Looks like further details are on the way, but:
Reuters news agency says officials are considering a 10-15% reduction in the US Army and Marine Corps over 10 years - equivalent to tens of thousands of troops.
Future in Asia
The US is expected to make several large long-term strategic changes as a result of budget pressures, including reducing the overall number of ground troops and strengthening air and naval power in Asia.
BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says more US troops are likely to be brought home from Europe.
Our correspondent says the focus for the future looks to be on what the Pentagon calls "the Air-Sea Battle" - the creation of forces capable of containing a rising military player in the Asia-Pacific region. He says it is clearly China that the US officials are thinking of.
Defence Secretary Leon Panetta made clear last autumn that Asia would be central to US security strategy, including countering China's influence in the region, describing the Pacific as a "key priority".
In other words, they are moving away from the Middle East, and concentrating on China as their major opponent.
edited 5th Jan '12 4:32:05 AM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling OnApparently Chinas also developed missiles which can sink carriers; they apparently come in above defenses designed to intercept low-flying skimming missiles, but below defenses designed to counter other missiles.
The US doesn't need more carriers, it needs means of preventing them from getting sunk.
The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.Maybe the money is being spent on the wrong things. Those missiles I mentioned... what use is a carrier fleet if it can be sunk by a handful of budget missiles aimed at the right height per carrier?
The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.Don't put soldiers in the unemployment line then, axe some of our useless multibillion dollar programs. Axe all the civilian contractors who get paid megabucks to do bullshit all day.
Can't say this will effect me much, they essentially said "We want to downsize how many combat arms troops in the USAR and USMC are active duty"
Which does make sense since the land wars are dying down. Besides, military police units in the national guard are a premium, they are the most useful type of national/state disaster response troop along with medical personnel. They'll axe the cooks, admin sections, and other folks who aren't terribly useful when we're actually doing stuff.
Fuck social programs, use it to pay off our god damn debt. Get out of Afghanistan, downsize some of our more far reaching research programs, and pour all that money into the debt. We can't keep going on with this whole "spend every penny" strategy. The people will have to wait.
Pay off that debt and stop spending money we don't have.
edited 5th Jan '12 11:54:48 AM by Barkey
With a cessation of combat operations in Iraq, a man-power study should determine how many troops we do or don't need. Then they can dial back efforts to retain young servicemembers (less of a need for re-ups) and possibly recruitment (reduced need for warm bodies off the block).
Then they repeat this anaysis thing after Afghanistan is over with and adjust.
But that's not going to save gobs of money. TRADOC isn't a huge burden on the overall budget, so reducing the number of recruits cycled through Basic isn't going to save us oodles of cash. No, it's the high-tech programs and fancy toys that are made from unobtanium. Reducing man-power can only do so much; it is folish to think that man-power reductions can reduce the military budget a significant amount.
Not being in an active shooting war would certainly help. Bullets and bombs cost money, and replacing combat-lost equipment is also expensive.
Really, it should be "We're reducing yoru budgets becasue you're not going to be firing live ammunition at live targets for the first time in a decade."
Then they switch to a sustainment plan to keep the current force trained up. Cheaper, I'd imagine, than having that force actively fighting.
Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.Pvtnum, how expensive is it to replace a carrier? Horrifying human cost aside?
edited 5th Jan '12 12:38:33 PM by GameChainsaw
The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.Very. There's a reason we only have 11 of the things. In addition to the hull, reactor, electronics, and all those, you'd also have to replace the ninety or so aircraft that used to call it home.
Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.Right. Compared to that, I'm pretty sure having decent anti-missile defences is a cheap investment. Probably cheaper than long-range drones too.
Maybe the US doesn't have the money for it right now, but I don't see it as money ill-spent if the US focus is shifting to the Pacific right now.
EDIT: Unless you'd need to replace the carrier to equip it with missile defenses? Surely you don't need to replace the whole thing?
edited 5th Jan '12 12:45:53 PM by GameChainsaw
The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.Carriers are in the billions of dollars to construct. Plus, you lose one of them fast enough, you're out of the ship, the air wing onboard, and about five thousand sailors. Oh, and a nuclear powerplant, if it's a CVN.
A couple of million to revamp missile defense would be a wise investment. I'm sure NAVSEA is already working on something.
No, you could tack on a defensive system either on the carrier itself, or ont the escort ships that always accompany it. It woudl be easy to tack it onto a destroyer first, for testing. Then they can decide if they want it there, or on the carrier itself.
One way to counter this low-skimming cruise missile might be to improve the look-down RADAR's of the carrier's defensive air patrols. You can then detect the incoming missile early on and possibly have those fighters go in and kill the missile while it's still in slow-cruise mode.
Another may be to look into electronic countermeasures. I bet we'd love to get our hands on one of these missiles or even just the guidance system, so as to creack it open and discover how it works. Then we can devise a way to defeat it. Witnessing a live-fire test woudl also help - we can gain information about what sort of seeking system it uses to identify the target. Thermal? RADAR cross-section? Visual camera? LASER? Find out what, devise a way to spoof the missile.
Finally, improved anti-missile weapons to counter them, if countermeasures fail.
edited 5th Jan '12 12:55:55 PM by pvtnum11
Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.I think that missile defense is one of those things that we're doing fairly well in. A fair number of Ticos and Burkes can launch ESSMs and SM-3s, and the new SM-6 is coming online to extend the engagement range for sea-skimmers out to about a hundred miles (as opposed to thirty before). Between them, they're a huge—and I mean huge—leap over what an SM-2 AEGIS-equipped carrier group could do even ten years ago.
Most carriers can launch ESSMs already; their main air defense is their air wing, and I don't favor losing Super Hornets to more anti-air missiles that the escorts are packing anyway. (Same reason the Brits deleted Sea Dart from their carriers to make way for more Sea Harriers.) Against missiles, the best defense is good operational practice—transiting in electronic silence, dodging satellites, et cetera. On the hard, shooting end of the war, the carriers are about as well-covered as we can expect.
Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.But they canceled the Free Electron Laser project before it even got anywhere. I imagine that would have kicked any missile's ass. It makes sense to delay it, but why outright cancel it? That would have been great on the carriers, as long as they could meet power requirments.
edited 5th Jan '12 1:23:26 PM by Joesolo
I'm baaaaaaackMaintenance issues, I'm betting. Works great in the lab, but not so great when fielded.
Wait, cancelled? They dont have a full-power prototype test slated until 2018, unless the wiki article is out of date (betting it is).
edited 5th Jan '12 1:31:48 PM by pvtnum11
Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.I heard it was canceled a few months ago. My love of Sci-Fi may be part of the reason I'm mad, but it'd have been like that YAL-1 plane, but without all the huge chemicals vats and electrically powered. That would have been great against the chinese "Carrier killer" missile spam, assuming They could mount them easily. Seeing as the Ford class will have more free space and power generation, I'm assuming they could at least fit two.
edited 5th Jan '12 1:41:51 PM by Joesolo
I'm baaaaaaack

Looks like deep cuts to the US Military are on the way:
edited 5th Jan '12 4:09:21 AM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling On