How good is the US Navy?

[Defcon 6]

http://www.g2mil.com/thompson.htm

Is the USN truly undefeatable? This is a really long paper over at g2mil. Take a look

I would copy and paste it...but its way too long. So everyone will have to follow the link to read it.

 

[Vital]

Thanks for this article! I'm absolutely agree with the idea that even a very very unsinkable ship with modern ASW can be destroyed or deeply damaged by a diesel suds especially if a sub is equipped with “Shipwreck” rockets (“Granit” Russian classification). Besides Not each system can detect a sub at 500m depth or more
One fact more, I 100% sure and agree, that the success of operations depends on the skills of the crew and on the talent of Captain.

 

[killallbullies]

Hi,

If one is objective then it is the best and as a whole fighting unit it must be unbeatable, no other maritime military entity even comes close in terms of technological prowess, strategic positioning/reach and numbers of qualitively comparable vessels. An adversary may well destroy a few individual assets but in the grand scheme it's a no-brainer as they say. Nothing is going to change for several decades at least, if at all.

 

[rickusn]

LOL

Notice he preemptively rules out anyone daring to disagree.

I say to the rest of the world if you feel the need bring it on.

The USN has been, is and will be a far more dangerous foe than this paper implies.

Nonetheless if you feel the need to challenge the above the USN will be more than happy to accomodate you anywhere, anytime.

[ Admin Edit: Please refrain from much such statements... differences of opinion aside, no need to say such stuff which leaves room for others to insult you and your religion in similar manner. ]

 

[gf0012-aust]

LOL

Notice he preemptively rules out anyone daring to disagree.

unfort when you are in the same philosophical company and "employ" of meyers and sparks - then it colours the perception of impartiality and balance.

idealogues are awful debaters.

 

[LancerMc]

While yes much of the modern U.S. Navy is untested by some accounts it is the most well trained and motivated navy in the world. The author of the article talks how a smaller unknown naval force could cause trouble. This true but the U.S. Navy is spending a lot of money developing technology for littoral warfare in the future. They commissioning entire new types of ships, and completely shifting training. Any modern navy could face shorts falls against other forces, a good example is the Falklands War, but in the end a better supplied and trained force will prevail.

 

[Temoor_A]

US Navy is the most powerful fighting machine in this world. It's projection of power is simply awesome.

Defeating it is a very tough task to undertake but the problem is that we are un-familiar with the tactics that can be employed by China and Russia to do some damage. But the costs and risks are enormous.

Plus, US Aircraft Carriers also are loaded with dozens of Anti-Submarine warfare capable S3-A Vikings and SH-60 Sea Kings. And they are also protected by Cruisers and destroyers which have extensive Anti-submarine mechanisms. So this operation is not so easy as it might sound on paper.

And you never know that US Submarines might be waiting under the Carrier Battle-groups for under-sea combat if enemy submarines manage to evade other counter-measures.

Another big threat is from Long Range Cruise Missiles. They can be taken down by extensive anti-missile counter-measures of Carrier Groups but it depends upon the attacking tactics and scale of the attack.

Super-sonic Cruise Missiles can pose a bigger threat though but they have very limited ranges so can only be fired from close range and that means risking your Naval Vessels for bombardment by US Naval forces.

Still it depends that if the enemy is allowed to operate that freely as we assume. In case of war, I doubt that US Naval forces would allow a massive show-down by Naval forces of enemies and they will try to disrupt and destroy their apparatus as soon as possible with help from Electronic and Advanced Surveillance Technology.

The U.S. Navy has 72 submarines (including 18 ballistic missile submarines) and 129 principal surface ships (12 aircraft carriers, 27 cruisers, 55 destroyers, and 35 frigates). The Navy also had 41 major amphibious vessels, 200 landing craft, and 100 support ships. The Navy’s strategic sealift force consisted of 62 active vessels, including 32 prepositioned ships loaded with combat equipment and supplies. This is a 2003 report and their might had been more additions since then!

The 2nd best Navy after US is of Russian Federation but some people say that it is not being maintained very efficiently. And it might be due to shortage of funds.

 

[rabs]

"And you never know that US Submarines might be waiting under the Carrier Battle-groups for under-sea combat if enemy submarines manage to evade other counter-measures."

Carrier battle-groups already have 2 LA class submarines with them.

 

[alexsa]

As a ex submariner I suggest this guy is being a little optimistic about the ability of a Submarine to get into positon unmolested when a full US Carrier Battle Group is sailing into a hot situation.

Looking at the falklans situation as an example every contact was proscuted (this gave the whales a pretty hard time) no matter how sketchy. Given the assests available to a US carrier group and the fact an SSG needs to be within a givne range of the line of advance it would make life interesting and a bit hazardous. They may get through, that has to be accepted, but the odds are against them.

 

[KGB]

I wouldn't dismiss the article outright. Mr Roger Thompson presents some first hand information as well as numerous examples (especially of diesel subs operating successfully against the USN from the 80's to the present). Having no military background, I have to ask

1. Are his examples taken grossly out of context? Are there factors that led to the SSK's success that were not mentioned?

2. Is there any possibility that he is plain lying?

What we need is someone with first hand knowledge to either verify, deny, or put these claims into proper perspective.

Also, it seems that it is getting harder to reconcile many assertions made in this website. It is often mentioned in other threads that
1. The old soviet navy never believed that they could reliably take out a carrier group AND
2. the AEGIS system is proven to be able to take out a 50+ missile strike
BUT
3. Mr Thompson presents USN personell saying that they have to effective defence against the SS-N-22

All in all this makes interesting reading. It's obvious though that someone isn't telling the truth, and its a pity that we can't really be sure who is.

 

[gf0012-aust]

I wouldn't dismiss the article outright. Mr Roger Thompson presents some first hand information as well as numerous examples (especially of diesel subs operating successfully against the USN from the 80's to the present). Having no military background, I have to ask

I wouldn't dismiss it outright either - but some of his comments are deliberately weighted and disingenuine IMHO.

eg, The USN trained against Mach 6 missile threats for 10-20 years - and Aegis was somewhat the evolution of how to deal with that threat.

The Soviets - with a much more capable navy than anyone else who contitutes a threat to the USN now only assumed that they would score 20% success rate - and that was with a nuke sub force that is literally 30-40 times bigger than the PLAN - and with a supersonic bomber capability that was literally 200 times bigger than anything fielded by a notional US threat now. They also fielded Mach 6+ missiles and a supersonic capability that was literally 50 times the size of any current threat.

IMO the only statement of substance refers to the decline of the USN in ASW capability after the collapse of the Soviet Union - and thats because the threat matrix shifted. Subsequently ASW gave way to ISR roles etc...

At a number of ASW conferences I've attended in 2004 and 2005 the USN (Via CINCPAC) acknowledged that in the open - and there are clear measures in place to address that decline.

Again I'd argue that these arguments are hard to discuss on public forums as the bulk of info is not available to the general public. and I'll reiterate. out of the 7 ASW systems that were discussed - only 2 were in the public domain.

Not all technology appears on the internet. - not all solutions are discussed and made available on the internet.

No other navy on the planet covers off all the requirements for blue water total war - not even remotely. Sure the USN would and could lose some assets - but the endgame would be clear - and no other navy or next 15-17 combinations of navies can visit absolute destruction not only on an enemies navy - but also hit any target on the planet within a 6min to 45min time frame.

My comment re Sparks and Meyers is because like Sparks and Meyers, the article is weighted and thus for me is somewhat disingenuine. That doesn;t dectract from the fact that there are comments of substance. I suspect that its intended to promote discussion and get a reaction to fund up the navy - rather than have Congress thin it down again.

Hail be to Reagan and the 600 ship navy

 

[KGB]

Do you think that the Carrier is beginning to go the way of the Battleship? I mean, Trafalgar cooked Napoleon, Mahan wrote about it, and battleships became the thing navies had to have. They became increasingly expensive and strained national budgets but when WWI broke out they largely ended up as white elephants (aside from Jutland, the High Seas Fleet and the Kriegsmarine sat and watched each other for most of the war). Thanks to their victory at Tsushima, nobody believed in battleship more than the Japanese, who built the most powerfull battleships of the day, the Musashi and the Yamato. Then through an incredibly ironic twist of fate, they demonstrated once and for all the ascendance of the carrier over the battleship.

Sorry if I'm veering off tangent but it gets a little frustrating to have interesting threads ending up with "I know but I won't tell u cos its classified"

 

[gf0012-aust]

Do you think that the Carrier is beginning to go the way of the Battleship? I mean, Trafalgar cooked Napoleon, Mahan wrote about it, and battleships became the thing navies had to have. They became increasingly expensive and strained national budgets but when WWI broke out they largely ended up as white elephants (aside from Jutland, the High Seas Fleet and the Kriegsmarine sat and watched each other for most of the war). Thanks to their victory at Tsushima, nobody believed in battleship more than the Japanese, who built the most powerfull battleships of the day, the Musashi and the Yamato. Then through an incredibly ironic twist of fate, they demonstrated once and for all the ascendance of the carrier over the battleship.

No I don't. But aircraft carriers exist due to a force projection and platform doctrine requirement. Not everyone needs them - and not everyone has a foreign policy/national defence policy that supports them.

Carriers will in all likelihood evolve into unmanned platform warehouses. there is still a need for countries like the US to be able to place presence and air capability near areas of interest where they don't have overlapping or close land based air. carriers give immediacy and persistence of air projection. on a bang for buck basis thats why battleships died very very quickly. their measureable yield on target (typically alligned to a weapons salvo or volume on target) is even with new technologies, only 1/7th (manned) and 1/12th to 1/15th that of an unmanned CVN's "salvo" of weapons on target. the corresponding assets required to support a SAG don't justify it's core competency and the expense of the necessary ASW assets (let alone AW assets) to babysit them. In a number of naval wargames in the last 20 years of activity "Iowas" were trashed by DDG sized assets.

Carriers at least have organic air and far greater yield at a salvo level due to aircraft than any other naval asset. The projection, persistence, presence adds far more value than sitting a non air supported fleet off an EEZ etc....

Sorry if I'm veering off tangent but it gets a little frustrating to have interesting threads ending up with "I know but I won't tell u cos its classified"

Unfortunately thats the reality of some of these discussions - it can't be helped. For those who aren't familiar with the military, they assume that all info is based on the internet and that the internet is ipso facto the "answer de rigeur" for all subjects.

nothing could be further from the truth. at some point, the juicy bits, the real data kicks in - and thats not available on the internet. you will not see any of the military or ex-mil people in here discussing absolutes as it's inapprop.

anyway, I'm off overseas for work for a few weeks, so I assume that a few of the others will jump in and comment.

 

[LancerMc]

gf0012-aust is exactly right. How can we have a true discussion of capabilities of militaries when large chunks of information about these systems are still secret.

In the Mid-80's, you could pose the question how effective the USAF's strike capabilities were, not knowing anything about the F-117 program.

If the USAF can hide a program like the F-117 for almost 30 years, what else can the rest of the branches of the military hide. What are the true capabilities of Sea Wolf attack subs? How precise are cruise missiles?

So with the information at hand, the U.S. is the strongest Navy in the world but is capable like any other to be threatened from all kinds of attacks

 

[jlb]

I'd already read this article, and refrained from posting about it.

As gf0012 said, most of the relevant information is classified, and Thompson provides mostly anecdotal evidence.

My gut feeling, though, is that while it's certainly far from being as unprofessionnal as Thompson implies, the US Navy - and the Army and Air Force as well - are probably overconfident.

I frequently read US officers posting on fora such as this one who are unbelievably dismissing of everybody else's armed forces. A marked superiority complex is definetely not a good thing to have when going to war.

It is true that for the past 50 years, the US has enjoyed the ability to pick its fights, and has picked them rather wisely - from a conventional warfare point of view, the political/LIC side is open to much wider argument.

Therefore, for half a century, US armed forces have only met on the field of battle forces that were markedly inferior. This strategic success emphatically does not imply tactical and operational "ultimacy". Yet more often than not you will hear or read that implication being assumed.

Much is made of the US technological superiority, too. What is meant there, though, is mostly electronic and IT-related technology. While transistors, integrated circuits and software certainly have stupendous military value, they are not the be-all and end-all of military technology. And the fact that you've - successfully - spent a lot more R&D money than the other side doesn't necessarily imply a congruent superiority. I am reminded here of the US and Soviet solutions to writing notes in zero-G in the sixties. NASA spent a respectable sum of money for a ballpen design that would work without gravity. The Soviets gave their cosmonauts pencils.

And it took the fall of the Berlin wall for the West to discover that the technologically inferior Soviets had much better kit than us in some areas - I'm thinking about IR and passive aircraft detection systems.

The gist of this is, while I certainly can't conceive of anybody today who could seriously challenge the US militarily, be it on land, sea or in the air, the US should nevertheless be wary of nasty surprises the day somebody chooses to challenge them and not come to this fight the way they went into the Pacific War.

 

[Rich]

"Confidence" is a funny thing with war. To little is often even worse then to much. And lets face it, the USN is still ,in many ways, a Pacific Navy. A much more highly evolved one that chased the Japanese off the seas 60 years ago. I don't think we have reacted fast enough to changing conditions and we are vulnerable in littoral areas and choke points. Most of all against mines and extremely quite diesel subs. And "most of all" against countries with the mindset they have nothing to lose, like Iran. Does anyone doubt an Iranian skipper would gladly sacrafice himself and his submarine to take out a carrier?

Ive met many American officers and not one of them were ever dismissive of any enemy or underestimated them. But you also have to live in reality too and there is no naval force that can survive against the USN, especially when you take into account our series of alliances with other first world navies like NATO, ANZUS, and SK/Japan.

 

[Whiskyjack]

The US seems to be able to win the conventional war, i.e. Iraq 2003, but the 3 years since has been a struggle, Vietnam also a case in point.

Can anyone challenge the USN? No I don't think so, you can obviously say that Western Europe can challenge the USN in the North Atlantic, and possibly China in the first island chain, but no one can challenge the USN on a global scale.

The thing I feel is often overlooked is the price. What price is the USN and the US in general willing to pay?

I can’t remember where but I recall an interview with a Chinese officer in which he states the following in regards to a Sino-US conflict over Taiwan.

If the Chinese navy and air force are destroyed but China holds Taiwan, who has won?

Can the US afford to lose a Frigate, Sub, Destroyer, Carrier etc?

Yes it can in economic terms and even, as hard as this sounds, in people terms. But can it afford to lose these assets in political terms?

 

[KGB]

I think the issue isn't whether or not the USN can win, whatever shortcomings it might have, it certainly is huge. Thompson's analysis is directed at western readers. He is saying that the USN isn't making the most of it's huge budget because of pigheadedness and patronage politics ie, the USN is a pork barrel project.

1. It'd be nicer to find out more about his cited examples. Officials may classify certain kinds of information not for military reasons but in order to protect budgets and avoid audits.

2. The phenomonon of officers keeping quiet about problems until safely retired is not new. The anecdotes mentioned may very well be the tip of an iceberg. For example
a. Peter Wright, author of Spycatcher, only revealed publicly that he felt that his boss the director of MI5 was a mole, after his retirement.
b. There's a retired astronaut (I can't reall his name but its on a very recent Time magazine article) who went on record saying that he and very many astronauts felt that the space shuttle was "the most dangerous spacecraft ever" but kept quiet fearing that they they would get passed over for a chance to fly.

3. He accuses the USN as a whole of an incredible level of myopia. While we may seem incredulus, bear in mind the French Army after 1870 adopted an offensive doctrine stressing bayonet charges, light artillery, and red pants. They brought this doctrine into being in an age of machineguns and heavy artillery and paid dearly for it.

4. If the CV's are in fact vulnerable to submarines, even if the public doesn't know, the skippers of the subs certainly would. What we do know is that lots of navies are buying diesel subs nowadays.

 

[jlb]

I can’t remember where but I recall an interview with a Chinese officer in which he states the following in regards to a Sino-US conflict over Taiwan.

If the Chinese navy and air force are destroyed but China holds Taiwan, who has won?

In a purely conventional military sense, nobody's won yet, but the Chinese are about to lose...

Can the US afford to lose a Frigate, Sub, Destroyer, Carrier etc?

Yes it can in economic terms and even, as hard as this sounds, in people terms. But can it afford to lose these assets in political terms?

What exactly do you mean by "political terms"? a loss of international prestige?

 

[Whiskyjack]

In a purely conventional military sense, nobody's won yet, but the Chinese are about to lose...

This was meant to be a comment on the fact that the Chinese may be willing to take heavy losses to achieve their goal, what losses are the US willing to take?

Once (or if) they hold Taiwan I think the US would be hard pressed to take it back.


What exactly do you mean by "political terms"? a loss of international prestige?

I don’t think the US politics will allow the US military to take losses unless the public is 100% behind it. And I think that in many scenarios the public will not accept military losses especially a large number in a short period of time.

Iraq is an example of how fickle public opinion can be.