In the future near-peer and peer fight, salvo competition and missiles will be the preeminent means by which one country will kinetically overwhelm the other in a fight. I discuss the way the US Navy is in an existential hazard of being woefully under-prepared to meet the threat if Western forces go toe toe with regional hegemons in the East or West.
Let’s anticipate the disasters now that are the Spanish in the English Channel in 1588, the British Royal Navy at Jutland in 1916, and the discovery in WWII all these battleships were not really capital ships, or had adequate armaments, yet their political dimensions compel not only their continuous construction but are the most devastating when lost.
The aircraft carrier has been a signature component of US naval power and prestige for more than a century. The utility has continued to diminish since the end of WWII. The tremendous disadvantage of putting so much manpower and treasure into these single use leviathan systems in the modern world of distributed missile and PGM systems, emerging near-peer & peer adversaries and concentration of power in vulnerable systems is a recipe for future disaster.
The US Navy surface fleet is in tatters and shattered by readiness, maintenance and armament issues that are critical indicators of a navy totally unprepared.
It’s time to clean house and fire the admirals and SES personnel.
More on the carrier dilemma in Chasing Ghosts Episode #034 and Dispatch #006.
References:
Gregory Vistica Fall from Glory: The Men Who Sank the U.S. Navy
Michael Junge Crimes of Command: in the United States Navy, 1945-2015
Gerry Doyle Carrier Killer: China’s Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles and Theater of Operations in the early 21st Century
David Lee Russell Early U.S. Navy Carrier Raids, February-April 1942: Five Operations That Tested a New Dimension of American Air Power
Jeff Vandenengel Questioning the Carrier: Opportunities in Fleet Design for the U.S. Navy
Jeff Vandenengel interview on Midrats with CDR Salamander
Ivan Gogin Fighting ships of the PEOPLE LIBERATION ARMY NAVY 1949 – 2023
Jerry Hendrix Retreat From Range: The Rise and Fall of Carrier Aviation
Pacific War in WWII
James D. Hornfischer Neptune’s Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal
James D. Hornfischer The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945
Ian W. Toll Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942
Ian W. Toll The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942–1944
Ian W. Toll Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945
Jeffry R. Cox Rising Sun, Falling Skies: The Disastrous Java Sea Campaign of World War II
Jeffrey R. Cox Morning Star, Midnight Sun: The Early Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign of World War II August–October 1942
Jeffrey R. Cox Blazing Star, Setting Sun: The Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign November 1942–March 1943
Jeffrey R. Cox Dark Waters, Starry Skies: The Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign, March–October 1943
Samuel Eliot Morrison The Two-Ocean War: A Short History of the United States Navy in the Second World War
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