5 ms·

Former Navy (nuclear propulsion) here. That by no means makes me an expert, by I will share a couple of thoughts: Ships rust. Officers don't chip paint and pai

Former Navy (nuclear propulsion) here. That by no means makes me an expert, by I will share a couple of thoughts: Ships rust. Officers don't chip paint and paint. Technical enlisted and NCOs don't chip paint and paint either. Junior, and especially unrated (not trained in a vocational area yet) enlisted do. This looks like a simple case of being undermanned, and/or having "too many chiefs and not enough braves". Reality is that it probably has to do with pay rates for Enlisted. Fedex pays $36-$42k/yer for package handlers. An E-1 makes $21k/year base. With all benefits, you might be at parity with Fedex, but you give up a lot of freedom. I'll commit a little naval heresy here but surface ships are probably nearing obsolescence if not already obsolete. They are slow, easy to find, and hypersonics, drones, cruise missiles, aircraft and submarines are just incredibly lethal, and perfect point defense doesn't exist. The sinking of the Moskva is really just a sign of the times. The carrier battle group may fare better because of the range of air cover and subsurface escorts, but we're in an era of weapons that can kill a carrier with a single hit.

kingcharles 5y ago
I totally agree. Surface ships are now just sitting ducks. Does the US have more carriers under construction? You need carriers to launch planes, but I guess the future could be quadcopter drones launched from subs?
- PeterisP 5y ago
  The concept of "carriers" might change as they start to carry smaller unmanned planes - quadcopters tend to be at a disadvantage to fixed wing drones when longer ranges and longer loiter times are required. The solution to ship-killer weapons is decentralization, replacing a single juicy target with many dispersed targets. A Predator or Bayraktar sized drone designed for naval operations could be launched from a "dronecarrier" much, much smaller and cheaper than the current carriers.
  - zeusk 5y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjUdVxJH6yI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjUdVxJH6yI
  - littlestymaar 5y ago
    You don't necessarily need a light UCAV to make this work, for the record the variant B of the F35 is easier to deploy from smaller boats than a TB2 or a predator while also being orders of magnitude more capable.
  - nradov 5y ago
    The size of carriers is driven not so much by the size of strike aircraft (regardless of whether they're manned or unmanned), but rather by the need to launch larger AWACS aircraft, conduct flight operations in heavy sea states, provide enough hangar space for maintenance work, and carry enough aviation fuel and munitions for several days of high intensity operations. Even a slight decrease in size severely impacts those areas. In other words, carrier effectiveness doesn't scale linearly with size; a 20% reduction in size might result in a 40% loss of effectiveness. And a hypothetical drone carrier probably wouldn't even be much cheaper.
- the__alchemist 5y ago
  Why do you figure quads over fixed/wing or VTOL? Quads, compared to every other propulsion model, are inefficient. What you buy is mechanical simplicity, and its associated durability/repair-ability.
- simonblack 5y ago
  You need carriers to launch planes But are planes the most cost-effective form of throwing high-explosive long distances? Once, they were. They had a much greater range than a battleship's guns and thus obsoleted the battleship. These days, missiles have double the range of carrier aircraft. So a very inexpensive frigate with long-range missiles is far more cost-effective than a huge expensive Carrier Group. (Most of the Group's ships are there merely to protect and support the carrier. Without the carrier, they are redundant. Sure, a Group looks big and powerful, but cost-effective? No.)
  - nradov 5y ago
    Long-range missiles can only work if you know in advance where the target will be. Manned tactical aircraft are still far better at searching out unknown targets, and at handling dynamic situations like close air support. Perhaps that will change in a few decades as sensors and AI technology improve, but the reality today is that long-range missiles simply can't fulfill the required mission set.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jeffrallen 5y ago
> Officers don't chip and paint. In a "morale emergency" an effective leader will lead from the front, showing the behavior that she needs her team to show. The chief of maintenance on those ships should be chipping and painting in their free time until the people under them have enough shame and/or pride to start doing it correctly on their shifts. I once had a problem with "that's not in my job description", pitting security guards against truck unloaders. I took one trip with 25kg of rice on my shoulder and then looked back to see a line of security guards following behind me. Moo.
- indymike 5y ago
  > In a "morale emergency" an effective leader will lead from the front, showing the behavior that she needs her team to show. Maintaining the paint on a destroyer is really hard to do, and the sailors I served with, well, there was no shortage of people willing to work and lead by example. That said, picture a 154 meter destroyer and compare that to a 4" paint scraper. How many effective leaders does that take? >Moo Agree

kingcharles 5y ago

I totally agree. Surface ships are now just sitting ducks. Does the US have more carriers under construction? You need carriers to launch planes, but I guess the future could be quadcopter drones launched from subs?

PeterisP 5y ago
The concept of "carriers" might change as they start to carry smaller unmanned planes - quadcopters tend to be at a disadvantage to fixed wing drones when longer ranges and longer loiter times are required. The solution to ship-killer weapons is decentralization, replacing a single juicy target with many dispersed targets. A Predator or Bayraktar sized drone designed for naval operations could be launched from a "dronecarrier" much, much smaller and cheaper than the current carriers.
- zeusk 5y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjUdVxJH6yI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjUdVxJH6yI
- littlestymaar 5y ago
  You don't necessarily need a light UCAV to make this work, for the record the variant B of the F35 is easier to deploy from smaller boats than a TB2 or a predator while also being orders of magnitude more capable.
- nradov 5y ago
  The size of carriers is driven not so much by the size of strike aircraft (regardless of whether they're manned or unmanned), but rather by the need to launch larger AWACS aircraft, conduct flight operations in heavy sea states, provide enough hangar space for maintenance work, and carry enough aviation fuel and munitions for several days of high intensity operations. Even a slight decrease in size severely impacts those areas. In other words, carrier effectiveness doesn't scale linearly with size; a 20% reduction in size might result in a 40% loss of effectiveness. And a hypothetical drone carrier probably wouldn't even be much cheaper.
the__alchemist 5y ago
Why do you figure quads over fixed/wing or VTOL? Quads, compared to every other propulsion model, are inefficient. What you buy is mechanical simplicity, and its associated durability/repair-ability.
simonblack 5y ago
You need carriers to launch planes But are planes the most cost-effective form of throwing high-explosive long distances? Once, they were. They had a much greater range than a battleship's guns and thus obsoleted the battleship. These days, missiles have double the range of carrier aircraft. So a very inexpensive frigate with long-range missiles is far more cost-effective than a huge expensive Carrier Group. (Most of the Group's ships are there merely to protect and support the carrier. Without the carrier, they are redundant. Sure, a Group looks big and powerful, but cost-effective? No.)
- nradov 5y ago
  Long-range missiles can only work if you know in advance where the target will be. Manned tactical aircraft are still far better at searching out unknown targets, and at handling dynamic situations like close air support. Perhaps that will change in a few decades as sensors and AI technology improve, but the reality today is that long-range missiles simply can't fulfill the required mission set.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jeffrallen 5y ago

> Officers don't chip and paint. In a "morale emergency" an effective leader will lead from the front, showing the behavior that she needs her team to show. The chief of maintenance on those ships should be chipping and painting in their free time until the people under them have enough shame and/or pride to start doing it correctly on their shifts. I once had a problem with "that's not in my job description", pitting security guards against truck unloaders. I took one trip with 25kg of rice on my shoulder and then looked back to see a line of security guards following behind me. Moo.

indymike 5y ago
> In a "morale emergency" an effective leader will lead from the front, showing the behavior that she needs her team to show. Maintaining the paint on a destroyer is really hard to do, and the sailors I served with, well, there was no shortage of people willing to work and lead by example. That said, picture a 154 meter destroyer and compare that to a 4" paint scraper. How many effective leaders does that take? >Moo Agree