How truly capable is the United States Navy?

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gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
A SSK skipper's worst nightmare is in the works. This thing is designed to tirelessly shadow it's prey, 7X24 for weeks on end, negating it's stealth advantage. May as well put back to port.
Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV)

Navy Anti-submarine Warfare Drone Begins Construction

7 July 2014 - An autonomous unmanned vessel designed to track quiet diesel-electric submarines spanning miles of ocean depths for months at a time with minimal human input is now under construction and is expected to set sail for testing in 2015. Leidos (formerly SAIC), has begun construction on ACTUV (Autonomous Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel) under a Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) program for the design, development, and construction of a vessel originally conceived for an anti-submarine warfare mission.

"ACTUV's advanced sensor technology should allow for continuous surveillance which, combined with the vessel architecture and design, is expected to provide autonomous safe navigation supporting Navy missions around the world," said Leidos Group President, John Fratamico.

I had some dealings with SAIC over a number of years on various maritime and ballistics projects - they had some seriously smart people on their books..
 

ASSAIL

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
Since I consider the Royal Navy to set the golden standard for naval professionalism, I feel inclined to ask you how the USN stacks up with the RN. In the 1970s and 1980s, I've heard of a few instances in which British carriers outperformed their American counterparts. Despite the size differences between their carriers, these exercises showed British carriers managing to strike first and "sink" the American carriers before their aircraft could even locate the British carriers. I've also heard that the British could launch their aircraft quicker than the Americans. A former RN sailor that I know in another forum told me that the Americans were still launching their planes when the British planes were beyond the horizon. Let me say that I can't provide statistical evidence to support these assertions, but I can say that my information comes from discussions with former RN sailors who participated in these exercises. I presume that you have served in the USN for a number of years, so I want to ask you if the USN typically performs well in exercises. I'm not asking for specifics; I just want to know if the USN usually performs well.
This is such a stupid question laden with preconceptions and ignorance (in the literal sense).
Your USN is the world leader in naval aviation with a long history of leadership and excellence.
Your USN is also the world leader in most other aspects of naval warfare, you get that from being the biggest and best resourced.
Take nothing from the RN, they ruled the waves for centuries but that leadership declined after WW2.
Naturally, these generalities are just that. Individual units can be miles apart in professional competency depending upon personnel and experience eg some of the FRAM2 destroyers serving in Vietnam had only 1 or 2 academy officers and the rest inexperienced ROTC officers, the did not perform well.

Small navies such as the RN and Commonwealth navies are all professional, well run navies but they mostly don't have the scope or the higher command experience opportunities that Admirals have in the USN and therefor the opportunity to enhance their command experience at the strategic, higher tactical, world wide level.

There's absolutely no point in pursuing this doubt about the professionalism or excellence of the USN, they are and will continue to be the world leaders across the whole spectrum of naval capability.
 

StobieWan

Super Moderator
Staff member
Since I consider the Royal Navy to set the golden standard for naval professionalism, I feel inclined to ask you how the USN stacks up with the RN. In the 1970s and 1980s, I've heard of a few instances in which British carriers outperformed their American counterparts. Despite the size differences between their carriers, these exercises showed British carriers managing to strike first and "sink" the American carriers before their aircraft could even locate the British carriers. I've also heard that the British could launch their aircraft quicker than the Americans. A former RN sailor that I know in another forum told me that the Americans were still launching their planes when the British planes were beyond the horizon. Let me say that I can't provide statistical evidence to support these assertions, but I can say that my information comes from discussions with former RN sailors who participated in these exercises. I presume that you have served in the USN for a number of years, so I want to ask you if the USN typically performs well in exercises. I'm not asking for specifics; I just want to know if the USN usually performs well.
Oh dear :(

Look, there was one famous and much celebrated incident in which one US carrier got done in during an exercise - it sticks out against the tedious procession of all the other examples where the entire task force got stomped flat while the US carrier was over the horizon, stomping some *other* task force flat for exercise. They're the 850 lb grizzly bear and have a 200+ power standard compared to the RN's three power standard. Look, I'm British, I think the RN are brilliant, but seriously, when it comes to blue water carrier ops, the USN wrote the rule book, were way ahead of the RN in RAS, DC, and a pile of concepts we had to pick up on.

Great ships, good weapon systems and sailors that refuse to lay down and die. Just be glad they're on our side, eh?
 

Todjaeger

Potstirrer
In response to my post on that other forum, I assure you that I am not trolling. The reason why I'm posting essentially the same thread in this forum is because I seek additional knowledge and viewpoints about this subject matter. While it may be true that you posted responses, I am still not completely and unequivocally satisfied. You responded to my comments, and I recall that you described multinational exercises as invoking numerous restrictions and unrealistic conditions for the sake of training purposes. However, gf0012-aust, made a comment on another thread when describing exercises like RIMPAC; He said that these exercises are perpetually "unscripted, free-play" exercises in which participant navies are allowed to use all of their available assets to properly simulate what it could be like in a war. Forgive my confusion, but I am inclined to admit that I don't completely understand. That is the purpose for making this thread; I want some degree of clarification. With that said, however, what I can say is this: During a multitude of multinational, RIMPAC exercises throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s, several USN ships and nuclear submarines have been "sunk" by the diesel-electric submarines of several countries including Canada, Australia, Peru, Israel, Netherlands, etc. A rather large segment of Roger Thompson's paper focuses precisely on these "sinkings."

Upon scouring the vastness of the Internet, I have found, talked and listened to numerous people who have served time in various navies around the world. Whenever the subject of exercises with the USN arrives, these guys consistently talk about how they managed to "sink" several American ships during the course of these exercises. In fact, even in this forum, I have found threads in the Royal Navy subforum, in which there are a few discussions about the much smaller Royal Navy aircraft carriers "besting" their American counterparts. For example, there is a thread about the USS Forrestal "losing" to the HMS Invincible, if I recall correctly. That is not the only one, but that is just an example. Since I assume that you have some experience in the US Navy, I want to ask you if the USN really does routinely "lose" to foreign navies during exercises.

AegisFC, I am fairly certain that you may have spent some time in the US Navy based on your pariticipation in the United States Navy thread on DefenceTalk. Although I'm not sure when or how long you served, I feel that I can trust anything you say about the US Navy. Therefore, if you answer my last two questions, then I will pretty satisfied.

1.) Does the USN routinely "lose" during exercises with foriegn navies?

2.) Are the sailors and leaders of the USN as well-trained and competent as their peers in other friendly navies? To be more specific, can the sailors and commanding officers of the USN ships and submarines "fight" their ships, rather than simply "engineer" them. Thompson and a few others have made assumptions that USN sailors, especially on submarines, really only know how to "engineer" their ships rather than "fight" them. I've heard of these claims, but I don't know whether they are true.
Honestly it is beginning to sound as though the only way to really get an answer would be for you to serve in the USN.

Otherwise you might wish to read the post on DACT, and extrapolate how areas can apply to naval exercises.

With respect to USN sub operations... a friend of mine who is an ex-USN dolphin and was awarded a medal "for operations north of the Soviet Union..." during the tail end of the Cold War aboard a Los Angeles-class SSN. That suggests that US subs can, have, and do operate in hazardous areas successfully. Given his fairly dismissive attitude towards some of the ASW assets, like when his sub was at periscope depth and a RoNAF P-3 lit up radar warning, but the Norwegian Orion did not attempt to deploy sonobuoys or call in other ASW assets to detect the contact. Or how the crew of his sub at one point was tempted on filling up a garbage disposal canister and 'dropping' it onto a Soviet sub which was ripping up some of the GIUK SOSUS lines. Such attitudes does suggest that USN sub crews have confidence in their abilities.

Given that there has not been any full scale naval engagements since WWII that the US has been involved with against enemy task forces, then there is not really any thing which can be held up as an example of 'proof'. However, one recurring theme that we often refer to, is that combat now is a system-level event, with individual personnel and platforms all fitting in at various levels to combat systems. Along these lines, the US has overall the most complete and comprehensive combat system, with the USN being a significant part of that, and the USN would not fight isolated from any capabilities which the USAF, US Army, USMC, USCG and other government agencies could bring to bear.
 

Todjaeger

Potstirrer
What do you mean? I'm sorry, but I don't quite understand the bolded part. Did the US submarine evade the RoNAF P-3 Orion successfully?
The Norwegian P-3 did not react to the presence of the sub at all. Given the time (late 1980's early 90's) and location within the EEZ of Norway in an area where subs heading to or from Soviet/Russian naval bases would transit, had the P-3 detected a sub with the periscope above the surface, it would react or call in other ASW assets to take action, and the P-3's search radar was active since it set off the alarms aboard the US sub.
 

RobWilliams

Super Moderator
Staff member
The Forestall incident was three decades ago and only because the weather was so crap that the USN - fairly enough - decided that it being peacetime that it was worthless to waste the lives of their pilots undertaking such an endeavour. Rest assured that if the exercise meant something and worth the risk then the UK task force would be creamed.

Most remembers the time Woodward - after losing most of his TF - pretended to be a ferry to sink the Coral Sea, it worked, but next time they ran it the UK lost everything in one strike.

What you've been listening to is crusty Brits who love to hang onto every time the UK has beaten the US at something because they know how over-the-top the capability is of the USN, that's why they remember these incidents so well!

Another thing people like to do is go 'but Astute bested the New Mexico in trials!' Because of the COs comments, well, the commander in New Mexico said the same thing about the New Mexico.

How many times do submarine exercises show the sub being killed publicly? Never. But you darn well know it does happen.
 

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
USN subs used to regularly penetrate green water - and into the big harbours of the sovs/russians

eg look up USS Parche

Parche was medaled up due to capability
 

colay

New Member
2.) Are the sailors and leaders of the USN as well-trained and competent as their peers in other friendly navies? To be more specific, can the sailors and commanding officers of the USN ships and submarines "fight" their ships, rather than simply "engineer" them. Thompson and a few others have made assumptions that USN sailors, especially on submarines, really only know how to "engineer" their ships rather than "fight" them. I've heard of these claims, but I don't know whether they are true.
Echoes from the distant past perhaps, a hangover from the early days of the nuke Navy and Adm. Rickover. Back in the day, he was said to have wielded an iron hand in the selection of sub captains, putting engineering excellence as a top priority over tactical skills. Perhaps there may have been some truth to this then but the Rickover era is long past and the performance of US SSNs which excelled in the undersea cat-and-mouse game uring the Cold War should be indicative of the Yanks' skill as sub drivers.
 

RobWilliams

Super Moderator
Staff member
Mixed. Exercises can be geared for, against or neutral to any of the parties involved putting them in positions which compromise their ability to do what they would do simply to test what they would do if that happened, in which case they may lose, leading to better processes in that hamstrung position *or* better processes to prevent that occurring.

The overriding point is that you can't say any group generally does well because there are so many motivations behind exercises, to find faults just as much as to prove things that work.

US sailors - both sailors and submariners - are well trained and have excellent equipment. Be thankful they are on our side.
 

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
as has been said earlier, refer to the principles around DACT and extrapolate them to maritime exercises.

exercises are designed to force or focus on a training outcome.
someone can "win or lose" in the blue/red scenario but the desired outcome may well have been to force a situation of losing so as to emphasise a training requirement
 

RobWilliams

Super Moderator
Staff member
Indeed, there are so many different motives with various depths which impact the scenario, the 'players' and the geography to a degree (limiting exercise area for example) in so many different ways it's far more in depth with in depth consequences than a Top Gear style 'which is best'.
 

EXSSBN2005

New Member
Sorry for being so late to the party but it has been a busy several months.

1) does the US Navy play with a "handycap" on sub exercises - yes, typically you don't show anyone, even friendlies, everything you can do to the absolute best of your abilities, noisemakers during games and such (its impressive when the CO of another sub calls on the gertruide "dang you got a quite sub when you turn off the noisemakers"). I can't speak about surface ships as we only rarely got to play vs them, but I would assume they place the same style of restrictions on them during games vs foreign navies.

2) To what extent would it be possiable to prove you know the difference between fighting vs engineering a submarine, almost always when we are fighting its about noise dampening / reducing your self emitted noise transients, if you know where the other guy is, your weapons systems are aimed and ready to shoot them, and he doesn't even know your there you usually win. :flame

I'm sure a sub *could* kill a carrier but that country will more than likely be a smoking ruin if the politicians would get out of the way of the military planners and tell them "go forth and win", since WW2 that hasn't happened in the US Navy much less the rest of the military.
 

StobieWan

Super Moderator
Staff member
I feel that the topic of this thread may drifted a bit from Peace4ever20's original post. From the original discussion of "How truly capable is the United States Navy?", the conversation shifted to interesting, and important, but non-the-less distinct topics of applicability of war-games to comparisons of actual capability and anti-submarine warfare.

However, there are a few substantial points that I believe have yet to be addressed as it relates to the true overall capability of the navy. I believe, and Peace4ever20, please correct me if I am wrong - I do not want to highjack your thread; but it would seem that a few additional issues would fit well into this discussion.

These revolve around 1) the ASuW warefare capability of the navy 2) the development and advancements within the US Navy, and those developments in relation to other navies and 3) The manifestations of the navy's lapses in capabilities or maintenance of certain aspects of its historic core competencies

My first concern is that the navy is effectively losing integral ASuW capability. At this point the majority of Burke's are Flight IIA, which are deployed without Harpoon launchers, the number of cruisers is being reduced (and with them the number of deployed Harpoon launchers), and the Perrys are firstly being withdrawn from service, and secondly have had their MK13s along with missile launching capability removed. The LCSs do not even have a credible SSM capability planned.

Granted the SM-2s have been used in an anti-surface capacity. However, my understanding is that this is not a tool that can be relied on to provide a primary ASuW capability. With their semi-active homing, the missiles lack over-the-horizon capability. Albeit, possibly, the IR mode may help here - but without an imaging IR capability or database of surface targets, I'm not sure how applicable this would be.

The navy does have the LRASM program running, however, they are focused on the subsonic version, not a leap-ahead technology. Meanwhile, both China and Russia possess, and continue to develop supersonic SSM. Moreover, there is already talk about a BraMos II which would be hypersonic.

Also, until the LRASM is available for fielding, we have at best 8 SSMs on our ships. Both China and Russia, are moving towards 16 on their primary surface assets. Also as more advanced missiles make their way onto FACs, the 2 CSSC-2 Scrubbrush/P-15 Termit missiles to 4 - 8 missiles of the C-702 or similar class. This can occur on FACs of even less than rival adversaries, such as Iran.

Another troubling situation arose with the 2006 surfacing of a Chinese Song class submarine inside of a Carrier Strike Group. The Group was on exercises, but not with the Chinese. This was not a scripted scenario. In fact, this is exactly what is not supposed to happen, and what all the training is supposed to prevent, happening at the will of the adversary.

Here again, we see the Navy giving ground in certain regards, to potential adversaries. As the Russians and Chinese are deploying newer boats with AIP and improved sound management, we are failing to advance. Our boat count is decreasing, and we have made certain concessions. For instance, the Virginia class was selected as a cheaper alternative to the Seawolf. Granted it has some better/newer technologies, such as a non-hull penetrating periscope, but those could be incorporated into the Seawolf. However, the Virgina cannot accommodate the weapons load of the Seawolf, and from my understanding is a bit slower.

Also, the Flight IIA Burke's do not have VDS and our next generation MPA lacks a MAD. Again, this would appear to be a retreat from the wide ranging, holistic, ASW approach that is required given today's advanced submarine threat..

We are faced with an environment where near peer adversaries are rapidly developing their capabilities, adding more weapons to their ships, and catching up to the West technologically. In this environment,our capabilities seem focused on the asymmetric and air threat. Our shipbased ASuW capability is obsolete and rapidly diminishing in the number of available launchers; we have discontinued the focus of our escorts on ASW as evidenced by the lack of VDS, and there are questions about whether we are using cutting edge sonar and submarine technology. Given this mismatch between our focus, rate of advancement, and capability and the threat environment, how truly capable is the United States Navy?
Is that you again Peace4ever? Sock puppet account?


You want to kill a sub? Send a Virginia. You want to sink a skimmer? See above.
 

RobWilliams

Super Moderator
Staff member
I feel that the topic of this thread may drifted a bit from Peace4ever20's original post. From the original discussion of "How truly capable is the United States Navy?", the conversation shifted to interesting, and important, but non-the-less distinct topics of applicability of war-games to comparisons of actual capability and anti-submarine warfare.
It was Peace4ever who brought up examples of USN units being bested as apparently being key evidence as to why the USN was crap.

Those opinions have been blasted out of the water.
 

StobieWan

Super Moderator
Staff member
Two comments, one on the supersonic/subsonic debate for missiles - if you make a missile which is supersonic, then either range or payload has to be sacrificed to get a bigger motor on the same missile. That's just physics. Supersonic and hypersonic missiles do cut down on reaction time but that works both ways, and if you're hypersonic, you're not jinking around or really able to do much to correct your course.

The USN has been training against supersonics for decades and the RN used to routinely engage sounding rockets in tests with Sea Dart and Sea Wolf back in the 70's so the basics of making your missile meet their missile for drinks and a chat are well established.

I'd be more worried about NSM than Brahmos personally. I'm not counselling complacence, simply pointing out that the USN knows about the threat and AEGIS was built around dealing with massive saturation attacks by multiple Soviet bombers dropping several missiles each.
 

OPSSG

Super Moderator
Staff member
Thread closed.

The Mod Team notes that Peace4ever20 started two threads namely, 'How truly capable is the United States Navy?' and 'Surface Warfare Training'.

Our members, in good humour and patience responded with concise and detailed replies over three pages, in both threads. Yet he has ignored or disregarded all relevant information provided in them. His posts shows that Peace4ever20 has learned nothing from those prior replies. In fact, it is clear that he has also learned nothing from the replies in this thread. The only thing that is clear, is his ability to ignore all information that does not fit his preconceived paradigm.

Our patience with him is not unlimited and the Mod Team will not allow this pattern of behaviour to continue. He is on short finals.

3rd and final Warning issued.
 
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