National Interest
The Pentagon wants the Navy to cut two of its 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. And, with the money it saves, buy dozens of frigates and robotic corvettes.
The carrier cut, which would require Congress’s approval, is the main recommendation of the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s months-long study of Navy force structure, according to Defense News. More
As a techie from the 80’s… With all my suit’s Navy blue and a family heritage back to the Liscome Bay… I’m on board. The days of Top Gun hero’s have passed… The goal is to own the sea’s… The big Capitol ship’s days have come to pass…
Totally agree. Carriers are floating money pits.
I have been conflicted about the vunerability of carriers in a Missile & Nuclear sub age (both types)
How durable are they against a small Tactical Nuke?
Also russian new hyper missiles?
Just asking.
who in govt says ? the globalist deep-state infiltrators or NGO experts ???
Besides air strikes, carriers are missile bait. Unless you have escorts with ASW and anti-cruse capabilities surrounding the task force, 1 old SSK diesel sub can very easily take out a carrier.
Air Craft Carriers are a relic; it’s part of ‘fighting the last war’
they are nothing but multi-billion dollar targets
WWII, over 75 years ago, showed that …
investment in future technology (tech not dependent on China! … ffs). innovation is the key to success … especially in the defensive situation we have been in for over a century & a half
… while we’re at it … send a icbm to wipe out that Iranian satellite they just shot into space
I have a different take:
When you’re in the Persian Gulf duking it out with Iranian frigates and gunboats, I welcome a well-trained CV in the Gulf of Oman standing by to strike and put some missiles thru Iranian superstructures and send them to the bottom.
Been there, done that.
@Fritz ~ going against the Iranian navy(?), or even the Russian navy is not much of a challenge when you’re up against a weaker ‘conventional’ force than yourself & as long as we all play ‘conventionally’
throw in a satellite or icbm-based strategy & it’s a whole new ballgame … Russia could do greater harm w/ their subs, missiles & satellites
w/ that Iranian satellite it’s a whole new ballgame … they have no compunction in using an EMP … thank you Barack Obama & John Kerry
Transition the CVN over to a maintenance vessel, a floating warehouse / manufacturing support ship.
Utilize her greatest asset, the reactor. She doesn’t need constant refueling and without a manned air wing, she could be the tanker.
To be honest, carriers were never a “capital ship”, they have always been a floating airport. That’s it. Nice photo ops and centerpiece, but never the brains
:8th & I phone rings, Gunny directs call to Commandants office:
“What? yeah, I heard the news. No….no… nothing for us. Sigh. For Christ sake, if you thought green lawns were important, you should have joined the Air Force.
No… the hell do we need new uniforms for? Camo green becomes tan after a month in country. No. None of those either. Canteens from 1952 still have 8 months left on their warranty.
No. We’re not keeping any tank battalions. What? I dunno, just have the crews switch over to mortars….like…the biggest ones we got.
Listen, I gotta’ wrap this up. My second job as an embassy guard starts in half an hour…. yeah,you too. Semper Fi.”
“Gunny! reverse the charges on that call and bring round my bicycle from the motor pool.”
“Aye, Sir.”
Balance is the key. We need flexibility.
Robotics is the future, as well as hyper fast hyper accurate anti-ship missiles.
Jeez, I think we have 20 carriers in service and our closest competition has 5.
The Navy is interested in buying Corvettes? Is it going through a mid-life crisis?
It’s one thing to have some carriers, another to have a fleet essentially based upon them. Flexibility is good.
carriers are cool. Dangerous and Impressive, they are the symbol of the Navy. Just like battleships were before WWII.
We dont need 12, we need more unmanned tools like those corvettes
Whatever the mil-industrial complex decides, I sure do hope that they don’t bet our farm on systems that rely on fat pipe data communications and high precision global positioning. Any power that decides to take on the U.S. military (they would be foolish to do so) would begin by whacking military communications satellites, GPS satellites, and may even go so far as to set off EMP blasts over key target theaters. All the techno-gee-whiz stuff in world won’t help if they can’t talk to the warriors and the warriors don’t know where they are.
And now we have the “Space Force”, think some one is thinking ahead.
Is the Navy still pissing our money away buying that ridiculously overpriced bio-diesel?
i want to caution about “robot wars”.
once you take the human death out of wars they become too convenient, thus more prevalent.
war is hell and should be, to limit it
How about just fucking going without, for the next 2 years, as many of your taxpaying benefactors will.
“… with the money it saves …”
Huh? Define “saves.” The gov’t CANNOT “save” money. Gov’t (every level) is a sink, not a source.
This is disingenuous wordplay – like “forgiving” loans – and is intended to deter thought and analysis while confusing the issue as contrived.
Aircraft Carriers are enormously expensive, and, in the nuclear age, disposed of quickly to anyone unhampered by the nuclear moral question. Doesn’t have to hit it – just detonate 80,000 ft from it. Bam – Done – EMP leaves it crippled. Yeah, yeah, Faraday/Gauss cage – in the ocean – we’ll see how that works.
Anyway, war (like politics) is dependent upon everybody following the rules.
And we have blathering bullshitters (like me) who can’t really foresee the future, but try to make “best guesses” based on the past (which is kind of dumb if you think about it, but there’s no other way).
Let’s see the gov’t “save” money – just once – to prove it can (and I ain’t talkin bout spending less, I’m talkin bout saving).
izlamo delenda est …