Yea, one Carrier Battle Group, packs a lot of power… I mean a LOT. Think about this. If we fight a three front war, Iraq, Afghanistan (really isn’t a battle anymore, just occupation), and North Korea, that’s three Carrier Battle Groups per war zone, plus 2 left over. Muchless, with 500,000 troops, this isn’t a question of if we can do it, but how long we will be able to do it for. The logistics of food, etc, are extreme, but we did it back in WW2…
Old age. They began construction on that ship back in 1957, and she was commissioned in 1961. The newest Nimitz-class nuclear-powered carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, will be commissioned in spring 2003. The next carrier after that, the USS George H.W. Bush, will be ready for service in 2009. The George H.W. Bush, CVN-77, is planned as a modified version of the current Nimitz-class. The Navy also has plans on the drawing board for still more advanced designs after that.
Will the USS Constellation be scrapped? Or converted to a Marine Corps Amphibious Warfare mothership?
Scrapped.
Fleet carriers generally make poor troopships. The Essex-class carriers that originally served as marine assault ships were decidedly suboptimal.
A carrier battle group is normally commanded by a rear admiral. The equivalent Army rank is a major general, who would normally command a division.
In manpower terms, a carrier battle group represents about 7,500 personnel. That’s about half of a typical U.S. Army division’s authorized strength of 15,000 - call it two understrength brigades.
In dollar terms, a carrier battle group is something ungodly, somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 to to $30 billion. I have no clue what army unit costs anywhere near that much.
Rear Admiral could be Brigadier General or Major General. Remember, Rear Admiral has upper and lower halves.
I read somewhere a while back that “they” were thinking about converting one of the old carriers into a special operations base.
They got word. The Abraham Lincoln, spending the holidays in Perth, is not coming home as scheduled.
From the NYTimes AP Wire.