Calling all Victory at Sea players!

[BuShips]

I'll be cross-posting a clone of this notice (and plea!) on the other forum of note (you'll know very soon which one!).

Please note that this is not a political topic, as it is just a plea for the "name" of a ship.

Now I don't know if letters from around the World from non-U.S. citizens to the U.S. Secretary of the Navy will have any impact, but at least a bunch here are U.S. visitors of Mongoose Publishing's Forums and are also its customers.

Let me call this "Starship Troopers meets Victory at Sea"

This July 7, 2007 will mark the 100th birthday of Robert A. Heinlein, author of the Hugo award-winning novel Starship Troopers and a Veteran & supporter of the U.S. Navy. Heinlein, Naval Academy class of 1929 and author of books that inspired his readers to become scientists and engineers, deserves to have his native Country honor him with the naming of one of the new DDG-1000 class of 21st-Century destroyers. Sleek in design and displaying an outline from out of science fiction itself, this new naval ship deserves to have a proper sendoff by carrying the name of a long-time Naval supporter and visionary.

For those that may be interested, here is a website with details of how to request that this become a significant part of future history-

http://www.heinleincentennial.com/ussheinlein.html

Happy Birthday and "Shines the name" of Robert A. Heinlein!

info on the ship class:

http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/dd21/

 

[DM]

Given the reputation that the DDG-1000 is getting both at home and abroad, I'm not so sure it would be a good idea (unless you didn't like him )

 

[BuShips]

Given the reputation that the DDG-1000 is getting both at home and abroad, I'm not so sure it would be a good idea (unless you didn't like him )

Hey, call me a sucker, lol :lol:. Maybe it would be better named the "Nautilus"? :shock: Last week our Congress voted it more funding, so maybe they'll just throw money at the problem... :roll:

 

[chaos0xomega]

I love Heinlein! Whats so bad about the Zumwalt? other than the fact that it has NOTHING to do with any of our current wars, or any potential future wars, save for China... AND EVEN THEN!

 

[DM]

Think about how much it costs for a start Soem of my "knowledgeable friends" on the other side of the Atlantic feelthat with this and the LCS the USN has rather lost its way at the moment. However, thats a bit OT for this forum so I'll shut up at that point.

 

[BuShips]

Think about how much it costs for a start Soem of my "knowledgeable friends" on the other side of the Atlantic feelthat with this and the LCS the USN has rather lost its way at the moment. However, thats a bit OT for this forum so I'll shut up at that point.

Yeahhh, shut up. :lol: :lol: :lol: I just wanted to say that, hee hee.

 

[chaos0xomega]

It's not off topic at all.

Whats LCS?

 

[captainsmirk]

Littoral Combat Ship


Nick

 

[chaos0xomega]

AH! Its a good thing they came up then, because i've been wondering about something for a bit now.

Littoral Combat vessels are intended for combat within the 'littoral zone', I.E. the coastal area..... well..... how do they get there? I would assume that they have the capability to cruise in the open ocean, but if they were designed to fight exclusively in the littoral zone and not on the open seas, then that would mean that it would be incapable of traveling from say... San Francisco to Tokyo, as weapons don't care if you are fighting in the coastal region or the open ocean, and there would be no other way to limit where the LCS could engage an enemy, except by preventing it from cruising. See what I mean? Anyone care to shed some light on it?

OH, and what does 'laid down' mean? As in: "The Freedom was laid down on xx, month, 200z"

 

[Fitzwalrus]

.... what does 'laid down' mean? As in: "The Freedom was laid down on xx, month, 200z"

That is the date the keel of the ship was laid in her launching slip: i.e. the day construction (as opposed to gathering materials) actually begins.

 

[Jellicoe]

AH! Its a good thing they came up then, because i've been wondering about something for a bit now.

Littoral Combat vessels are intended for combat within the 'littoral zone', I.E. the coastal area..... well..... how do they get there? I would assume that they have the capability to cruise in the open ocean, but if they were designed to fight exclusively in the littoral zone and not on the open seas, then that would mean that it would be incapable of traveling from say... San Francisco to Tokyo, as weapons don't care if you are fighting in the coastal region or the open ocean, and there would be no other way to limit where the LCS could engage an enemy, except by preventing it from cruising. See what I mean? Anyone care to shed some light on it?

OH, and what does 'laid down' mean? As in: "The Freedom was laid down on xx, month, 200z"

They would certainly be able to cruise on the open seas and operate to an extent there depending on what the mission was. The general idea is/was that the LCS would be forward based in theatres of operation for long periods of time. Rather than returning to home ports to exchange/pick up new crews each ship would have 2 crews assigned similar to SSBNs etc. While one crew is on operation the other would be training, resting etc... Specialised crew, depending on what operations module was embarked could also be sent out when needed.

Laid down as in construction of the vessels commences.

 

[BuShips]

I was rather amazed at the crew rating of 140 for a 600' long ship. :shock:

 

[Tzarevitch]

I was rather amazed at the crew rating of 140 for a 600' long ship. :shock:

Extensive automation. The more that they can get crew size down the more ships they can man. Once you automate things like weapons systems, propulsion and steering you can cut the crew down significantly. Those are 2 of the biggest wasters of manpower ,and available manpower in an all-volunteer navy is the biggest limitation on how many ships you can field.

Tzarevitch

 

[BuShips]

I was rather amazed at the crew rating of 140 for a 600' long ship. :shock:

Extensive automation. The more that they can get crew size down the more ships they can man. Once you automate things like weapons systems, propulsion and steering you can cut the crew down significantly. Those are 2 of the biggest wasters of manpower ,and available manpower in an all-volunteer navy is the biggest limitation on how many ships you can field.

Tzarevitch

I knew that was the reason, it's just that it still amazes me . It's hard to wrap that concept around what I've read about historic ship capacities. The other thing that it does that I'm not too keen on is the added risk to a ship that damage will not be as quickly repaired as the more redundant older systems might have been. The level of training on that small of a crew is going to have to be to very high levels I'd guess.

 

[DM]

Actually its the other way around - the reduced crew is the reason there HAS to be so much automation. Most Western navies are struggling with manning problems (serving at sea isn't particularly attractive, so recruitment numbers are always in decline, and some navies can't send their ships to sea with full crews just now) so reduced manning and methods of enabling a ship to operate with such small numbers is becoming the norm. Automation and low maintenance design are two ways of achieving it. Reducing capability and relying more on shoreside support are others.

 

[Jellicoe]

And large crews are very expensive over the longterm.

Most next generation warships, LCS, Type 45 etc.. have a lot of empty space built into the design in anticipation of future needs. The LCS is designed from the outset to be used for many differing missions. One of these might include embarking a large SF complement hence the need for a lot of additional space.

 

[VonTed]

There was talk of getting rid of the mess at one time, 100% microwaves. No cooks = less crew. Of course those remaining would be eating poorly.....

Same with techies on board to troubleshoot and repair items, one thought was to go with 100% plug and play items, only swap out defective items, repairs would occur on shore.

 

[jfox61]

Who cares. It is just so ugly. looks like something you build on Blue Peter. Sticky back plastic and all that.