From: ke4zv!gary@gatech.edu (Gary Coffman)
Subject: Re: Marine Aircover <was New Carrier Plan>
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 21:38:41 GMT


From ke4zv!gary@gatech.edu (Gary Coffman)

In article <BvnELx.IDn@lawday.DaytonOH.NCR.COM> randy@ms.uky.edu (Randy Appleton) writes:
>
>Here is my latest hair-brained idea.  From what I read, a modenr
>carrier has about 16 ASW helocopters aboard.  Why cannot we replace
>these with F-18's (there seem to be enough).  This woudl trade ASW
>strength for air power.

Fixed wing strike aircraft and ASW helicopters require different 
storage space and handling facilities. A carrier carries as many
strike aircraft as possible, that's it's main role. It carries
air superiority aircraft for fleet protection. It carries ASW assets 
for fleet protection. And it has AA guns and missiles for the carrier's
last ditch protection. The ship is built around these requirements and
there isn't space provided to change the mix substantially. About the
only tradeoff that can be made is in the mix of air superiority fighters
and attack aircraft. You *have* to defend the carrier, or your strike
forces are worthless since they will have no base.

>I think this is a good trade. The most obvious uses for American
>carriers is off the coast of third world nations.  Although many of
>these nations have sub fleets, it is much more common to have an air
>force.  Further, most nations (especially third world ones) put much
>more money into their air force than the sub fleet.  Finally, much of
>our ASW capacity was built to counter the soviet threat.  Now that
>this threat has dissapiated, we have room to cut the ASW capability.

The CIS still has as many fast attack submarines as they ever did,
and other navies around the world continue to acquire attack submarines.
It's unwise to structure forces around *temporary* political alignments.
Building a sea lane control force takes years, political re-alignments
take days. If you must control the sea to project power, and the US
must, then you must retain sea lane control. Restructuring the Navy
to deal only with third world conflicts is saying that you are
surrendering to second and first world threats that may reappear with
the changing of political mood.

>Why is this a budget cut.  By increasing the power of each carrier, we
>can perhaps make do with fewer.

The US Navy is structured to fight a two ocean war. That takes a certain
number of carriers just to cover the geography. If we are willing to
*concede* certain oceans to our potential adversaries, then we can cut
the number of carriers. Our ability to project force anywhere on the globe
at any time has kept the world mostly at peace for the last 47 years.
Giving up that ability now could be very destablizing. There is no
assurance that five or ten years down the road we won't be embroiled
in another major war. If we don't have the assets to maintain a
credible deterrent force in other areas at such a time, many nations
would be tempted to go adventuring to our detriment.

Giving up a blue water navy can be costly, as the British found out in 
the Falklands. They were lucky, and they know it, that the Argentines 
weren't as aggressive as they could have been. If the fight had had to 
be carried to the mainland, the British would have been helpless without 
mainforce carriers. Note that the Argentines only made their move *after* 
the Brits retired their last fleet carrier.

Our national politicians have to make a decision, are they to continue to 
carry out the primary responsiblity assigned to them by the Constitution, 
or are they to abandon that role in order to usurp further the proper role
of state and local governments in social services. The money isn't there
to do both, I agree with you there. They have to decide what the proper
role of the US government is, then we can structure forces to meet whatever
threats they are willing to counter.

Gary