“Crash Fleet:” An Emergency Shipbuilding Program
(Boy, the forum did not want to process that link right. Sorry about all the edits to get it cleaned up)
I think there are a lot of people not learning lessons we see playing out in Ukraine.
Bolstering the fleet with retired warships, up-armed buoy tenders, and dinner boats with mounted machine guns is feasible but not ideal.
Arguably, this isn’t even a plan.
Are we forgetting the part where a country with no navy has denied Russia of the use of the Black Sea? A band of rebels has disrupted shipping in the red sea? Drones, unmanned surface vessels, unmanned aerial vehicles, whatever you want to call them, are the U-boats of our day. Putting more people with guns on an oil tanker, or a CWIS on a buoy tender, is just going to result in more casualties when a pack of remote controlled jet skis blow the ship to pieces.
Ukraine is using crowdfunded $500 drones from a foxhole to take out multimillion dollar tanks miles away. In a fleet of 200 fishing boats, who’s operating the DJI with an RPG strapped to it?
We need to be focused on operating without GPS, and electronic warfare countermeasures, and not hopping for Tom Hanks to narrate the sequel to the Boat lift video on you tube. “Imma do it. Im gonna take the Amberjack to Tiwan”
If we do end up in a peer adversary conflict with a sizeable navy, This will martial in unmanned shipping, just like how WWII brought in modular shipbuilding and air travel. Military grade R&D and political pressure will pave the way for regulation and technical advances.
I mean, the shipyards we have can certainly crank out kamikaze Boston whalers, so I guess he’s not wrong in that sense, but I fear this war will have a steep learning curve.
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All your comments concerning Ukraine and the Black Sea are valid and if you’re going to defend the coast of continental USA that’s all you need.
The problem is your interests extend well beyond your EEZ like most countries. Isolation works fine if you’re happy with exporting nothing.
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Provided you have all the resources, in terms of raw materials and technology you need, within your territory and EEZ.
That’s a given and I guess the US qualifies.