Mothball the USS Harry S. Truman? Proposal has many scratching their heads.

Virginian Pilot ^ | March 25 2019 | Hugh Lessig

[RitchieAprile]

Two years ago, President Trump made a dramatic entrance at Newport News Shipbuilding and promised to expand the aircraft carrier fleet. It was his biggest applause line. That promise appeared to bear fruit in January, when the shipyard signed a two-carrier contract with the Navy. It was the first bulk-buy of the nuclear-powered behemoths since the Reagan administration. Now, the Pentagon

[RitchieAprile]

[ClearCase_guy]

I wonder if we’ve decided that the enemy has ship-killing technology which makes modern aircraft carriers about as vulnerable as battleships in WWII?

I love battleships. I love aircraft carriers. But no weapon system lasts forever and if the costs outweigh the benefits, it might be time for these to fade away.

[blackdog]

Not everyone gets to know everything. Milutary strategy and long range planning is based on technology and your potential enemies strengths and weaknesses.

The military is technology. That technology has to not be public information. Not even Congress should be trusted with it.

[PeterPrinciple]

“It simply does not make economic sense.”

---

Probably.Decisions are tough sometimes. You see the right ones in the rear view mirror.

How does the song go?

You can’t always get
What you want
You can’t always get
What you want
No you can’t always get
What you want
But if you try sometimes
Well you might find
You get what you need

[Ouderkirk]

The obvious question not being asked...

Is a new Aircraft Carrier significantly better than an overhauled 25 year old one?

[PeterPrinciple]

when the shipyard signed a two-carrier contract with the Navy.

---

So, are there still two new carriers on the agenda?

[mewzilla]

If something breaks out on the world, there are far faster, far, far less expensive ways to project power than carriers.

[Lurker]

Carriers are the walking dead of the US Navy.

L

[Psalm 73]

Subtracting a carrier will add increased operating stress on the remaining ones, no?
Like aircraft, the fewer you have, the more missions they must run on life-limited airframes.

[Don Corleone]

We need a wall more than we need another floating runway.

[laplata]

Unfortunately you are right in most cases. And with crews of ~5,000 each. That’s a lot of people to lose.

[Lurker]

Next Generation carriers should have a crew of a couple of hundred humans and ten thousand drones.

L

[microgood]

I hope they don’t spend that 3.4 billion on another Zumwalt boondoggle. Sounds like that is the plan.

[reed13k]

Sounds to me as though they want to mothball an older ship in favor of leap frogging to a newer ship with more capabilities. Longer term investment with some short term savings and pain.

[VietVet876]

Nothing projects power like a mushroom cloud followed by a great smoking hole in the ground.

[ClearCase_guy]

I still like Rods From God. Orbital stations should be able to obliterate any target on earth in about 5 minutes.

That’s power projection.

No need to ever put boots on the ground.

[skimbell]

Is that the “version” that has catapults that don't work and guns that the ammunition is too expensive to buy?

[georgiarat]

The carriers are obsolete and almost impossible to protect with today’s growing tecnnological based weaponry.

This part of Virginia was once sold Conservative. Today it is slightly Democrat and becoming more Democrat each election cycle.

[crz]

I think it was the Swedes who proved how long a carrier would last in a war.

IMHO, they should be looking more to subs and advanced tech with them. Long range advanced aircraft also-although I believe that the Phoenix lights incident proved that the advanced aircraft are already here.