Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!ncar!unmvax!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!osu-cis!att!cbnews!carlson@gateway.mitre.org From: carlson@gateway.mitre.org (Bruce Carlson) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Are Aircraft Carriers Obsolete? Message-ID: <3456@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 25 Jan 89 03:52:23 GMT References: <3288@cbnews.ATT.COM> Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Organization: The Mitre Corporation Lines: 40 Approved: military@att.att.com In article <3288@cbnews.ATT.COM> nak@cbnews.ATT.COM (Neil A. Kirby) writes: : :>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 :-). : : :>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. : :Neil Kirby Since you've broadened this discussion from aircraft carriers to seapower in general, I have a few comments to add. If we get into any medium to large scale conflict one of the first problems we will have is trying to maintain our resupply. Despite all the advances in aircraft since WWII we still cannot afford to fly large amounts of heavy supplies (like bullets and bombs) all the way to Europe or Libya. I don't know what our supply status is in Europe, but I would guess that we could only stock enough ammunition, food and other expendables for a few weeks support to our troops during a conflict. If we have very limited naval power we may not be able to protect our supply ships and we may not be able to supply our troops; even if we do have good naval power we will have difficulty protecting our ships. It is relatively easy to maintain military units in a high state of readiness and then deploy them to meet a short term threat. It is much more difficult to keep them supplied for weeks or months over supply lines of several thousand miles. Bruce Carlson