| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Marines vs Navy Over Battleship Future |
| 2005-12-15 |
| Robert D. Novak: Marines on verge of losing battleship feud with Navy brass WHILE FIGHTING valiantly in Iraq, U.S. Marines are on the verge of serious defeat on Capitol Hill. A Senate-House conference on the Armed Services authorization bill convening this week is considering turning the Navy's last two battleships, the Iowa and Wisconsin, into museums. Marine officers fear that deprives them of vital fire support in an uncertain future. Gen. Michael W. Hagee, the current commandant of the Marine Corps, testified on April 1, 2003, that loss of naval surface fire support from battleships would place his troops "at considerable risk." On July 29 this year, Hagee asserted: "Our aviation is really quite good, but it can, in fact, be weathered." Nevertheless, Marine leaders have given up a public fight for fear of alienating Navy colleagues. The Navy high command is determined to get rid of the battleships, relying for support on an expensive new destroyer at least 10 years in the future. This is how Washington works. Defense contractors, Pentagon bureaucrats, congressional staffers and career-minded officers make this decision that may ultimately be paid for by Marine and Army infantrymen. Marine desire to reactivate the Iowa and Wisconsin runs counter to the DD(X) destroyer of the future. It will not be ready before 2015, costing between $4.7 billion and $7 billion. Keeping the battleships in reserve costs only $250,000 a year, with reactivation estimated at $500 million (taking six months to a year) and full modernization more than $1.5 billion (less than two years). On the modernized battleships, 18 big (16-inch) guns could fire 460 projectiles in nine minutes and take out hardened targets in North Korea. In contrast, the DD(X) will fire only 70 long-range attack projectiles at $1 million a minute. Therefore, the new destroyer will rely on conventional 155-millimeter rounds that Marines say cannot reach the shore. Former longtime National Security Council staffer William L. Stearman, now executive director of the U.S. Naval Fire Support Association, told me, "In short, this enormously expensive ship cannot fulfill its primary mission: provide naval surface fire support for the Marine Corps." The Navy's anti-battleship bias began Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese surprise attack destroyed the U.S. Pacific Fleet's battleships. Although admirals in 1946 vowed never to bring back battleships, they served effectively in the Korean, Vietnam and Gulf wars. Congressional pressure brought the USS New Jersey to Vietnam for six months, leading the Marine commandant, Gen. Leonard Chapman, to conclude, "Thousands of American lives were saved." The Marines calculated that 80 percent of 1,067 U.S. planes lost in Vietnam could have been saved had battleships fought the entire war. The admirals moved to get rid of battleships forever when Republican Rep. Richard Pombo proposed sending the USS Iowa to Stockton, Calif., as a museum. The Navy supports that as well as making the USS Wisconsin a museum in Norfolk, Va., and repealing the existing requirement to keep two battleships in reserve. The Navy's anti-battleship campaign began March 15 when Adm. Charles Hamilton briefed the House Armed Forces Committee. It is no coincidence that Hamilton has been the Navy's point man promoting DD(X). Never has it been clearer how the military-industrial complex functions. Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynamics and BAE Systems are mobilized behind DD(X) and against battleships. Congressional staffers, eyeing a future in the Pentagon or the armaments industry, know the way to future advancement is not to be pro-battleship. "The Marine Corps supports the strategic purpose of reactivating two battleships," said a Nov. 19, 2004, General Accounting Office report. Since then, current Marine leaders have adhered to the naval position and walked away from boosting battleships, but not retired Marines. Gen. P.X. Kelley, the renowned former commandant, said in a June statement: "I would hate to see a premature demise of the battleships . . . without a suitable replacement on station. In my personal experience in combat, the battleship is the most effective naval fire support platform in the history of naval warfare." The Army is an interested but silent listener to this debate. Its generals have failed in their fight over stressing tube artillery. If Congress now turns the last battleships into museums, the losers will be the grunts who carry rifles. Robert D. Novak is a Washington political columnist and commentator on CNN. |
| Posted by:FOTSGreg |
| #8 Whether BB or CVN, etc. the future of these traditional platforms is to be as super-arsenal ships of various hybrid designs wid multipurpose firepower dominance, and this exclusive of potens SPACE-BASED FIRE SUPPORT. The US Army is already contracting for designs for quad tilt-rotor vertical-lift attack transports capable of landing heavy AFVS deep behind enemy lines ala "Air-Mech" concepts. Its a issue of whether the services will continue to believe/adhere to America's enemies having "sufficient/rough parity" warfighting tech as opposed to inferior or easily overwhelmed tech when it comes time to face the American Death Star in direct combat. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2005-12-15 23:37 |
| #7 The battleships are looked upon by the Navy as a symbol of defeat dating back to Pearl Harbor. The Navy wants to get rid of them, the Marines want to keep them. The difference in Naval/Marine air is that a bomb can be placed somewhere in a three-meter box. A 16-inch round can be placed on the SPECIFIED CORNER of a one-meter box. If the Navy were to strip down the battleships to just their 16-inch guns, thoroughly modernize and air condition them, add MLRS launchers in place of the 5-inch guns and add a good anti-aircraft missile, the BBs would be worth their weight in gold to the Marines, and would give the Navy a surface combatant force it currently doesn't have. With the new GPS-guided MLRS round, accuracy would be astounding. The only two things that would have to be done would be to train gunners (there hasn't been an active duty 16-inch gun crew in 27 years) and replace the current powder and explosive charges in the 16-inch shells, which are ALL left over from WW-II. I went aboard the New Jersey when she came through Panama in 1968, on her way to Vietnam. I'm convinced that there is still a role for the BB's in the US Navy. Unfortunately, the Navy doesn't want to agree with me - or the Marines. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2005-12-15 22:38 |
| #6 Navy League article: Successful test flights of a long-range naval artillery projectile paved the way for BAE Systems to award Lockheed Martin a $120 million contract for further development and testing of the projectile. The Long-Range Land-Attack Projectile (LRLAP) is being developed for the Advanced Gun System, a naval system being developed by BAE Systems for the Navyâs next-generation destroyer, the DD(X). The LRLAP is a precision munition designed to provide Marine expeditionary forces rapid-response, high-volume, all-weather fire support. The 155mm LRLAP is equipped with a rocket motor, tail fins and a navigation system with Global Positioning System capability to guide it to its intended target. During the most recent tests this summer, the projectile impacted the predicted target area at ranges of 59, 46.5 and 63 nautical miles, respectively, distance records for gun-launched naval munitions. (The holder of the world record for land-based gun artillery is the German 232mm Paris Gun, which bombarded Paris with 277-pound projectiles for 140 days in 1918 at a range of 74.6 miles.) The LRLAP is designed for precision support to a range of 83 nautical miles. â[LRLAPâs] range, accuracy and lethality will give the DD(X) the capability to support military operations in coastal areas with devastating force and minimum collateral damage,â said Capt. James Murdoch of the program executive office for Integrated Warfare Systems. âLRLAP will have a key role in future coastal and urban combat scenarios,â said Pete Jasinis, Lockheed Martinâs LRLAP program manager. The DD(X) is designed to be equipped with two fully automated 155mm Advanced Gun Systems and a magazine capacity of 920 LRLAP rounds. Development of the LRLAP also has been supported by Science Applications International Corp., Custom Analytical Engineering, Alliant Techsystems, Goodrich and Honeywell. Under the contract, Lockheed Martin is scheduled to deliver more than 100 LRLAP projectiles for development testing from 2006-2008 and qualification testing for the Advanced Gun System in 2009-2010. The company expects to begin full-rate production of the projectile in 2011. I think the Marines are just worried about the feasibility of the Advanced Gun System and want to hedge their bets for $250K a year*. I bet they'll even pay that $250K. The Navy just wants to kill battleships dead. I think we should keep our options open. $250K is just a drop in the bucket. * I think the battleship's supporters may be understating the costs. A battleship is a very specific type of ship with specific weapons systems. What about the costs of keeping a crew up to date on the operation of battleships? Gunnery practice with 16-inch guns, etc. That is most of the cost of operating a weapons platform - manpower. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-12-15 22:34 |
| #5 In today's dollars, I wonder how much an old-style battleship, singularly a 16" platform, cost, if purchased by a civilian? The idea being that, if push came to shove, he coule *rent* the battleship to the Marines. Nothing fancy, no guided missiles, no advanced much of anything. Just a heavily armored tub thumper. If done with economy in mind, I bet one could be made for maybe $100M, and damn good quality at that. With a one mission rental of $100M, it would pay for itself quick. Otherwise it sits back in the rear in drydock, kept in pristine condition. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-12-15 22:16 |
| #4 No Pappy, that is the Navy's damned job : to come up with the money to provide the required support for the Marines. And if the Navy does not want to do that, then perhaps the Marines should be split off as a separate distinct service and perhaps the Navy should lose 10% of its funding to pay for what the now independent Marines need for fire support. And if people are concerned about the funding issue, how about bumping up the defense budget by 2 billion dollars for 5 years to pay for this? It is not like we are spending too large a percentage of our GNP on the military nowadays. |
| Posted by: Shieldwolf 2005-12-15 21:59 |
| #3 These aren't just cannons on a self-propelled platform. $500 million reactivation and 1.5 billion modernization estimates don't take into account brining on and maintaining a crew of 800-1600 (depending on how much modernization is done). That doesn't include having to train a whole new generation of boiler techs. We haven't even touched on the cost of operating these beasties. The BBs aren't much good for ASW. They're limited as ASUW platforms. If the Marines want to cough up $4 billion to bring 'em on line, plus whatever it takes to keep them at minimum readiness, they're more than welcome to make the offer. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2005-12-15 21:16 |
| #2 Because the NAVY Brass does not give a damn about Marine dead, just their new toys like the DD(X). Remember, the Marines are not subservient enough to the Navy, so the Navy is now pushing for a Naval Infantry regiment - an all-Navy infantry unit that would duplicate the Marines. The Navy REMFs do not mind if Marines die because of the lack of inherent naval gunfires, just that they make Rear Admiral with a flagship. |
| Posted by: Shieldwolf 2005-12-15 20:42 |
| #1 Keeping the battleships in reserve costs only $250,000 a year, with reactivation estimated at $500 million (taking six months to a year) and full modernization more than $1.5 billion (less than two years). If these beasts have value as fire support platforms, why then are they in mothballs where a refit would take some time to perform? Any future conflict requiring an amphibious landing isn't going to wait for the Iowa or the Wisconsin to be reactivated and deployed. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2005-12-15 20:35 |