no problem 🙂

i think they would have preferred to retire the Minuteman IIIs too but one of the SALT II provisions IIRC was to forbid MIRVs. Peacekeeper was a pure MIRV system – 10(!) warheads in fact so it had to go. Minuteman IIIs now are being retrofitted with single Mk.21 RVs from the Peacekeepers. such a big missile with that tiny warhead, hmm…

i’m not sure you can use a Global Hawk for fixed-wing ASW, or any form of strike for that matter that would involve the UAV toting weapons. it’ll have to go down low to do MAD search and drop sonobuoys (unless they develop a high-altitude-deployment sonobuoy as well) and you are crazy to send the big delicate Global Hawk down low.

the suggestion above was for smaller, low-altitude-optimised UAVs to do FLIR and MAD search while the P-8A stays up high.

as for deploying any weapons on a Global Hawk at all, my understanding is that it is a HALE aircraft in the mould of an E-3 and TR-1, which never carry weapons at all but simply find and locate targets for other agencies eg. strike fighters to kill. what’s new about the GH that people are thinking of arming it?

go do some research on ESSM and SM-1. you’ll realise ESSM’s range is almost as much as SM-1’s. SM-1 is a much older missile that you need to illuminate all the way to the target, while ESSM has inertial and datalink so you only have to illuminate for terminal guidance, making for a much higher rate of fire.

and of course you can carry 4 ESSMs in one VLS cell, but only one 1 SM-1, if SM-1 is qualified for Mk41 at all.

ESSM>SM-1.

my personal feel is that pumpjets are less efficient than conventional propellers. SSNs can afford to have the extra power output to maintain 30+kt speed despite the loss of efficiency (go have a look at the reactor output difference between a 688 and Seawolf to get roughly the same max speed).

but for an SSK every watt of battery power is precious, and cannot afford to be wasted with a pumpjet. in any case, SSKs are quieter than nuc boats, and do not (cannot) reach speeds greater than 20kts where cavitation and noise become a problem. they are quiet and not fast enough to require a pumpjet.

the pumpjet seems to make a lot of difference though. the Seawolf is claimed “to be quieter at 20kts than a 688I tied at the pier” and the pumpjet probably contributes a lot to this.

i’m not 100% sure about anything though. my only evidence is Tom Clancy crap (recently re-read Red October and Red Storm Rising), 688I and Seawolf spec sheets and my own grey matter. better informed contributions would be nice.

cheers!

If Japan had invaded Hawaii right after the Pearl Harbor, they would have suffered a severe drubbing.
Japan at that time probably had the best amphibious capability in the world, but let me specify what that means. They were great at moving their troops from one place to another. It absolutely does not mean they had even the vaguest idea how to execute an opposed landing. In fact, they tried only one such operation during the war–Wake Island!
Oahu was much more heavily garrisoned than Wake, and the United States Navy still had a major presence there. The Pearl raid did not cripple the Pacific Fleet. A commitment by the Japanese to invading Oahu would have involved a protracted deployment in distant waters, and it would dictate foregoing the reason the Japanese went to war–to get much needed resources from the Indies.

the japanese simply could not have mounted a ground invasion of Hawaii. they had many divisions tied down policing the occupied Chinese territories, and what troops they had left were in Thailand and nearby places waiting for the invasion of Malaya. japanese troops entered malaya on Dec 8 1941 IIRC. there were simply no troops available.

there was no intention to take over Hawaii. the objective was to cripple the US Pacific Fleet so that it could not oppose japanese army and navy attacks into malaya, Hongkong and the dutch east indies, and that objective was achieved for awhile.

The fictional Japanese SF-4JII 😀

http://www3.ocn.ne.jp/~tac1991/sf4j22.html

man that is an incredibly cool design! i love it.

but it’s not derived from the F-4J. it’s something out of a macross fan’s imagination.