It pains a Naval Academy graduate and former carrier pilot to propose the first thing to be cut should be the aircraft carrier battle groups. Those magnificent ships and aircraft are too expensive, and are designed to fight the last war, not future wars. In practice exercises between submarines and carriers, the submarines win. Every time.
Any nation that fears it might be attacked by the USS FORD will not build an aircraft carrier to match it. No country could do it. But they could build missiles to do the job instead, and they have done just that. For the cost of two aircraft parked on the flight deck of the FORD, an enemy can fire dozens of cruise missiles from ships, submarines, and aircraft that will home in on the carrier from hundreds of miles away and slam into it at the speed of sound. The damage from the warhead and the kinetic energy of such a missile is devastating, and multiple hits will sink the largest ship.
FORD has not yet been built, but do missiles exist that can sink it? Here is one, the BrahMos, a $3 million Mach 3 cruise missile built by a joint venture between Russia and India. The next version, BrahMos II, will be ready in 2013 and will impact a target at more than five times the speed of sound.
There may be a silver lining in the dark cloud of national debt. Besides forcing us to get rid of excess weaponry we cannot afford, the debt will force the Pentagon to do strategic planning and redesign our defense against tomorrow’s enemies. That is, if the White House will allow us to even name today’s Islamic enemies.
@MEscape:
Terrorist tactics are not dependent on high tech or high cost systems like the one you’ve focused on here, just as you pointed out with regard to the USS Cole. I agree that we still have to worry about their access to increasingly dangerous systems. Can you imagine the scenario when a huge cruise liner is set aflame or sunk outright by an ASCM? Hezbollah fired a Chinese knock-off ASCM from inside Lebanon and nearly sent an Israeli warship to the bottom. I think it woke the Israelis up but we seem to be prepared to blunder along happily believing that Iran won’t continue this trend of increasingly dangerous technology transfer to their terrorist proxies.
Vigilance is needed to protect ships from attacks like that perpetrated against the Cole. Stand-off systems like advanced anti-ship cruise missiles, like any other weapons system, have their own signatures and weaknesses to exploit. You can bet that Israeli naval forces operating off the coast of Lebanon will on guard against repeated ASCM attacks.
But back to the carrier argument, I feel that ThomasB has made the new carrier the target rather than the poor management of it’s construction and development costs. This is a mistake that has been repeated with regard to the defense industry for as long as I have been alive. Well, longer actually; it just seems to be getting worse as time goes by.
Ifind strange why ERIC MASSA ask twice “what if it does’nt work?”and been answer with assurance that most likely will work;he,ERIC a retired admiral lacking confidence on the naval officers does’nt click right unless he has already decide with government : to agree to end the building of the ship,
“Opinions From somebody in the Know”
Cruising for a bruising?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/18/cruising-for-a-bruising/
Underestimating China
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/12/underestimating-china/
The debate has to do with what kind of naval surface ships the country needs to build for the future. Capable surface combatants are key because they are the backbone and most visible assets for safeguarding U.S. national security interests and ensuring freedom of the seas and economic stability
Naval shipbuilders sinking
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/22/naval-shipbuilders-sinking/
Admiral Blasts Littoral Combat Ship
http://newwars.wordpress.com/2009/02/01/admiral-blasts-littoral-combat-ship/
a lil background info :JAMES WEBB
Within six months of taking office, Webb had forced from the service Admiral James A. (Ace) Lyons, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet. Lyons had infuriated Webb with an independence that did not fit into the new Secretary’s view of the the command structure.
http://www.lionllc.com/page4.html
Looks like I’m right about the strategic thought of our Navy. It’s Cold War mentality vs. New World Asymmetry.
http://www.komonews.com/news/national/100032114.html
An $8 Billion plus carrier rendered useless by a missile.
The layered defense of China using asymmetrical warfare and cheap, reliable technology has just made the carrier the last battleship.
@ThomasB.:
Let’s see – I’ve heard that tanks would be rendered useless by aircraft and then by wire guided missiles. Aircraft themselves were judged extinct because of the SAM threat. I remember that cannons on modern jet fighters were once regarded as useless and outmoded thanks to the development of air to air missiles. Remember when the Exocet set the HMS Sheffield aflame? That was the end of surface ships, wasn’t it?
History is replete with fanciful claims of manufacturers and premature death pronouncements for existing systems but then performances don’t often match the product as advertised and there is always the advent of the countermeasure designed to defeat the latest super-weapon.
Hitting a moving target 900 miles away is a daunting task, even if it the target is not prepared to make that task more difficult through maneuver, stealth, electronic counter measures, or ABM systems. The battle space gets larger every year and if China is going to perfect a weapon such as the Dong Feng D21, then they’re going to have to have eyes aloft to target the carrier. Aircraft are vulnerable and so are submarines but none so much as a satellite, the likely platform to be pressed for such a task. Optical satellites can be blinded, radar satellites can be jammed, and IR is vulnerable to countermeasures as well. All can simply be shot down.
There is not a perfect weapon system that I’m aware of and none that target a carrier without carrying with it the prospect, if not the complete certainty of total war. Put yourself in China’s shoes – is the Dong Feng D21 a sword to brandish or would putting it to use reveal a double edge? China may as well consider launching that missile at the United States itself, unless you believe that the killing of several thousand American sailors would not result in an equally if not more devastating blow in response.
Your eagerness to spell the end of the fleet aircraft carrier is curious to me. The Dong Feng is not a new threat. There has been some talk of it for at least five years in the open press. I’m beginning the think you have not done that much background on this topic to be so certain.
@ tfhr
Amen brother
SO, ALL we have to do is REINSTATE NASA and MAKE A NEW SATTELLITE which task will be to focus only on who present a threath for AMERICA; And establish a strategy for eliminating such trheath by designing one counter” F with a number nucleor beside the F”.
JUST like the EXPERTS can create.
NASA under current Admin to worship (not Warship) Mecca
Three Muslims from the UAE become first non-U.S. citizens to train at NASA
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/08/three-muslims-from-the-uae-become-first-non-us-citizens-to-train-at-nasa.html
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/05/nasa-chief-frontier-better-relations-muslims/
AirForce Job and they already have a number of programs underway….The SpaceRace has been going on for sometime…..
http://www.mda.mil/
nice logo—>
http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2010/02/missile-defense.html
http://www.afspc.af.mil/
http://www.afspc.af.mil/units/index.asp
http://www.losangeles.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=5318