Posted on 08/06/2016 6:32:17 AM PDT by C19fan
If the United States Navy is either unwilling or unable to conceptualize a carrier air wing that can fight on the first day of a high-end conflict, then the question becomes — why should the American taxpayer shell out $13 billion for a Ford-class carrier?
That’s the potent question being raised by naval analysts in Washington, noting that there are many options that the Navy could pursue including a stealthy long-range unmanned combat aircraft or a much heavier investment in submarines.
(Excerpt) Read more at warisboring.com ...
Let me guess, you are in the Air Force...or come from a family that is? The Air Force has called for the elimination of the Navy, and more particularly its air arm, what they consider their competition, for over 60 years now.
Take a look at a globe, most of it is water, the Navy has been our first line of defense since the days of John Paul Jones, and will continue to be so.
What about increasing the legs of the attack wing so that the carrier can remain out of range of shore based anti-ship missiles? It should also mitigate to some degree the coastal diesel subs.
With the new rail gun system, the carrier screen should be able to prep the battlefield from hundreds of miles away
Our Muslim Masters will have no clue how to use them ?
The rail gun trick may never be fielded as the barrels have to be replaced after each shot, I believe.
Mitchell and Lemay proved nothing of the sort. Mitchell proved battleships were vulnerable to aircraft, like from a carrier. Lemay proved nothing beyond atomic war. For anything less he was useless.
All this talk about how carriers are easy to sink is amateur hour. It’s like saying a Marine is vulnerable to machine gun fire, so Marines are obsolete.
Smart, cheap missles deployed from swarms of drones are going to end a lot of American supremacy doctrine. No big metal on sea, air or land.
The Iranians are obsessed with our carriers and one day they will lose restraint, especially during Hillary's presidency.
Right. Not carriers...then. And famous last words.
There were plenty of battles in World War II in which the US did not enjoy "total control of the air and subsurface" in which carriers were hardly worthless: start with Midway, the Coral Sea and the Leyte Gulf. But yes, of course it's a question of how well can you protect a vulnerable carrier from external threats. Even if you can't provide a 100% guarantee of safety, you can weigh risks. BTW I agree with you that carriers are in danger of obsolescence against a near-peer adversary.
They still haven’t learned. Selecting an aircraft with less range than some in the past in the face of increasing missile ranges would be treason if it was done purposely to make our carrier groups vulnerable.
Agreed. But they have a lot of value right up until that point where the shooting starts. And that’s why the Navy is addicted to them.
We should build LHA/LHD’s with containerized UCAV’s. Launch them vertically from a vertical launch cell, and recover them with an arresting wire. No need for ordnance. If they aquire a target, then just crash into it.
Cheap, cheap, cheap.
Too big, and fantastically expensive. Cheap container ship would suffice. You’re going to lose it, but you can build them quickly with minimal crews.
A carrier today costs upwards of $14 billion and takes a decade to build. Sending one to the bottom of the sea would be a significant loss.
Nope definitely not obsolete. Carriers are the ability to project power. When a carrier group comes near your country you now know America has force in the area. With their planes, and their cruise missiles, and sometimes even some Marines the carrier group is basically a mobile military base. That will never be obsolete.
If so that's dumb on America's part. We don't need carriers to hit the Iranians - US could easily stage land-based aircraft out of Turkey, Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and Italy. Presumably the Iraqis and Afghans would object to using their territory for operations, although who knows. If the US needed more bases to operate from, I'm sure the Saudis would be accommodating provided the target is Iran.
No it's not. Because a Marine can be replaced. The cost of replacing a carrier, its air wings and 5000 personnel is kinda prohibitive - they take over a decade to design and build. If the Navy starts to fear it could lose a carrier, it'll move them away from the field of battle making them worthless as force projection.
A carrier group would not enter the straits of Hormuz. They operate outside the missile range of the Iranians. And there are defenses against missiles including electronic and anti-missile missiles.
$10 Million dollars for a container ship. Pack all the drones you want on it. Surface to Surface and SAMs in boxes as well.
Cheap, quick to build, replaceable, deadly.
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