[HN Gopher] The US Relies on 51 Forty-five-year-old ships to Tra...
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The US Relies on 51 Forty-five-year-old ships to Transport its
Military Overseas [video]
Author : toomuchtodo
Score : 28 points
Date : 2025-08-03 18:47 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| empiko wrote:
| China is building incredible 200x times more ships annually
| compared to the US. You can imagine what the military
| implications are.
| dmix wrote:
| In a Taiwan type conflict I'd be more worried about all the
| advanced Chinese anti-ship ballistic/cruise missiles if I was
| in the US Navy (not to mention submarine torpedoes and drone
| ships). That stuff can be launched from land/air even without
| the hundreds of new ships. I'm not convinced the Navy could
| operate anywhere close to China in a true conflicts. Those US
| ship VLS cells will empty out pretty fast trying to shoot them
| down and submarine detection would heavily slow them down plus
| limit any logistic chains to resupply. But admittedly I'm no
| modern expert on the topic, just like reading military
| wikipedia and twitter.
| slyall wrote:
| The US Military is very aware of this. The Next generation
| fighters and bombers all have longer ranges and longer ranged
| missiles. The Air-force is working on building more runways
| and hardened hangers
|
| The Army and Marines are planning around having units on
| Islands that have to have their own anti-aircraft and anti-
| ship capability since they won't be able to rely on air or
| sea support.
| Teever wrote:
| That's all moot if the industrial capacity to produces
| missiles doesn't match the Chinese capacity to produce
| ships.
|
| Recent wargames predict the US will exhaust regional
| supplies of antiship missiles within days to weeks and
| those missiles have a lead time of years to build and the
| US only has a capacity of a few dozen a year.
| jleyank wrote:
| Along with various medium to large cargo planes and the world's
| supply of flagged cargo carriers. I'm not sure there's that many
| "troops and other things" that require more transport, maybe
| heavy ammunition. Most of the military power sails or flies
| places.
| frankharv wrote:
| I don't watch YouTube but here a mariners take.
|
| I notice that there is a very large Car Carrier in Norfolk
| Drydock getting painted white to grey.
|
| Looks like they are converting commercial vessels to military
| use.
|
| I can't imagine how they handle in big winds. A giant sail like
| surface.
|
| Flickertail State Crane Ship was recently out doing testing. It
| is old but capable.
|
| Gaza Pier help was a bust. Those piers are not meant to be
| installed long term. We looked like clowns. Not Omaha Beach.
| 8b16380d wrote:
| Thanks Jones Act
| throw0101d wrote:
| > _Thanks Jones Act_
|
| The problem is with Congress deciding to not contract to build
| replacement vessels. In this instance the _Jones Act_ is not
| the problem.
|
| See "Hawaiian Rum Company Challenges the Jones Act" (30m) from
| the same channel which really gets into the details and history
| of the act:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuvAY4k3KQ8
| staplung wrote:
| There's a lot of stuff in the US military that's somewhat aged.
| The aircraft carrier Nimitz is still in service and was
| commissioned 50 years ago. The B-52 has been in service for
| longer than that (in fairness the _design_ is that old; the
| actual airplanes, presumably not). The A10 Warthog was first
| released in 1977 and is still in use. The AR-15, embodied in the
| M16 and M4 goes back to the 1960s and the Browning M2 goes back
| to 1933.
| hollerith wrote:
| No, most of the B-52s currently in service are well over 50
| years old:
|
| "The last production aircraft, B-52H AF Serial No. 61-40, left
| the factory on 26 October 1962."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-52_Stratofortress#Var...
|
| Another weapons system: the M1 heavy machine gun is still
| heavily used, e.g., one on every Abrams tank, 4 or 6 on every
| aircraft carrier, and ISTR the US's inventory of it was all
| made before or during WWII.
| ahmedfromtunis wrote:
| Something I learned from trying to learn how military equipment
| works is that "fifty-year old" and the likes aren't necessarily
| synonymous with "obsolete".
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| The problem isn't the ships' age _per se_ and more the concern
| that we lack the industrial base to replace them if faced with
| a war of attrition.
| nocoiner wrote:
| But, also, seagoing stuff just tends to get worn out in ways
| that land or even air assets don't. So 50+ years for a ship
| is remarkably old and probably quite close to the end of its
| life, even assuming that the shipowner is taking measures
| that wouldn't be economic in the commercial world.
| Moto7451 wrote:
| Yup. An example of this is the Air Force's B52 which has
| lived longer than many of its immediate successor program (B1
| non B) and is scheduled to live longer than the successors to
| its successor (B1-B, B2) alongside the B21.
|
| We have plenty of mothballed chassis for parts and a
| seemingly never ending series of modernization programs. A
| new engine has been proposed repeatedly and is maybe finally
| happening.
|
| However what we can simply never do is make another one from
| scratch as all the tooling has been gone since the 1960s.
| They could do an "inspired by the B52" replacement like the
| B21 is to the B2, but much like the B2 and F22 we just won't
| make more of them for practical and Military Industrial
| Complex reasons.
| master_crab wrote:
| They aren't "obsolete" but at that age they become difficult or
| impossible to source spare parts for. Particularly because we
| seem to have such a variety of differing ship designs in the
| fleet.
|
| The video mentions several ships being laid up to be
| cannibalized.
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