FINAL CRUISE: The Last Season of The Last Ship

[Scout101]

If you want armor, too bad the show is about 20 years too late to have a viable Iowa class battleship. Of course, also a crew hog (but still half of a carrier). At this point, I don't know that any are even close enough to being usable to pretend you retrofitted one, just been too long. And since they've got the entire US fleet at their disposal, and the population mostly died of the pandemic without launching full out war first, ships should never be the problem, it's crew that's the limiter. Destroying the entire fleet in Florida shouldn't be much of a setback, as they could just go grab another half-dozen and get them seaworthy pretty soon; not like they're building them from scratch. It's the loss of trained crews that's the killer.

Know it's the premise of the show, but Jayne abandoned the carrier pretty quickly, so either it's just as screwed as the rest of the ships, or not the advantage you think. Or just panicked and went back to what he knows, and he clearly wasn't thinking it through. If the carrier is still working and decently crewed up, that's what the rest of the actors should be following in

 

[Admiral2]

Don't need an aircraft carrier for Marine transports. Tons of smaller ships that can do the job. It's just a scale thing; crew complement of an aircraft carrier is what, like 6000 people? I guess if you just want giant armored transport and zero flight crew/support, you can trim it down somewhat, but the numbers are just way out of whack. A DDG usually has about 150, so that's 40 DDGs you could have crewed at the expense of sailing a single carrier. Even if you take half the crew away, still 20-1. If the carrier is tougher and better armored (although having subs, destroyers, and air support is a big part of the carrier's defense), 20 DDGs probably still have better force projection than a single carrier.

If you want to load up on marines, fill that LPD that was hanging out in the background, that only usually crews shy of 400 and has tons of room for marines and supplies, medical facilities, etc. Or load up some Expeditionary Fast Transports full of Marines and make it rain, that's just nothing but a giant jetski with room for landing craft and marines with a TINY crew (about 40). It's not a combat vessel itself, but if it's landing after the DDGs clear a path, you're good.

Dude, the LPD was the ship I was talking about that normally carries Marines. You said it was nothing but a hospital ship, and now you're saying they should use a ship that normally carries Marines to carry Marines. No kidding!

The carrier is useful for carrying aircraft as well as Marines, and even a small one filled with aircraft - as LPHs are designed to be in certain conditions - is more powerful than a bunch of Burkes with rookie crews.

Look, bottom line is you keep preaching surface manpower as the only solution to the TLS-verse Navy's problems and keep downplaying a principle of Naval Doctrine: "The seat of purpose is on the land!" At some point in a conflict you need to go ashore, kill people and break things on a large scale to effect political or physical change in the enemy, and to do that you need airplanes and boots on the ground. A diverse navy with carriers and Marines can do that. A bunch of Burkes can't. Using the LPH as a carrier and prioritizing the LPD to carry Marines is just as useful for this show-navy's purposes as giving Nathan James brothers to play with.

 

[Scout101]

That’s my bad, just lost your LPD point because the rest of the post was talking about the carrier and you never said LPD, so I combined the two in my head to be all about the carrier. Totally agree with your current post

All of my points about crew costs for a carrier stand, though

 

[Admiral2]

All of my points about crew costs for a carrier stand, though

There is no argument about carrier costs. Of course they're expensive, in pretty much every way. The problem is when you compare the cost of the carrier to the cost of smaller ships without considering what you're getting for the expense, the way too many bean counters in real life do. You get what you pay for. Yes, a Burke is cheaper than a carrier, but a carrier is more durable, more survivable and light-years more capable. This has been proven time and again around the world since World War Two, which is why the US operates double-digit numbers of them and countries you'd think wouldn't need them either have them anyway or are trying to get them.

In the show, the worst damage to the Wasp was to the island and the planes on its deck (which, if you really want to argue about dumb, it would be leaving the planes on the ship at all while in port. They should have been sent to a land base.). If they can get the island repaired and find some more Harriers to build an air wing, they can get the ship to sea in record time and give Nathan James some really muscular help.

You said so yourself. It was Pearl Harbor 2. Remember what survived Pearl Harbor? The carriers.

That makes them worth the cost.

 

[J.T.B.]

You said so yourself. It was Pearl Harbor 2. Remember what survived Pearl Harbor? The carriers.

Not being there had to help their chances quite a bit. If Arizona had been a hundred miles away she would have survived too.

 

[Admiral2]

Not being there had to help their chances quite a bit. If Arizona had been a hundred miles away she would have survived too.

Well, yeah, but the Colombian air attack was nowhere near as heavy as the Japanese one. All I'm saying is the carriers survived in both cases, which upped their value.

 

[Scout101]

Yeah, the carriers not being IN Pearl Harbor during the attack probably helped more than their armor

I just didn't see anything from what they showed in the attack that should have sunk ANY ships, much less all of them (or all but the aircraft carrier). Looked like fairly small missiles, and of the air-to-air variety, didn't look like ship-killers. I'd expect bombs or torpedoes at the waterline would be required to do much more than minor hull damage. The tower/bridge of the various ships probably aren't doing great, and that's not going to help the fleet if a lot of command crews were aboard their ships, but I'm assuming in a real life version of that, most of the ships are still floating.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Decent intro, Pearl Harbor 2. Not how the networks on Navy ships work, as a lot of the hacked systems are airgapped and not normal/compatible with things anyway, but ignoring that for TV reasons...

Did you miss the skull and crossbones on the flash drive, that amplifies the effectiveness of the cyber attack. See also: Independence Day.

 

[Scout101]

Totally my bad, forgot it had the crossbones on it. Nothing we can do to defend that, not even not having those systems networked

 

[Admiral2]

So, liked Captain Green's "One ship, one crew" speech. It brought back all the Trek feels...as did Chandler making Swain an Ensign. Finally, TLS has its own Wesley Crusher!

And of course, this ep had some NAVAL KOM-BAAAT, which I'm always happy to see, though Nathan James's tactics reminded me of playing World of Warships: Blitz on my phone...

 

[The Wormhole]

though Nathan James's tactics reminded me of playing World of Warships: Blitz on my phone...

I liked it when they finally decided to fire ahead of the enemy target. I was like "Ah! That's totally what I do online."

Also, did I miss something, or is there a reason we haven't seen any Air Force personnel at that joint command post Chandler's at?

 

[Admiral2]

No, you didn't miss anything. They haven't so much as mentioned the Air Force. Maybe they don't have enough pilots to properly reconstitute it...or, it got sucked back into the Army and the balding idiot in the command center is in charge.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

There were a couple of odd looks between Tavo's wife and his (I think) second in command. They are probably having an affair that Tavo will find out about at the worst time for him.

 

[Scout101]

Just to pick at the entertaining plot holes of the week:

why couldn't they turn the gun? I get that the computer (because of magic virus that can defeat an air gap) can't aim it, but at the end of the day, it's still just hydraulics, it could be aimed manually I'm sure. In fact, they made the 'computer doesn't work' thing kinda silly when they still showed someone in control shooting it using fly by wire trigger, so apparently SOME of the controls are still good. If they wanted to keep that up, shouldn't someone have had to manually fire it off somehow? Of course, I can't imagine that good things happen to someone trying to manually fire that gun from inside the compartment, gotta be crazy loud/concussive if it's even possible to fire it that way, but gotta be a way to touch it off without power. (quick google search implies that it's not even fired from control, but from a gunner's station on the deck below the gun itself. And looks like can be fired/controlled manually. only thing they should have lost is computerized targeting)

Can't call home because we zeroized our crypto. Not how any of that works. Sure, can definitely drop keys if it all lost power and got rebooted and whatnot, but since this wouldn't be the first time in history that a crypto lost power or had a bad battery, ships have backup keys onboard and can reload pretty quickly. Even with magical virus, this one would have to jump off of the network, through the wall of a safe, into a portable key loader, and infect/zeroize that as well. And a DDG probably has a couple at least. I mean, the keys roll daily/weekly/monthly anyway, so reloading keys isn't a hardship, its a way of life. 'All our cyrptos zeroized somehow' should have been followed by 'so, uh, gimme 20 minutes and you're good to go'. But then our beloved crew couldn't have their version of the 'hours would seem like days' strategy...

 

[Admiral2]

Not gonna argue with you about the comms, because, yeah...

As for the gun, modern guns aren't built for people to go inside them anyway, so that's not even an option. And, yeah, I'm sure the hydraulics are working, but if you need computer commands to get them to move, and the computers can't give those commands...

What you'd need to aim the five-inch manually is a bunch of guys with hella hearing protection standing on the outside of it pushing it back and forth and elevating it, which won't be nearly as fast or accurate as a fully functioning system. All told, they did the best the could with the limitations placed on them by the plot-virus.

 

[Scout101]

yeah, plot-viruses are nasty things!

literally laughed out loud and explained the comms bit to my wife while watching, because yeah, not how any of that works.

As for the gun, figured that was closer to the truth, but still think that they went too far with it. not my area of expertise (comms, actually), but google implies that it's all done from 1 deck below the gun, and can be done manually or with the computer. But when they showed someone firing using a joystick, kinda broke their argument about all the computer systems being down. (and not done from where they showed, but hey, TV license I guess). if they wanted it all done with the system down hard, should have shown someone in the gunnery compartment hitting a big button or lever to at least imply manual firing. using the joystick in C&C kills what they were trying to say.

 

[Admiral2]

True, the computer systems are kind of selectively down. That's generally how them plot-viruses work.

Fortunately, they got Ensign Crusher ashore working out a plot-anti-virus.

 

[Aragorn]

I finally watched episode 2. They still don't know how to give the supporting characters stuff to do that matters. The surprise attack knocks Kandie unconscious and Wolf has to carry her out, but then in the next scene she's fine. None of it even mattered to the plot. Her being out cold didn't mean anything, her being back on her feet didn't change anything.

 

[The Wormhole]

What exactly is Master Chief's point this year? He hangs out at the command centre, but is just sort of there. I guess a land assignment was the by-product of that punctured lung from last year that didn't seem to go anywhere.

I actually do like the new dynamic they've set up on the Nathan James this year, with Kara commanding and Burke the XO. Miller's one of the higher ranking enlisted now, and even that young guy at the helm made a bit of an impression, though a part of me is almost certain he's going to be a redshirt by the end of the season.

 

[Admiral2]

Well, at least the supporting characters were useful this episode. The shore team got the job done, and the Master Chief demonstrated he's there to be the conscience of the good guys.

And it looks like Granderson's missus is fulfilling the "You're never home!" wife trope. She even said it herself. It's a trope I can't stand personally. My sister was a Navy wife for more than thirty years, and while I know she was never crazy about my bro-in-law staying in so long she never went out of her way guilt-trip him the way at least one spouse seems to do in every tv show and movie about the military. Maybe my sis is rare, I don't know.