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Subject: USS Carronade
Librarian    5/19/2006 4:14:33 PM
I was perusing a late 60s copy of Jane's Fighting ships and came across the listing for a USS Carronade LFR-1. I had read about it in a comic book many years earlier. In the entry in Jane's it appeared to have been built in response to the Korean War, commissioned in about 1955, retired to reserve in 1960 and then reactivated in about 1965. From the web I found out that it served in Vietnam. However, I couldn't find any reference as to how effective it was. Does anyone know how useful it was?
 
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doggtag    (a'ight, nevermind that last word statement...!)   5/27/2006 10:58:48 AM
-> You really want massive firepower? Fit the MOAB with wings, bolt a big catapult to an LST, and park it near the beach - you could probably launch it ~50 miles with a small booster rocket and the cat launch. 23,000lb shell for 50 miles? Not that is firepower! In other words, a modern day, short-ranged Snark missile. http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/outdoor/od1.htm>SM-62 Snark@ WP AFB http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/outdoor/od1.jpg ALT=SM-62> SPECIFICATIONS Span: 42 ft. 3 in. Length: 67 ft. 2 in. Weight: 48,147 lbs. without boosters Armament: Nuclear Warhead Engines: Pratt & Whitney J57 jet engine of 10,500 lbs. thrust and two Aerojet-General solid-propellant booster rockets of over 130,000 lbs. thrust each. Cost: $4,134,000 PERFORMANCE Max. speed: 650 mph/565 knots Range: 6,325 statute miles/5,497 nautical miles Service ceiling: 50,250 ft. OK, so take out the jet engine and fuel tanks, giving more room for explosive, and use the wings and rocket motor of a Pegasus Launch Vehicle and wrap them onto an actual MOAB. ...but of course, it's doubtful there'd be "adequate" targets available for its use: a 20-25 ton short-range cruise missile (don't want to piss-off any of those IRBM treaties) with almost 10 tons of explosive... ------ -> Ya but keep in mind, the DD(X) isn't just testing a gun, it is testing an all electric drive for warships, new advancements in electronics, new hybrid propulsion ideas, maybe even new propulsion ideas, not to mention stealth hull, or ship self defense, smaller crewing, fire suppression, and other ships engineering that you can't simply refit to an old hull. Makes sense. But wouldn't it be the USN's better interests to try designing these new techs to be backards compatable enough to refit into the previous generation's ships? (don't the ABs have some measure of better upgradeability than previous generations?) I still worry when I hear things like "DDX's electric propulsion can be redirected to the weapons (future rail gun, DEWS?) or propulsion as is necessary" :is it really a good idea to make both systems (propulsion, armament) co-dependent on the same powerplant? I don't know if it's wise to risk speed reductions every time I need to fire something. Chemical energy-launched weapons don't suffer from that limitation (ship loses main power, it would behoove the USN to still alow the ship the ability to fire). ------ -> They do have plenty of LST hulls in reserve that could be modified for the role that the USMC wants... Something I brought up before: shades of those rocket-armed "assault" landing craft designed to saturate landing areas, we kit out the deck of a given landing craft with NetFires boxes, extended range APKWS rockets (whether we use those 12km-ranged Skyfire 70 motors or a larger caliber entirely), or even some kind of ship mounting that can accept several 6-cell MLRS boxes (don't see much sense in using an occasional ATACMS: the 90kg warhead of a G-MLRS should be plenty). Hell, I still like the notion of a surface-launched Maverick with its 300 pound warhead: the weapons we use would depend on what range we want, but a slower-moving LST type might not be the most ideal assault platform if most of the shore isn't already secured enough to keep ASMs away from the vessel. As far as ships not suffering the logistics of land warfare: their stores have to be replenished at some point from somewhere (and as far as land replenishment, those big 5-axle PLS trucks with their MHE equipment are prefectly suited to offloading entire pallets of ammo in only a few minutes, pallets quite easily off-loaded from ships or aircraft). And like I said: if the US is going to construct massive temporary land bases in a given theater anyway (as we've done in Iraq and A-stan), why not install semi-permanent heavy guns with the range at least equal to the AGS? Shades of turntable-mounted coastal guns, but with the able to traverse 360, and like I said, have the potential to hit any target within a 100+ mile radius of the installation (...or don't we want such large fixed emplacements because it tells the locals we'll be there for quite a while? Might as well fess up to the truth early, rather than stringing them along on we'll-be-gone-in-two-years false hopes). If I'm going to secure a beach or port area enough to offload heavy equipment from cargo and prep ships, then obviously I've invested a considerable amount in building up the "landing" area, so setting up a few super-heavy long range cannon is nothing. Besides, it's a good bet that, with a secure port, ships will be bringing in larger logistics loads for the land forces than air cargo will, so why the worries with bringing in the ammo necessary for the fixed guns? I've long had notions of taking AFV modularity a tad further: a common-sized turret ring with various weapons fits (FCS might achieve it) for
 
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Lawman    RE:(a'ight, nevermind that last word statement...!)   5/27/2006 12:24:45 PM
That is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking of, and I suspect they could probably find some targets for them. Apart from anything else, think about the need for a beach landing - if you actually needed to conduct a beach landing, you simply airburst a MOAB over the defenders. One or two MOABs overhead, and the enemy are not going to be quite such effective defenders. A slightly more realistic solution might be to simply build one of the rocket ships, a la D-Day, but using modern 5in rockets - those rocket ships could launch 600 4.5in rockets. http://www.usslci.com/html/aboutlci.html
 
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MadRat    OP answer?   5/27/2006 4:13:23 PM
 
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doggtag    RE:OP answer?   5/27/2006 9:02:32 PM
??? So were you referring to the rocket-armed ship as being an OP answer, or the last part of the Christmas story where "everyone was getting to drunk to care" as being the OP answer?
 
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Yimmy    RE:Well the Germans have the right idea.   5/28/2006 12:19:47 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F125_class_frigate Their new F125 class of Frigate. Apparantly to be armed with SSM's, but no SAM's other than RAM CIWS's, but with the primary armament being a 155mm howitzer and 12 cell MLRS, along with two MH-90's and four fast raiders to trasnport the ships 50 organic marines. Not bad at all if you ask me.
 
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EW3    RE:Well the Germans have the right idea.   5/28/2006 2:09:14 PM
We should test out our 100nm range gun the same way they did during their MONARC tests. http://www.rheinmetall-detec.de/index.php?lang=3&fid=742 The DD(X) is going to be a yard queen. With that many new systems something will almost certainly be not working and in need of support from the factory.
 
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doggtag    German F125   5/28/2006 3:06:47 PM
I'm curious as to whether they will use the current generation of MLRS rockets, to include the cluster, BAT, and unitary unguided rounds, or the G-MLRS or something entirely new (POLAR derivative) perhaps with its own seekerheads...? Seems the Germans have accepted the notion that a majority of their future (potential) conflicts will be anti-surface ops, not anti-air (I assume the ship would not operate alone, but in conjuction with a more capable air defense ship).
 
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EW3    RE:German F125   5/28/2006 4:19:10 PM
Can't imagine that they would bother to carry unguided MLRS. With the size of GPS circuits, I also can't imagine any guided munition not using GPS. Put an I2R or similar system for terminal homing and the GPS to get it in close. Add constant target GPS updates from a source like a sub or a AWACs and you can kill a lot of ships from a distance.
 
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doggtag    RE:German F125   5/28/2006 5:28:00 PM
Yup. And I still like the notion others have discussed on previous threads: dispersing a cluster bomb over a ship has the potential to wreak perhaps even more havoc than a single warhead: with a unitary impact, there is chance the damaged compartments can be isolated and the ship continue its mission. But when your upperworks, composed of every communications antenna and sensors other than your sonar, is suddenly fragged with several hundred holes in places that you don't want holes in, you might as well call it a day (no sensors means no eyes, and blind men make poor fighters). Be interesting to see their finished product. Back onto the Carronade issue: concerning its rocket launchers, I saw six (maybe eight, wasn't quite positive). Looking at them closely, I think their deck footprint is pretty close to a NetFires CLU (Command Launch Unit and its 15 rounds). That equates to at least 90 PGMs, perhaps even 120, all of which have a range in excess of 30km. Quite respectable for shelling anyone's coastline, especially when you consider the precision part: you're not wasting a dozen unguided rounds to saturate a target in hopes of hitting it. It's more a one shot, one kill system. In effect, a naval sniper plinking at shore targets. I'm still trying to find some footage of warhead tests, just to see how effective those Explosively Formed Penetrators really are. ...And I'm already looking ahead: technologically, one could consider the BAT submunition (Viper Strike's progenitor) to be a "NetFires Jr" munition, in the fact that it is an even smaller autonomous PGM. I put up the supposition that, how long before an MLRS-sized rocket can dispense half a dozen PGMs generally along the lines of BAT, the six of them sharing their own data network to communicate with each other to "pinpoint saturate" targets like ships: one goes for the deck gun, one to frag the cell hatch covers of a VLS (possibly damaging the encased missiles), one or two go for the main sensor masts, one or two go for the helo deck, one for the bridge, etc...
 
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EW3    RE:German F125   5/28/2006 5:58:38 PM
Have to admit I still Naval guns not as support for Marines, but for an occasional show of force to another ship or perhaps a wakeup call to people on the beach like in a situation in Haiti. There is no way we commit a large USMC force in short time, and not till we own the skies and the seas. By that time you can put B-52s in CAP, each of which can carry 180 SDBs. With two of them circling above like buzzards, why use a ship? And even the old and slow Buff, can cover more area than a large number of expensive ships. For faster response time, the B-1 can carry 96 SDBs, and in fact the USAF is looking to increase it's anti-ship capacity with SDBIIs. A pair of them flown from Guam, can break the back of a ChiCom amphib operation against Taiwan. The B-1s can get to Taiwan before the ChiCom ships can get to Taiwan.
 
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