I have read Commander Green's very interesting article, "A Case for the Attack Carrier in the Missile Age." I cannot help but feel that the implied position of the attack carrier in the modern navy is overemphasized.
"The large ship with the long-range weapon was, and still is, the very basis upon which control of the sea is built." The author cites this sentence as a basic tenet and states his tenet as a postulate. Who would be so bold, as to ride a carrier, or one of sixty carriers, 'Unescorted into an ocean possibly occupied by five hundred enemy submarines? Obviously the carrier will not be unescorted, but just as obviously the point can be made that it is not the carrier but the escort that controls the sea. The carrier must depend upon ASW forces to control the seas before it can even venture to leave port.
Commander Green explores the position of the attack carrier in the event of general war. He makes the good point that air power at sea may well be the only fighting air power remaining. I feel it is reasonable to suggest that the only carriers which would be of much use as a retaliatory force would be those carriers within aircraft range of their targets, or at least able to reach such a position within a reasonable length of time. It would seem to me that for the attack carrier to be effective in time of nuclear unlimited war, our country would have to keep a prohibitive number of carrier task forces on, or near, station. How many missile submarines could be kept on patrol for the same amount of money?
Commander Green is on much more defensible ground when he discusses the attack carrier's position in the event of limited war, but I suggest that he again overstates the carrier's case. "The attack carrier can meet, with the exact amount of power required, any local conflict endangering the United States." Did we not in Korea find ourselves with somewhat less than the exact amount of power required? Do we not now have all the attack carriers necessary to engage in limited war?