Perhaps they reject the view rhetorically, but when discussion like this often turn into "the Army shouldn't be telling us what to procure, just give us a grid and a target and we'll determine the optimum solution" (yes, I have been told this, when bringing up one of the classic threads here once), I don't know how else to interpret it. Air Force CAS doctrine appears rooted in this way of thinking.

I think people get too wrapped around the axle about that, honest that is how all planning should occur.  You don't ask for a specific unit or system, the supported requests a specific effect or capability and than they are provided with a solution.  

It is sort of like mission orders, you tell them what you want them to do and not how to do it.

Sounds like the Army needs to issue mission orders for over the horizon ISR that can't be fulfilled by an UAV.

But shouldn't the "air-minded" service be pushing the advantages and responsiveness of aerial platforms to support a ground fight?

wouldn't Annex A without units but with estimated effects be an interesting way of planning?

ask for an effect, as long as that effect is exactly what the platform is, and then turn it down anyway while explaining, so patiently, "You can't all have air support, its too expensive" because they use B1s to provide the same "effect" that a single engine turbo prop could.

Nothing so highlights how effective the AF is like the navy, af, and marines buying the same "effect" because nobody believes the other will provide it for them.

Madcap is that old?

Worth noting that the USN was a carrier-based fleet when WWII broke out.  The Battleship was, by then, already in an ancillary role.

reading that quote all I could think was, "Zumwalt"

But it's not a tank destroyer

Dat airburst, though

 
God, I can't remember his name, it was awhile ago. But I remember hearing about some naval officer, way back around the beginning of the 20th Century. He did a demonstration of airplanes destroying a battleship or cruiser. And the Navy didn't take his idea seriously about Aircraft Carriers being the new thing in the future.

So, what stopped the army from buying LAAR during the last dozen years?

Hell, the Marines delayed a UONS to preserve funding for up-armored HMMWVs and Sec Gates drove the bus on MRAPs.

It was an Army Air Corps officer, General Billy Mitchell, and the Navy was right. At the time airplanes weren't capable of it. It wasn't until the late 1930s that the airplane became a reliable, rugged weapon that could carry munitions to kill a ship.

The mitchell myth is just one of many.

As the US navy proved near the end of WW2, sinking ships with airplanes was nearly impossible in combat with properly designed fleets.  Sneak attacks and/or dumb luck were required (see also:  Midway)

 
Whew, I was kinda close.

The radar picketts around Okinawa would disagree with you. A ship's a fool to fight like a fort. And that is exactly what they were tasked to do.

If you modified your statement to say that sinking high value ships with airplanes was nearly impossible with a properly designed fleet, then I think we could find common ground.

Upside down/Sideways/Rightside up orientation doesn't have much impact on weapon emplacement when it is gyro stabilized and remote controlled. (Plus seeing the spent casings go flying is pretty dope) But yeah, the vehicle probably wouldn't be large enough to fit that 40mm. Would be sick though! Those guns are very impressive! I am surprised it wouldn't fit in a Bradley.

Well, it might be possible to fit it, but it would reduce the crew compartment quite a bit.

The Bradley might end up carrying just 4-5 dismounts.

The picketts were designed to be sacrificed and they weren't what the japanese wanted to sink.  A fleet that can't move is a pretty tempting target, and frankly the japanese put everything into okinawa and, while inflicting damage, never came close to defeating the fleet or the invasion.

Hey.  I'm the one who wants land based shit so you can go do some of that sailor shit.

aegis destroyers at pemanent anchor is about as dumb as you can get.

Well, since we're designing this thing by committee, lets install twin 30s on it, give it a radar tracking FCS, and turn the Stryker into a dual mission, ground and ADA wheeled vehicle that can carry a fire team and be amphibious and air-transportable too.

Oh, and we should probably design it to be upgraded with modular armor as well, like the M8 AGS was.  Can't because it's a wheeled vehicle?  No problem, we can fix that with the right amount of R&D and upgrades to the suspension.

I think we're on to something here, GD.

From Guadalcanal to airstrikes on ISIS, the Navy has sat relatively still and projected power ashore. Movement has been minimal.

The key attribute of the USN at the time was mass. We will not have the advantage of being able to sacrifice ships wholesale and still accomplish our objectives in the next naval war. It will be a come as you are affair.


As long as it will address the entire kill chain. The problem with land-based is redeployment. If you try to shift forces, it is perceived as a weakness. See recent examples of 24 Apaches moving from Germany or the THAAD battery deployed to Guam. The capability is nice, but you shouldn't deploy it until you are well and truly committed.

Or Aegis destroyer like structures in the middle of a potato field.

But to the point about naval forces, the ships around Okinawa were not at anchor. Simple geometry dictated where the picketts would have to be stationed. Their manner of operation became predictable. Thus they became vulnerable. (See USN force projection operations from Guadalcanal to airstrikes on ISIS.)

 


+




=

You're too late.

Which would take away the purpose, all right I'm tracking ya.

We should just buy CV90's!!

That was a shot straight to the baby maker.

I've offered my experience with the Army generating force and why ithey seems different in type and kind to the Navy generating force, but people seem happy to discount that experience as well. Oh well...

They had to fight that way in support of the logistics throughput required to support an invasion force larger than Normandy with far fewer logistics over the shore venues.

I'm trying to understand something. The USMC decided when they were going to replace the AAV-7 with the EFV that they would use a 30mm on the EFV to do what the M2 and Mk19 did on the AAV-7. It also gave them the ability to do engage lightly armored vehicles. At least one USMC RFP for the ACV  1.1/MPC asked for a 30mm capability (or an M2 and/or Mk18), and protection against 14.5mm. This sounds remarkably similar to the Stryker and what the Army is doing up gunning the Stryker.

We have two different organizations going towards very similar vehicles. Perhaps that means they're on the right track.

The 30mm gives very good anti-structural capability. One of the lessons we have learned in both Iraq and AFG, the 50 and Mk19 are of limited usage when the enemy is in defensive positions and even the 25mm gun on the LAV has problems on standard middle eastern construction.  

Fine ill put them on the SSC then.

 

Its funny you can't get my name out of your mouth about battleships.



Also funny how one of those ancillary roles was escorting Carriers since they couldn't do a good job of it themselves, and smaller boats didn't have volume of fire, or radar controlled guns to protect from air threats.



It's funny how at the time, it seems like the interest was in how to build a fleet around emerging threats and where the rubber meets the road was that Carriers and BB's were integrated in task forces.



But when it comes to the internet, all of the sudden it's Carrier vs BB like only one can exist at a time in direct opposition, and the history channel lines come out about "a guy bombed a boat with flour and the BB's days were numbered!"   (Except for that whole being used into the 1990's thing).





_lol_





 

And....  I just came buckets.



 

This should be a real thing.

If we bolt a bunch of new shit on the Strikers will there still be plenty of room in the back  for all the dismounts to have M14 rifles?

Volume I can give you (layman alert though), but radar-directed AA went down to Destroyer-sized ships, if memory serves. I seem to recall RADM Becton's memoir, The Ship That Would Not Die mentions that tidbit a few times, especially regarding USS Laffey's time on radar/AA picket duty in the Pacific in 1944-45.

Key West ring a bell? Everytime the Army even thinks about any fixed wing for any purpose, the Air Force brass go apeshit.

20mm gatling and a stinger pack?

Needs more GAU-8/A and Hydras

Like Gray Eagle or MC-12?

No, nobody in AF leadership really gives a shit.  The Key West accord probably doesn't say what you think it does.

They need 37mm

Tried and done...

 



heard they were good at shooting snipers through walls in the second intifada.

C27J.

They do give a shit.  a massive shit.

but you are correct on key west.

the AF being unprofessional flying club that is too scared to fly during the day and/or under 10K AGL over permissive airspace  does not discount the possibility that the army is a bunch of clonish mediocrities.

Actually, smaller ships did have the radar controlled guns necessary. Radar was on ships as small as PT boats.  The Mk33 and Mk37 gun fire control radar systems were installed on destroyers, cruisers, and battleships from the beginning until the end of the war. Specialized destroyers were built with radars specifically to control Combat Air Patrols, which was the most effective method of air defense during the war.

Arguably, the St.Louis/Atlanta/Cleveland-classes were better for carrier air defense than a BB for the simple fact that you could crew two of them for one BB and they cost less than 1/2 of a BB. In other words, you could have two light cruisers specifically outfitted for AAA that could be in two places, or one BB that did AAA as a side-job that could only be in one place. One BB or two CLAAs as the light cruisers were known, would both have 4 radar gun fire control directors. It is the number of fire control directors that is the important part. A CLAA would have two, centerline. Meaning it could track targets to port or starboard, two targets at a time. A BB could track four targets, but only two to port or two to starboard. Which is great against a multi-axis attack, but limited in a stream raid.  

If you really want to talk bang for your buck, you need to talk destroyers. Although, each destroyer only carried one radar gun fire control director, you could have 10 destroyers for every one BB. Ten radar gun fire control directors in 10 different locations or four radar gun fire control directors in one location. Destroyers were a bargain.

All three classes had 40mm bofors and used the Mk51 optical director to aim them. Of course, BBs had more guns and directors of this type. And, of course, being on one ship, they only had so much reach. Bofors being a relatively short range weapon. You wouldn't want to approach a BB with its 20 quad 40mms, but because the 40mm's effective range was relatively small, the enemy could fly outside this "bubble." If you wanted to protect another ship with a 40mm, you'd need to get close to the ship you want to protect. Once you do this, you effectively mask your batteries that face the ship you want to protect. It doesn't do much good to put rounds into the ship you want to protect, after all.



Where the rubber meets the road is where people put their money. No battleships were ordered after 1940. There were plenty of destroyers, light cruisers, and carriers ordered.

BB-65 and BB-66 were supposed to be Montana-class battleships, but they were recast as Iowa-class for the reasons you mention, to escort the carriers. But even that reasoning wasn't enough to save them.

In fact, even for the BBs ordered, if they weren't far enough along, were delayed in their construction because they weren't high enough priority.
BB-65 and BB-66's construction was put on hold after Midway. Their construction re-started, but given a low priority. BB-65 ended the war 22% finished.
BB-66 suffered a more indignant fate. She was moved out of the way so LSTs could be produced. Work on BB-66 stopped for two years during the war.


The battleship wasn't obsolete in WWII, well up until 1944 at least. But the writing was on the wall. They cost too much, it took too many people to man one, they could only be in one place at one time, and the range of their offensive firepower was limited.

Counterpoint MC-12.
http://www.janes.com/article/45588/usaf-outlines-divestiture-plans-for-mc-12w-liberty-aircraft
Takes two to tango.

no guns is the cut off, but if it might do 90% of the 130 missions with 10% of the tail numbers then that gets cut, too.

Sherpa?  oh. that thing sucks.  go ahead (suck so bad 50% were forward deployed for a straight decade because they were so high demand)  The army with 50 C-12s would have shut the AF out of intra theater airlift mission.  

army has had c-12s for a long time.

again, I am trying to find where I am defending the army in all of this.

some people don't reflexively defend their own branch of service against charges of incompetence.  I know in the age of zero sum game in the pentagon this can be shocking.  unrecognizable it appears.

If guns are the cut off, why did you bring up C-27J?

The USAF aggressively took control of that program, but the Army let them. Personally, I don't think leadership in either service wanted it. The Army didn't want the additional expense, and neither did the USAF. The Army justified getting out by saying the CH-47 can fill the bill. The USAF said that the C-130 can do 98% of the C-27J's missions. I think it basically worked out in the end with the USCG getting the C-27Js; they found a willing home.

In the case of the MC-12, it looks like the USAF didn't want them, but the Army did. If the Army didn't want the expense, the USAF would have shuttered the squadrons, and GD would have cried out for the USAF to "give them to the Army."

That post did not accuse you of defending the Army. All it did was highlight the fact that if both parties are willing then an agreement can be reached.

The Army got some of them too.  

http://www.soc.mil/UNS/Releases/2014/May/140506-01/140506-01.html

The AF got rid of them for the same reason we boneyarded 10 year old C-27As.  Italian airplanes have zero logistics support and are unreliable maintenance hogs.  Basically the ferrari of airplanes for all the wrong reasons.

So they want this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BTR-80#/media/File:BTR-82A.jpg

USS Iowa had 18 engagements where enemy aircraft came within weapons range. Of those, she shot down 5, helped down another 3, and damaged 3 more. If we score an assist or a damage as .5 of a kill. We have 8 enemy aircraft downed by USS Iowa during WWII.


Even when she was effective she wasn't that effective:

Impressive display of firepower that ultimately didn't protect either carrier.


LOL indeed.

ETA: USS Sigsbee commanded by CDR Chung-Hoon assisted in the destruction of 20 enemy aircraft in the spring of 1945 alone. Again if we count an assist as .5 kills then we have a destroyer with 10 kills, 2 more than USS Iowa.

other countries that use the same LAV/Piranha III hull use it with a turret as an IFV with, iirc, 6 or 7 dismounts but i dont think they are external like the kongsberg turret



what ever happened to the Stryker just being an 'interim' vehicle?





this turret looks pretty compact though....

I was wrong, it's the same gun but a different turret trialed on the Bradley.

http://i.imgur.com/P7YswaW.jpg