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30-Year Navy Plan Cuts Subs, Carriers
Newport News Daily Press ^ | 3/24/2005 | David Lerman

Posted on 03/24/2005 9:22:21 AM PST by Paul Ross

The new shipbuilding strategy could spell trouble for Northrop Grumman Newport News.

WASHINGTON -- The Navy is considering shrinking its fleet of aircraft carriers to as few as 10 ships within the next 30 years, a move that would produce the smallest carrier fleet in at least a half-century.

(Excerpt) Read more at dailypress.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Foreign Affairs; Government; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; US: Virginia
KEYWORDS: carriers; cuts; defensespending; navy; newportnews; northropgrumman; onewordchina; submarines
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To: Paul Ross
Precision striking ability of carriers - already four times more advanced than a decade ago - will double again in the next four to five years, meaning it takes fewer carriers to do what 12 did years ago,

Wow is that a straw-man. At best, that has to do with massing carriers in one place, not being able to be deployed world-wide on a constant basis. Below a certain level, one carrier with a major mechanical problem or an accident can leave a big hole in capabilites...much les if it were actually attacked.

41 posted on 03/24/2005 11:49:01 AM PST by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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To: Paul Ross
What is unsettling is having so much critical infostructure stuffed into 1 regional local.
IE..Hampton Roads naval Base,Newport,James Annex,Oceana Naval Air Station.

Its a Pearl Harbor invite.

A Chinese container ship could be fitted out with Yakhont or other module bank launch cruise missiles.
You could put 50 -100 and have them look like normal shipping containers.
Plodding allong up the coast on a scheduled commerce run to New York.

In minutes 50-100 nuclear and TNT/Thermitic charge warheads skim or arc in on Norfolk.

Its easy to say it would never happen.

Yet such coup's have occured in war.
Said container ship on a certain suicide mission could also seed the ocean with mines and the Norfolk base entrance.
Its left to the imagination of the attacker.

42 posted on 03/24/2005 11:49:35 AM PST by Light Speed
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To: NoClones
Yeah, an early version of it lost the Light Weight Fighter competition in the Air Force to the F-16 (It was known as the YF-17 at that time). It was modernized and modified for Navy use as the F/A-18 (the Navy liked the beefier structure and two engines compared to the F-16).

The F/A-18 does it's job well as a light fighter/attack plane, and replaced the F-4 in the Navy and Marine Corps as such. But its was never, ever intended to replace the F-14 in the fleet defense role...it is out of it's league in that role!

43 posted on 03/24/2005 11:55:56 AM PST by Sting 11
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To: Sting 11
But its was never, ever intended to replace the F-14 in the fleet defense role...it is out of it's league in that role!

Indeed, we need to call Dick Cheney on the carpet for his allowing the F-14 titanium wing-box tooling to be destroyed back in '91 when he was SecDef.

We should have fired up production of updated versions of the F-14. How long can we keep the old war-horses flying?

44 posted on 03/24/2005 12:09:19 PM PST by Paul Ross ("Nothing that is morally wrong can be politically right." -William Gladstone)
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To: PAR35
And a properly designed 40,000 ton displacement should be able to handle conventional aircraft as well as F-35s.

Doubtful. You are basically advocating a return to the Essex/Intrepid class displacements. These carriers were terrible at handling jet aircraft during the Korean/Vietnam Wars even after the angled flight decks & waist cats were added. Those ships had narrow flight decks and rolled way too much to maintain flight ops in certain sea conditions.

This is why the Brits are fighting attempts to reduce the displacement of their proposed CV's. The cost-cutters want to get below the magic 50,000-ton displacement that the MoD considers to be the absolute minimum.

Plus you need LOTS of steam from your power plant to power you catapults (directly as steam, or indirectly as electical power). One thing a large Nuke carrier has lots of is STEAM. The remaining oil-fired carriers (Kitty Hawk & Kennedy) can not maintain anything like the sortie rate of the Nimitz-class (especially the later variants).

45 posted on 03/24/2005 12:11:48 PM PST by Tallguy
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To: PAR35
I'd be willing to trade a couple of CVs and a CVN for a larger fleet of smaller carriers to provide more flexibility in deployement. Give up the 3 older 80,000 - 90,000 ton ships with 80-90 aircraft each for 8 to 10 40,000 - 45,000 ton ships with 35-40 aircraft each.

Would that be the tradeoff? The planes-to-displacement seems to follow a pattern of (minimum size)+(displacement)^2. Halving the size gets around a quarter the aircraft, with many of those eaten up by CAP. Further, you are assuming that you can get 3 smaller ships through the budget for each carrier - that would be amazing.

46 posted on 03/24/2005 12:12:22 PM PST by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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To: PAR35

Well, at least it sounds like the HMN Admiralty and Parliament finally prevailed over some free trade orthodoxy...about time!


47 posted on 03/24/2005 12:12:35 PM PST by Paul Ross ("Nothing that is morally wrong can be politically right." -William Gladstone)
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To: PAR35
Although the Charles De Gaulle

Has the DeGaulle been shown to be a viable platform yet? If not, using it to compare to is a most questionable basis.

48 posted on 03/24/2005 12:15:21 PM PST by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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To: Paul Ross
Indeed, we need to call Dick Cheney on the carpet for his allowing the F-14 titanium wing-box tooling to be destroyed back in '91 when he was SecDef. We should have fired up production of updated versions of the F-14. How long can we keep the old war-horses flying?

Well, I gotta disagree there. What we need is a new design to operate in the fleet defense role. I think the design needs to have a higher speed (Mach 3+) than the F-14 and a 21st Century sophisticated search and track radar. Stealth is not necessary. It must be capable of carrying 6-8 extended range AMRAAM or new design long-range missiles with a 50+ nm range. That would be a helluva interceptor!

49 posted on 03/24/2005 12:19:43 PM PST by Sting 11
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To: lepton

And most of these baby CV's operate helicopters as primary AEW and ASW platforms. That has yet to work well in real life.


50 posted on 03/24/2005 12:19:53 PM PST by Tallguy
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To: PAR35
Under my proposal, you would still have 9 or so (probably 5 or so operational at any one time) of the big carriers when they were specifically needed.

How many auxillary carriers do we have? Are you really just proposing giving some of the Aux carriers increased Command and Control capability?

51 posted on 03/24/2005 12:21:33 PM PST by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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To: Sting 11
I think the design needs to have a higher speed (Mach 3+) than the F-14 and a 21st Century sophisticated search and track radar.

You're certainly not going to land that on a 40,000 ton carrier! (see thread) The F-14 has swing wings precisely because to solve the dilema of how to land a Mach 2+ Interceptor on a (super) carrier deck. Ever wonder why the F-15 doesn't have swing wings? The payoff isn't worth the weight penalty.

Give me the range/loiter capability and I'll have the follow-on to the F-14. I don't think we need the speed. There aren't that many Backfire bombers around anymore.

52 posted on 03/24/2005 12:25:55 PM PST by Tallguy
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To: lepton
Has the DeGaulle been shown to be a viable platform yet? If not, using it to compare to is a most questionable basis.

It's used for size comparisons only. How big a deck and how many conventional planes will 40,000 tons displacement get you. I'm certainly not suggesting that the US build anything based on that design.

The Wasp would be a better basis (and is about the same size) for the new class. It would need a full length hanger deck in place of the well deck, and some other modifications (more elevators would be nice), but at least it wouldn't leak radiation and have key parts fall off. The CdG does show that a ship this size can handle an angled deck and conventional aircraft.

53 posted on 03/24/2005 12:25:56 PM PST by PAR35
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To: Paul Ross

Was I dreaming last November, or did Kerry win.


54 posted on 03/24/2005 12:26:49 PM PST by JZelle
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To: PAR35

What I meant about the Charles DeGaull, is that I don't think that we've seen that it even could be a functional ship. It seems to me that it was flawed not only in execution, but in concept.


55 posted on 03/24/2005 12:30:25 PM PST by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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To: PAR35
The CdG does show that a ship this size can handle an angled deck and conventional aircraft.

Until recently the French were unable to operate the E2C Hawkeye of the CdG, and the carrier was predicated on having the Hawkeye as it's primary AEW platform. The deck is too short because the CdG can't make it's design speed. I understand that they've jury-rigged something, however.

56 posted on 03/24/2005 12:31:30 PM PST by Tallguy
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To: Tallguy
You're certainly not going to land that on a 40,000 ton carrier! (see thread) The F-14 has swing wings precisely because to solve the dilema of how to land a Mach 2+ Interceptor on a (super) carrier deck. Ever wonder why the F-15 doesn't have swing wings? The payoff isn't worth the weight penalty.

Give me the range/loiter capability and I'll have the follow-on to the F-14. I don't think we need the speed. There aren't that many Backfire bombers around anymore.

My main concern with speed is the ability to have a higher closing rate while intercepting cruise missiles. Now I also think it's probably a mistake to go to a smaller carrier design (maybe they could go with a combined force of a smaller number of CVs and then CVLs?), but I also believe one could design a fighter with a high top speed and excellent low speed characteristics. I don't claim to be an expert, though, so I really don't know.

57 posted on 03/24/2005 12:35:20 PM PST by Sting 11
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To: lepton
How many auxillary carriers do we have?

It depends on your definition. By the navy definition, none. If you count the new amphib. assault ships, 7, but because of the well deck, their air capabilities are very limited - a few Harriers and some copters. A light carrier would be about the size of the Wasp class, but would need signficant modifications to handle more and larger aircraft. (The deck area itself is adequate, but the hanger space is constrained, and there is limited elevator capacity. Launch/recovery options are also focused on VTOL operations.)

58 posted on 03/24/2005 12:36:41 PM PST by PAR35
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To: Sting 11
My main concern with speed is the ability to have a higher closing rate while intercepting cruise missiles. Now I also think it's probably a mistake to go to a smaller carrier design (maybe they could go with a combined force of a smaller number of CVs and then CVLs?), but I also believe one could design a fighter with a high top speed and excellent low speed characteristics. I don't claim to be an expert, though, so I really don't know.

I think the high-speed requirement (of the F-14) was to allow them to get to the launch point BEFORE the Backfires (also Mach 2+) fired. Failing that, you shoot at the cruise missile itself. This fleet defense task is currently being done by the Aegis/Standard missile. If you want another layer of defense that is affordable, give up the high-Mach capability and go with a conventional wing design.

59 posted on 03/24/2005 12:43:08 PM PST by Tallguy
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To: Arthalion

If you've spent time studying military history post World War I, you'd know that the Air Force has been claiming that Strategic airpower would render the Army obsolete since the 1920s. A half a dozen US conflicts later, us grunts are still waitning for that to happen.

While I don't doubt that the technology exists that can do all the magical things you say, there is not, nor will there be an adequate long term substitute for either boots on the ground or boats in the water when it comes to both sea lane control and power projection. All of the sexy toys cannot offer a continuous prescence, which is a form of deterrence by itself.

I spent a large part of my military life listening to some engineer tell me how some thing was going to cosmically whiz bang the enemy, only to take it out and find out that the power supply wouldn't work in the bush.


60 posted on 03/24/2005 1:03:09 PM PST by kas2591 (Life's harder when you're stupid.)
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