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It's unfortunate that the F35 boondoggle is now also pulling in and sinking the Navy. I am curious about phrases such as "interfering with its ability to meet

It's unfortunate that the F35 boondoggle is now also pulling in and sinking the Navy. I am curious about phrases such as "interfering with its ability to meet emerging requirements and threats.". After all, has the mathematics of force projection and enterprise-scale conflict changed that much in the last 40 years? I could see the argument for, for example, reconfiguring carriers to be just drone carriers (starcraft, lol). But, I'm skeptical that somehow the job of take off, fly, loiter, bomb the shit out of something, return, refuel, rearm, repeat has changed that much.

smacktoward 11y ago
> After all, has the mathematics of force projection and enterprise-scale conflict changed that much in the last 40 years? Perhaps not, but the article notes that there was plenty of skepticism about the survivability of the carrier force 40 years ago, too: Soviet Adm. Sergei Gorchakov reportedly held the view that the U.S. had made a strategic miscalculation by relying on large and increasingly vulnerable aircraft carriers. The influential U.S. Adm. Hyman Rickover shared this view. In a 1982 congressional hearing, legislators asked him how long American carriers would survive in an actual war. Rickover’s response? “Forty-eight hours.” (Of course Rickover was the father of the nuclear submarine, so his opinions on the relative superiority of carriers may need to be taken with a grain of salt added. He certainly wasn't alone in that opinion, though; Elmo Zumwalt, for instance, wanted to move away from a few big carriers to larger numbers of smaller ones -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Control_Ship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Control_Ship) Arguably a flattop-heavy force was even more at risk back then than it is today, because back then there was a real risk that an attack by the most likely adversary (the USSR, obv.) would be centered around nuclear weapons, and it's hard to see any scenario where any surface fleet could survive in the face of that kind of attack. Today's anti-ship missiles and torpedoes are faster and stealthier, but they're also much less likely to be nuclear-tipped.
- deleted 11y ago
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- tsotha 11y ago
  Flattops aren't as vulnerable as most people think. It really depends on the scenario - it's actually quite difficult to land a hit on a US carrier in blue water. It gets easier the closer you get to land, which is why the Navy is so hot to get the new drone strike aircraft deployed. Part of the problem (if you can view it that way) is nobody's attacked a carrier battle group in a very long time. In theory we have counters for new systems like streaker missiles, submarines, and the DF-21D, but nobody knows how things would shake out in an actual battle.
- nullrouted 11y ago
  You name all this theoretical great technology now how many countries have the resources to launch that type of attack and survive the repercussions? Maybe China and Russia who both have nukes anyway.

smacktoward 11y ago

> After all, has the mathematics of force projection and enterprise-scale conflict changed that much in the last 40 years? Perhaps not, but the article notes that there was plenty of skepticism about the survivability of the carrier force 40 years ago, too: Soviet Adm. Sergei Gorchakov reportedly held the view that the U.S. had made a strategic miscalculation by relying on large and increasingly vulnerable aircraft carriers. The influential U.S. Adm. Hyman Rickover shared this view. In a 1982 congressional hearing, legislators asked him how long American carriers would survive in an actual war. Rickover’s response? “Forty-eight hours.” (Of course Rickover was the father of the nuclear submarine, so his opinions on the relative superiority of carriers may need to be taken with a grain of salt added. He certainly wasn't alone in that opinion, though; Elmo Zumwalt, for instance, wanted to move away from a few big carriers to larger numbers of smaller ones -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Control_Ship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Control_Ship) Arguably a flattop-heavy force was even more at risk back then than it is today, because back then there was a real risk that an attack by the most likely adversary (the USSR, obv.) would be centered around nuclear weapons, and it's hard to see any scenario where any surface fleet could survive in the face of that kind of attack. Today's anti-ship missiles and torpedoes are faster and stealthier, but they're also much less likely to be nuclear-tipped.

deleted 11y ago
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tsotha 11y ago
Flattops aren't as vulnerable as most people think. It really depends on the scenario - it's actually quite difficult to land a hit on a US carrier in blue water. It gets easier the closer you get to land, which is why the Navy is so hot to get the new drone strike aircraft deployed. Part of the problem (if you can view it that way) is nobody's attacked a carrier battle group in a very long time. In theory we have counters for new systems like streaker missiles, submarines, and the DF-21D, but nobody knows how things would shake out in an actual battle.
nullrouted 11y ago
You name all this theoretical great technology now how many countries have the resources to launch that type of attack and survive the repercussions? Maybe China and Russia who both have nukes anyway.