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| StrategyPage: USN Sea Basing Strategy |
| 2005-02-12 |
| The U.S. Navy believes that the strategic landscape is changing, and that the navy's new organization will revolve around Sea Basing -- a new concept enabling joint military forces to operate from ships offshore rather than from established land bases. Sea Basing is one of the three cornerstones of "Sea Power 21." Sea Strike will expand power projection through increasingly networked sensors, combat systems, and war fighters. Sea Shield will provide global defensive assurance through extended homeland defense, sustained access to coastal areas, and the projection of defensive power deep overland. Sea Basing will provide enhanced operational independence and support for joint forces provided by networked, mobile, and "secure sovereign platforms operating in the maritime domain" (ships). This philosophy recognizes the facts that the US must be able to respond more quickly to threats from abroad in a time when other nations are increasingly reluctant to let the US base its forces in the territory, even temporarily. One has only to look at recent history to see how difficult it is to overcome the inability to base US forces in nominally friendly countries when political and religious consideration intervened. This new strategy of joint forces afloat implies big changes for the black shoe Navy — the "ship-driver"officer community, as opportunities to command are likely to be spread across multiple services as the number of ships in the Navy continues to decrease due to retirements, the large cuts to the shipbuilding budget announced recently, and the realization that some of today's ships simply are not compatible with Sea Basing due to speed, size, or age. Sea Basing is an extension of maneuver warfare and will be the basis from which offensive and defensive force is projected through Sea Strike and Sea Shield. Afloat positioning of assets is to strengthen force protection and free airlift-sealift to support missions ashore. Planned Sea Basing Technologies will include heavy equipment transfer capabilities, intra-theater high-speed sealift, improved vertical delivery methods, rotational crewing infrastructure, and international data-sharing networks. Ships will not only be forward deployed and "crash deployed" from US ports, but will spend extended periods at sea with crews swapped every six months or so. This capability can only become more important in light of the recently announced cuts to new Navy programs such as the inland fire support destroyer (DD(X)) replacement for the Burke and Spruance class destroyers and the Multimission Maritime Aircraft replacement for the P-3. |
| Posted by:ed |
| #12 Interesting. I'm sold. When can I get one? Are the Chinese working on anti-satellite weapons? |
| Posted by: Zpaz 2005-02-12 10:37:18 PM |
| #11 To call those 155s "frighteningly accurate" is an understatement. And the satellite locates the target (not necessarily naval), feeds the data to the ship, and adjusts the round in flight. The 750 round complement to a DD(X) class multimission destroyer: "land attack support for ground forces, but also carry out anti-air, anti-surface and undersea warfare missions." And the thing looks more like the Civil War 'Monitor' than your typical surface ship. But it is just one component to the new fleet. The new ships are almost science-fictiony looking, and the #1 used reference word is "Littoral" (coastal). |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-02-12 10:15:34 PM |
| #10 What and how many platforms will have that weapon with how many of the guns mentioned Moose? In a battle between ships (thinking Taiwan), who is doing the targeting of said weapon and from where? When you say satellite-guided, are you saying a satellite controls the weapon or someone selects the coordinates and the weapon uses GPS to hit that target. What good does that do against a moving ship? Is there some remote sensor doing the targeting. It all sounds feasible, butI can't help it, I am always suspicious of swishy wonder weapons at sea. I am such a crank. |
| Posted by: Zpaz 2005-02-12 8:11:59 PM |
| #9 I think the naval "downsize" is deceptive. For example, most of the fleets are being upgraded to far more effective ships, with far more firepower. The battleship example is a good one: 16-inch guns are magnificant against enormous or highly concentrated targets, but for most circumstances, it is using a sledgehammer against a fly. Instead, if you have highly accurate 155-mm guns with a 12 round/minute firing rate, you can take out flies at 100 nautical miles to your heart's content with a flyswatter. And there are few targets that can take getting a satellite guided 155 in the ear. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-02-12 7:54:53 PM |
| #8 Beware of efficiency in war. A down-sized just-in-time military scares me. The point of a big Navy is to prevent "the big one". You do that with many hulls rippling with weapons. When a destroyer pulls into port and the locals laugh at your single 5-inch pea shooter it is not good. When you roll into town with nine 16 inch guns, they get the idea you are serious. Naval battle is decisive battle in a way that land warfare is not. Land warfare can drag on for a long time. In a battle over Taiwan, lose your few carriers and you are done. Go home. You can't control that sea without them. Bringing only 6 carriers into the coming showdown with China is tempting fate. They start to think, hmmm if we can just knock those few hulls out, we win. Bring 10 hulls, it gets dicey. 6 hulls may be able to win, I don't know, but why tempt fate. If you think 15 or more carriers is too expensive, wait until you see the bills after the shooting starts. |
| Posted by: Zpaz 2005-02-12 6:44:32 PM |
| #7 Bottom line, it's whatever it needs to mean to keep budget position with Rummy. btw did you know that components for each of these systems are made in every congressional distirct? One day we'll wake up and find out we've lost control of the seas. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-02-12 6:43:06 PM |
| #6 If I'm understanding correctly... it's a way run with 8 or 9 carriers deployed on a permanent basis, without springing the huge tab for 12 more CAGs. |
| Posted by: Dishman 2005-02-12 6:09:06 PM |
| #5 rotational crewing infrastructure Is that like welding the shit tank ball valves shut right before turn-over to the other crew? "I dunno Chief. The crapper won't flush no more." "Shut-up and gimme the crescent wrench." improved vertical delivery methods What is that? Sex while standing-up? |
| Posted by: Zpaz 2005-02-12 5:01:40 PM |
| #4 ...the projection of defensive power deep overland. Ok. What the hell does that mean? Does that mean Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles? How is that new? Sea Shield will provide global defensive assurance through extended homeland defense... Ok. What does that mean? Stopping freighters and inspecting well off-shore? Sea Strike will expand power projection through increasingly networked sensors, combat systems, and war fighters How about expanding it through 6 more carriers? Does China count sensors or do they count ships? Is plain English dead? Sometimes I wonder why I quit the Navy. Now I remember. |
| Posted by: Zpaz 2005-02-12 4:55:22 PM |
| #3 This is the Master Green plan to take over the US military and impose the TRINITY on US armed forces fighting against OWG and Clintonista/Socialist/General Foods clique. Luckily I think it'll work, all it'll take is a 150 ft. lengthening of the follow on Wasps. |
| Posted by: Famin B. Worss 2005-02-12 4:18:17 PM |
| #2 This is a counter to China's Pacific-grab to snatch Taiwan strategy! For long, the Achilles heel of the US Pacific fleet has been the reliance for repair, resupply and rearmament on *only* two US ports, Bremerton and San Diego. The Chinese figured that if they could neutralize these two ports, the US Pacific Fleet would be high and dry, because there are no other friendly ports in the Pacific that could do the job. But by creating something akin to a "port group", dispersed enough to be a difficult target, yet able to assemble for fleet RRR with reasonable speed, the Chinese efforts to attack these two cities, *and* to take control of the Panama Canal, *and* whatever mischief they are planning in the Caribbean and South America against the Atlantic Fleet, have been countered. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-02-12 4:01:44 PM |
| #1 So in short this is a new buzzword for which we won't have the ships to adequately implement. |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2005-02-12 3:14:45 PM |