Treaties and Treasuries Oppressing Awesome Fleet Building in History

[Aaron Fox]

Meh needs more big guns. I mean for heavens sake it doesn't even have the equivalent of a MK.71 8" gun

Given that the USN tried that back in the day and using ramjet 5" rounds and missiles was far more economical than just a modernized Mk16 (which the Mk71 was). You'll need to have a technological context that has guns to be far more feasible as a weapon in the naval context to have anything more than 6" (or 155mm, aka a 6.1") on blue-water navy vessels.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

To be fair the MK71 project got axed for primarily budgetary and not technical reasons. Heck there's a reason why the Strike cruisers were planned to have one and every Spruance class ship had their forward 5" mounting area reinforced so they could have been swapped out and the early Burke design proposals had that as well

 

[Spartan303]

Given that the USN tried that back in the day and using ramjet 5" rounds and missiles was far more economical than just a modernized Mk16 (which the Mk71 was). You'll need to have a technological context that has guns to be far more feasible as a weapon in the naval context to have anything more than 6" (or 155mm, aka a 6.1") on blue-water navy vessels.

To be fair the MK71 project got axed for primarily budgetary and not technical reasons. Heck there's a reason why the Strike cruisers were planned to have one and every Spruance class ship had their forward 5" mounting area reinforced so they could have been swapped out and the early Burke design proposals had that as well

Oh? Do tell.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Oh? Do tell.

Basically they decided to use the USS Hull DD-945 a member of the much smaller Forrest Sherman class rather than a Spruance and then concluded that suprise suprise it was somewhat inaccurate....on a hull half the displacement of what the gun was designed to be mounted on. And honestly budgetary concerns where the biggest driver in canceling the program and even then the USN kept on wanting to bring it back in the 80s as shown by the various strike cruiser proposals and early Burke designs having one and being able to be equipped with one respectively on top of the Spurances being as previously stated capable of swapping out their forward gun for one. And the real kicker is that the enchanced range 5" rocket assisted shells that in theory would have made the need for the Mark 71 redundant still have haven't entered service due to the program being cancelled not once but twice.

 

[Aaron Fox]

Oh? Do tell.

Yeah, a lot of the problems with getting the 8" guns on anything are heavily in the camp due to economical reasons. The required bracings for the mount add something of a pretty penny in terms of build costs, the maintenance of the mount and the mounting infrastructure costs a pretty penny in of themselves (8" guns have a lot of oomph), then there are all the other logistical bits to it...

... let's just say when you add all the little things, you get a situation similar to the entire Enterprise-Nimitz CVN debacle.

And the real kicker is that the enchanced range 5" rocket assisted shells that in theory would have made the need for the Mark 71 redundant still have haven't entered service due to the program being cancelled not once but twice.

If I remember right, the first time was that the ramjet was so expensive and then later the end of the cold war happened.

 

[Spartan303]

Yeah, a lot of the problems with getting the 8" guns on anything are heavily in the camp due to economical reasons. The required bracings for the mount add something of a pretty penny in terms of build costs, the maintenance of the mount and the mounting infrastructure costs a pretty penny in of themselves (8" guns have a lot of oomph), then there are all the other logistical bits to it...

Thank you for explaining that. Makes sense.

... let's just say when you add all the little things, you get a situation similar to the entire Enterprise-Nimitz CVN debacle.

I'm actually not familiar with that one. Can you elaborate more?

 

[Aaron Fox]

I'm actually not familiar with that one. Can you elaborate more?

The short story is that when the first nuclear Enterprise (CVN-65) was first commissioned, Congress balked at the price tag of a nuclear carrier and canceled the entire class then and there. This led to the USN relying on conventional carriers -which are inferior to the Enterprise- and caused all sorts of problems for the USN (and it, unsurprisingly, almost sank the USN's nuclear powerplant program for capital ships and submarines) until the first Nimitz was laid down (which, in terms of design, was simply a modified Enterprise with modern improvements).

... yeah, that was something of a debacle on Congress's feet.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Yeah, a lot of the problems with getting the 8" guns on anything are heavily in the camp due to economical reasons. The required bracings for the mount add something of a pretty penny in terms of build costs, the maintenance of the mount and the mounting infrastructure costs a pretty penny in of themselves (8" guns have a lot of oomph), then there are all the other logistical bits to it...

... let's just say when you add all the little things, you get a situation similar to the entire Enterprise-Nimitz CVN debacle.

If I remember right, the first time was that the ramjet was so expensive and then later the end of the cold war happened.

the Spruance class came built with the structural reinforcements to swap out the Mark 71 in for its forward 5" gun and the second time the program got canned was in 2006 after having been restarted in 1994

The short story is that when the first nuclear Enterprise (CVN-65) was first commissioned, Congress balked at the price tag of a nuclear carrier and canceled the entire class then and there. This led to the USN relying on conventional carriers -which are inferior to the Enterprise- and caused all sorts of problems for the USN (and it, unsurprisingly, almost sank the USN's nuclear powerplant program for capital ships and submarines) until the first Nimitz was laid down (which, in terms of design, was simply a modified Enterprise with modern improvements).

... yeah, that was something of a debacle on Congress's feet.

as I recall this lead to the redesign of the first JFK(and why they're a building a second one so soon beats me) after it had been laid down with a designed powerplant of 4 reactors to having 8 boilers after she had been laid down which borked her a fair bit down the line hence why she was retired in 2007 instead of the previously planned 2018 although that was partially budgetary related as well

 

[Aaron Fox]

the Spruance class came built with the structural reinforcements to swap out the Mark 71 in for its forward 5" gun and the second time the program got canned was in 2006 after having been restarted in 1994

Mind you, this is going off of memory...

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Mind you, this is going off of memory...

fair enough.

 

[Aaron Fox]

as I recall this lead to the redesign of the first JFK(and why they're a building a second one so soon beats me) after it had been laid down with a designed powerplant of 4 reactors to having 8 boilers after she had been laid down which borked her a fair bit down the line hence why she was retired in 2007 instead of the previously planned 2018 although that was partially budgetary related as well

Yeah, and the USN was made to suffer Congress's penny-pinching. The sad reality was that fossil fuel plants were simply not that capable as you start going into the really big wattage numbers, and this left the JFKs to be less capable of being upgraded overall when compared to the Nimitz.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Meh needs more big guns. I mean for heavens sake it doesn't even have the equivalent of a MK.71 8" gun

The AK-130 system is a pretty formidable gun despite "only" being in the same caliber range as the 5"/54 Mark 45, as it delivers twice the rate of fire on a per-gun basis and stores 150-180 rounds on mounts as opposed to just twenty rounds.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

The AK-130 system is a pretty formidable gun despite "only" being in the same caliber range as the 5"/54 Mark 45, as it delivers twice the rate of fire on a per-gun basis and stores 150-180 rounds on mounts as opposed to just twenty rounds.

True but I was trying to snarky and not that serious. And of course the AK-130 pays for said capabilities by being a fair bit heavier and taking up more space.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

The short story is that when the first nuclear Enterprise (CVN-65) was first commissioned, Congress balked at the price tag of a nuclear carrier and canceled the entire class then and there. This led to the USN relying on conventional carriers -which are inferior to the Enterprise- and caused all sorts of problems for the USN (and it, unsurprisingly, almost sank the USN's nuclear powerplant program for capital ships and submarines) until the first Nimitz was laid down (which, in terms of design, was simply a modified Enterprise with modern improvements).

... yeah, that was something of a debacle on Congress's feet.

...why'd they do that? Four billion dollars (her cost in today's money) is like pissing in the wind for the United States and gives the Navy an invaluable asset. And if you carry out the program over the course of years, it's not going to sting that much, if it even stung much to begin with.

 

[Zachowon]

...why'd they do that? Four billion dollars (her cost in today's money) is like pissing in the wind for the United States and gives the Navy an invaluable asset. And if you carry out the program over the course of years, it's not going to sting that much, if it even stung much to begin with.

The Navy has always had issues with Congress.

But think about it back then how much that was

 

[paulobrito]

Congress has a long history of cutting funding to the US Navy. Almost from the creation of the nation.

 

[Aaron Fox]

...why'd they do that? Four billion dollars (her cost in today's money) is like pissing in the wind for the United States and gives the Navy an invaluable asset. And if you carry out the program over the course of years, it's not going to sting that much, if it even stung much to begin with.

It's Congress, whose members tended to be made up of those like Benjamin 'Pitchfork' Tillman (who was stupidly racist even for his own time and even had a battleship design named after him) than pro-military men for the longest damn time.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Note that the battleship design series was named after him because he demanded that the Navy show Congress designs for "maximum battleships" in response to the slowly but steadily growing size of the battleships they were actually asking for. The Tillman designs were basically mocking the Navy.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Note that the battleship design series was named after him because he demanded that the Navy show Congress designs for "maximum battleships" in response to the slowly but steadily growing size of the battleships they were actually asking for. The Tillman designs were basically mocking the Navy.

Hilariously the USN did show Congress the designs with Tillman in the room. Oh to be a fly on the wall to watch that

 

[Aaron Fox]

Hilariously the USN did show Congress the designs with Tillman in the room. Oh to be a fly on the wall to watch that

Yeah,...

Note that the battleship design series was named after him because he demanded that the Navy show Congress designs for "maximum battleships" in response to the slowly but steadily growing size of the battleships they were actually asking for. The Tillman designs were basically mocking the Navy.

... and the man couldn't wrap his head around the fact that due to the rapid pace of technological advancement in naval design, ships were going to grow larger on principle. The Age of Sail wasn't known for its rapid advancements like the Age of Steam.