The Pentagon wants two fewer carriers in the Navy:
An assessment prepared by the Office of the Secretary of Defense proposes cutting two aircraft carriers from the U.S. Navy’s roster to boost the number of smaller warships. Under the proposal, the Navy would retire two aircraft carriers and plow the savings into buying several dozen frigate-sized ships, as well as large unmanned ships. The proposal is likely to run into stiff opposition from proponents of carriers as well as the carrier lobby both inside and outside government.
The study, according to Defense News, would trim the number of nuclear-powered “supercarriers” from 11 to just nine. The number of large surface combatants, both guided missile cruisers and guided missile destroyers, would remain constant at between 80 and 90, compared to the approximately 83 ships in service right now. The number of frigate-sized small surface combatants, on the other hand, would swell from 15 to 20 to between 55 and 70.
And more could go, too.
You know what I have thought of the platform-centric behemoths in a network-centric world for over two decades now. Or whatever the current term of art for the latter is these days in that issue.
For a long time, the issue of the carrier was muddied by the tendency of carrier opponents to argue the merits of sea control carrier vulnerabilities and alternatives for offensive power; while carrier defenders argued the carrier's great value in power projection missions against smaller powers without significant anti-ship capabilities. Both were right but it was an apples and oranges debate:
So, our big deck carriers are very valuable in the power projection mission (or in peacetime disaster response where the disaster isn't shooting at us).
But we have to be careful using them in a sea control mission. Especially since the range of our carrier aircraft has bizarrely gone down over the decades, meaning we have more problems striking enemy assets that can target our carriers.
I wouldn't mothball our existing carriers. But I'd phase them out over decades and use the money saved for other naval platforms. They are platform-centric kings in an increasingly network-centric world. And look to alternatives to providing sea-based air power.
And please stop arguing that carriers are hard to sink. That is nonsense. And not even the right issue.
I kept wanting a sea power debate rather than a sterile carrier "debate" that consisted of both sides talking past each other.
My advice was to pick a number for how many surface warships we need, and then adjust what we build to reach that number. I have long noted, as that first article does, that our Navy is top heavy with capable ships at the expense of numbers. But our terminology hides that change.
Clearly we can't afford to build the numbers we need even with cheaper less capable ships without something else giving, and it will be the carrier force. That's a good call.
The carriers are still useful for many roles, including supporting a sea control campaign. It makes little sense to mothball them when we already built them and they have decades of service left. But they can fade to a smaller role in the networked fleet that can mass firepower from dispersed platforms rather than being the queen of platform-centric warfare that required big assets to mass offensive power.
And if the new question is getting ship numbers during a war against a peer competitor, why not use modularized auxiliary cruisers as missile trucks or other supporting roles?
Still, the role of the carrier isn't the only question to answer. What about the carrier air wings? As the carriers dwindle in numbers, I would reduce the carrier air wings at a lower rate to keep some for operating on land:
One problem with having fewer CSGs in the deployment rotation is that if we want to keep a carrier forward deployed in both CENTCOM and the western Pacific, we need to keep the CSGs at sea for a longer period of time. It's simple math. With more CSGs in the rotation, the CSGs could maintain two forward CSGs with less time on station.
What I don't get is why we forget that a CSG is the means to project an air wing forward and not the end.
In both the Persian Gulf and western Pacific, we have plenty of access to land-based airfields. So it is technically not necessary to have a CSG to project Navy air power into those regions.
Why not maintain more carrier air wings than carriers so the air wing rotation cycle keeps more of them ready to deploy?
If we did that, we could try deploying a carrier air wing without a carrier into the rotation to maintain Navy air power forward deployed without straining the morale of CSG crews by keeping them on station too long.
But now we are facing a sea control world that we aren't sure we will rule. Chinese aero/naval power has grown quite a bit over the last two decades. So now we picked a number and will act on it. That would surely be progress in a rational debate.
