Political Crossfire Forums

Commander Freyr · Joined: 08 Feb 2006 Posts: 41

Unfortunately the Coast Guard is facing a serious issue right now. Their fleet is very old, and now maintaining their ships is becoming a huge expense. But there is hope, with the creation of the Deepwater program in 2002. The Deepwater program is faced with the daunting task of modernizing their fleet. They are already working on 2 of 8 national security cutters, which are each 415 feet long. Hopefully the US will not have to go through another major war; but if they do let us hope that the combined forces of the US Navy and Coast Guard will be a formidable force.

bigstick61 · Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 2:32 am Post subject:

Their best ships, the Hamilton-class High-Endurance Cutters have been in constant service since the 60s and 70s and have exceeded their designed service life. The naval services in general have been grossly neglected, or have been the subject of massive cuts, especially when compared to the military services. We went from having a 600+ ship Navy to having one that cannot even muster 200 warships of all types, and has few auxiliaries. All in a matter of 15 years. That's the worst post-war cut to any service since the Civil War, when almost the entire US Navy was scrapped. It did not begin to revive until the end of the 1880s. It wasn't until the early 1900s that it had finally gotten back to being a top Navy.

Spider · Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 12:29 pm Post subject:

bigstick61 wrote: Their best ships, the Hamilton-class High-Endurance Cutters have been in constant service since the 60s and 70s and have exceeded their designed service life. The naval services in general have been grossly neglected, or have been the subject of massive cuts, especially when compared to the military services. We went from having a 600+ ship Navy to having one that cannot even muster 200 warships of all types, and has few auxiliaries. All in a matter of 15 years. That's the worst post-war cut to any service since the Civil War, when almost the entire US Navy was scrapped. It did not begin to revive until the end of the 1880s. It wasn't until the early 1900s that it had finally gotten back to being a top Navy.

The Air Force has had its share of slashing since the buildown after the cold war. When the Strategic Air Command was dismantled and the corresponding bomber forces were divided up amongst other commands, or even left in AMARC, down in AZ, the USAF was effectivly reduced to a defensive stance. We maintain an extremely minor (relative to the good old days, so to speak, back when the USSR had teeth) strategic force. We can of course maintain continuous ordnance delivery with what B-52's we still keep on stand by, but as far as an active bombing campaign goes, we wont need a heavy payload, we will need precision. Carpet bombing cities really isnt cost effective. The strategic ability of the USAF will depend on high altitude precision strikes, and that machinery makes up a small percentage of our remaining strategic force. Even on the Tactical side of things, we are in bad shape. Active combat air patrols, tho better than they were pre 9/11 are pitiful. Oftentimes the west coast has no active CAP patrols in the air at all

The "superpower" status of the US military is in question to me, at least relative to our previous force levels. We depend so entirely on urbanized infantry warfare, and naval air power...if push came to shove and we actually had to fight a full scale conventional war...we might be suprised to discover that we are no longer equipped for it. At least nowhere near as equipped as we were. Hell, we can't even secure our own southern border :lol:

bigstick61 · Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 2:53 am Post subject:

I know our Navy is no longer truly equipped for major conflict. It's a sad state of affairs, and the current administration is as much to blame as the previous one. Sadly, I think within the next two decades we'll be fighting another major conflict on a global scale. Hopefully things will change by then.

mendosan · Joined: 02 May 2006 Posts: 2735

bigstick61 wrote: I know our Navy is no longer truly equipped for major conflict. It's a sad state of affairs, and the current administration is as much to blame as the previous one. Sadly, I think within the next two decades we'll be fighting another major conflict on a global scale. Hopefully things will change by then.

Who is the US Navy gonna fight? Its gonna take China years to build up a fleet, I read somewhere that they don't have any landing craft to invade Taiwan, which is where conflict is likely to come from.

thundertaker · Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 11:21 am Post subject:

bigstick61 wrote: I know our Navy is no longer truly equipped for major conflict. It's a sad state of affairs, and the current administration is as much to blame as the previous one. Sadly, I think within the next two decades we'll be fighting another major conflict on a global scale. Hopefully things will change by then.

If You think the US Airforce and Navy are in a pisspoor state, compared to the rest of the world, it's in tip-top condition in terms of funding and equipment..........

bigstick61 · Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 2:55 pm Post subject:

The US Navy will likely fight the combined Russian, Red Chinese, and Indian navies down the road. And the PRC does indeed have landing craft. They have at least 70 amphibious warships. They are currently building a class of LPDs, which will significantly improve their amphibious capabilities, and give them some expeditionary capability. Really, in Naval Science, when we discuss opponents, these three fleets are the ones discussed the most.

Our Navy may still be larger than any other in the world, but it not well-equipped to fulfill its missions. The enemy may only have a handful of fleet carriers when we do fight them, plus some light carriers, but they can provide them with considerable escort if necessary, and still have SAGs left over, while the US Navy would be hard pressed to provide adequate escorts, especially as time goes by and the fleet is steadily cut further. The US Navy in the future will be smaller than it is now. The three main opponent navies are all expanding, some rapidly. Since we would have to come to them, often coming under the umbrella of their land-based aircraft, we would be at a disadvantage, which is exacerbated by the fact that most our ships really aren't designed with fighting in mind in the first place.