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2007-05-06 Science & Technology

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Posted by Anonymoose 2007-05-06 11:55|| || Front Page|| [5 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Question: as I understand it, we have a number of Los Angeles class boats decommissioned and sitting in the ready reserve. While the Virginia class boats sound great, it strikes me that, with the Navy's budget sorely tested elsewhere, we could do worse than to bring the Los Angeles boats back for a while.

I understand some of them need refueling, updating, etc., but that has to be cheaper than new $2 billion-plus submarines, at least for a while.

Opinions?

Posted by Steve White">Steve White 2007-05-06 13:22|| 2007-05-06 13:22|| Front Page Top

#2 Steve, makes sense to me, but there is a bit of the 'me too' syndrome in all the armed forces, and if the USAF gets the JSF and the USMC gets the Osprey, and teh army gets the next gen hummer as well as advanced body armor, gee, can't the navy get some new toys too? (lets forget that the USN also gets JSF and the USMC is part of the USN and that logic works. on a bigger scale, there is a lot of stuff owned by all the services that is in mothballs that is perfectly good for the warfighting going on and for the forseeable future, IMHO)

Posted by USN, ret. 2007-05-06 13:36|| 2007-05-06 13:36|| Front Page Top

#3 I am certain that with some creative financing Australia or Canada could be convinced those Los Angeles-class SSNs would be a fine addition to the SSKs we/they currently deploy.

Posted by Excalibur 2007-05-06 14:55|| 2007-05-06 14:55|| Front Page Top

#4 As with aircraft carriers, I suspect that they will be discarding the notion of "class" in submarines after a while. Between boats, the upgrades and changes are so significant, and happening so quickly, that size is no longer a good comparison. Any rationale for uniformity is going right out the window.

The Los Angeles class was over-designed on the assumption that both computers (and their cooling systems), and missiles would be larger in the future. This ended up with lots of empty room inside them, and having to carry much more ballast than desired. They even had to put adapters in their tubes for their new smaller, better missiles.

And because of the proliferation of submarines in the world, I imagine that there will be entirely new paradigms of submersibles, some even unmanned, for ASW and anti-ship activities.

Some will be like listening posts, that can raise a floating antenna for a satellite burst transmission at intervals. They could either be moving or stationary on the sea bed, or both.

Some might just sit on the sea floor, only to surface to resupply surface ships. Like a pre-positioned undersea oiler.

Another kind might carry offensive weapons that would automatically engage enemy ships or boats that enter its range, when authorized. It floats to the surface, fires a missile or torpedo or two, re-submerges and moves a few miles.

The search is on for a better mousetrap.

Posted by Anonymoose 2007-05-06 15:05|| 2007-05-06 15:05|| Front Page Top

#5 Personel costs SW.

Virginias Motto: Cost like a SeaWolf run like 688.

Posted by Shipman">Shipman 2007-05-06 15:32|| 2007-05-06 15:32|| Front Page Top

#6 Besides Tomahawks, how many long range missiles can they carry ? And, have all the warheads been preprogrammed with their coordinates in Iran yet ?

Posted by Woozle Elmeter2970 2007-05-06 18:13|| 2007-05-06 18:13|| Front Page Top

#7 The Los Angeles class was over-designed on the assumption that both computers (and their cooling systems), and missiles would be larger in the future.

Who in the world came up with that brainstorm? OK, I could see wanting to make a longer-ranged missile, but computers getting larger? After 30 years of the opposite?

Posted by Jackal">Jackal 2007-05-06 18:22|| http://home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html]">[http://home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html] 2007-05-06 18:22|| Front Page Top

#8 I seem to recall that the VA's are much stealthier than the LA boats

Posted by Glusotle Mussolini6157 2007-05-06 19:18|| 2007-05-06 19:18|| Front Page Top

#9 Okay, crew costs and stealth, I can see that, though there isn't a potentially hostile navy out there (e.g., PLA-Navy) that can track an LA-class boat anyway.

And service rivalries have something to do with this.

But for the money, I'd add certain needed surface combatants and run the LA-class boats til I didn't have any left in the ready reserve. Each one of those has a good 10 to 15 years in them, and as a taxpayer, I'd like to get the full value.

Posted by Steve White">Steve White 2007-05-06 21:03|| 2007-05-06 21:03|| Front Page Top

#10 FOX NEWS > DON HO funeral > the FOX TV anchor, whom shall remain un-named, said "TINY MUFFINS", or was it "MUFFLES", instead of "TINY BUBBLES" as Don's signature song???

Posted by JosephMendiola 2007-05-06 21:38|| 2007-05-06 21:38|| Front Page Top

#11 I seem to recall that the VA's are much stealthier than the LA boats

I was poking around on that a little while ago. I read that at full speed a new VA class sub makes as much or less noise than a 688 at five knots. I have also heard of the 688s that to find them you listen for the quiet spots in the ocean . . . .

Posted by gorb 2007-05-06 22:56|| 2007-05-06 22:56|| Front Page Top

23:46 Zenster
23:46 tu3031
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23:40 Zenster
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23:26 Zenster
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23:16 JosephMendiola
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23:08 JosephMendiola
23:07 gromgoru
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23:03 Angaiger Tojo1904
22:57 Barbara Skolaut
22:56 gorb
22:56 JosephMendiola
22:51 USN, ret.
22:50 JosephMendiola
22:43 gorb
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22:30 Seafarious
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22:17 Old Patriot
22:06 Verlaine