"The old argument that 'planes can sink ships' is as much beside the point as it ever was.
No proof of that statement was ever needed -- though, for the doubting Thomases the headlines have offered redundant proof.
But sunken ships -- no matter how sunk -- no more invalidate the concept of the ship as a commerce carrier and man-of-war than wrecked planes invalidate the concept of the plane as a commerce carrier and aerial man-of-war."Any ship ever built, no matter how strong, can be sunk by air attack if enough force can be concentrated against it.
Planes and fleets of planes can be destroyed if enough force can be concentrated against them.The air extremists have now dismissed navies and merchant navies as obsolescent, if not obsolete, just as the surfact-ship conservatives in the past blocked the full development of naval air power.
Neither is right.
The plane is a commerce carrier and an aerial man-of-war; but despite the predictions of a few air extremists, it probably will never totally replace -- certainly not within the foreseeable future -- the surface ship in either function."The quantity of air freight carried will unquestionably increase in the future, but today and tomorrow and probably throughout our generation the red-leaded tramp and the humble, smoking freighter will continue to carry the great majority of the world's bulk freight.
Heavy machinery, heavy munitions, wheat, manganese, railroad rolling stock, crude rubber, oil, gasoline -- indeed, nearly all of the important international commodities except those items relatively light in weight and small in bulk -- will certainly continue to be carried by surface carriers."
Baldwin did not foresee the advent of super-tankers and super cargo ships carrying hundreds of thousands of tons -- not-so-humble as the old smoking tramp freighters.
Otherwise, still spot on.
And when did anyone last see or hear the term "red-leaded tramp"?
Didn't Willie Nelson have a hit song about one of those some years ago?
Maybe not.
I'm finding this series on air power instructive. I have been saving my hard copies as I post them (normally I recycle the whole post) and when I find the time I think I will transcribe the series for posting on the discussion thread. Like I did with Baldwin's series on Pearl Harbor.
I thought mostly the same when reading Baldwin today. Spot on about maritime commerce. The only thing he didn’t predict was that post-war American naval hegemony and those huge container ships and tankers would make it cheaper to make and ship items overseas than it does to make things locally.
Baldwin hedged his bets on the aircraft carrier, and wasn’t ready to completely abandon the battleship yet. But I’ll bet that he’ll come around before the year is out.