New Fast-Attack Nuclear Submarines to be Named Arizona and Oklahoma

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This looks like an excellent successor to games like 688i, Sub Command, and Cold Waters; remains to be seen if it will deliver on all the features. Based on interviews, the initial objective is to have the Block I-IV Virginia-class as playable subs. Personally I think there's eventual potential for a worthy successor to Fleet Command.


 
This looks like an excellent successor to games like 688i, Sub Command, and Cold Waters; remains to be seen if it will deliver on all the features. Personally I think there's eventual potential for a worthy successor to Fleet Command.

I want to play ASROC. With the W44 warheads.
 
This is a concern of mine as related to Iran and NK they don't need ICBMs if they can launch from a freighter just off our coasts.
Yup or send a seemingly normal container ship into one of our ports loaded with drones and missiles in a Pearl Harbor like attack destroying major facilities or coastal areas.
 
Yup or send a seemingly normal container ship into one of our ports loaded with drones and missiles in a Pearl Harbor like attack destroying major facilities or coastal areas.
Worth noting though that large area targets take a LOT of firepower to degrade. Historians have done quite a bit of Monday morning quarterbacking over how the Japanese strike at Pearl Harbor could have caused longer-term damage, but the reality of it is that with ~225 bombers (bomb-carrying Kates and Vals, not counting the torpedo bombers and Zeroes) the ability of the Kido Butai to permanently cripple things like fuel tank farms or repair facilities was pretty limited. As for what they did get - Battleship Row - only two of the eight BBs present were total losses; three were repaired within a few months, another before the end of 1942, another in 1943, and another in 1944. Granted we don't have the capacity to regenerate losses that we had in 1941 (the aircraft destroyed at Pearl were effectively replaced with two weeks' of production; in 1944 we could have replaced those losses in 15 minutes), but there's a reason why US strike plans for something like a single airbase often involve upwards of 50-60 cruise missiles.

As for the Iran or NK scenario - first they would have to get the missiles on the ship, and then they'd have to get it to US waters. Seeing as ports in those countries probably have spy sats and other assets trained on them constantly and I find it a bit doubtful that one would be permitted to sail straight from said country to a US port, loading enough missiles or suicide drones to do serious damage will probably get noticed. It would be easier to try sneaking a nuke through.

A more realistic concern is the possibility of smaller numbers of surveillance drones being deployed off foreign merchant ships, which some believe to be the source of the spate of "UFO" encounters off exercise areas on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts: Adversary Drones Are Spying On The U.S. And The Pentagon Acts Like They're UFOs
 
Worth noting though that large area targets take a LOT of firepower to degrade. Historians have done quite a bit of Monday morning quarterbacking over how the Japanese strike at Pearl Harbor could have caused longer-term damage, but the reality of it is that with ~225 bombers (bomb-carrying Kates and Vals, not counting the torpedo bombers and Zeroes) the ability of the Kido Butai to permanently cripple things like fuel tank farms or repair facilities was pretty limited. As for what they did get - Battleship Row - only two of the eight BBs present were total losses; three were repaired within a few months, another before the end of 1942, another in 1943, and another in 1944. Granted we don't have the capacity to regenerate losses that we had in 1941 (the aircraft destroyed at Pearl were effectively replaced with two weeks' of production; in 1944 we could have replaced those losses in 15 minutes), but there's a reason why US strike plans for something like a single airbase often involve upwards of 50-60 cruise missiles.

As for the Iran or NK scenario - first they would have to get the missiles on the ship, and then they'd have to get it to US waters. Seeing as ports in those countries probably have spy sats and other assets trained on them constantly and I find it a bit doubtful that one would be permitted to sail straight from said country to a US port, loading enough missiles or suicide drones to do serious damage will probably get noticed. It would be easier to try sneaking a nuke through.

A more realistic concern is the possibility of smaller numbers of surveillance drones being deployed off foreign merchant ships, which some believe to be the source of the spate of "UFO" encounters off exercise areas on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts: Adversary Drones Are Spying On The U.S. And The Pentagon Acts Like They're UFOs
Hitting the tank farms and infrastructure would have still been a good blow. At the end of the day, our battle fleet and war plan went right out the window for an immediate counterattack/ offensive and worst our morale was shot until midway 6 months later.

Merchants can filter through several ports and blend in before coming to the US. Hitting a carrier or multiple ships can wreck our battle plans. Or hit a strategic asset like a boomer or a shipyard. Get a merchant docked at Baltimore that launches 3 dozen cruise missiles, and DC would be effectively neutralized.
 
Hitting the tank farms and infrastructure would have still been a good blow. At the end of the day, our battle fleet and war plan went right out the window for an immediate counterattack/ offensive and worst our morale was shot until midway 6 months later.

Merchants can filter through several ports and blend in before coming to the US. Hitting a carrier or multiple ships can wreck our battle plans. Or hit a strategic asset like a boomer or a shipyard. Get a merchant docked at Baltimore that launches 3 dozen cruise missiles, and DC would be effectively neutralized.
The idea of immediately steaming for the Phillipines went out the window before December 1941; the initial Japanese war plans were built on the idea of taking the Philippines and then attriting the US fleet via torpedo and aircraft attacks until their battle line could defeat the USN in an old-school Jutlandesque clash of dreadnoughts. That was already looking kind of shaky as by the late 1930s the Marianas were recognized as a viable air base to hit the Japanese Home Islands; that would require the Japanese to fight their planned "decisive battle" farther from their bases (and face a US fleet with shorter transit and supply lines of its own). Attacking Pearl Harbor was meant to cover the Japanese seizure of territory and resources in the Southwest Pacific and buy time to fortify their island holdings before the USN could build up (as stated previously, the fleet that anchored in Tokyo Bay in September 1945 was largely already on order as of 1940). The most optimistic outcome was that the US would decided a bunch of Pacific islands wasn't worth war over, which proved to be dead wrong.

On the American side, the realization was that the upcoming war would likely involve simultaneously fighting Germany, Italy, and Japan; as a result the old "color" plans supposing a fight against a single opponent (War Plan Orange for Japan, War Plan Red for the UK, War Plan Black for Germany, War Plan Green for Mexico, etc.) were shelved in 1939 and replaced with a set of five "Rainbow" contingency plans for war with multiple powers. Rainbow 5 (assuming the US allied with the UK and France against the Axis) ended up being used. Rainbow 5 also included five sub-variants labeled A-E; of those Plan Dog was adopted in 1940 prioritizing the European theater while maintaining a defensive posture in the Pacific ("Europe First"). As it turned out this wasn't exactly how things went (going on the offensive in the Solomons in 1942 wasn't supposed to happen; Admiral King pushed), but prior to December 7th, 1941 it was pretty much acknowledged that the US garrisons at Wake, Guam, and the Philippines would be left to their own devices and probably lost.

There was an abortive attempt just before Christmas 1941 to relieve Wake Island using all three of Pacific Fleet's carriers, but the force was recalled on intelligence that the Kido Butai was coming back to assist with the invasion (probably for the best). While Saratoga was knocked out of action by a submarine torpedo in January 1942, Lexington, Enterprise, and the newly-transferred Yorktown all got very busy raiding Japanese bases from February-April 1942. This combat experience that would pay off at Coral Sea and Midway; it's notable that Hornet's air wing missed out on that experience and was thus generally a nonfactor at Midway.

In February 1942 the USN had gotten three of the Pearl Harbor BBs operational (Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Maryland); together with Colorado (overhaul in Puget Sound) and the three New Mexico-class BBs transferred from the Atlantic that almost put the battleship line back up to full strength. However, it was recognized that they were too slow to keep up with the carriers and would be a drain on fuel stocks, so they were relocated to California as a backstop for the remainder of the year.
 

This pisses me off to no end. I had the honor of being at the commissioning ceremony and a VIP tour of this brand new vessel. I'd be taking a chunk of change out of Lockheed's ass for this. Brand new ships that are going into layup because the navy doesn't want to fix them or repower them, but yet is still ordering them. Give them to the Coast Guard for use as patrol or cutters. If Fantcari screwed up the LCS design, I wonder what they will pull on the Constellation class FFGX.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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