Honestly? Probably part of a much wider investigation
USS Bonhomme Richard, Amphibious Assault Ship, on fire with explosions reported
- Thread starter Husky_Khan
- Start date
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
To be fair fires on ships isn't a uncommon problem what with how they're loaded with flammable materials and way too ways to ignite them but most remain minor at best and it's just that in the case of Bonhomme Richard most of her DC gear was offline due to being in a refit and the fire quickly knocked out power from the shore and due to being in a refit she was was considerably more flammable than normal as well and harder to enact DC in as well. Most fires are caused by the things like faulty wiring or bad steam lines and whatnot not deliberately
The Obama Administration was purging Sailors from the Navy during his administration. I warned everyone on SB that was a bad idea. Of coarse they said you're just an ignorant Enlisted man what do you know. Looks like I was proven right........ Again.
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
And Congress isn't allotting enough money for the upgrade and maintenance of the various naval yards. Its estimated that if the USN grows to the 350+ ships it wants to be at by the end of the 2030s an investment of 50+ billion dollars in our naval yards (ideally including reopening/ opening a naval yard or two although that's something that will drive up the numbers considerably)is needed on top of a 15 billion dollar maintenance backlog that needs to be fixed
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Aaron Fox
Well-known member
From what I understand, that isn't really the case. The reality is that 400 ships are woefully bad in terms of ship longevity.
This makes things worse.
We need something on the order of a 400 ship fleet and probably a separate fleet of SSNs and SSBNs too.
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
The target strength for the USN if Congress allots the needed funding is that by the end of the 2030s the fleet will consist of around 350 to 380 manned ships including sixty or so SSNs and a dozen or so SSBNs and around 150 to 200 unmanned ones including a fair few unmanned subs plus the ships of the Miltiary Sealift Command which under the plans would total around 50 to 60 hulls all told. And that would be a considerable improvement on the current fleet of roughly 300From what I understand, that isn't really the case. The reality is that 400 ships are woefully bad in terms of ship longevity.
This makes things worse.
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
Personally, not enough, but we know Congress will balk at the price tag anyway.
Given the fact that there are a lot of groups that want to take drones out of the picture, I'm afraid that the UCSes will be no more than glorified paperweights if the technological context is in the right direction...
... if I were a betting man, I would bet on North Korea or Iran doing anything less than AGI drones in.
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
Mind you if we can reach such force levels it will massively reduce the pressure on the deployment schedule for ships
They are actually set to retire 7 of the oldest Tico's, just to free up logistics capacity and spread the crews to other ships to deal undercrewing issues.From what I understand, that isn't really the case. The reality is that 400 ships are woefully bad in terms of ship longevity.
This makes things worse.
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
Well that and to avoid the cost of upgrading the things.
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
Given that we've already got the Burkes at their absolute design limit (i.e. can't upgrade anymore because of design limits) and the Ticos are older...
... you can see where this is going.
The real problem is Congress not allowing for pay increases...
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
And the long deployment cycles caused by not having enough ships or personnel
And deferring the of a fair bit of maintenance on both ships and bases during the Obama years. And the whole War on Terror sucking away funding during a critical time period for both new ships and base upgrades.
But yeah boosting pay would help a lot especially since inflation is going to hurt service members a lot otherwise which is going to murder retention
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
The main reason for the Obama administration deferring the maintenance is because, well, as you said the War on Terror simply sucked away funds, and let's be honest, he couldn't actually raise taxes to regain that money (or, alternatively, get enough funding to the IRS so it can actually go up against rich folk so they get forced to pay their full) or he'll have a metaphorical riot on his hands.
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
Yeah cutting taxes and getting then involved in a expensive war(and really two wars) wasn't the Republicans finest hour by any definition. And yes the IRS really needs a bigger budget and basically always has since its creation. I mean for heavens sake if the IRS had collected all the taxes it was notionally supposed to have collected based on the raw figures since 2000 the national debt would be barely two-fifths its current size including the vast amounts we've blown on COVID
It didn't help Biden has cut the military budget some.
The Navy has had major staffing issues for a couple years now. It has gone down.
It will shoot back up. From what I understand this happens in the Army as well every now and then.
Hell, it kinds currently is
The Navy has had major staffing issues for a couple years now. It has gone down.
It will shoot back up. From what I understand this happens in the Army as well every now and then.
Hell, it kinds currently is
paulobrito
Well-known member
No, is Hue Sabutaga...