Aircraft Carriers

[Al]

Should be on their way to join the antiquated Battleship package of WWII.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/f57e3670-a5a4-337d-bdc2-82f730729cbb/ss_us-aircraft-carriers-are.html

The cost to defend and maintain these white elephants is becoming prohibitive. The over whelming cost in training pilots and maintaining aircraft in general is part of the problem....just as the cost of foot soldiers, wit disproportionate numbers of battle fatigue in even non-combat situations is also a problem.

The cost in defending these targets is a major expense.

Too bad military brass and the "system" can't wake up to the problems. Its not rocket science to see that we could replace these things with tomahawk and cruise missiles. We really don't need to provide air superiority immediately. A couple hundred cruise missiles will quickly destroy any country except Russia and China. The countries that we need to protect (SK?) can utilise anti-aircraft capabilities and/or supply their own air superiority planes.

I am in favor of replacing them with more Virginia class fast attacks and future conversions that carry both vertical and horizontal tomahawks.at 20% of the cost. Then again this makes too much sense. The Pentagon is not known for thinking outside the box to save $$$$

 

[Bandito440]

Tomahawk missiles cost $1.5M each. We've dropped 50,000 pieces of ordinance just on ISIS. That would be $75,000,000,000 worth of Tomahawks, which is more than the entire Defense Dept. budget. An argument could be made for drones replacing some of the ground-attack missions of aircraft carriers, but not air superiority or close air support roles.

Aircraft carriers are an important tool if we're going to continue maintaining air superiority in combat zones, and manned aircraft can drop ordinance that's cheaper by an order of magnitude. Cruise missiles and drones can't offer CAS to troops or effectively engage aircraft.

If we're going to continue projecting power outside of North America, they're still necessary.

I'm looking forward to Astro's take on this.

 

[Alfred_B]

How else are the admirals going to compensate for the size of their pipi?

 

[andrewg]

Aircraft carriers are an essential part of our defense/offense strategies...and also as a visible deterrent and a projection of actual power. Why do you think China and Russia are trying to build them up to our standards right now?

 

[Astro14]

A specious argument in so very many ways. Read the same position 30 years ago and it didn't make sense then, either.

Look, 90% of the world's population lives within 300 miles of a coast line. If you want to be able to project power, you need to be able to put an airbase near a place of conflict. For the majority of the world's conflicts, now, and in the future, we can put an aircraft carrier near enough to fly airplanes into that conflict.

A cruise missile is great...unless you're providing close air support to troops on the ground, or you need to be able to identify the target. Remember the "baby milk factory" cruise missile attacks into Somalia decades ago, ordered by President Clinton? Utterly ineffective. They hit empty buildings, we looked weak, and the press, including Bill Maher, vilified the President for firing missiles into the desert.

So, no, cruise missiles cannot replace airplanes. They can blow things up, but not every mission requires blowing things up. Cruise missiles are part of the range of options in a strike or in conflict, and we would be foolish to reduce the range of options. Further, cruise missiles are a "fire and forget" only weapon. Airplanes land, are re-armed and refueled to launch again.

Airplanes can patrol the sky over an area of conflict and respond to changing events on a battlefield. They can target other aircraft or positions and facilities on the ground in real time, something cruise missiles cannot do.

Those airplanes have to come from a US base...which may, or may not, exist near the potential conflict. The USAF likes to say that "while 70% of the Earth is covered by water, 100% of it is covered by air" which is true, but only 10-15% of that air is in the range of a US fighter base. The USAF can generate more fighter sorties than an aircraft carrier for the same amount of budget dollars, that's true...but they may not be in a position, geographically, or politically, to be able to fly at all.

Enter the aircraft carrier, which can be positioned in range of nearly every potential conflict in the world. It is not subject to treaty negotiations, which kept the USAF from providing striking power in a variety of conflicts. When the USAF uses a base in a foreign country, that nation gets to "veto" the use of its bases for offensive operations. This has happened in the Middle East often, and recently. It precludes the USAF aircraft as a response option in multiple contingency operations. A carrier in international waters has no such restrictions.

Finally, not one nation has ever responded diplomatically to the presence of US missiles in their silos in North Dakota, or the presence of US bombers in their climate controlled hangars in Missouri. Not once have those capabilities been leveraged to apply diplomatic pressure to hostile nations.

But an aircraft carrier within the range of their coastline, in international waters, has been used time, and time again with very effective results. The CVN, with 90+ warplanes, doesn't have to "go kinetic" to accomplish the mission: a change in behavior in response to military presence.

Presence matters. Capability matters.

Too bad the ignorant public, supported by equally ignorant journalists, and pandering politicians, cannot see the value of being able to win wars and influence global politics without having to fire a shot, of being able to win wars by putting airplanes over 90% of the world's population without needing the bases and permission of foreign nations.

As the Chinese seek a larger role on the world stage, they are building...

Aircraft carriers.

 

[supton]

Pretty sure you can't just "wake up" an aircraft carrier either. Mothball it, and it's probably like a month to get seaworthy--and who knows when the next battle will be.

Even if it doesn't take a month to get the boilers lit up (or whatever the nuclear version may be), I don't know how long it would take the crew to be up to speed. I know it's not 1940 anymore, but I do recall a very length ramp up to full fighting power.

 

[Al]

Originally Posted By: Bandito440
Tomahawk missiles cost $1.5M each. We've dropped 50,000 pieces of ordinance just on ISIS. That would be $75,000,000,000 worth of Tomahawks, which is more than the entire Defense Dept. budget.

We haven't used cruise missiles there, I don't believe. But even if we did..its not a country..you can't waste a cruise missile on a donkey.

But take a country like NK..one cruise would take out out this:

Use your imagination. A few hundred missiles turns NK into a stone age camp without nukes

 

[Jetronic]

Or it turns South Korea into a post apocalyptic radioactive wasteland...

 

[Bandito440]

Originally Posted By: Al
Originally Posted By: Bandito440
Tomahawk missiles cost $1.5M each. We've dropped 50,000 pieces of ordinance just on ISIS. That would be $75,000,000,000 worth of Tomahawks, which is more than the entire Defense Dept. budget.

We haven't used cruise missiles there, I don't believe. But even if we did..its not a country..you can't waste a cruise missile on a donkey.

But take a country like NK..one cruise would take out out this:
Use your imagination. A few hundred missiles turns NK into a stone age camp without nukes

That's not how it works.

My point about ISIS was that many of our sorties were launched from aircraft carriers. Without that air power, we would have no CAS capability. If you don't think we should engage the IS, that's fine. We need air power if we're going to do so.

Fire cruise missiles into the DPRK, and they respond with all manner of chemical, biological, and radiological weapons against South Korea and Japan. Their long game may be lacking, but they're perfectly capable of raining terror on the ten million people in Seoul. They have a massive hoard of chemical weapons and artillery that's dug-in and camouflaged; not something we can neutralize by any means. That's 10,000 artillery pieces; 1,000 of which probably have the capability to hit Seoul, and the 30,000 American troops stationed in the country.

A cruise missile strike against the DPRK would result in an immediate rain of artillery fire on Seoul, to include NBC weapons.

 

[brave sir robin]

Originally Posted By: Jetronic
Or it turns South Korea into a post apocalyptic radioactive wasteland...


I have been training for this for years.

 

[69GTX]

Originally Posted By: Bandito440
Tomahawk missiles cost $1.5M each. We've dropped 50,000 pieces of ordinance just on ISIS. That would be $75,000,000,000 worth of Tomahawks, which is more than the entire Defense Dept. budget....


The actual US defense budget in 2013 was $610 BILL. I doubt it's dropped that much.

 

[Bandito440]

Originally Posted By: 69GTX
Originally Posted By: Bandito440
Tomahawk missiles cost $1.5M each. We've dropped 50,000 pieces of ordinance just on ISIS. That would be $75,000,000,000 worth of Tomahawks, which is more than the entire Defense Dept. budget....
The actual US defense budget in 2013 was $610 BILL. I doubt it's dropped that much.

You're right. I was trying to go off memory. Apologies.

 

[Vikas]

what's $500Billion dollars among friends? it is chump change!

 

[tenderloin]

The list of countries where carriers cannot be used for fear of being sunk at this moment is just a handful. Whether that significantly changes short term remains to be seen. Projection of almost instant non nuke fire power (..I know they do carry nukes as well) is important...which as mentioned above China is building them as fast as they can.

Bottom line. Sink a US carrier and everything changes quickly and not for the good...which is why I doubt that will happen short of a major war.

 

[Kawiguy454]

I see the different systems all provide some overlap and that's a good thing. A ship is protected by layers of overlapping systems. New layers are on their way too like particle/laser and rail gun. Imagine perimeter stations able to fire pulses multiple times a second that can burn a hole in the front of a ballistic warhead. Peace thru strength.

I'm more worried about the massive stealthy human approach the leaders seem eager to rush us into.

 

[Astro14]

Originally Posted By: supton
Pretty sure you can't just "wake up" an aircraft carrier either. Mothball it, and it's probably like a month to get seaworthy--and who knows when the next battle will be.

Even if it doesn't take a month to get the boilers lit up (or whatever the nuclear version may be), I don't know how long it would take the crew to be up to speed. I know it's not 1940 anymore, but I do recall a very length ramp up to full fighting power.


Since overhauls take anywhere from one to three years, mothballing doesn't really allow something as complex as a carrier to be put away and used in anything less than a major conflict. That's only the ship, however, and you would have to retrain the pilots that you laid off, as well as recall the rest of the battle group. Minimum would be a year, likely more than that.

Yet the carrier excels in every area of conflict, across the range of military operations, and, as I already argued, is most valuable in low intensity, short duration, or operations short of actual, kinetic, conflict, so "mothballing" simply doesn't make any sense.

You lose most of the value of a carrier by depriving the Commander in Chief of a carrier's singular strength:
response time.

 

[Astro14]

Originally Posted By: Vikas
what's $500Billion dollars among friends? it is chump change!


It is, to be very honest, 16% of our federal budget.

Since we spend 84 cents of every single federal dollar on something else, the military budget begins to look a lot like chump change....

In our history as a nation, we have never spent this little, as a percentage of either budget, or GDP, on defense. Defense spending is at its lowest point in our history...this is a fact, not an invitation for political argument. Let's stay within forum rules.

 

[Johnny2Bad]

Although I do not agree that an Aircraft Carrier-based asset is currently obsolescent, I don't see any problem with forcing the Military to justify the effort. It's the kind of exercise more militaries should be doing and which few do ... it's not just a cute phrase when it's said that every army in the world is built to fight the last war, not the next. But I think there are ample scenarios where only a Carrier Fleet can accomplish the necessary result.

It just would be good to make the Generals say what those are out loud, so that everybody is committing men and material for the right reasons, and following the appropriate tactics to deal with the threats of tomorrow.

The Carrier Task Force is a very expensive operation ... it consists of almost two dozen warships, and is in somewhat constant threat from submarines, mostly. So it's not just two dozen aircraft and crew and the ship to move them around involved, and it absolutely requires extreme vigilance as far as keeping up with potential enemies' capabilities on an ongoing basis goes. Still, that is hardly a useless practice for a Navy, or any Military for that matter, to engage in.

China and India are expanding their Carrier assets as we speak, Russia is no longer on the verge of bankruptcy and can afford to devote money to it's military once more (personnel was never a problem; they still have mandatory conscription and a population that supports huge numbers of men in uniform). I only say these things because they are an example of how things have changed even if you are only looking at the last decade vs now.

Mothballing a carrier and making it seaworthy again takes far longer than a month. I would be amazed if you could de-commission a nuclear powered warship in six months, and surely it would take longer going the other way.

And if mothballing a carrier also means mothballing the remainder of the Task Force, there's another 20-some warships that need a dry dock just as much.

No nation, not even the US, has drydocks coming out of the woodwork, so even if you could, by some miracle, get a mothballed ship seaworthy in a month, it still would take longer to get the rest of the Task Force up, and only a fool would send out a Carrier without it's generous protection and logistics package.

Warships are fast, but they're not *that* fast. Imagine driving, at 40 mph, from New York to California, via Panama. So you need at a minimum one Task Force per coast.

Many nations have decided against having a Carrier-based asset, precisely due to the amount of effort it takes to support one. But should America take the same approach, you can be sure other navies would step up their own Carrier programs, because as effective as they are against similar assets, they are vastly more effective if the enemy has no counterpart.

 

[zzyzzx]

Originally Posted By: Al
A few hundred missiles turns NK into a stone age camp without nukes


I'm not convinced that in North Korea that they are really living in conditions that are that much better than stone age right now.

 

[brave sir robin]

The US Navy the single biggest reason for our military and political dominance in the world. It's what makes the Army and airforce viable threats in the first place. The Navy allows the US military project force anywhere at almost any time. Its something no other country can remotely match. It gives the US the ability to act on its own interests without much or any help from other countries. We do not depend on other nations for defense and that gives us leverage.