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Hornet vs F35
- Thread starter blackngold
- Start date
I'll start by saying I'm not advocating that carriers are useless or we're doing everything wrong, but that they need to account for different threats and built differently. I would submit that the vast majority of military officers have not read Krepinevich's material. I also think it is out of the scope of most JPME courses that focus on theory, operational/tactical planning, joint service/interagency integration, but some instructors could go off the reservation. Not sure how the Navy does it's PME.
The threat environment in Ukraine and Azerbaijan may look different than a naval environment, but the basic tenants remain. The biggest advantage we had was the ability to pick and choose where/when to conduct an operation. We no longer have that advantage. Even CAPT Hughes (Your welcome, nerds) highlighted the critical nature of scouting and finding the enemy first for at-sea engagements. These sensors are widely available to even the lowest of non-state actors. I found it fascinating the Houthis (a third-rate military) essentially conducted a coordinated and well timed F2T2EA process using various munition types. That would have been unheard of 10-20 years ago. (Please don't scream EMCON at me).
We can't get around a nebulous threat environment. A conflict at-sea will have more restrictive ROE. Commercial shipping will not stop during a conflict, and our adversaries will use this advantage. Combined with extremely long-distance, low-altitude, high-speed, loitering, AI-fueled munitions (or some combination thereof, plus well documented conventional ships and weapons) - it will be very difficult to tell who is who in the zoo. Particularly when our adversaries don't play by the law of armed conflict. Every shipping vessel, dhow, fishing fleet, island, exposed reef, or tanker will now become a potential for launching M/F-kill capable weapons at our vessels. Further, even if in the unlikely event that we went completely unrestricted warfare/weapons free - we wouldn't have the supply to sustain it.
Well CVNs can just stand off right like we always have right? Geography and where decisive actions take place are not to a CSGs advantage. Not that the capability isn't useful, but it is logistically unsustainable. We're not operating on interior lines like previous conflicts and the business end of that proposition is inefficient (and requires more force protection). A single threat causes the whole-sale repositioning or exclusion due to capital asset risk from an area, put the the whip-tail supply line at risk, and has 2nd/3rd order joint force logistics implications.
The loss of national prestige from losing a capital asset like a CVN hamstrings its effectiveness (Same for LHD/As). Its not a risk-worthy asset. You can extrapolate the above implications to a more well-resourced adversary. I would rather see 20 smaller CVNs with half the sized airwing, streamlined/integrated C4ISR, and more countermeasure/defensive systems that account for more volume, regimes, and scale. Obvious we can’t get into specifics, but all of this info is open-source and discussed by other theorists/planner types.
I’d offer one thing here - if we are operating under the constraint of CATOBAR there’s kind of a hard left lateral limit on ship size simply from a physics standpoint (the Forrestal/Kitty Hawk, Nimitz, and Ford classes are all within feet of eachother lengthwise). The capabilities that buys IMO are worth the expenditure vs a hypothetical “CVNL”, but I think that gets to a larger point vis a vis the DIB IRT shipbuilding, or lack thereof.
You're just trading offensive power projection for defensive capacity. Ship won't get smaller if you do that. Airwings have already been getting smaller since the 80s. Which do you think would come out ahead in a direct conflict: 20 LHDs or 2 CVNs?
I imagine that at least one adversary will enact a “Total Exclusion Zone” like the UK did during the Falklands war keeping the merchants far away.
That’s a fair point, and the reduction of aircraft footprint with unmanned aircraft or one-way munitions is another opportunity. Not a naval architect, but we invented the microwave, landed on moon, and recover sky-scraper sized rockets backwards now - So I think there is probably a way.
I think you’re missing my overall point. Barney style version: In the next conflict, It’s better to have 20 F-350s versus 10 x 18 wheelers. This is not an LHD/A vs CVN comparison. It’s making an asset more risk worthy so it enables more power projection because it’s now more credible. The other option is having a shiny toy we aren’t willing to risk.
In a part of the world with little economic value. We’re talking about cutting off 30-40% of global trade in some parts of the world we’re discussing. That’s mass starvation to some countries, and the world community will either not allow it or outright ignore it.
This is a valid reply, but I really doubt that maritime insurers will ignore it and without that guarantee most merchants won’t cross a TEZ. I’m not well versed on merchant crews, but I wonder if they’d have a very difficult time recruiting crews for journeys through any TEZ. And my last point, a lawfully established and well announced TEZ would eliminate any ROE difficulties.
That’s an extremely naive point of view, and reminds of the mentality that led to the conundrum we found ourselves in Iraq and Afghanistan. Complete underestimation of an environment and adversary. Nothing is black and white in a conflict.
Wait, are you saying international vessel insurance companies will ignore a TEZ? I think they’d rather delay shipments by a week or two then wander into a hot war zone. Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the point.
I can think of about 3 scenarios off of the top of my head where that proposition would be challenged. Again, you’re using normal western assumptions based on a US dominated economic order. Use a little exploratory critical thought and it’s not hard to see various issues with your question.
Well, if a merchant enters the TEZ you sink it. They’ll figure it out.
Or...mitigating the risk by enabling further power projection. Which is literally what a CVN is designed to and does better than any other surface platform.
My opinion, but even if you scale down a CVN, which it sounds like you're advocating for, they're still very expensive capital ships that are less capable than the current Ford class. INDOOACOM actual isn't just going to Leroy Jenkins them into a DF-XX WEZ.
Good stuff.
Honestly, I also kinda question the focus we have on CVNs (and manned surface ships in general). On that I fully agree that getting away from it would be desirable.
That said, as discussed, CVN size is what it is, because NAVAIR wants it that way. Unless there is a willingness to not fly jets competitive 1 for 1 with the adversary’s best, or accept hard limits that we simply won’t ask a CSG to ever do certain things, it is what it is. I think it’s worth examining if we can reduce crew size (including air wing) or other aspects that drive up size and cost (we haven’t revisited how nuclear plants operate in…a while. Though for good reason).
My 2 cents is that we can’t scrap the core capabilities because we already have too much invested in it, and reinventing how we fight in open ocean is way too freaking hard and not something we have time for if anything in the ballpark of the Davidson window is at all used as planning guidance.
If it were up to me, if we were investing new defense dollars to expand TOA, I’d build an expendable unmanned force around the current core manned force.
In the surface world, that’s USVs operating as pickets or missile mags that are networked to a mothership (like a DDG), but maybe can also use AI to do certain detached operations. USVs can be cheaper, smaller, and if they die, nobody really cares, especially if it went Winchester killing bad guys before they went out. The Surface Navy is already experimenting with this.
The sub force is doing some similar things as well that I’m less aware of. Not sure what NAVAIR is doing for a naval fight beyond Triton and MQ25.
Having said that I think you’re also overestimating the current vulnerability of a CVN/CSG. or to put it another way, it depends on what the heck we actually think we want to do with them. I don’t know anybody that thinks the CVW can establish air superiority over Taiwan on Day 1. But that’s just…physics. China wouldn’t be able to do the same over say…Guam either.
Which is why other platforms, such as submarines, are vital. Or Cyber/Space to affect their C4I network ability to do F2T2EA.
As for the Houthi example…our forces there are operating in one of the most confined waterways transited by ships. There are points where a dude with binos can see across to the other side. The Pacific fight is not going to be that, unless we fight in the SCS around the PI. And in that case, that’s where the Army and Marines get the opportunity to be useful…although IMO neither service TOA is sufficiently realigned yet to be truly useful to the naval fight.
The other thing that is an unknown is whether or if technology will catch up in factors that may favor defense. The issue isn’t whether or not we can figure out how to shoot down missiles our adversaries can shoot. We proved we can swat Houthi weapons (and Iranian supplied ASCMs and ASBMs) and frankly make it look easy. China and Russia have better stuff, but the real worry is that we eventually run out of missiles, then we have to withdraw to resupply (not even gonna address the DIB issues in surging munitions right now…). We chose to stop railgun efforts, but there is the potential for breakthroughs in lasers or railguns to make it possible for ships to stay in the fight longer.
Fully agree. Launching manned aircraft from a manned ship still means big and expensive. The real problem is that China has a shit load of missiles, with a shit load of delivery platforms.
On the SWO side, there are people who want to shift from DDGs or FFGs to a bunch of little patrol boats with ASCMs. That’s just going to give Chinese TACAIR more targets to shoot, only it can’t shoot back at them. Same goes for wimped down carriers. There is no magic solution right now that can magically negate the fact that the PRC has a lot of peer technology state weapons. However, they are not immune to the same challenges we have in building precision munitions or force generating trained crews.
Haha to be fair, now that i think about it, my complaint is mostly with the local plopter people……who LARP’d being real fixed wing airplanes flying real FW departures
Shitter and Phrog dudes at NKX just kept things real 😄
Honestly though, I remember everything fairly harmonious with helo and FW ops out of there. Cant't speak on plopter ops though.