Are aircraft carriers outdated dinosaurs in today's modern warfare?

"Fire and Blood" said:
they are just way too badass. they are worth it just for badass factor. I love knowing what a country must feel when they see an aircraft carrier slowly looming in the distane via recon.

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Agreed. As I just stated.....it's a pretty strong indicator that the US wants you to change your policies.
 
It would seem to me, that beyond CL and DY, most everyone else is in agreement that the aircraft carrier is a vital defense asset and has grown more so as its mission has evolved, so that it is much more important to our national defense structure and our foreign policy than it was in 1960.

Thank you all for your input.
 
Buehre said:
No, I'm just saying that in theory if we became unfriendly wiht our current allies. As we are sort of pissing off the British lately.
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It's ok, Brits have only 2 small carriers with no planes.
But the French said they would lend em some planes if they provided the pilots with white flags.
 
DamnYankee said:
1. US Air Force.
2. Not a military objective.
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The USAF has significant air power. But they are limited by access to bases. In many of our operational theaters there is no accessible air base within 1,000 miles.

Also, the movement of large numbers of aircraft into certain zones gives away our plans. Carriers can move into an area and support the ground war before any adjustments to defenses can be made.

There is a reason why command of most missions are based in carriers.
 
WinterBorn said:
The top pic is most unusual. The carriers almost always refuel and replenish stores at night.
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having spent more than three years on replenishment ships, and two years on a nuke carrier -the Ike... The one unrepping in the picture - I can tell you that is not correct. Figuring out how to get fuel and supplies to a carrier battle group is an unbelievably difficult calculus problem. There are no artificial constraints like time of day built into those solutions.
 
maineman said:
having spent more than three years on replenishment ships, and two years on a nuke carrier -the Ike... The one unrepping in the picture - I can tell you that is not correct. Figuring out how to get fuel and supplies to a carrier battle group is an unbelievably difficult calculus problem. There are no artificial constraints like time of day built into those solutions.
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As one who worked UnReps, I can tell you that it is no great feat of calculus to the operation. Lines are passed over, which heavier lines are attached, which are then connected to the winches on the supply ship.

The initial lines are passed over by shooting a rubber plug from a rifle firing a blank charge.

The supply ship usually replenishes the other ships in the fleet during the day and the carrier at night.

I can remember running UnReps for 16 hours straight, with much of the day time hours having ships on both sides receiving fuel, stores and ammunition.
 
WinterBorn said:
As one who worked UnReps, I can tell you that it is no great feat of calculus to the operation. Lines are passed over, which heavier lines are attached, which are then connected to the winches on the supply ship.

The initial lines are passed over by shooting a rubber plug from a rifle firing a blank charge.

The supply ship usually replenishes the other ships in the fleet during the day and the carrier at night.

I can remember running UnReps for 16 hours straight, with much of the day time hours having ships on both sides receiving fuel, stores and ammunition.
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Ah... Let me guess. Deck department? I am not talking about HOW to run an unrep... Any deck ape knows HOW... it is the scheduling that is the calculus problem. And the guys who do the scheduling: the ops officers on the attached flag staffs, the carrier ops boss, the air ops boss and the ops officer on the replenishment ship all have a huge number of constraints and variables to juggle... Artificially constraining time of day into that solution is not done. Trust me on this one. It's what I did.
 
maineman said:
Ah... Let me guess. Deck department? I am not talking about HOW to run an unrep... Any deck ape knows HOW... it is the scheduling that is the calculus problem. And the guys who do the scheduling: the ops officers on the attached flag staffs, the carrier ops boss, the air ops boss and the ops officer on the replenishment ship all have a huge number of constraints and variables to juggle... Artificially constraining time of day into that solution is not done. Trust me on this one. It's what I did.
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And the most dangerous time for a carrier was when they are in the middle of an UnRep. Having the benefit of darkness, especially in the Med, is a plus.

And no, I was not part of deck division. For one year of my enlistment I was in charge of the cargo ordinance for the USS Savannah AOR-4. In 3 cruises we never once did an UnRep for a carrier during daylight hours. Perhaps that changed later, but it was that way when I was in.

Part of it was done for security, since any air attack at night would have to use active radar. And part of it was done because when the carrier is being serviced, it was being done solo. During the day the supply ship would often have a ship on each side and vertical UnReps being done for a third ship.

The UnRep also was done when the flight ops were at a minimum, to avoid any chance of igniting any spilled fuel (marine diesel or JP5)
 
WinterBorn said:
And the most dangerous time for a carrier was when they are in the middle of an UnRep. Having the benefit of darkness, especially in the Med, is a plus.

And no, I was not part of deck division. For one year of my enlistment I was in charge of the cargo ordinance for the USS Savannah AOR-4. In 3 cruises we never once did an UnRep for a carrier during daylight hours. Perhaps that changed later, but it was that way when I was in.

Part of it was done for security, since any air attack at night would have to use active radar. And part of it was done because when the carrier is being serviced, it was being done solo. During the day the supply ship would often have a ship on each side and vertical UnReps being done for a third ship.

The UnRep also was done when the flight ops were at a minimum, to avoid any chance of igniting any spilled fuel (marine diesel or JP5)
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And I was Ops Officer on Wichita (AOR-1) for two westpac deployments ... One where we ran right through to the IO during the Iranian embassy takeover/hostage crisis and all i did was stand watch and schedule unreps. We would routinely have the carrier on our port side and a never ending line of cans to starboard... And we ran those ops all hours of the day and night. Later, as maintenance manager and senior bridge watchstander on IKE for a med cruise and a Caribbean cruise, I was the unrep OOD and we would get jet fuel and stores whenever we could fit it into the schedule. Daylight mattered naught.
 
maineman said:
Can the US Air Force maintain four attack squadrons at ready alert three miles off the coastline of any enemy and keep them there indefinitely?
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They did it with B52s during the Cold War. And those can orbit directly over the target, not just off shore somewhere that may not be close.
 
DamnYankee said:
They did it with B52s during the Cold War. And those can orbit directly over the target, not just off shore somewhere that may not be close.
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And of course B52s are so handy when providing close air support for our forces fighting people with rifles and grenade launchers.

The bombers can fly high and hide. But they cannot provide close air support. They cannot defend ground forces. In other words, they cannot provide what is needed in the arena of modern warfare, which, as you have said, has changed.
 
You could have Secretary Hagel tell him to his face that carriers are more important than they were 40 years ago and he'd istill not admit he was wrong.
 
So... To bury this thread, and DY along with it, let' s summarize: DY is on record as stating that carriers are not as important as they were in 1960. He has further asserted that the mission of an aircraft carrier could be adequately performed by a gaggle of B-52's loaded with laser guided smart bombs circling endlessly over whatever hot spot we might have otherwise sent a carrier. Pretty much everyone else on the thread - from across the political spectrum - has scoffed at those ridiculous assertions of his. End of story. That's a wrap.

Let me leave you with this silver bullet... My work is through here.

Hi Yo Silver, Awaaaaay!

:lol:
 
We could get rid of about half the carriers we have and retire their crews. We don't need all that floating shit anymore. No need for us to be the world's cop. What arrogance to assume otherwise.
 
DamnYankee said:
We could get rid of about half the carriers we have and retire their crews. We don't need all that floating shit anymore. No need for us to be the world's cop. What arrogance to assume otherwise.
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Without a strong navy how would we protect Saudi Aramco, ExxonMobil and BP's profits? Without the people of the U.S. paying for a strong navy how can big oil companies be secure in their profits? Business profits would suffer if we downsize the muscle that protects them.
 
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