The most deranged military rant I've seen.

[Master of Ossus]

I don't know whether to laugh at the sheer retarded design or the sheer shittiness of his photoshop.

No need to pick and choose--this is a situation in which there are no bad choices.

[RIPP_n_WIPE]

Would it be possible for a submarine to launch a UAV instead of a full blown plane?

I really don't see a practical use for a dedicated carrier sub for attack purposes. Surveillance yes but anything else is just fail.

[PeZook]

Oh, God... look at his proposal for a M-113 for Urban operations-- to assault through a third-floor window..
<image snipped>

SWAT uses such things sometimes,that's probably where Sparky got the idea from. Of course, SWAT usually operate in a far less lethal environment than the Army. They can afford to wait exposed for several minutes untill the machine rises up to the proper window, since they almost always assault building which are already isolated.

I'd imagine grunts in a place like Fallujah wouldn't really want to do that, since even a 17 year old with an AK-47 firing from some windows somewhere could easily kill everyone standing on the platform

[The Duchess of Zeon]

If one really wants a stealthy sea-based strike platform, use seaplanes which can land and refuel from a submarine tender. Assuming you sea-skim on your way in, too, it doesn't precisely make the op less stealthy, and is a hell of a lot cheaper and more functional.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Would it be possible for a submarine to launch a UAV instead of a full blown plane?

I really don't see a practical use for a dedicated carrier sub for attack purposes. Surveillance yes but anything else is just fail.

They already regularly launch UAVs, also known as Tomahawk cruise missiles.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

This is probably the best bit of the website, though:

Army World-wide Strategic Operational Maneuver (AWSOM)
A low-cost plan to really transform the U.S. Army to prevail on the non-linear battlefield and be fully self-sufficient via ISO container BATTLEBOXES™

*giggling madly*

This is better than real life. "AWSOM". He's so stupid he couldn't even add "Expeditionary" between Worldwide and Strategic to get the word halfway spelled right. Possibly, he thinks that is actually how it is spelled.

And shipping containers are going to revolutionize combat! *giggle*

[PeZook]

In WWII it could be a way to slip a surprise air raid past enemy surveilance assets. Also in the vastness of the Pacific pre-radar scouting meant air recognosance or cruisers. The US built flying aircraft carriers to scout for the fleet. A SSCV could surface on the calm days and have it's air wing do a sweep and then relay it to standard subs. IIRC the IJN had at least one class with a scout plane onboard.

Yes, the Japanese tried to build submarines equipped with airplanes. The I-400 was supposed to be able to deliver bioweapons or destroy the Panama Canal by surprise. Unfortunately, it was neither a good submarine or a good aircraft carrier. In fact, the class was supremely useless, even for its stated role.

In the modern times, a subcarrier would be unable to adequately defend itself anyway, and its sheer size would make it easy to detect. Once detected, of course, a submarine is quite easy to sink with modern weapons. Surprise air raids don't win wars, especially if you can build four surface carriers for the price of one subcarrier

That means nearly 300 airplanes.

[CJvR]

...The I-400 was supposed to be able to deliver bioweapons or destroy the Panama Canal by surprise...

Well it might be possible to take out the Panama canal by relatively limited means. Gatun dam is an earthen dam IIRC, a bomb hitting well enough to ripp open a breach could bring it down once the water get flowing and that will shut down the canal for years.

As for modern SSCVs, classic CV operations is a total mismatch for a sub. Carrier operations by their very nature are impossible hide, removing the key strength os a Submarine - it's stealth. UAV & drone launchers are likely the closest you will ever get to a SSCV.

[Oskuro]

This submarine carrier thing reminds me of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

[Sea Skimmer]

Yes, the Japanese tried to build submarines equipped with airplanes. The I-400 was supposed to be able to deliver bioweapons or destroy the Panama Canal by surprise. Unfortunately, it was neither a good submarine or a good aircraft carrier. In fact, the class was supremely useless, even for its stated role.

They didn’t try to build subs with aircraft; they DID build over 20 submarines with a single aircraft each in the 1930s before they started work on the I-400 class. Those sub’s aircraft had slightly value for reconnaissance and made several bombing missions, but in general the capability proved to be a waste of submarine displacement. But then Japanese submarines overall in WW2 scored about a 1:1 kill ratio so its not like a couple more normal subs would have mattered.

Well it might be possible to take out the Panama canal by relatively limited means. Gatun dam is an earthen dam IIRC, a bomb hitting well enough to ripp open a breach could bring it down once the water get flowing and that will shut down the canal for years.

They design earth dams a little better then that, at its base Gatum dam is about a 2000ft wide, tapering to a still massive 400ft thick at water level, and 100 feet thick at the top which is 30 feet above water level. That means breaching it with the maximum 800kg bombs (one per plane, three planes per sub launched in waves, seven subs = very limited firepower) the Japanese could have dropped is basically impossible; you need a Tallboy to displace a sufficient amount of earth. It’s possible they could have breached the concrete and steel spillway, but it was protected by torpedo nets, bomb hits aren’t likely to hurt it much (its a real narrow bombing target too), and the whole area was heavily defended. The US military was certainly aware of the vulnerability of the whole place.

The Japanese plan actually called for the I-400s to steam all the way across the Indian ocean and then Atlantic and Caribbean to attack the canal from an unexpected angle, but the odds of seven such submarines making the trip undetected and without all being sunk in 1945 was virtually nil.

[Jim Raynor]

I recently developed a much deeper interest in military hardware, tactics, and strategy. Surfing the net in recent months, I discovered this idiot independently. I had known about the Stryker controversy, and had seen Sparks's Combat Reform site before. But it wasn't until recently that I realized what a nutjob this guy was, and I was thinking about mocking him on this forum too.

From what I can see, this guy is the Dark Star of real life militaries. He's full of conspiracy theories and bullshit wank fantasies. He's not unwilling to lie, and as everyone can see from the link provided before he has started an online hoax about a "movement" to get the M113 apc (his FAVORITE military vehicle, God knows why) officially named the "Gavin." The nickname is NOT used by anyone in the actual military. According to people on a number of forums, he praises himself through multiple sock puppet accounts and has even flooded the internet with poorly-made free websites so that one of his sites is bound to turn up if you google military subjects. I know I've come across a bunch of his crap before.

My jaw dropped too when I saw his idea on submersible aircraft carriers. So fucking stupid.

Here is the page where he wanks to battleships and suggests how they can be upgraded to be better than carriers (turn down the volume, like all Mike Sparks sites it comes with automatic music). Scroll down a bit to see his "modest proposal" (his words, not mine) for a battleship carrier, where he wraps two runways around the rear 16 inch turret of a fucking Iowa. Marvel at his visionary idea of deploying special forces squads with VTOL F-35s.

Apparently, Mike Sparks isn't just a military strategist but a fucking engineer as well.

[CaptHawkeye]

Somebody should probably tell him about the Ise class battleships Japan had during the war. Ise was a pretty old BB class but in attempting to turn them into battlecarriers they succeeded in making them so incredibly useless in BOTH roles that they remained home in port during the blatantly suicidal Phillipine Sea. They were so worthless they couldn't even be used as a distraction! Huzzah!

A high-profile, hard armored battleship has the advantage of drawing fire from soft armored ships that wouldn't be able to survive, thus increasing the survivability of the whole task force. And even soaking up a great deal of fire, they're hard to take down.

Hard to take down? Pshaw. I wonder if he even used that questionable "quote" taken from a Russian Admiral about how great BBs were and how the Russian navy had nothing to oppose them with, blah blah blah. I'd dig through his website to find it, but i'm wading in a sea of masturbational fan fiction in that site.

I love how he uses the bombardment capabilities of Iowa to justify the use of battleships again in modern war. I hear Vietnam is a great contemporary Naval Power to test the real effectiveness of one's surface vessels against for performance in a full scale war.

[Zixinus]

Apparently, Mike Sparks isn't just a military strategist but a fucking engineer as well.

As proven by his brilliant idea to turn the M113 airborne by attaching a propeller to it.

[Coiler]

As proven by his brilliant idea to turn the M113 airborne by attaching a propeller to it.

If you mean this:



That's not an actual Sparky design. It's a shopped parody of his serious designs, which are almost as ridiculous themselves.

[CaptHawkeye]

What the fuck does Sparks think this is? Mechwarrior? Come to think of it, give him enough attention and he'll start extolling the virtues of mecha too.

[K. A. Pital]

I didn't believe such things were possible.

That guy is totally nuts. "Gavins!!!"

[Rogue 9]

I think he has some sort of filter on the comments for his videos; I can't get any to show up.

Oh yeah. "Comment pending approval." That's never going to see the light of day.

[Peptuck]

Scroll down a bit to see his "modest proposal" (his words, not mine) for a battleship carrier, where he wraps two runways around the rear 16 inch turret of a fucking Iowa. Marvel at his visionary idea of deploying special forces squads with VTOL F-35s.

Words fail me. The sheer level of fail in this idea reaches through my screen and rips the words out of my throat.

[Sidewinder]

But then Japanese submarines overall in WW2 scored about a 1:1 kill ratio so its not like a couple more normal subs would have mattered.

For comparison, what were the kill ratios obtained by the subs of other navies (US, British, German, etc.)?

I wonder if he even used that questionable "quote" taken from a Russian Admiral about how great BBs were and how the Russian navy had nothing to oppose them with, blah blah blah.

What quote was that?

By the way, regarding the survivability of battleships: although USN aircraft sunk both the Yamato and the Musashi, it took MULTIPLE attacks to sink either ship (six waves that hit the Musashi with 17 bombs + 20 torpedoes, three waves that hit the Yamato with 8 bombs + at least 13 torpedoes). I know that doesn't excuse the stupidity of his claim (a conventional carrier can better defend itself from an air attack by having its own aircraft perform combat air patrols and intercept enemy aircraft), but it does show that battleships are DAMN HARD to sink.

Apparently, Mike Sparks isn't just a military strategist but a fucking engineer as well.

I wonder if he's trying to win a name as a writer of sci-fi technothrillers? (I've had ideas similar to his, but at least I knew we'd need A LOT of help, e.g., from Autobot engineers or Tony Stark/Iron Man, to make them feasible.)

[K. A. Pital]

Sparky is an idiot. Not having fully fledged carriers was due to the huge costs of such vessels and their operating groups. The costs forced the USSR to adopt a cheaper solution, independently operating armed "air-carrying cruisers".

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The weird thing about this mind-numbing shit is that the Stryker was supposedly exactly the sort of super-adaptable vehicle that he claims he wants for the military.

[Sidewinder]

Sparky is an idiot. Not having fully fledged carriers was due to the huge costs of such vessels and their operating groups. The costs forced the USSR to adopt a cheaper solution, independently operating armed "air-carrying cruisers".

Dale Brown (the "retarded spambot" of technothriller authors) claimed that, due to the Admiral Kuznetsov class carrier's lack of catapults, it couldn't launch a fully loaded fighter; the Soviet Navy's plan was to have the carrier launch a devastating first strike with its antiship missiles, and then have the (lightly armed compared to USN/USMC aircraft) fighters finish off the target.

[Edward Yee]

Scroll down a bit to see his "modest proposal" (his words, not mine) for a battleship carrier, where he wraps two runways around the rear 16 inch turret of a fucking Iowa. Marvel at his visionary idea of deploying special forces squads with VTOL F-35s.

At least he recognized that there'd need to be some sort of accomodation, hence the (claimed) protective housing, to actually let the rear 16-inch stay... with what seems to be a severely reduced angle of fire. But the F-35Bs deploying SOF squads? In complete disrespect to the fact that all variants are single-pilot fighters? This one actually got me angry. At least the idea of Star Wars' Wraith Squadron's was to have cross-trained, special operations capable (SOC) pilots.

[PeZook]

[
By the way, regarding the survivability of battleships: although USN aircraft sunk both the Yamato and the Musashi, it took MULTIPLE attacks to sink either ship (six waves that hit the Musashi with 17 bombs + 20 torpedoes, three waves that hit the Yamato with 8 bombs + at least 13 torpedoes). I know that doesn't excuse the stupidity of his claim (a conventional carrier can better defend itself from an air attack by having its own aircraft perform combat air patrols and intercept enemy aircraft), but it does show that battleships are DAMN HARD to sink.

That was, of course, sixty years ago. WWII air torpedoes ran at a pre-set depth and had no magnetic fuses ; Modern torpedoes always explode under the keel and are self-guided. And, of course, once the superstructure is hit, the battleship's sensors are fucked up and it's dead, for all intents and purposes - just a matter of pounding it with ordnance at that point.

Add to this the fact that even small (relatively) surface combatants today carry ASMs which can easily mission-kill a battleship, and it turns out they are not such a great investment. In WWII, a destroyer was dead if it tried to engage a battleship, but this isn't the case today.

I don't know where he got the idea that a modernized Iowa could just steam through littoral waters with no concern for diesel-electric coastal subs or mines, either. It's not immune to mines, and certainly not to modern torpedoes.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Scroll down a bit to see his "modest proposal" (his words, not mine) for a battleship carrier, where he wraps two runways around the rear 16 inch turret of a fucking Iowa. Marvel at his visionary idea of deploying special forces squads with VTOL F-35s.

At least he recognized that there'd need to be some sort of accomodation, hence the (claimed) protective housing, to actually let the rear 16-inch stay... with what seems to be a severely reduced angle of fire. But the F-35Bs deploying SOF squads? In complete disrespect to the fact that all variants are single-pilot fighters? This one actually got me angry. At least the idea of Star Wars' Wraith Squadron's was to have cross-trained, special operations capable (SOC) pilots.

I assume he meant those drop tanks that can carry dudes.