Posted on 10/08/2011 3:10:17 PM PDT by GATOR NAVY
Most of every tax dollar is wasted. Defense is the one area where we get anything of real value: (not enough) pay for patriots and some cool toys for them to defend our nation with.
“..........like a proposal to sell a 25 year old Nimitz class to the highest bidder in the future (and all know who that would be).”
Lights are on BIGLOOK, and somebody is home. Precisely what the Lefties would do given half a chance.
Good thinkin’.
NOT SO! We have these ...
Gee, I feel sooooo much better now.
It would than this as it make far more sense to early decom CVN-65 as at the end of it’s service life. Decomming a mid life carrier does not make sense unless the hull had major damage.. This is CV-66 AMERICA all over again. Decommed at mid life for absolutely no good reason.
I agree, and that's why I thought the lack of mention as to a replacement was troubling. You can bet your bottom dollar the Chicoms would cook up all sorts of mischief to take advantage of that.
To fund “special education”, something the feds shouldn’t even be involved in. Crazy,
Unless you have a secondary purpose of getting rid of the forward-deployed carrier. Enterprise will be gone in a few years anyway when the Ford is commissioned. That's an even trade. The want to actually reduce the number of CVNs in commission.
I’m harboring serious doubts that it would save anything at all. They didn’t decommission the Enterprise because it would’ve COST more than the purchase price of the ship. That was 1991, things haven’t gotten cheaper since then.
I’m not going to praise this, but raise this observation: an aircraft carrier is a big target at sea.
Maybe in this age of satellites and cruise missiles, we should be revamping our naval order of battle.
We need to conceptualize what the next world war will look like. Do we need aircraft carriers? Perhaps we need more nuclear submarines with quieter propulsion systems? Perhaps a revolutionary vessel which can travel both on the surface and submerged?
I’m only throwing ideas out there; not necessarily agreeing with scrapping a carrier which could have another 25 good years of useful life ahead in our navy.
Note: I’m a Navy vet.
I think you’re quite right.
Thanks. Any ideas you’d like to toss out there?
Now’s the time to get wild and crazy!
Talk is talk. This is the kind of crap that Jimmy Carter did when he was president. He vetoed the entire military budget submission because he insisted that the Carl Vinson (CVN-70) not be built. Govt. libs talk dollar savings and deficit reduction when it’s actually just another way to stick it to the military.
The saving of $7 billion while spending a trillion his first month in office is just another example of what a joke Hussein is, and why this clown is a one-termer. This moron will be out of office before this garbage comes close to being a reality. And how much sense does it make to keep ancient ships that have become a maintenance nightmare while shelving a ship that was commissioned less than 20 years ago (the 25 years mentioned in the article must be from when the keel was first laid)? This is complete idiocy.
Actually...I just had a wild idea....
And I was a submariner....
Submarine vertically launched fighter drones....
(should I really have said that publicly?????)
Good idea! Sounds doable, too.
The neat thing about drones is they’re dispensable. You won’t be having them return. So, the inexpensive parts can be kept aboard, drones assembled as needed then launched. Who needs a carrier!
Submarine could launch them, and once they become ‘active’ they could revert to remote control through satellite communication.
But I’m pretty sure they would have to be pre-assembled and loaded ready to go on the boat pierside.
Totally pre-assembled would take up too much room. It wouldn’t be feasible to have something with wings sticking out on board a sub. Retracted wings that pop-out upon launch...now that would work. It won’t need landing gear because it isn’t going to land anywhere.
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