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| Home Front: Politix |
| Going Down With the Ships |
| 2007-03-07 |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #6 This is just ridiculous. The argument that the USN has lost patience with its shipbuilders and their antics is, on one hand perfectly valid, but on the other hand, inadequate to explain why a US Naval Reserve is not being maintained. The only thing I can think of, and it's the only slight I can think of against Rumsfeld, is that he directed it in order to pare down the USN and cut it to the bone to regain its fighting strength. Unfortunately, the USN needs its reserve ships as much as the US Army needs its reserve personnel and the National Guard in times of crisis. This is quickly going to produce a US Navy that cannot protect its convoys or aircraft carriers in a time of global war IMO. |
| Posted by: FOTSGreg 2007-03-07 18:04 |
| #5 It would be nice if Hollywood could buy a few. To blow up, to use for a mini-series, whatever. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2007-03-07 14:44 |
| #4 Another good reason is that the survivability of the old ships is terrible, when faced with new technologies specifically designed to destroy them. It may be cruel necessity to force the destruction of the old ships to force congress to pay for newer ones. Congress will invariably decide to force the Navy to use death trap rust buckets, if they are cheap. This is not to say that the grossly expensive newer ships are an acceptable alternative. The Navy itself has lost patience with shipbuilders and their antics. So hopefully, there will be new ships with a better price tag in the future. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-03-07 13:45 |
| #3 the money wasted, damn.. |
| Posted by: RD 2007-03-07 13:39 |
| #2 Part of the drive towards newer ships is the ever shrinking pool of sailors to man the vessels. No point in having ships in mothballs when you don't have enough sailors to man the ones on active duty. The new ships will require significantly smaller crews. The rate things are going, I wouldn't be surprised to see remote control ships ala Predator and Global Hawk that can be operated from port. |
| Posted by: RWV 2007-03-07 13:32 |
| #1 damn this is just sickening. |
| Posted by: sinse 2007-03-07 13:13 |