Small surface ships will struggle in high seas U.S. Navy
Craig Hooper, Forbes: The U.S. Navy’s Future Fleet May Run Aground In Heavy Weather
The sea is a tough place, and, given that stormy seas often damage ships and endanger sailors, the U.S. Navy has habitually worked to keep vessels out of harm’s way since 1944. But over the past 30 years the Navy became so risk-averse that it has kept surface ships out of several “strategic-but-stormy” seas for decades.
That retreat—and the general loss of sustained heavy-weather experience by the cost-conscious post-Cold War U.S. Navy—has had real consequences. As the memory of sustained, stormy weather operations faded under the weight of a tough anti-terror operational tempo, the number of U.S. sailors and other naval tastemakers who understood that battle in high seas demanded ships with particular sea-keeping features dwindled away.
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WNU Editor: Small unmanned vessels will probably be lost in such weather. This is an excellent article that analysis the impact that stormy weather and high seas will have on the effectiveness of developing smaller vessels for the US Navy.
1 comment:
A storm can take off the bow of a cruiser. So smallboys are having problems? That is news?
First, should the smallboys be floating at all?
Second, if they can float, barely, should they not immediately capsize, when a ripple laps against their side?
Third, should they not immediately sink or capsize, should they buckle like a coke can, when tapped by a pencil? The object doing the tapping was the aforementioned ripple.
We sure ask a lot out of our naval architects. They satisfy all the constraints and take it right up to the limit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Pittsburgh_(CA-72)
The other side of the coin was that the US Navy gained yet another vessel on June 4, 1945, the SS McKeesport!
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