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The US Navy Is Dumping Billions into New Aircraft Carriers—It Could Be a Disaster
National Interest ^ | June 19, 2016 | David W. Wise

Posted on 06/20/2016 9:16:02 AM PDT by sparklite2

The U.S. Navy has fallen into a troubling pattern of designing and acquiring new classes of ships that would arguably best be left as single ship or at most in limited numbers. It’s also building several types of new aircraft that fail to meet specifications.

The Navy is developing a new class of supercarriers that cannot function properly, and has designed them to launch F-35 fighters that are not ready to fly their missions. This is all happening during an era of out-of-control budgets, which bodes poorly for American sea power and leadership ahead.

That the Navy is concentrating larger percentages of its total force structure on large, high signature and increasingly vulnerable ships endangers America’s future. Fortunately, there’s better options to the status quo if the Navy moves now.

(Excerpt) Read more at nationalinterest.org ...


TOPICS: Military/Veterans
KEYWORDS: bhodod; defensespending; shipbuilding; usnavy
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1 posted on 06/20/2016 9:16:02 AM PDT by sparklite2
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To: sparklite2
"large, high signature and increasingly vulnerable ships endangers America’s future"

Unless you are in the business of building ships.....................

Sort of a sinking ready jobs program I suppose. Makes perfect sense to most government thinkers.

2 posted on 06/20/2016 9:20:08 AM PDT by blackdog (There is no such thing as healing, only a balance between destructive and constructive forces.)
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To: sparklite2

Well, we spent a lot on battleships prior to WWII. The leadership always prepares for the last war. We were fortunate 75 years ago in that we could quickly manufacture aircraft carriers. If we suddenly need to make whatever replaces or displaces aircraft carriers we could be in trouble as we no longer make much steel.


3 posted on 06/20/2016 9:20:12 AM PDT by wastoute (Government cannot redistribute wealth. Government can only redistribute poverty.)
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To: sparklite2

Electro motive launching systems are fubar and unreliable. It will cause many crashes and deaths of aviators.


4 posted on 06/20/2016 9:22:47 AM PDT by batterycommander (Surrounded? Relax and call for artillery.)
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To: sparklite2

The 2002 Millennium Challenge proved that carriers were extremely vulnerable.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2002/020906-iraq1.htm


5 posted on 06/20/2016 9:26:31 AM PDT by castlegreyskull
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To: sparklite2

Dude! It means lots of retirement jobs for Admirals and others involved in procurement. Get your priorities straight!


6 posted on 06/20/2016 9:27:01 AM PDT by Seruzawa (All those memories will be lost, like tears in rain.)
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To: sparklite2

Will the designers of the Little Crappy flammable Ships
be used?

Or the ones who designed the F-35 guardian’s range to be
half the distance required to get to, and take out,
the Iranian (Obama’s) Silkworms?

WAKE UP, AMERICA.


7 posted on 06/20/2016 9:27:31 AM PDT by Diogenesis ("When a crime is unpunished, the world is unbalanced.")
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To: sparklite2

We need cruisers with a big punch good speed and long range.


8 posted on 06/20/2016 9:28:03 AM PDT by Jimmy Valentine (DemocRATS - when they speak, they lie; when they are silent, they are stealing the American Dream)
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To: sparklite2

The Zumwalt class destroyer is another example. They were going to build 32 but now only 3. The most expensive destroyer ever built. 22.5 Billion for 3 ships.


9 posted on 06/20/2016 9:41:09 AM PDT by microgood
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To: sparklite2

Long-range Hypersonic antiship missiles used to be incredibly expensive. that is not true today.

even very poor coastal countries can now afford these missiles.

the new carriers are valuable only if they have new long-range robotic aircraft which keep the carriers very far offshore beyond the range of such missiles.

Production of those new robot aircraft was cancelled.

our carriers are vulnerable because they cant loiter super far offshore, manned aircraft don’t have the required range.


10 posted on 06/20/2016 9:44:22 AM PDT by gaijin
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To: sparklite2

If oasshole keeps poking the russians in syria we will find out how vulnerable a carrier is in projecting force.

Drones and submarines waging war in the future? How do they take territory?


11 posted on 06/20/2016 9:50:37 AM PDT by Sequoyah101 (It feels like we have exchanged our dreams for survival. We just have a few days that don't suck.)
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To: sparklite2

I remember when Sen. Gary Hart wanted to build much smaller aircraft carriers during the Reagan years.

Then Navy Secretary John Lehman called them, “Gary Hart carriers.”


12 posted on 06/20/2016 9:53:45 AM PDT by july4thfreedomfoundation (Ban muslims, NOT guns.....Register liberals, NOT guns)
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To: Jimmy Valentine

What ever happened to the old “Arsenal ship” concept.

Stay well the heck off shore, pump out ~100+ missles. . .


13 posted on 06/20/2016 10:03:41 AM PDT by Salgak (You're in Strange Hands with Tom Stranger. . . .)
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To: Sequoyah101
Well, strictly speaking, the Navy doesn't take territory, the Marines or Army do.

The Navy is there to project air power and artillery or missiles so that the ground troops can get it.

To put it bluntly, we've underfunded the Navy for decades, so now we have to put up or shut up.

This, by the way, really is Bush's fault. He could have asked for all the funding needed to re-equip the armed forces after 9/11 but sought to fight on the cheap, delaying or cancelling program after program. There's no need for armor in the 21st century, right? My guess is we're in even worse shape than after Carter.

14 posted on 06/20/2016 10:15:03 AM PDT by pierrem15 ("Massacrez-les, car le seigneur connait les siens")
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To: Salgak
There are a lot of 500k ton tankers sitting idle right now. If you bought those, refitted the interiors with lots of closed off watertight containers and refitted the center sections with missiles, lots of firewalls and multiple command centers they'd be almost unsinkable because they're so huge.

Not sexy enough I guess.

15 posted on 06/20/2016 10:18:45 AM PDT by pierrem15 ("Massacrez-les, car le seigneur connait les siens")
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To: july4thfreedomfoundation
Sen. Gary Hart wanted to build much smaller aircraft carriers during the Reagan years.

Setting aside who's asking for it...

Would this be a good idea? Along the line of the "escort carrier" principle in WWII? A workhorse that could provide helicopter and maybe VSTOL support, rather than a fleet-sized carrier?

I dunno, just asking, I'm sure that there are plenty of former navy FReepers that can weigh in. It just strikes me that lately we've been sinking money into smaller numbers of specialized WhizBangs, when what we really need is an abundance of Swiss Army Knives.

16 posted on 06/20/2016 10:50:17 AM PDT by wbill
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To: pierrem15

Actually, that was along the lines of what I was thinking. Or one of the idling Container Ships. . .


17 posted on 06/20/2016 10:54:17 AM PDT by Salgak (You're in Strange Hands with Tom Stranger. . . .)
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To: sparklite2

Designing ships around the F-35. Utterly idiotic. Besides the 35 being a national embarrassment and giving us the weakest air wing in US history, traditionally the plane had to adapt to the ship.


18 posted on 06/20/2016 11:00:01 AM PDT by DesertRhino ("I want those feeble minded asses overthrown,,,")
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To: sparklite2

One does not attack a carrier. One may, if one is crazy enough, attack a carrier group but is almost certain suicide and will remain so for a very long time.


19 posted on 06/20/2016 11:48:11 AM PDT by buffaloguy
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To: buffaloguy

According to the article, anti-ship missiles have a longer range than the distance carrier attack planes can travel to a target and knock it out and get back to the ship. Also, with mobile launchers, they won’t stay there in place, anyway. Plus, firing salvos of missiles, the anti-missile shipboard defenses can be overwhelmed. Like the article also says, carriers are on the wrong side of physics and math.


20 posted on 06/20/2016 11:59:01 AM PDT by sparklite2 ( "The white man is the Jew of Liberal Fascism." -Jonah Goldberg)
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