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What is a ship?

Kirkhill

Puggled and Wabbit Scot.
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Some vessels and loads - length, displacement, crew

What do you need for a crew?
The US Army LSV looks to be exactly what the USMC is asking the USN to supply
The USN looks as if it wants to supply something like the MUSV ships and keep the sailors off the ships entirely.
The US Military Sealift Command looks to be more open to experimentation than the USN - The Spearhead JHSVs, bought by the US Army to replicate a USMC capability, that were co-opted by the USN and then turned over to the civilian Military Sealift Command are already being delivered as optionally manned vessels.

Long range AUVs, roughly the size of a torpedo, can be carried by XLUUVs that can interface with AOPSs and AIP subs


fttonnescrew
SSMNSM
13​
0.41​
0​
SSMHarpoon
15​
0.69​
0​
SSMTomahawk
21​
1.6​
0​
CB90Swedish Navy
52​
15.3​
3​
MSV(L)US Army
117​
4 to 8
JHSVSpearhead
338​
1670​
22
LCSIndependence
420​
3100​
43
LAWUSMC200 to 400
4000​
to 40
LSVUS Army
273​
4200​
31
AOPSRCN HDW
339​
6615​
65
LSSOcean Trader
633​
20650​
50
JSSProvider
569​
20240​
199
iAORAsterix
599​
26000​
150
USVHammerhead
16​
0.9​
0​
CUSVTextron Fleet
39​
0​
LRUSVUSMC
40​
0​
MUSVSea Hunter
132​
135​
0​
MUSVSea Hawk
132​
135​
0​
MUSVNomad
175​
500​
0​
MUSVMariner
194​
500​
0​
MUSVRanger
195​
500​
0​
MUSVVanguard
205​
500​
0​
LUSVSpearhead
338​
1670​
0​
TorpedoMk 48 ADCAP
19​
1.7​
0​
AUVExplorer
25​
1.7​
0​
XLUUVOrca
85​
80​
0​
SSK-AIPGotland
198​
1494​
24 to 32
 

Risk Management - USN vs USMC​

Marines, Navy near agreement on light amphibious warship features​

By Megan Eckstein
Wednesday, Oct 5

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The Marine Corps will use one HOS Resolution offshore supply vessel by Hornbeck Offshore Services as a light amphibious warship surrogate for experimentation and operations. (Hornbeck Offshore Services)

Kirkhill Note - the OSV is also the basis of the MUSVs Nomad, Ranger, Mariner and Vanguard

Nomad and Ranger during RIMPAC
GFO_Nomad_Ranger_2021-scaled-e1646938727408-1536x864.jpg

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, facing a decision point early next year on the light amphibious warship, are working to balance the Corps’ focus on affordability with the Navy’s push for survivability.

Lt. Gen. Karsten Heckl, the deputy commandant for combat development and integration, told Defense News the two services are emerging from an initial disagreement about the cost and capabilities of this new platform.

The Marine Corps, since the early days of the light amphibious warship program, has aimed for a price of $100 million to $130 million a copy. But the Navy — whose sailors would drive and maintain the ship — and the Office of the Secretary of Defense wanted much greater protection for the personnel onboard, tripling the cost and leading the Navy to plan to buy just 18 instead of the Marines’ stated objective of 35.

“What should be a $120-$130 million ship should not be north of $350 million a copy,” Heckl said.
Though the platforms will have to be tougher than a commercial vessel, Heckl said the light amphib is meant to appear like a commercial craft — to “hide in plain sight.”

“The [Indo-Pacific] sea lines of communication are the most traversed sea lines in the world; it would be a challenge for any power to surveil everything all the time in that area,” he said. “However, if you don’t look like everything else you’re trying to blend in with, you make your adversary’s problem set much simpler.”

The Marines don’t envision using this vessel during combat operations either, the general said.

If there are indications a conflict may break out, the combatant commander would order the light amphibious warships, or LAW, to quickly relocate Marines or resupply units, “and then it goes into hiding, it goes into bed-down somewhere. Nowhere do we envision the LAW out transiting the sea lanes in the middle of a kinetic fight.”

After several meetings between Heckl’s team and the Navy’s Program Executive Office for Ships and the assistant secretary for research, development and acquisition, Heckl said the group agreed “there is a lot of maneuver space” to come to an agreement and keep the program on track for its planned fiscal 2025 start of construction.

Five companies are working on preliminary designs following a June 2021 contract award, and the Navy-Marine team will review those designs in January, Heckl said. At that point, with industry input in hand and an agreement in place over the right balance of survivability versus cost, he said the team will be in a better place to decide what that balance of survivability and affordability looks like and which companies are equipped to build that vessel.

In the meantime, the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment in Hawaii will begin experimenting with a leased stern landing vessel in January, and the Marines will explore other temporary options such as putting Marines on expeditionary fast transport vessels or littoral combat ships.
“I need a shore-to-shore connector,” Heckl said, meaning these other ships won’t be helpful in the long run. But in the short term, the Marines can use them to get forces at sea and work through the Stand-In Forces concept so they’re ready as soon as the light amphib delivers in the 2029 timeframe.

The Marine Corps envisions keeping small units of Marines scattered throughout the Pacific, moving around on aircraft and on the light amphibious warship. These units of about 75 Marines would be tailor-built for the mission.

In contrast, the traditional amphibious forces consist of about 2,200 Marines in a Marine expeditionary unit embarked upon a three-ship amphibious ready group. This fleet of traditional amphibious ships is separate from the light amphibious warship.

GP3XTM7V65H7JGPMJJTUQ4MUYQ.jpg

A wider disagreement over high-end combat tools​

At the crux of the disagreement about the light amphibious warship is division over the capabilities the military needs to potentially defeat China.

The Marines argue amphibious and stand-in forces match the National Defense Strategy’s priority of “deterring aggression, while being prepared to prevail in conflict when necessary.” They say their small units will be focused on deterrence, but also outfitted with the sensors and weapons to fight if necessary.

But the Office of the Secretary of Defense and its Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office have been focused on buying systems designed for high-end combat against a near-peer competitor.

Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Republican from Wisconsin, successfully added to the House Armed Services Committee’s annual defense policy bill this year a new naval mission: “the peacetime promotion of the national security interests and prosperity of the United States.”

In response, OSD said this addition would “dilute the U.S. Navy’s focus on combat operations at sea at a time when peer adversaries’ rapid military modernization (including naval modernization) and increasingly aggressive foreign policies require a strong emphasis on the development and modernization of U.S. naval forces’ tactics, forces, and capabilities for the effective prosecution of naval warfare.”

Two Marine generals said the dissent that difference has affected the LAW program and contributed to the different ideas of what the ship needs to be and how much it should cost.

“In the building, a lot of the discussion is: Are platforms survivable in the … over-the-horizon precision strike regime that China has?” Lt. Gen. David Furness, the deputy commandant for plans, policies and operations. “But 99% of the time, these ships are focused on building partner capacity in allies and partners; gaining access, basing and overflight; and campaigning to enhance deterrence, which is the principal element of our National Defense Strategy.”

Furness said the way the light amphibious warships operate would mitigate the risk China defeats them. These ships would operate in and around the 7,000 islands of the Philippines, for example, blending in with local commercial craft and not likely to become a target for Chinese precision missiles.

Heckl acknowledged the ships might be operating within the range of Chinese anti-ship missiles, but said the military too often focuses “on worst-case scenario, which drives us into situations where the force becomes just simply unaffordable and unattainable.” He said the stand-in forces will play an important role in supporting the strategy.

“One of the strengths of the stand-in force is to cause the adversary that moment of guessing and second-guessing their decision, and ratchet down and deescalate,” Heckl said.


From other articles

The Navy is looking at a vessel with a crew of 59 under a Lt Commander grouped into Squadrons of 9 under an O-6. The Navy is offering to buy 18 warships

The USMC wants 32 commercial transports with smaller crews, leveraging Unmanned-Optionally Manned technology at a unit cost of about 1/3 of that proposed by the navy.

Maybe the solution is to transfer the requirement to Military Sealift Command?
 
What do you need for a crew?

Depends.

Depends on the size of the ship.

Depends on the level of automation onboard.

Depends on the desired level of survivability.

Depends on the desired level of capability.


If we look at the civilian standards for watchkeeping requirements, you could have a 100,000 ton ship with a crew of 30.

If we look at a CPF, you have a crew of about 250 for a ship of less than 5000 tons.

If you look at the AOPS, you have about 65 crew for a ship of about 6000 tons.

There are so many variables that it's tough to determine without greater refinement of the needs and operational uses of the ship.
 
A boat can fit in a ship, a ship can’t fit in a boat 😀

A boat's centre of gravity is below its freeboard, and thus when it turns it leans into the turn, like a motorcycle does.

A ships centre of gravity is above its freeboard, and thus when it turns its top leans out of the turn, like a car does.

You could concievably build a boat that could carry a ship based on these naval architecture definitions. It's also why a submarine is called a boat, because its centre of gravity is always below the waterline. And there are plenty of subs out there that are big enough to carry a ship!
 

LET’S PROTECT CIVIL CITIES​

Since February 24, the russian army has launched more than 4,500 missiles at Ukraine. 20% of them came from the sea.
Ukraine had nothing to oppose these ships, because the Ukrainian fleet lost 80% of its vessels after the occupation of Crimea in 2014.
But, on October 29, 2022, naval drones hit russian ships, was carried out exclusively by unmanned devices.
Small and fast unmanned ships 3 russian vessels were damaged, including the Admiral Makarov, flagship of the russian Black Sea Fleet. This is the first case in history where the attack was carried out exclusively by unmanned vessels.
The result of this daring operation was incredible - russia has lost its undeniable advantage on the water. The killers of Ukrainian civilians — warships armed with missiles — became targets themselves.
Today, Ukraine starts assembling the world’s first Naval Fleet of Drones!
It will protect the waters of Ukrainian seas and also peaceful cities from cruise missiles launched by russian forces from their ships. It will unblock a corridor for civilian vessels that carry grain for the whole world.

WHICH DRONES WILL BE PURCHASED?​

Multipurpose unmanned surface vehicles are a unique Ukrainian development.
Our first task is to assemble a fleet of 100 such vessels. They will defend the waters of our seas, stop russian ships carrying missiles from leaving the bay, protect merchant ships, and perform secret missions.
Drones can participate in long-range maritime reconnaissance and coastal surveillance, escorting and supporting the traditional fleet, convoying merchant ships, zoning in artillery fire, defending our bases and countering amphibious operations.


There's an interesting video enclosed with a particularly good shot of the engine employed. Anybody recognize it? Interested because there has been chatter about Sea Doo links.

Also - 100 of these. Do they match up with these?


The type(s) of boats is not defined but the USN did acquire some boats broadly similar to the Swedish CB90 for coastal and riverine work. The Russians also use a CB90 type boat in the Black Sea, the Raptor class.

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We advance in circles. That which is old is new again.

 
We advance in circles. That which is old is new again.

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Another area denial problem

Ukraine's USVs as a manoeuverable mine field?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2022/11/20/the-ukrainian-navy-has-no-big-warships-its-winning-the-naval-war-anyway-with-drones/?sh=2120ef194fc5

AEROSPACE & DEFENSE

Ukraine’s Drone Boats Are Winning The Black Sea Naval War​

David Axe
Forbes Staff
I write about ships, planes, tanks, drones, missiles and satellites.
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Nov 20, 2022,08:00am EST
A Ukrainian unmanned surface vehicle, beached near Sevastopol.

A Ukrainian unmanned surface vehicle, beached near Sevastopol.
VIA SOCIAL MEDIA
An apparent Ukrainian drone-boat strike on Novorossiysk, a hundred miles from Russian-occupied Crimea in southern Russia, should sound the alarm in Sevastopol, the Crimean headquarters of the Russian navy’s beleaguered Black Sea Fleet.



A nighttime explosion in Novorossiysk’s harbor seems to indicate that the city is the latest target of the Ukrainian navy’s growing fleet of explosives-laden drone boats.

The 18-foot, radio-controlled boats apparently have been prowling the Black Sea for months. A swarm of the 50-mile-per-hour robotic vessels assaulted the main Black Sea Fleet anchorage back in October, blowing up at least one auxiliary vessel and possibly damaging the fleet’s flagship, the 409-foot frigate Makarov.

The unmanned surface vessels signal a sea change in Ukrainian naval strategy. When Russia widened its war in Ukraine starting in late February, the Ukrainian navy still hoped to counter the 30-ship Black Sea Fleet with a handful of big ships of its own—in particular, the gun-armed frigate Hetman Sahaydachniy.

But that was a fantasy. One the Russian fleet quickly dashed when it sank most of the Ukrainian fleet’s smaller vessels and captured its anchorage in the historic city of Mariupol.
Eyeing approaching Russian forces, Hetman Sahaydachniy’s crew scuttled their vessel in the port of Odesa, west of Mariupol. Hetman Sahaydachniy’s sinking left the Ukrainian navy with one large, mostly unarmed ship—the landing vessel Yuri Olefirenko—plus missile-armed TB-2 unmanned aerial vehicles and a solitary ground battery firing locally-produced, 170-mile-range Neptune anti-ship missiles.
The TB-2s and Neptunes heralded a new kind of fleet. One without big ships, but lots of drones and missiles. The TB-2s and Neptune battery in April worked together to sink the Back sea Fleet flagship, the cruiser Moskva.


The TB-2 and missile crews then turned their attention to Russian-occupied Snake Island in the western Black Sea, blowing up Russian equipment on the island and sinking boats and auxiliary vessels trying to resupply the island garrison.

While the Ukrainians gradually liberated Snake Island, their fleet transformed. The Ukrainian navy got Harpoon anti-ship missiles from Denmark and the United States. And a class of exploding, robotic speedboats, made in Ukraine and steered via radio by crews safely inside free Ukraine, filled the gap left by the scuttled frigate Hetman Sahaydachniy.
The first sign the Ukrainians were acquiring drone boats came in September, when one of the robotic craft washed ashore near Sevastopol.
A month later, identical drone boats struck the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s home port of Sevastopol, in occupied Crimea. Fragmentary videos painted a confusing picture. Near-misses. Explosions.
It’s possible the drone boats struck the new Black Sea Fleet flagship Makarov. It also is possible the Russians prevented a catastrophic strike. In either case, it was clear that the Black Sea Fleet no longer was safe in the western Black Sea, even while in port.

The Ukrainian navy after the Sevastopol assault got a lot less shy about its new drone boats. It published a loving video detailing the production process. And it welcomed an effort by the citizens of Lithuania to crowdfund the acquisition of an extra drone.
The publicity signaled new confidence. And on Friday, something exploded in Novorossiysk. The apparent latest victim of Ukraine’s new navy. A drone navy.
A drone navy that, along with shore-based missile batteries, is more than a match for the Russian navy with its big, expensive—and manpower-intensive—old-fashioned warships.
 
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