It's time once again for our regular Open Thread. Talk about whatever you want, even if it's not naval/military related.
A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, possibly my favorite blog currently publishing, had a good post on the case for the humanities. I'm from a STEM background, and while I don't agree with a lot of pro-humanities arguments (engineering classes aren't just a sequence of math problems), this one hits the nail on the head.
Also, cassander is looking for a defense analyst with experience in the aerospace sector or data science. It’s in Washington DC, and if you’re interested or know anyone who might be, take a look at the job description.
Lastly, I'm still interested in doing a Naval Gazing Zoom meetup, probably the week of the 19th (the moving truck comes about two hours after this post goes live). If anyone else is interested, speak up.
2018 overhauls are Rangefinding, So You Want to Build a Modern Navy - Aviation Part 2, The Great White Fleet Part 1, , my review of Batfish and Falklands Part 4. 2019 posts updated are dndnrsn's reviews of Bavarian military museums, Rangekeeping Part 2, Impressment, my review of the WWI Museum in Kansas City, and Signalling Parts one and two.
Comments
I'd be up for a zoom meeting. It would be nice to put faces to these names, it'll make press ganging one of you to work in my data mines a lot easier!
I also want to second the recommendation of ACOUP. I think I found it about the same time you did bean. I found him through the Tolkien content. He has a two long running series on the Battle of Helms Deep and Pelennor Fields that breaks them down from a military history perspective, contrasting them against reality and the book vs. the movies. They're fantastic.
Bringing a conversation from the end of the last OT for logistical reasons.
redRover said...
That’s fair, and the best hope to do so. However, I am less confident about the probability of the Politburo or whoever makes the call in the command bunker taking reports of “we have lost all our submarines, 80% of our aircraft, and 75% of the surface fleet” to be a signal of defeat rather than escalation. At the very least, it seems like a big gamble on their rationality and risk aversion.
Though on the other hand, I don’t see any better option conditional on meaningful war breaking out. (The best option, of course, being massive deterrence)
Blackshoe said...
@RedRover: Heck, even ignoring nukes, I’d argue that barring massive decoupling of Western (ie European and American) economies from China, you can’t. Any action against them would probably hurt the economy a lot, and would thus be massively unpopular (although I think it would be pretty unpopular no matter what, for other reasons). IMHO the PRC already has pretty significant deterrent power over the US and the West without nukes being factored in.
I have seen some arguments that amount to, “If we turn off the lights and maybe start blowing up some police stations, the people will rise up and remove the CPC”...however: 1. That hasn’t worked that well the last few times we’ve tried it 2. I’m not sure that the average Zhou on the street rising up is going to create a government friendlier to the US/West; might well be the opposite.
Greer once said on Twitter that basically something needs to be communicated to the Chinese people; that they can have a prominent and internationally-respected China, or one run by the CPC, but not both. However, I’m not sure that’s really true in the sense that it assumes China has to follow “international norms”, mostly because the PRC’s bending of the WHO to me argues pretty strongly that China is either very close or already has the power to bend the international system to its will.
Maybe there’s a world where China falls apart due to some of its own internal fractures, but I don’t think anyone can reliably predict that or even figure out how to map out those fractures.
@redRover said...
There's escalation and there's escalation. Look at recent Russian ideas of "escalate to de-escalate". The basic idea is that the Russians know they're conventionally weak, and if things start to go badly for them, they can let off a small "tactical" nuclear strike to make everyone else go "Woah, woah, woah! Let's take stop and take a deep breath before things get out of hand."
I could see the Chinese responding to serious naval defeat with something similar, call it escalate to save face. I don't like or want to encourage that, but it's a different sort of escalation than "Well, we have more Han than they have Minutemen." The goal of american policy in any war has to be to make sure we never push them towards the latter sort of escalation. And like you'd, I'd prefer to maintain enough of a conventional edge that the chinese ever don't think they can win that straight up fight. I get very nervous when I hear them talk about a "short, sharp conflict". Clashes between great powers rarely go that way.
@blackshoe
It would hurt the Chinese economy more, and they know it. the CCP's legitimacy comes from 2 things. "We stopped the foreigners from kicking China around" and "Your grandfather lived in a hut. You have a house and car thanks to our economic stewardship". They are very wary of anything that's going to undermine those.
China gets its people into international institutions because they care enough to work at it and most other countries don't. I wouldn't conflate that with actual ability to bend the system. For that sort of power, see how the US got the entire world to spend a fortune on radical new airline security procedures after 9/11.
Naval Gazing Zoom meetup sounds like great fun, will join schedule permitting
I like the Zoom idea. I'll be there if I can.
Also, a couple OTs ago, I came up with a wacky scenario for people to consider. I'll suggest another one.
What would fleets have looked like in WW2 without any radio communications? All other tech is assumed to be the same (though knock-on effects, like air strikes being harder to coordinate, can be considered), but no long-range communication on the water more advanced than flags and signal lamps.
Re. the secondary discussion at the start of the previous thread. The 4.5" gun the British decided was insufficient against surface targets seems fairly similar in ballistic performance to the US 5"/38.
Am I missing something beyond the raw numbers that made the 5" better vs surface targets, or did the US put more weight on the DPs' AA role and simply not care if it was marginal vs ships?
Today, in my random YouTube browsing, I found this short video clip about an experiment where the Navy successfully landed a C130 on a carrier and got a successful take-off afterwards.
As a bonus, the pilots Lt. Cmdr. Stovall and Lt. Cmdr. Flatley, have to be the greatest instance of nominative determinism I've ever seen. After all, if you want to land a giant plane on a carrier, wouldn't you want your pilots to be named "STOVL" and Flatley?
For the Zoom meeting, I'm considering 1 PM Central (US) on Saturday the 18th. This should give reasonable coverage of both the US and Europe, which is where I believe the majority of my readers are.
@Alsadius
That's a change that goes beyond massive. The last war fought without radio was the Spanish-American War, and I've detailed how much chaos that caused when they were trying to hunt down Cervera. Without radio, your universe is limited to the horizon. Planes would help a little bit, but I don't see long-range overwater navigation developing without radionavigation aids, particularly on carriers. (Those aren't strictly rejected by your terms, but you can't practically separate the two.) At this point, you're back into a much older form of warfare where fleets don't really clash on the open ocean because they can't find each other. (A lot of battles during the Age of Sail were fought within sight of land. The Glorious First of June was the only one I'm aware of where they were so far offshore that they couldn't use a terrain feature.) But at this point, you're looking at different designs of the fleet, probably with a lot more emphasis on battleships and light cruisers/destroyer leaders. And it would make offensive warfare a lot harder because the defender can make use of his own cable network, while you're cut off.
I'm probably missing a couple of big things there, too.
@quanticle
My favorite bit of that story is "Look, Ma, No Hook" painted on the nose of the plane.
No over the horizon communication is a big limit, but you can extend the horizon. German U-boats used a sort of tethered gyrocopter (the Fa 330) to raise their lookout far above their conning tower. Battleships could use a larger version to fly even higher, direct gunnery, and, if equipped with an Aldis lamp, extend communication range. No radar/radio would radically change commerce warfare, making wolfpacks impossible to assemble, but also massively complicating hunting down surface raiders.
Re. Zoom - You'll be using daylight saving time, so at 6pm GMT?
While working outdoors today I listened to Dan Carlin interview Tom Hanks about Greyhound. How in the blazes they could talk about The Good Sheperd (obviously, since the film is based on it) but not mention The Cruel Sea is simply beyond me. Not to put one against the other, but Nicolas Monserrat did pen a classic after all and it more than merits mention if you were prepping to film a story about North Atlantic convoy duty.
I appreciate Hanks' love of history and I don't want to seem to be faulting him unjustly for his efforts, but I am not sure I will be able to stomach this without someone first, no pun intended, testing these waters and providing fair warning. I found the interview painful enough (and I sadly say that as one who is in the front ranks of appreciative Carlin fans) so I am not sure what to expect.
Heck, I won't even quibble with technical details (although Tom it is called an Aldis lamp and not some "signaling device"!). At this point what I fear is another overwrought portrayal and vaporous hagiography.
Would be pleased to learn that I am well off the mark on this and that the film does justice to the subject as it is certainly a worthy one of bravery, terror, nerves, and all the rest.
I've seen "Greyhound" twice now. It's good. The ships and the seascapes look good, and the action just keeps coming. Tom Hanks is his usual charming self, this time in a rather somber and reflective way.
A couple of things looked a bit suspicious to me. I wouldn't be surprised if the radar and sonar displays we see are more Hollywood than history. And those torpedoes sure moved quickly.
@Alexander
Gyrocopters are a good point, but they have a lot of limitations. Weather is one. Horizon distance is another.
And yes, I'm using Central Daylight.
@Neal/Johan
Good to hear about the movie. You're almost certainly right about the displays, but I can forgive that if the movie hasn't systematically annoyed me for a couple of hours. (Looking at you, Pearl Harbor.) Other than that, hope it comes out in a form I can get to at some point. Not mentioning Cruel Sea is weird, but who knows. Maybe someone else has the film rights and Hanks doesn't want to boost them.
@echo
My library is still a mess, although most of the key books are available. I don't see any obvious answers to that question, but I'd guess it was essentially down to different standards. For one thing, the British might well have expected worse visibility, which is going to place a premium on lethality per shell.
Speaking of Dan Carlin, what's everyone's opinion of him? Personally, I'm not a huge fan. I listened to his series on World War 1, and I felt like it was overdramatized.
@bean:
What's the problem? AppleTV is cheap month-to-month, and you don't need an Apple device to watch it. Just sign up for a month, and then cancel. Even if Greyhound is the only thing you watch, it's still cheaper than a movie ticket.
I am very much not a fan of Apple for kabbalistic reasons. Also, I'm annoyed that they bought up the movie, and I don't really want to reward them for that.
Bloomberg has an interesting article about the challenges of maintaining the world's idle cruise ships. Having known nothing about the subject, I enjoyed details like "The first thing to go is the plumbing." I would imagine that the task of maintaining a museum ship is similar but different in significant ways. Has bean ever written about the technical aspects of preserving decommissioned ships like Iowa?
It looks like there's a major fire on the USS Bonhomme Richard https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/san-diego-fire-rescue-responds-to-fire-on-uss-bonhomme-richard
Some Tweets that they've evacuated the ship and are proceeding to fight the fire from outside.
It doesn't sound too different from what they do when they mothball a ship. (Museum ships are a weird hybrid of mothballs, active, and a few things of their own.) You make sure everything is dehumidified, drain all the fluids, and move everything delicate to specialized storage ashore. Mothballing is on the list of things I do want to write about at some point. Just haven't gotten around to it yet.
@catcube
I'm not an expert in damage control, but that looks like an extremely worrying amount of smoke.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39sRT4_pvTs
@cassander
I don't know a lot about firefighting on ships either, but the fact that it's been going for some 6 and a half hours and still looks like you see on the live feed, and all the fireboats are doing is keeping the hull cool is also worrying.
Yikes. I think we're firmly into "scratch one phib" territory now. Curious if this says that DC standards are slacking, or if it was just so bad that they saw no reason to leave people in danger when they could evacuate pierside.
It looks like almost no one was onboard when it happened, so I'm not sure how much DC was possible.
I'm hearing 2nd or 3rd hand rumours that they may have been doing work which required them to deactivate parts of the fire supression system.
I take issue with ACOUP implying most of the relative decline in the prestige of the humanities is due to the elevation of STEM. The humanities have done a fairly good job of throwing away whatever good will they had by relentlessly promoting their politics and engaging in activism instead of teaching about the shared human experience.
Continuing on the last thread's discussion, regarding a proposal for Ireland to acquire fighter aircraft to defend its airspace against Russian Tu-95s...
To me, the geopolitical situation of Ireland resembles that of New Zealand: it has a larger neighbour (the UK/Australia) between it and the major regional threat (Russia/China). The two countries are about the same size in terms of population. Ireland has almost twice the GDP, but that's a consequence of its corporate tax structure, so it doesn't really bear on military procurement.
New Zealand had a force of A-4 Skyhawks - not real fighters, but probably good enough for intercepting Tu-95s - until 2001, when they were decommissioned. There was a proposal to replace these with F-16s, but it was abandoned after a change in government. So a country of that size, in that position, is apparently at the ragged edge of whether it's worthwhile to maintain a squadron of fighters.
The RNZAF does, however, operate a significant maritime-patrol force: six P-3 Orions, to be replaced with P-8 Poseidons in the near future. If the Irish Air Corps were to expand, that seems to me to be a sensible direction, both strategically and logistically: the P-8 even uses the same 737-800 airframe that Ryanair operates from Dublin airport. But this would mean continuing to rely on the UK to provide their air defence.
At the risk of getting political, it seems to me that Ireland - now as in WWII - has a conflict between anti-British sentiment in the general population and a leadership which privately understands that they depend on the UK for their defence. So while I really like Bean's suggestion of having Irish pilots assigned to the RAF, I agree with him that this would be politically impossible.
@inc
That's a good point, and one I agree with. It's a lot easier for the humanities to blame STEM than to work out the issues they have.
@DampOctopus
I'm not sure the P-8 makes sense for Ireland. New Zealand has a lot of maritime to patrol, but Ireland has NATO to do that for them. On the other hand, you could ask Boeing to fit Sidewinders on the P-8 and make it the largest fighter in the world.
@Alsadius
The lack of radios (and I assume radar) increases the importance of either: 1. Self contained action capability 2. Breadth of area covered or both.
To that end, I think you would see more aerial scouting capability to expand the footprint of the fleet for trade interdiction and opportunistic engagements. So, carriers as scouts (or perhaps even airship carriers like the Akron/Macon), rather than as offensive units.
It seems like it would also change the calculus of commerce raiding/submarine warfare. On the one hand, you would have a harder time organizing interceptions and wolf-packs, but on the other hand you would still have (uncoordinated) maritime patrol aircraft like Catalinas and Sunderlands. Actual convoying seems like it would be fairly similar, as most of the coordination could be handled via Aldi lamp or signal flags. Bean or somebody would have to weigh in on how much not having coordinated maritime patrol aircraft would impact that.
For actual fleet to fleet actions, it seems like you would have to put more value on planning/orders to second level commanders before the action. (Rather like ground warfare, really) I think you would still see aircraft have tactical value, as they can attack from the other side and distract the opponent/force him to divert resources to anti-air operations.
I think the basics of strategic (ground based) bombing would be fairly similar, especially for daylight bombing, though navigation/accuracy would probably be degraded. Defensive ground based operations would also probably be somewhat similar, though instead of having radar -> coordinators -> radio, you would have spotters -> telegraph/telephone -> launch fighters in appropriate direction and hope for the best. However, as WWII aerial operations were still largely guided by the eyeball I don't think that would necessarily be as detrimental as it would appear to modern eyes.
@Bean: You could then nickname the squadron the Old Dogs?
To jump back to cruise ships - the minimum manning requirements in warm layup are much larger than I would have expected. I guess they can't pay off as much of the housekeeping crew as I would have expected.
The Bonhomme Richard fire is still burning as of this morning.
Christ, it must be one hell of a blaze.
@DampOctopus
If Ireland is going to buy anything, they should get FA-50s from Korea. Very cheap to buy and operate and can theoretically be equipped with AMRAAMs. Don't have the best radar in the world, but they could be equipped with a APG-83. It's the most capable light fighter on the market today, priced similarly to the competition, and comes with no geo-political entanglements that would concern the Irish. If they wanted to go European, the M-346FA is also an adorable choice.
@bean
I hope they do that, if only to prove my oft repeated assertion that you can put a sidewinder on anything!
Linked from the article about cruise ship storage is an article about airliner storage due to the current pandemic. I found that to be pretty interesting as well.
Frankly, I think some idea of what ww2 would have looked like without radios can be gleaned from looking at Japanese operations. the Japanese had radios, but several of their big fleet operations had big chunks of time under radio silence. And while their aircraft all had radios, they weren't very good and the pilots often took them out to save weight.
Based on how Japanese operations went, I think taking out radio would be a huge boon to the Japanese, even after you adjust for the fact that the US made more and better use of radio and code breaking, and so would be hurt more by its removal.
Japanese doctrine and war planning were fundamentally simply better suited for a war where "modern" C4ISR wasn't a thing yet. Their basic strategy was to attrit the US fleet through cruiser/destroyer surface actions and night attacks, the fight a decisive surface engagement. works far better in a world without radios (and if the radio goes, the radar probably goes too). On top of that, losing radio is a much bigger blow to carrier power than surface, because the ability to attack at long range isn't useful if you can't detect the enemy at long range. This means that the loss of the battleships at pearl harbor would have been a much bigger blow to US fortunes than it proved in reality. Overall, you'd get a war much better suited to Japanese strengths as they existed on December 8th.
Of course, that means that instead of the US commissioning an essex class every couple months from mid 43 onward, we'd commission a Montana at the same rate, so things don't turn out much better for the Japanese in the long run.
As usual, USNI has the best coverage of the issue, with articles from yesterday and today. They were using helicopters to drop water on it overnight, although my favorite bit is that Fitzgerald, who was at the same pier, moved without pulling in the gangway.
@redRover
Radio was incredibly important to countering bombers. I went into some detail on this in ICNW Part 2.
@cassander
I think the effect is bigger than that. Without radio, you lose a lot on both the strategic and tactical levels. The Japanese did make less use of radio, but that's a long ways from not using radio at all.
Note that this is going to have a much bigger impact on naval warfare than on land/land-based air, because of how the decision loops work. If your scouts have to fly back to the carrier to let you know they've found the other guy, you're going to lose a lot of time in a naval battle. On land, you can generally assume things will stay where they were, but ships move, and you'll have to find them again. (This seems really obvious, but even people today in a world with radio miss it more than you'd think.)
@bean
I was thinking more of ground based strategic bombing, 8th AF/Battle of Britain/etc. Obviously having radios to coordinate is helpful, but my understanding is that (at least for daylight bombing) it was a fairly visual thing. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_ship
And I believe that the final stages of interception were also visual. Obviously not as efficient without radar and radio, but I think you could get reasonable efficiency for land to land operations if you can point everyone in the right direction on takeoff or by knowing what the target is and then defending it close to the target.
Well, I guess we (USN "we") get to stop making fun of the Russians for burning up KUZNETSOV now.
I suppose that in the drop-an-anvil-on-marconi-verse, we get the WWI concept of signal flares taken to extremes.
Maybe a big mortar pointed straight up and shooting coloured shells, or spin-stabilised rockets.
Planes with giant lamps on them, relaying morse code from one ship to another.
Of course, this would all be highly weather-dependant. In calm conditions with a lot of stratus, you might see LTA observation craft above the tops of the clouds communicating with the surface via telephone cable cable.
If we're also assuming radar's not a thing, I wonder how far they could have taken concepts like sound mirrors. Accoustic apeture synthesis used to multilaterate the postition of bombers using an array of sound mirrors on the South coast of England?
@redRover
Radio was vital to the systems developed to intercept bombers. The RAF saw about 30% of its fighters make intercepts during the Battle of France, where they were operating under fairly rudimentary control. During the Battle of Britain, this rose to 90%, thanks to radar and several varieties of radio. That's a big difference for the bombers.
@Bean
That's more of a difference than I would have guessed!
@Lambert
Synthetic aperture acoustics would be quite impressive! (And I think they could do it via landline, though the signal processing would have to be semi-manual?)
Lightships in the sky, quite literally. Really pushing the spirit of the assignment, you could perhaps have indicators on the ground to guide your interceptors, updated in real time from the acoustic tracking data. (Colored arrows or something for the indicators)
Trick is to do the difficult processing in a brain.
Put the sound mirrors in a line, and bring the signals via phone line to a listening station. Put a delay on each line proportional to how far along the line it is, as well as being proportional to a value the operator selects using a control knob. Play the signals into earphones, with one ear biased towards each end of the line.
The operator twiddles the knob till it sounds like the sound is coming from directly in front of them.
Patent US1641432 seems to describe something similar.
A second knob allowing the operator to add a delay proportional to the square of the distance along might allow them to estimate the distance to the sound source, if the line of sound mirrors is long enough.
Re. Sidewinders on Poseidons, they wouldn't be the first MPAs to carry them.
On a radio/radarless WWII, while the Royal Navy's carriers all postdated radio, they did a lot of thinking about how to operate before radar, and while radio was less common. I agree with Cassander's point about the Japanese, but think that some of British prewar doctrine would also be relevant. If the RNAS could bomb Zeppelin sheds in 1914, I think navies in this alternate scenario would still have some sort of carrier strike capability.
@bean said...
Without a doubt. The whole war would look like the IJN, but moreso. And you're absolutely right about ships moving. Having to fly back to the carrier to report the enemy fleet is a way bigger deal than flying back to base report the enemy army. Hell, it's not trivial to find your home carrier without radio, but your airbase definitely didn't move.
"On top of that, losing radio is a much bigger blow to carrier power than surface, because the ability to attack at long range isn’t useful if you can’t detect the enemy at long range. "
Probably you'd wind up sending squadrons of scout bombers in extended line formation, with signal flares to call for attacks of opportunity. That doesn't get you nearly the reach of a strike coordinated by radio from the reports of dedicated reconnaissance aircraft, but probably still several times horizon distance.
Also, carrier attacks on land targets (including ships in port) become more effective because you can still attack from nearly full range but with greater chance of surprise and less chance of retaliation.
Regarding the ongoing crisis with the Bonhomme Richard, Defense News has an article asking what this does to the US Navy's plans in the Indo-Pacific. Bonhomme Richard was in the middle of a major upgrade to allow her to carry F-35s, and the story quotes a retired captain as saying that it's likely that the Bonhomme Richard will be declared a total loss and scrapped as a result of this fire. As a result, the Marine Corps' plans to forward deploy F-35s are now at risk.
So, given that I'm not as familiar with the actual capabilities of the LHDs, I have some questions for the group:
In other news, India and Australia have signed a mutual logistics support agreement that allows for greater cooperation between their militaries. Supposedly this allows Indian and Australian forces to use each others' bases and collaborate on joint exercises without having to go through as many layers of permission-asking, but I can't confirm this as the actual text of the agreement is frustratingly difficult to find.
The other half of the agreement involves technology sharing, and while it's even more vague than the logistics agreement, it has the potential for greater impact, as Australia has been doing some pretty impressive research with its "Loyal Wingman" concept combining manned and autonomous aircraft into a single fighting unit.
The Bonhomme Richard is a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship. The class has eight ships in total, all currently in service. If the Bonhomme Richard could be made to carry F35s, presumably the others could too.
The speculation I saw in the Defense News article was that they were going to do just that (hopefully without the ship-destroying fire), and bring up a LHA out of mothballs to fill the hole that the reassigned LHD would be leaving in the order of battle.
I don't know how long a fresh conversion would take, however. Do we know if the Bonhomme Richard was almost done with its conversion?
I know America (!) (technically not an LHD, but that's only because she has no well deck) has F-35 capability, and Wasp at least has already deployed with them too. I believe all of the LHDs are being converted and BHR just got unlucky. Not sure what this will do to their plans for F-35 deployment. More broadly, this knocks a whole in the big-deck amphib force, either until they repair her or (more likely, IMO) build a replacement.
There's the USS Peleliu in reserve for this sort of thing, but I can't imagine bringing it back into service would take less than 2 years and upgraded to use F-35s. I think the better plan would be to accelerate the building of LHA-8 as much as possible. If we could build 3 big deck amphibs in the next decade instead of 2 and keep wasp around a bit longer, that would be a better use of funds. Assuming, of course, that HI is capable of doing that.
Radio-less carriers could communicate via high-flying planes acting as optical relays. At 10km altitude, the horizon is almost 400km away. A specialized plane could mount large optics, to watch signal lamps from distant friendlies and send replies. Range would depend on what light they use and what size optics they could put on the plane, but they could be chained for increased reach.
So apparently there's an edit war on Wikipedia over the Wasp-class LHD page. One faction wants to list the Bonhomme Richard as "Status: Active", the other as "Status: On fire". https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wasp-classamphibiousassault_ship&oldid=967383667
I find this much more amusing than I really ought to.
@Alsadius
On fire is clearly the correct answer.
Looks like they're making progress. Smoke is no longer billowing from the ship.
Can the two factions compromise with "Actively On Fire"?
If someone does try and bring PEL out of mothballs, it will be an interesting case study in how feasible it actually is, and I suspect it will fail.
I'm going to go ahead and presume COA A ends up being "Make the ones in service last longer and extend their deployments, which is of course contradictory."
Assuming the Bonhomme Richard has to be scrapped, one option would be to station its detachment of Marines somewhere statically, while a replacement is being constructed. Where might a couple thousand Marines and a couple dozen aircraft be usefully forward deployed?
@johan
Can we send them on extended liberty to Hong Kong?
@cassander
According to actuarial tables, I have almost 30 years of remaining life expectancy. I'd like to enjoy at least the 20-25 that aren't going to suck. So maybe don't start WWIII just yet?
Maybe we could build a nice little beachfront resort^W^W EABO for them to sit in while their new ship gets built.
So I was watching “Jeopardy” today (Tuesday, 2020-07-14) and for Double Jeopardy they had a category called… “Naval Gazing”.
It consisted of questions about naval history, each accompanied by an image (photograph or painting). There were multiple questions about battleships, too, including one that I instantly recognized as an Iowa-class! (It was the Missouri.)
Perhaps one of the staff writers on the show reads a certain blog…?
@Johan Larson: Well, given an assumption that we have to stick to the Indo-Pacific, Australia is probably the least worst option.
Although, I guess you could put the MAW in Okinawa if you really wanted to?
There is that new Marine Corps base in Darwin to stick them in, but it's really no substitute for a proper phib. After all, they're just forward-based, they're not mobile, and you can hardly land them ashore anywhere that isn't New Guinea from Darwin directly.
Would there be any interest around here in perpetuating the fine SSC tradition of having a Diplomacy game? I could post this on DSL but I reckon most interested parties would hang around here anyways.
Diplomacy strategy is going to look funny when everybody builds always and only fleets :-)
It worked reasonably well for me, right up until I got stabbed in the back.
On diplomacy, I'd recommend that we play this variant:
https://web.archive.org/web/20110429123812/http://www.diplom.org/Zine/S2004M/Georget/peloponnesian_wars.html
@cassander, Interesting! Do you know if any of the online engines support it?
Note that the link is cut off for me, and copying it failed at first. https://tinyurl.com/y775z8y2 is a shorter version, for others with the same problem.
I like it, though, as long as we can get it supported by proper software. And I'd be in for a game of it.
I did a quick look around and the major websites appear to have an Ancient Med map, but no Peloponnesian War one.
I will create a topic on DSL, might be easier to keep track of it.
@fxbdm
I Know realpolitik does, and I can email you the files for that if you like, but I don't know anything about online engines.
I definitely would be interested in a diplomacy game, be it standard or Hellenic
https://www.backstabbr.com/game/Coldest-Tsar-Ax/5719456828882944/invite/NQXVCS
I created a normal game, 3 days turns (with provisions that I would lengthen the first few). I've already posted on Data Secrets Lox and have around 5 players interested there, so there is still room
Looks like the Bonhomme Richard fire is finally out. There are no helicopters dropping water or fireboats spraying down the hull.
I don't think it's completely out. I'd guess that there are still hotspots inside the ship, but that it's at the point where they just cool the bulkheads and wait for them to burn out.
It’s days like today when I wonder if my relationship with the Naval Institute Press isn’t slightly abusive. As a result of the move, I asked them to update my shipping address on a couple of orders that were still open from the Christmas sale. They came back saying “Oh, actually, we’re not printing those books any more, have your money back.” Which is fine, except that it took me reminding them to get a refund and this is not the first time they’ve done this to me. But I also saw the fall catalog today, and I’m planning on placing an order with them.
More seriously, if someone from there is reading this, your in-person customer service has been uniformly excellent. Your automated customer service has been equally uniformly terrible. I will continue to give you money because you have the best books, but I’d be more likely to donate if you didn’t annoy me so often, and if you could do the math right when issuing refunds.
This was posted 5 minutes ago on the Surface Warriors Facebook page:
In vaguely Ireland-related oops news:
The UK Marine Accidents Investigation Branch has published a report into a near-miss between a car ferry and what was probably a Vanguard-class SSBN at periscope depth in the Irish Sea.
Interesting read, especially given the limited information that the RN give out on submarine operations, including in this case to accident investigators...
The Diplomacy game currently has 5/7 players registered. If you want a spot, don't delay too much. The game will start as soon as we have 7 players.
https://www.backstabbr.com/game/Coldest-Tsar-Ax/5719456828882944/invite/NQXVCS
The situation with the USNI gets worse. I checked my credit card statement for unrelated reasons, and realized that they've been overcharging me on my last few orders. This appears to also be the root of the short refunds I've been getting on the cancelled books. The best-case scenario is that they've started charging sales tax and forgot to tell me or include it on their invoices. Their IT has generally been bad enough that I could believe that was happening, although I'm still extremely displeased with them. I'm not sure what the alternative is, but it's not pleasant.
So, a while back quanticle challenged us to come up with a 150 ship US Navy. I spent a little bit of time working on this, and have come up with a first approximation of an outline.
Some general principles: 1) I took the Wikipedia list of active ships in commission as my starting point, then added some more from some ships based on classes and production. I have captured most under construction, but probably not everything on order. My breakdown on this was pretty arbitrary, to be fair, so it's going to be off and not quite accurate, but whatevs.
2) I did not look at RRF or MSC or anything else (although the T-AH class will definitely DIAF if I ever get to that level). That's way more work than I feel like putting into this. Maybe I'll get to it later, 3) Broad overview, I am orienting my fleet to focus on the Indo-Pacific and homeland defense (read: BMD). 4) I worked more on "Subtracting from the baseline" than starting anew, which I should have done. But, I'm lazy. Maybe I'll do more work later. 5) General rule I am going with is 4 to get 1 (I know it's normally three to get one, but I am not sure we can make that
Anyway, I grouped the ships into 6 categories: Subs (SSNs, SSBNs, SSGNs) Large Combatants: (Cruisers, Destroyers) Small Combatants (LCS, PCs) Weirdos: AS, ESD/ESB, MIW, LCC Carriers: CVs Amphibs: LHAs/LHDs, LPDs, LSDs
The Starting Fleet I worked from ended up looking like this: 1. Subs: 88 (70 in service, counting 18 VAs in construction). 14 SSBNs, 4 SSGNs, 3 SSN-21s, 30 688s, 37 774s with 19 in commission. 2. Large Combatants: 94. 21 Cruisers, 3 DDG 1Ks, 70 DDG-51s (going up to DDG 120) 3. Small Combatants: 35. 22 LCS, 13 PCs. 4. Weirdos: 23. 2 AS, 8 ESB/ESD (I know these are mostly in the MSC, but I'm counting because I started doing so and I didn't want to go back. IT'S MY SYSTEM, IT CAN BE WEIRD IF I WANT IT TO BE), 11 MIW, 2 LCC 5. Carriers: 11 6. Amphibs: 35. 10 LHA/LHD (I am writing off BHR), 13 LPDs (counting through LPD 29), 12 LSDs).
Now, for my final fleet: 1. Subs: 52. I am decomming the SSGNs, 2xSSBNs, and 2x 688s for every 774 that comes online. This will be the one area I am floating above the number, since it will take some time to get the 774s above. IT'S MY SYSTEM, IT CAN BE INCONSISTENT IF I WANT IT TO BE2. LrCmbts: 49. I am keeping one DDG 1K as a testbed. I am getting rid of all CGs, 4 DDG FLT I/IIs (whichever ones are in worst materiel condition or are farthest away from SLEP, and 18 DDG FLTIIAs (78-90, and 6 more DDGs above 91, don't care which. However, those last 6 will come back later). This number may not be 100% accurate, I'd have to go back and check it out. 3. SmCmbts: 0. DIAF, LCS. Also the PCs go away, and we're not going to buy SSC/FFG(X) 4. Weirdos: 19. AS go away to MSC (sorry, I know I broke my own rule). LCCs go away, along with 2 MIW ships. I start pushing hard for a replacement for the MCMs. I am keeping the ESB/Ds. Taking a page from the Japanese, I am taking the 6 DDGs above 91 and turning them into "DDTs", which will serve to train junior officers in shiphandling and tactical operations and of course be ready to be re-activated in case of an emergency). 5. CVs: 8. Going to get rid of 3 (dependent on update schedule/refueling). 6. Amphibs: getting rid of the LSDs and 1 LPD (17). Thought about transferring the LSDs to the MSC, but didn't want to break my rules (IT'S MY SYSTEM etc), and also I suspect the materiel condition makes it not worthwhile.
Some other thoughts: -I really want to do more training ships (one carrier, for example, for air wing deck certs; maybe a few 688s to serve as training boats to train SSN COs, serve as OPFOR). They would not be in commission but in MSC, with some weird hybrid crews. -Related: four LCS will be kept and turned over to MSC to serve as OPFOR for certification exercises (civilian mariners as the shipdrivers, USNR personnel manning the modules/combat systems). -I have not thought about what would go into mothballs or RRF. Some stuff would! I'm just not sure what, actually. -I mentioned I am getting rid of the T-AH class. I would be open to some discussion about either LPD 17 or one or two of the LSDs being turned into "HADR ships", to be flagged under the Navy but operated by...USAID, I guess? I don't think HADR is useful in a strategic sense but lots of people do and it makes them feel good to do it, so I won't fight that too hard. -I did have some thoughts on how to cut down to 100, that I might try and work out. Short view becomes amphibiousness goes away as a trait.
Ugh, that's a mess. I may have to delete that and try again with better use of formatting or make multiple posts.
What's the logic in eliminating 4 Flight I/II and 18 Flight IIAs? That seems like a weird combination, given that it leaves you with more Flight I/II than IIAs if I'm counting right. Seems you'd want to keep the newer ships.
Other than that, it looks like a fairly reasonable list to me.
@Bean: short answer is the older FLTIIAs have a baseline combat system that is undesirable. I'm taking out the 6 above 91 to make sure I get the maximum relevance out of using them as the DDTs (plus makes them easier to bring back as DDGs given thing going south). The loss of the FLTIIAs is a little easier to live with given the FLTIIIs will still have helos.
For the FLTIs/IIs, going to keep for their BMD capability.
Situation with USNI is resolved. They apparently have been charging for shipping even on orders that should have had free shipping under the various sales. A refund check is on the way. I'm going to be checking bills during any future free shipping sales, but otherwise, things are good.
And, when looking through their catalog, I saw something I'd missed previously. Friedman's US Cruisers is back in print! It's been extremely hard to find for a reasonable price for years. I already have a copy, but it's an incredible book, and if you're interested in US warship design through the 1940s, you should buy it.