I think some of the promise of military UAV’s is lost because of gold plating gucci capabilities. What a Capability it would be to give every solider a cam copter if they only cost a few hundred quid each. Does not matter if it get’s shot down and it does not need to be able to uplink HD images to Northwood.

Yet the DDG-1000 has a projected crew of 140 men. I am not sure how you resolve that with it having nothing to do with when the ship was designed. Clearly there are some differences in operation but overall US manning trends are down on newer build ships. The LCS clearly overshot the mark going to far on automation but I think anyone stating that USN crews are not able to multi-task is way out over the skis on the issue. If one lines ships up by generation and relative task the crews are fairly similar.

Ticonderoga (1980) has around 400 crew for 9,000 tons, 122 missiles, 2 helicopters.
Type 42, Batch 3 (1980) has a crew of around 280 for 5,200 tons, 40 missiles and 1 helicopter.

OHP Frigate (1977) has crew of 215 for 4,100 tons, 40 missiles and 2 helicopters.
Type 23 (1987) has crew of 185 for 4,900 tons, 32 missiles and 1 helicopter.
Type 22 (1979) has crew of 250ish for 5,000ish tons, 16 missiles and 2 helicopters
Spruance Class (1975) had crew of 325ish for 8,400 or so tons and a variety of outfits.
Georges Leygues-class (1974) has crew of 235 for 4,000ish tons, 30ish missiles and 2 helicopters
Bremen Class Frigate (1980) has crew of 220 or so for 3,700 tons, some missiles and 2 helicopters

Los Angeles Class (1972) have a crew of 130 for 6,000ish tons
Trafalger Class (1977) have a crew of 130 for 5,000ish tons
Vanguard Class (1993) have a crew of 135 for 15,000ish tons and 16 missiles
Ohio Class (1976) have a crew of 155 for 17,000ish tons and 24 missile

I don’t see an appreciable difference when the total tonnage and weapons outfit that needs to be operated is considered. It is a bit of a misnomer that the USN has drastically over manned ships. What the USN has is a bunch of big destroyers in the Burkes that are Cold War designs. People compare them to a Type 45, Horizon or Sachsen type ship all of which are really post Cold War designs. Most are smaller, carry less weapons or are less multi-role than a Burke so it is really hard to fully compare things. I have no doubt the USN will cut back crew members for whatever follows. They clearly are looking to do it, while balancing other concerns as well. To suggest it is because USN crews “can’t multi-task” is just silly.

Nothing to do with it I assure you – it’s a philosophical difference and a complete and utter inability to “multi-task” – the crew “experiments” on the LCS have been a shock to the USN, which is why they are adding extra “core crew” (i.e. not “mission crew”) berths to the LCS1 for her maiden deployment.

During my time, admittedly 8o;’s through to mid 90′s – the communications department on a USN ship, of any type, would be 3 times the size of it’s RN equivalent due to the high level of specialization. 1 guy to route signals, 1 guy to type them up, 1 guy to encrypt them…. etc etc. As far as I know, this has not changed that much, relatively, even when increased automation is included. As another example USN has “damage control” teams who do only that, fire fighting and damage control, which is a specialism for Stokers in the RN and is taught to some level to everyone.

Anyway, sad to see the Ark go, pretty sure she had some life left in her, if only the aid budget would have allowed us to extend it !

I would agree with El Sid here. The USN ideas on ship manning have changed quite a bit since the Cold War ended.

WRT the America Class ships I said above the Air Wing would come from the compliment of Marines on the ship. What fraction of those Marines are dedicated to flight ops and what fraction of the crew are I do not know. Overall though you have 2,600 people or so on the ship and a large number of them are guys who ride the helicopters to shore to do work. I would guess 1,600 or so is a pretty reasonably number for the amount of people needed to run the ship and the air wing. Comparing the Burke design and crewing to something like the Type 45 is a bit unfair given the 20 year timeframe difference. What was a computer in 1990 compared to today after all?

The USN generally does have a higher crew density than a lot of European ships but then again a lot of US ships have a higher systems density that needs to be supported as well. The America Class has 2 ESSM launchers, 2 RAM launchers and 2 CIWS. CVF has a couple of CIWS. All those systems have to be maintained and supported by someone.

Does the America class crew of about 1050 include the air group? I would be surprised if it did, the USN uses a lot of manpower as it has a lot.
My first thought on visiting an Arleigh Burke ops room was wtf do all the chiefs do?
I think the Americas (once they get a dock) will be fantastic ships but they are amphibs not carriers.

What to be done? Apart from jamming RF signals which has legitimacy and proportionality problems in a western urban environment, I think the responses are immature. “Counter-UAV”, especially micro and in a complex civilian peacetime environment should be a priority for work.

http://www.dji-innovations.com/product/phantom/

[no affiliation]

http://en.ria.ru/military_news/20130521/181273882/Putin-Calls-on-Shipbuilder-to-Speed-Up-Naval-Deliveries.html

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20130507/C4ISR02/305070027/Aerostats-Lost-Weather-Mishaps-Take-Heavy-Toll-Dirigibles

With those two considerations in mind it seems to me that the real challenge will be to balance the need to provide a basic hull that is cheap enough to be stamped out in largish numbers and allow most of the money to be spent on the remote/modular kit with the need to end up with a large enough and capable enough platform that has the endurance and capabilities to make it a decent patrol ship (beyond being a very simple and thus very limited OPV).

Got a link that gives the exact roll out distance for a SRVL? The QE is not all that much longer than an America Class ship and you can’t use the ski-jump as part of your landing roll out. Everything I have seen indicates the USMC will use this technique as well. I think you are more than a bit off base here. The only real criticism is not having a ski-jump but that is much more about trading a spot that would be doing vertical lift than anything. You can gain quite a bit from the ski-jump when flying with external stores. But the aircraft will take off from the flat decked US amphibs with full internal fuel and full internal weapons. The only thing in question is what you get beyond that with a ski-jump.

I also think that it is important to point out the difference between a short-term decrease in readiness (particularly in the current political environment) and a long-term inability to do something. The US carrier fleet is not going from 11 to 4. If anything it would draw down in a very similar fashion to the amphibious fleet. If the carrier fleet goes to say 8 ships than I would guess that you would see 8 or 9 big flat deck amphibs. The planning assumptions would still largely hold true. The Navy holds out things like carrier groups because they know that congress will take action if military capabilities (and money spent in districts) are really threatened.

Colour Coding by tag: Might be a bit difficult that one and might make the front page look a bit naff, tagging on the other hand, like it. As per RT’s suggestion will have a top level tag of land, sea, air etc and then some of the perennial favourites like bridges, ISO containers and mexeflotes. Leave it with me for a while

re the Wall of Fame, not entirely sold on this one to be honest, how about replacing it with this

http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/contributing-authors/

X is on the wall of fame twice because he changed his email but kept the username, sneaky, what.

Uavs proper big ones aren’t cheap they aren’t particularly flexible compared to manned aircraft. Single benefit is you can buy less airframes to do the same task cheap and expendable disappeared years ago. King air 350 is very useful for cheap manned recon.

Martin if only we’d stuck a sar capable radar on a high flying long range biz jet it may have come in handy to coalition operation……….

‘None. We have a £1,4b budget line for MPHC, let’s spend it’

Exactly! In answer to TD’s question at the top of the thread the simple fact is that the high-end escort fleet has been cut to the bone and even if the 19 remaining ships could purely focus on they’re more natural, high threat ‘war-fighting’ tasks (principally providing a destroyer and frigate for the gulf, a FRE, supporting CASD and filling out the RFTG) the RN at current strength would still find itself stretched with only just enough ships to support those commitments and little else to spare. The surface fleet needs to at the very least remain the stable and perhaps even look to expand slightly again at some point if the T26 can enter service on time and on budget. As you say, even if the money isn’t yet secure for MHPC it is at least pencilled in and so every effort should be made to find it in time, eating into other projects funds isn’t acceptable at a point when the RN is so dangerously depleted.

@Martin

‘Sound like LCS Ferrari version to me’

Ha-ha, yeah it does sound a bit mad doesn’t it! I would have imagined their needs would be a bit more humble considering both the deep cuts the Italian Armed Forces are facing and also the more limited, regional and (essentially Mediterranean) focus they seem to have as opposed to the likes of the UK, France and others.

Oh well, best of luck to them!