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Subject: Mobile Offshore Base concept
jbwill2 6/17/2003 8:47:58 AM

I am sure that everyone has read something about the MOB concept. I suppose there is research going on right now into the practicality and cost of developing some version of this idea. I don't know too much about the plan, but I know that it involves building several modules that can transit on their own to a place of interest, and then be combined to form a floating air and amphibious base of variable size, depending on the number and kind of modules assembled together. What does everyone think of the MOB concept? Is it even a possibility, or are there too many negatives associated with the MOB? Finally, let us assume that it is going to be built and used by the US. What service would operate the MOB's and what impact would they have on America's warfighting abilities?

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Herald1234 Old cat, new skin. 1/24/2007 2:51:25 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Habakkuk

Project Habakkuk

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Project Habakkuk (actually misspelled as Habbakuk — see below) was a plan by the British in World War II to construct an aircraft carrier out of ice, for use against German U-boats in the mid-Atlantic, which was out of range of land-based planes.

The Habakkuk, as proposed to Winston Churchill by Lord Mountbatten and Geoffrey Pyke in December 1942, was to be approximately 2,000 feet long and 300 feet wide, with a deck-to-keel depth of 200 feet, and walls 40 feet thick^[1]. It was to have a draft of 150 feet, and a displacement of 2,000,000 tons or more, to be constructed in Canada from 280,000 blocks of ice^[2]. (For comparison, an Essex-class carrier displaced 35,000 tons.) The building material was later changed to a mixture of ice and wood pulp known as Pykrete after Pyke, who proposed the Habakkuk project — the material was invented by others. The ship's deep draft would have kept it out of most harbours. Inside the vessel a refrigeration plant would maintain the structure against melting. The ship would have extremely limited manoeuvrability, but was expected to be capable of up to 10 knots (18 km/h) using 26 electric drive motors mounted in separate external nacelles (normal, internal ship engines would have generated too much heat for an ice craft).^{[citation
needed]} Its armaments would have included 40 dual-barrelled 4.5" DP (dual-purpose) turrets and numerous light anti-aircraft guns, and it would have housed an airstrip and up to 150 twin-engined bombers or fighters.^{[citation
needed]}

A block of Pykrete

The Habakkuk was imagined to be virtually unsinkable as it would have effectively been a streamlined iceberg or floating island kept afloat by the buoyancy of its

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stingray1003 1/24/2007 7:34:31 AM

You guys get to complicated.

Think about this. A nation with no carriers. Say china. Says its building a tunnel. It builds several large precast section of say 1500 ft long. Each section has a motor, snorkle, fuel tank, rudder and a ballast pump but they look like normal tunnel sections.

When they need a carrier, they flood the construction area, and drive them out. They sit say 10 m below sea level with a large snorkle the size of a small fishing boat. Drive them out off the coast, maybe with a tug helping the process along or with a large container/oil tanker/Roro providing cover and additional power.

Locate them off the coast of where ever. When needed, raise them by pumping air into them.What at first appeared to be several fishing boats is now several large airfields. Wow now you have some runway deck space (either 1500ft single sections or 3000ft/4500ft combined sections), Pull up with a nearby but innocent looking roro full of planes and roll them off.Your fighters/bombers can now conduct ops off the coast for the next few days as SSN's move in at high speed.Luckly you mined the crap out of the area before surfacing so they might move a little slower, and you have some SSK's providing confusion. Also some anti submarine airsupport keeping things reasonably safe.

Eventually a carrier group arrives, the SSN's start making hits. By this stage you have started to hightail it out of there with the aircraft or hopefully have a base on the ground after a amphibious assault. You abandon your disposable carrier as your opponent fires ordance worth more than the concrete you used to make it. Being made of strong concrete and with many airtight compartments it takes a while.

If all you need is a runway a MOD would make sense. If you are going to turn them into floating bases, with thousands of troops, armour, plane storage etc they make less sense. If you fit them with missiles for self defence you are basically building a carrier anyway.

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Herald1234 1/24/2007 9:21:29 AM

You guys get to complicated.

Won't work.

Ballast issues.

Mass balance issues.

Concrete and torpedoes? Can you say shattered shards?

How many PRCs do you want to drown?

Herald

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reefdiver 1/25/2007 12:05:37 PM

* MOB component vessels soon won't be restricted to under 1000ft or such for crossing the Panama canal. Recall that the people of Panama just voted to enlarge the canal - to accomodate much larger vessels. I assume they plan on supporting the largest ULCC which is what - 1200 to 1500ft? They may be planning for even larger ships. You really, really want to be able to land C-17's don't you? And F-35's - without catapults or having to have all STVOL variants? What about F-22's? Nonetheless, do you really need to move this through the canal? You're not in a hurry to get it in place. Its not a rapid deployment system.

* If MOB is tightly anchored in a fixed location for extended periods of time or even permanent, couldn't defenses include the following (besides the air-wing):

- SONUS type system of tethered sonar bouy's around its perimeter?

- JLENS aerostats tethered out away from the MOB to help detect and target cruise missiles, vessels, and even tiny high-speed boats. With JLENS you can have look-down radar, SAR, and FLIR. Once again, because your "ship" is tethered, you can have these. Maybe you wouldn't need Hawkeye's flying around with these.

- Several small floating, tethered defensive weapons platforms in your outer defensive rings. Maybe these have harpoon and ESSM launchers.

- multiple torpedo net defenses. I know these aren't generally effective against many high-speed torpedos, but given the scenerio, these could even have explosive defenses at intervals that would act like reactive armor on tanks. Multiple rings of nets would be possible. Again - you don't have to worry about moving too frequently so your options are different.

- You'd undoubtly have numerous Patriot and RAM, CIWS (as previously mentioned) etc.

- Heck - you'll probably have lasers and other DEW. Why not have a nuke plant to power them?

- Maybe part of the MOB system is an older nuke CVN converted to strictly power generation, housing, and defensive systems. I suppose you could make it the arsenal as well. Might be a good use for the Kitty Hawk even though its non-nuke.

- Might you not include most of the AEGIS system?

* Not paying outrageous rent to any country might make these things pay for themselves...

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stingray1003 2/7/2007 2:17:58 AM

So you honestly trying to defence you big sinkable target from torpedos?

If I was going down the Mod road I would be looking at using it temp launching pad for an invasion. Once you have a land base, I have no problem with it being sunk. Australia has always had this argument against a carrier. Why own a carrier when Australia has so many unsinkable islands and territories that can operate as carriers.

What are you actually trying to do with it? Deliver goods with a C17 and then load them onto a ship and transport them to shore? Why not just build more or larger amphibious ships?

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reefdiver 2/7/2007 11:50:11 AM

What are you actually trying to do with it? Deliver goods with a C17 and then load them onto a ship and transport them to shore? Why not just build more or larger amphibious ships?

That really is the point - exactly what is the mission of this? I would eliminate it as a fighter/light bomber base - carriers provide this. Unless you want to have bunch of these as "aircraft carriers" - they don't make much sense. You'd still have to surround each of these with some sort of a protective fleet, sono-bouys, mine fields, anti-torpedo defenses , and/or possibly more static defensive outposts around a perimeter. The MOB will need rather long range aircraft and refuelers. It seems you should just build more carriers and carrier groups.Perhaps the MOB group would be cheaper to operate than a carrier group...

Is it a supply depot for munitions and armor? If so, then perhaps having more high speed transport ships is the answer. The military has discussed just keeping supply ships at sea. More of the seabasing concept than MOB.

Is it to be an IRBM platform? Subs can handle this - and you have more of them then you'll probably have MOB's. And they're much, much harder to find.

Is it to be a cruise missile launch platform? The Navy has what - something like 8000 (??) VLS tubes?.

About the only thing the US doesn't necessarily have are B-52,B1-B, and B-2 bases closer to the "hot" zones. Diego Garcia or other bases usually a long trip to anywhere. You'd really have to build a big one for these guys. And just how close do you want a B-2 base to get to a "hot" zone?

Technologically, I love theorizing about how great a platform you could build - and I'm sure you could build it - but I'm hard pressed to come up with really good reasons for trying to build your own Midway or Diego Garcia Island. Except maybe you want more than 1 Diego Garcia....Something about all your eggs in one basket.

Still a kick to talk about.

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BadNews SEA BASE 2/7/2007 1:18:50 PM

The Concept is called SEA BASE, It is NOT a platform for launching F22's or Cruise Missles, It is Not a city on the sea, What it is is a concept to determine the next generation of logistics transportation to to project force on a hostile shore where no friendly port exist.

It is a contoingency plan where MPF ships marry with ESG (Expeditionary Strike Groups 30-40 miles off shore using portable dockage to ASSEMBLE an assualt force and initial Follow on forces until a shore based port can be opened. The linking of special purpose flat tops is proposed as a way to enable the landing of C17's when no land based airfiled is present, and further to embark their cargo i.e. TANKS/APCs etc onto portable docks and further onto convention amphibious littorage to quickly to reinforce a forced entry by sea.

It is not intended to be permanment, and the concept involves the ability to rapidly disassemble to make less vunerable. The aircraft we ar talking about are intended to be Helo/V22 and V/Stol aircraft such as the Navy/Marine variant of the JSF

It is a sound concept however there are many technical issues yet to be overcome. Basically,, it is the next generation Amphibious Assualt Contingecy

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BadNews To Clarify 2/7/2007 1:45:45 PM

Sea BAse is intended to be a forward oppurating base for the MAGTF - but still not a permanment base for ever and ever

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BadNews To Clarify 2/7/2007 4:49:12 PM

Sea BAse is intended to be a forward oppurating base for the MAGTF - but still not a permanment base for ever and ever

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cobra79 Keep Up on Reasearch! 5/26/2007 5:47:47 PM

OK, lets see now. First How Defensible would a carrier be without its aircraft or its cruisers and destroyers, yep thats right I'm going to use your own argument against you. How effective would Point Defense Systems be against subs? Ask a stupid question and I'll give you a stupid answer. Now for the intelligent people out there, They probably would have already guessed that a squadron of P-3 Orions would give a much better defense against sub than any Cruiser or Destroyer could. and as for SeaBase, look it up on Globalsecurity, It is no longer what you describe. It is now a set of conventional ships. You need to verify what you are writing before you write, otherwise it is no longer worth anyone reading it!

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