Sunburn would make more sense. I’ll have to start making more use of google. 
XENOPHON41: I should have made it more clear, that I was speaking outside the context of training and readiness, these being part of “all else being equal”. Maybe I should have used those words.
Many insightful replies here…I would also point out that we must learn from history. It makes no sense to prepare for yesterday’s was-look at the Russian Navy: in the mid 1970’s , it was causing consternation in Western naval circles.Their ships were modern (or so it seemed) and heavily armed. Now of course, we know that they were designed to deliver ONE SALVO of (admittedly immense firepower)-and that was it. They were so poorly designed, that most didn’t even have fireplugs! One major fire and all would have been lost. Whereas, in the US Navy, ships are designed for a service life of 35+ years, and are capable of being upgraded with newer systems. Or take the case of the Royal navy after WWI-they planned on a battleship navy, and found themselves fighting a 1940’s war with a fleet from the 1920’s, only the relative weakness of Hiler’s surface fleet kept the RN from experiencing a disastrous war in the atlantic.
Good morning everyone. I’m sorry for my errors in posting to the wrong forum earlier. I wasn’t trying to waste any of Chronos’ time, and as far as Sua is concerned, those are my real thoughts. It is an important topic and I had to relay the message I received.
Well, here we go again. I tried to have a relaxing weekend and watch a little basketball. Hold the phones, a Navy plane is down in China. 24 United States Servicemen didn’t get injured, but there has been no contact with them since they landed. The Chinese are probablly trying to gain access to our plane to find out some more tech secrets that their spies didn’t have time to gather before Dubya booted them out of here. To top it all off, the Chinese are saying that the mid-air collision was our fault. How can that be? They were flying small, fast, and manuverable fighter jets, while the U.S. Plane was on a recon mission. Our plane, which is powered by four prop. engines is about the size of a 737 and is a heck of a lot less slower and nimble than the Chinese F-8 jet. The rules of internation al airspace dictate that smaller, more agile planes must give the right of way to larger ones. How in the world could our plane intentionally hit their jet? But we were the ones who crashed into them, huh? A Chinese military officail said that it was “international practice” for their F-8’s to track the U.S. surveillance planes. However, according to Admiral Blair, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, the Chinese intercepts have recently become more aggressive.
As of right now, the United States has three destroyers floating just off the island in China where our plane is. Pres. Bush said that the ships will not leave till we get our plane back. If this situation escalates, let’s be thankful that China’s nukes can reach only the West Coast, and us back East will just die in ten years from all of the fall-out (just kidding…trying to shed some humor on a dark issue.) Well, have to go. Thanks for all of the replies, keep them coming. God Bless America.
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Why would India want a carrier force? Pakistan and China aren’t known as naval powers, so they aren’t going to attack from the sea, now, are they? And no one seriously believes the US is massing its forces for an invasion of the subcontinent. So why would India need carriers?
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India MAY feel it needs a more visable status symbol. Carriers, regarless of size, tend to be more conspicuous than nuclear weapons.
More importantly, a blue water carrier navy would be an integral part of India’s overt efforts to contain Chinese influence in the region. India has signed some sort of military pact with Mongolia (don’t know the details, sorry. Shouldn’t be hard to find though.). She has also strengthened relations with Vietnam (a significant military power in the region, believe it or not) toward the end of military coperation. Everyone’s familiar with the mutual antagonation between China and Vietnam. Indonesia has also been approached. I’d imagine (it’s a reasonable assumption anyway) that Indian relations with South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan are on the up and up.
What greater way to materialy support claims of alliance (considering India’s land access to China) with island and coastal countries than to have a significant capability to project supportive force? A blue water fleet would allow the Indians to intervene in smaller incidents that might otherwise go unopposed. The P.L.A.N. isn’t all that powerful now, but they may become so.
And, for that matter, what would Brazil or any other minor power who has carriers need them? For many it’s a matter of national pride and a need for international recognition as an importnant “peace support” player. I’ve seen enough defense contractor advertisments aimed at professional military folk to know that not all decisions are made for entirely objective, rational reasons. But for India, I think the case is easily made that it fits their evolving foreign policy.
Hope it answers your question.
Thank you for taking the time to answer. That was very informative.
The OP mentions the low numbers of naval vessels as compared with our past…especially the WWII and Korean era.
IANA military analyst but aren’t our ships vastly more capable than they were back then? Can’t a single cruiser achieve what once took several battleships to pull off by virtue of greatly increased range and accuracy?
I’m 100% for a strong navy and I am grateful that we have no real opposition to our navy (I don’t think there is any one country that has a Navy that could even put much of a dent into ours). That said naval ships are quite expensive to operate (part of the reason so few other country’s bother).
In short it seems acceptable to have fewer ships that are better and more capable than their predecessors. Couple that with improvements in recruitment and keeping those recruits (as others have mentioned) and I think you still have one majorly badass navy to contend with.
I mentioned it above.
If you read my first post here, maybe you’d think differently about our preceived invulnerabilty. The USN will win hands down everytime, so long as the enemy plays by our rules. So of course they won’t.
Thanx to technology, ships have and are becoming cheaper to operate and many other nations do. US and European shipbuilders, when not building for their own countries, build modern ships for many other coutries in the middle east and pacific (for the mosst part). Most of these tend to be smaller corvettes that really aren’t blue water capable. They are, however, modern warships with potentially great lethality.
But, ironically, the biggest threat to the USN and Western fleets (in my opinion anyway) is mines. They are incredibly cost effective and can do tremendous damage to in the littoral waters. (I probably should have mentioned that above, too. Oh, well.) Missiles get all the attention; much of it deserved. The development of organic mine dectection and avoidance/disposal is less sexy and so recieves almost no “public” attention.
I just happened to run across this thread over at the Freec. Pretty cool photographs, but I think some of the numbers are wrong.
Am I the only one who wishes we had more than just the Kitty Hawk in the South China Sea right now?
If it’s at freerepublic, that a pretty sure sign that the numbers are inaccurate.
To put things in perspective, a US Navy carrier battle group has more firepower than THE ENTIRE ARMED FORCES OF GREAT BRITAIN! We are more of a match for any potential rival, and for years to come. So what if India or Brazil manages to buy and equip a few old fleet carriers-these navys have not and will never be a serious threat of any kind. What concerns me is the absolutely STAGGERING cost of maintaining a fleet carrier-not only are the costs of operation high, but the carrier needs a screening force of destroyers and submarines, to protect it from attack.
As President Bush has wisely ordered, we need a complete review of our defense priorities:
-we should not seek to be “the World’s Policeman”-not only is this costly, but this kind of philosophy makes us many enemies, and rarely makes us friends.Europe can defend itself. If it really is concerned about the Balkans, it can send its own forces there-we should not get involved in this mess.
I rather think not. England may be small, but they have a large, very well-equipped military.
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Never say never. Things change…
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Truer words never were spoken. Highly effective, highly capable technology costs, and when someone can strap a handfull of decent SSMs to a rusty old barge or an obselescent airframe, you can lose a lot of expensive hardware and lives to a very small, very poor aggressor. Cases in point: USS Stark, HMS Shefield.