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The big World War II sea battles are history. The Soviet threat as we knew it no longer exists. Carrier aviation's contribution to Desert Storm was minor. And Tomahawk cruise missiles can hit targets formerly relegated to manned aircraft. So why don t we bring the curtain down on large-deck carriers?
The primary lesson the U.S. Navy took from World War II in the Pacific was that command of the sea required command of the air above it. Naval leaders concluded that Mahanian decisive battles of the future Would be determined by the new capital ship, the large- deck aircraft carrier.
This has been the centerpiece of U.S. naval strategy and battle-group tactics ever since. For 47 years the Navy has built its battle groups around the large-deck aircraft carrier, with all other surface combatants relegated to the primary role of defense of the capital ship. As the U.S. Navy approaches the 21st century, its force planning, strategy, and tactics continue to be based on the experience ol a War fought a half-century ago against a small island nation in the Western Pacific, whose navy was dominated by its army and was saddled with inept leaders at the top. Once again, the disciples of Alfred Thayer Mahan are Planning to fight the last war. Unfortunately, the lessons they still adhere to were not necessarily valid in 1945, and certainly are not so today.
If one were to seek a discrete component ot the Navy that approached decisive influence in World War II, only the submarine force would qualify. With only 2% of naval Personnel, submarines accounted for 55% ot Japan s losses at sea: more than 1,300 Japanese ships sunk, including a battleship, 8 aircraft carriers, and 11 cruisers.1 It was the commerce-raiding role that Mahan dismissed as insignificant, rather than the clashes of large fleets, that made the greatest single contribution by naval forces to the defeat
°f Japan. .
The carrier’s role has been equally exaggerated in the Power-projection-ashore mission. Operating in the Central Pacific against isolated islands, carriers faced no significant opposition. Vice Admiral Frank Fletcher’s concern for the safety of his carriers off Guadalcanal was valid, however, and his decision to withdraw after two days over the objections of the ground commanders was Prudent. In contrast, the Japanese offered virtually no opposition from the air at Tarawa, where Rear Admira Charles Pownall provided a group of four fast carrier tas forces. Even so, the carriers could not come close to matching the 3,000 tons of ordnance delivered in just two- and-a-half hours by Rear Admiral Harry W. Hill’s bombardment force in support of the landings.
Even in the last months of the war, when Japanese air assets were severely depleted, the danger of relying on carrier aviation for protection within range of land-based aircraft was dramatized when four large carriers were badly damaged during raids against Kyushu. Three months later, during the Okinawa invasion, close to 5,000 sailors were killed and nearly 5,000 wounded, despite massive carrier support as the Navy operated within range of enemy airstrips in Japan and Formosa.2 In spite of the desperate situation in which Japan found itself at this stage, it was still capable of inflicting huge losses on naval forces within range of land bases.
Aircraft carriers did not win the war in the Pacific. It was won by combined arms and joint operations, which included the hugely successful guerre de course of the U.S. submarine force against Japanese commerce, the complex amphibious assaults in the Central Pacific, the intense strategic bombing of Japan by Army Air Forces, the naval gunfire and actions of surface forces, and the campaigns of General Douglas MacArthur in the Southwest Pacific. Particularly noteworthy were the comparatively few casualties suffered by MacArthur’s forces in contrast to Central Pacific operations. This was because of the support of Lieutenant George C. Kenny’s land-based 5th Air Force.3 U.S. naval leaders failed to consider these factors fully in postwar force planning. In addition, they neglected to study the lessons of the continental war in Europe and the naval war in the Atlantic in which the carrier played a distinctly minor role, compared to the Pacific campaigns.
Thus, as the Navy entered the postwar period, the disciples of Mahan still looked almost entirely to open-ocean battles between fleets of capital ships for guidance in future force planning. The aircraft carrier replaced the battleship, and Coral Sea and Midway replaced Tsushima and Jutland. At least this position was justified regarding fleet engagements on the open ocean outside the range of land- based aircraft, patrolling submarines, and minefields. In 1945, the carrier was indeed the dominant naval weapon in this environment, even though this narrowly defined scenario had limited strategic significance by war’s end. This, too, was soon to change.
Over the next 15 years, a revolution in warfare took place which far exceeded that of the interwar years. A sequence of dramatic technological advances occurred, and the effect of each equaled or exceeded the impact made by aviation from 1900 to 1950. On 6 August 1945 the United States ushered in the nuclear age by dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Next came deployment in the 1940s and 1950s of intercontinental bombers. For the first time, nations could attack each other across vast distances without the need for advanced bases. In 1955 the USS Nautilus (SSN-571) went into commission, bringing a new dimension to undersea and open-ocean warfare with the nuclear-powered submarine. In 1957 the Soviet Union tested the world’s first intercontinental ballistic missile
(ICBM), eliminating even the need for manned aircraft to strike other nations from thousands of miles away. Throughout this period rocket and electronic-guidance technology advanced steadily until missiles replaced guns as the major weapon system of aircraft and ships.
The cumulative effect of these developments did not just reinforce the limitations of the aircraft carrier in power projection ashore. It rendered the carrier fundamentally ineffective in this role. With the advent of strate
gic and tactical nuclear weapons that obviated the need for precision bombing, and the development of land-based long- range delivery systems in the form of heavy bombers and ICBMs, the need to use an aircraft carrier for the strategic power- projection role ceased. Even in support of a low-intensity conflict, such as Lebanon, the cruise missile deployed from a cruiser, destroyer, or submarine can be launched from a far greater and safer range from land and with far more accuracy, dramat-
ROYAL NAVY / INSET: U.S. NAVY
Nuclear-powered attack submarines launching long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles—as the USS Pittsburgh (SSN-720) did here during Desert Storm—and relatively cheap helicopters firing relatively cheap air-to-surface missiles— here, a Royal Navy Lynx deployed from HMS Cardiff against Iraqi gunboats—have rendered the supercarrier cost-ineffective.
ically lower cost, and significantly less risk to the firing platform than use of multimillion-dollar manned aircraft flying from a multibillion-dollar, 6,000-man, 91,000-ton aircraft carrier.
Although some scenarios may make it necessary or desirable to use carrier aircraft to strike targets ashore—as in the case of lightly defended, mobile objectives for which precise targeting is unavailable—today’s carriers and aircraft far exceed the size, complexity, and cost needed 0r justified by this mission. And ultimately, the risk of taking a carrier battle group or any other group of ships without support of land-based aircraft within launch range of a significant land mass occupied by a power in Possession of a large, modem military must be considered carefully and cautiously.
The threat in this environment is multifaceted and simPly cannot be countered effectively. During the approach to the objective, surface ships and submarines would oppose the battle group supported by long-range, land-based, missile-equipped aircraft. As the carrier battle group would dose to launch range, the air opposition would intensify, building to regimental strength. In many scenarios, mines deployed in permanent fields or in reaction to the advancing force would present an unmanageable shortterm obstacle. Finally, the battle group would have to deal with land-launched missiles, small, fast missile-firing craft, and short-range, land-based attack-and-fighter aircraft.
Even though a three-carrier battle force could use its 60 F/A-18C and 60 A-6E aircraft in defense, this action Would detract from the strike mission. Whatever the mix chosen, the carrier battle force cannot deploy all of its aircraft at once or indefinitely in defense.
In contrast, the enemy would be able to coordinate its attacks, employing the Mahanian and Clausewitzean Principle of concentration of force at the decisive point. As a result, even a three-carrier force supported by cruisers, destroyers, and frigates would be subjected to submarines, surface ships, and long-range land-based aircraft during its approach. It would be overwhelmed by these Same threats in addition to mines, small missile-firing ships and boats, and massive land-based aircraft attacks as it reached its launch point. The battle force would not survive. The Japanese envisioned, but did not execute effectively this in-depth defense against approaching naval forces in World War II. It was the basis of the Soviet bastion defensive concept, which would have been deadly effective had it been tested.
Some could argue that, with the demise of the Soviet Union, no power can mount such an in-depth defense. If that is indeed the case, there is even less justification now for the large-deck carrier than during the proliferation of modern weapon systems throughout the world. Even Third World nations now have versatile and sophisticated, yet easy to employ, systems of great lethality to use against any surface force approaching their coasts.
In reality, the modem supercarrier battle group has been structured and trained to fight a classic open-ocean fleet engagement such as Midway. The question we must now ask is, “Who is the enemy?” No other nation on earth deploys large-deck carriers, and none has given any indication of intent to do so in the future now that the former Soviet Union has abandoned its own such program.
More important, naval leaders have adopted the wrong lesson from Midway. They have focused for 50 years on the overwhelming superiority of earner aviation over other systems of the time and have forgotten that the battle turned in the Americans’ favor by Japanese failure to engage a single dive-bomber squadron. In today s Navy, failure to engage just one destroyer or one submarine effectively can result in similar neutralization of an entire canier battle group.
Active radar and antiradiation homing missiles, such as the 250-nm. U.S. Tomahawk antiship missile, can be fired outside the range of carrier aircraft or well before their arrival. Traveling in large numbers below a ship s radar horizon, programmed to arrive at the same time from different directions, and fired on passive information, they represent the most formidable threat to surface ships in modern navies. Manned aircraft no longer have this distinction. In addition, the modern nuclear-powered submarine armed with these missiles and torpedoes supported by 30-knot-plus submerged speed and indefinite endurance has replaced the carrier as the most lethal open-ocean naval platform.
This does not mean the aircraft carrier is totally obsolete and has no role in modern navies. It is simply in the same position battleships occupied in 1940—an important part of a fleet, but no longer the single most critical element. Ironically, the role of carrier aviation in open-ocean warfare today should be that envisioned by the naval leadership just prior to World War II. It should be used primarily for scouting to provide detection and over-the-horizon targeting for the long-range missile shooters and to engage enemy aircraft similarly employed prior to enemy detection of our own forces. Its secondary roles should be defense of the force against enemy aircraft penetration, engagement of enemy ships with long-range, standoff weapons such as the 70-nm. Harpoon missile, and destruction of previously disabled ships to preclude their potential return to port for repair.
Only under extreme circumstances should attempts be made to penetrate a modem antiair warfare (AAW) screen for direct engagement of surface ships by attack aircraft. The probability of such an attack’s complete success in the face of modern AAW surface-to-air missile systems is low, and the enemy would be alerted to the presence of the hostile force and launch a long-range missile counterattack. The side that first detects and effectively targets the opposition with long-range missiles is the one most likely to win. To do this, the presence of carrier-based aircraft is vital, but multibillion-dollar ships with multimil- lion-dollar aircraft are not needed to fill this role.
The last 50 years have not provided an opportunity to test U.S. naval strategy, tactics, and force structure; they have remained fundamentally unchanged. Korea and Vietnam presented no surface, subsurface, or land-based opposition to carrier forces. The carriers simply contributed attack aircraft to the air campaign of these conflicts. They were nothing more than expensive floating airfields with a capability provided much more effectively at far less cost by land-based aircraft.
As the Soviet Union built a blue-water navy in the 1970s, the United States responded with large carriers screened by cruisers, destroyers, and frigates designed primarily to protect the main capital ship. Just as in the 1930s, when more and more ships were built to protect the increasingly expensive and vulnerable battleship, more resources were poured into efforts to protect the increasingly expensive and vulnerable carrier. As the Soviet Navy built submarines, surface ships, and long-range land-based aircraft armed with modern, sophisticated long-range missiles, the United States continued to build aircraft carriers and manned aircraft.
The only recent combat experience the U.S. Navy has engaged in was the Persian Gulf War of 1991. As it turned out, Desert Storm was little more than a gigantic fleet exercise. Surface and subsurface threats were nonexistent, and air opposition never materialized because of the opponent’s incompetence.
Valuable lessons from that war should be emphasized
Number One: The huge success of the Tomahawk engagements. For the first time, the tactic of using long- range cruise missiles rather than manned aircraft for selective attack of critical targets was validated.
Number Two: The effectiveness of the Iraqi mine warfare effort. Using World War I-vintage technology in primitive moored and floating chemical horn contact mines, Iraq effectively limited the carrier battle force to the southern end of the Gulf.
Number Three: The relative insignificance of the carrier aviation contribution. Despite the use of six aircraft carriers—with crews totaling more than 30,000 men—accompanied by extensive cruiser, destroyer, and frigate escorts, postwar analysis in Riyadh confirmed that the carrier aviation contribution to the air campaign was minor compared to that of land-based air forces. The carrier effort was deep into the area of diminishing returns with the result unjustified by the cost. The carriers simply were not needed.
Number Four-. The ineffectiveness of high-performance, fixed-wing aircraft against small, fast naval surface forces. Repeatedly, such aircraft were forced to expend huge amounts of ordnance in attempts to destroy such targets, far too often failing to do so while inexpensive helicopters employing relatively cheap air-to-surface weapons routinely prosecuted such small craft.
Desert Storm demonstrated that the U.S. Navy continues to be dominated by carrier aviation advocates and the Mahanian principle of preeminence of the capital ship. With the arrival of the carriers in the Persian Gulf, operational and tactical control of all ships in the Gulf passed from Commander, Middle East Force/Carrier Task Force 151, to the Carrier Battle Force Zulu Commander, with the exception of the small, antiquated U.S. minesweeper force, plus a destroyer and two frigates designated to conduct combat search-and-rescue (CSAR) in the Northern Gulf. Even control of the latter three ships was soon effectively transferred to the carrier battle force. Carrier Task Force 151 Commander controlled naval gunfire support, mine countermeasures, and CSAR, but his was a command with no ships. All attempts to obtain assets from the carrier battle force commander to conduct naval gunfire support in support of proposed amphibious landings and subsequent land operations in Kuwait, to support minesweeping efforts in the north, or to conduct surface- action-group operations were met with only limited success and more often than not were futile. The battle force focused on carrier aviation strikes against land targets and on providing air and surface protection of the carrier battle force. All other operations were clearly insignificant in the view of the senior on-scene leaders.4
Current naval leaders speak of the need to build balanced naval forces that employ modern technology and reflect the real-world geopolitical situation. This is not happening. The United States continues to build and operate huge, monstrously expensive nuclear-powered aircraft carriers that carry only 80 to 85—prohibitively expensive—manned aircraft, while relegating all other combatants to the primary role of carrier protection and almost canceling entirely construction of the most lethal and effective sea control weapon in the fleet, the nuclear- powered submarine.5 The United States Navy Policy Book states “The aircraft carrier is essential to achieving and maintaining sea control.” It is not. A large nuclear-powered submarine force and balanced surface force supported by land-based aircraft are essential to maintaining sea control.
The policy book further states, “There are certain events or crises when only a carrier can do the job.” This too is in error. The carrier is the best system for support of long- range over-the-horizon detection and missile targeting in open-ocean warfare. There is no other realistic scenario in which it is vital. What the policy book is really saying is that the U.S. Navy continues to adhere to the Mahanian principle of the preeminence of the capital ship, and all other ships and systems exist primarily for its support.
Future force planners must abandon this 1930s syndrome and build a balanced force that significantly increases the size of the strategic mobility component, shifts emphasis from manned aircraft to long-range missiles as the primary naval open-ocean and power-projection ashore weapon, and maintains a large, modern submarine force. In this process it is vital that planning be joint-oriented to integrate naval forces, strategy, and tactics with the Army and Air Force, emphasizing the Navy’s strengths without attempting to duplicate capabilities the other components are better qualified to provide.
To do this, the Navy must abandon Mahan and his preeminent capital ship. Carriers do not have to be nuclear- powered. Most important, they do not have to be giganin tic. Future carrier forces should be gas turbine-powered ships the 40,000 to 50,000-ton range, carrying versatile aircraft such as the F/A-18C to perform the fighter role, launch stand-off missile attacks against surface ships, and perform strike and combat-support missions ashore when the tactical environment permits. Antisubmarine warfare should be left to destroyers and frigates, with their complementary aircraft, maritime patrol aircraft, and submarines. Construction and operating costs would be dramatically less and thus in line with budget limitations. More important, such ships integrated into a balanced force no longer centered on prohibitively expensive, obsolete capital ships would provide the versatile battle groups the U.S. Navy needs but does not have.
The earner occupies the same position today as the battleship did in 1941, and the military and civilian leadership is dominated by carrier-aviation advocates just as the Navy was dominated by battleship admirals in the inter-
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War years. If this long-term trend is not reversed, history as it inevitably does—is destined to repeat itself in the next war, with the capital ships of the fleet resting on the bottom of some harbor or ocean as the Navy’s leaders belatedly attempt to react to the realities of naval warfare in the 21st century.
Ronald H. Spector, Eagle Against the Sun (New York: Random House, 1985), PP. 486-87.
'Villiam Manchester, American Caesar (Boston: Little Brown, 1978), pp. 299 307 „
•Observations and comments regarding operations Desert Shield and 1Desert Storm are based on the author’s personal experience as deputy director o p
At 40 000 to 50,000 tons and powered by gas turbines, the future U S Navy aircraft carrier should carry only aircraft with the versatility of the F/A-18C—here, flying over the Persian Gulf—and leave antisubmarine warfare to the destroyers and frigates.
the staff of Commander, Middle East Force/Carrier Task Force 151, from 7 December 1990 to 23 March 1991.
5Navy budget documents show future carriers will have a price tag of close to $5 billion dollars The A-12 was $1 billion over cost when it was canceled. The AX could approach $100 million per aircraft by the time it goes into production.
Captain Girvin is currently deployed to the Western Pacific in command of the USS Samuel Gompers (AD-37).
“The Missing Mess Cook
.-u U- r , j , ftlH the mess cook. The officer of the deck had made numerous pipes on the 1MC an-
The chief could not find th master-at-arms had searched all compartments except the malodorous
nouncing system for theiculpni • h(X)ky in there. A certain distinctive aroma emanated from the trash
trash compactor room. No 0 xhc evening meal approached and still no mess cook,
room despite numerousi pre f cook ho,djng his breath and squinting his eyes, peered through the half-
Fmally, in desperation, man lying motionless across piles of neatly stacked garbage bags,
opened door and saw the mi §. J ® cook had passed out from the fumes. The chief considered the com-
Pamc stricken, the clue » 8 that bad. Surely the gas-free engineer and the hazardous-materials
partment an evil place, but it couiun t uc l.
officer wouid have recognized the danger cookj the chief noticed that the young sailor was wearing a
Walkman, Tnd *his right foot was tapping a steady rhythm against a garbage bag. When the chiefs stare reached
the mess cook s nose, the dhi®^^ause for tbe ubiquitous yellow foam ear plugs used for hearing protection.
tt ^ h°Unf iaHe had inserted a plug to prevent the offending smells from interfering with his rest. And late
he watched hi, »ounE tness cook swab the decks with the nose plugs
still in place. Bruce Stubbs