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Thanks for the info.

 Ouze wrote:
Thanks for the info.

Well, it's just conjecture really. I don't think there has been a legitimate surface naval engagement in 50ish years. Odds of one ever occurring again are very slim, as long as we maintain our current level of naval dominance.

 djones520 wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
On the subject of Carrier vulnerability, isn't the US currently developing railguns as an alternative to cruise missiles? What happens when/if someone, let's take China as an example, gets similar technology? I imagine that shooting down an ASM is a lot easier than defending from tungsten chunks at Mach 10, no?

I'd imagine we're talking decades down the road at that point, and a smart man would put money on us already developing counter measures, whatever they may be.

While I agree that we're talking decades down the road, I honestly can't fathom what a countermeasure for a railgun slug would be. I mean, is it even possible to stop something with that much energy?

I imagine another railgun slug would but detecting, tracking, and targeting a projectile like that seems very difficult - the round can travel 10 miles in 7 seconds. What range do ship-to-ship naval engagements happen at?

We might not be able to, but the guys who developed the science to build these things probably can. And honestly, ship to ship naval engagements right now, probably happen from hundreds of miles away, given missile technology.

I think we'll see railguns in a missile defense system before we see them in an antiship system. We've already progressed from 16 inch guns to ASMs and if you had railguns or lasers and a computer targetting system you'd be able to destroy anything that got detected coming over the horizon. If you neutralize ASMs you've effectively neutralized the offensive capability of surface vessels. Besides if we develop the kind of numerical and technological superiority with railgun equipped ships that we already enjoy with our carriers it's a moot point anyway. We're already essentially only competing against ourselves.

Prestor Jon wrote:


We're already essentially only competing against ourselves.

You have to prepare for every possibility, including US civil war and mirror universe America attacking us.

 Easy E wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:


We're already essentially only competing against ourselves.

You have to prepare for every possibility, including US civil war and mirror universe America attacking us.

Also time travel Russkies, and Skynet.

 CptJake wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
On the subject of Carrier vulnerability, isn't the US currently developing railguns as an alternative to cruise missiles? What happens when/if someone, let's take China as an example, gets similar technology? I imagine that shooting down an ASM is a lot easier than defending from tungsten chunks at Mach 10, no?

I'd imagine we're talking decades down the road at that point, and a smart man would put money on us already developing counter measures, whatever they may be.

While I agree that we're talking decades down the road, I honestly can't fathom what a countermeasure for a railgun slug would be. I mean, is it even possible to stop something with that much energy?

I imagine another railgun slug would but detecting, tracking, and targeting a projectile like that seems very difficult - the round can travel 10 miles in 7 seconds. What range do ship-to-ship naval engagements happen at?

The countermeasures for a railgun slug are likely to center around spoofing sensors/fire control and other ISR assets so that the slug is never fired or at least never fired at the correct target.

I imagine something like a Traveller Sandcaster that puts a cloud of ablative material in the path of the projectile causing it to disintegrate into a puff of shards and vapour.

But as you say, a good countermeasure would be to bomb the launch site before any missiles can be got away.

I saw mention book knowledge and field knowledge

we call that being

Tactical (how to deploy and operate it)

Book (trained to know how it works)

Practical experience nearly always turns up things.

 Ouze wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
On the subject of Carrier vulnerability, isn't the US currently developing railguns as an alternative to cruise missiles? What happens when/if someone, let's take China as an example, gets similar technology? I imagine that shooting down an ASM is a lot easier than defending from tungsten chunks at Mach 10, no?

I'd imagine we're talking decades down the road at that point, and a smart man would put money on us already developing counter measures, whatever they may be.

While I agree that we're talking decades down the road, I honestly can't fathom what a countermeasure for a railgun slug would be. I mean, is it even possible to stop something with that much energy?

I imagine another railgun slug would but detecting, tracking, and targeting a projectile like that seems very difficult - the round can travel 10 miles in 7 seconds. What range do ship-to-ship naval engagements happen at?

You could always fall back on a Jeune Ecole style countermeasure for local dominance, or shift to a completely submersible fleet. Submarine carriers and cruisers were workable concepts (and indeed, built) seventy years ago, I daresay we could build vastly improved ones now. No matter how fast your railgun slug is going, it's not much use once it hits a few hundred feet of water.

Why would we want a submersible fleet when we could make everything fly instead? Hello helicarriers! Even better, robot helicarriers.

 jmurph wrote:
Why would we want a submersible fleet when we could make everything fly instead? Hello helicarriers! Even better, robot helicarriers.

As a defeat mechanism for railguns, that idea is a poor one.

 CptJake wrote:

 jmurph wrote:
Why would we want a submersible fleet when we could make everything fly instead? Hello helicarriers! Even better, robot helicarriers.

As a defeat mechanism for railguns, that idea is a poor one.

Rule of Cool. Heli-carriers get Plot Armour that defeats any munition.

Teddy Roosevelt once wisely stated "Walk softly and carry a big stick." Sage philosophy for addressing national security. Our "big stick" is bigger than that of the next 8 or so countries combined, but the problem is that it seems to me that we've forgotten, or just chosen to disregard, the "walk softly" part. Effective diplomacy and not just a wing of F-35's will ensure our national security.
As previous posters noted, Ike was right with his warning on the MI complex. If anybody should know better than him, I'd like to hear it.

The US Military could be significantly better run by simply eliminating the Zero up budget. This budget is a broken tool that we have been forced to use for generations. "Spend X or else you wont get X next year for your budget" Instead it should be something along the lines of "Spend whatever you need out of X and whatever you don't spend return to the US Government at the end of the FISCAL year."

Another way to save money is to do away with a number of government contracts. Spending 25k on a laptop is well....stupid. Not to mention you have to order all gear and items from a specific shop which over prices those items significantly.

Then with all those savings you could repair and replace every piece of broken gear in the US arsenal.

Finally the bottom line is that we need to cease involving ourselves in the worlds problems. I understand that force needs to be used in certain situations, but we are NOT the world's police. The only time force should be used over seas is for US interests not because the world thinks bad people are doing bad things. That is what the UN is supposed to be about, not the US.

 feeder wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

 jmurph wrote:
Why would we want a submersible fleet when we could make everything fly instead? Hello helicarriers! Even better, robot helicarriers.

As a defeat mechanism for railguns, that idea is a poor one.

Rule of Cool. Heli-carriers get Plot Armour that defeats any munition.

Now if you could convince that wave of incoming missiles of your heli-carrier's awesomeness as well, that might actually work!

So are we going back to be able to sustain a two front war or a one front war. We already know the military was caught a bit short on a two theaters.

 Jihadin wrote:
So are we going back to be able to sustain a two front war or a one front war. We already know the military was caught a bit short on a two theaters.

That's the big question isn't it?

In a nuke age, maybe the military needs to be reorg so that we can do ONE front war + multiple low level skirmish. If so... what does that look like?

 whembly wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
So are we going back to be able to sustain a two front war or a one front war. We already know the military was caught a bit short on a two theaters.

That's the big question isn't it?

In a nuke age, maybe the military needs to be reorg so that we can do ONE front war + multiple low level skirmish. If so... what does that look like?

I don't know, maybe "one front" is a massive self-defense force, while sustaining, or expanding on SOF for the "multiple low level skirmish" forces? That may work for an organization like the army, but how would that alter what the Marine Corps looks like? Would it significantly alter the Navy? What about the AF?

 Jihadin wrote:
So are we going back to be able to sustain a two front war or a one front war. We already know the military was caught a bit short on a two theaters.

Fighting a war is easy. America has more combat aircraft, missiles, logistics capability than any conceivable combination of enemies combined. Iraq was steamrolled in weeks, twice for example. For every difficulty presented by possibly disruptive technology, every other major power has the same or worse time of it than the US.

The issue is well beyond the 'war' aspect, to the 'what is our goal'. Iraq was done without any sort of goal, an exit strategy that'd leave American interests safer, not produce a new commitment and new craphole that needed effective occupation.

Basically... are you throwing money to make us safer against enemies that we already have huge overkill against, or are you down to toss money into the pot when the real issue is that COIN is a hell of a lot different than a war?

 djones520 wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Thanks for the info.

Well, it's just conjecture really. I don't think there has been a legitimate surface naval engagement in 50ish years. Odds of one ever occurring again are very slim, as long as we maintain our current level of naval dominance.

I guess railguns will be used as an deterrent and for inland bombardment.

IMHO it is not the budget that is the problem but the management of funds and the accountability of firms with government contracts, how much is the F35 now over budget?

 CptJake wrote:
NATO has more problems than % GDP towards defense for the member nations. What the % spent on is probably more important, and highlights one of the main issues in how the treaty is set up. NATO as an organization needs certain capabilities (or at least wants certain capabilities). But some of those are not 'sexy' so member nations are reluctant to purchase them. Other capabilities may make no sense for an individual member nation to invest into, though the Alliance as a whole needs them. Others make a lot of sense for individual nations to invest in, and as a result the Alliance as a whole has (too much) redundancy. Some are too expensive for smaller nations to invest in so there becomes an over reliance on a single member to invest in critical capabilities.

Capability portfolio management is not a NATO strong point...

Yep, all of this. It's why the 2% target is a crappy target, and when it is coupled with capability requirements the whole thing ends up as nonsense.

As an example, a few years ago Australia committed to defence spending of 2% of GDP. That lasted a bit over two years before we realised how stupid the idea was in and of itself. Over those two years spending was growing massively, but our actual capabilities changed not one bit. Obviously you can't expect to develop units capable of operating overseas overnight, but the money was pouring in and there wasn't even a projection of increased capability being forecast. The money just went to improved housing, remuneration, and a massive increase in back office staff. Nicer accomodation is good and all, but when people say defence spending is a priority I don't think they mean refurbished dorms.

So government quickly modified the commitment - 2% was still the target, but would only be given when defence could make a decent argument for a necessary new capability - if they saw we need to buy new planes off the US or replace our subs then the money is there.

NATO needs something similar. It needs to not just set a 2% target, but actually flesh out what capabilities each member nation needs to deliver to NATO. Aircraft capable of this level of activity for this length of time. The ability to deliver and support this many divisions this far from home, etc... 2% will be part of that, but it won't be the only measure of delivery.

Honestly, railguns are so far out from being developed and deployed for any kind of long range combat that it makes speculation about possible defenses difficult. By the time they have been developed to the point where they could be used against a carrier, early detection, conventional armour, or even laser technology may all have advanced to the point of being an adequate defense. Not to mention that this far into the future drones may have made a carrier redundant. (I know we established that drones cannot fulfill the role of a carrier now, but we are talking decades into the future here.)

 feeder wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

 jmurph wrote:
Why would we want a submersible fleet when we could make everything fly instead? Hello helicarriers! Even better, robot helicarriers.

As a defeat mechanism for railguns, that idea is a poor one.

Rule of Cool. Heli-carriers get Plot Armour that defeats any munition.

Every time S.H.I.E.L.D. tries to deploys one, it blows up. It has negative plot armour.

SemperMortis wrote:


Another way to save money is to do away with a number of government contracts. Spending 25k on a laptop is well....stupid. Not to mention you have to order all gear and items from a specific shop which over prices those items significantly.

You don't know much about DoD contracting. No laptop is costing the DoD 25k, though there may be some software packages that do. And in no way is any service forced to buy gear from a specific shop which over prices, in fact single source bids are very much discouraged and you need very tight explanations as to why you are trying to let a single source contract and that generally comes down to a service contract (which is also discouraged) when the single source is the only one capable of providing the contracted service. If you have a contracting office/officer allowing 'all gear and items' to come form a single shop that is not the cheapest/best value, you have a contracting officer looking at jail time.

 CptJake wrote:

 jmurph wrote:
Why would we want a submersible fleet when we could make everything fly instead? Hello helicarriers! Even better, robot helicarriers.

As a defeat mechanism for railguns, that idea is a poor one.

Last time I checked, that's what the supermutants are for. They go in and blow up enemy superweapons and maybe learn something about themselves and what it means to be "human". Duh.

 CptJake wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:


Another way to save money is to do away with a number of government contracts. Spending 25k on a laptop is well....stupid. Not to mention you have to order all gear and items from a specific shop which over prices those items significantly.

You don't know much about DoD contracting. No laptop is costing the DoD 25k, though there may be some software packages that do. And in no way is any service forced to buy gear from a specific shop which over prices, in fact single source bids are very much discouraged and you need very tight explanations as to why you are trying to let a single source contract and that generally comes down to a service contract (which is also discouraged) when the single source is the only one capable of providing the contracted service. If you have a contracting office/officer allowing 'all gear and items' to come form a single shop that is not the cheapest/best value, you have a contracting officer looking at jail time.

Agreed, it's not so much the cost per unit, but the number of units. The problem is when the company providing those laptops has their congressman make the military buy 2-3 times more than the military needed. Needless spending is the problem.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:


Another way to save money is to do away with a number of government contracts. Spending 25k on a laptop is well....stupid. Not to mention you have to order all gear and items from a specific shop which over prices those items significantly.

You don't know much about DoD contracting. No laptop is costing the DoD 25k, though there may be some software packages that do. And in no way is any service forced to buy gear from a specific shop which over prices, in fact single source bids are very much discouraged and you need very tight explanations as to why you are trying to let a single source contract and that generally comes down to a service contract (which is also discouraged) when the single source is the only one capable of providing the contracted service. If you have a contracting office/officer allowing 'all gear and items' to come form a single shop that is not the cheapest/best value, you have a contracting officer looking at jail time.

Agreed, it's not so much the cost per unit, but the number of units. The problem is when the company providing those laptops has their congressman make the military buy 2-3 times more than the military needed. Needless spending is the problem.

Laptops are a very poor example of this because of the way they are purchased. The issue you describe tends to be related to major end items like aircraft,not things like laptops which tend to be handled by units/installations and follow different rules.

The whole 'needless spending' thing becomes even more murky depending on who decides it is needless. For example, the Air Force would rather not be spending money on the A-10 at this point yet the congress critters are forcing them to do so. Many of the guys on the ground in theater don't consider the money spent on their favorite CAS platform as wasteful.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
One area where we do have 'mandated waste' is when we are required to purchase from local vendors, even when they are not the cheapest/best value, and often 'local' is interestingly defined. But in both Iraq and Afghanistan we seemed to believe the waste was acceptable in order to 'jump start' local economies. Of course the issues of malign vendors and 'contracting with the enemy' coupled with status quo corruption on the ground tends to negate any advantage you thought you were getting.

Yeah, Afghanistan is like that in a lot of ways to. There are a lot of not unfounded concerns that we are directly feeding money to the terrorists with our purchasing practices...

 djones520 wrote:
Yeah, Afghanistan is like that in a lot of ways to. There are a lot of not unfounded concerns that we are directly feeding money to the terrorists with our purchasing practices...

My wife's big War College paper was about malign vendors and contracting with the enemy in Afghanistan. She is now the ECC-A. Her Contracting Support Brigade took over the mission a couple of months ago.

https://www.army.mil/article/165769/United_States_Army_Expeditionary_Contracting_Command_Afghanistan__ECC__Transfer_of_Authority_from_41/

So, I'm not speaking from complete ignorance when I talk about DoD contracting. Between the wife and myself we've been involved with it pretty extensively for quite a bit...

Army Adds 84mm Recoil-less Rifle to Platoon Arsenal

U.S. Army infantry platoons will soon have the 84mm Carl Gustaf recoil-less rifle, a devastating anti-armor system, as a permanently assigned weapon.

Service officials completed a so-called conditional materiel release authorization late last year, making the M3 Multi-Role Anti-Armor Anti-Personnel Weapon System an organic weapon system within each infantry platoon, IHS Jane’s 360 recently reported. The service is also working on an effort to achieve Full Material Release of the M3 later this year.

Army light infantry units began using the M3 in Afghanistan in 2011, but only when commanders submitted operational needs statements for the weapon

Groovy

I'm wondering what armored forces the US encountered in Afghanistan that would require this weapon to defeat

(yes I know it has more utility than just killing tanks...)

That said, it looks pretty neat, and seems like a solid addition to infantry forces.