just say campaign promises mean nothing and the new congress and administration will disregard them, fine, has happened plenty.

While that is certainly true, the real principle at work here is that Congress is almost always more generous with DoD spending than even GOP administrations' proposals. This was true for GWB and DJT. Money for their districts will always win out. While I do think that there will be cuts to DoD, reading the DoD budget proposal, then freaking out over what's in it (like Spike did) belies a fundamental misunderstanding about how the budget process works. So, while the DoD budget proposal might call for cuts in programs X, Y and Z, the Congress typically says "not so fast, Mr Secretary."

 

[Notanaviator]

Speaking of changing the mixture of CVN’s to light carriers, an article in Proceedings was recently published about possible changes:

Just now read this, and especially toward the end when the author is making some pretty linear comparisons of how sorties/ordnance expended relate to crew size, it occurred to me that he may not be quite the expert his rather voluminous bio might suggest.

It did make me think of an exchange, maybe earlier in this thread, that really was enlightening in how if x delivers y capability, x/2 may not deliver y/2 capability, at least when it comes to the CVN/CVL conversation. Still an interesting topic though, but if the F-35 buy is going to take one for the team, and sounds like Navy and AF are both hedging for that, then it takes the wind out of the CVL sails a bit I’d imagine...