Woot! America's Navy #1 !

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Flubber


Even if they weren't particularly worried, wouldn't you still train train train. Perhaps this sub is good enough that it will be a real challenge . . . and if its not, the Americans could always challenge their sonar officers by eliminating some of their equipment and data

I'll let you in on a secret: That particular sub could be right underneath us, filled with Mexicans having a fiesta and firing six-shooters in the air, and we wouldn't hear it.


Training against the best, and all that.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Lonestar
You know Dis, for a nuke you sure are d-u-m. A carrier can "only" carry a few million gallons of Jet fuel. Well, so? It's planes can loiter over a battle field more. It's airwing is more expendable (expecially when it costs $1bil a pop for a B-2), and they can land, reload and refuel, and go. All without taking 20 hrs to fly from The States or 10hrs from Diego Garcia.

yes, but as the article states. The navy can only loiter because of air force refueling tankers. Navy aircraft burn through fuel very fast.

[Seeker]

They're newly worried because of a recent Persian Gulf wargame simulating a carrier supported amphibious attack on Iran, in which the US soldier playing the Iranians sunk all kinds of carriers 'on paper' using only small boats and civilian aircraft by gathering them and having them attack all at once with ASMs.

He got almost ALL of them, totally overwhelming the automatic light cannons which are supposed to defend them.

There's an article about it somewhere, the 'Iranian' CO got a little full of himself though, a suicide wave attack in reality wouldn't be a clockwork operation.

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Dis


yes, but as the article states. The navy can only loiter because of air force refueling tankers. Navy aircraft burn through fuel very fast.

Not nessecarily, and the the other selling point of Carriers over USAF planes is that we can have a viable airwing in the area quicker,and we won't have to worry about whether or not Qatar is going to let u stage out of their country.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Dis


*cough*recent (2001) war in Afghanistan*cough*

You need something for that bad cough - it even shows in your typing.

Exactly how many carriers was active and was not replaceable of land based air units ?

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by BlackCat


You need something for that bad cough - it even shows in your typing.

Exactly how many carriers was active and was not replaceable of land based air units ?

I believe it was 6, because, you know, the facilities in the surrounding countries were crap the USAF.

One of the Carriers operated as the HQ for our special forces, though.

[DeathByTheSword]

aircraft carriers still have good uses and anti-ship missiles are over estimated OR systems like AEGIS are under estimated...

remember that everybody said that AA guns would be obsolete after the invention of the jet engine?....why is it that the US, UK, Russia, China and even the netherlands have there own radar guided AAgun everywhere...because they still work...planes can deviate course....but missiles fly a almost straight course use a computer to calculat speed, hight and direction...calculated how fast your own bullets are and just pump a lot of exploding lead in a the general area and the missile is down...it has been tested and it works against most of the now a day missiles...some russian missiles will create real problems but those are still only in russian hands...(RUSSIA AND ROCKET TECHNOLOGY )

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Spiffor

Depends. Here's what I consider "decadent" in your society:
- your militarism
- your large swathes of holier-than-thou "family values" people
- your constant striving for an enemy
- your absurd paranoia when it comes to domestic safety (war on drugs)
- your terrible lack of public help toward the poor and the destitute

But I think it's not the meaning we often attribute to "decadence" I would suspect that most people who yell that America is decadent (be they Phelps or Bin Laden) hate the idea of a country where gay people can live a fulfilling lovelife, where the law of the jungle is tamed, where problems are solved with thought intead of the immediate use of force.

That's the kind of decadence I wish for you Yanks. And I think that dropping the militarism and the constant striving for an enemy will help you achieve it.

Oscar Wilde's little quip though was uttered at the end of the 19th century, when the US had one of the smallest militaries on the planet. On the other hand his own country and its European buddies were engaged in a veritable orgy of militarism, chauvinism and empire building, enjoying repeated rounds of anti-semitism and pogorms, building alliances to defend themselves against the consequences of their own crimes against humanity, screwinmg their own workers in ways most American capitalists could only dream of, and using their state owned churches to remind the people that they were God's designated choisen on Earth.

So really, who cares what Oscar said?

Oh, and by the way, does anyone know what Oscar's dying words were?

[Joseph]

Originally posted by Lonestar
You know Dis, for a nuke you sure are d-u-m. A carrier can "only" carry a few million gallons of Jet fuel. Well, so? It's planes can loiter over a battle field more. It's airwing is more expendable (expecially when it costs $1bil a pop for a B-2), and they can land, reload and refuel, and go. All without taking 20 hrs to fly from The States or 10hrs from Diego Garcia.

The B-2 had to fly 36 hours from Mo. to target and back. Petty tuff on the 2 man crew.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Spiffor

Depends. Here's what I consider "decadent" in your society:
- your militarism
- your large swathes of holier-than-thou "family values" people
- your constant striving for an enemy
- your absurd paranoia when it comes to domestic safety (war on drugs)
- your terrible lack of public help toward the poor and the destitute

But I think it's not the meaning we often attribute to "decadence" I would suspect that most people who yell that America is decadent (be they Phelps or Bin Laden) hate the idea of a country where gay people can live a fulfilling lovelife, where the law of the jungle is tamed, where problems are solved with thought intead of the immediate use of force.

That's the kind of decadence I wish for you Yanks. And I think that dropping the militarism and the constant striving for an enemy will help you achieve it.

I would also add in the reckless consumerism.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by Lonestar

Incidently, the US Navy is very worried about the proliferation of diesel subs in the worlds' navies. So worried that We're paying the Swedes to keep a Sub in San Diego so we can train against it. .


The answer to the "OMFG iTS Teh SUBS !!!11!!!!!!111!!!1" is TRAIN, TRAIN, TRAIN.

Our new Collins class subs have sunk the flagship (a carrier) of the US fleet more than once in the last few years in the pac rim wargames.

[Mr. Harley]

Carriers project power, as stated before. For attcking another country's conventional forces, they are the top of the food chain, both in effectiveness, and expense. except for Boomers, Submarines are primarily platforms for destroying the other sides ships. You essentially have the same arms race as occured during and before WW1, i.e. torpedo boats and dreadnoughts.

Submarines are relatively inexpensive, compared to carriers, and they can do tremendous amounts of damage, though I suspect that a modern US Supercarrier could take four torpedo hits on the same side. However, I do not know the current state-of-the-art targeting tech, and if four 21 inch torpedoes detonated under the hull of a modern US CVN - I don't know if that could become lethal, but the carrier would definitely be f*cked.

Thanks for the link on the SLQ-32. I did a little checking, and the Iranians are indeed attempting to aquire the
SS-N-22, or the Sunburn, as well as the SS-NX-26 Yakhonts. In fact there are several indications they already have them. As the SLQ-32 program, and it's decoys, are NOT available yet - that leaves US ships in a constricted area with highly effective anti-ship missiles in the hands of our likely advesaries, the Iranians. I for one am very uncomfortable about that.

Plus the Chinese DO have them, a little research showed that they have now purchased the launch platforms, Russian Sovremenny class, and are taking delivery on two improved versions in 2005-2006. This also almost guarantees that the Chinese will be making copies over the next decade, often with improved electronics purchased from the European armament industry. We have ourselves another arms race, something that I will find very technically interesting, and very sad. Decoys and smart Mach 2-3 missiles capable of "violent end maneveurs" - it sounds like Honor Harrington.

Actually, I was worried about the Serbians engaging in commericial warfare against the US back in the 1990's. Take their submarine across the Atlantic and take out one or two Supertankers off the US Gulf Coast. They'd get killed, but the cost to the US economy for several monstrous oil spills would have made a point. If they could have kept a second one out there and hidden, the resulting panic would have given them a very good bargaining chip.

[binTravkin]

Actually one poster (forget which) in this thread made very good point which noone seem to care:

The question is not whether that or other thing is gonna hit or hit hard, but the question is how much it will cost.

US has suffered very little actual military capital losses due to losing large equipment units like ships, subs, tanks and aircraft.
And they've been building that capital up on the basis it won't get destroyed, only wounded at worst.

If suddenly there appeared to be force which will be able to destroy at least one of US carriers or subs, it would be such a hit to it's military budget and economy overall to replace the unit, that it alone would convince many people inside US to vote against war.

If there were consecutive blows (like sunking 2 or 3 large ships or say some hundreds of airplanes), it would ruin US economy to even disengage the war without a clear loss.

Alas, the difference between any US military unit (be that a carrier or an infantry unit) and any of it's adversaries in most other countries lies in cost and cost efficency.


If you purchase a bunch of cheap infantry mounted AA rockets, make a squad which can disperse (in groups of 2-3 persons - carrier, loader, guard) in a city which is likely to be attacked by US marines and then just wait while a copter loaded with personell flies overheads, you're likely to put down something which costs millions of US dollars with an equipment worth only thousands.


It is good to have all those shiny thingies (and I don't believe AEGIS would work in a real battle as it's a CPU after all and one error would most likely mean the death to entire ship) to show others and say - see what I have, but when it comes to some real warring they simply are not cost effective enough.


Also - the point about Bush showing "the safe path" to countries which want to escape any US influence or the path to nukes is very good.
I am not a politician and before Iraq war I had not thought about the importancy of nukes.

Before / and during the war I also read about the Iran's progress and Korean nukes and it made me understand that the willingness of a country to develop a nuclear weapon is proportional to US agresiveness.
I mean, now it's obvious even to a common citizen.

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse


Our new Collins class subs have sunk the flagship (a carrier) of the US fleet more than once in the last few years in the pac rim wargames.

No doubt. The RAN is very profiecent(sic).

Incidently, we had a Chilean sub sink us when we were doing exercises right before deployment. Actually, it snuck up, raised it's periscope, took a picture of the fantail (it was so close you could read the name of the sailor smoking in the pic), went away for 30 min, then the Chilean sub skipper emailed the pic to our skipper.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Lonestar


I'll let you in on a secret: That particular sub could be right underneath us, filled with Mexicans having a fiesta and firing six-shooters in the air, and we wouldn't hear it.

That doesn't suprise me. Carriers are very noisy and right beneath one strikes me as a very desirable place for a sub to hide.

My understanding of carrier vs sub was that the carrier will rely on specialized antisubmarine shipping and helicoptors-- and that the best antisub tool in the arsenal is the USN's own submarines-- Once an enemy sub is inside the screen, its big advantage to the sub. The key as I understand it is keeping them out or detecting their approach.