At What Price, Another Round of Real Carrier Choices

Sea Control Ship

CVV medium carrier design

CVN-78 class

      It seems that whenever defense budgets shrink, the big deck aircraft carrier becomes a principle target of budget cutters and technological enthusiasts. Whether in late 1940s, the late 1970s, or today, a group of carrier critics has emerged, armed with budgetary and technological arguments forecasting the vulnerability and impending doom of the big flattop. With the shadows of continuing sequester and advanced anti-carrier weapons now darkening the late summer in Washington DC, another group of carrier critics in the tradition of Louis Johnson, Stuart Symington, and ADM Stansfield Turner have taken the stage to deride the big flattop in budgetary talks. They demand that it go the way of the battleship and make way for some cheaper, less vulnerable weapon system that will accomplish the same effects as the supercarrier. It is surprising to note that few, if any of these critics reference the last thought-provoking study done on the aircraft carrier as both a strategic platform and instrument of war at sea. Former Navy Secretary John Lehman's Aircraft Carriers, The Real Choices, which appeared in 1978 before his tenure as Secretary of the Navy asked the significant strategic questions that seem to elude today's carrier critics. In addition to budgetary and vulnerability concerns, Lehman sought to understand what the government expected carriers to do; could land-based aviation supplant any carrier roles; how many flattops were really required by the U.S. for peace and wartime operations, how big they should be and finally how technological advancements in aircraft such as vertical take off and landing (VSTOL) capabilities might change carrier missions and design. Whether the United States decides on big carriers, small carriers, a mix of types, or something else, the strategic needs of the nation, tempered by financial realities ought to drive the process and not the fear mongering of the latest group of carrier critics.
     Lehman's 1978 analysis on carrier choices is equally relevant in 2013 and while the technology of naval weapons, sensors, communications and avionics has significantly advanced since that time, the threats to the flattop, its strategic, operational and tactical uses, and the choices in shape and size of carrier remain remarkably constant. In the late 1970s's the threat of the Soviet combined cruise missile strike from air, surface and subsurface platforms was believed to be just as deadly to the U.S. carrier battle group as the Chinese-made DF-21(D) is today. Many experts then as now advocated smaller, less detectable carriers like the CVV and Sea Control Ship to augment or supplant the big carrier. Others recommended land-based aircraft and cruise missiles as less vulnerable and less costly substitutes for sea-based naval aviation.
      Lehman agreed that the big carrier was vulnerable and its steep construction and operating costs were good reason for at least augmenting the carrier fleet with smaller, less costly aviation-capable warships. The problem he discovered however was that if carriers were even fractionally smaller then the big flattops, the effectiveness of their airwing rapidly deceased, their vulnerability to mission-kill or loss exponentially increased, and their lifetime maintenance cost (primarily due to the smaller ships' dependence on fossil vice nuclear fuel) was much higher over 30+ years than that of the big deck nuclear-powered carrier. These factors have not appreciably changed. The price of fossils fuels remains problematic and maintenance costs have appreciable risen.
    While vulnerable to attack, the big deck carrier is still arguably one of the toughest ships to sink. The damage incurred to USS Forrestal in 1967 and that suffered by USS Enterprise in 1969 in accidental detonations of multiple pieces of ordnance testifies to the extreme survivability of the big carrier. The ex-USS America (CV-66) was recently sunk as a target and some open source accounts say the ship took a tremendous beating before being purposely sunk after the test. The Navy has also not rested in its drive to protect the carrier from emerging threats. U.S. carriers were indeed vulnerable to cruise missile attack in the late 1970s, but development and fielding of the Aegis system for air defense significantly improved the ability of the carrier battle group to defend itself against this threat. The U.S. has pursued an equally aggressive program to defend against ballistic missiles like the DF-21(D) and there is no reason to believe this threat cannot also be countered by a technological response.
     The size and composition of the carrier's air wing were important to Lehman in determining what missions the ship could legitimately accomplish. Sadly the longer-range assets of the carrier including strike aircraft like the A-6 Intruder, and the antisubmarine warfare S-3 Viking were retired and not replaced. The relative weakness of the current carrier air wing in long range strike is one of the carrier critics' strongest arguments against the bigger flattop. That point alone however is not enough to argue for the ship's replacement by submarines or surface ships as the principle strike asset. The potential of longer-ranged unmanned aircraft is enormous and could redress the balance lost with the retirement of longer-range manned platforms in the last two decades.
   Land based air has been popular and easy to use in U.S. conflicts since 1990, but the same vulnerabilities Lehman discovered remain. As during the Cold War, the U.S. can no longer assume conditions as it has possessed in both of the Iraq conflicts, Afghanistan, and most recently Libya. These past conflicts were characterized by a ring of near-invulnerable airbases encircling the opponent, little if any resistance from the adversary, and a focus on strike verses a more conventional wartime campaign to reduce opponents and protect friendly forces. Overseas U.S. airbases in future conflicts against peer or near-peer opponents would be subject to attack from a variety of means and friendly host nations could rapidly become potential adversaries as demonstrated by such recent events as the so-called "Arab spring." The U.S. Air Force's stable of long and medium range strike aircraft has also significantly declined in number since Lehman's time and if war or revolution prevent the use of airbases that support shorter-range strike aircraft, the carrier would quickly become the sole aviation asset in a region of conflict.
     The U.S. again needs to ask Lehman's big strategic questions before making any final choices on its carrier fleet. The aircraft carrier has been a controversial platform since its emergence nearly a century ago at the end of World War 1. It has always been vulnerable to attack, but remains capable of flexible, continuous delivery of high volumes of ordnance albeit at a shorter range then in the past. Previous threats to the carrier have been successfully managed through technological improvements in the carrier's construction and defenses. New threats such as antiship ballistic missiles need to be fully countered, but the carrier remains less threatened than any land base. This relative safety allows national command authority the ability to deploy significant striking power without placing U.S. aircraft at risk in bases outside U.S.sovereign control. The recent success of the X-47B offers the potential of large numbers of unmanned aircraft being deployed from carriers. Land-based air can still play a significant role in any campaign, but in the likely contested conflicts  of the future its regional bases could be threatened. The lack of medium range strike assets in the U.S. Air Force inventory place a further burden on carrier-based aviation to carry a contested campaign. No matter the final number or composition of the carrier fleet, it is vital that decision-makers determine what role carriers should play in the nation's national security and how many are needed to fulfill that requirement. Carrier critics have a role to play, but a review of history since 1945 shows they are not offering any new arguments. The mission for the last twenty years may have been strike, but twilight is descending on that period of history and the next conflicts the U.S. faces will require flexible weapon systems that offer decision makers maximum freedom of choice. A cruise missile launch platform does not meet this goal, but an aircraft carrier can and will continue to meet this requirement. Lehman bemoaned the "executive/legislative drift" on carrier choices in the late 1970s. The nation cannot now afford a similar delay.