[higgmeister]

cva66snipe, should these be mentioned?

America-class amphibious assault ship - Aircraft carried:

AV-8B Harrier II
F-35B Lightning II
MV-22B Osprey
CH-53E Super Stallion or
CH-53K King Stallion
UH-1Y Venom
AH-1Z Viper
MH-60S Knighthawk

Wasp-class amphibious assault ship - Each ship is capable of hosting 1,894 personnel of the United States Marine Corps; almost the full strength of a Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU).

I doubt they have managed to keep these all in port at the same time too.

[Snickering Hound]

That would be the Makin Island, just one, at sea.

No idea if it has any Harriers deployed on it right now.

[cva66snipe]

If an enemy decided to do a hit they could wipe out half or more of our CVN fleet due to stupidity in the Pentagon. It's a loss at this point we can not afford and should not allow or worse create the circumstances for loss.

I'm all for amphibious assault ships. But if the Navy or rather civilian side of Navy is this stupid what will they allow happen to the amphibious assault ships as well?

Planning wise, things have been going down the tubes since Poppy Bush days as POTUS with each administration and session of Congress leaving things worse & worse.

We're taking stupid & unnecessary chances we can no longer afford to take. Our CVN's should not be transiting the ditch because we have such a low level of commissioned and ready ships. True the first post Six Day War carrier to transit the Suez happened under Reagan and it was CV-66 under Reagan's term in 1981. We also had more carriers and were maintaining a 2 carrier group 24/365 presence in the Med Sea. We may well be seeing a time we have to return to that posture there as well as handle the IO & PG.