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Not sold on the short-range air defense destroyer idea. I think we want destroyers also capable of intercepting ballsitic missiles after seeing what has happene

Not sold on the short-range air defense destroyer idea. I think we want destroyers also capable of intercepting ballsitic missiles after seeing what has happened in Ukraine. The changes to procurement do not sound harmful but why go for a less capable ship? South Korea, Japan, and China are building larger and more capable multi-role ships. Are they all wrong? And regarding software, didn't Sqlite originate on Aegis destroyers?

nradov 3y ago
Area air defense capabilities including ABM is growing more important by the day. Has this guy been paying attention to what's happening in China and the Middle East? And building slower surface warships just to save money doesn't make any sense. Aircraft carriers have to be fast in order to generate enough wind over the deck for flight operations. And the escorting destroyers need to be just as fast to keep up. Amphibious vessels are already designed with wider hulls and lower top speeds.
- livueta 3y ago
  It's not just to save money - it also increases the number you can crank out in a big hurry. In WWII, escort carriers were small, slow, lightly armored and yet came in absolutely clutch because some slow air cover that needs extensive destroyer/cruiser babysitting >>> no air cover at all once all the fleet carriers of both sides were done mutually annihilating each other (iirc at one point the US was down to one operational fleet carrier in the Pacific; the Saratoga in late 42/early 43) due to how most leaders hadn't fully grasped just how lethal massed air power was, some figures like Halsey aside. In that breach, and even later on e.g. Battle off Samar, escort carriers were indispensable. Of the 151 aircraft carriers built in the U.S. during World War II, 122 were escort carriers. I don't think it's totally implausible that massed cruise/hypersonic missile attacks won't play out similarly in a future conflict, leading to a scenario where both sides need to rebuild asap. Being able to crank out limited-purpose ships is important if you want to maintain any capability at all, even if that capability is less flexible than the gucci option.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - ianburrell 3y ago
    If want cheap warships, then putting containerized missiles on cargo ship might be the cheapest option. The standard VLS cells should fit in standard container. It should be possible to create data link to other ships, and use the cargo ship as magazine. It would be much harder to make a containerized warship with radar, combat system, and all that. The cargo ships would be super vulnerable without any defenses, and be destroyed by any hit. The other problem is that the stocks of missiles are small. The US should probably focus on making more, cheaper missiles than building ships.
    - nradov 3y ago
      There have been a number of proposals along those lines to install containerized missiles on cargo ships. It's technically possible, but cargo ships are so slow and vulnerable that they would only be useful to supplement the magazines of surface warships conducting convoy escort missions. That's a pretty niche mission now and it would be difficult to justify the expense.
  - nradov 3y ago
    I mean we kind of have "escort carriers" already in the form of amphibious ships that can operate helicopters and V/STOL fighters. Those work well enough for limited missions like close air support. But without high speed and catapults they can't operate the heavy aircraft necessary to defend a fleet or engage an adversary at long ranges. What worked in WW2 is no longer relevant.
    - livueta 3y ago
      The point isn't that it specifically needs to be escort carriers, but something analogous in role, where you get a valuable capability at a low cost and production time. Slow/cheap missile platforms might be that modern analogue.
- ckozlowski 3y ago
  I agree. The observations of foreign shipyards and competitiveness I thought was interesting and bore resemblance to points I'd seen made elsewhere. It read as credible. When the author began going into military strategy, that's where he lost me. With all due respect to the writer, it seemed like a lot of off-the-cuff ideas from a layperson who has the outsiders view on what they think naval warfare is like, combined with some knowledge elsewhere that doesn't necessarily apply. The author had a simple solution for dozens of things, my reply to which I can only surmise as "it's not that simple". Ship design and procurement is very complex, and takes into account many factors that are not always apparent (in many cases because they're not very appealing to study). That's not to say that the US Navy always gets it right. But even in the cases where they've gotten it wrong, you can at least follow the path of logic that got them there. These wishlists of "They should just do it this way, it's logically so much better!" I feel often fails to take into account the constraints and limitations of the environment, and how the things to be done fit into the greater warfighting picture. The latter alone I feel results in more misunderstandings of why some weapons are procured over others and why they do what they do than any other factor. There's some good defense journals which cover topics such as these from analysts with backgrounds in the subject matter. I was reading an article from War On The Rocks just yesterday on naval procurement, and their site is good reading for those interested in more from a more knowledgeable base.
ceejayoz 3y ago
Those struck me as odd. I can’t find much in the author’s experience in the defense space. Advocating for guns over missiles seemed to go against every expectation I have for future naval combat, too.
- obmelvin 3y ago
  Range is obviously a clear advantage that missiles will basically always have over guns for anti-air, but the cost difference is also huge. This is currently a very real issue in the Red Sea - https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/19/missile-drone-pentagon-houthi-attacks-iran-00132480 https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/19/missile-drone-penta... Although I would agree with what I think is your implicit thought, which is that the US really needs to work on interceptors that are significantly cheaper (i.e. the Tamir used by Iron Dome)
  - ckozlowski 3y ago
    The US Navy is putting a lot of research into directed energy weapons (DEW) for this purpose. The primary intent behind these is to offer a low-cost and "deep magazine" for taking out missiles and drones. There's a few demonstrators out there on various ships with systems like these in the trial stage. One big advantage to DEW over interceptors which the Navy likes is that it isn't another magazine hit risk like conventional missiles and gun ammunition is. Another is that even if the ammo is cheap, it takes up space which is limited on a ship. This presents challenges when operating in areas like the South China Sea or Persian Gulf where countering attacks from land would be likely. Even if the interceptors are cheap, deeper magazines by an attacker on land can simply exhaust the supply on the naval ship. DEW has the potential to rectify this.
    - obmelvin 3y ago
      Yes, they seem promising for ships assuming the output can be increased so it doesn't require tracking the target for multiple seconds. I'm a bit less knowledgeable wether the energy requirements can easily be met for other vehicles such as Humvees with vastly different engines & fuel capacities. That said, I'm all in for laser research and the trickle down effects of things like fiber lasers!
DennisP 3y ago
The author says "dedicated platforms could provide ballistic missile radar coverage." It doesn't sound like he's suggesting we skip ballistic missile defense.
- trynumber9 3y ago
  I understand a bit with the one role perspective. But why build short range air defence destroyers at all? Because the ballistic missile destroyers will have a more capable radar and be able to fit all the same anti-air missiles and the bigger ones too. So it seems like their "one role" subsumes the others entirely albeit with the caveat it'll be more painful to replace if they're lost in war.
  - lumost 3y ago
    The author may be thinking that in a peer conflict, some number of ships would be taken as “acceptable” losses. This could be a useful role for a cheap forward deployed “drone” ship, but I’d expect alternate platforms would be more effective.
- ianburrell 3y ago
  There are two kinds of ballistic missile defense. First is defending land targets with ships instead of base. Second is defending fleet from Chinese anti-ship ballistic missiles. Without BMD on escorts, ballistic missiles can wipe out fleet.
ianburrell 3y ago
The short-range destroyer doesn't make any sense because the radars for air defense aren't cheap. The US is building Constellation frigates as lower cost air defense. They will have medium-range SAMs because they have shorter VLS cells, and not the bigger long-range SAM and ABM that the destroyers have. I think they put on Aegis cause that is the only system available. There is short-range ESSM missiles that packs 4 per VLS cell, and they could fit in shorter cells. You could make a frigate with ESSM, a lot of countries have similar. But the US doesn't seem to have combat system that could do that and might have to buy it. ESSM is intended for self-defense, I don't know if it can defend fleet. Also, the size of missiles is directly related to the range because they are mostly rocket. The warhead doesn't make much difference to the cost.
- cwillu 3y ago
  https://www.navalgazing.net/ESSM https://www.navalgazing.net/ESSM says the range is estimated to be 50km, Block II no longer needs illumination from the firing ship, but may not be fully integrated into AEGIS such that it can take targeting data from other ships. “But despite its capabilities, ESSM still had the drawback of all previous versions of Sea Sparrow. It relied on semi-active guidance, requiring illumination from the firing ship. It did have an autopilot and uplink from the firing ship, allowing illumination only in the last moments of its flight, but this was still a potential problem when facing saturation attack. The obvious way to solve this was to fit the missile with an active seeker head, and discussions of doing so were happening as far back as 2002, but it wasn’t until relatively recently that serious work began on what is known as ESSM Block II. Block II kept the motor and fins, and replaced the forward 8″ section with a new 10″ guidance section, with a new dual-mode active/passive radar seeker. This removed the need for firing-ship illumination entirely, allowing Block II to be used against swarm attacks or targets that the firing ship couldn’t see, although reports don’t seem to indicate that it’s fully integrated into the Collective Engagement Capability (CEC) system.”

nradov 3y ago

Area air defense capabilities including ABM is growing more important by the day. Has this guy been paying attention to what's happening in China and the Middle East? And building slower surface warships just to save money doesn't make any sense. Aircraft carriers have to be fast in order to generate enough wind over the deck for flight operations. And the escorting destroyers need to be just as fast to keep up. Amphibious vessels are already designed with wider hulls and lower top speeds.

livueta 3y ago
It's not just to save money - it also increases the number you can crank out in a big hurry. In WWII, escort carriers were small, slow, lightly armored and yet came in absolutely clutch because some slow air cover that needs extensive destroyer/cruiser babysitting >>> no air cover at all once all the fleet carriers of both sides were done mutually annihilating each other (iirc at one point the US was down to one operational fleet carrier in the Pacific; the Saratoga in late 42/early 43) due to how most leaders hadn't fully grasped just how lethal massed air power was, some figures like Halsey aside. In that breach, and even later on e.g. Battle off Samar, escort carriers were indispensable. Of the 151 aircraft carriers built in the U.S. during World War II, 122 were escort carriers. I don't think it's totally implausible that massed cruise/hypersonic missile attacks won't play out similarly in a future conflict, leading to a scenario where both sides need to rebuild asap. Being able to crank out limited-purpose ships is important if you want to maintain any capability at all, even if that capability is less flexible than the gucci option.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ianburrell 3y ago
  If want cheap warships, then putting containerized missiles on cargo ship might be the cheapest option. The standard VLS cells should fit in standard container. It should be possible to create data link to other ships, and use the cargo ship as magazine. It would be much harder to make a containerized warship with radar, combat system, and all that. The cargo ships would be super vulnerable without any defenses, and be destroyed by any hit. The other problem is that the stocks of missiles are small. The US should probably focus on making more, cheaper missiles than building ships.
  - nradov 3y ago
    There have been a number of proposals along those lines to install containerized missiles on cargo ships. It's technically possible, but cargo ships are so slow and vulnerable that they would only be useful to supplement the magazines of surface warships conducting convoy escort missions. That's a pretty niche mission now and it would be difficult to justify the expense.
- nradov 3y ago
  I mean we kind of have "escort carriers" already in the form of amphibious ships that can operate helicopters and V/STOL fighters. Those work well enough for limited missions like close air support. But without high speed and catapults they can't operate the heavy aircraft necessary to defend a fleet or engage an adversary at long ranges. What worked in WW2 is no longer relevant.
  - livueta 3y ago
    The point isn't that it specifically needs to be escort carriers, but something analogous in role, where you get a valuable capability at a low cost and production time. Slow/cheap missile platforms might be that modern analogue.
ckozlowski 3y ago
I agree. The observations of foreign shipyards and competitiveness I thought was interesting and bore resemblance to points I'd seen made elsewhere. It read as credible. When the author began going into military strategy, that's where he lost me. With all due respect to the writer, it seemed like a lot of off-the-cuff ideas from a layperson who has the outsiders view on what they think naval warfare is like, combined with some knowledge elsewhere that doesn't necessarily apply. The author had a simple solution for dozens of things, my reply to which I can only surmise as "it's not that simple". Ship design and procurement is very complex, and takes into account many factors that are not always apparent (in many cases because they're not very appealing to study). That's not to say that the US Navy always gets it right. But even in the cases where they've gotten it wrong, you can at least follow the path of logic that got them there. These wishlists of "They should just do it this way, it's logically so much better!" I feel often fails to take into account the constraints and limitations of the environment, and how the things to be done fit into the greater warfighting picture. The latter alone I feel results in more misunderstandings of why some weapons are procured over others and why they do what they do than any other factor. There's some good defense journals which cover topics such as these from analysts with backgrounds in the subject matter. I was reading an article from War On The Rocks just yesterday on naval procurement, and their site is good reading for those interested in more from a more knowledgeable base.

ceejayoz 3y ago

Those struck me as odd. I can’t find much in the author’s experience in the defense space. Advocating for guns over missiles seemed to go against every expectation I have for future naval combat, too.

obmelvin 3y ago
Range is obviously a clear advantage that missiles will basically always have over guns for anti-air, but the cost difference is also huge. This is currently a very real issue in the Red Sea - https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/19/missile-drone-pentagon-houthi-attacks-iran-00132480 https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/19/missile-drone-penta... Although I would agree with what I think is your implicit thought, which is that the US really needs to work on interceptors that are significantly cheaper (i.e. the Tamir used by Iron Dome)
- ckozlowski 3y ago
  The US Navy is putting a lot of research into directed energy weapons (DEW) for this purpose. The primary intent behind these is to offer a low-cost and "deep magazine" for taking out missiles and drones. There's a few demonstrators out there on various ships with systems like these in the trial stage. One big advantage to DEW over interceptors which the Navy likes is that it isn't another magazine hit risk like conventional missiles and gun ammunition is. Another is that even if the ammo is cheap, it takes up space which is limited on a ship. This presents challenges when operating in areas like the South China Sea or Persian Gulf where countering attacks from land would be likely. Even if the interceptors are cheap, deeper magazines by an attacker on land can simply exhaust the supply on the naval ship. DEW has the potential to rectify this.
  - obmelvin 3y ago
    Yes, they seem promising for ships assuming the output can be increased so it doesn't require tracking the target for multiple seconds. I'm a bit less knowledgeable wether the energy requirements can easily be met for other vehicles such as Humvees with vastly different engines & fuel capacities. That said, I'm all in for laser research and the trickle down effects of things like fiber lasers!

DennisP 3y ago

The author says "dedicated platforms could provide ballistic missile radar coverage." It doesn't sound like he's suggesting we skip ballistic missile defense.

trynumber9 3y ago
I understand a bit with the one role perspective. But why build short range air defence destroyers at all? Because the ballistic missile destroyers will have a more capable radar and be able to fit all the same anti-air missiles and the bigger ones too. So it seems like their "one role" subsumes the others entirely albeit with the caveat it'll be more painful to replace if they're lost in war.
- lumost 3y ago
  The author may be thinking that in a peer conflict, some number of ships would be taken as “acceptable” losses. This could be a useful role for a cheap forward deployed “drone” ship, but I’d expect alternate platforms would be more effective.
ianburrell 3y ago
There are two kinds of ballistic missile defense. First is defending land targets with ships instead of base. Second is defending fleet from Chinese anti-ship ballistic missiles. Without BMD on escorts, ballistic missiles can wipe out fleet.

ianburrell 3y ago

The short-range destroyer doesn't make any sense because the radars for air defense aren't cheap. The US is building Constellation frigates as lower cost air defense. They will have medium-range SAMs because they have shorter VLS cells, and not the bigger long-range SAM and ABM that the destroyers have. I think they put on Aegis cause that is the only system available. There is short-range ESSM missiles that packs 4 per VLS cell, and they could fit in shorter cells. You could make a frigate with ESSM, a lot of countries have similar. But the US doesn't seem to have combat system that could do that and might have to buy it. ESSM is intended for self-defense, I don't know if it can defend fleet. Also, the size of missiles is directly related to the range because they are mostly rocket. The warhead doesn't make much difference to the cost.

cwillu 3y ago
https://www.navalgazing.net/ESSM https://www.navalgazing.net/ESSM says the range is estimated to be 50km, Block II no longer needs illumination from the firing ship, but may not be fully integrated into AEGIS such that it can take targeting data from other ships. “But despite its capabilities, ESSM still had the drawback of all previous versions of Sea Sparrow. It relied on semi-active guidance, requiring illumination from the firing ship. It did have an autopilot and uplink from the firing ship, allowing illumination only in the last moments of its flight, but this was still a potential problem when facing saturation attack. The obvious way to solve this was to fit the missile with an active seeker head, and discussions of doing so were happening as far back as 2002, but it wasn’t until relatively recently that serious work began on what is known as ESSM Block II. Block II kept the motor and fins, and replaced the forward 8″ section with a new 10″ guidance section, with a new dual-mode active/passive radar seeker. This removed the need for firing-ship illumination entirely, allowing Block II to be used against swarm attacks or targets that the firing ship couldn’t see, although reports don’t seem to indicate that it’s fully integrated into the Collective Engagement Capability (CEC) system.”