>>8181 Is there a reason Zumwaits called "destroyers" at such tonnage?

>>15009 Why not just strap HD cameras/cheap radars/IR-imagers with satellite feedback on cruise missiles for target identification instead?

>>18345 Politics. I forget the entire story off the top of my head, but it had something to do with the terminology of cruisers and destroyers by mission roles and congress being unwilling to fund experimental cruisers but slightly more pliant with experimental destroyers. >>18347 They've tried recon missiles, They get shot down, have nearly no loiter time, and in general produce terrible information. The Soviets eventually decided that it was simpler, cheaper, and produced better results to just fire a low-orbit temporary satellite into near-space. The Russians continue to maintain this opinion. The Americans just gave up and built better reconnaissance aircraft, eventually getting somewhere near there again with Reconnaissance UAVs. While excellent for searching for detail targets on land, those are less useful for searching the massive field required to find naval targets in the middle of the open ocean; the E-2s and AWACS units have those giant radars for a reason.

>>18345 destroyers sound cheaper, probably.

>>18336 >it just comes down to a matter of doctrine and preference. And I always have an underdog mindset, where it's better to have one piece of technology that can comfortably cover a lot of tasks; because having lots of more specialized systems might overburden the industry or the logistics. In practice it means that I'm allergic to having too many different calibres, both on a single ship and in a whole navy. >Solid-State HEL units also share this benefit, Can you see them entirely displacing autocannons, or at least to the point that the latter are just a backup in case the enemy manages to develop some unexpected technology? >probably using the 105mm Howitzers as a mental comparison Akhshually, what I have in mind is more like the South African G7 howitzer, which can use the same shells, but with a significantly more potent charges. But based on these posts >>13756 >>13759 it's possible to develop what is essentially a sliding breech gun that works just fine with bagged charges, and the elimination of the ejection should speed up the reloading cycle. Although that wouldn't solve the weight issues, so it's a moot point. But for an other alternative, how would 57mm guns work for CIWS? If we keep with the theme of theoretical designs, it seems to me that with today's technology it's possible to develop a 57mm chaingun that fires the original Bofors ammo, but at a higher RoF, all the while taking up slightly less space inside a turret. Or maybe go even beyond further and develop a 57mm rotary cannon. Although in either case you might need some funky feed system that relies on an endless belt feeding a gun, and a separate system feeding that belt. Still, would a mix of 57mm and 105mm guns work, or (compared to a smaller autocannon) the 57mm gun has the downsides of a bigger gun, but the shells are not potent enough to be a meaningful upgrade?

>>18440 >a sliding breech gun that works just fine with bagged charges, and the elimination of the ejection should speed up the reloading cycle. Forgot to add: assuming that you can make bagged charges that work for a single stroke system. I've heard some modern ones for autoloaders are quite though, but I don't know if they are though enough for this.

>>18440 >where it's better to have one piece of technology that can comfortably cover a lot of tasks; Oh oh...

>>18493 Anon isn't wrong though, logistics and goal-orientied tactics are much less headache inducing the fewer pieces of specialized equipment you have to lug around in the field.

>>18440 >where it's better to have one piece of technology that can comfortably cover a lot of tasks As the old adage holds, anyone that is doing more than one thing is doing those things poorly. Trying to force individual systems to primary in more than one field is going to be difficult if not impossible - when these things happen in reality it is often more by fluke than by design. Certainly, a system can have (often many) secondary roles as the system gets larger, but they must be designed around a specific role and designed to act in that specific role primarily, any and all other roles must take a back seat to that primary role. Otherwise, you end up with F-35s that can't do anything, as >>18493 alluded. Of course, over-specialization at large scale is more deadly than under-specialization, just ask the Germans, but that's an aside. To put it in a historical perspective from another field, the Sherman's 75mm gun was an excellent generalist tank gun but was completely outclassed in the AT role by the 76mm gun and the Support role by the 105mm guns. The US eventually replaced the 75mm gun with the 76mm/90mm specialist AT guns, even though both of them were terrible at the Support role, while bringing in more 105mm/155mm arty to supplement and eventually replace the Assault Guns. Specialization won out over generalization during the war despite the Sherman being one of the best generalist tanks of the war and tank-on-tank engagements being the exception rather than the norm for the US. That being said, logistics is a valid issue. It's a sliding scale of ease of logistics and system ability to do the job that can be hard to balance. Admittedly, it does become a little ridiculous if only one ship or even a small handful of ships in the entire fleet use one munition that is meant to be fired in bulk, such as the Zumwalt's Unicorn 155mm shells, conversely this doesn't affect terror (excuse me, shock and awe) munitions such as 16in or larger shells as with their limited role a unicorn status is expected. Any caliber change or introduction would have to either be handled fleet-wide (such as a return to the KK/FF/DD/CL/CA/CB/CC/BB system) or have commonality with another branch's munitions (such as the US Navy adopting a navalized version of the US Army's 155mm long-barrel gun). >Can you see them entirely displacing autocannons, or at least to the point that the latter are just a backup in case the enemy manages to develop some unexpected technology? Yes, with the caveat that it depends on continued investment. I believe they actually could displace SRMs on conventional ships and even supplement MRMs on nuke ships - this using extant technology. Although to some degree autocannons will remain regardless since invisible lasers are not a good threatening weapon against pirates or cocky civilians. >Akhshually, what I have in mind is more like the South African G7 howitzer Strelok, the G7 is still a 105mm Howitzer, regardless of how revolutionary it purports to be. But getting to the point, bagged charges in rapid-fire guns are inherently more at-risk of causing spontaneous life changing events for the entirety of the ship's crew. If you're trying to reach several dozen rounds per minute, given the pure mechanical energy impacting these by-nature highly-volatile substances, this risk is exaggerated exponentially and makes your chances of a severe case of 'rapid onset ship disappearance syndrome' occurring reach near to 100%. Obviously, caseless small-arms exist, but they don't push 12lbs of powder around at those speeds, and you can't be suggesting taking enlarged kraut space magic clockwork guns to sea; but I digress. With larger systems where rate of fire is not really a concern, say 12 rounds per minute or less, then bagged charges really aren't that much of a concern so long as appropriate safety guidelines are adhered to religiously (in other words, good luck getting modern youths to abide by this); especially if you are using rigid foam body charges, which lets the charges safely be rough-handled a bit. This is because the charges can be stored in multiple layers of protection and only withdrawn when needed, much as they were in old bag-guns in WW2. >But for an other alternative, how would 57mm guns work for CIWS? It could be used in that role, fairly easily in fact. It's too small for something like DART, though, so you'd be reliant on your raw fire rate, but in practical terms it'd be a sidegrade to systems such as Leonardo's various 30mm/82s and 40mm/70s, all of which (including the 57mm) being sidegrades to Phalanx and the AK-630s. Superior in roles such as Anti-FAC, inferior in roles of Anti-Missile Defense, while being just as good against Drones and other larger, slower aircraft. >theoretical 57mm guns and 57mm/105mm systems I see no particular reason why they couldn't work, but seriously at that point you ought to be considering upgunning to 3in/76mm and 5in or 130mm, or just sticking with the auto-cannons and running 5in/130mm guns out of weight concerns.

>>18503 >Otherwise, you end up with F-35s that can't do anything, as >>18493 alluded. The pilots seem to like it quite a bit.

>>18503 >The US eventually replaced the 75mm gun with the 76mm/90mm specialist AT guns, even though both of them were terrible at the Support role, while bringing in more 105mm/155mm arty to supplement and eventually replace the Assault Guns. Specialization won out over generalization during the war despite the Sherman being one of the best generalist tanks of the war and tank-on-tank engagements being the exception rather than the norm for the US. As a counter I can bring up the soviets: they started the war with 76.2mm guns, and when those weren't enough they switched to a 85mm AA gun, and when that wasn't enough they switched to a 122mm artillery cannon. Granted, they also developed a 100mm gun that was used in the SU-100 and later in the T-44 and T-54, but that was for medium tanks. And that 76.2mm gun was an artillery gun meant both for direct and indirect fire, as an AT weapon, and an early version even meant to be an AA gun (which failed due to the carriage not being up to the task). Still, the SU-76 was their second most produced vehicle after the T-34, and that was just a light tank chassis with this multi-role gun. >Any caliber change or introduction would have to either be handled fleet-wide (such as a return to the KK/FF/DD/CL/CA/CB/CC/BB system) What do you mean by this exactly? >or have commonality with another branch's munitions (such as the US Navy adopting a navalized version of the US Army's 155mm long-barrel gun). To be perfectly honest, that's why I have so many questions regarding secondary armaments. But it looks like the 76mm gun is still better than the alternatives, and the Rooikat proved that you can use it effectively on land, and the Eyetalians also turned it into a wheeled SPAAG before. >If you're trying to reach several dozen rounds per minute, given the pure mechanical energy impacting these by-nature highly-volatile substances, this risk is exaggerated exponentially and makes your chances of a severe case of 'rapid onset ship disappearance syndrome' occurring reach near to 100%. Well then, maybe reinventing the wheel really is not that brilliant of an idea, and sticking to those 76mm guns is the best. >upgunning to 3in/76mm and 5in or 130mm, or just sticking with the auto-cannons and running 5in/130mm guns out of weight concerns. But would leaving out the 5" guns work, so that we only have lasers/autocannons, 3" guns, and then jump straight to 8" secondaries and then 18" primaries? >With larger systems where rate of fire is not really a concern, say 12 rounds per minute or less, then bagged charges really aren't that much of a concern so long as appropriate safety guidelines are adhered to religiously Is this an absolute limit, or does it go lower as the guns get bigger? Because a two gun 16" turret with a combined RoF of 24 shells/min sounds like a bit too much fun to be true. >Yes, with the caveat that it depends on continued investment. I believe they actually could displace SRMs on conventional ships and even supplement MRMs on nuke ships >in practical terms it'd be a sidegrade to systems such as Leonardo's various 30mm/82s and 40mm/70s, all of which (including the 57mm) being sidegrades to Phalanx and the AK-630s. So, in the end the best solution is to bet on lasers, but design the mounts so that you can replace them with some off-the-shelf autocannons if they have unexpected teething issues?

>>18788 >and the Eyetalians also turned it into a wheeled SPAAG before. And the chinks did something similar with the AK-176.

Were there any countermeasures to early U.S radar that the Japanese could have used during the Guadalcanal campaign? I have been reading up on the different battles around Guadalcanal and in a lot of them the U.S fleet detects the Japanese fleet first and are able to target and hit the Japanese using SG Radar. I know the Japs were significantly behind in radar tech, but I would think they would have tried developing some type of countermeasure once they started encountering more U.S ships equipped with radar and they started loosing more ships.

>>18788 >Russian WW2 Tanks Granted, although one could argue for weeks if that was ideal or not. >What do you mean by this exactly? I mean for that path of caliber-change or adoption, the changes would have to not just set a course for new directions among the fleet, but directly transform it. For example, if they decided to introduce 8in Artillery again, they would pretty much have to bring in at least a dozen CAs to make the production of shells and guns economical. For (KK/FF/DD/CL/CA/CB/CC/BB) specifically, if they returned to such a system they would have clearcut hull types for specific missions and clear-cut weapon systems for those roles which would immediately ripple through the entire fleet. Or, to put it in another way, any new ordnance introduction must immediately precede a massive (and I mean massive) ship buying spree. ...or intend the gun be a unicorn, like essentially any battleship main-gun system, since you don't expect to need many of those to begin with. >76mm guns Really, 3in/76mm is just some kind of sweet spot between effect per shell and mechanical rate of fire. All of that being said, it IS possible to get worthwhile effect from 105mm or even larger guns, as long as you are aware that you're going to be making trade-offs and compromises regardless of what system you choose (even the extant 76mms are compromise designs by design) and design your ships around those compromises. If you design your ship to give exceptional firing arcs to its 105mm HAA and do not expect (or intend to counter) more than perhaps 2-3 leakers with your HAA per engagement, then 3 to 5 105mm guns per side with a rate of fire of even as low as 60rpm is actually entirely reasonable, assuming you have some kind of DART-like shell for them. You just have to be aware of their design limitations and design around them. As with virtually any other warmachine, warship design is entirely about compromises and dealing with those compromises. Yes, I'm aware I'm giving mixed answers and responses post-from-post, that is unfortunately part and parcel with the chaos that design work simply is. >But would leaving out the 5" guns work, so that we only have lasers/autocannons, 3" guns, and then jump straight to 8" secondaries and then 18" primaries? Absolutely, if you designed around that. So long as your intended/expected engagement/defensive envelopes are covered, any mixture works. My own personal preferences in this regard (18/16, 8in, 155mm/6in/5in, HEL) is mostly nostalgia/glorification of the past as I prefer what has terrifyingly become traditionalist design doctrines, but that's just myself, anything that meets the ConOps requirement is good enough (as long as the ConOps is sound and logical). >Is this an absolute limit, or does it go lower as the guns get bigger? Unfortunately, it gets lower as the shells get bigger. Cubed-Squared is not our friend here. I believe 16in guns are theorized to cap out around 4rpm with worthwhile charges and shellweights. >So, in the end the best solution is to bet on lasers, but design the mounts so that you can replace them with some off-the-shelf autocannons if they have unexpected teething issues? Essentially. Lasers are unfortunately deck penetrators by nature, but this means you absolutely could design them to swap out for very large autocannons... considering that the larger variants of HELs take up more room below deck than a 5in gun. >>18807 >Were there any countermeasures to early U.S radar that the Japanese could have used during the Guadalcanal campaign? During the Guadalcanal campaign? No. The Japanese developed their first ECM system in early to mid '43 and wouldn't have it deployed until late '43. Even then, the Americans had been expecting that and just flipped their own countermeasures on and went back to work virtually unimpeded.

>>18809 That sounds about right. I figured that the Japs would at least look into something to counter the U.S ship radars, but apparently the Japs were constantly 3-5 years behind the U.S, Britain, and Germany in radar development, so little to no hope of the Japanese catching up. I did do some more reading into Japanese radar development for the IJN and good god is it a fucking mess. You have the usual inter-service shit with the IJN and IJA refusing to share research even after both were given a German Würzburg radar by Germany for them to reverse engineer. Then you have almost no technical officers joining the IJN and those that were in service at the start of the war were soon combined into the into the regular officer corps to make up for a shortage of combat personnel. Quality control on Jap electronics was so poor that only 1 vacuum tube in 100 worked, and then those that pass inspection had a mean time failure of as little as 100 hours. For a system with 40 tubes, this meant a mean time to failure of just two or three hours. And the problems just keep piling on from there. Honestly, I am surprised to see that the Japanese actually had developed some form of usable radar. Another thing is that the more you read about the various inter-faction rivalries in the Imperial Japanese Forces and some of the rather backwards thinking in the IJN leadership, you learn how not to wage a major war against an opponent with a better tech and industrial base and with different service branches willing to work together instead of throwing each other.

Can Iranians cripple or sink a carrier?

Would the current JMSDF have any interest in or use for a Charles de Gaulle class CV with a full complement of Rafale-M aircraft if they could obtain one somehow e.g. no more pesky article 9? >>18812 >Quality control on Jap electronics was so poor that only 1 vacuum tube in 100 worked Is that related to Japanese production+maintenance troubles with late war high performance radial engines?

>>19184 With the right combination of ingenuity and persistence, yes, it could easily be done. The problem is, basically every nation that has Carriers except Russia considers attacking a Carrier to be attacking their mainland, and of those Iran would likely attack, the response would be nuclear. >>19185 The Japanese would probably just design their own Carrier, realistically. Nipponichibanzai, after all. It's not like they don't have the know hour or the industrial capability to do it. Interest and use for a full CV, though, they clearly have both interest and use for CVs considering they have just built two CVLs in all but name.

>>19208 >The Japanese would probably just design their own Carrier They currently lack any sort of nuclear propulsion or CATOBAR systems, and while they could in time design their own buying the loicense from the French might be an alternative Bidup did just cuck France out of a $40 billion submarine construction deal with 'Straya should the Japanese government ever stop eating Burgers all day when planning military purchases in the face of McDonalds' collapse and the Chinese building warships like the Germans in the 1900s. Though this is a bit off topic if US-Japanese ties were to decline to the point that the JSDF would seek a speedy functional replacement of the F-35 and their oldest F-15J airframes e.g. one that can be acquired either physically or intellectually and enter service within a decade at most because Lockheeb's always online maintenance DRM broke would any European offerings suit them? It's a complete fantasy but the thought of nuclear-armed Rafale-Js is a nice one.

>>19216 Just build the X-02 Wyvern or Falken. Or just modernized Su-47.

>>19216 Assuming Japan wakes up tomorrow and strikes the retarded part of their constitution, not so sure a nuclear carrier would be their first priority. If they want to stand against China without US assistance, they have much higher priorities, since nuclear carriers' main advantage is range, and they'd be far more focused on the Sea of Japan and East China Sea than foreign adventures with their main enemy in sight range if you stand on the correct bit of land on a good day. A metric fuckton of anti-ship missiles on every island seems more like it for a first step. And nukes. Put a couple of them on the Senkaku Islands and China is essentially checkmated... as long as they manage to get them in position without the Chinese hearing of it, of course. Otherwise they have just started a nuclear war... on second thought, nuclear subs would likely come before nuclear aircraft carriers.

>>19216 Strelok, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but your dreams of a deeper Euro-Japanese alliance have a statistically nonexistent chance of happening. The US Navy and the Japanese Navy are joined at the hip and not that many years ago their own studies determined that their sailors and officers were more loyal to the USN (the idea, not the actual force) than they were Japan. Further, they have no reason to take a French CVN. They in fact would not take a CVN, they wouldn't take a nuclear anything. They culturally don't like nuclear propulsion. The US has already straight up given them the blueprints for essentially every major shiptype in the US Fleet including but not limited to the Nimitz-class and Virginia-class with helpful notes on how to convert them to conventional power; why do you think the Kongous and Atagos have a 70-91% parts compatibility with the Burkes? The US has been trying to get Japan to ditch Article 9 and fully remilitarize since 1958. It wasn't an American idea to put it in there in the first place and the Americans in control of Japan at the time were appalled at it being added but were too hopped up on Democracium to tell them to not after they democratically put it in there. Overall, >>19229 is a more practical course of action for them to take to prepare for the case of a complete American collapse. Also, the Japanese have CATOBAR systems for some of their island bases, I recall seeing several of them up in Hokkaido the last time I was there. Carriers are not the only place Catapults and Arresting Wires are logical.

>>19231 How would the West Taiwanese react if a post-Article 9 Japan were to start building modern not-Iowa Battle/k/ruisers or heavily armored monitors together with East Taiwan? Can the PLAN into reliable and accurate 16in naval guns?

>>19235 >16 in naval guns The Chinese use 130mm (5in) in their DDs and CGs because they consider the age of naval guns and amphibious artillery to be permanently over and the PLA's ground force won that interservice doctrine struggle. Doctrine-wise, the Chinese CG and DDs (the type 5Xs) have several goals (in order): 1) Protection of the carriers in a ASW and CIWS role 2) Shooting as many as possible ASMs in addition to ground and air strike capabilities to overwhelm any net the USN/JSDF/ROCN can put up in an ASuW role. In a purely technological standpoint, the PLAN has had some issues with integrating electric propulsion onto the ships for some reason. Otherwise, most other stuff is relatively equivalent to US analogues. However, do remember there's a big experience difference in the two navies (which the USN edge is being retarded by trannies and whatnot) >>19229 >JSDF priorities The first one is fucking making sure that horde of Chinese AIP subs don't strangle them like what the USN did to them in WW2. There's a reason the PLAN invests heavily into non nuclear subs.

The French are really fucking pissed about that Aukus submarine deal. They just recalled their ambassadors from both the US and Australia. Given that Biden even forgot the Australian PM's name during a press conference, it wonder if the US was even aware of the Australia-France agreement that they were undercutting.

>>19238 Now to be clear and upfront, I've been getting this third hand, so I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this, but the way I've been hearing it the French were the dumbasses here. The Au-Fr deal quite clearly specified an agreed upon price and that a specific portion of the labor would be performed in Australia, this was 'non-negotiable'. Then King Baguette decided to do his best Darth Vader impression and informed the Aussie Defense that the deal had been altered and the Aussies would be paying 5 times more per unit and 'you people can paint the ships after we deliver them to you', because they would be 100% built in France. Aussieland's Defense Agency's response was to quite reasonable tell the French to go fornicate with a kangaroo and they left the deal; this leading to the UK coming up with a plan (that relied on the US) and the Aussie Defense basically jumped on it. The US kind of just bumbled into it as per usual under the current laughingstock administration and was basically informed about it at the last possible moment.

>>19240 The articles I'd read had vague mentions that there had been tension and disagreement already about where the labour would be, so that makes sense. And also on the topic of that deal, it amused me to see the response from the rest of the Five Eyes who aren't included, with Canada's weak-sounding "we didn't want nuclear subs anyway!". It's completely true, and even if we did want them we can't afford them (we can't even afford the ships we DO want) but it just looks so weak as a response, especially since it makes us look scared of provoking China.

>>18809 >Granted, although one could argue for weeks if that was ideal or not. If we wanted to do that I'd just stick to the best argument of the average .45 ACP fan. >Or, to put it in another way, any new ordnance introduction must immediately precede a massive (and I mean massive) ship buying spree. How would you compare it to the Dreadnought revolution? Could a navy completely upend the game by launching a squadron of cruisers? >Yes, I'm aware I'm giving mixed answers and responses post-from-post, that is unfortunately part and parcel with the chaos that design work simply is. That's why I'm so interested in military technologies to begin with. In something like a civilian car it basically all comes down to money and regulations, but in something like a tank or a warship it's an endless series of question of life and death all impacting each other. >So long as your intended/expected engagement/defensive envelopes are covered, any mixture works. That's quite reassuring, although it makes the subject both simpler and yet more complicated at the same time. >My own personal preferences in this regard (18/16, 8in, 155mm/6in/5in, HEL) is mostly nostalgia/glorification of the past as I prefer what has terrifyingly become traditionalist design doctrines In my case it's because I dream of ˝synchronizing˝ the guns used on land and on the sea. Specifically, with the kind of defensive system they are already putting on tanks the two best bets against them are going to be hypersonic missiles and really big guns. Therefore I imagine that for the front line the best main armament for a tank (or heavy IFV) would be a 76.2mm gun with a high RoF combined with a row hypersonic missiles. But the real tank killer should be a SPG with a 21cm gun: the first vehicle would mostly just designate targets for guided 21cm shells, and its own hypersonic missiles are mostly there for self-defence. >Lasers are unfortunately deck penetrators by nature, but this means you absolutely could design them to swap out for very large autocannons... considering that the larger variants of HELs take up more room below deck than a 5in gun. Strange, I thought they just need some really thick power cables. Is it because they all kind of capacitors and cooling systems and whatnot down there? And one more thing: are there combined gas/steam turbines for nuclear-powered ships? I mean that they normally run on steam, but if need to be they can switch to burning diesel with just the press of a button.

>>19261 >How would you compare it to the Dreadnought revolution? That strongly depends on how much new tech is shoved into the cruiser to make it a noteworthy threat. If a navy launched a flight of SLRC capable of firing nuclear-tipped, precision guided, 1500 mile shells below the radar detection (be it the 12in SLRC or a modernized battleship caliber naval cannon - an Alaska/Stalingrad-style large cruiser is still a cruiser) which was capable of advanced first strike without being detected (the strike, not the ship), then I could see it being somewhat comparable to the Dreadnought crisis. Obviously, it wouldn't be quite a Dreadnoughting situation, since the old navy wouldn't be quite obsolete; but it would probably immediately spark a 'massive' naval arms race (for this century's scaling, it'd be nothing to the 1920s/30s) and could actually see naval treaties return. >Tanks When it comes to tanks, really, all you absolutely need to do to cause a mission kill is to poke a hole into the crew compartment. To that extent, extant 120-140mm tank cannons would defeat anything up to heavy CNT-based composites, no reason to pull out the heavy artillery and hypersonics yet. >Strange, I thought they just need some really thick power cables. Is it because they all kind of capacitors and cooling systems and whatnot down there? The LPU (Line Production Units) and PSUs for HELs are not individually huge, but to get appreciable power out of them you need a lot of these combined units all working together in an array. To illustrate, to get a 30 megawatt laser, you need two thousand LPUs, with enough leeway to allow all of those cables to get to the laser condenser at the 'turret' head. That's enough required volume to fill a Cruiser's main turret with some excess. Incidentally, that's one of the primary reasons why the 'Lasers will bring back the Battleship' argument is actually valid. To get sufficient power to have noteworthy effect at range, you end up with absolutely massive arrays. >And one more thing: are there combined gas/steam turbines for nuclear-powered ships? I mean that they normally run on steam, but if need to be they can switch to burning diesel with just the press of a button. The closest to this is the Kirovs' Nuclear propulsion with Oil-fired Superheater. Nuclear cruise (~18kt), Oil flank (30kt). With the right gearing set up, however, there is no reason why they couldn't have a dual nuclear-diesel propulsion system. I cannot for the life of me think of a legitimate reason why they would want such a thing, but it's certainly possible.

>>19293 If the cruiser-dreadnought naval arms race does kick off, would the French resurrect the Atlantic wall?

>>19293 >Nuclear propulsion with Oil-fired Superheater. Nuclear cruise (~18kt), Oil flank (30kt). So the oil is only used to superheat the steam, and it's not meant to use the oil as backup if something happens with the nuclear power? >I cannot for the life of me think of a legitimate reason why they would want such a thing Like so often, the answer is autistic curiosity.

>>19428 >So the oil is only used to superheat the steam, and it's not meant to use the oil as backup if something happens with the nuclear power? Correct. If the nuclear reactor somehow manages to go offline they have a lot more problems than just propulsion. Ironically, Nuclear reactors on ships are one of those sorts of things that having a backup for is generally kind of useless because if something goes terribly wrong with it, well, you're either at a location where you can get off-ship help in short order or you're kind of dead.

>>19441 >oil fueled The other reason is that the reactors are 300MW each. The Nimitz outputs 100MW + driveshafts, I suspect partially the reason for this is because the russian soviets considered their nuke subs to be more expendable and actually made the Kirovs to have decent wiring and redundant equipment, necessitating much more electrical output than "muh propeller shaft". Also don't forget subs don't really care about radar, although that's probably offset by the requirements for hydrolysis and air scrubbers. Could also just be Russian electronics being more electricity intensive versus their NATO counterparts. Considering the current year state of the Russian Navy, I will bet their role will be North Sea fleet or maybe Pacific fleet in patrols, since the Baltic, Black and North sea are close enough to land for anyone to lob stacks of ASMs from planes or land based batteries.. Also considering the non-existant state of the replacement carrier , I have a feeling that they will revert to some sort of ground based interceptor based designs (see: The new SU-75 and Mig PAK DP) which will probably never enter service because russian economy not found.

>>19442 The Soviets just weren't very good at designing naval nuclear reactors. They used molten lead as a liner (and radiation shield), for example, and their outputs were categorically lower than the American equivalents in terms of effective usable power despite in cases producing multiple times the thermal energy. Also, I don't really think the Soviets considered their nuke boats to be 'expendable' exactly, they were their navy's highest priority and got most of their developmental interest. Further, they even had creature comforts such as saunas on their Typhoons, veritable undersea hotels, those boomers. They were just, sadly, too expensive to maintain. Modern Russians actually are roughly as good as the Americans were about 20 years ago at designing naval nuclear reactors - which is to say probably the 2nd best in the world, since the only American innovations in the field since has been what went into the A1B. They (the Russians) sadly can't afford them en masse. Russia's real problem these days with their navy is the lack of shipbuilding capabilities. They have the naval engineering/architectural knowledge, they actually are capable of putting out excellent ship designs which are actually quite terrifying conceptually when considering trying to counter them. They just, optimistically on their side, have very limited capability to actually build the things because their shipbuilding industry kind of sucks. But they are very committed to bringing it up to their desired standards, and I honestly see them being able to do it within the next 10-15 years.

>>19443 >bad at reactor design I disagree, the Russian are good at build the molten lead fast reactors, but not the rest I think. Their doctrine significantly differs in sub tactics (read, dash to the Atlantic to repeat German Uboat campaign) versus the needs of acoustically silent subs (which said role was given to the SSKs). Ironically, the reason the acoustics performance gap was closed was when Toshiba sold milling equipment so they could make better propellers. As for the reason they did not use the lead bismuth reactors I do not know, probably due to issues with maintaining them is my guess. >expendable The non nuclear ones and some of the nuclear ones (the 705k/705s) are in my opinion disposal. The 705s sole purpose is to interdict shipping and US troop transports to from US Europe in any sort of war. Hence the high speed design was supposed to allow for outrunning of the ASW gauntlet alongside the USN's torpedo inventory at the time (The MK 48 ADCAP was semi-response to the 705) Soviet fleet doctrine revolves around three things: 1) Defense against naval amphibious landings 2) Third portion of the nuclear triad (SSBNs) 3) ASuW and ASW warfare to protect 2). >lack of shipbuilding capability Wasn't most of their large ship capability in Ukraine (specifically Mykolaiv)? Which promptly then fucked off and went full whoring for NATO? I know sub construction is mainly a Sevmash thing.

>>19454 >I disagree Understandable, I just personally consider lead-based LMFRs and LMFBR to be bad designs from the start as potential advantages do not outweigh the very serious disadvantages, especially when molten sodium based reactors give most of the same benefits while avoiding most of the detriments; but that's a clearly subjective thing. I also very much disagreed with their doctrine; but then again, I'm a grand fleet advocate, so that's unsurprising. >The non nuclear ones and some of the nuclear ones (the 705k/705s) are in my opinion disposal. I do not disagree on the SSKs, but I do disagree with the Liras. The admittedly limited information I've collected over the years indicate that they were no more disposable than any other naval asset the Soviets possessed, and were in fact held as something of a critical component of their Atlantic/Baltic Bastion. While if they had as many as they claimed they did, they could have been used as disposable assets, in reality they only had 7 of them and could not afford to throw them away. >Wasn't most of their large ship capability in Ukraine (specifically Mykolaiv)? Correct. That was one of the many reasons why getting Crimea (specifically the Sevastopol Shipyard) back was so important to the Russian Federation, it gave them a modicum of ability to construct and maintain shipping.

>>19464 >LMFBR is a bad design It is not inherently bad, the profile of the reactor and its relatively larger output versus other soviet designs made it extremely suitable for the mission the 705k was designed for: Interdiction. Doctrine drives equipment design, not the other way around. >705k The 705k have 2 roles, the latter was just a forthought of the Soviet navy though.: 1) Interdiction of NATO logistics in a NATO/WP showdown 2) Interdiction of any US carrier group repositioning to the Arctic or Pacific if the 670 doesn't manage to overwhelm the Missile defense network with ASMs. Kinda of a minor role with the invention of spy sats and the role of the Tu-142. Ironically I suspect due to space and maybe speed constraints they did not add the 65cm torpedo tubes. The 65-73 or 65-76 would be GREAT weapons for those subs. The 705k only needs to make it to the Atlantic proper to cause a great headache for NATO. Them grabbing tonnage and maybe a US carrier or two is just icing on the cake. >7 ships Technically, 8. You forgot the prototype 661, which was fully combat capable.

>>19466 Lead-based LMFRs and LMFBRs are in my (clearly labeled) subjective opinion bad designs from the start as the potential advantages do not outweigh the very serious disadvantages, especially when molten-sodium based reactors (which are also LMFRs and LMFBRs) have most of the benefits with lesser detriments. My opinion remains unchanged. They, the Soviets, simply did not have the know-how to produce superior alternative reactors of adequate power and opted for the best they had, which goes back into my original point that the Soviets just weren't very good at designing naval nuclear reactors - if they were, they would have been able to avoid the very serious problems that the OK-550 and BM-40A reactors had, problems they were very acutely aware of and themselves loathed. >you forgot No, I did not. The K-162/K-222 was not a Lira class, regardless of the latter being an evolutionary development of the former. Saying Project 661 was a prototype for Project 705 is the naval fudd-equivalent of calling an SVD an AK.

>>19468 >forgot Oh shit, my bad, I read that as ships capable of the same role. Oops. >reactor arguments The Soviets, were not particularly good at designing safe reactors until chernobyl hit them in the face. Be it a consequences of their goals. Again, whether or not the lead based LMFRs are inherently bad does not matter to the project. The 688 FLT Is have the S6G, which is ~165MW, slightly higher than the 155MW of the 705. If kikepedia is to believed, the sole reason the Soviets chose it was for the size and weight, which implies two things: 1) The Soviets considered that the PWR was not good enough to merit the advantages over the LMFRs 2) The Soviets were not capable of designing a decently sized PWR I propose that no 2 is false, my understanding is until the 945s, the Soviets considered the reactor size to be far more important than acoustics. The Mk48 ADCAP is what put the final nail in the coffin, alongside the maintenance costs and issues for that entire class. There's a picture of a Sierra II sub crew just standing on top of a reactor somewhere, my understanding is that Soviet sub reactors are much smaller than their NATO counterparts. Doctrine drives equipment procurement. That Soviets had a very clear vision in what they wanted the entire class to be. We can argue about the merits of their reactors and extensibility, but they are speaking, in the field of military projects relatively sucessful. Look to the F-35 as a good indicator of what happens when you do not have a clear docrtine (scope creep is a big issue here).

>>19477 >Again, whether or not the lead based LMFRs are inherently bad does not matter to the project. No, not again, this is the first time you've made this argument; further, you seem to have completely lost the plot here. I made the argument that the Soviets were not good at designing Naval Nuclear Reactors before the Liras were brought up and now you're just defending the Liras while disregarding the core argument and trying to bring up irrelevant points (Chernobyl) to back your counter-argument when every ship/boat relevant to this issue predate the Chernobyl disaster. And frankly, I said the Soviets weren't good at it, I didn't say they completely sucked at it. It's just that when one holds up the Americans as the counter-point standard, that leaves the Soviets trailing behind somewhat comically; the Russians, however, have gotten good at it since the fall of the Soviet Union thanks to Chernobyl, but that was far too late to have a tangible effect on the quality of Soviet Naval Nuclear Reactor designs. And an unsafe reactor is a bad reactor. I don't care how much mileage they got out of them. As a naval anything you will not be able to convince me otherwise; safety is paramount in Naval Engineering.

>>19485 >lost the plot I had to re-read and yes, I did. sorry. >unsafe reactors Yes, common US (esp. SUBSAFE) and Western thought would put that safety is paramount. However, the Soviets clearly didn't give a fuck in terms of reactor safety. I'm not saying that method is correct, only noting that. >sodium LMFR The draw back of a sodium based LMFR is that it explodes upon a leak because it doesn't play nice with water or oxygen. Now, the (supposed) advantage is that a lead reactor won't violently explode in a leak. Given that the Soviets had some serious issues with reactor coolant leaks, it is a cause for concern (K-19, K-431, and K-64 the lead ship of the Lira class) come to mind.

>>19489 >However, the Soviets clearly didn't give a fuck in terms of reactor safety. Entirely true, but just because they achieved what they were going for does not mean that their design practices are good. If their design practices aren't good, then it stands to reason that they aren't good at it, especially from the (as noted) subjective opinion of this western-mentality Strelok. >The draw back of a sodium based LMFR is that it explodes upon a leak because it doesn't play nice with water or oxygen. Ironically, the detonation of sodium-based LMFRs has been found to only be as violent as PWRs under similar circumstances and just as easy to prevent (albeit in different ways). This of course is speaking with the benefit of hindsight and would have required the Soviets to be safety conscious with their reactor designs... but therein lies the root of my issue with their naval reactors (and ship designs in general) anyway.

Who would win? A Kongo destroyer or the entirety of Congo's navy?

>>19739 Considering the Congolese Navy consists of 8 gunboats, of which one (1) is actually operational and a handful of motorboats with rifle-wielding niggers (funnily, they need five different bases for this insurmountable naval might), with a displacement of less than 1/70 Kongo's, and armed with only machine guns, all while being 2 knots slower than the Kongo... My guess would be the latter. Oh, yeah, the Kongo also has missiles. They can destroy the Congolese navy without even coming into sight.

Are the collective Navies of Chink-hating Asian/Oceanic countries enough to stop a West Taiwanese invasion of East Taiwan without any help from the US?

>>19749 Yes and no. Yes if they acted as a collective unit (they would not), no because China's strategy involves commandeering commercial vessels and retro-fitting them with light armaments before sending them across the strait to waste everyone's ammunition. Such boats would be chock-full of PLA troops, so they would still have to be shot down using the expensive purchased systems, so it would quickly become a land battle. If China can successfully hold Taiwan for at least a week, there's not much that can stop them short of American involvement, and nobody is going to respond to an attack on Taiwan for at least 24-48 hours.

>>19748 > the Congolese Navy consists of 8 gunboats > the Kongo also has missiles >8 × RGM-84 Harpoon Anti-ship Missile in quad canisters Oof! It's like nips planned for it.

>>19751 Would Russia switching sides and teaming up with Japan help?

>>19739 >>19748 How about a Kongo destroyer against a Kongo battleship?

>>19754 Russia has more to gain remaining neutral and continuing to sell weapons/minerals to everyone. They aren't pro-Chinese, but they are essentially anti-Taiwan/anti-Japan so long as America keeps fucking around in Ukraine.