Re: Anyone watching...

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
On Thu, 14 Aug 2008 07:30:26 -0400, "Eisboch" <rce@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

<thunder@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:aaOdnZJGCsxMjjnVnZ2dnUVZ_qLinZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:13:45 -0400, Eisboch wrote:


Here we go again with history repeating itself. This is shades of
Jimmy Carter all over again. If the USA ever became close to being a
paper tiger, it was during his administration. Reagan came along,
reversed all Carter's cutbacks and set in motion the events that
ultimately led to the USSR's collapse.
Those were Ford's cuts, and to be fair, we were coming out of a war. One
should expect the defense budget to be cut. Carter increased, as % GDP,
the defense budget. Reagan, of course, increased it significantly more.


http://colorado.mediamatters.org/static/images/item/incidental/
fiscalchart.htm

Seems to me that I recall plans to reduce the Navy by almost half by Carter which led to serious concerns about our ability to control the seas by members of Congress on both sides
.
Reagan re-instituted a 600 ship (minimum) Navy.

Not Google info .... this is from memory.

Honest - I have not read Harry's reply yet.

I guarentee you he will say something along the lines of waste of
money, social issues and can't we all get along.


Absolutely. We've already wasted too many taxpayer dollars on the Navy. I loved the recent articles about the Navy's "stealth" ship, the one that was designed without weapons systems to handle close attacks.

You know, this one:

Sen. Collins: Navy scrapping stealth destroyer

By DAVID SHARP – Jul 22, 2008

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The Navy has decided to scrap its newest destroyer model after the first two are built in shipyards in Maine and Mississippi, Sen. Susan Collins said Tuesday.

Collins, a Maine Republican, said Navy Secretary Donald Winter called her to tell her the outcome of a meeting of top brass regarding the future of the DDG-1000 Zumwalt destroyer.

Critics say the Zumwalt is too expensive for the Navy to achieve its goal of a 313-ship fleet.

The Navy has been debating whether to build more of the current, and less expensive, Arleigh Burke destroyers. A spokesperson for the Pentagon said it would have no immediate comment on its plans.

The Zumwalt was conceived as a stealth warship with massive firepower to pave the way for Marines to make their way ashore. It features advanced technology, composite materials, an unconventional wave-piercing hull and a smaller crew.

But the warship displaces 14,500 tons, making it 50 percent larger than Arleigh Burke destroyers. And each of the warships will cost twice the $1.3 billion that Arleigh Burkes cost.

Maine's Bath Iron Works, a General Dynamics subsidiary, is building one of the ships. Northrop Grumman's Ingalls shipyard in Mississippi is building the other.

The Senate has authorized funding for the third of what was supposed to be seven ships. But the House has balked at funding that ship, which would have been built in Bath.

Collins, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the Navy review of the Zumwalt was triggered by a decision by the committee's House counterpart to reject funding for the third ship.

- - -

And now, the real story:


Two weeks ago, the Navy canceled plans to build the rest of its hulking stealth destroyers. At first, it looked like the DDG-1000s' $5-billion-a-copy price tag was to blame. Now, it appears the real reason has slipped out: The Navy's most advanced warship is all but defenseless against one of its best-known threats.

We already knew that the older, cheaper, Burke-class destroyers (pictured) are better able to fight off anti-ship missiles -- widely considered the most deadly (and most obvious) hazard to the American fleet. Specifically, the old Burkes can shoot down those missiles using special SM-3 interceptors; the new DDG-1000 cannot.

But now, a leading figure in the Navy, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (and Vice-Admiral) Barry McCullough, is saying that the DDG-1000 "cannot perform area air defense" at all. Never mind the SM-3; the ship isn't designed to fire any kind of long-range air-defense missile, whatsoever. It's presumably limited to the same last-ditch "point defense" systems (think Phalanx guns and short-range interceptors, like the Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles) that cargo ships, aircraft carriers and even Coast Guard cutters carry in case a missile slips past their screening Burkes. Those point defenses can't intercept ballistic missiles at all -- and when they destroy sea-skimming missiles, the debris can still strike and severely damage the ship.

In other words, the world's most expensive surface warship can't properly defend itself or other ships from an extremely widespread threat. That, needless to say, is a problem. Not only is the DDG-1000 vulnerable to the ballistic anti-ship missiles that countries such as China are developing, it wouldn't even be particularly effective at protecting fleets against common weapons in the arsenals of everyone from Russia to Iran. And it's not like this was some kind of new threat; these missiles have been around, in one form or another, since World War II.

"We're the Navy...if there is a way to waste billions of your dollars, we will find it."




--
"In the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations."
John McCain, news conference, 13 August 2008, forgetting somehow that
the United States invaded and occupied Iraq in 2003. Another McCain senior moment?
.

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