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Poll Topic
This topic has been sticky by szh at 2010-9-20 11:03.
| Future sea war will unfold between subs only?The era of surface warships will end?  Improved Nimitz class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier For centuries, battleships ruled the seas. Whoever had the biggest, baddest battleships with the most powerful cannons controlled valuable shipping lines and thus dominated much of the world. This was true throughout the centuries of the sailing ship, the brief era of the steamship, and finally the epoch of the diesel-powered ship. Just as manned aircraft suddenly rendered once-mighty battleships obsolete, we are now on the cusp of a new era in which all surface warfare ships will become obsolete. It has not happened yet, but the handwriting is clearly on the wall. Soon they will become indefensible. Why? Because ships are expensive and manned, while missiles are cheap and unmanned. Also, satellites are rapidly making every inch of the Earth viewable with the click of a mouse. In the near future, there will be literally nowhere to hide. Ships: Expensive and Manned Ships are expensive, and they take years to build. Consider the current Gerald R. Ford–class supercarrier under construction. It is going to cost somewhere around $9 billion and take 5 years to construct. Once launched, at any given time it will have around 100 aircraft on board. At a conservative estimate of $50 million per aircraft, that makes the carrier worth another $5 billion. More important than the equipment is the manpower. It will take about 3,000 Sailors and pilots to man the ship and the planes. So, adding it all up, we will have an asset worth about $14 billion floating around in the middle of the ocean with thousands of American lives on board.  Tarawa-class amphibious assault ship Or let's consider one of the Tarawa-class amphibious assault ships used to bring Marines ashore. Each one costs around $2 billion and can carry 30 helicopters. In the future, they will carry the F–35 Lightning jets that can be modified for vertical takeoff. Each ship carries almost 2,000 Marines and a crew of about 1,000 Sailors and officers. So here again we see a multibillion-dollar platform out at sea with thousands of American Servicemembers aboard. Either of the above would clearly be a juicy target for an enemy nation or a terrorist organization. Missiles: Cheap and Unmanned A variety of antiship and ballistic missiles are available in the $1-million-each neighborhood. More primitive ones are much cheaper. Using $1 million as a round figure means that we could buy 2,000 missiles for $2 billion. Along with being cheap, another key point is that missiles are unmanned—so we do not have to spend years training someone how to fly them. And we need not worry about pilots being killed or captured. If a few dozen or a hundred of them miss the target and plunge into the ocean, it is not a problem. Adding up these factors, what other conclusion can we arrive at than that missiles can be purchased (or manufactured) in such vast quantities that a barrage of them could destroy any ship on the high seas, no matter how big or how technologically advanced. Satellites Change Everything Some may say: "But missiles have been around for decades. If this danger is so great, why hasn't this already happened?" One reason is simple. As big as aircraft carriers are, they still can be hard to find out in the oceans. During World War II, for instance, the range of a Hellcat fighter jet was about 1,000 miles. This meant the carrier group had reconnaissance capability out to about 500 miles in any direction. Today, satellites have changed all this. Soon every inch of the Earth's oceans will be visible by satellite. It will be a simple matter to find the exact grid coordinates of any ship anywhere in the world, punch the data into a missile silo, and launch a barrage of missiles to the precise location of the ship or fleet. Countermeasures Won't Work The simple truth is that countermeasures will work, but only for a while. US Navy has sophisticated countermeasures that include the Aegis antiballistic missile system, radar, and final protective lines of fire. These are all good systems, and effective at engaging individual incoming missiles. The problem is that they can be overwhelmed or confused by a massive barrage of incoming rounds. And even when they do work as planned, they only work while they have ammunition. In other words, the Achilles' heel of every ship-borne system is that it is only effective as long as it has rounds to fire, which take up room on a ship and demand a lot of fuel to haul. So the farther we go from home base, the more expensive resupply becomes and the longer it takes. On the other hand, a land-based missile system can keep firing rounds indefinitely. In other words, all any nation has to do to destroy one of US most valuable military assets—our capital ships—is to keep firing missiles (no matter how cheap or inferior they are) until the ship runs out of the rounds needed to defend itself. The Solution?  Los Angeles class nuclear-powered attack submarine The solution is submarines. No matter how many satellites are in the sky, they cannot see below the ocean's surface. Nuclear-powered submarines can stay submerged for months on end. We need to exploit this capability and develop whole new classes of submarines, such as aircraft carriers, troop carriers, and cargo submarines. Some of these suggestions may sound far-fetched. But during World War II, Japan actually built and deployed submarines with aircraft on board that were on their way across the Pacific to blow up the Panama Canal when the war ended. If it was possible to build such a submarine 60 years ago, why can we not do something similar or even better today? Regarding assault ships, why can we not build submarines as troop carriers, then have them surface so Marines can deploy the last few hundred yards by inflatable raft or other small boats? Cargo submarines could also be designed that open up for loading containerized shipping units or tactical vehicles. This cargo could be offloaded at piers using cranes, similar to how many surface ships are now loaded. Such submarines could be the only resupply line for heavy equipment if an enemy country or terrorist organization has eliminated our surface warships and is focusing now on our military cargo ships. (From JFQ) Will future sea war unfold between subs only? |
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