Study Proposes Light Aircraft Carriers for the Future Fleet

[madrat]

You might want to touch on Bernard Brodie before making assertions like that.

[marauder2048]

You might want to touch on Bernard Brodie before making assertions like that.

He died more than 40 years ago and I can't find much evidence that he shaped doctrine,
force structure or operational planning after the mid-60's.

[spazsinbad]

CNO: Aviation-Capable Combatant Needed in Future Fleet
13 Oct 2020 Richard R. Burgess

"ARLINGTON, Va. — The chief of naval operations (CNO) said that the future naval fleet will need some sort of aviation-capable ship in the 2045 time frame, but the form of that capability is not yet in focus.

Speaking Oct. 13 in a Defense One webinar, CNO Adm. Michael Gilday addressed in general terms the forthcoming 2045 Future Naval Force Study for Battle Force 2045 to be released soon by the Defense Department. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, speaking Oct. 6 at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis, said that Battle Force 2045 would include a force of eight to 11 aircraft carriers for the high-end fight — equipped with the carrier air wing of the future. The Navy will study the possibility of building up to six light carriers — equipped with short takeoff/vertical landing strike aircraft — to free up the super carriers for the high-end fight.

Gilday said “the hidden point that need to be drawn out is the comparison — or not — to light carriers. … Whether or not the aviation platform of the future looks like the [USS] Gerald R. Ford or the Nimitz class is questionable. It’s largely going to be driven by payload.”

The CNO said that considering 0 to 6 light carriers in the study “allows us to do much more deeper analysis about what type of functions in a distributed maritime fight across the spectrum of conflict might we want a smaller aviation combatant to do. One example might be IRS&T [intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting].”

He said that the Navy had a gap in IRS&T capability and asked if that gap could be closed with something smaller than a supercarrier, not necessarily taking on the carrier’s role of long-range strike, but supplementing the capabilities of a super carrier.

Gilday said that studies of large carriers versus smaller carriers in the past jostled with issues such as nuclear propulsion versus conventional propulsion, sortie rate, sustainability, “that leads to a fait accompli that the smaller carrier just doesn’t compete with the supercarrier.

“I think that’s just a set of false choices,” he said. “The United States Navy needs to take a look at where we’re going to go in the future, which there is a requirement — which I think is likely — to deliver effects down range from the sea through the air, I think that some type of aviation combatant is going to be required.”"

Source: https://seapowermagazine.org/cno-aviati ... ure-fleet/

[quicksilver]

The study recommends a study.

More classic Navy ‘rope-a-dope.’

[35_aoa]

:lmao:

The study recommends a study.

More classic Navy ‘rope-a-dope.’

Real starving contractors get paid for studies of studies though. Why is this so funny? You know you can't triple stamp a double stamp

[Corsair1963]

Honestly, I have my doubts we will ever see a Light Aircraft Carrier (CVL) for the USN. Unless they plan on replacing the current LHA/LHD (Wasp/America) Amphibious Ships. Plus, would the USMC even go along with such a proposal???


Nor, do I see the country (US) giving away its ace in the hole card??? (Nimitz/Ford Class Super Carriers) Something that the PLAN can't match in the foreseeable future......

[quicksilver]

I applaud the CNO for producing these quotes while maintaining a straight face. My favorite is a potential IRST ‘gap’ (to be filled by as many as ‘zero’ light carriers...or maybe a couple more...who knows).

But, a close second place goes to the idea of ‘little carriers’ doing all the day-to-day stuff while the CVNs hangout in port ‘waiting for the big one.’

Who knows, the study of the study may discover that little carriers (with STOVL aircraft...that say NAVY on the side ) may be the best way to combat the emerging ufo/tic-tac threat (that is also being studied).

You can’t make this stuff up. Well, then again, it is an election year.

[madrat]

You might want to touch on Bernard Brodie before making assertions like that.

He died more than 40 years ago and I can't find much evidence that he shaped doctrine,
force structure or operational planning after the mid-60's.

There isn't much more to touch upon once he got done. You'll be hard pressed to find any more granular arguments than what he made on the topic.

[madrat]

I applaud the CNO for producing these quotes while maintaining a straight face. My favorite is a potential IRST ‘gap’ (to be filled by as many as ‘zero’ light carriers...or maybe a couple more...who knows).

But, a close second place goes to the idea of ‘little carriers’ doing all the day-to-day stuff while the CVNs hangout in port ‘waiting for the big one.’

Who knows, the study of the study may discover that little carriers (with STOVL aircraft...that say NAVY on the side ) may be the best way to combat the emerging ufo/tic-tac threat (that is also being studied).

You can’t make this stuff up. Well, then again, it is an election year.

If the Navy keeps the current pace we will have the little carriers - all none or a couple more - sitting in port along side the big fellas.

[Corsair1963]

I applaud the CNO for producing these quotes while maintaining a straight face. My favorite is a potential IRST ‘gap’ (to be filled by as many as ‘zero’ light carriers...or maybe a couple more...who knows).

But, a close second place goes to the idea of ‘little carriers’ doing all the day-to-day stuff while the CVNs hangout in port ‘waiting for the big one.’

Who knows, the study of the study may discover that little carriers (with STOVL aircraft...that say NAVY on the side ) may be the best way to combat the emerging ufo/tic-tac threat (that is also being studied).

You can’t make this stuff up. Well, then again, it is an election year.

If the Navy keeps the current pace we will have the little carriers - all none or a couple more - sitting in port along side the big fellas.

This is just "talk" at this stage.....(nothing more)

[element1loop]

... say China, launches a "salvo" of long range ballistic missiles, it is dangerously possible, even likely, that the next response is not to fire defensive missiles or send in a light carrier, but rather a "salvo" that terminates the existence of Beijing, and a dozen other cities and bases with "significant kill radius" warheads ...

I really don't think so BP, everyone had nerve gases in WWII and no one used them to smash their enemy's ability to fight. When Germany lost 100,000 civilians in multi-wave bomber attacks and were clearly losing the war, the military did not dare go there. Even fascist authoritarian ideological maniacs wouldn't go there as part of a total war. Even when facing a rope if they lost, they preferred to lose and commit suicide instead. Same with the NORKS, and the Chinese intervention, same with Vietnam. Neither used NBC to survive or respond.

A threshold to using such weapons first, apparently only exists where no other side has them, not just the country to get a thermonuclear spanking.

Otherwise it's 75 years of repeated nothin'-burger when push came to shove. US and Australia fought China indirectly with large mass of forces including carriers (Australia had 2 involved, but one in a logistical role) close to China for a decade, and nothing of that kind happened. Russia and China both did nothing but send a lot more conventional weapons and double-down on proxie-war as indirect conflict support. They strongly avoided doing anything else.

More conventional weapons to clients and allies was the response.

The real danger is believing it will be a nuclear fight then discover it's solely a conventional fight, and have the emphasis, expectations and force structure all wrong. Plus that the war will drag on much longer than anyone ever imagined. For instance, I agree with marauder that losses will be large ... unless the kill chain and organised C2 is broken. Once broken though the high losses become more one sided. And that's where light carriers make sense, to move forwards in more locations, including islands, to really hammer the mainland and to take or prevent the use of areas that are not the mainland.

Thus China gets 'defeated' ... except you can't take China on the ground, you can only clobber all over and try to force it to give up. Land ground forces there and tactical nukes could actually get used. So that's not happening. And given this, China decides it will not give up, but instead doubles-down on conflict over Taiwan, and other BS claims, and the conflict evolves into a long-term fatiguing ultra expensive conventional conflict (think North Vietnam's attitude).

This is what we need to be ready for, as the nuclear option is not an option, the USN response would be conventional. So can USN and USMC fight China like that, for 10 years? Got the right conventional forces? Can they be sustained? What happens to global and domestic support in a long-term fight against CCP/PLA? Does support dissolve?

Does every one just agree to give it a miss? That's probably what would eventually happen (and what Beijing would bank on). But only after a very damaging conventional war which seriously damages both Western forces, morale, and the appetite for large-scale warfare any time soon, with worn out forces. Which invites strategic opportunism. China may not strictly lose, but you'd hardly know it, the country would be wrecked for a generation. That would be a more than satisfactory outcome, even if inconclusive. Note that Indonesia invaded East Timor and took Irian Jaya (western New Guinea) a couple of years after Australia and US withdrew from Vietnam because the risk of effective intervention to stop them was then rendered very low. There are many other examples of how war weariness worked against interests and strategic position.

Conventional war is very acceptable but NBC war is not, and never will be again. Those weapons are only useful to deter others from using them first, and that applies to the US as well.

So will the USN and USMC be better served and equipped to fight for 10 years in WESTPAC with light carriers, in a conventional fight? Or something else, maybe several types of something else?

[marauder2048]

You might want to touch on Bernard Brodie before making assertions like that.

He died more than 40 years ago and I can't find much evidence that he shaped doctrine,
force structure or operational planning after the mid-60's.

There isn't much more to touch upon once he got done. You'll be hard pressed to find any more granular arguments than what he made on the topic.

His arguments were propounded long before the dramatic improvements in weapons accuracy, early warning and control,
enhancements in delivery vehicles both type and flexibility.

The US arsenal looked fundamentally different to the one he used as a basis for this framework.

What you find is that civilian strategists like Brodie did not have strong followings inside DOE/DOD;
they were more for consumption by academics and the media.

It's a bit like (mutually) assured destruction; it has little influence on US force structure, doctrine or
operational thinking but it's all academia could talk about for decades.

[blindpilot]

... say China, launches a "salvo" of long range ballistic missiles, it is dangerously possible, even likely, that the next response is not to fire defensive missiles or send in a light carrier, but rather a "salvo" that terminates the existence of Beijing, and a dozen other cities and bases with "significant kill radius" warheads ...

I really don't think so BP,...

I certainly pray you are right ... but ... keep in mind I was working on systems in the Missile Warning Center in Cheyenne Mountain as a Missile Warning Officer when little defcon lights and missile counters went spinning in the wind in the late 70's, on the phone with a handful of senior officers, sorting out what was real or not. I sat at a table in the Pentagon with as many stars as in a good sized constellation, discussing National Command Authority's (ie. President) processing of information, etc. etc. I can certainly say that it is good that the guy on the street has no clue ... how close we came ... can come ... how much we owe to a crusty old Russian Sub commander ... better to just go play with the kids in the park, oblivious to it all.

Piece of the Rock

Chey Mtn RockBP.jpg (21.03 KiB) Viewed 8770 times

And I would not want to be the one on the phone, explaining that, "Yes these are real launches of over a hundred real ballistic missiles, and initial predictions are targets somewhere between Guam and Anchorage Alaska, maybe Hawaii, west coast possible .. we'll have better data real soon, so don't get too excited yet ... you have 15 minutes till first impact ..."

We wouldn't be talking about where the nearest Light Carrier was.

Just saying,
BP

[milosh]

But same would happen to America so I don't see logic to use nukes against China if they fire conventional rockets against US ships and bases in Pacific.

It is very hard to mistake DF-21 and especially DF-17 for DF-31, DF-5 and DF-41 are out of question size difference is huge compared to DF-21 and DF-17.

In fact I think Chinese are moving from classic ASBM toward gliders like DF-17 to kill any chance of mistake by NORAD.

[blindpilot]

,,,, any chance of mistake by NORAD.

The pressure to respond quickly with preemptive counter force suppression from the Ohio Class sub off the coast, "before it gets worse", is not trivial... really bad things spiral out from, "well, let's at least close down the ICBM sites before they are just empty silos."

You (the Chinese) would have to be an idiot to launch a "salvo" of missiles thinking there's no chance of a mistake ... yeah right ... keep thinking that ... you'll get us all killed.

But as above, I certainly pray you're right.

MHO
BP