It is unwise to make such categorical predictions.
Is it worth spending so much on huge aircraft carriers? These ships are highly vulnerable to ballistic missile attack, and the loss of a carrier would pt thousands of sailor’s lives at risk.
When the era of unmanned, autonomous warships arrives, fleet carriers will be sitting ducks.
Nice article, even if framed in political terms.
Do you have a better way of moving an airfield around on an ocean?
Keep in mind, the carrier does not exist just to attack other ships. It serves as a runway / logistics point for aircraft in support of ground operations, and the need for a floating airfield is not going away any time soon.
I also disagree with the statement about unmanned warships. Given the fact that the Iranians managed to hack into our UAVs and steal one for themselves, the idea of relying on automated vessels is still a little ways down the road.
In any sea-to-sea confrontation, the carrier’s primary advantage is that its aircraft permit it to attack beyond the range of projectiles launched from the ship. Unless your hypothetical unmanned warship can overcome the stand-off problem, I do not understand how it could be superior to existing vessels.
I recall seeing a special about a worst-case attack against the modern USN where China was able to defeat local USN forces and dominate the region (China, Taiwan, Japan) for a few weeks until the USN could get another carrier task force there.
I can’t think of any other navy in history whose worst-case scenario against their strongest opponent resulted only in losing control of the theater for a few weeks. Of course, I’m not really a history buff either, so I could very well be missing something.
The battle is not always to the strong nor the race to the swift, but that’s the way to bet it.
Unmanned ships?
Arial drone flight times are only measured in hours. Longer flight duration is not as much a question of fuel but of making sure nothing breaks. You still need a base of operations (relatively) close to your intended targets. Having unmanned vessels in the middle of the ocean is a failure waiting to happen.
Now having a manned carrier with both arial and surface, or better yet submersible, watercraft…
The Navy’s size and strength also came up in tonight’s final Presidential debate:
I have a slight caveat to nit pick with the President.
Background: Candidate Romney pointed out that the number of ships in the US Navy is at it’s lowest in nearly a century, implying that the current Administration is "weak"ish on Defense.
The President rebuts with pointing out that our ships are more capable and powerful than they were back then.
While true, I would like to point out that it’s not just capability and training that’s important. If the U.S. continues to want to have a “presence” all around the world in mulitple places at the same time, what you need are numbers of hulls.
Fewer hulls means longer deployment times for the individual ships and crews. This means more “wear and tear” on the equipment, and more hardship on the crews (for example, longer seperation from family). It may also mean that needed refits (either to repair worn out equipment, or installing upgrades) for ships may have to be delayed due to operational commitments.
Now, I submit that the folks in the Pentagon and the White House are smarter than me, and already know this, I just wanted to point out that, IMO, both men are right, after a fashion. 
If one hull today carries the capability and firepower of 2 hulls from a decade ago, or a dozen hulls from half a century ago, then staging one hull where we used to need two or a dozen still covers the same effective range with the same rotation times.
Sensibly, one might have a slightly higher count than the direct 1 for 2 or 1 for a dozen, but that is still substantially fewer hulls.
Romney did get a response of sorts. He stated that we are moving from having the ability to combat in two regions to only being able to combat in one region. If true, that might be a valid concern. But we don’t know the basis for that assertion. If it is just on number of hulls, then it isn’t particularly true. Obama’s argument is that the capabilities of the individual ships and fleets is higher, so we have fewer overall ships and still have the same multi-front dominance.
No. If your hull is off the coast of Somalia fighting pirates, it’s not available for duty off Korea, for example, if something suddenly flares up over there.
It doesn’t matter how capable your ships are if you don’t have any available to send.
It’s not about single ship capability. Multi-theatre commitments, and responding to unexpected events.
I can’t tell you what exactly the numbers we need. I’m willing to give the current administration (as well as the Pentagon) the benefit of the doubt about knowing what numbers are reasonable. Romney (for campaign purposes, at least), is not.
However, it’s Congress that has the last say, so even if the President asks for another hundred ships, that doesn’t automatically happen.
The world will indeed be different in 2092.
You’ll get no argument from me.
Political scientists Brian Crisher and Mark Souva address the question: In 1916, the US controlled roughly 11% of the world’s naval power. This is an impressive number that ranks the US third in naval strength behind the UK (34%) and Germany (19%), and just ahead of France (10%). What about the US navy in 2011? In 2011, the US controlled roughly 50% of the world’s naval power putting it in a comfortable lead in naval power ahead of Russia (11%). Within the 1865-2011 era, the US Navy was at its most powerful in 2011.
Cite, with chart: How Strong Is the American Navy? – Mother Jones
Cite, with link to paper: http://themonkeycage.org/blog/2012/10/23/how-strong-is-the-u-s-navy-really/
I posit that it will be more the same than ever.
No, the President could have made a better point in that what matters is the relative strength in which the current state of the US is unprecedented in modern history. Romney’s assertion was meaningless.
With 50% of the world’s naval strength, fully five times larger than No. 2, the US has no need of anything more, especially with real constraints of budgets.
A wise man once said, the more things change, the more that futuristic autonomous robotic warships remain the same.
Yes, there is a threshhold number where below that you don’t have enough ships to cover all active zones. But we’re not actually talking about 1 ship vs 2 ships, but rather a scaling factor. We’re still talking about over 200 ships, which should be plenty to allow multi-theater activity. It’s simply the size of the fleets at each location rather than keeping fleet sizes the same and reducing the number of fleets.
Consider this analogy: suppose my ship capabilty goes up such that each new ship is 1.5 times as effective and powerful as the old ships. Typically, ships are deployed in fleets of 10, and I have 10 fleets, for 100 ships. If I change my standard fleet size to 8 instead of 10, but keep 10 fleets, I have 80 ships now, but that 80 ships packs the effectivity and power of 120% of the original complement. Each fleet has an effective 12% increase in capability, with fewer ships.
That’s why pure hull counts isn’t particularly valid. You have to look at the bigger picture, which is how the ships are actually deployed. If they are deployed individually, and each ship serves as an isolated unit, then hull counts might effect availability to respond in an area. But they don’t typically work that way, they work in fleets, they work in concert with airplanes and satellites. And each one has a much better surveilance area, and much greater strike range.
As for logistics, you currently have a certain number of ships in port for servicing, leave, etc. That reality would not change. Suppose you keep the percentage at the equivalent of an 11th fleet, so 10 ships. You could cut that “fleet” down to 8, or you could even keep that count at 10. That would not increase your down times or length of service rotations or any of those logistical concerns, because the same percentage of fleet is out of service at the same time. But your overall headcount would be lower, because these newer ships increase capability with increased technological efficiency, so their crew complements don’t increase 1.5 times. They stay even, or might increase to 1.1 per ship, or might even decrease.
I don’t like this method.
Consider: When considering the potential firepower of nuclear tipped weapons, the raw firepower of a modern cruiser could be 1000 times that of a WW1 cruiser. That does not mean that 1 modern cruiser could do the work (as in seperate discrete missions and tasks) 1000 older cruisers would have been doing.
I don’t understand this statement. You say don’t count hulls, but then you do just that when comparing modern effectiveness. (Like you did in the previous paragraph. You state that since modern ships are 20% better, we can reduce the number of hulls by 12%.)
Some are still deployed individually and not in fleets. Anti-drug patrols in the Carribean and Eastern Pacific, for example. They receive support from satellites and shore based patrol aircraft, I’ll grant that. But the US Navy doesn’t always float around in Task Force/Fleet strength.
I don’t follow. “Increased technological capability”, so far in the last two decades, has been in surveillance & communications. Not as much in engineering (ships’ power plants) or metallurgy.
Ship engines still need refit & repair at the same rates, I assume, as they did 40 or 50 years ago. Hulls still rust. Sailors still break stuff despite those things being made “sailor proof”.
There was an old joke that the USS Nautilus (the first nuclear sub) made it possible to have four year deployment/cruises, only having to return to port in order for the crew to re-enlist. But that is really just a joke.
While we don’t need hundreds of men to man the 40mm AA mounts anymore (for air defence), and technology can reduce manning requirements, you still need that hull out there.
I’ll have to think about this, thanks for the serious reply!
Reagan wanted a 600 ship Navy (I don’t think he quite got that). Today we have a 280-ish ship Navy. Has anyone done a study on comparing these two forces?
Is today’s Navy doing the same number of tasks that Reagans Navy did?
The few Navy publications I have browsed discuss the increased time it’s men and ships now spend on deployment compared to the pre-9/11 levels, and the challenges this presents. These articles mention that continued reduction in force imposes more of a work load on the remaining forces, and usually include statements of “Can Do” optimism from the CNO or other Admirals and dignitaries.
A former SECNAV (and Obama surrogate) backs up the President’s statement: Obama Was Right On Navy, Says Former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig | HuffPost Latest News
But more persuasively, see PolitiFact: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/jan/18/mitt-romney/mitt-romney-says-us-navy-smallest-1917-air-force-s/