We’re Long Overdue for Due Diligence in Defense.....

Defense Secretary Carter deserves applause for cutting the Navy’s LCS, and encouragement to think more broadly......

These days, due diligence in defense is rare. That’s why whenever reason trumps the combined power of special-interest money and bureaucratic parochialism Americans should take notice. Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s December directive to the Navy to reemphasize “posture” over “forward presence,” to reduce the buy of Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) from 54 to 40, and shift money toward vital future capabilities like the Virginia Payload Module is a case in point.

Setting aside the abysmal failure to validate the operational requirement that produced the LCS program (which happened before Carter’s watch), the secretary’s decision to change direction should be celebrated. Here’s why.

First, “Forward Military Presence” — whether naval, air or ground — is overrated. When the American military was practically omnipresent in the Eastern Hemisphere, it did nothing to prevent Iran from dominating Iraq, Syria from descending into chaos, Ukraine from being invaded, or the Islamic State from rising.

Second, in a future maritime environment dominated by space-based surveillance, land-based missiles, submarines, and unmanned systems and sensors of all kinds from seabed to space, the Navy’s current generation of surface combatants are more likely to provide targets than influence.

Third, Adm. John Richardson, the Chief of Naval Operations, deserves accolades for reminding his officers that margins of victory are created over decades: “Our competitors are focused on taking the lead – we must pick up the pace and deny them. The margins of victory are razor thin—but decisive!” Now is not the time to invest in the past’s poorly thought-out solutions......snip~

http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/201...due-diligence-defense/125353/?oref=d-topstory

Due diligence in Defense......this then would include preparing for all branches of the Armed Services. It also does not mean reducing the military to a point of where we can't respond, until after the fact. What say ye?

 

The Middle East exemplifies the problem. Instead of doubling down on its wasteful precision bombing and special operations campaign against the Islamic State, Washington should disengage its forces from the regional conflict and adopt neutrality towards all sides. Without the Turkish and Saudi intelligence organs plus Saudi and Qatari money, the Caliphate would never have risen from the ruins of al Qaeda in Iraq. This will not change because Turkey and Saudi Arabia are determined to expel Iran and its allies from Mesopotamia and the Levant.

Washington and its European NATO allies cannot stop Ankara, Riyadh, and other Sunni states from gradually sliding into war with Iran and Russia, but they can withdraw their Article 5 protective forces from Turkish territory and publicly state that Turkey is acting as a sovereign state, not as a member of NATO. It would be the gargantuan joke of the 21st century if the United States and its European allies were drawn into war against Iran and Russia on the side of the Sunni Islamists, the principle perpetrators of anti-Western terrorism and subversion for 25 years.

So it’s time for honesty. The United States’ Cold War surplus of military power is gone. The inter-service competition to achieve “strategic relevance” inside the Beltway diverted defense investment into low-end systems designed for “permissive environments” and wasteful, self-defeating military occupations. The foundation of American military power—organization, technology and human capital—atrophied, placing the warfighting capabilities of the armed services on a perilous path to decay and obsolescence......snip~


That is pretty much, what is taking place.

 

Obama has pissed all over the military to buy votes.

We need to build up our military, and we need a President that the world respects-that isn't Obama.

 

This is nothing more than old news. The biggest supporter of the Navy's Little Crappy Ship was the Obama administration, knowing that these ships weren't survivable in combat but they were in the pipe line to bolster up having a 300 ship navy while counting hospital ships, garbage scowls, small ski boat coastal patrol boats as part of the navy's combat force. As most of us know the Obamna administration got caught in another lie counting non combat auxiliaries as warships. A freaking hospital ship is a warship according to Obama ? Just like boats that go under water and a Navy corpsman is a dead navy corpse man.

What the Obama administration has done was to cancle 12 of the 50 crappy ships and to redesignate these other 40 Little Crappy Ships as frigates. A frigate who's main gun armament is a 57 MM pop gun !!!

The entire LCS program should be scrapped just like the Zumwalt class destroyer was scrapped after building three of these ships with their 155 MM rail guns and couldn't provide the naval shore support that the Marine Corps requires. Not to mention that they are likely to capsize in rough seas.

Now we know that the maritime version of AAA, the tug boat industry are the biggest supporters of the LCS. It takes one tug boat to tow every LCS that breaks down and has to be towed to back to port. That means we need 40 more tug boats than we have today.

 

By all means, let's totally ignore the FACT that the LCS were designed and construction begun under the Bush administration and first ship launched before Obama was even elected...

BTW, how many Marine operations in the last 20 years have failed because they haven't had naval gunfire support?

 

The first Little Crappy Ship, the USS Freedom was commissioned in November of 2008 and began it's shake down cruises. It actually entered the fleet not being deployable under the Obama administration.

It wouldn't be until the summer of 2013 that the USS Freedom would depart San Diego on it's first maiden voyage and as it left San Diego it's only gun armament the Bofor 57 MM pop gun couldn't even pop one round. Sending a warship to sea that has no guns that work is the sign of an incompetent CnC.

But it gets better, while in route to it's AOR off the African Horn the Crappy Little Ship, the USS Freedom broke down in the Southwest Pacific and they had to call AAA and get towed to Singapore.

FYI: Every LCS has broke down after being commissioned. Every one of them, the LCS-5 USS Milwaukee being the most recent to break down.

None, because there was always destroyers on the gun line able to provide NSFS. Now todays destroyers might not be capable of providing the NSFS required by the Marines but at least they have one 5"/54 pop gun.

Remember when Navy SEAL's rescued those civilians in Somalia, Jessica Buchanan and Poul Hagen Thisted ? NSFS was used to support the SEAL's.

BTW, how many combat amphibious operations have you participated in ? As for myself, two. Operation Bold Pursuit and Operation Defiance Stand. We called for NSFS more than a few times.

 

Again, stop trying to deflect Bush's ships onto Obama. They were designed during the reign of the Republican for which you cannot apparently criticize.

So were you lying when you claimed Marines "require" naval gunfire support from weapons in excess of 155mm? It would seem you can't name a single Marine operation in the last 20 years that failed because the Navy doesn't have bigger guns.

 

Pssst: I don't think Obama is running in 2016!!

 

You seem really butt hurt over these ships. Isn't this like the 10th thread you have started on them?

I am an isolationist. Abolish the carriers and long-range bombers too while you are at it.

 

Nope, not me .....I have one up on the Entire Navy and Fleets.

Okay.....once we have Teleporters, Transporters, and a StarGate.

 

I must be confusing you with someone else. My apologies. These ships seem to generate a lot of threads for some reason.

If we had a stargate, it would be, "We must fight them on Romulus so we don't have to fight them here."

 

There was a division size amphibious assault that the Navy and Marine Corps were ordered to stand down. I think that was more than twenty years ago, more like 25 years ago.

But around the same time.

 

Yeah, they seem to have several problems.

Its how the ME gets solved.....and how we later bring the Klingon Homeworld into the Federation.

 

Klingons are too republican. It will never happen.

 

So you can't point to a single USMC operation that has failed since the big gun ships were retired. Then why are you claiming the Marines "require" naval gunfire support? They clearly haven't needed it for decades.

 

By "ordered to stand down", do you mean "was a feint from day one of planning"?

 

The Marines have always had naval gunfire support.

They just want better naval gunfire support so there's less Marines bleeding and dying in combat.

The Marine Corps got sidetracked in 1965 but are planning on going back to their roots, naval infantry who's main mission is what the National Security Act says it is,...
The Marine Corps shall he organized, trained, and equipped to provide fleet marine forces of combined arms, together with supporting air components, for service with the fleet in the seizure or defense of advanced naval bases and for the conduct of such land operations as may be essential to the prosecution of a naval campaign. - See more at: https://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/marine-corps-and-national-security-act#sthash.ak0vtrJj.dpuf

But there's a CATCH-22 in the NSA of 1947 when it comes to the Marine Corps. This is what side tracked the Marine Corps and why it got to heavy during the 1980's through today.

But I digress.

 

I wasn't sitting in on General Schwarzkopf staff meeting with his other generals and admirals. You'll have to ask someone who was.

But you can always use after the fact history.

In conclusion, the Coalition made good use of amphibious capabilities to achieve strategic ends and to influence Iraqi deployments and reactions - it proved the value of having amphibious forces acting in a contingency role and in supporting deception. Desert Storm did not provide a comprehensive test of US amphibious capabilities in a large-scale landing. The Marines faced an enemy that was able to predict where the most likely areas were for landing and mine and fortify them appropriately. It highlighted the need for improved US Navy mine countermeasures and US Marine air and sealift as well as the importance of control of the battle space, the importance of amphibious operations in the post-Cold War environment and the importance of proper Navy / Marine planning and facilitated the creation of a new littoral warfare strategy. The Coalition was also able to rapidly build up the strength of the ground forces so that they were unwilling to risk the amphibious forces in an operation they might have contemplated just a few months before.

 

Pssst, we will still need an actual POTUS. You know, to lead.

 

But when they were designed under the Bush Administration, it was not to fit into the role they are being put into today.

At the time, the newest Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates were expected to continut in service for another 20 years at least. These are true surface combatants, with both anti-air and anti-ship missiles, as well as torpedo launchers and various guns.

The main role of the LCS was as a support craft. Mine sweepers, coastal patrol craft, additional ASW aircraft (the ship itself has no ASW capability itself). It was not designed or intended to be an actual "surface combatant" itself. However, in the last 6 years it has morphed from an auxiliary craft to the replacement for all of our OHP class frigates.

In the last 6 years, the remaining 30 (out of 51) OHP class frigates have all been retired. This means the only ships in service smaller then a Destroyer are now the LCS.

What you are missing is that the role they are now forced into is not the mission they were designed to fulfill.

Strawman. How many conflicts have we been in where naval gunfire could have been used? None. The 2003 Invasion of Iraq took place to far inland for naval gunfire to have an effect. The same with Afghanistan.

Those are the only 2 even remotely applicable in the timeframe you give.

We have not had any planned amphibious operations since 1991. That is due mostly to the fact that there has been no need for them, nobody we have fought has been just inland of the coast.

However, as AR showed, things would have been drastically different in 1991 (conviently just outside of your timeframe) if not for the amphibious operations.

The BBs and Amphibious Task Force out in the gulf kept a high percentage of Iraqi forces on the Kuwaiti coast looking out to sea. Most of their defensive firepower was pointed to the East.

While the main assault actually took place from the South.

Without the BBs shelling the beaches and the Amphibs doing their little circles in the water, all of the guns and soldiers along the coast would instead have been pointed to the South.

And no, it was not entirely a feint. There were amphibious landings conducted during the Gulf War, the most well known the seizure of Failaka Island (which convinced the Iraqi leadership that a major amphibious landing at Kuwait City was coming). Among the main targets of the Battleship fire was AA sites. They were hitting anything of any kind of interest, but their main targets were the AA guns and RADAR sites. That is because the planned way to get the Marines onto the ground was by helicopter.

And as most people know, helicopters (especially cargo helicopters) are horribly vulnerable to air defense guns and missiles.

***

Myself, I do not believe that the LCS is a waste of a ship. I can see some uses for craft of this kind.

With that being said, it is not a suitable replacement for our OHP class frigates. Especially with all of our Tico class cruisers being retired in the near future.

The Administration has been trying to retire the TICOs for the last 6 years, and if they do that our only defensive ships for our carriers will all be nothing but Arleigh Burke class Destroyes, and the LCS.

 

That's absolutely correct. Bravo. We have one, right now, but continuing references to him vis-a-vis 2016 make no sense.

Better luck to you next time!

 

We have a weak appeaser in office, terrorism flourishes on his watch, and he's so myopic he's diminishing our military to pay for his handouts for votes. Its the lefty way.

 

Doesn't America already spend a lot more on the military than other countries... like more than several of the other most powerful countries combined... so what would be sufficient, more than the rest of the world combined?

 

For various reasons (its more complex than you might think) a direct comparison of how much is spent, or ranking by expenditure isn't a good measure of military capabilities. Things like purchasing parity and technological innovation come into play.

 

Well, here's the deal, buddy. You have your right to your opinion. In fact, I cherish your right to your opinion.

Let's see where terrorism flourished the most:

oh, yeah, on 11 September 2001, where 3,000 Americans were killed in one fell swoop.

Had no idea that Obama was president back in 2001.

The point is that terrorism has been flourishing for a long, long time. Only a truly blind hyperpartisan cannot see that. The rest of us do.

And no, President Obama has not diminished the military. But good luck with that one!