A final issue related to U.S. large-deck carriers, in addition to those described in the first part of this column (June 2007), is nuclear propulsion. A nuclear ship tends to have more operational flexibility than does an oil-burning ship. But the issues are complex. Two major studies, one by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and one by a nongovernment organization, Greenpeace, have objectively identified most of the issues related to nuclear propulsion.1
The GAO report (1998) noted: (1) analysis shows that conventional and nuclear carriers both have been effective in fulfilling U.S. forward presence, crisis response, and war-fighting requirements and share many characteristics and capabilities; (2) conventional and nuclear carriers both have the same standard air wing and train to the same mission requirements; (3) each type of carrier offers certain advantages; (4) conventional carriers spend less time in extended maintenance and, as a result, they can provide more forward presence coverage; (5) nuclear carriers can carry larger quantities of aviation fuel and munitions and are thus less dependent upon at-sea replenishment; (6) there was little difference in the operational effectiveness of nuclear and conventional carriers in the Gulf War (1991); (7) investment, operating and support, and inactivation and disposal costs are greater for nuclear carriers; and (8) life-cycle costs for conventional and nuclear carriers-for a notional 50-year service life-were estimated at $14.1 billion and $22.2 billion, respectively (in Fiscal Year 1997 dollars).
The Greenpeace report (1994) concluded, in part,
The cost of nuclear power is not justified in peacetime or in wartime, in terms of useful military capability. Nuclear ships are more expensive, less available, and only comparable in generating and sustaining air operations. They operate as part of integrated and increasingly joint military missions close to land, and nuclear-powered carriers are not used any differently than their conventional counterparts.2
The Greenpeace organization, well known for its anti-nuclear stance on many issues, produced a remarkably objective analysis in Aircraft Carriers, the work of three well-known researchers and writers in the nuclear field. Indeed, Navy officials have not been able to refute the facts in the Greenpeace report, and it has been cited in several Navy documents on the subject of nuclear propulsion.
The report bases its findings largely on an analysis of three U.S. Navy claims for nuclear-propelled carriers:1
* virtually unlimited range at maximum speed
* ability to remain on-station indefinitely without refueling
* greater storage capacity for combat consumables, such as bombs and jet fuel.
The Greenpeace report's findings conclude that during the Vietnam and Gulf wars, the period between the two conflicts, and the operation of carriers in crisis response as well as deployments in general, operations have not matched the promises or expectations of nuclear propulsion:
Nuclear-powered carriers do not transit faster to a region, remain longer on-station, or drop significantly more ordnance or launch more aircraft sorties than do conventionally powered carriers. In fact the Navy itself does not appear to distinguish between nuclear and conventional carriers in its operational planning or crisis preparation.4
Four additional factors should be noted with respect to nuclear carriers. First is the greater cost of recruiting, training, and retaining nuclearqualified engineering personnel. second, nuclear-propelled carriers were "sold" on the basis of their ability to rapidly deploy to trouble areas, accompanied by nuclearpropelled escorts. However, insufficient nuclear escorts were built, and the last of those nine ships (DLGN/CGN) was stricken in 1999. Third, while nuclear-powered ships require fewer replenishment vessels, their need for aviation fuel, munitions, and provisions will forever link them to a supply train. This situation is exacerbated by the need to support carriers with oil-burning destroyers and cruisers. Fourth, oil costs have long been touted as justifying the need for nuclear surface ships. In 2005 the U.S. national consumption of oil was 16 million barrels per day, of which 330,000 barrels-less than 2 percent-was used by the Department of Defense. Within DOD the oil usage was:
Air 73%
Ground 15%
Sea5 8%
Installations 4%
Thus, efforts to save fuel would be better expended in reducing aircraft and ground vehicle consumption rather than naval usage.
The issue of large-deck nuclear carriers must be reexamined in the coming years, especially in view of the costs of the ships of the CVN-78 class and the alternative capabilities for certain traditional carrier roles. The latter include the role of surface ships in Fleet air defense, of surface ships and submarines in long-range strike, and the capabilities of largedeck LHA/LHD-type amphibious ships in the context of the F-35B Lightning and specialized variants of the V-22 Osprey STOVL aircraft, and current and future Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). Future UAVs, as discussed in previous issues of Proceedings, offer the promise for carrying out a variety of operations, from land bases as well as from ships.
The Navy's 30-year shipbuilding program provides for a new CVN every four or five years. In a four-year period, for the same cost, the Navy could construct about five 40,000-tonplus LHA/LHD-type ships. Would a unified combatant commander-i.e., regional military commander-rather have one more CVN or up to five LHA/LHDs?
These large amphibious ships could be built at Newport News, Virginia, which now builds CVNs, as well as at Pascagoula, Mississippi, which is currently producing the LHA/LHD ships; both yards are owned by Northrop Grumman. While "skipping" a CVN at the Newport News yard could create issues with the yard's specialized nuclear-qualified workers, proposals for additional attack submarine construction, the next-generation strategic missile submarines, and nuclear-propelled surface combatants, could provide compensatory work there.
The carrier issues are very complex. Nuclear-propelled carriers are important to U.S. forward operations, but they are increasingly expensive at a time when the current shipbuilding budget cannot hope to reach the current Navy goal of 313 ships. Accordingly, objective discussion and analysis of the future carrier program must be undertaken.
1 Government Accounting Office, Navy Aircraft Carriers: Cost-Effectiveness ot Conventionally and NuclearPowered Carriers, NSIAD-98-1 (Washington, D.C., August 1, 1998), and Hans M. Kristensen. William M. Arkin, and Joshua Handler, Aircraft Carriers: The Limits Ot Nuclear Power (Washington, D.C.: Greenpeace, June 1994) The GAO has been changed to the Government Accountability Office.
2 Kristensen, et, al., Aircraft Carriers, p. 2.
3. "Navy kicks off campaign to sell CVN-76 carrier to Congress," Inside the Navy, 12 March 1994, pp. 7-8.
4 Kristensen, et. al., Aircraft Carriers, p. 3.
5. Navy and Coast Guard consumption.
Mr. Polmar is author of Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet.