Belesarius Posted August 28, 2017 Author Report Share Posted August 28, 2017 Uh... ouch. Navy Times just put out a rather... interesting piece on the culture of the Navy. Bigger problems indicated? http://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2017/08/27/navy-swos-a-culture-in-crisis/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belesarius Posted September 7, 2017 Author Report Share Posted September 7, 2017 GAO Report on readiness issues in the USN. https://news.usni.org/2017/09/07/gao-written-testimony-congress-navy-readiness-problems-related-uss-john-s-mccain-uss-fitzgerald-collisions 37% of certifications, including basic seamanship for ships based in Japan have expired. WTF USN? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoooSeR Posted September 9, 2017 Report Share Posted September 9, 2017 http://charly015.blogspot.ru/2017/09/el-ministerio-de-defensa-ruso-aprueba.html Lider will be nuclear-powered Belesarius 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted September 13, 2017 Report Share Posted September 13, 2017 You know that this is going to be applied to torpedoes somehow: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/09/watch-these-hot-balls-cut-through-water-knife-through-butter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Collimatrix Posted September 13, 2017 Report Share Posted September 13, 2017 3 hours ago, Toxn said: You know that this is going to be applied to torpedoes somehow: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/09/watch-these-hot-balls-cut-through-water-knife-through-butter Something similar already is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted September 13, 2017 Report Share Posted September 13, 2017 1 hour ago, Collimatrix said: Something similar already is. I always assumed that the Shkval worked due to the shape of the nosecone and by gas injection forwards from it. This approach would use a heated or polymer-coated nosecone which directly interfaces with the water. Which could be technically easier or harder (or give better or worse results), but is certainly different from whatever Shkval is using. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Collimatrix Posted September 13, 2017 Report Share Posted September 13, 2017 That is also my understanding of shkval. Either way; you're reducing hydrodynamic drag via cavitation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted September 13, 2017 Report Share Posted September 13, 2017 42 minutes ago, Collimatrix said: That is also my understanding of shkval. Either way; you're reducing hydrodynamic drag via cavitation. Yup. It seems like there might be a few ways to do it though - simply coating the torpedo in this shit might be a bit easier then stuffing a gas generator in the nose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt.Squarehead Posted September 14, 2017 Report Share Posted September 14, 2017 It does suggest that 'Rods From The Gods' could be very effective against submarines too.....Assuming you can target them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xlucine Posted September 14, 2017 Report Share Posted September 14, 2017 Rods from god get into the km/s range - I think any reasonable material at those speeds would be full on hydrodynamic penetration even in water, and not achieve very much below a couple dozen meters Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belesarius Posted September 21, 2017 Author Report Share Posted September 21, 2017 The careers keep ending over issues exposed by the McCain and Fitzgerald crashes. https://news.usni.org/2017/09/18/admiral-captain-removed-part-investigation-uss-john-s-mccain-uss-fitzgerald-collisions-head-surface-forces-puts-early-retirement-request Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belesarius Posted October 1, 2017 Author Report Share Posted October 1, 2017 https://www.militarytimes.com/opinion/medals-misfires/2017/09/30/medal-giving-sailors-time-to-sleep/ Major changes to Navy culture underway due to the McCain/Fitzgerald post-mortem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belesarius Posted October 7, 2017 Author Report Share Posted October 7, 2017 US Army spending about a Billion on new boats. https://www.defensenews.com/breaking-news/2017/09/28/army-awards-billion-dollar-contract-for-small-transportation-boats/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belesarius Posted October 11, 2017 Author Report Share Posted October 11, 2017 Time lapse video of the McCain being loaded onto a heavy lift ship. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scolopax Posted October 12, 2017 Report Share Posted October 12, 2017 Mumbling and grumbling on the cruiser USS Shiloh and more Navy dysfunction Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belesarius Posted October 22, 2017 Author Report Share Posted October 22, 2017 How the mighty have fallen. Wehraboos everywhere are sad and don't know why. http://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/all-of-germanys-submarines-are-now-out-of-action Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belesarius Posted October 23, 2017 Author Report Share Posted October 23, 2017 http://www.macleans.ca/opinion/for-smarter-shipbuilding-canada-should-look-to-denmark/amp/ Some interesting thoughts on shipbuilding in this article. @Collimatrix, I'd like your thoughts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xlucine Posted October 24, 2017 Report Share Posted October 24, 2017 8 hours ago, Belesarius said: http://www.macleans.ca/opinion/for-smarter-shipbuilding-canada-should-look-to-denmark/amp/ Some interesting thoughts on shipbuilding in this article. @Collimatrix, I'd like your thoughts. Quote However, there is one exception to all of this. Denmark is able to deliver a large and capable warship for very reasonable cost. Their Iver Huitfeldt-class frigates have been proposed for Canada’s CSC project. At about US$350 million for a large 6,650-tonne ship, they are very economical... ... Rather than building 15 ships uniformly with high capabilities, the Danes build only the number of modules needed and change the ship accordingly. This results in major savings. If you don't put a radar, or point defense missile system, or sonar on your ship, then you get a very cheap ship. That vessel is comparable in cost to the british type 31e design, which is likely to also lack most parts needed for a credible modern warship Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Collimatrix Posted October 24, 2017 Report Share Posted October 24, 2017 15 hours ago, Belesarius said: http://www.macleans.ca/opinion/for-smarter-shipbuilding-canada-should-look-to-denmark/amp/ Some interesting thoughts on shipbuilding in this article. @Collimatrix, I'd like your thoughts. It's an interesting idea, but there appear to be some basic logical discrepancies in this article. Like this statement: Quote By saving on cost, the Danes build their frigates bigger than most. The extra space is used to duplicate a wide variety of shipboard systems in order to achieve greater reliability through redundancy. It also provides growth margins for easy and economical upgrading. OK, that sounds good. These Danish ships sacrifice a bit of efficiency or something and end up with larger displacement. But then I did something I call the "is the sky really blue?" check. You see, according to Wikipedia (yes, I know), the Iver Huitfeldt doesn't displace significantly more than the Type 26. It's actually a little smaller. It's also got less displacement than the Hobart class frigates too. So, maybe the Iver Huitfeldt is a bigger frigate than some other frigate yardstick that I'm not aware of (I don't know that much about frigates), but compared to the other two classes of frigate mentioned in the article, these Danish frigates are smaller, which runs directly contrary to the author's explanation of how they're supposed to be better value! Here's another thing that raises some alarms for me: Quote Larger ships are also more fuel-efficient. I can buy that larger ships are more fuel-efficient pound for pound. Hydrodynamic drag scales with frontal area, which is a square function of linear dimensions. Mass scales with volume (for a fixed density), which is a cubic function of linear dimensions. So the mass of a ship will increase faster than its fuel consumption if you scale it up. But the fuel consumption is still going up, just not as fast as the mass. Is this a simplification in order to present this to a lay audience, or is this an attempt to pull a fast one on the audience, or does the author just not understand the physics? Belesarius 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belesarius Posted October 26, 2017 Author Report Share Posted October 26, 2017 HIMARS used off the deck of the USS Essex. https://news.usni.org/2017/10/24/marines-fire-himars-ship-sea-control-experiment-navy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoooSeR Posted October 27, 2017 Report Share Posted October 27, 2017 Quote Colombian Navy seizes another cocaine-smuggling semi submersible Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belesarius Posted October 29, 2017 Author Report Share Posted October 29, 2017 Interesting article about collision avoidance and risk mitigation for the Navy. https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017-10/avoiding-collisions-what-can-be-done Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belesarius Posted October 31, 2017 Author Report Share Posted October 31, 2017 https://breakingdefense.com/2017/10/every-ship-a-minesweeper-navy-looks-beyond-lcs/?_ga=2.74559953.217511175.1509364597-381149324.1509364597 Navy looking at the Distributed Lethality concept for mine hunting, piggybacking off the work done for the LCS module and tossing that all over the fleet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belesarius Posted November 2, 2017 Author Report Share Posted November 2, 2017 Holy shit. WTF is your navy doing? https://news.usni.org/2017/11/01/readiness-lapses-that-led-to-mccain-fitzgerald-collisions-were-years-in-the-making Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xlucine Posted November 2, 2017 Report Share Posted November 2, 2017 5 hours ago, Belesarius said: Holy shit. WTF is your navy doing? https://news.usni.org/2017/11/01/readiness-lapses-that-led-to-mccain-fitzgerald-collisions-were-years-in-the-making Quote Mitch McGuffie, a former U.S. surface warfare officer who served in an exchange with the U.K. Royal Navy for two years as a bridge officer, said that other navies place a higher value on navigation and ship handling than Americans. “I was the go-to office of the deck on my first tour, and I thought I knew a lot of stuff. And then I went to the Royal Navy and I went through their navigator school, and it was the hardest class that I have ever gone through, with a 50-percent attrition rate,” he said. British sailors specialize in a specific discipline at sea, unlike the U.S. surface warfare officers that are generalists. As a result, narrow specialties like navigation or bridge watches maybe given short shrift. “People squeak through the system. They may be great officers and they may great engineers, but they might not have had a lot of time handling ships in busy waterways,” McGuffie told USNI News in an interview. “We have guys that are commanding ships right now that have 400, 500 hours of bridge watchkeeping time in their career.” In contrast, as the bridge officer on a Royal Navy frigate for a six-month deployment, McGuffie stood watch for more than 2,000 hours – all of them logged. Huh, that's 11 hours every single day. RN must go hard in specialisation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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