Gates Takes Aim at Navy, Questions Carrier Fleet

[IDemo]

Source: Wired.com

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has already taken aim at the Air Force’s favorite project, the F-22 Raptor Stealth fighter, and he schwacked the Army’s beloved Future Combat Systems. Now he’s letting the Navy know that their sacred cow — the carrier strike group — is next. (If I was a sailor, I’d call it a rhetorical warning shot across the bow.)

In a speech today at the Navy League symposium, Gates said the service needed to take another look at plans to keep 11 carrier strike groups for the next three decades. “In terms of size and striking power, no other country has even one comparable ship,” Gates noted.

“To be sure, the need to project power across the oceans will never go away,” he said. “But, consider the massive over-match the U.S. already enjoys. Consider, too, the growing anti-ship capabilities of adversaries. Do we really need eleven carrier strike groups for another 30 years when no other country has more than one? Any future plans must address these realities.”

It’s a message the Navy has thus far been resistant to. The service has taken some steps to buy smaller, faster shore-hugging ships, and has also embraced riverine operations for the first time since Vietnam. But Gates suggested that the service was still wedded to multi-billion-dollar ships that may in the future be increasingly vulnerable. The aircraft carrier may be the ultimate symbol of American military power. But with the right missile aimed at it, a carrier can go from fearsome to fearful sitting duck in a hurry.

Read more: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/05/gates-takes-aim-at-navy-questions-carrier-fleet/

[msongs]

1. for the cost of one carrier we could bail out ALL our schools. not an admin priority tho nt

[unkachuck]

2. "not an admin priority tho"....and that's a shame....n/t

[Posteritatis]

28. A Nimitz costs $4.5 billion

I don't think you're going to be bailing much out on a national level with that. Not that I disagree that the US military budget is too high by hundreds of billions of dollars, of course.

[Captain Hilts]

3. The Ford Class is a waste of money. Better to have more NIMITZ class. nt

[naaman fletcher]

12. How so?

Not disagreeing with you I have just not heard that argument made before.

[Captain Hilts]

19. The NIMITZ, because of experience and certain economies of scale,

are a better deal financially than the new FORD class, which cost nearly half as much more per copy.

If carriers are vulnerable - and they are - the $$ is better spent on getting ships/subs around them to protect them more effectively. More BURKEs, etc.

[naaman fletcher]

4. this quote is suspect:

“To be sure, the need to project power across the oceans will never go away,”

Really? Anyway, even is you assume that is true, with our missile capabilities we could just as easily increase the size of the cruiser and destroyer fleets and still save a lot of money.

[provis99]

5. get rid of the damned attack submarines, too.

Why the hell do we have 50+ attack submarines, when they serve only one purpose: attacking the nuclear ballistic missile submarines of the Soviet Union, of which neither the countries nor the missile submarines now exist??!!!!

[Hardrada]

6. And the carrier battle groups are aimed at the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Also non-existent.

[Captain Hilts]

10. No, they're monitoring China's expanding fleet. nt

[Posteritatis]

29. Er, no they aren't. (nt)

[naaman fletcher]

7. uh....

The Soviet Union ballistic missile subs are now Russian ballistic missile subs, and they certainly do still exist.

[Captain Hilts]

11. And they're back at sea at an increased rate. nt

[Captain Hilts]

9. We have fewer than 50 and they are not just for going after Soviet SSBNs...

China has been on a significant naval building program and is building submarines. One of their subs got within striking distance of one of our carriers recently because we did not have enough subs with the battle group.

Submarines are for monitoring all surface traffic in addition to chasing other submarines.

You need to estimate that at any one time a third are in repair.

[Hardrada]

15. We could use one to watch the Somalian pirates

but really one doesn't need zillion dollar warcraft for that sort of thing. That is the problem with asymmetric warfare. We are armed with heavy artillery but the problem is mosquito-sized.

[Captain Hilts]

18. I agree with you there. The subs are for watching China and Russia's navies. nt

[Strelnikov_]

25. If we are talking defense, could probably use more.

With attack subs, you attain 'water' supremacy.

With water supremacy, no waterborne attack can be launched.

The attack subs in WWII were critical in defeating Imperial Japan.

For projecting power (re: empire), however, attack subs not so useful.

[hunter]

30. If there's no carrier you don't need the battle group.

Easy.

We could cut our military budget 90% and we'd still be the meanest scariest MAD bastards on the planet.

[songbookz]

8. Most Expensive Military in the World

America already spends more than the rest of the world combined on its military (and still can't get them decent armor and rifles) - even if we cut the military budget in half, we'd still have the most expensive military in the world.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

17. Even if we cut it in quarter...

[TomCADem]

13. Agree, What Navy Do We Plan To Pick A Fight With Exactly?

On the other hand, we lack the resources to deal with the current threats posed by smaller hostile nations. Even GOP bogey-man Iran does not have a sizable Navy to speak of, but it does have an impressive battery of anti-ship missles.

[Hardrada]

14. Hell, al-Quaeda or whoever almost got one of our destroyers

with an explosives-laden speedboat for God's sake.

[Bravo Zulu]

16. The Navy should get some of these babies!

[Captain Hilts]

20. THAT was one of the craziest things EVER built!!!

[Kolesar]

21. Nobody did ugly like the Soviets did ugly...eom

[Blue_Tires]

22. that almost looks like alien technology...

or something from Futurama

[Strelnikov_]

26. What the F*** is that? n/t

[Strelnikov_]

27. Ah, a Lun-class Ekranoplan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lun-class_ekranoplan

[daleo]

23. The U.S. navy should try capping undersea rogue oil wells

Since that seems to be causing more devastation than any terrorists could ever manage.

[BreweryYardRat]

24. Don't scrap 'em, but definitely mothball 'em.

Depending on how fast China gears up for a blue-water navy, we may need them. But for the next few years, we've got more important things to spend money on.

[ShortnFiery]

31. Gates is no great patriot.

My cynical side believes he'd like divert the monies to acquire more covert ways to subjugate people of other resource-rich nations who our MIC has its corporate raider eyes upon.