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ORIGINAL: Lecivius

Geez, this guy trolls more than I do [8|] At least I use downriggers.

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ORIGINAL: Lecivius
At least I use downriggers.

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Vice President Mike Pence, speaking aboard the USS Harry S. Truman Tuesday, said that the carrier won't be retired decades early as the Pentagon had planned.

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...it had decided to mothball the Truman...

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ORIGINAL: rsallen64

Don't forget the "snowflake" in the reply to your post as well. Trolls gotta troll...[>:]

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Geez, this guy trolls more than I do At least I use downriggers.

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ORIGINAL: geofflambert

Or look back at the old days before WitP-AE and turn into a pillar of salt.

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ORIGINAL: Anachro

The carriers still have a role to play, but there is no doubt that their ability to project power into certain areas without major risk has been severely impacted in recent years by the development of area-denial capabilities by adversaries, such as China and its hypersonic missile capabilities that the US Military has admitted in some ways surpasses current US technology (in addition to being longer range than what US forces are currently equipped with). Many recent reports I've read have stressed the need to develop new missile technologies and platforms to outrange the enemy (in this case, China), whereas currently US ships themselves can be outranged). These defects are most prominent in any action closer to China's coastal waters.

The most interesting and important aspect of the US Navy's development and transformation today is the creation of the FFG(X) program, which will produce large quantities of small and relatively cheap frigates that will take on the duties currently performed by destroyers, relieving the current mission burden those vessels are saddled with while opening up the possibility to new missions and tactical/strategic possibilities with larger vessels. This new program also can give some insight into how the US Navy views any future potential conflict with China, Iran, etc. and the needs such conflicts will create for smaller, nimble, and more numerous vessels.

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I get troubled every time I hear the pundits on US News/Opinion channels say that America "has the most powerful armed forces in the world, able to take on two or three major adversaries simultaneously!" I call BS.

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The great advantages the US has are a great Information/Command/Control capacity and better/more reliable weapons that other countries. What it lacks is manpower and numbers of those fantastic weapons. It also lacks the stomach for heavy losses or lengthy wars.

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China may not have the greatest of stuff, but it has population to spare and a mindset that does not cringe at expending a lot of it. The only country with a chance of holding China in check is India, but it lacks the industrial capacity and political unity to be a real opponent at this time.

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Western interests would be better served if we stop thinking we can hold China in check by military means and start using diplomacy and common interest to get their world view into the community of nations model instead of the "dominant power" model. If global warming devastates the world's food and fresh water supplies, there will be no chance of getting nations to share and cooperate.

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ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

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I get troubled every time I hear the pundits on US News/Opinion channels say that America "has the most powerful armed forces in the world, able to take on two or three major adversaries simultaneously!" I call BS.

I agree. The US used to have enough forces to deal with two regional threats at the same time. Since the forces have been cut since the first President Bush doing so, that is no longer true. At least with conventional forces.

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ORIGINAL: RangerJoe
...

2000 years ago, the Earth was about 7 degrees F or about 4 degrees C warmer than today. Regular wine grapes could and were grown in what is now England. Then, around 500 AD, the climate changed when the Sunda Straight was formed.

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ORIGINAL: tarkalak

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ORIGINAL: RangerJoe
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2000 years ago, the Earth was about 7 degrees F or about 4 degrees C warmer than today. Regular wine grapes could and were grown in what is now England. Then, around 500 AD, the climate changed when the Sunda Straight was formed.

There goes the thread again.

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ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

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ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

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I get troubled every time I hear the pundits on US News/Opinion channels say that America "has the most powerful armed forces in the world, able to take on two or three major adversaries simultaneously!" I call BS.

I agree. The US used to have enough forces to deal with two regional threats at the same time. Since the forces have been cut since the first President Bush doing so, that is no longer true. At least with conventional forces.

Correct. Originally, there was enough force to fight offensively on 2 fronts (Europe and Asia). The force reduction changed that to fighting offensively on one front while defensively on the other. I'm not sure which place I'd rather be. That was ~5 years ago, so I'm not sure what the plan is now. I do know the military is once again training for large scale conflict. I trained that way most of my career. Then we trained for nation building. Cycles...

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ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

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ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

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ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

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I get troubled every time I hear the pundits on US News/Opinion channels say that America "has the most powerful armed forces in the world, able to take on two or three major adversaries simultaneously!" I call BS.

I agree. The US used to have enough forces to deal with two regional threats at the same time. Since the forces have been cut since the first President Bush doing so, that is no longer true. At least with conventional forces.

Correct. Originally, there was enough force to fight offensively on 2 fronts (Europe and Asia). The force reduction changed that to fighting offensively on one front while defensively on the other. I'm not sure which place I'd rather be. That was ~5 years ago, so I'm not sure what the plan is now. I do know the military is once again training for large scale conflict. I trained that way most of my career. Then we trained for nation building. Cycles...

Y'all know more than me, but my impression is that the hardware is still mostly there. It's just that we're lacking in "wetware", right? (And "greenware", i.e. appropriated funds to activate the reserve hardware and pay for more people.) That's a relatively easy problem to fix if we needed to fix it, but training takes a few years, yeah?

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ORIGINAL: Anachro

Getting back to the topic, I should note that the carrier still very much serves a need, otherwise the Chinese wouldn't be building their own carriers. Along with the Liaoning which they purchases from Ukraine and refit, the Chinese will have their first domestically produced variant of the Kuznetsov-class commissioned this year (better launch catapults, etc.) with a newer class set to be commissioned in 2023. This would bring the number of Chinese carriers to three by that time. However, their role is more limited in today's age, acting as tools of power projection for nations with ambitions or security needs beyond their own shores, especially in areas they can't readily reach by other technologies.

For China, this means being able to project its power into surrounding areas and more readily pushing its aggressive claims to territory and borders far beyond its shores (Spratly Islands, Philippines, the East Indies, the Indian Ocean); for the USA, this means supporting its security alliances in Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. If some think that China only wishes to "control their shores" and protect themselves, they may well want to ask why China is so rapidly building blue water, power projection capabilities. This becomes more ominous when coupled with China's increasingly aggressive stance as to what constitutes and doesn't constitute Chinese territory.

But make no mistake, the carrier is no longer the single, dominant arbiter of naval power, subject as it now is to risks from increasingly dangerous adversarial technologies. It is one tool among many.

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ORIGINAL: Rusty1961

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ORIGINAL: Anachro

Getting back to the topic, I should note that the carrier still very much serves a need, otherwise the Chinese wouldn't be building their own carriers. Along with the Liaoning which they purchases from Ukraine and refit, the Chinese will have their first domestically produced variant of the Kuznetsov-class commissioned this year (better launch catapults, etc.) with a newer class set to be commissioned in 2023. This would bring the number of Chinese carriers to three by that time. However, their role is more limited in today's age, acting as tools of power projection for nations with ambitions or security needs beyond their own shores, especially in areas they can't readily reach by other technologies.

For China, this means being able to project its power into surrounding areas and more readily pushing its aggressive claims to territory and borders far beyond its shores (Spratly Islands, Philippines, the East Indies, the Indian Ocean); for the USA, this means supporting its security alliances in Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. If some think that China only wishes to "control their shores" and protect themselves, they may well want to ask why China is so rapidly building blue water, power projection capabilities. This becomes more ominous when coupled with China's increasingly aggressive stance as to what constitutes and doesn't constitute Chinese territory.

But make no mistake, the carrier is no longer the single, dominant arbiter of naval power, subject as it now is to risks from increasingly dangerous adversarial technologies. It is one tool among many.

American CVNs are not dispossile though. The Chinese have a very different view of platforms. If it means securing Taiwan they'll gladly sacrifice their CVs.