Sorry, but you can no longer have your Whopper your way. Overpriced and critically flawed are the only options until the procurement system collapses of its own weight.
You've clearly thought of this more deeply than I, but I would question the premise that what we say is the cost of a Midway carrier when we consider it as a procurement option is going to remain aligned with the final cost for build and delivery. I would also imagine that there would be a great many systems on a Midway carrier that are no longer capable of being manufactured because no company has been asked to manufacture them in decades, so the lower cost is partly illusory.
We could ditch the Fords as lemons and go back to building Midways, but at a minimum that would take a few years to retool the defense industrial base to produce a different standard carrier.
While I think a modernized Midway would be a far more effective carrier than many might initally believe, I was bringing up the idea of the value of a Midway-sized, conventionally powered carrier vs builiding more lemony Fords. With that said. I believe concerns about the value of carriers, especially when going up against peer/near peer competitors, should not just be accepted, but needs to be looked a very, very closesly.
I do agree with you that given the current state of defense procurement even I might end being shocked at how much a carrier like I was discusing would end up costing, Further, I also believe it is possible that something dumb would be done to make it less cost effective than it should be. But, even acknowleding highly legitimate doubts over our current systems ablity to deliver any weappon system at a reasonable cost, I think it can still be useful and even fun to look at weapons concepts, and which ones make the most sense if we could actually procure them at a reasonable cost.
But the main focus of my writings will continue to be that unless we get dramatic, disrputive defense procurement reform, we will not be able to reverse the decline of our military no matter how much we spend.
Hmmm. I would still prefer nuclear power. More space for aviation fuel and ordinance, plus not tanking for ship fuel is a big plus in some corners of the globe. Thing is, if we build a smaller carrier, chances are we get the same number of smaller carriers, not more smaller carriers. The outgoing administration already slow-walked follow on Ford class carriers for some good and bad reasons - it bought time to fix some of the problems, but it also means that the first Nimitz class ships are getting very long in the tooth. The decisive argument, though, is this question: "Does anyone believe NAVSEA can design a 21st century Midway class without making a complete Charlie-Foxtrot of it?"
I love aircraft carriers. They look impressive and were incredibly useful in WWII and beyond. Nowadays, though, with hypersonic missiles (against which there is no defense), they can be sunk at will by any peer army (China, Russia, and their allies). They still have some limited usage against sub-peer armies, but that is it. But, unfortunately, keeping outdated military equipment is nothing new. We kept horse cavalry units in the US Army until early 1942, well beyond their sell-by date.
China has buit up its Anti-Access/Area Denial (or A2/AD) in the South China Sea. Don't see our carriers going there. Submarines are where it is at, as pretty much everybody lags in ASW.
Hypersonic aren't the super weapon that makes carriers obsolete... there's a lot of hype and capability inflation there...
Case in point- two of China's main navy-threatening Hypersonic missiles... they slow down, and become just supersonic in the terminal phase of their flight. Meaning, they're no harder for Aegis to kill than the things they've been shooting down pretty routinely in the Med/Red Sea lately...
Not quite that cut and dried. "Sunk at will" ≠ reality. For that matter; there's a reason China is trying to fastrack their own carrier program. It isn't just to make targets that can be sunk at will.
The Fords are a waste... the gadgets aren't necessasary... and the highly touted 'sortie generation rate"...is nonsensical. Not only will the Fords likely never outperform the Nimitzs, but carriers dont fight that way... they fight in pulses anyway- it's a contrived and useless metric....
Sorry, but you can no longer have your Whopper your way. Overpriced and critically flawed are the only options until the procurement system collapses of its own weight.
You've clearly thought of this more deeply than I, but I would question the premise that what we say is the cost of a Midway carrier when we consider it as a procurement option is going to remain aligned with the final cost for build and delivery. I would also imagine that there would be a great many systems on a Midway carrier that are no longer capable of being manufactured because no company has been asked to manufacture them in decades, so the lower cost is partly illusory.
We could ditch the Fords as lemons and go back to building Midways, but at a minimum that would take a few years to retool the defense industrial base to produce a different standard carrier.
While I think a modernized Midway would be a far more effective carrier than many might initally believe, I was bringing up the idea of the value of a Midway-sized, conventionally powered carrier vs builiding more lemony Fords. With that said. I believe concerns about the value of carriers, especially when going up against peer/near peer competitors, should not just be accepted, but needs to be looked a very, very closesly.
I do agree with you that given the current state of defense procurement even I might end being shocked at how much a carrier like I was discusing would end up costing, Further, I also believe it is possible that something dumb would be done to make it less cost effective than it should be. But, even acknowleding highly legitimate doubts over our current systems ablity to deliver any weappon system at a reasonable cost, I think it can still be useful and even fun to look at weapons concepts, and which ones make the most sense if we could actually procure them at a reasonable cost.
But the main focus of my writings will continue to be that unless we get dramatic, disrputive defense procurement reform, we will not be able to reverse the decline of our military no matter how much we spend.
Hmmm. I would still prefer nuclear power. More space for aviation fuel and ordinance, plus not tanking for ship fuel is a big plus in some corners of the globe. Thing is, if we build a smaller carrier, chances are we get the same number of smaller carriers, not more smaller carriers. The outgoing administration already slow-walked follow on Ford class carriers for some good and bad reasons - it bought time to fix some of the problems, but it also means that the first Nimitz class ships are getting very long in the tooth. The decisive argument, though, is this question: "Does anyone believe NAVSEA can design a 21st century Midway class without making a complete Charlie-Foxtrot of it?"
Your level of confidence in our current ability to procure and build ships is sadly very much warranted.
I love aircraft carriers. They look impressive and were incredibly useful in WWII and beyond. Nowadays, though, with hypersonic missiles (against which there is no defense), they can be sunk at will by any peer army (China, Russia, and their allies). They still have some limited usage against sub-peer armies, but that is it. But, unfortunately, keeping outdated military equipment is nothing new. We kept horse cavalry units in the US Army until early 1942, well beyond their sell-by date.
China has buit up its Anti-Access/Area Denial (or A2/AD) in the South China Sea. Don't see our carriers going there. Submarines are where it is at, as pretty much everybody lags in ASW.
Hypersonic aren't the super weapon that makes carriers obsolete... there's a lot of hype and capability inflation there...
Case in point- two of China's main navy-threatening Hypersonic missiles... they slow down, and become just supersonic in the terminal phase of their flight. Meaning, they're no harder for Aegis to kill than the things they've been shooting down pretty routinely in the Med/Red Sea lately...
Not quite that cut and dried. "Sunk at will" ≠ reality. For that matter; there's a reason China is trying to fastrack their own carrier program. It isn't just to make targets that can be sunk at will.
The Fords are a waste... the gadgets aren't necessasary... and the highly touted 'sortie generation rate"...is nonsensical. Not only will the Fords likely never outperform the Nimitzs, but carriers dont fight that way... they fight in pulses anyway- it's a contrived and useless metric....