Once again ignoring the arguments and waxing about very limited and opinionated views on future USN mission requirements.

 

Quelle Surprise.

2) I think You are very right about fewer and bigger carriers. That is exactly the problem. The USNavy will be short of hulls.

They will have a "Deathstar" circling around Japan.

You could see in Libya - there was a carrier there - that smaller conflict cannot be dealt with - simply because the overkill of a carrier is so grotesque. This mean there will be a limit to the number of conflicts where the USA can intervene - if the so choose.

 

Say Thomas do you recall a small intervention in the Balkans, involved a place called Kosovo.  Well the NATO air base there was too crowded, but NATO needed more air power...so...why yes the US Navy and a Nimitz Class CV(N) were deployed providing the necessary increase in aerial fire power.  Those over-rated carriers.

 

3) The point is, that the USNavy is a liability for the USA. Lets be realistic - the future military intervention belongs to bottomsmacking of local tyrants, that can provide grief totally out of proportion to their strength - because the US Carrier is in the yard.

 

 "Smacking the bottoms of dictators" so the fact that the USN and its CV(N)'s held the line, in August of 1990, in Saudi Arabia, that means nothing?  Or in Kosovo?  Also the fact that since 1945 the US has been able to deploy its AirLand forces UNIMPEDED, by the North Koreans, the North Vietnamese, Saddam Hussein, or the Taliban, that has nOTHING to do with the USN?  Who provided the bulk of the sorties over Afghanistan in 2001, not the bulk of the ordnance, but the sorties?  Why the USN, that's who.  Seems to me that the USN and its unchallenged control of the sea and its CV(N)'s have been critical to every US overseas campaign since 1945.

4) The reason for this dwindling influence - I hereby mean the ability to serve US interest economically -  is consistent absent application of talent among admirals in the USNavy.

The carrier force is just a convinient example:

CV-4 (I think somebody mentioned)

Midway class

United States class (never build - admiral must have been on vacation)

Enterprise class

Ford class

Why was Midway a failure?  Why was the Enterprise a failure?  You can do it, spit out the REASONS, not just the ASSERTIONS.  Midway was LIMITED, in later years, because it was JUST the sort of CV you favour, 40,000 tons...it's size limited it in ordnance, fuel, and survivability.  Its low displacement limited it to aircraft the size of the A-7 and the F/A-18.  So you list as a FAILURE, the CV that is the VERY SIZE YOU RECOMMEND!  Do you even think thru what you write?

 

Not to mention theoretical future power projection requirements for Iran, North Korea, Pakistan Unrest, Afghanistan, Taiwan, Phillipines, and all of this happening in a world where nuclear proliferation amongst developing nations represents a greater threat over the next two decades than at any point in the last 30 years.

 

Still no meaningful response about scaling arguments.

 

Still no response about escort requirements.

 

Thomas, you appear IMV to be somewhat arrogant in your assertions, you seem to view it as your right to posit unsupported arguments without dissent, and when those replies are pertinent you simply ignore the parts you disagree with (or as above, can not argue with) and continue to list the exact same assertions that in your view are infallible and therefore require no supporting evidence.

 

Let's ignore the very subjective geopolitical views and focus on the more mathematically provable scaling, logistical and escort requirements of your proposed smaller carriers - that seems to be a good way of ending this vicious cycle as it seems to be going nowhere.

 

R

I have answered You - and remained reasonably polite.

Actually you haven't, except in your own opinion.

 

 

Nothing, not one single thing you have stated here has relied on anything close to empirical argument, you haven't given one iota of evidence in favour of your view other than your own myopic viewpoint on future USN requirements - you haven't once directly addressed any of the above points, you assert intellectual limitations to those you debate with yet you have no answers other than diversions and sneers to any of the pertinent issues - you are the one here suggesting that the largest and most powerful navy that has ever existed has got their current and future tasking and procurement objectives entirely wrong, you refuse to provide any evidence, you refuse to respond with meaningful arguments pertaining to the above points that have been raised, you assert that you have addressed these issues yet it is plainly f**king apparent from reading this thread that you haven't, you quiite clearly have to provide the burden of evidence but you don't, you provide nothing.

 

I can't believe it is possible that a current or ex-professional in any industry would apply such limited reasoning, that devoid of a single figure or calculation you are somehow able to prove arguments as full of holes as swiss cheese.

 

As I said, the burden of proof is on you, you have provided nothing, zilch.

 

R

 

I could not care less, what you think - thought thinking would be overstating the case.

I am in no way obliged to cater to your vituperent ramblings.

 

I am here to get wiser - sadly, You have in no way contributed.  It might be my limitations, though experience lends little support to that allegation.

 

You might as well stop writing to me, as I for some time haven't read You. Trimming the small hairs in my nose have a far higher priority.

Of interest is Nimitz class Air Wings today are substantially smaller than in the 1980s. shrinking from 95ish  to 65ish aircraft. The reason is not because today's F/A-18's take more deck space, they don't, than 1980 era A-6s and F-14's but because financial constraints have led to inadequate number of aircraft having been purchased. The current edition of the U S Naval Institute Guide to Combat Fleets of the World s" lists the Air wing for a Nimitz/Theodore Roosevelt class CVN as 48 F/A-18s,  4 EA-6Bs now being replaced by F/A-18Gs, 4 E2C/Ds, 6 SH/HH-60s and 2 C2s  a total of 64 aircraft in a standard CAW. I would hope there are enough aircraft available to surge larger CAWs if necessary.

 

 

 

 

But, I'd imagine, only IF aircraft from Carrier Wings not deployed were attached.  Meaning if we have 12 CVAW, and 4 CVAW are deployed, spare squadrons from the undeployed might be attached.

 

As I said, CVAW strength is more a function, today, of Budget and poor Aviation Decisions made at the end of the Cold War, decisions about programs, not Carriers, Thomas. 

 

Still 64 a/c are better than 40, and these 64 a/c can probably do more than the 70-90 of a Cold War CVAW, in terms of striking power, due to the use of PGM.  But the wings do lack the F-14 Fleet Defense capability.