The Navy’s Carrier Crunch: Even Without Budget Cuts, Deployments Will Drop

[unhappycamper]

http://breakingdefense.com/2014/01/the-navys-carrier-crunch-even-without-budget-cuts-deployments-will-drop/



The USS George Washington, which may be decommissioned to save money.

The Navy’s Carrier Crunch: Even Without Budget Cuts, Deployments Will Drop
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
on January 28, 2014 at 5:04 PM

WASHINGTON: The Navy’s in a carrier crunch. US commanders around the world keep asking for carriers to cover trouble spots from Syria, Iran, and Afghanistan to the Western Pacific and the South China Sea, but the Navy doesn’t have enough to go around. And they may well lose another.

In recent years, amazingly, the Navy has managed to increase the number of aircraft carriers deployed overseas at any given time even as the total number of carriers in service decreased. But the price was high: extra-long deployments, stressed-out crews, and overworked ships requiring extensive and expensive unplanned maintenance. Now the Navy has decided it just cannot get as much work out of the carriers it has — just as the budget cuts known as sequestration may leave it with fewer carriers.

“I don’t see any way you can cut a carrier and defend the country,” Rep. Randy Forbes, chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on seapower, told my colleague Colin Clark last night. ”You would have to assume a great deal more risk than we have been willing to assume.”

“We currently are an 11-carrier navy in a 15-carrier world,” Forbes said, referring to repeated Navy studies that say only a fleet of 15 could meet global demand. But Forbes — a legislator — is citing the law, which requires an 11 carrier fleet: In fact, we’re down to 10.



unhappycamper comment: The trend of more pricy military hardware may have something to do with this.

Prior to the last Nimitz-class carrier built, Nimitz-class carriers cost around $4.5 billion dollars delivered, sans people and aircraft. The last one, the USS G.H.W. Bush, cost $6.8 billion due to the overtime required to get this thing christened before poppy popped.

Our latest wonder, the USS Gerald R. Ford, is gonna cost somewhere from $16 ~ $40 billion dollars(this camper's guesstimate) delivered, sans people and aircraft. This is just for the aircraft carrier; the support group usually has a sub or two, a coupla destroyers, a minesweeper or two and other support vessels.

And aircraft are not getting cheaper.



And that's part of the reason our military eats 57% of our discretionary budget.

[bemildred]

1. Carriers are every bit as obsolete as tanks. We should not be spending money on them. nt

Last edited Wed Jan 29, 2014, 02:20 PM - Edit history (1)

[Sherman A1]

2. Simply cut them in half

or there about. Smaller carriers (thinking CVL's or CVE's of the 2nd World War) with about half of their air complement being drones or UAV's could easily be an answer. We simply don't need 15 Super Carriers. As UAV's improve their capability it would not be that much of a stretch to give a non traditional "aircraft carrier" an air wing of these types of aircraft.