Carrier Navy. Fixing the fleet...first...lets dump the LCS!

The LCS.
  
We have to look back a bit on this one.

The US Navy has suffered probably more than any service during this war on terror.  Not from a deployment stand point (they've been as busy as ever), not from a personnel standpoint but from a "reason for being" standpoint.

The US Army and Marine Corps has been busy on land fighting our nations battles.  The USAF has been in the air supporting those efforts...The Navy has been looking for a role.  While looking for relevance during the past decade they lost sight of their reason for being...that is they forgot that the primary mission is to defeat our nations enemies at sea.

The LCS is suppose to fight the at sea version of counter insurgency.

It sounds good in theory...especially when you had Bush Administration officials talking about generational warfare.  That theory gave way to a savage fact.  Counter insurgency/nation building didn't work on land and its doubtful that it could work at sea.

Luckily for the US Navy, the situation off the coast of Africa provided a test bed for the sea borne version of counter insurgency with a mix of pirate and terrorist activity.  Even without the LCS the tools were plentiful, the will to use them to effect lacking.

This all leads to my belief that the LCS is a ship without a mission.

In my scenario where the Carrier Battle Group was under attack, the LCS could play no role.  At best it could steam to the scene and pick up survivors.  That's all it could contribute.

And now the US Navy is about to build around 55 of these ships!  Ships that add nothing to the Navy's combat power, can only show the flag and specialize in a mission set that has been abandoned.  The Navy should dump this puppy today and focus on winning the nation's wars at sea.  This should be fix number one.  

Next.  Fixing the airwing.

F-35B BF-18 First Flight

Lockheed Martin test pilot Al Norman flew F-35B BF-18 (US Navy Bureau Number 168314) on its inaugural flight on 8 August 2012 from NAS Fort Worth JRB, Texas.

31st MEU Helicopter Company raids urban combat facility

Our Afghan Allies killed 3 MORE NATO Troops.

Geez.

How many of our guys have to get shot, blown up and killed/injured in that God forsaken country?

Fuck Afghanistan.

Check this out from CNN.

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A man in civilian clothing opened fire on a base shared with Afghan forces, killing three NATO troops, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force said Saturday.

Soldiers detained the gunman shortly after the shooting Friday night, said Maj. Martyn Crighton of the ISAF Joint Command.

ISAF believes the accused gunman was a civilian employee on the base, though the shooting is still under investigation, he said.

The international coalition did not release the nationalities of the soldiers and details about the shooting, including the location.

It was the second shooting Friday targeting NATO troops in Afghanistan.

Yeah.

If its starting to blur together, the timeline goes like this.

A Command SGTMajor and the people with him were killed in a suicide bombing early this week.  Then you had 3 SOCOM personnel lured to a lunch and shot dead...and now you have the shooting on a base.

I'm being profane and redundant.

FUCK AFGHANISTAN.  Time to go.

UTAS Shotgun. Its real and for sale!

When I first saw this shotgun all I could say to myself was "hmm pretty good for vaporware...we'll never see it for sale."

I was wrong.  Last night while I was surfing the web trying to find good prices on a thousand rounds of 9mm ammo (Lucky Gunner still has the best prices), I happened across the Atlantic Firearms website and what did I see?  The UTAS Shotgun for $1200.00!  Amazing!

Blast from the past. Ithacus VTVL SSTO Troop Carrier (1966)

Meet the original Starship Trooper Concept.  The Ithacus Troop Carrier!

What's interesting and slightly amusing are the concept photos that show it being deployed from an aircraft carrier!  Why they would need to move an suborbital vehicle around by carrier is beyond me but I'm assuming it had to do with increasing time to target....either way though it would be one wild ride.  Astronaut wings instead of jump wings would have to be issued.  Info from Astronautix.

American SSTO VTOVL orbital launch vehicle. An adaptation of Phillip Bono's enormous ROMBUS plug-nozzle semi-single-stage-orbit launch vehicle as a 1,200 soldier intercontinental troop transport!! The recoverable vehicle would re-enter, using its actively-cooled plug nozzle as a heat shield.
Douglas also proposed a military VTVL SSTO for transporting troops and cargo -- the "Ithacus." The Ithacus plan was apparently inspired by general Wallace M. Greene, who proposed a rapid-strike batallion of 1200 soldiers. These "rocket commandos" would have been deployed by an intercontinental rocket so the need for overseas US Army bases might be greatly reduced. The gigantic 6400-tonne "Ithacus Sr." was supposed to serve this strategic need.
The basic configuration was very similar to ROMBUS, i.e. eight hydrogen drop tanks + rocket-powered vertical landing using a plug-nozzle aerospike engine. The landed weight would have been about 500t. One of the biggest problem was returning the 64m tall vehicle back to the launch site… Self-ferry was out of the question since the rocket would have produced a liftoff thrust of 80200KN -- way too high without a custom-built launch pad with sound suppression, water cooling etc.. Shorter "hops" of a few hundred kilometers would however have been possible so the plan was to fly the partially fueled vehicle to a coastal harbor. Ithacus Sr. would be transported by a Saturn-type "crawler" onto a barge for return to the United States.
The smaller "Ithacus Jr." version would have had an intercontinental cargo capability of 33.5t or 260 soldiers. Douglas proposed to launch two Ithacus Jr. vehicles from an Enterprise-class nuclear aircraft carrier, which also would have produced liquid oxygen and hydrogen propellant from seawater. Power for the electrolysis process would have been taken from the carrier's nuclear reactor: 112MW would have been required to produce 1150t of oxygen and 164t of hydrogen from 1470t of water. The rocketships would be stored inside hangars. One Ithacus Jr. would serve as a troop carrier while the other would deploy unmanned cargo to the same military site. The Ithacus Jr. vehicles would land 600 meters apart to deploy a fully armed group of 260 soldiers.
LEO Payload: 450,000 kg (990,000 lb) to a 185 km orbit at 28.00 degrees.
AKA: Ithacus Senior.
Status: Study 1966.
Gross mass: 6,363,000 kg (14,028,000 lb).
Payload: 450,000 kg (990,000 lb).
Height: 64.00 m (209.00 ft).
Diameter: 24.00 m (78.00 ft).
Thrust: 80,230.00 kN (18,036,420 lbf).
Apogee: 185 km (114 mi).

Contractors model...fantastic plastic modelling site states that they will be selling a model of this concept this fall...plastic modellers...they're doing as much to save aviation history as the Smithsonian!

Vengeance in Afghanistan

Carrier Navy. A bad day gets worse. Here come the heavies!

The current issue of the USNI Proceedings (1) reports that China has reached a deal to license-produce Tu-22M Backfire bombers.  The arrangement will initially result in 36 bombers which is regimental strength from the old Soviet days and was believed to be the amount needed to defeat a US Navy carrier group...via Navy Matters Blog

36 Backfire Bombers.

Old word tech updated with modern weapons.

The Chinese are launching a MAX EFFORT strike to take out one of our carriers.  We've seen a couple of Regiments of SU-27 (family) Strike Fighters...we've seen Fast Attack Missile boats...we've seen subs...and we've seen the J-20's.

But if there is any airplane that should chill the blood of the Commander of a Carrier Battle Group, it should be a Backfire Bomber loaded with the latest anti-ship missiles produced by the Russian military.

That's exactly what's headed toward our mythical fleet in the Pacific.  They've been shrugging off body blows all day.  They've seen almost half their escorts taken down by those irritating J-20's that seemed to be going after them(!) instead of the carrier...and now we have the march of the mega predator of sea strike.

F-22's have been scrambled and the Air Force has instructed the pilots to shake the planes apart if they have to but to get to the scene as soon as possible.  Same goes for the train of Tankers that will be needed to refuel them.  The carrier has put up every airplane it has and is trying to work out a refueling schedule.  Full missile loadouts are being carried by the F-18's so while they have an impressive load out of 12 AIM-120D's apiece they don't have any extra space for spare gas....F-35's are also roaring to the area to do their part and a couple of America Class LHA's are making rooster tails in the water trying to get to the location.

But its too late.

The Backfire Bombers launch at distance.

The remaining escorts knock down half the incoming missiles.

The airwing along with the early arriving F-22's knock down another quarter

Only 5 missiles hit.  But they hit at the waterline and between the blasts from the missiles, the secondary explosion from munitions carried onboard and the lack of training in damage control, its obvious in 5 minutes that all is lost.

Our carrier sailed into dangerous waters.  It poked the dragon and the dragon bit back.

4000 Sailors are missing and presumed dead.

The pride of a nation sits at the bottom of the Pacific.

The President's popularity rating plumments, the Secretary of Defense resigns, as does the Secretary of State.

The war has just begun but we're already behind the 8-ball.

NOTE:

The point of all this (as I've said before) is to illustrate what I see as the composition of the Carrier Battle Group being outdated.  Tommorrow I will post how this battle should have gone with a robust Air-Sea and LAND battle integrated into planning...how a LHA acting as a Sea Control Ship could have made a difference, why we should disperse F-22 basing and why the USN should get fully onboard stealth and electronic attack.  Oh and finally why the LCS should be terminated post haste and replaced with an anti-air frigate.

3 US Marines (MARSOC) killed.

Some points...

1.  MARSOC and the Marine Corps are hesitant to identify these "soldiers" as Marines.  Why?
2.  Green on Blue attacks are becoming accepted.  No outrage.  No headlines.  Just another uncomfortable fact of life.
3.  SOCOM is going to have an interesting time once the Conventional forces leave.  They will be tested like never before.
4.  SOCOM has to somehow get back onboard the training mission.  Every unit involved is Raider first, trainer somewhere down the line.  This is going to be a hard slug culturally...especially with the SOCOM Commander being from the Raiding not Training camp.

Task Force Jaguar. Apache.

The journalist lost focus.  It had been a nice series with the focus on what each airplane brought to the fight but when she got to the Apache she focused on the maintenance section.

24th MEU. 120mm Mortar Live Fire.

Udairi Range Live Fire Tank Training

Carrier Navy. The undetected threat. Now enter the J-20's.

The story continues.  And remember this is just fiction.  It occurs at a future time (say 5 to 20 years from now) with the idea that US defense spending will at best remain static, at worse decline.

So with that cleared up. 

Now enter the J-20's...or I should say the J-20's will be leading the fight against our Carrier Battle Group in this scenario.

A two ship formation of J-20's flew ahead of the main force of SU-27 fighters to locate and provide targeting information.  The Chinese are nothing but thorough. The J-20's on the surveillance mission are really redundant.  They have purposefully placed their space station in orbit to remain over the Pacific ocean.  Chinese Astronauts wear two hats.  Scientist and Military Intel Specialist.  They have been keeping tabs  on the US carrier since it left Pearl Harbor.  Additionally they have a constellation of spy sats that are equipped with one mission in mind.  Maritime surveillance.

The J-20's are the vanguard of a group of 40 others that are headed to the CBG.

The mission.

Destroy the Escorts.

The good news for the Chinese and the bad news for our guys is this.  The Chinese have been eating our lunch for years.  Not only do they have a network of spies inside both our defense industry and government  but they have also penetrated our computer systems.

Because of this the Chinese have improved the coatings on the J-20.  When we developed stealth pods to carry missiles externally on the F-35 and F-22, the Chinese simply helped themselves to the information that we labored to produce.

The J-20 fly high and fast.  They've been vectored by sats and the space station.  Once they've located the prey they relay that information to the follow on strikers.

The strike J-20's benefiting from the improvements follow the same flight path.  The Burke's pick up intermittent reflections and fighters are scrambled just in case. 

Now that the CBG has been located the Recon J-20's pull back.  Its up to the strikers now.  They're coming head on to the Burke's providing cover and since the J-20's frontal cross section is where this airplane is stealthiest they never pick them up.

The J-20's launch at distance...mere minutes before the other parts of the strike package let off.

The Burke's are good...but the Chinese only have to be lucky.

This was a heavy escort group.  It had 10 Burke's assigned to the CBG.

After the J-20's are finished only 5 remain.  The opening salvo of this mythical conflict cost the US 1500 sailors dead, 900 wounded and recovered and 400 missing.

This is the beginning of a very bad day for our carrier.

LEMV First Flight

Breaking! Aerial release of weapons from F-35!

From the Fraternal Order of United States Marines.

This is much more like it!  Wish more Marine Generals talked this way!

C-130XJ Super Hercules & SC-130J “Sea Herc”

Artist’s rendition of the newly “expandable” C-130XJ aircraft, which takes advantage of the exceptional operational capabilities of the baseline C-130J Super Hercules. The aircraft is offered at a reduced price based on a combination of uninstalled line replaceable units and the configuration return to the legacy C-130 cargo handling system.

Artist’s rendition of the latest variant of the C-130J, the Sea Herc. The SC-130J will redefine maritime reconnaissance and patrol.

Carrier Navy. Threat Personified. Chinese Subs.

On October 26, 2006, a Chinese Song class submarine is said to have "popped up" and "surfaced within firing range of its torpedoes and missiles before being detected" within 5 nautical miles (9 km) of the carrier USS Kitty Hawk while she was operating in the Pacific Ocean

The series continues despite some catcalls from the cheap seats.

You would think that after a regiment of SU-27's and Fast Attack Missile Boats, that the carrier in our mythical exercise would begin to catch a break.

NOT GONNA HAPPEN!

In 2006 a Chinese Song Class Sub was able to pop up virtually in the center of a Carrier Battle Group.  The stunning thing.  She was undetected.  This points to another weakness in the carrier force.  The lack of a proper fast flying anti-sub asset.  The Anti-Sub Helos do good work in restricted waters but over open ocean and a fast moving carrier force it becomes a bit of an issue.  You say well no problem we have P-8's coming online and P-3's right?  Well not so fast.  They'll be searching for Boomers and attempting to sweep  the area ahead of the fleet.  Quiet diesel subs will still be an issue.

In this scenario they would seek to lay in wait and pop up for quick shots on the carrier group.  The hope would be to cut reaction down to mere seconds...almost too quick for automatic systems to react, definitely too quick for the officers on the bridge to give the order to fire.

On a sidenote, the British experience in the Falklands must be taken into account too.  Many have talked about decoys and what they would do to incoming missiles.  The Brits found that decoyed missiles sometimes hit other ships in your task force.  Additionally if the attack by the subs is timed to coincide with the attacks by the fighters and fast attack boats you can bump up the number of missiles going after our carrier in this mythical incident to 1200.

1200 missiles going after a carrier in a max effort attack.  Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles still have to be included (I can tell you now I'm thinking at least 5 per carrier) and bombers and a few stealth aircraft.

This is gonna get good.

New Zealand SWAT conducts helo-assault during raid on dot com house!

via Tactical Life.

Wow.

A heliborne assault to go after a dot com guy?  A coordinated ground force follow on force?  I wonder what they would do against some of our drug dealers!  And I thought US police were militarized! 

Task Force Jaguar. Chinook & Merlin aircraft