Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!hc!pprg.unm.edu!unmvax!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!osu-cis!att!cbnews!rupp@cod.nosc.mil From: rupp@cod.nosc.mil (William L. Rupp) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Are Aircraft Carriers Obsolete? Message-ID: <3450@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 25 Jan 89 03:52:14 GMT References: <3331@cbnews.ATT.COM> <3405@cbnews.ATT.COM> Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego Lines: 32 Approved: military@att.att.com In article <3405@cbnews.ATT.COM> esco%tank.uchicago.edu@oddjob.uchicago.edu (ross paul weiner) writes: >As Dunnigan pointed out in one of his delightful books, Aircraft Carriers are >the singular military platform that does simulate battle damage. Planes do >crash with affects that can be compared to hostile action. We should be able >to make a shrewd guess as to what would happen in a real war. Why confine our speculation to examining the effects of carrier accidents? The experiences of WWII show that it doesn't take much to strike a carrier off a navy's list of assets. Whereas a battleship can take a hell of a pounding and still keep firing (with a single turret left operational, a BB is still a disagreeable customer), a bomb or two on the flightdeck can make a flattop incapable of operating fixed wing aircraft. By the way, I have read that the RN carriers of WWII had armored flightdecks which allowed them to take more punishment than their U.S. navy counterparts. Do we armor our flightdecks now? My concern about carriers is that they are now so big and expensive that each represents an inordinate amount of a nation's resources; maybe Gary Hart's 40,000 ton mini-attack carriers will turn out to be a good idea yet...if we can develop VSTOL planes with adequate performance. Even 40,000 tons is pretty big. Maybe we could build four 15,000 ton ships, each with 20-25 VSTOL's for the price of one Nimitz class. Four little ships spread out over 500 miles would present a more difficult target than one Nimitz. >Ross P. Weiner > Bill ------------------------------------------- These are just my opinions, folks. -------------------------------------------