A good case can be made that we’d be better off with 25 or 30 25000 ton carriers operating 60 aircraft each opposed to 10 supercarriers operating 90.
What happens when the next generation of generals and admirals decides that losing a few dozen million civilians doesn't matter, if they wipe out our ability to manage ocean battles?
Presuming we have a CiC that still cares more about America than their own “legacy”.
Yes.
If a super carrier gets lost it’ll take years to build a new one.
Our whole war fighting strategy is based on not losing any assets.think about how crazy that is.
The problem with small deck ships is the ability to generate sorties. Small decks can't conduct strikes and protect themselves at the same time. I won't even get into the speed differential between a small conventional ship and a nuke.
This is one of the reasons for the navy's requirements for the F35. VTOL means a smaller flight deck and a smaller, less expensive carrier. Of course bringing up the F35 here will open a whole new can of worms on this discussion.
Doesn’t work. CVNs need to be large to operate the aircraft. The large air wing is just a side effect.
The lots of smaller carriers is an argument that has been made, repeatedly, in the 90 or so years since the USN started building them. And with examples like Ranger (CV-4), Wasp (CV-7) running up through the Sea Control Ship concept (which was the basis for the Euro Harrier Carriers) it’s been proven flawed time and time again.
The purpose of the big USN carriers is to project power on the other side of the planet. You can’t really do that with smaller ships. Even the Brits acknowlege that the primary purpose of their 60,000 ton QE class carriers is to supplement USN CSGs in joint allied actions, and work in conjunction with Euro allies in regional actions (like Libya), with a limited capability to act truly independently outside of regional operations (which would include going South if Falklands II cooks off)
Yes, now that would be a good discussion.