SavannahMann
Platinum Member
- Nov 16, 2016
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I think that is a little optimistic. I suspect that the date is actually, right now.
Part of the problem is that the Navy, and actually the entire Military, suffers from multiple personality disorder. A decade ago it was decided that we had no more use for Frigates. Those small ships that were too small to really operate on their own and were not large enough to project force from the sea inland at all. So all the Frigates were decommissioned. Those little ships are valuable escorts however. They provide a ring of defense around any task force. By getting rid of them, you denude your defensive capability dramatically. It is one less defensive ring to deal with.
The Navy recently realized the enormity of their mistake. They don’t have any Frigates on the drawing board that they can start construction with, and starting from scratch would take years to even begin. So the Navy has just announced that they will be buying Frigates from Italy.
Now the We’re Awesome crowd will scream murder about the awesome F-22 and F-35’s. But what they don’t understand is that quantity is a quality all it’s own. And the quality is able to be matched. In time, surpassed. But as I tried to point out during the early days of the Syrian Misadventure, the Russians and Chinese answer is missiles. A lot of them.
People downplay the Russian answer because it is different than our own. But let’s say you can intercept twenty missiles. What do you do if the enemy shoots 21 at you? Eventually the number of missiles inbound will overwhelm and swamp your defenses. Some are going to get through if the enemy shoots enough of them at you. Then your multiple billion dollar carrier is a new addition to the Bottom of the Ocean.
The only way to do it is sink the enemy ships before they sink yours. But here again, we have a disadvantage. Even Submarines have a limited number of shots on board. And every time they fire, they let the enemy know they are there, and even the stealthiest submarine can be located if the enemy is looking hard enough, and let’s be honest, they’ll be looking awfully hard won’t they?
Quantity has a Quality all it’s own.
The Chinese army has more troops than we have ammunition. They have millions of troops, and infinite space to absorb attacks. They would be close to their lines of supply, and we would be far from ours. Our supply lines would be stretched to the breaking point in days, or a couple weeks maximum. It would take years to build the military we needed to return to the Status Quo Ante, and to defeat China? That would be virtually impossible.
Yes, we have nukes. And they have nukes, and we can turn the Chinese Cities into parking lots that glow in the dark. But what then? They’ll return the favor, turning many of our cities into similar scenes of destruction. We can’t turn the entire country of China into radioactive cinders. And even if we could we would be pariahs in the International World, alone without friends.
So what can we do? First, we can honestly admit that we are vulnerable. Before you can fix the problem, you have to identify it. Second, we can start a realistic examination of our Military from top to bottom. What do we need to do to protect our interests in the real world, instead of the easy one where we always win the war games? Third, we can start realistically examining our military technology. We are getting rid of hundreds of airplanes right now so we can afford a few more F-35’s. Yes, it may be an awesome plane, but if we have too few of them to do the job, what good is it to have a single awesome plane?
We got into this mess sacrificing old but good technology for awesome new. To save money. The Navy has no Fleet Interceptors to replace the decommissioned F-14’s. We got rid of the best Interceptor we ever had, because we could get everyone into one kind of plane, the F/A 18, and then declare it was obsolete so we could buy the F-35.
We abandoned the “unrealistic” scenario of having a Military that could fight two and a half wars. Now we have one that could not really fight even one war. Oh they can bomb the living crap out of some backwards Jihadi in the middle of the Desert. They can do that just fine, but they do not train to fight overwhelming odds, they don’t train and equip to fight enemies who are comparatively equal in training and equipment. They train to fight insurgents and religious nutters. Always with an overwhelming advantage of technology and information.
I doubt we could beat Iran in a stand up fight in all honesty. War Games have been denuded to the enemy doing exactly what you would want them to. If our ships can intercept twenty missiles, the notional enemy obligingly sends ten in the war game. If our troops are capable of fighting numerically inferior troops equipped with a hodgepodge of technology and weapons, the enemy obligingly puts underquipped and ill trained troops in the field, for our war games anyway.
We need to wake up, and we need to realize that just because we scream we’re number one, doesn’t mean we are. We need to realize that the enemy is unlikely to oblige your plans and stand stoically still and let you kill them. They are unlikely to surrender control of the air and sea without costing us a lot in the process, and even then it would be contested.
Wake up folks, or in ten years, we will see America’s military hugging the coast, afraid to venture out into the deep blue ocean because there be Dragons out there.
US would lose a war with China fought in the Pacific, sources warn
'Eye-opening' Pentagon war games have revealed the US is vulnerable to China and that an attack from the superpower would lead to the US 'suffering capital losses', sources told The Times.
www.dailymail.co.uk
Part of the problem is that the Navy, and actually the entire Military, suffers from multiple personality disorder. A decade ago it was decided that we had no more use for Frigates. Those small ships that were too small to really operate on their own and were not large enough to project force from the sea inland at all. So all the Frigates were decommissioned. Those little ships are valuable escorts however. They provide a ring of defense around any task force. By getting rid of them, you denude your defensive capability dramatically. It is one less defensive ring to deal with.
The Navy recently realized the enormity of their mistake. They don’t have any Frigates on the drawing board that they can start construction with, and starting from scratch would take years to even begin. So the Navy has just announced that they will be buying Frigates from Italy.
Navy's New Frigate Will Be Based on Italian Ship With 'Officer-Quality' Staterooms
The frigate is an important part of the Navy's plan to position itself for future fights.
www.military.com
Now the We’re Awesome crowd will scream murder about the awesome F-22 and F-35’s. But what they don’t understand is that quantity is a quality all it’s own. And the quality is able to be matched. In time, surpassed. But as I tried to point out during the early days of the Syrian Misadventure, the Russians and Chinese answer is missiles. A lot of them.
People downplay the Russian answer because it is different than our own. But let’s say you can intercept twenty missiles. What do you do if the enemy shoots 21 at you? Eventually the number of missiles inbound will overwhelm and swamp your defenses. Some are going to get through if the enemy shoots enough of them at you. Then your multiple billion dollar carrier is a new addition to the Bottom of the Ocean.
The only way to do it is sink the enemy ships before they sink yours. But here again, we have a disadvantage. Even Submarines have a limited number of shots on board. And every time they fire, they let the enemy know they are there, and even the stealthiest submarine can be located if the enemy is looking hard enough, and let’s be honest, they’ll be looking awfully hard won’t they?
Quantity has a Quality all it’s own.
The Chinese army has more troops than we have ammunition. They have millions of troops, and infinite space to absorb attacks. They would be close to their lines of supply, and we would be far from ours. Our supply lines would be stretched to the breaking point in days, or a couple weeks maximum. It would take years to build the military we needed to return to the Status Quo Ante, and to defeat China? That would be virtually impossible.
Yes, we have nukes. And they have nukes, and we can turn the Chinese Cities into parking lots that glow in the dark. But what then? They’ll return the favor, turning many of our cities into similar scenes of destruction. We can’t turn the entire country of China into radioactive cinders. And even if we could we would be pariahs in the International World, alone without friends.
So what can we do? First, we can honestly admit that we are vulnerable. Before you can fix the problem, you have to identify it. Second, we can start a realistic examination of our Military from top to bottom. What do we need to do to protect our interests in the real world, instead of the easy one where we always win the war games? Third, we can start realistically examining our military technology. We are getting rid of hundreds of airplanes right now so we can afford a few more F-35’s. Yes, it may be an awesome plane, but if we have too few of them to do the job, what good is it to have a single awesome plane?
We got into this mess sacrificing old but good technology for awesome new. To save money. The Navy has no Fleet Interceptors to replace the decommissioned F-14’s. We got rid of the best Interceptor we ever had, because we could get everyone into one kind of plane, the F/A 18, and then declare it was obsolete so we could buy the F-35.
We abandoned the “unrealistic” scenario of having a Military that could fight two and a half wars. Now we have one that could not really fight even one war. Oh they can bomb the living crap out of some backwards Jihadi in the middle of the Desert. They can do that just fine, but they do not train to fight overwhelming odds, they don’t train and equip to fight enemies who are comparatively equal in training and equipment. They train to fight insurgents and religious nutters. Always with an overwhelming advantage of technology and information.
I doubt we could beat Iran in a stand up fight in all honesty. War Games have been denuded to the enemy doing exactly what you would want them to. If our ships can intercept twenty missiles, the notional enemy obligingly sends ten in the war game. If our troops are capable of fighting numerically inferior troops equipped with a hodgepodge of technology and weapons, the enemy obligingly puts underquipped and ill trained troops in the field, for our war games anyway.
We need to wake up, and we need to realize that just because we scream we’re number one, doesn’t mean we are. We need to realize that the enemy is unlikely to oblige your plans and stand stoically still and let you kill them. They are unlikely to surrender control of the air and sea without costing us a lot in the process, and even then it would be contested.
Wake up folks, or in ten years, we will see America’s military hugging the coast, afraid to venture out into the deep blue ocean because there be Dragons out there.