Comparisons You Don't Want to Hear

The 4 cruisers being retired this year carry 520 VLS cells between them all. If each was loaded with half Tomahawks and half Standard missiles, and all 260 Tomahawks were fired at targets 750 nautical miles away from the ships and all 260 Standard missiles were fired against enemy aircraft 100 nautical miles away from the ships...

How many DAYS would it take for a single CVN with a modern CVW of 44 Super Hornets or Joint Strike Fighters to fire 260 AA missiles at targets 100 nautical miles away from the aircraft carrier and deliver 260 1000 lb bombs 750 nautical miles away from the aircraft carrier?

There actually is a right answer, with some margin of error in estimation. Don't forget logistics, reload times, and buddy tanking. The sortie rate for a CVW at range is a joke, because one has to pull in USAF tanking to make the numbers look even less uncompetitive.

I had to break out my little Harpoon 3.7 ANW simulator to do the math, keeping in mind CVNs only fly 14 hours a day - which is why the US Navy actually requires 2 CVNs for continuous 24 hour operations... for no more than 72 hours under optimal conditions. It is amazing how little people actually know about modern carrier operations, unless you have served on a carrier. Why SWOs concede the carrier as a dominant naval platform in the 21st century based on what I see today is a mystery to me, aircraft carriers aren't just expensive, they are on a steady flank speed course to irrelevance thanks primarily to the naval aviation community that has made land attack their primary capability - despite the fact it cannot even be done at long range by a carrier without land based tanker support.

People may look at the retirement of 4 CGs and think the worst possible case scenario is that the US Navy is retiring old battleships before Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, but if you do the math and compare value in terms of cost and capability, given the way war has changed at sea in the 21st century - there is a good argument for an analogy that the retirement of the 4 CGs in 2012 is akin to retiring Enterprise, Ranger, Yorktown, and Saratoga on December 8th, 1941.

Luckily we are holding tight to the Nimitz class - the proverbial Oklahoma, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee of 1941.

If it was even possible there is truth that CGs are a more critical, relevant asset to the 21st century fleet today than the big deck aircraft carrier, would you even admit it was true?

Is anyone able to accept that aircraft carriers in 2012 might be a wasted asset for the cost? Aircraft carriers come with a proven track record since WWII against major naval powers like North Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Iran, Iraq twice, Afghanistan, Argentina, and hot spots like Somalia - the historical record clearly articulates the infallibility of the modern aircraft carrier.

I dunno about you, but unless I am fighting small time military power with limited capabilities and training like Syria or Iran, I would rather have the cruisers than the aircraft carrier. It isn't the platform so much as it is the CVW we somehow pretend can field a magical mass of aircraft quickly - thus utilize the size and space of a big deck aircraft carrier when we need it. Where is the evidence that is possible? Where is even a single data point the procurement system could do it? MRAP is the biggest success in modern procurement history - and we think that kind of model can quickly populate carrier decks?

Until I see a US Navy CVW with a fixed wing ASW platform or a legitimate carrier based tanker capability tested and fielded, I am going to find it very difficult to take the naval aviation community seriously when all threat analysis from every corner of the globe highlights submarines as the fastest growing threat to the maritime domain, and the tyranny of range as the greatest threat to naval forces in the Pacific. The Navy is spending about $50 million more on the JSF than the F-18 to get less range with a moderate increase in stealth. And the CVW will still be left with no fixed wing ASW and no organic tanking.

And btw, you'll still need the 4 major surface combatants to protect the carrier, just so the Navy can hit targets at greater cost and at a slower pace. Some people say that because the Navy has a tighter budget the aircraft carrier needs to be cut. I don't think that's a valid reason at all, what I would rather see is a better debate between communities of the Navy why the aircraft carrier is a better investment than other aspects of the fleet - or a better investment than similar capabilities provided by other services. Show me that debate, and I'll show you an organization that is thinking. Until then, pass the hippy pipe so I can keep smoking the wacky tabacky that argues the infallibility of the modern big deck aircraft carrier in modern naval warfare.