Aircraft Carriers

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Johnny - I don't think militaries should "justify the effort".

The military responds to civilian tasking.

So, tell me what you think the military should be able to do, and I'll give you a cost. It won't be cheap. But it will be derived from the civilian tasking. That's the purpose of defense white papers and national strategies. Most folks have never read them but that's where the spending programs derive their justification: national objectives and priorities.

Canada withdrew from having carriers in the 1960s because of the the cost. Right after they killed the Avro Arrow. The civilian government didn't want to spend the money, and so, accepted the reduction in capability and world influence.

The U.K. decided a decade ago that carriers were worth the cost to restore their influence and give them operational flexibility. That decision was conceived by liberals, supported by conservatives, and has been through several governments since, but is still on track because it was directed by civilian leadership.

Germany doesn't have much of a surface navy, but their stated strategy is to be able to completely control the Baltic. They build the best submarines in the world for that mission, and that capability suits their strategy perfectly. They spend very little on defense, and the german people are OK with being unable to project power.

Strategy drives military capability requirements. That strategy comes from civilians leadership, and should reflect the will of the people.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/sy...ew_web_only.pdf
 
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Originally Posted By: Kawiguy454
Peace thru strength.


The standard phrase would be Peace through superior firepower.
 
Originally Posted By: Bandito440

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.

ISIS is not NK. Thanks for making my point. By your message we can't attack NK..with anything...it would see that you don't believe in any weapon period.
How would you attack NK? How would you defend against NK...crickets....
 
Originally Posted By: brave sir robin
The Navy allows the US military project force anywhere at almost any time.

We can't even project force along our southern boarder...and we can't put our carriers there.
 
Originally Posted By: Al
Originally Posted By: Bandito440

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.

ISIS is not NK. Thanks for making my point. By your message we can't attack NK..with anything...it would see that you don't believe in any weapon period.
How would you attack NK? How would you defend against NK...crickets....


Blanket every square inch of the country with nerve gas, while obliterating every large city and troop concentration with nuclear weapons.
 
Originally Posted By: Jarlaxle
Blanket every square inch of the country with nerve gas, while obliterating every large city and troop concentration with nuclear weapons.

That strategy would have saved 50,000 of our men in Nam. Those men were sacrificed like sheep going to slaughter bc we were afraid of Red China. We were really not trying very hard to win. Just like we didn't try to win in the Korean war where we lost about the same number. We seem to have a problem fighting to win. We don't seem to want to use our toys.
frown.gif


That strategy explains aircraft carriers..they look good but they will never be used to destroy an enemy..because we don't believe in that concept (destroying our enemy).
 
Originally Posted By: Al
Originally Posted By: Bandito440

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.

ISIS is not NK. Thanks for making my point. By your message we can't attack NK..with anything...it would see that you don't believe in any weapon period.
How would you attack NK? How would you defend against NK...crickets....

Your reply is filled with logical fallacies, and I don't have the time to address them all. I'm not sure what you mean when you think I "don't believe" in weapons.

We can attack the DPRK, but anything short of a genocide like Jaraxle suggests will leave artillery positions intact. The North Koreans have spent the past 60 years digging in. Any attack would result in return fire, and the real possibility of bringing the Chinese into the conflict. There's another billion people, and they have a very strong military presence in the area.

I wouldn't attack the DPRK, for the aforementioned reasons. Just in the Seoul metropolitan area area, there are 24 million people. An attack on the north would be subjecting them to a conventional and rocket artillery NBC counterattack. We don't have the capability to defend an urban area from massed artillery fire. It's not a matter of what I would do; there's no possibility here that won't result in millions of dealths.
 
I will say that military conflicts should not be done unless there is a profit to be obtained. War with out profit is foolish.
 
Originally Posted By: Bandito440

Your reply is filled with logical fallacies, and I don't have the time to address them all. I'm not sure what you mean when you think I "don't believe" in weapons.

We can attack the DPRK, but anything short of a genocide like Jaraxle suggests will leave artillery positions intact. The North Koreans have spent the past 60 years digging in. Any attack would result in return fire, and the real possibility of bringing the Chinese into the conflict. There's another billion people, and they have a very strong military presence in the area.

I wouldn't attack the DPRK, for the aforementioned reasons. Just in the Seoul metropolitan area area, there are 24 million people. An attack on the north would be subjecting them to a conventional and rocket artillery NBC counterattack. We don't have the capability to defend an urban area from massed artillery fire. It's not a matter of what I would do; there's no possibility here that won't result in millions of dealths.


Your implication that NK is un-attackable says that Aircraft carriers and apparently our other weapons are not able to confront a 2nd rate power or any other bc of the Russian or chinese threat. Same ilogic used to butcher 100,00 of our soldiers.

So lets just rely on our ICBM's as a doomsday weapon. Cheaper than parading a bunch of paper tigers out there that we won't use.

And by not attacking you are content to allow the little pervert perfect his nukes and just hope that somehow they won't be able to threaten us. He is smarter than you give him credit for. In fact he is smarter than folks like...never mind.

Why then defend SK with our soldiers? If NK attacks millions willbe killed (including our soldiers)..according to you.
 
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West Pakistan Liberation of 1975. By the time US carrier fleet arrived "to project force", the war was over and the new nation, Bangala Desh was already born :)
 
You're putting words into my mouth to weaken my argument. Straw man.

I'm not implying that the DPRK can't be attacked. Any nation can be attacked, as long as you're willing to accept the costs. Tens of millions of lives? Conflict with China? I am pointing out the costs of such a decision. We'd be using mostly land-based aircraft in that situation anyhow, so the relevance to aircraft carriers is slim.

I am not content to let the DPRK continue on the path to weaponizing nuclear weapons. I never made that claim, and you're again making assumptions about my views in order to weaken the argument.

I'd suggest you find some educated military officers to speak with, as your arguments are not evidence-based. If you want the United States to continue projecting power around the world, aircraft carriers are a necessity. If isolationism is your policy preference, then we can mothball them and withdraw from the world stage. Astro has done a fine job explaining that.
 
Originally Posted By: CT8
I will say that military conflicts should not be done unless there is a profit to be obtained. War with out profit is foolish.


Spot on.
 
Originally Posted By: Vikas
West Pakistan Liberation of 1975. By the time US carrier fleet arrived "to project force", the war was over and the new nation, Bangala Desh was already born :)


The West Pakistan liberation was in 1971 and the conflict started in March of that year. We didn't send anything for several months (we were a bit busy in another part of the world at that time). Nixon sent the Enterprise in December and the Indians viewed that (probably correctly) as a nuclear threat.

So, your argument falls apart under examination of the facts. The Enterprise could have been on the scene, with weapons, fuel, and spare parts in a week. But we chose not to send it until several months later.

If you're going to say that we had alternative response options, please consider: basing rights, time to get all of the personnel and equipment there, and arrive with sufficient ordnance and spare parts. It took months before the USAF was ready to fight in Desert Storm.

Months.
 
Originally Posted By: 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.


Canada does not need any because and this is going to sound arrogant you don't need one. You neighbor to the south who has a bunch won't let anything happen to you. When I was in he Navy I rode on your only operational submarine at the time.
 
Originally Posted By: Mr Nice
Not to change the subject....

Did anybody watch 60 Minutes this past Sunday about segment on nuclear subs and B-52s ?

Yes, it was interesting. I served on two different SSBN's SSBN 727 USS Michigan and SSBN 732 USS Alaska.
 
Originally Posted By: turtlevette
Poison or biological warfare would be so much more effective. Or nuclear. I don't know why there are so many pesky rules. When I took my Air Force physical the flight surgeon asked if I would bomb hospitals and such if ordered. The answer is yes. You do anything you're told and don't ask any questions

Article 92 of the UCMJ requires you to obey lawful orders. Gassing a civilian population because IS terrorists are operating in their city is not that. The days of strategic bombing for civilian casualties are over by many decades. Genocide and crimes against humanity aside, we're better than that. Intentionally slaughtering civilizians en masse will further embolden extremists around the world.

If you're not familiar, you should read about Adolf Eichmann and his trial. Just following orders, indeed.
 
Originally Posted By: Astro14
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.


Really?

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Originally Posted By: turtlevette


That's because we're dropping fire crackers. Poison or biological warfare would be so much more effective. Or nuclear. I don't know why there are so many pesky rules. When I took my Air Force physical the flight surgeon asked if I would bomb hospitals and such if ordered. The answer is yes. You do anything you're told and don't ask any questions

More effort needs to be put into sabotaging enemies. Make their nukes detonate on the pad. They'll just look like idiots that don't know what they're doing.
Or you can spend millions of times more to have all this hardware we never use.

You are so spot on. We are a generation behind on asymmetric warfare.
Today they ask you whether you can sit around the bonfire singing kumbaya. We need mega special forces and spooks.


Originally Posted By: Bandito440

I'd suggest you find some educated military officers to speak with, as your arguments are not evidence-based.

Yea..those would be the same officers who routinely get drummed out for sleeping on the job, incompetancy, cheating on examinations, and care more about chasing bimbos than using their brain to understand 21st century warefare.
 
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