Gentlemen,

The past year has been a quiet one. We've commissioned 2 BBs, 2 CLs and 2 DDEs, and laid down a new battleship and a pair of CAs, while our adversaries have continued their building programs, but the world situation remains calm.

Our building program is largely set for the next year and more, but we do have some budget surplus right now, and CL Lalande's commissioning will give us more. We could probably squeeze in a third CA, or a CL or two, depending on where we deploy our budget. Unfortunatley, there has been little progress in aviation recently, except for the development of a new flying boat. Read more...

In the late 1940s, the US military was in a sorry state. The public and the Truman administration wanted a balanced budget, and were willing to make deep cuts in defense spending to get it, backed by the knowledge that the US had a monopoly on the atomic bomb. In 1947, the Army and the Navy had been unified under the new National Military Establishment,¹ and the Air Force had been fully separated from the Army, with the mission of delivering such weapons with its fleet of long-range bombers. Its senior officers were mostly veterans of the battle over airpower in the 20s, and while the initial act had left the Navy's aviation components more or less intact, many saw a chance to reverse this and bring all military aviation under their control, particularly as they claimed to offer more military power at a lower price. They were initially thwarted by James Forrestal, former Secretary of the Navy and first Secretary of Defense, but he was fired in early 1949 due to his opposition to the ongoing budget cuts.

A P2V-3C takes off from Franklin D. Roosevelt

The Navy hadn't been idle. Much of the Air Force's political power derived from its monopoly over the atomic delivery mission, something the Navy had set out to challenge. The nuclear weapons of the day still weighed 10,000 lb, exceeding the payload of any naval aircraft under development at the end of the war, but mere days after the atomic bomb's existence was revealed to the public, a competition was started for a plane capable of carrying one from a carrier. The result was the AJ Savage, an aircraft with two piston engines and a turbojet buried in the fuselage for when high speed was needed. However, it would take some time to put the Savage into service, so to give an interim capability, the Navy modified a dozen land-based P2V Neptunes to take off from aircraft carriers through the use of JATO bottles, and to carry a single Little Boy-type bomb. Unfortunately, there was still no way to land on the carrier,² so the planes would have to be craned aboard before the mission and would ditch when they returned. The first flight in April 1948 gave the Navy at least a nominal nuclear strike capability from the three Midway class carriers, although it never deployed operationally. Read more...

When I originally wrote on auxiliary ships, I started my tale at the dawn of the 20th century. Since then, I have learned of several earlier roots of the concept, to the point that it seemed worthwhile to write a prequel.

The Victualling Office at Plymouth

The US Navy is usually credited with the refinement of underway replenishment to give its fleet the ability to stay at sea for long periods, without the warships having to go into port for supplies. However, the first example I can find of a navy implementing a similar system dates to almost two centuries earlier. During its various wars with France, Britain inevitably attempted to blockade Brest, the main French naval port on the Atlantic. While the RN usually enjoyed significant numerical superiority, the French could choose their moment to sortie, making it imperative that the British keep as many ships on active service with the Western Squadron as possible. Read more...

It's time once again for our regular open thread. Talk about anything you want, even if it's not military/naval related.

I recently discovered Giant Military Cats on twitter. The author photoshops in cats to pictures of military equipment, sometimes to hilarious effect. He recently did his first battleship, and showed great taste in selection of his ship.

Of course, Lord Nelson and I were inspired to get in on the act, and we staged a "giant military cats in real life" with her cat, Dean.

2018 post overhauls are Strike Warfare, Propulsion Parts two, three and four and Late Night Forward Pumproom Test. 2019 overhauls are Neal's first part on delays in commercial aviation, A Brief History of the Cruiser, the North Carolina class, the Spanish-American War Part 2 and German Guided Bombs Part 3.

The large-scale transport of passengers across the seas is a surprisingly recent phenomenon. Until the 19th century, there were no scheduled services, and while the horrors of the slave ships are reasonably well-known, conditions for free passengers were little better during the 18th century, with the maximum number crammed in belowdecks with poor food and minimal sanitary facilities during passages that could last weeks.

Packet New York of the Black Ball Line

The first major stride was the establishment of regular service across the Atlantic with the founding of the Black Ball Line in 1817. Black Ball promised to sail once a month on a scheduled day from New York and Liverpool, as opposed to the previous practice of waiting until a full load of cargo could be put together. While passage times for the sail-powered ships were still unpredictable, passenger accommodations were at least slightly better for voyages which averaged 25 days eastbound and 43 days westbound due to the prevailing winds, and Black Ball soon had a host of imitators to contend with. Read more...

In my journey through my pictures from Iowa, I've previously looked at the quarters of the officers, and those of the enlisted men. But I haven't taken a careful look at the mess facilities, an omission I intend to rectify. This includes food prep, serving and eating, which I will deal with in turn. I've taken a closer look at the food itself elsewhere.

The starboard mess line during my last visit in 2019.³

First, food prep facilities. Feeding a crew of 1,500, as were assigned in the 80s, took a lot of work,⁴ and Iowa had 65 full-time mess management specialists, reinforced by 77 men from other departments on a rotating basis. Unfortunately, while I've been to the refrigerated storage lockers, it was long before this blog began, so I don't have pictures.⁵ Read more...

Gentlemen,

The last year has been good for us. We have commissioned our first CV, as well as the last of the CVL conversions, bought torpedo bombers from the British, and made major strides in our CL design. Lalande, laid down a month ago, has a speed of 29 kts and three triple 6" turrets.

Foreign relations are relatively peaceful, although the successful rebellion of the Burmese against the British may have set off a wave of instability in the colonies of the major powers. We must be on our guard. Read more...

While warships are the public face of sea power, they are in many ways a secondary manifestation at best. Ultimately, the purpose of naval power is to allow use of the sea while denying it to the enemy, and the users of the sea are generally merchant ships. As such, it's worth taking a look at the use of the sea for trade, resource extraction, and leisure.

A model of a Roman grain ship

The sea has always been the easiest way to move large volumes of cargo about. Historians estimate that it was 20 times cheaper to ship a given cargo by sea than overland in the Roman Empire, and as a result, Rome was kept alive by grain imported from as far away as Egypt, while areas less than 100 miles away overland focused on lower-volume products like wine because of shipping costs. Even rivers, although only a quarter as efficient as sea transport, offered a tremendous advantage over the primitive roads and animal draft required to move cargo where there was no water route. Over the next two millennia, improvements in shipbuilding gave sea transport an even greater edge, until the invention of the railroad finally opened up the interiors of the continents. Read more...

As a follow-up to my earlier look at the issues with an article critiquing modern carrier operating range, I decided to do some experimental work with the planes they actually fly today. Obviously, "experimental" isn't quite the right term, as I don't actually have a Super Hornet of my very own. Instead, I used Command: Modern Operations, which is a simulation package used by a number of professional organizations as well as by amateurs.

An A-6E lands on USS America

I started with a fairly simple test. I took pairs of F/A-18C+s, F/A-18Es, and A-6E Intruders, and loaded each of them with Mk 83 iron bombs. All three were the latest type in the database, and each of the Hornets carried a quartet of the bombs, while each Intruder carried 10. All aircraft were launched from a field in Hawaii, and set to fly to an island far to the south. Weather conditions were entirely calm. One of each pair was assigned an altitude of 1,000', the other an altitude of 36,000'. For the low-flyers, the Hornet ran out at 223.1 nm, the Super Hornet at 285.4 nm, and the Intruder at 290.8 nm. The high-flying Hornet hit bingo at 327.2 nm, the Super Hornet at 420.2 nm, and the Intruder at 418.5 nm. Read more...

Today is the 77th anniversary of Iowa's first commissioning, at New York Navy Yard.