US Navy stealth destroyer

[dmccarty]

Last night, after having a beer or two after tennis, someone said "the Navy has more airplanes than the Airforce, and the Army has more ships than the Navy".

Not sure if it is true or if it can even be measured, but sounded interesting.

MoKelly

Once upon a time that may have been true. Maybe and depending on how you define a ship.

I believe it was during WWII the Army like to say it had more ships than the Navy but it depended on the definition of "ship." :laughing::laughing::laughing:

I did search and the USAF has around 5,484 aircraft and the USN has 3,700ish. Even if one included the USMC aircraft, 1,100ish, with the USN, the USAF still has more things that fly in the sky.

Later,
Dan

 

[kudzu04]

I was a young petty officer onboard the USS Leahy DLG/CG-16, during Adm. Zumwalt's tenure as CNO. His son, Jim, was an officer aboard our ship and a very impressive young man who was liked by all of ship's company. Unfortunately, he had to change his career path to go into the Marines because he was color blind and could not perform the required duties of a line officer aboard ship. All sailors of that era remember the Z-grams that were issued by Adm. Zumwalt. He allowed crew members to grow beards and relaxed restrictions on haircuts and even the wearing of civilian clothes when on liberty in foreign ports. In general, he made us feel more human and allowed us to be a bit more individualistic. I think it is fitting that this whole class of ships will now be known as Zumwalt Class Destroyers. I suspect these ships will be able to deliver a few "Z-grams" of their own to the bad guys.

I was in at the same time and if I remember correctly(it's been a couple of years....)I did some work on the Leahy. D&S piers in Virginia.

 

[bcp]

...and the Army has 4670 aircraft.

Bruce

 

[dmccarty]

...and the Army has 4670 aircraft.

Bruce

Thanks for looking that up. I meant too and got side tracked with work. Pesky work! :laughing::laughing::laughing:

The Army flies over our house with Blackhawks and Apaches at least once a week. Last week a prop plane flew at tree time level over our house AT NIGHT! I would think that had to have been an Army plane out of Fort Bragg playing Green Beret games. They sometimes are running their Robin Sage training at this time of year.

Later,
Dan

 

[DarkBlack]

Nice 'cherry picking' there Mate... but not the whole story. Every advanced technology at that time will eventually be overcome IF the opponent has the time & resources to figure it out. Eventually something in the future will render this new class of warship obsolete. The weapon system also needs to be used for the intention it was designed to do.

That fact still holds today,"The ocean is a vast place in which to hide... and ships are not stationary." This new Destroyer is designed to be very hard to 'electronically' find.

I did do some "cherry picking" to trim down a huge subject concept into a paragraph or 2 of examples for forum readers.
I will concede that $$ high tech vehicles have proven to shorten lopsided conflicts such as the US in arab countries against small numbers of "warriors".
It's historically proven different when large scale fully vested wars against somewhat evenly pitted opponents come together. It's been proven that it comes down to 3 things: $, people, and available resources.
It didn't help Germany with the fact that every tiger took 7 T34's because Russia could produce 10 T34's for every tiger.
The castle and moat, German rail gun, u-boats etc ... all were big $$ high tech in their time but their weaknesses were quickly figured out and were then exploited-hard.
A bunch of boy scouts floating in rafts could spot that angular new multi-billion dollar ship and then it's at the bottom of the sea.
Of course I'm kidding on the last one,but history shows you can't float billions of dollars on the ocean during wartime and expect it to go unseen and unharmed during a real war. You don't seriously think that big multi-billion dollar piece of iron wouldn't be found in a real war?

 

[Bob77064]

The Army helicopters fly over our house at a very low altitude. They make a lot noise, but to me that's a good noise.

 

[Rock knocker]

Yeh right, like it did for Germany in WWII:laughing: 70 ton elephant tanks brought down with a beer bottle filled with gasoline. The advanced $$ Bismark, like would happen to this mega$$ destroyer- concentrated hunt by the enemy- sunk. end of story.
Mega $$ Tiger tanks destroyed by nothing more than flanking during frozen overlapped wheels.
Russia showed easy and cheap to produce #'s with good repairability can beat technology. And that game's in the history books.

And Russia was fighting with allies who were the technogical equals of Germany. Germany fought a war with a foe who could out-man, out-spend, out-produce and (arguably) out-think them.

 

[Wagtail]

I did do some "cherry picking" to trim down a huge subject concept into a paragraph or 2 of examples for forum readers.
I will concede that $$ high tech vehicles have proven to shorten lopsided conflicts such as the US in arab countries against small numbers of "warriors".
It's historically proven different when large scale fully vested wars against somewhat evenly pitted opponents come together. It's been proven that it comes down to 3 things: $, people, and available resources.
It didn't help Germany with the fact that every tiger took 7 T34's because Russia could produce 10 T34's for every tiger.
The castle and moat, German rail gun, u-boats etc ... all were big $$ high tech in their time but their weaknesses were quickly figured out and were then exploited-hard.
A bunch of boy scouts floating in rafts could spot that angular new multi-billion dollar ship and then it's at the bottom of the sea.
Of course I'm kidding on the last one,but history shows you can't float billions of dollars on the ocean during wartime and expect it to go unseen and unharmed during a real war. You don't seriously think that big multi-billion dollar piece of iron wouldn't be found in a real war?

Yep, you're absolutely right, especially on the "three points".

As to what I've 'bolded', again you're correct. But the thing about all military assets (and personnel) is that it is expected to go into harms way and you have to be prepared to lose those assets in any conflict. What this technology is attempting to do is further lessen it's direct radar detection. That means that incoming missles will hopefully lose its 'lock' on the target. This ship doesn't have a "magical" cloaking device, it has to eventually return to some port in order to be replenished/maintained. If it's tasked to provide NGFS (Naval Gun Fire Support = shore bombardment) then it will have to get within range of it's weapons, which means that it can be vulnerable to detection once it's there. But this tech may allow the ship to get to the position to provide NGFS without being detected. Time will tell as it's a prototype.

One way of preventing any ship from getting into range to conduct NGFS is to lay a minefield (depending on the depth of the ocean floor). Compared to the cost of any warship (or tank/vehicle) a mine is a cheap way of denying an area to an enemy or 'bottling up' an enemy's harbour. It's why we also invest in a fleet of specialised Mine Hunter class vessels (Australia has 6 of them), you try and anticipate every scenario.

Of course, the old Navy joke is that ANY ship can be a Mine Hunter... ONCE. :laughing: