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kwaigonegin

Colonel
in the article FORBIN posted
the author makes this point:
"The Zumwalt will also carry
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), four of which can be packed into a single vertical launch system tube. These maneuverable missile have close-in engagement capabilities, but the Navy has already come to terms with the fact that they cannot replace a CIWS. Flight IIA Arleigh Burke class destroyers were originally to be equipped without a CIWS, and many initially sailed without one installed, relying totally on VLS launched ESSMs for close-in to medium-range protection. This proved to be short sighted, and the ships have since been retrofitted with a proper CIWS system."
(and several other points against the lack of a CIWS)

The USAF learnt this the hard way many many moons ago.. Looks like the the USN is experiencing theirs. Until lasers become practical and operational, nothing beats a wall of lead.
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Flight IIA Arleigh Burke class destroyers were originally to be equipped without a CIWS, and many initially sailed without one installed, relying totally on VLS launched ESSMs for close-in to medium-range protection. This proved to be short sighted, and the ships have since been retrofitted with a proper CIWS system."
(and several other points against the lack of a CIWS)
No, the Figrst ZGLight II A vessels had two PAhalnxy. It was later that the decisions was taken to remove one, then two...and now they have been added back.

I believe the same will occur on the Zumwalt, which is exatly why I said on my post...

Jeff Head said:
ultimately you will see CIWS covered by those other assets on the Zumwalts.

I believe ultimately it will be a laser and a rail gun that provides the CIWS.

But we shall see.
 

Air Force Brat

Brigadier
Super Moderator
now I read in NavyTimes The Navy dumped its time-honored job titles and the decision incited widespread outrage

source:
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That is absolute "STOOPIDITY", people work very hard for their ratings, and no they will not have more opportunity in civilian life or in the Navy losing their ratings, people who have not been rated for a job will NOT GET IT. The Navy is simply being "inclusive" and making sailors who do not have ratings feel good because the sailors who have "earned" their ratings will not be able to enjoy the status that their ratings give them.

Its more "politically correct krap" and CNO Richardson out to be ashamed, he's also the dufus who questioned whether 5 Gen stealthy aircraft where superior to 4 Gen non-stealthy aircraft? Just DUMB.
 
Last edited:

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Its more "politically correct krap" and CNO Richardson out to be ashamed, Just DUMB.
Amen.

It's like a few years ago several city leagues around the US stopped keeping score with their football, baseball, and soccer leagues.

Wanted everyone to "feel good."

Only to find out at t the end of the season that most of the kids had kept score every time and knew EXACTLY who the champions were.

IMHO, and pardon my word, but this is just more asinine, progressive/liberal gobbledygook.
 
This is a BIG change and certainly much more so on the enlisted levels than officers. Ratings title or MOS has always been very important to naval personnels.
I of course didn't know what's "MOS" :) so used google and found out the changes were already described at wiki page
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related:
Hello, Seaman: Navy Ditches Ratings After Review
The
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is jettisoning its complex ratings system to make sailors' jobs more understandable and allow them to more easily transfer occupations.

The move, which allows sailors to be addressed by rank, such as seaman, petty officer and chief, aligns the service for the first time with the other three military branches, which address troops by rank instead of job specialty.

"I've never heard of a
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who introduced himself as 'Infantry Corporal Smith,' " Cmdr. John Schofield, a spokesman for Navy Personnel Command, told Military.com. "This is exactly what every other service does; it completely aligns us with the other services. I would just say that it makes complete sense in terms of putting more emphasis on rank and standardization."

The changes are the result of an eight-month review initiated by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus in January in as part of an effort to
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entered previously closed fields.

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In June, Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Adm. Robert Burke announced that the
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with input from the master chief petty officer of the Navy and other senior leaders to examine ways to make job descriptions more inclusive, improve the job assignment process, and facilitate sailors' transition between military jobs or into civilian ones.

A Navy administrative message published Thursday announced that the ratings system that included job and rank information -- intelligence specialist first class or chief hospital corpsman -- is being replaced with a four-digit alphanumeric Naval Occupational Specialty, or NOS, parallel to the military occupational specialties used by the Marine Corps,
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and
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.

Sailors in ranks E-1 to E-3 will be addressed as "seaman;" those in ranks E4 to E-6 will be called petty officers third, second or first class; and those in ranks E-7 to E-9 will be called chief, senior chief or master chief, in keeping with their paygrade, according to the message.

"There will no longer be a distinction between 'Airman, Fireman, and Seaman.' They will all be 'Seamen,' " the message states.

The new NOSs will be categorized under logical job fields, similar to the organizational system used by the other services. According to a ratings conversion chart provided by Navy officials, the old ratings of Navy diver, explosive ordnance disposal specialist, and special warfare operator will be classified as NOS E100, E200 and E300, respectively.

Schofield said sailors will be able to hold more than one NOS, a shift that will allow them to collect a broader range of professional experience and expertise while in uniform. Each NOS, he said, will be ultimately matched with a parallel or similar civilian occupation to "enable the Navy to identify credentials and certifications recognized and valued within the civilian workforce."

"This change represents a significant cultural shift and it is recognized that it will not happen overnight, but will take time to become fully adapted," the message states.

While the review began with an eye to gender neutrality, the ranks of "seaman" in the Navy and "midshipman" at the
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will stay, Schofield said. The terms were allowed to remain, he said, because they are ranks, not job titles.

While the new NOSs will largely retain the original ratings titles, some -- such as yeoman -- may change to become more inclusive or more descriptive of the sailors' jobs. The updated list of job titles is still being finalized, Schofield said.

The Navy's message to sailors is that the process isn't over yet, and it's not setting timelines for the completion of the ratings changeover.

"Changes to personnel management processes, policies, programs and systems will proceed in deliberate and thoughtful phases that will enable transitions that are seamless and largely transparent to the fleet," the message states. "Fleet involvement and feedback will be solicited during each phase of the transformation. All aspects of enlisted force management to include recruiting, detailing, advancements, training, and personnel and pay processes are being carefully considered as we move forward."
source:
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very interesting:
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Two recent contracts make clear the
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industry is shifting to a new gold standard, a once-obscure material called Gallium Nitride. GaN, a high-efficiency semiconductor, makes radar transmitters much more powerful without using more electricity. Industry consultant
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once told us it was “
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.”

Just in time for the massive
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, Raytheon will announce tomorrow morning a contract with the
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to retool its AN/TPY-2 production line to handle GaN. (A follow-on contract to build the radars themselves is still in the works). AN/TPY-2 is a long-range radar used by both MDA and
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.

Just weeks earlier, Northrop Grumman signed a deal to sell the Marine Corps its first GaN radars, upgraded models of the
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ground-based radar (AN/TPS-80). G/ATOR replaces three old Marine radars for air defense, air traffic control at forward bases, and locating enemy artillery for counter-battery fire.

These are just the latest moves in an inexorable industry-wide migration. The biggest defense contractor on the planet, Lockheed Martin, is already exporting ground-based GaN radars (
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) to Romania and
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. Last year, Lockheed got contracts to build GaN radars for the
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project tracking
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and to build a GaN
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(LRDR) for the Missile Defense Agency.

As for Raytheon, besides upgrading AN/TPY-2, the company is using GaN in the Air & Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) on the future
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of the Navy’s Arleigh Burke destroyers. It’s also offering a GaN radar upgrade for the famous and widely exported
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missile defense system.

Raytheon’s GaN Patriot sets the company up to compete with Lockheed for the contract to either upgrade or replace Patriot, the Army’s Lower-Tier Air & Missile Defense (LTAMD) system. Raytheon touts itself as the only company to have its own foundry (in Andover, Mass.) that builds GaN integrated circuits, which it says is more secure than buying them on the open market as Lockheed and others do. Lockheed argues its approach lets it get the latest innovations for the lowest cost.

Why all this investment? Raytheon missile defense director
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told reporters today that replacing traditional Gallium Arsenide (GaS or GaAs) with the more energy-efficient Gallium Nitride (GaN) can increase an existing radar’s range by 50 percent, improve its ability to discriminate between different kinds of targets, or increase the volume it can search five-fold. Or you can improve all three to a lesser extent — range, discrimination, and search volume — according to the customer’s needs. Or you can build an all-new radar that has the same performance but which is much smaller and uses much less electricity.

Old-school Gallium Arsenide is clearly on its way out, said the Marine Corps’ program manager for G/ATOR. With the Marine radar scheduled for full-rate production in 2019, “we’re about to field a brand-new capability, you don’t want to field it with a (material) that’s going to be obsolete in ten years,” John Karlovich told me. “We would be missing an opportunity to deliver….capability that will pace the threat for years to come.”

So confident is Karlovich in GaN, he told me, that “we won’t do the full testing until we take delivery of our GaN LRIP.” That refers to the Low-Rate Initial Production radars, the first GaN-equipped batch of which just went under contract this month and will be delivered by late 2018. They’ve already tested the whole G/ATOR system with the old GaS components, he explained, and they’ve already tested the GaN transmitter/receiver modules on their own. They just haven’t put the two together yet — but Karlovich argues that replacing GaS with GaN is a simple switch that won’t produce any surprises in final testing.

“We have been sticking GaN T/R modules into our (current) GaS systems and only powering those individual modules now for several years,” Karlovich said, “so we already know the plug and play does work.”

That bet may sound a bit optimistic, given
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that entered production before they finished testing. But the Pentagon and industry alike are clearly all-in on Gallium Nitride.
source:
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Air Force Brat

Brigadier
Super Moderator
I of course didn't know what's "MOS" :) so used google and found out the changes were already described at wiki page
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!


related:
Hello, Seaman: Navy Ditches Ratings After Review
source:
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"disgusting", I may be the AFB, but I have no doubt that Seamen of every rate will feel betrayed, and they have been. Ratings and Qualifications are extremely important, and give an individual seaman a specific "identity" within the very tight nit Navy family. I have been disgusted by the obvious "chickification" of the USAF for some time, and I will guarandamntee you, that every woman serving in the USAF is proud to be an "AIRMAN"!

I will also state for the record that Secretary James has done a very credible job as USAF Secretary of the Air Force, but the USAF sensitivity and inclusion "krap" comes from the politicians, not the soldiers, sailors, and airmen!

It has hurt esprit-de-corp, and it will also negatively impact terminal effectiveness!
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
We focus a lot on the major combatants that the PLAN produced here on this Forum...and rightly so, this is the Sino-Defense Forum.

But let's not forget that the US Navy is still a powerhouse when it comes to launching military vessels as well.

Over the last twelve months, the US Navy has launched 10 combatants itself (and this does not included any of the logistical support, replenishment, fast transport, or other ships the US Navy is producing). Here they are:

SSN-787 USS Washington, Virginia Class
LCS-11, USS Sioux City, Freedom Class
LCS-12, USS Omaha, Independence Class
LCS-13, USS Wichita, Freedom Class
LCS-14, USS Manchester, Freedom Class
DDG-114, USS John Finn, Burke Class
DDG-115, USS Ralph Johnson, Burke Class
DDH-116, USS Rafael Perita, Burke Class
DDG-1001, USS Michael Monsoor, Zumwalt Class
LPD-27, USS Portland, San Antonio Class

That's an impressive list of fighting ships launched in 12 month period.

Current build rates for each of these classes, and also including the Ford class, America class, and soon the LX(R) class which are also (or soon will be for the LX(R)) building, will mean that each year somewhere beten 8 and 11 vessels will continue to be launched for the next several years.
 
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