Comments by "Sar Jim" (@sarjim4381) on "The Drydock - Episode 006" video.

  1. I agree on the issue of battleships. Too big and too expensive. However, the problem with ships like Burke class when it comes to shore bombardment is the single 5" gun will have a limited barrel life if there's a small war (but bigger than the Falklands) that requires guns rather than missiles. Having some vessel with multiple turrets with multiple guns seems like it would make sense. Traditional 8" guns able to use rocket assisted rounds makes a near ideal shore bombardment gun with ranges out to 100 miles. I suspect the single gun main battery will be found to be a mistake at some time in the future.
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  2. THanks. Another interesting video. I believe I've watched most of your videos now and haven't seen an episode covering the Sumner/Gearing class yet. Given the size of their class and their lifespan it seems like a good one to cover.
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  3. As usual, the role of shore bombardment is always overlooked. It's boring compared to those cool new missiles. As you say, a non nuclear war between the US and China, or even the US and Iran, might require a lot of shoe bombardment. The Newport News, the only heavy cruiser to participate in the Vietnam unpleasantness, fired over 59,000 rounds during her three periods of deployment, a single ship record. It was the last deployment , on October 1, 1972, when a defective detonating fuse caused a premature explosion in the center barrel of B turret, killing 19 and injuring 10. That was the end of heavy gunfire support for the USN. Did the defective fuse come from old ammunition being used in guns that needed an overhaul, or even replacement? I don't know, but firing 59,000 rounds of ammunition is always a risk. Now imagine we only have the Burkes with their single 5" gun as the Ticonderoga class starts running down with no replacement in sight. With the failure of the rather costly and bizarre Zumwalt class, the USN is faced with a fleet with no cruisers for the first time in the modern navy, and having, at most, 50 Burkes available for shore bombardment duty in any conflict. No problem though. We'll use lasers...and rail guns...and flying jeeps with lasers.
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  4. Well, they gave it their best shot with the failed Advanced Gun System. The Zumwalts were going to have this really great lightweight 155 mm gun that could fire Long Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP) out to 100 miles at 12 rounds a minute with a CEP of just 20 to 50 meters. Nice try, but the first 45 rounds tested had a CEP of about 150 meters. Then the ROF was adjusted down 10 rounds a minute to improve accuracy, and it did...to a CEP of 100 meters, still far off specs. Then someone sat down with a calculator and figured out that each round would cost somewhere around a million bucks. Opps. The navy finally abandoned LRLAP in November of 2016. That means those weird looking Zumwalts are sailing around with a main gun that has no ammunition, since the gun can't fire anything but LRLAP rounds. The navy is now scrambling around trying to adapt the Italian 127 mm Vulcano round for the now useless 155 mm guns on the Zumwalts. I'm sure it will work first time at very low cost. Seriously though, all the money spent on this and the previous 8"/55 mm gun failure could have probably paid for the refitting of any of the Des moines class cruisers....maybe even all of them.
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  5. At least the USN is realizing that a 378 ft 3,400 ton vessel is really a poorly armed frigate. Maybe the upgrades will help it to be a real combat vessel rather than some weird combination of a PT boat and a helicopter carrier. I don't think there's any doubt that the entire DDG 1000 program is an utter failure by comparison to the LCS.
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  6. There's a video on here about naval gunfire support at Iwo Jima. It's fascinating to see how accurate battleship gunfire was inland to 20 miles using the relatively crude aiming methods of WWII. Imagine what could be done today. Well, assuming we had any ships with the armamnet to do that.
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  7. IronDuke (what a great British name, BTW), the 4.5" gun was a success in the Falklands but not because of the 4.5" gun itself. The shore bombardment missions were never more than about 12 miles inland, and the missions were mostly attacking things like non-hardened emplacements and airport runways. The weight of explosives in the British 4.5" and USN 5"/62 is the main difference, with the 4.5" round carrying about 46 pounds of explosive and the 5"/62 about 69 pounds. The RN should catch up with the new 5" gun, but even 69 pounds worth of explosive is pitiful compared to the super heavy 6"/47 round on the Cleveland class with 130 pounds worth, and that pales compared to the super heavy 8"/55 with 335 pounds of righteous indignation. Yes, railguns may "someday" be displacing conventional explosive firing guns but we've now been working in these since 2006 with no real progress on a way to provide the massive amounts of electrical power needed and a way of dissipating the tremendous amounts of heat used with each shot. We'll need ships with extremely well armored electrical systems as well, since one shot disrupting electrical power means a ship would have no railgun or guns. Given the survivability of electrical systems with much lower outputs in combat, that's a significant problem. Given the USN's failures with the much more conventional 8" AGS, I think the 2030's may be an optimistic goal.
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