[Evoncalabbalo]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
You missing my point, Lonestar.

While carriers were nice to have vs. the Soviet thread and in Desert Storm, those are past situations. I'm looking into the future. And while I'm sure we will need some carriers in the future, IMHO we won't need as many.

I haven crunched the numbers, but I'll be we could cut the number of our carriers by 2/3 and still whip the bejesus out of any other navy in the world. So, did you actually read my post?

(2) When and If the United States(and France, and the UK) need to exert influence on a country that either [A] is relatively isolated or [b.] the neighbors are *******s and won't let us fly out of their country, carriers come into their own. There is also [c] strategic flexability.

For (2a) for the first month or so of operations in Afghanistan, it was a Carrier/longrange bomber show. If, say, Indonesia were to fall apart it would be a Carrier show. When the Tsunami hit it was the 2 American carriers and one LHD, as well as the French Helo Carrier that provided most of the immediate relief. We even stayed on station because there were not any facilities on shore for sufficient stuff to be airlift in. This was repeated when Pakistan had that big earthquake.

For (2b) it's very obvious, one only has to look at the kick off of OIF(or Desert Storm, for that matter), where you had half a dozen American CVNs and 2 CVs providing a huge amount of aerial firepower...otherwise most would have to be flown in from Qatar, the States, of Diego Garcia. This is not including the RN CVL on station, or the half a dozen LHDs/LHAs.

For (2c), a Carrier provides us with great flexibility. It allows us to pretty much wipe the florr with any navy out there. If, for some reason, we can't fly into a country following certain flightpaths(say, Greece blocks us bombing Serbia) a carrier or two can mitigate that. This isn't long ago stuff. During the run up to OIF we had 3/4 of our Carriers in CENTCOM. Do you think they were there "just because"? How about the 4 Carriers (not including the LHDs, the French CVN, and the Italian and RN CVLs) at the start of OEF? This isn't out of date tactics, they were there because their utility is such that they can provided direct, very tangible support to a campaign going on even in a landlocked country. A mobile airbase is extrmely valuable, the USAF having lost the argument against carriers rather spectacularly in Korea.

How about the carriers and LHDs that provided support post-tsunami in Sumatra? We were able to, easily, provide support because we had other CVNs that we could dispatch to the normal trouble spots. Cutting 2/3s would destroy that ability. Keeping double-digit carriers in service allow us to cover multiple trouble spots, it's what allows us to have 2 carriers in the Gulf of Oman while another is in Northeast Asia, and a fourth is out on an "exercise" off the coast of Venezuela.

[Knillagrarp]

Um...

Actually I think it's pretty clear that Lonestar is considering the "next war" as much as that is possible (difficult to see - always in motion is the future).

Carriers give us highly mobile firepower. When the enemy is not a powerful nation state but rather a shadowy group hiding out in some remote spot, that remains useful.

What would be silly, IMO, would be investing a shitload of money in, say, a brand new Tank. Or a bunch of nuclear submarines...

-Arrian

[Indian Butt Magic]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
People always want to fight the last war. Our last war was signifigantly different than the war before that, or the war before that.


What's the deal then? In every war since WW2 carriers have played a signifigant role. As long as air support will play a big role, and it will for a long, long time, secure mobile airbases that mitigate the problems of needing another country to stage planes out of will continue to be extremely useful.

I'm not saying we need new SSNs(while there are potential enemies with subs, they aren't exactly the varsity), or we need super whiz-bang tanks(the M1 is gonna be around for a long time). The kind of stuff we will need are carriers, amphibs, sealift ships, and more long-haul cargo planes. I would also throw in some kind of replacement for the B-52. (in that it can fly from the states to it's target without refueling)

Basically, stuff that directly impacts the troops on the ground, and lessens the dependency on foreign countries who either won't allow us access(Re: Iraq war) or they don't have the facilities(Afghanistan, Indonesia, Pakistan) that meet our requirements.

[Hankie]

I'll tell him hi if I see him.

[HonestSean]

What would be silly, IMO, would be investing a shitload of money in, say, a brand new Tank. Eventually we will have to, the M1 hulls will wear out. We have just completed a very extensive modernization initiative on them which should keep them in service for another 30 years.

Or a bunch of nuclear submarines... Submarines are pretty useful, but we are not expanding the SSN fleet, just upgrading the force.

People always want to fight the last war. I was just reading about the Revot of the Admirals. Interesting how the Airforce advocated the disbanding of the the Army and Navy because all wars in the future would be won through nuclear bombardment

If you can think of one potential conflict where carriers are not useful Z, I will give you a cookie

[Roneyslelry]

Eventually we will have to, the M1 hulls will wear out. We have just completed a very extensive modernization initiative on them which should keep them in service for another 30 years.

Good. That, IMO, is different than designing the next gen tank (which I believe, at this point, to be unnecessary - or at the very least less necessary than other procurement goals).

-Arrian

[prmnwoks]

So you're saying they pegged you as nuts, Che? Hmm...

-Arrian

[BruceCroucshs]

There was a rumor on the waterfront in San Diego that a Meth Lab had been discovered in one of the reactor areas on the Stennis. My buddy found the rumor completely believable, because:

Most of them(nukes) were ON Meth before they joined up

[nerrttrw]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Do you doubt it?

One of my best friends growing up served on a boomer. Teh St. Louis IIRC. He was a nuke. Definitely insane. Name like that would make it a fast-attack boat. But still nuts cause he's a submariner too.

[Irrampbroow]

Originally posted by Master Zen
Considering much of the cost of a ship these days goes into electronic systems, the marginal cost of a large ship goes down considerably for each extra ton of displacement.

I was particularly appalled to read in Wiki (god knows how accurate that was though) that they were only going to be able to carry 36 fixed-wing aircraft. 65,000 tons of ship for 36 aircraft? That's insanely low: a Nimitz carrier can carry over 80 fixed-wing aircraft for its 100,000 tons.

Heck, even the Charles the Gaulle can carry 36 aircraft and it's only 40,000 tons. The new carriers have a really small crew though; only six hundred, versus the thousands on the Nimitzes and the Charles De Gaulle. Dunno if that's good or bad.

[Rellshare]

She would have been a much better, more capable ship if she'd been designed as a dead dinosaur powered STOVL carrier but that would mean the French buying Harriers. I doubt it. I'd take 30+ Rafales over 30+ Harriers any day...

[didrexx]

I'm no navy man, but your maths seem a bit strange there. a 65,000 carrier with 36 aircraft is somehow worse than a 40,500 with 20 aircraft? It is when that 40,500 ton vessel is not a carrier, but an amphib, and can still carry more aircraft ton for ton than your dedicated carrier even with a well deck with 2 LCACs and 1,800 marines onboard. Not to mention the 1 1/2 dozen helicopters onboard.

[AndrewBoss]

Lonestar, your story made me cry

[Pypeassesty]

Cutting your crew saves money, increases range (less provisioning = more room for other things), and more space/payload for things other than people.

Then when the first major attack gets through the task force, the small crewed ship, whose automation just went belly up in the fire, has insufficient bodies (especially if there are substantial casualties) to fight the damage. The ship with three times as much crew pulls a Bunker Hill - that ship should NEVER have survived the amount of damage she did. QFT

Thats why the Zumwalt will not sport a cre of 100, no matter how many times they say it.

[Flieteewell]

Silent Stone, has it occurred to you that the scorn a lot of Americans feel for Europe is due in part to the astonishingly small militaries? Most of the big Euro countries have armies in the hundreds of thousands...but have difficulty mustering large forces for military action abroad. There is a perception in the States that Europeans don't pull their weight and will just expect the US to do something. No one screams for the EU to deploy peacekeepers to Darfur, it's always the US.