To compete with China’s rapidly growing ships in the Pacific, the US Navy has launched an ambitious new manufacturing software. However, in order to remain competitive, US military shipbuilders will need to get around capacity limitations, out-of-date technology, and exceedingly dated functional concepts.
The Huntington Ingalls military port on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi has hired thousands of workers to assemble guided missile ships and amphibious transport boats, according to The New York Times, who reported that the US Navy’s$ 32 billion manufacturing resources, its largest possibly, has financed this getting.
Unnamed Pentagon sources, however, voiced concern in the report that the US Navy may be burdened with a bloated ship that it may not be able to maintain for many more years due to the stream of new warships that will marry it to antiquated strategies.
According to analysts and sources in the report, political and economic forces have resulted in job-driven procurement policies that produce potent but troublesome warships, particularly in relation to the Pacific region’s China.
According to a New York Times report, Congress has also resisted attempts to retire older ships that, according to detractors, have merely mediocre warfighting capabilities, putting the support at risk of going into the future without the money for staffing and necessary maintenance.
According to the same report, the US Navy has consistently failed to give technology enough attention and funding, which has created major obstacles to modernizing its outdated procurement system and its capacity to fundamentally reorganize its fleet.
According to The New York Times, standard platforms like guided missile ships, amphibious assault ships, and aircraft carriers are still the subject of discussion in US marine circles.
According to the record, these ships are becoming more open to strike, particularly in the event of a possible Taiwanese conflict with China. According to RAND Corporation economists cited by the New York Times, the US has two unfavorable options in such a issue: either approaching China, where some ships will be hit by Chinese weapons and damaged, or staying hundreds or thousands of kilometers away, making it more difficult for Navy airplane or rockets to achieve goals.
According to The New York Times, US Admiral Lorin Selby has encountered inside obstacles while urging the Pentagon to purchase autonomous aircraft for the US Navy abroad. According to the report, one of these obstacles is the lack of a high-ranking officer position in the US Navy to lead an autonomous vehicle hybrid fleet that would work in tandem with conventional warships.
The US Navy has been experimenting with robotic ships in Bahrain and Latin America, according to the New York Times, but it has not yet adopted comprehensive operational strategies or set aside enough money to purchase or produce such platforms.
It’s unclear whether the US you compete with China on a per-ship base. According to US Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro, who was quoted by Asia Times in February 2023, the US cannot compete with China’s marine manufacturing capabilities.
Del Toro cited the US fleet’s upgrade as a result of the larger Chinese ships and international implementation. There are 13 marine shipyards in China, each with a capacity greater than the combined capacity of the seven US maritime ships. Finding skilled workers has also been a challenge for US factories.
The US’s numerous big-ticket projects, including the DDG ( X ) next-generation destroyer, the Zumwalt class hypersonic upgrade program, and the Columbia class nuclear ballistic submarine( SSBN ) programs, demonstrate how it protects and expands traditional platforms.
Asia Times published a report on the US DDG( X ) program in June 2023. This program will replace aging ships of the Arleigh Burke and Ticonderoga classes that are currently in company with one that is larger and more expandable.
The DDG( X ), which is expected to make its debut in 2030 at a cost of between$ 3.1 and$ 3.4 billion per ship, will be outfitted with lasers and hypersonic missiles, just like the Arleigh Burke Flight III ships.
However, as worries about China’s naval expansion grow, the strategic value, operational viability, and sustainability of the DDG ( X ) are already being questioned.
The operational difficulties of the DDG ( X ) project were described in a March 2023 Congressional Research Service ( CRS ) report, which also raised concerns about putting so much capability into fewer expensive and potentially vulnerable ships.
The US Navy needs longer-range weapons, better command and control capabilities for scattered units, the ability to restock vertical release systems at sea, and improved deception and other deception systems, according to CRS.
In addition, Asia Times reported in February 2023 that the US intended to test a Zumwalt-class destroyer’s fast weapon in 2025 in an effort to discourage China and Russia in the Pacific. With careful planning to address any potential professional issues, the release is scheduled for December 2025. To enable message transfer for the missile launch, Tactical Support Center ( TSC ) control will be integrated with an underwater weapons control system.
However, the Zumwalt-class deck has come under fire for being easily detectable by low-frequency radar and fragile in rough seas. At$ 4.24 billion per ship, just three have so far been constructed. Some claim that rather than buying more Zumwalt-class ships, the US might profit from developing a new warrior with fast weapons. This is significant because China and Russia have soldiers with comparable weapons, giving them an advantage over the US in that regard.
The US had also started building the USS District of Columbia SSBN in June 2022, marking the successor of boats of the Ohio class, according to Asia Times. 70 % of the US nuclear army is expected to be carried by the Columbia-class SSBNs, with the first of course scheduled to enter service in 2027.
16 submarine-launched ballistic missile ( SLBM ) launch tubes will be available on Columbia-class submarines, fewer than the 24 launchers found on Ohio-Class submarines.
The reduced armament of the Columbia-class submarines enables the use of pre-existing parts that are already used in the Virginia-Class Nuclear Attack Submarines( SSNs ). As a result, the Columbia-class locomotion plant’s costs are decreased.
The viability of the US underwater nuclear deterrent, however, may be jeopardized by advancements in near-peer adversary anti-submarine warfare ( ASW ) capabilities.
Asia Times has previously written about China’s advancements in the field, including extremely low frequency( ELF ) sensors to detect the nearly imperceptible bubbles produced by submarines and terahertz submarine detectors that home in on minute surface vibrations as small as 10 nanometers generated by a low-frequency sound source in open sea.
The US policy and marine planners’ potential obstinacy in favoring high-profile prestige warships over smaller, several, dispersed unmanned assets could expose the US to serious risk in a real conflict, particularly with China.
According to Asia Times, China successfully simulated a hypersonic missile strike on the USS Gerald Ford supercarrier in the South China Sea in May 2023. A supercarrier and its five girls were sunk in the model using 24 hypersonic weapons. The findings emphasized the importance of police missions and entice strategies for locating targets, limiting the number of enemy interceptor missiles, and saving them.
The simulation resembled a report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies( CSIS ) from January 2023, which foreshadowed the potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2026. According to the CSIS statement, the US and Japan lost 43 tankers, including two companies, as well as 449 fight plane. In the model, the US also suffered a loss of 6,960 workers, including 3,200 fatalities.