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NPS Prof in Forbes: "Kill the Carriers"
- Thread starter 2sr2worry
- Start date
The last time the battle was seriously joined over the future of our carrier force was in the 70's, way before most of this board was even born. While the arguments are all still valid, it is still worth putting serious thought about the worth of our current carrier force.
Unfortunately, it can get pretty hard - see "Revolt of the Admirals" and the USS UNITED STATES debacle. Our good friends in the Air Force take these kinds of analyses very seriously, and in the zero-sum game that will be the defense budget debate of the next several months, there are going to be big winners and big losers.
Wink, I think the analytical slam dunk is in the big deck vs small deck ("Gary Hart carrier") debate - it's pretty clear that the big decks win on just about any MoE. It becomes less of a slam dunk when you ask "How many big decks do we need?" - and that's the question I think is the most serious and threatening one. Of course, on a forum like this, we've all drunk the institutional kool-aid (some more deeply than others....) and think Arquilla is a point-headed lab-coated academic, and that the answer is "duh, 11+ big decks." Others in the new Administration might take him and others like him more seriously, and question just how many we do need. The budget guys are going to be looking for "big kills", and a CVN with associated air wing adds up to a lot of procurement, O&M, and personnel $$. Solid, fresh, analytically-based, level-headed and reasoned arguments are going to be what's needed - we can't just dust off some old point papers and expect that they'll carry the day, not when the Air Force is going to go the mat for more F-22s. Given that they've mortgaged their entire Service for that plane, they'll pull out all the stops to show why other Services should be the big bill payers.
Your last point is extremely important, too - you can't count on decision makers being unbiased and "just looking at the data". It rarely works out to be so clean.
(P.s. I just read Flash's comment - damn, he's smart!
)
I think this could be the wave of the future - for a host of reasons. Wasn't it the USS Eisenhower that embarked a "Helo-centric" airwing for the crisis that occured of the port city of Port Au Prince, Haiti? One Saturday I'm cooking a couple of ribeye's on the grill, and 48 hours later I'm on my way (HSL-48 Det 10) as part of the first U.S. Warship presence to conduct operations against the uprising there. Anywho, I digress.
I have always liked the U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Berets) concept of operations. Each of their "Groups" focuses on a different part of the world and the special skills that are required to operate successfully in those environments. Why is it that the VP & HSL communities (to focus on two that I have experience in) are so determined to be "Jacks of all trades - and masters of none?" Why can't we have a VP Wing that is ASW centric, a Wing that is ASUW (SLAM-ER, Maverick, Harpoon) centric. I know, I know, it's not the way we deploy and we have to have crews that are "trained" to conduct every mission area. HSL is the same way. Train for everything and hope you are good enough to do the job if you are called upon to do so.
I like the idea of tailorable, scalable air assets whether they be in an airwing on a carrier, an SH-60R squadron in a CSG or a VP squadron (with BAMS UAV) that can bring to bear a specific weapon system or combinations of systems with aircrew that have been properly and adequately trained to employ those systems.
I leave on Monday for one of those "Jack of all trades deployments." I hope that during the next six months I can perform everything I am supposed to do . . . . . . .
That was "Adaptive-Force Packaging". In a case of not having adequate air bases nearby to stage Air Force or Army assets, Ike shed its Air Wing in Sept 1994 for Operation Restore Democracy and embarked a brigade of the 10th Mountain Division including Army helicopters while USS America embarked the 160th SOAR.
USS Eisenhower with elements of 10th Mountain Division embarked
USS America en route to Haiti with helicopters of the 160th SOAR embarked
US Navy photos
I guess he forgot to read this....
It's always refreshing to hear the opinion of men who have never served in the military talk about how useful strategically a large scale weapons delivery system such as a carrier is.
Does Mahan really mix well with carriers, or submarines, or DDGs?
Don't get me wrong, I think he was spot on WRT battle-fleets vs. commerce raiders (to an extent), and coaling stations, and seapower abroad. But these are all largley accepted as part of general foreign relations program now. It's been like five yeras since I plowed thru Sea Power, but do his writings really still hold the same tactical salience?
I would argue, no, Mahan's ideas did not really see the light of day with our fleet. Yes, he was a big proponent of capital ships (battleships) but he also saw the Navy as only operating in the realm of seapower dominance (meaning the sole objective is to destroy the other fleet). With the first use of the US carrier being 1942 (Feb 2nd if my memory serves) in an offensive role, the history of its use shows that Corbett was much more accurate than Mahan. He (Corbett) argued that the fleets are there for more than just ship-to-ship action, but that they play a larger role in supporting land forces and disrupting "lines of communication." His take on commerce raiding was just that. So how did the carrier fit in? All of the major carrier battles were a result of either defending or taking land (which therefore is supporting the land forces).* So even though we built the ships with Mahan in mind, we fought with them using Corbett's principles.
Even though we continued to build ships with the Soviet Union in mind, their primary use has been to strike land targets rather than enemy fleets.
*An example of irony is when Halsey took his carriers and battleships (Task Force 34) and sent them north trying to hunt down Ozawa's carrier force during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. By dividing the fleet (which Mahan was strongly against), Halsey went for the Mahan-esque ship-to-ship battle. Of course this opened a doorway for Kurita's force to head straight in for the transports and invasion force. Basically it showed again that Corbett is right: ships are used to support land forces in addition to taking on other fleets.
Argh, JPME is affecting my brain!
Mahan felt that dominance of the sea would lead to easily destroying the sea trade to a nation thus breaking the knees of their economy. In a way a carrier fits into this well in that not only can it aid in supporting ship to ship battles but it can extend the reach of the navy to the land. Now we are not restricted to attack supply routes on the sea, we can attack them on the land too.
Not only that but the aircraft carrier allows for strikes on sea supply routes to be much more effective due to the speed at which aircraft can find said supply routes. Corbett is right, but that doesn't mean Mahan is wrong or even in some respect outdated.
But to each his own. We all have our own military strategy heroes.
True enough. But if certain decision makers will not look at rational arguments then they have agendas we can not compete with. For those that don't have an agenda, then the facts do speak for themselves. I agree that the most debated CV issue has been big deck vs small deck, and the big deck does win. But I also had in mind the numbers of big decks. I don't know how Flash defines "seriously joined", but the future of CVNs have been debated more then once since the 70s. How do you think we got to where we are now? I sure don't see the same numbers of Carriers I did when I walk onto NAS Pensacola in the '70s. Every time they look at the numbers of CVNs they are debating the efficacy and overall future of the CVN. The debate this time will, in fact, be the numbers of CVNs. But lurking in the margins is the debate over their usefulness, at all, in the future. So, to go back to the slam dunk comment. If the debate is over how many CVNs we need to go forward in the current and forever future type of conflict (according to the chowder head in question) then just ask yourself if the op tempo is satisfactory. If it is not, then we can't do with fewer CVNs. If the debate is over the unique value added of CVNs the just ask if the CVNs proved vital in the GWOT over the last 7 years? If so, then we can't do without them. This whole thing reminds me of the cell phone commercial depicting fire fighters in Congress. This isn't a hard decision. It doesn't have to be complicated. The debate clubs in Congress and the various think tanks and consultants make it complicated. It ain't.
The last time there were serious proposals in and outside the US Navy that we drastically change the size and somposition of our carrier force was in the 70's with the purpose-built 'Sea Control Ship' proposal. Since then there has not been as public and as serious a debate about our carrier force, that might change soon.
And while the number of carriers has declined a bit since the late 70's it has only been by by a small amount, from around 15 to 11/12, better in proportion than the rest of the Navy.
And since Congress are the guys who pull the budget strings, we have to deal with 'complicated', or in the case of the original article, 'simple'.
I was an analyst in Pentagon in late 70s when there was still an office dedicated to the VSTOL 95 plan that took the Sea Control Ship (SCS) concept and was trying to implement it and the air wing complement. Problem then and during several reflashes was smaller decks don't bring a lot (or enough) to the fight and don't save enough to make a difference.
I don't agree that there haven't been any "serious proposals" since the Sea Control Ship, there just haven't been any that went that far and I don't think they have need to either. Looking at the British experience shortly thereafter in the Falklands, which was in their words "a closely run thing", big decks make a lkot of sense in virtually any scenario. Aspin made his OSD staff and Navy look hard in the 90s and the CVX studies that led to CVNX-78 looked at Mobile Offshore Bases (MOB), small one screw SCS type platforms and all manner of air wings. There have been many other studies conducted as well. They just don't get much press.
When that ... "individual" ... came aboard in the early 70's as a baby congressman -- the "boos" and catcalls coming from the assembled AirWing officers were audible.
I later had to prepare studies for and write letters to him and his staff during BRAC-round 1 in the 90's ...
I, for one, did not weep at his passing ...
Les Aspin , former SecDef biography
When that ... "individual" ... came aboard in the early 70's as a baby congressman -- the "boos" and catcalls coming from the assembled AirWing officers were audible.
I later had to prepare studies for and write letters to him and his staff during BRAC-round 1 in the 90's ...
I, for one, did not weep at his passing ...
Les Aspin , former SecDef biography
Another "expert" in Defense matters, 2 years in Army, high-falooting degrees, college professor, decades in congress after tenure as card-carrying McNamara "Whiz-Kid" who turned down request from Commander in Somalia for Armor. See Blackhawk Down for how that turned out. He later he admitted he made a mistake and resigned. That is the one action I felt he did right.