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From: nak@cbnews.ATT.COM (Neil A. Kirby)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Are Aircraft Carriers Obsolete?
Message-ID: <3288@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 20 Jan 89 05:06:38 GMT
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 76
Approved: military@att.att.com
Cc:


>What is the reason for having aircraft carriers?  Aren't they a total waste
>of money?

Let's look at the role of sea power first.  The reasons to have sea forces
are 1) protect merchant ships.  2) attack enemy shipping.  3) attack enemy
shore.  4) Protect our shore from other sea powers. 5) Other reasons that
don't occur to me but will to the rest of the net :-).

One of the best ways to do many of these missions involves putting aircraft
up over the area in question.  The radars on say a Haweye have much greater
coverage than the ship based radars.  Simple physics about altitude and
horizon.  Carriers give the planes with the attack missiles, like the
Exocet, a place to live.  Planes re-act quickly for conducting combat at
some range from the area - but the planes have to be based somewhere.

Total waste of money?  No, at least not in my book.  Too expensive?  I
think that is more a problem of the Military-Industrial Complex rather than
the ships themselves.  Do we place too much emphasis on them?  This perhaps
is a point more valid to debate.

>In a global conflict, the aircraft carriers would all be destroyed immediately
>by missiles.  A missile costs a lot less than an aircraft carrier.

In a total war conflict, the loss of the carriers would be insignificant
compared to the loss of the cities of the Northern Hemisphere.

And a bullet costs less than what we pay to train and retain soldiers.
And a SA7 costs less than an F15.  And it takes more effort to heal a
broken jaw than it does to heal brusied knuckles.  Are bones a bad idea
since they are too easily lost to the universal threat of strong knuckles? 
This line of reasoning -by itself- is invalid.  The issues are biggger than
such a simple reason suggest.

Yes carriers can be lost, and yes they prime targets.  The question is a
balance of risks; is having and paying for and possibly losing the carrier
better or worse than not having it and using the money elsewhere?  I take
exception with the ALL and IMMEDIATELY in your statement.

>In a conflict against an industrialized nation, like Argentina, capital ships
>must stay far away to avoid being hit by a Silkworm or an Exocet or even a
>torpedo.

So what happened to the Hermes?  It never got hit.  It was a PRIME target,
many folks think the Exocet headed for the Sheffield was aimed at the
Hermes.  The example you give refutes your claim.  Ask the Argentines about
sea power.  They had LOTS of time to get ready - and they lost the
Falklands.  

>Only in a conflict with a third-world nation, like Lebanon or Libya, can 
>sea power have any effect.  And the same effect can be provided by long-range
>land-based bombers.  In the assassination attempt against Khadaffi, our land-
>based bombers actually had enough range to detour around the Iberian
>peninsula and fly over the Strait of Gibraltar!

I think that against anything but a major nation sea power has its uses.
You example of Argentina supports this.

In flight refueling goes a long way!

>Aren't capital ships and carrier battle groups as obsolete as horse cavalry?
>Don't people remember HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales?  How about 
>HMS Sheffield and Gen. Belgrano?  Do you actually have to send an AEGIS ship
>to the bottom in order to prove sea power obsolete?  Or would even that
>be enough?

For the attack role, submarines are going to be hard to beat.  Between the
cruise missiles and the torpedoes, surface ships, especially merchants,
will take expensive losses.  But you need AEGIS in a crusie missile/Exocet
environment.  You want a Haweye up there for radar coverage.  You want some
fixed wing sub-hunters out there.  To protect yourself at all you need
carriers and capital ships.  Against a major nation these protections are
not as good, but what else do we have for this role that works better?

Neil Kirby
...cbsck!nak