Posted on 05/28/2015 6:52:21 AM PDT by C19fan
“History,” it has been written, “does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.” Today it’s rhyming with Gen. Billy Mitchell. In the 1920s, Mitchell challenged conventional thinking by advocating air power at sea in the face of a naval establishment dominated by battleship proponents.
The hubris of the “battleship Navy” was such that just nine days before Pearl Harbor, the official program for the 1941 Army-Navy game displayed a full page photograph of the battleship USS Arizona with language virtually extolling its invincibility.
Of course, the reason that no one had yet sunk a battleship from the air — in combat — was that no one had yet tried.
(Excerpt) Read more at medium.com ...
An anti-ship version of the Tomahawk seems likely to be deployed, but against first rank combatants, it would probably be vulnerable to defensive measures. Hyper-velocity, even if only in the terminal phase, will soon be routine in anti-ship missiles, making the Tomahawk obsolescent despite its virtues and accomplishments.
I was thinking more about sinking every last Chinese container ship and oil tanker.
Meaning what, exactly?
What is the path to victory after my hypothetical? War Plan Orange was in existence (more or less) for 20 years prior to 1941, and it was followed (more or less).
My daughter graduates in two weeks.
If you really want to despair, get involved with the schools.
No. We won't deploy carriers within enemy assets that could take them out of the fight. At the same time, carriers are useless outside the effective range of their fighter/attack squadrons.
As the article mentions, land-based anti-ship weapons are increasing in effectiveness, concealment and numbers, pushing our carriers farther out to sea. Payload on an F/A-18 is a zero-sum game. The more fuel it needs to carry, the less ordnance it can carry.
As the article also points out. These land-based weapons are proliferating. How long before Iran (or ISIS) gets ahold of them?
2,700 lb shell over 20 miles. Dad was a (Iowa class) battleship officer.
Sorry, couldn't help it.
Let’s see
No planes with guns (won’t need them, the next war will be fought with nuclear submarines).
Obsolete close air support aircraft (won’t need them, the next war will be fought with nuclear submarines).
Inadequate means to move cargo and supplies (won’t need them, the next war will be fought with nuclear submarines). See - Martin Seamaster cancelled by who?
If somebody could guarantee the next war fought would be nuclear, his ideas would have been fine. Unfortunately, all the wars fought since then have been non-nuclear and conventional.
“classic battle of Guns versus Butter that all Great Powers in decline have faced”
A stark factor here is that our huge military strength makes us desirable as an investment safe haven: thus reducing our borrowing costs- the money we borrow for the butter. There are many other economic benefits of a dominant military we will lose, which will also raise the cost of ‘butter’.
I’m sure this spiral has been discussed of previous great powers’ decline.
Cutting guns is also cutting butter in a case of debtedness such as ours.
It’s easy to become too focused on what the enemy can do to you.
He has to also consider what you can do to him.
And this isn’t softball. War is all about death and destruction. Yep, he might be able to sink an aircraft carrier. It might cost him all his industry and transportation infrastructure to do it.
In the Falklands War in 1982 the British lost the HSM Sheffield destroyer to an Exocet missile fired from an airplane 20 to 30 miles away. The missile’s warhead didn’t even explode but the destroyer eventually sank.
This was about 23 years ago. Since then much development in missile technology has occurred. A modern destroyer costs well over 10 billion dollars to build while a modern cruise missile costs about 500 thousand dollars. Unless my math is wrong, that means a country could build around twenty thousand cruise missiles for the cost of one destroyer. Today, missiles can be launched from land, aircraft, small ships, submarines, underwater platform, and even relatively small fishing boats. For the cost of one destroyer and enemy could fire twenty missiles at each of the twenty-or-so escort ships shown in the photograph above and still have over ten thousands missiles to sink the carrier. Time changes things.
The correct term is "loons."
In wars to come these flowing airfields may be an asset or targets. In the wars to come maybe Battleships might even be useful (with rail guns?) Maybe smaller Drone Carriers, or carriers that can submerge under the sea, or monitors? Hard to say—we haven’t had a true Naval War in a long time. Last big naval battle, Leyte Gulf, was in 1944. Anything might happen. A will be about who has the will to fight, take the chance and win on the TV screen and monitors of the people watching. Obama hasn’t the will—and other nations know this.
How do you define victory? This is what MAD is all about. Anyone who vaporizes five American carriers (assuming they would be together, which is never the case) will suffer massive retaliation, including nuclear weapons. When you cross that line, the dogs of war are set loose and no one is immune from massive destruction.
We have war gamed all kinds of scenarios. War Plan Orange was before the nuclear age and proliferation.
We can extend the range our aircraft thru in-flight refueling. With certain exceptions, the range of our fighter/attack aircraft is greater than the range of the enemy's weapons.
As the article also points out. These land-based weapons are proliferating. How long before Iran (or ISIS) gets ahold of them?
We will adjust to the enemy's capabilities. There are ways to limit these land based systems thru electronic interference, drones, cruise missiles, etc. And we are now using laser weapons for anti-missile defense. The enemy has to know exactly where our forces are in order to attack them. They are on the move at all times. On the other hand, our satellite and other technology can locate the enemy with great precision.
That is an excellent question, glad you asked.
Victory, riffing on Angelo Codevilla, means having peace as defined by us, it means a state wherein we do not have to worry about our enemy, while he still has to worry about us. It means that American citizens may freely move about the country, including on aircraft, without being subjected to searches and can enter government buildings, above all the Capitol, without being subjected to security measures.
A less verbose answer is that victory is what we have not had since September 2, 1945, what we no longer plan for or try to achieve, and that which our elites have been taught to deny or to disparage.
Buy the book. You'll be glad you did.
It is much more difficult politically to sell reductions in the welfare state. Almost half of the population of the country receives a government check or benefit. 70 million on Medicaid, 53 million on SS and Medicare, 47 million on food stamps, etc.
Our military has been in decline for some time. We couldn't do the Gulf War today. We used to structure our forces on the so-called Two War criteria. That has been reduced significantly. The military will do what the civilian leadership wants.
And they will be committing national suicide in the process. How much does that cost them?
Or the navy has figured that once they get the expensive carriers built they can talk congress into paying for the support fleet down the road.
“If somebody could guarantee the next war fought would be nuclear, his ideas would have been fine”
There is a difference between choice of propulsion (nuclear vs conventional) and weaponry or force structure. Adm. Rickover was in charge of the Navy’s nuclear propulsion program, not the decisions about how many carriers and submarines (if any) were to be built, or whether they should be armed with nuclear weapons.
It was a sea of third worldism..."
Your post deserves thread unto its own.
You hit upon one of the greatest tragedies of this century: The willful destruction of our great nation via mass immigration of Low IQ, uneducated, nonwestern people who populate the underclass in their own countries.
They hate us for the color of our skin, just like they've been told to. They have been weaponized.
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