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

[sevenhelmet]

By destroying all of the old stock of 16” shells in 2016, what performance would a new 2,700 lb shell have? (quite a bit)

Just like the long-range land attack projectile (Zumwalt gun ammo), and probably in similar production numbers. Zero.

 

[CommodoreMid]

We're not making a 2,700 pound shell. I'm coining a new term... nostalgia-baiting. It's like click bait, but with more masturbation.

I was having a good night. We were all having a good night.

 

[Brett327]

You’re lucky I self-censored the NSFW portion of my post as originally written.

 

[number9]

We're not making a 2,700 pound shell. I'm coining a new term... nostalgia-baiting. It's like click bait, but with more masturbation.

Brett, would you say that you're a master baiter?

 

[Brett327]

Brett, would you say that you're a master baiter?

In this context, I’m really more of a John H. Kellogg figure.

 

[taxi1]

These things aren’t full autonomous unless we are prepared to put a lot more compute, power, and cost into them.

Oh, it’s coming, the computing and power, while keeping costs down.

Great article in NYTimes, open access.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/magazine/ukraine-ai-drones-war-russia.html?rsrc=flt&unlocked_article_code=1.BVA._-0o.iGpcs9M5-nU-&smid=url-share

From the article…

Her alarm sounded after American veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq visited Ukraine to prospect for business or fight as volunteers. They entered a war in which new tech has caused almost unfathomable carnage. Russia and Ukraine have suffered well over a million combined casualties in less than four years, with most wounds caused by drones. “They come back from the front, like, shaken,” she said, and they share a refrain: “My team would not last for 48 hours out there.” With A.I.-enhanced drones joining the action, Fairlamb described the need to boost A.I.-arms development as no less than existential, prompting her to approach embassies and arms manufacturers with urgency. “It really and truly is about making people understand how dramatically different this technology is,” she said. “And how unbelievably unprepared the United States is.”

 

[Griz882]

In this context, I’m really more of a John H. Kellogg figure.

“An erection is a flagpole on your grave.”
The Road to Wellville

 

[Randy Daytona]

I could see a use case for this thing as the primary escort for the CVN. There are many threats out there that now handily outrange the air wing and can also bypass the defensive layer it provides the CSG. I mean, I’m not saying it’ll actually be technically feasible (either technology or industrial capacity), or that it will even be the most cost effective way to provide its capability. Just that it has a potential use case if it worked out. As I told a friend, this thing is either uniquely brilliant vision, or the most fucking batshit crazy idea ever.

Nuclear cruise missiles as a primary mission is kinda nuts though. If we are going to have one in the Navy arsenal, from a sub it makes sense. Even off FFGs or DDGs it could let them punch above their weight. But from a BBG? It’ll carry super long range hypersonics but then be stuck with a nuclear cruise missile with less range? As is, that makes no sense.

The historical example that comes to mind is the USS North Carolina guarding the Enterprise at the Battle of Eastern Solomons in August 1942. The “Showboat” was able to bring to bear so much sustained AA firepower that the other ships thought she had been hit and was burning.

A big ship should have much larger magazines and a substantially longer range than the Burkes and Ticonderogas - important if ammunition and fuel resupply are problematic. That said, I would expect the design to ditch the hangar (this thing wouldn’t hunt submarines) and the newly created space to be filled with VLS - a ship of this size should have in excess of 300 cells.

 

[Brett327]

substantially longer range than the Burkes and Ticonderogas

Without a nuke powerplant, seems like the opposite would be true.