Naval Pictures VIII: From Japan with love

[worktroll]

Remembers stories of Paras in the Falklands playing "What's behind that bush" with TOW missiles. When all you have is wire-guided missiles ...

Stories of Argentinian commandos bunkered up in a stone cottage seeing the TOW (could have been Milan) coming at them, running out to the bushes, and the missile operator changing course on the fly.

[CVB]

Reminiscences from the Monty Python episode "How Not to Be Seen"  ;D

You can afford to fire a gun "Over there, I think they're doing something over there", a guided missile you need to be pretty sure of your target or it doesn't work.

This, and neither the budget nor the magazines will be big enough to drop a couple of shells every minute for several hours to keep enemy heads down or interdict a crossroads or bottleneck.

[Sabelkatten]

Seems like the most practical solution could be to go to another army...

One of the points of the AGS was for it to be fully automated, right? Well, the Archer artillery system is a full auto 155mm on a truck chassis that the US army is apparently looking at. Shouldn't be terribly hard to adapt to the Zumwalts.

[Cannonshop]

Seems like the most practical solution could be to go to another army...

One of the points of the AGS was for it to be fully automated, right? Well, the Archer artillery system is a full auto 155mm on a truck chassis that the US army is apparently looking at. Shouldn't be terribly hard to adapt to the Zumwalts.

Kind of backwards-the Navy's had full auto capable artillery for over a generation, starting waaayyyy back in the forties and fifties.  The army tech is just catching up to that NOW.

[CVB]

See the Swedish Bandkanon 1 of 1967: 155mm SPG, fully automatic at 15 shots / 45 sec, range 28km (when the M109 had 15km). Always fascinating what a nation of 10 million can do: the Saab fighter jets, its own S tank and several IFV/APC families, the Carl Gustav, Gotland submarines, Visby class corvettes...

[Colt Ward]

Kind of backwards-the Navy's had full auto capable artillery for over a generation, starting waaayyyy back in the forties and fifties.  The army tech is just catching up to that NOW.

The Navy also had a greater mass & volume to play with for such a system.

While ground forces want something for NGS- Naval Gunfire Support- it is not something surface commanders want.  The Fighter Mafia is not a new thing in armed forces, admirals have played that game for a long time (Steam?  A fad I tell you, give me a reliable sail any day where I do not have to worry about some contraption breaking down without a way to fix it.) which is why subs were slow to be adopted and even if we tested the carrier concept first it was up to another navy to actually implement it.  The Admirals do not want a ship loitering for NGS, not their 'job' . . . IF it had been something the Navy was even throwing a bit of support at we could have had destroyers or old fashioned cruisers using 155mm and MLRS along with some AA/ASW capabilities long before.  But it is not something the institution is interested in- see how quickly the BBs were retired again w/o a replacement after the Soviets fell and Reagan's Navy hull target was no longer a priority.

[Cannonshop]

The Navy also had a greater mass & volume to play with for such a system.

While ground forces want something for NGS- Naval Gunfire Support- it is not something surface commanders want.  The Fighter Mafia is not a new thing in armed forces, admirals have played that game for a long time (Steam?  A fad I tell you, give me a reliable sail any day where I do not have to worry about some contraption breaking down without a way to fix it.) which is why subs were slow to be adopted and even if we tested the carrier concept first it was up to another navy to actually implement it.  The Admirals do not want a ship loitering for NGS, not their 'job' . . . IF it had been something the Navy was even throwing a bit of support at we could have had destroyers or old fashioned cruisers using 155mm and MLRS along with some AA/ASW capabilities long before.  But it is not something the institution is interested in- see how quickly the BBs were retired again w/o a replacement after the Soviets fell and Reagan's Navy hull target was no longer a priority.

gotta be fair there, Colt, you're right about the various 'mafias' in the various branches, but as for the Iowa class, it was a matter of operating costs versus capabilities (including the question of how often you NEED those capabilities, which hasn't been that often since the early 1990s.)

there have been proposals for 'Arsenal ships' for naval fire-support pointed inland, but in general practice, we haven't faced a peer level threat that also has a large coastline in a long time. (Afghanistan was entirely inland, Iraq's coast is short, most of the country's deep inland, everywhere else since the 1990s has been either third world or inland...)

This isn't to say there isn't a gap-there is, it's massive...but...the conflicts post GW-1 haven't been the kind that see either a lot of amphibious landings, or coastal bombardment.

It's a bit like the old "Coast Artillery" problem-the technology to do it has languished in part because the need for it has been...scant, rare, hasn't happened in a while.  Eventually something WILL change...

[Colt Ward]

Sure, but they were in use for 6? years which would have been enough time to take a existing hull design, strip off the anti-ship missile systems, swap/beef up the guns, and either decide if your NGS ship was going to have a AA or ASW support role.

Marines and the Army could have used a NGS ship in Grenada, Panama, Somalia . . . basically, look at the locations the Marines & Airborne have been sent to since the mid-80s.  What took the size of the BB guns to reach and blow up stuff has been finessed with advances in artillery technology.  There is a reason we went from 203mm to 155mm being the heaviest artillery in use.  Throw on MLRS for shore bombardment- which has it's own guided missile option- and you get reach & destruction to match the BB (but not  penetration) . . . and if given AA or ASW equipment, a role for the ship when there are not missions requiring NGS.  Heck, it makes it the best escort for the amphib groups.

[Sabelkatten]

Kind of backwards-the Navy's had full auto capable artillery for over a generation, starting waaayyyy back in the forties and fifties.  The army tech is just catching up to that NOW.

I'm hardly an expert, but I don't think there's any other full auto 155mm around today? Not in that weight class, anyway.

That was my idea, anyway. As the current system fits the gun, loader, and 21 rounds on a heavy truck it should be (relatively) to fit it into the space of the AGS. Since it's designed to be operated with the crew inside the cab there shouldn't be any need to put a crew in the gun turrets. All that should be needed is a way to feed the "gun magazine" from the "hull magazine" which should be easier than designing a whole new loading system.

[mikecj]

Sure, but they were in use for 6? years which would have been enough time to take a existing hull design, strip off the anti-ship missile systems, swap/beef up the guns, and either decide if your NGS ship was going to have a AA or ASW support role.

Marines and the Army could have used a NGS ship in Grenada, Panama, Somalia . . . basically, look at the locations the Marines & Airborne have been sent to since the mid-80s.  What took the size of the BB guns to reach and blow up stuff has been finessed with advances in artillery technology.  There is a reason we went from 203mm to 155mm being the heaviest artillery in use.  Throw on MLRS for shore bombardment- which has it's own guided missile option- and you get reach & destruction to match the BB (but not  penetration) . . . and if given AA or ASW equipment, a role for the ship when there are not missions requiring NGS.  Heck, it makes it the best escort for the amphib groups.

We trained to call for Naval Gunfire in Korea in 94-95.  Most of the operating area we expected to maneuver in was within range.

[Colt Ward]

Oh yeah, when they started converted FDC systems we found . . . I think it was 'Iowa' in the MUL- yes, master unit list, a OG . . . and then dug into it.  It was not exactly identified, it just was not formatted with the other artillery battalions . . . we were bored b/c they were going over something for the 10th time in the class, so the guys in my section were finding active duty units they had served in or our sister battalions.  But they stumbled across a entry just labeled Iowa, no description.  Holy hell, that thing's ratings were higher than some of the batteries . . . 16in?  WTF, everything is measured in MM now . . . holy crap, we can order fire from a battleship!  We can play Battleship!

But no, we could not even play with that data in a exercise.

[Wrangler]

French Battleship Danton, lost to a Uboat's torpedo in 1917. 

The wreck was found in 2007 and extensively mapped in 2015-18.

This was reported by Hazegray's twitter feed for history.

[mikecj]

But no, we could not even play with that data in a exercise.

We were warned it was for in-extremis only.  We weren't going to be able to just obliterate a hill that some sniper was on.

[Liam's Ghost]

We were warned it was for in-extremis only.  We weren't going to be able to just obliterate a hill that some sniper was on.

USS Texas is visibly angry.

[CVB]

We were warned it was for in-extremis only.  We weren't going to be able to just obliterate a hill that some sniper was on.

Just wait until that sniper hits a general...

[Weirdo]

Fifty pages. Time for you guys to start a new thread.

[Colt Ward]

oops delete