Ahhhh... Always the contrarian. One of the cheapest parts of a ship is the steel. Cost is driven by the stuff you put in them and the people it takes to run it. So build big ships. Nimitz sized. But keep them simple. Two catapults rather than four. Skip the forward elevator and use forward hanger deck to store amphibious vehicles. Rather than putting a flooded well in, use ramps that are carried under the overhangs. Amphibious vehicles would roll out of the hanger deck, down the ramp and into the water. Maybe nuclear is optional. Don't know. This would be an 70-90,000 ton CV/LHA hermaphrodite. Ship would carry smaller airwing than standard CVN but it would use real airplanes (which, by the way, cost about as much as the STOVL ones that can't do anything), plus AEW&C and COD support. It could also carry a sizable herd of Marines. If the CV/LHA were built instead of the LHA(R) that is planned, there would be over 20 big decks available flying useable numbers of real airplanes and capable of supporting direct ground operations as well.

The problem is cost/numbers. Reducing to 6-8 CVNs is irresponsible. At the moment we seem not to be adding any more - the next one has been cancelled - the Navy is starting only 4 ships this year - and there is no sense of urgency in DOD at the meaning of this. What it means is that we may have a problem maintaing 12 carriers after Enterprise retires. [Remember there are NEVER all ships available for operations, for which reason we don't even have an air wing for all of them]. Yes - LHAs are very useful ships - and they might have sea control and other real combat missions - but ONLY if you propose to buy more Harriers to outfit your additional ships for such purposes. I'm game - but just now I fear we will lose the Navy's ability to fight any significant contest in a few years - and gutting its main combat force is not something I think is wise. What MIGHT be wise is to think about designing a smaller and cheaper CVN - something the Pentagon seems unable to do properly. We do not need 100,000 tons ships to carry the F/A-18. So why pretend we do? We have reduced the airgroups to 50 planes. That does not require 100,000 tons either.

The Navy has more carriers than air wings because two carriers are always out for extended maintenance. On in Refueling and Complex Overhaul (32 months). The second in for more mundane yard work (Screws, zinc and painting the hull). That's 12 CV/CVNs with two out of service and 10 airwings for the rest. CVN-77 (USS George H. W. Bush) will sail in '09 and replace Kitty Hawk. CVN-78 has been delayed a year, not cancelled, yet. CVN-78 is supposed to replace Enterprise in '13. That would maintain 12 CV fleet. If Kennedy is de-commissioned as has been proposed in the recent budget memo from OSD, the fleet will be running at 11 CVs. After Kitty Hawk and Kennedy go away, all carriers will be CVNs. If CVN-78 is seriously delayed and Enterprise is retired without preplacement, fleet will be down to ten CVNs, all Nimitz's. This will be getting pretty thin.

I'm Navy all the way. But I wonder how many carriers we need. It's not hard to figure in todays environment. 10-12 should be fine. One thing most people don't take into account is that today's CBG has a high survivabilty rate compared to the 70s/80s. Who is the enemy that requires us to build more? China, even if they built a few, which would take 10 years, they have to have the support systems in place to use them. For them to be a blue water Navy would take 15-25 years. A delay of 1 or 2 years on CVNs while we decide what a CVN should be like (UAVs and THEL and all the other new weapons coming on line) is not a big deal. Remember SSGNs give us an added punch that could fill in for a carrier.

When/if we add UAVs to our CAWs the whole training/qualifying structure will change to make our carriers more available. I'd be willing to bet with modular systems we could reduce yard time, and by forward deploying them and using blue/gold crews, 10 is plenty under the current geopolitical situation.

The REASON the next carrier is delayed is the same as there are only four ship starts this year. Operations costs for the War on Terror. This war is not going to end in a year, so the carrier will be delayed again, and more ships will not be layed down as planned. And lots of other things, if we don't start paying for this war properly instead of pretending it can come out of procurement funds. This is eating out tail, medium term.

This is not about delay EW3. We will NEVER get the ships we don't lay down. Experience talking. The money is SPENT - on operations. So it won't come back. And China is not going to fight us on a carrier for carrier basis. Chinese carriers are not CVNs and do not have the missions we do. Nor are they appropriate for China. The threats China will try to use are assymetric - submarines - supersonic cruise and hypersonic ballistic missiles - and maybe Backfire bombers (or what I call the Chinese F-111 - the H-9).

Since the CVN 78 is not due for delivery till mid 2013 I'm not ready to panic yet. I have confidence in what we have now, and the things already in the pipeline. A lot of the plans laid down, such as for the DDX, were done quite a while ago, and a lot of things have changed since then.

blacksmith wrote: "One of the cheapest parts of a ship is the steel. Cost is driven by the stuff you put in them and the people it takes to run it. So build big ships. Nimitz sized. But keep them simple. Two catapults rather than four. Skip the forward elevator and use forward hanger deck to store amphibious vehicles. Rather than putting a flooded well in, use ramps that are carried under the overhangs. Amphibious vehicles would roll out of the hanger deck, down the ramp and into the water. Maybe nuclear is optional. Don't know. This would be an 70-90,000 ton CV/LHA hermaphrodite. Ship would carry smaller airwing than standard CVN but it would use real airplanes (which, by the way, cost about as much as the STOVL ones that can't do anything), plus AEW&C and COD support. It could also carry a sizable herd of Marines. If the CV/LHA were built instead of the LHA(R) that is planned, there would be over 20 big decks available flying useable numbers of real airplanes and capable of supporting direct ground operations as well." I like the idea of using new, cut-down Nimitzes as future CVN/LHAs, but I have a couple concerns. The first would be about how the specialized spaces on a LHA (hospital, marine berthing, vehicle storage & repair) would impact the CVN mission (and vice versa). You could try to modularize these spaces. Maybe use customized, stackable shipping container or something. The second would be how would you reconfigure the CVN to LHA (or back) while underway? Or would you be able to? Obviously you couldn't add or remove LCACs or anything like that. But could you even reasonably fly in large numbers of CH-46/53s, marines, gear, specialized LHA container components from long distances? CH-53s can self deploy a long ways with refueling. Most CH-46s can't (IIRC). MV-22s would be better at this as they could actually tank from big USAF tankers at medium altitudes, and they're faster. Containerized components would be much harder though, as there's no way to fly them long distances and land them on the carrier. So maybe a modularized approach wouldn't work. Maybe a purpose-built CV/LHA would be better. Maybe the LHA(R) should be a full-deck carrier that's just smaller and less expensive than a CVN, but has all the normal LHA features (e.g. well deck, vehicle storage, hospital). Or maybe we should just continue with our current big, exepensive CVN and small, less expensive, specialized LHA combo. ;)

Modularization is nice but will not be as flexible as some might imagine. If half the CVs are arranged with big air wings and half are set up as amphibs, you get enough aircraft to support the big air wings and enough expeditionary forces to support the amphibs. Reconfiguring an amphib won't do you much good if you don't have more aircraft to put on it. Modularity is more suitable for construction (standard hull, different missions) and sustainability, adaptability over time. Note on not worrying about replacement carrier that is not supposed to be delivered until 2013. Funding has to start in '07. 2007 budget is already sealed and the '08 budget is in work. The 2013 delivery has already been missed.