Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!cbnews!military
From: sysmgr@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU (Doug Mohney)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: USN CVs wont fit in Arabian Gulf?
Message-ID: <1990Aug18.182645.24547@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 18 Aug 90 18:26:45 GMT
References: <1990Aug11.015042.19542@cbnews.att.com> <1990Aug12.214526.2752@cbnews.att.com>,<1990Aug16.030249.15026@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
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From: sysmgr@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU (Doug Mohney)
In article <1990Aug16.030249.15026@cbnews.att.com>, mlfisher@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu writes:

>I tend to believe the real reason for not putting carriers in the Gulf is one
>of "Risk Strategy".  Why expose the carriers to unnecessary risks, Iraqi and
>Iranian ASMs and SSMs, when they are more than capable of projecting power
>ashore from comparative safety from OUTSIDE the Gulf?  

Plane range. I think you'll add, what 200-300 miles per trip if you have
to take the long way 'round? Someone help me, I do not have an atlas handy.
Of course, you'd better bring Mr. Aegis along and warn all commercial air
to stay the hell out of the way. I wouldn't be surprised for a BIG strike
if we ran one of the carriers in there full-bore, perhaps for an evacuation
of U.S. citizen out of Kuwait, and then ran it out (under 12-14 hours time
on station)

>We just can't afford to
>let some third world dictator put egg on our face by damaging or sinking one of
>our carriers.

If it's a nuclear-powered carrier, hopefully it'll sink close to some place
where their fisherman hang out. Does anyone have any public domain information
on how you scuttle a nuclear-powered ship? Who has the responsibility of 
getting the nuclear weapons off-loaded?