Behold the mighty supercarrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford. I will explain why she is likely to be among the last of the warship species we may call dreadnoughts. Strictly speaking, the term dreadnought applies to the largest battleships. The first big gun battleship carrying this name was launched by the British navy in 1906, and it revolutionized naval warfare, leading to an arms race in which the great powers sought to build many ships of this type. The word literally means fearing nothing. Today, our greatest capital ship, the supercarrier, of which the U.S. Navy has 11, has a great deal to fear.
The Death of the Battleship
The aircraft carrier eclipsed the battleship in WWII. The Pearl Harbor attack on December 7,1941 provided an early demonstration of the potency of air attacks against capital ships at anchor. The decisive encounters of aircraft against battleships at sea began three days later with the sinking of HMS Prince of Wales, and ended with the sinking of Yamato in 1945. Prince of Wales and the accompanying battle cruiser Repulse were sunk on December 10, 1941 by a force of 88 Japanese bomber and torpedo bomber aircraft. Yamato, the largest battleship in the world, was sunk on Apri l7, 1945 by 280 U.S. bomber and torpedo bomber aircraft. All of the most important naval battles of WWII in the Pacific were fought by carrier-based aircraft, with battleships mainly relegated to shore bombardment and convoy escort duty. The aircraft carrier became the dominant weapon of naval warfare.
Sinking of HMS Prince of Wales
Enter the Supercarrier
With the advent of nuclear propulsion, the U.S. navy built the most powerful aircraft carriers in the world. Starting with the USS Enterprise in 1961, and culminating with the current Gerald Ford class, these enormous ships gave the navy a dominant global reach, effectively delivering a large air force to fight in any war zone in the world. No other nation has a comparable carrier fleet. Because of the importance of the supercarrier, it is guarded by an escort flotilla of frigates and cruisers armed with missiles that provide protection from enemy aircraft, missiles, and submarines. The carrier air wing includes early warning radar aircraft capable of detecting threats hundreds of miles away, and the carrier’s fighter aircraft can create a protective shield over a vast area. Attack missions are conducted by carrier planes armed with a wide variety of bombs and missiles, potentially including nuclear weapons.
Carriers Are Vulnerable
Although supercarriers are stoutly constructed, you don’t need to sink a carrier to achieve what is called a mission kill. If the catapults are damaged, aircraft cannot be launched. If the elevators are stuck, planes cannot be lifted from the hangar deck to the flight deck. If the ammunition hoists are disabled, weapons cannot be moved from the magazines to arm aircraft. If the carrier’s Hawkeye radar reconnaissance aircraft are shot down, the carrier loses its long-range defensive vision. In short, just a few missile hits can render the carrier combat-ineffective, largely nullifying the offensive potential of the entire carrier battle group. In addition to missiles, the carrier is vulnerable to submarines and flying and undersea drones. Even a swarm of fast suicide boats can threaten a carrier.
The Missile Attack Numbers Game
It is not widely understood that the Vertical Launch System (VLS) cells from which missiles are fired from U.S. frigates and cruisers are not reloadable at sea. Once its missiles have been expended, a ship must return to port to reload missiles. (The navy is experimenting with doing this at sea, but the problem of lowering a large and fragile missile into a narrow container on a vessel subject to wave and wind action is a serious obstacle.) Thus, the outcome of a missile exchange between an attacking force and the carrier’s escorts is a numbers game. A saturation attack that empties the VLS cells of the escorts puts the defenders out of action. Note that standard anti-missile doctrine dictates two interceptors must be fired against every incoming missile to achieve a kill probability above 90%.
Missile launch from VLS
Only the long-range U.S. Navy SM-6 missile is theoretically capable of intercepting hypersonic missiles, the greatest threat to the carrier. The typical U.S. carrier battle group has roughly 200 SM-6 missiles distributed across the escorting cruisers and frigates. Thus, a saturation hypersonic missile attack of 100 missiles would likely exhaust the defensive missile armament of the escorts. This would be an optimistic outcome for the defenders, assuming no technical superiority of the incoming missiles and no malfunctions of the defending missiles. A more realistic scenario would include electronic jamming, decoy missiles, terminal maneuvering of incoming warheads, and multiple attack waves, further increasing the odds against the defenders.
The Reckoning
If we calculate the cost of 100 hypersonic missiles at $25 million per round, totaling $2.5 billion, against the cost of the supercarrier at $11 billion, plus the embarked aircraft at $4 billion, plus $5 billion for the escort ships, totaling $20 billion, we get an economically favorable ratio of 1 to 8 for the attacker. Even four waves of 100 missiles each would be a favorable trade. And, of course, replacement attack missiles can be manufactured faster than supercarriers. These are crude estimates based on publicly available data, but the asymmetry is clear. War games simulating outcomes of a naval war against China in the Pacific support this pessimistic assessment.
Diminishing Potency
If supercarriers are endangered by the arsenals of major powers, what about their utility in punishing smaller nations that have offended the U.S. hegemon? In the last few days the USS Harry S Truman has launched air strikes against Houthi sites in Yemen. The Houthis have responded with drone and missile attacks against the carrier force. So far, the carrier escorts have been able to fend off such attacks, but If the Houthis obtain more advanced missiles, they are likely to inflict damage on the U.S. ships. With the proliferation of relatively inexpensive anti-ship missiles, the ability of U.S. carrier forces to strike small nations with impunity will be increasingly doubtful.
Floating Pork Barrels
Building supercarriers is a profitable franchise for Newport News Shipbuilding, the sole builder of U.S. nuclear powered aircraft carriers. That’s right, this division of Huntington Ingalls Industries is the monopoly producer of a very expensive weapons system with tremendous political and military backing. Over the last 10 years, HII’s revenues have increased from $7 billion to $11 billion, with net income rising from $400 million to $550 million, most of which comes from the construction and maintenance of navy warships. Clearly the magic of the marketplace is not working in favor of U.S. taxpayers when it comes to supercarriers.
The Fate of Naval Aviators
Apart from the dubious prospects of the ships of carrier battle groups, the cultural status of naval aviators is at risk. Celebrated as military champions by films like “Top Gun,” future navy pilots may be defeated by unmanned drone combat aircraft not subject to the physiological limitations of human pilots. The superb piloting skills required to achieve carrier landings will be rendered moot by drone aircraft that can routinely land faultlessly. Thus, carrier pilots may lose not only the ships from which they fly but the basis for their high status.
How much longer?
What Succeeds the Supercarrier?
A pragmatic naval strategy for the USN would be to retire the costly supercarrier battle groups and replace them with many smaller, lightly-crewed vessels armed with drone aircraft and missiles. Expeditionary forces could continue to use existing amphibious assault ships with a modest aircraft and drone launch capability. Advances in automation would permit very small crews to operate future vessels, and widespread deployment of such ships would sustain the global reach of the USN. The expansion of submarine capability to include the launching of a variety of drones would add an important element of stealth to the projection of naval power. The savings resulting from such a force transformation could amount to hundreds of billions annually.
Funeral Expenses
The cost burden of the U.S. supercarriers will not end with their retirement. Decommissioning these ships will be much more expensive than scrapping their conventionally powered predecessors. The cost of decommissioning each of the 10 Nimitz class carriers is estimated to be between $750 to $900 million, compared to about $50 million for a conventional carrier. Removal of the spent fuel and disposal of the radioactive remnants of the reactor is a complex and costly process. The final resting place of naval reactors is Trench 94 at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State.
Trench 94
Conclusion
Like the physical inertia of a massive ship, the cultural inertia of the supercarrier as a symbol of U.S. military power is enormous. Evidence indicates that the supercarrier is no longer a cost-effective naval weapon system, and it will likely go the way of the battleship. It should be replaced by more numerous, smaller, and highly-automated warships. This change is likely to be resisted by a naval and political establishment deeply invested in carrier battle groups. Unfortunately, to borrow a term from accounting, the future of USN supercarriers may well be a sunk cost.
Great post. I’ve been reading this since kind of analysis since the df-21 came out from the Chinese, at least in 2014 if not earlier. I think there’s going to have to be a public carrier loss to force a change. Amazing that decommissioning is so expensive.
Before the DF-21 was the French Exocet, and although I was in grade school, I can remember the world being rocked when the Argentine Air Force sank the HMS Sheffield (not a carrier, rather a destroyer, but it proved the concept of the anti-ship missile) with a single Exocet launched from a Super Entendard fighter.
It has been known that carriers could be sunk very cost effectively for a very long time. Even before that Exocet were the Soviet Termit and Chinese Silkworm missiles, which I think were first placed into service in the 60’s. I personally first learned of the almost fool proof tactics that could produce this result when I first read Tom Clancy’s book, Red Storm Rising (published in the early 80’s), in which he fictionalized a wargame for the most interesting chapter of the book. In that particular chapter, the USSR attacked a NATO naval convoy shipping weapons that was protected by a carrier battle group, with multiple carriers, which I believe were the Nimitz, America, and Foch, along with one or two MAU LHA ships, which are also carriers, even though most Americans are not familiar with that class of ship. The Foch and Saipan were sunk (French carrier and US LHA carrier), and the Nimitz was heavily damaged by a well thought-out Soviet naval aviation attack by TU-95s, TU-22s, and Tu-16s that launched a swarm of anti-ship missiles from two different compass points. Of course, the “good guys” won in the end, but this book was the first eye-opener for me that pierced the indoctrination that had taught me that the US military was invincible (reading actual history, namely of WW2, finally nailed shut the lid on that coffin). It may very well be that carriers have been vulnerable for most of their history, and it was just the US’ own geopolitical restraint in the past that failed to enrage another nation to the point where it felt the need to clearly demonstrate this vulnerability. No doubt much will be written on this topic in the years to come.
Very interesting article, Haig.
Aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines are only useful for invading other countries. They should be forbidden by naval treaties for all countries to possess.
Aye. I got stuck here: “Expeditionary forces could continue to use existing amphibious assault ships with a modest aircraft and drone launch capability. ”
Maybe the USN could use amphibious assault ships to launch “an expeditionary force” against the Gulf of America, but longer-range operations would seem to require much more tonnage, delivered through ports and airports that are just as vulnerable to cheap drones and missiles.
Trump is a very stable genius, but a very stupid one.
Or schizophrenic, as I think Carolinian has suggested: on the one hand he withdraws to the Gulf, on the other he threatens to rain down hell on Iran. Like many schizos only trying to save his own ass in an armed madhouse.
I semi watched the Dwayne Johnson movie Red One and it rather disgustingly has Santa Claus escorted by a pair of USA fighter planes. To a Dwayne Johnson hammer even the birth of Jesus looks like an action movie nail?
So clearly Tom Cruise needs those carriers even if we don’t. Priorities.
When I was a kid, every Christmas Eve NORAD would announce that they had Santa’s sleigh on their radar. Probably the movie was riffing on that.
Johnson plays Santa’s bodyguard to protect him from the evil dwarf shape shifter. Need I say more?
Given the US track record for the early days peer wars (the US gets at least one shellacking before adjusting a new paradigm and finally winning only because of the industrial deluge of stuff that followed eventual American mobilization), I would not want to be serving on a carrier strike group in the first week of WW3.
(I would count a showdown over Taiwan as WW3, even if it isn’t a literal world war involving a European theatre)
Fun fact….the US Navy has fired more air-to-air missiles around Yemen in the past 1.5 years than the Navy has used since the end of the Cold War. (probably can go back all the way to the Vietnam War, too)
surface-to-air
Thanks. I can’t for the life of me think how even the Ford class carriers will work against 21st century cheap efficient opponents like swarms of drones.
Especially when there are big issues concerning the F35.
History doesn’t repeat but it rhymes. The battleship died (apart from some useful role as cruise missile launcher during Iraq war 1) not long after WW2. The aircraft carrier looks like a glass cannon.
It will still take a large weapon to finish them off. Look how hard the Yorktown died in WW2 and these are much bigger. Subs with large torpedo’s or the bigger cruise missiles will be the go, blowing holes in them won’t be enough.
As mentioned above, just disable one of the several important sub-systems on the ship, say, blow some holes in the landing deck, and the ship becomes a huge transport vessel. Then it will have to retire to a major port for refitting and repair. Gone are the days of late WW-2 when America had floating drydocks that could be forward positioned to carry out major repairs on Navy ships close to where they needed to be.
Indeed, badly damaging but not sinking a supercarrier would be a net positive for an adversary on several fronts. It would tie up major scarce American resources keeping the hulk afloat and then repairing it. It would also keep all that radioactive material from polluting the bottom of some waters for generations.
Per the above, I remember seeing Ballard several years ago give a talk about his career, finding the Titanic, etc. The Titanic search was a ruse to cover up a Navy secret project to find the wrecks of the Thresher and the Scorpion, nuclear powered submarines that sank in the Atlantic. The purpose of that was to measure the radioactive leakage at both wreck sites. Sending a nuclear powered ship to the bottom might be a net loss for the entire world. Better to just wreck it enough so that it has to be returned to a port for decommissioning.
See: https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/AroundTheWorld/story?id=4978391
I loved Titanic stuff as a kid and all the more so when Ballard found it.
I was amazed all those years later when he was given clearance to tell the story of what the Navy really wanted him to do….. and that it was a complete PR headache for them when his “side project” actually paid off!
The quote that comes to mind is from Star Trek III: “The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop the drain “.
As you say, maybe sinking a carrier ain’t so easy but making it spend months in dry dock getting repaired is getting easier
That link to the rise of the Dreadnought is by Big Serge, and it is very well done. the comment at the time was that once Dreadnought was launched, every other surface warship was obsolete. True. The result of new tech spearheaded by a very far seeing Navy Lord, Jackie Fisher.
Japan in 1940’s built the two largest battleships.
With 18 inch guns they could blast US’ ships with 14 or 16 inch guns at longer range.
As stated aircraft did both of them in. Never got to do what they were made to do.
The third Yamato was finished as a carrier (as big as early Cold War US supercarriers (although, not as well laid out bc it wasn’t designed as a carrier from.scratch) and was done in by a sub. Another sign of things to come?
One thing worth mentioning (Not sure if Big Serge mentions in further below–I’m not a paying subscriber) is that, while the Dreadnought was the first to be comissioned, it wasn’t the first ship launched that encompassed the concept: USS South Carolina (BB-26) was the first to be ordered and designed (although she lacked the turbines of Dreadnought–whether the turbines were the most useful powerplant for USN’s needs was a debate that went on for another decade plus, though (USS Oklahoma, laid down in 1912, was still powered by a triple expansion engine although she took a long time for completion, due to budget issues); Japanese Satsuma and Aki were likewise ordered and designed as all big-gun, turbine-powered ships before the Dreadnought, although they were completed as “semi-dreadnoughts” because of budget problems. In one sense, the amazing thing about the Dreadnought, more than the fast all big-gun ship concept was how quickly the ship went from design to completion (all in about a year).
Correction: “Launched” should have been “designed.”
Good article!
In Aviation Week magazine around 1991, after Saddaam grabbed Kuwait, a young AF officer observed that a land based squadron could generate several times the number of strike sorties of a super carrier. Later, USAF general wrote a weak rebuttal. Super carriers are core of the Airedale navy.
A hard to find report yesterday attributed most of the Houthi drones attacking USS Truman were shot down by USAF fighters. I suspect the carrier is too burdened getting off bombers to defend itself.
Drones and cheap unmanned combat systems are a big problem. Not safe without USAF nearby.
One addition. The air and missile defense fleet protecting super carriers missile ships have SPY-1 radar sets and intricate battle management to complement the Hawkeye radar aircraft. Newest picket ships are getting new SPY-6 radars, souped battle management and are same class but larger for more electrical power.
The picket ships can have attack cruise missiles in the verticals cells.
A new comment from Stephen Bryen (have no idea about the details and this is brand new news…)
https://weapons.substack.com/p/limited-ceasefire-agreed-at-least
It seems to me that both parties are playing a sort of one-upsmanship, by “accepting” deals with conditions that they are betting that the other side will find questionable and/or are likely to violate soon. So, if Macron and Stamer bite this and send in their troops (where will they find them?), Ukraine breaks the ceasefire (assuming they actually accept it in the first place–in which case, will UK and France still try to sneak their baits in?), and Russia bombs the UK/French troops who happen to be “standing too close to Ukrainian military targets,” what will happen? I’d almost suspect that Trump is trying to set things up so that the Brits and French do get bombed (or humiliated, if they don’t follow up on their huffy puffy boasts.) and US has legit excuse to let them hang out to dry.
“limited ceasefire” seems quite euphemistic, to me. It sounds like a re-visit of a prior proposal of modest de-escalation in which both sides would refrain from certain kinds of deep strikes. The land war will continue unabated. To me, it sounds like a bigger concession from RF than from Ukraine, inasmuch as RF deep strikes generally hit their targets and Ukrainian deep strikes generally are intercepted. Perhaps this is a carrot to get the Ukrainian leadership to start talking to RF leadership.
We took a trip to Houston once. And at that time, in the Houston Ship Channel, right next to the San Jacinto Battlefield where Texas won its independence, was moored the USS Texas. I may be wrong, but I seem to remember them saying this was the very last dreadnought left from WWI. It had been remodeled during WWII, and somehow did not end up stationed in Pearl Harbor on December 7th. However, they did say that Hollywood films about Pearl Harbor have been filmed on its decks. I was just looking this all up online just now and have learned that they have moved the USS Texas to Galveston, where it appears it will remain permanently. I do not get the feeling it is open to the public at this time.
But that is just the point. It is undergoing a massive restoration. The maintenance of the USS Texas is funded by donor groups but I get the idea that it is a never-ending job and that they are always behind.
The ship itself was impressive. You really do not get the idea of just how big these things are and how big the guns are until you are onboard. But you also immediately noticed something else……the entire thing was turning into a rust bucket. It made a believer out of me of how much our tax dollars go just to maintain these gigantic ships that are in active duty. The cost must be enormous.
I remember being told this was the last of the WWI dreadnoughts still around. When they reopen it for touring after the restoration, it really is something to see.
One funny thing about USS Texas is that she is powered by a triple expansion engine, something that the Dreadnought supposedly made obsolete. But USN spent another decade arguing whether the turbine offered much advantage over the triple expansion engine and US dreadnought continued to be built around the old engine until WW1….
What’s that quote supposedly by Churchill about Americans? ;-)
Some classes of German dreadnoughts also used reciprocating engines. Britain was the early leader in turbine technology.
The USS North Carolina from WW2 can be toured at Wilmington, NC. Down the coast at Chareston is one of the WW2 era carriers but updated for later use.
USSAlabama and USS Massachusetts also preserved as museum ships. They are post dreadnaught fast battleships authorized in the late 30’s when Japan pulled out of Washington Naval Treaty. Both ships are from the same class.
There is also the Tsarist Era “Protected Cruiser” Aurora, launched in 1903 that is run as a museum ship in St. Petersburg, Russia.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_cruiser_Aurora
I want to see the HMS Victory, commissioned in 1778!
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Victory
Seeing the HMS Victory is a mind-bender. Went to see it and as a I rounded a corner and it came into view, it was like seeing a 24th century starship. I don’t think for the sailors it is a popular posting but it is still amazing. You guys have something similar with the USS Constitution which was commissioned in 1797-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Constitution
I suppose that if you got to see it, you should first see “Master and Commander” to get a feel for what it would have been like to live aboard it.
You may be aware of it but if not: “The Wooden World” by NAM Rodger is the classic exposition of the mid to late eighteenth century Royal Navy.
It explains the whole social structure of the service and debunks many of our modern day myths that the whole thing was based purely on press gangs, grog and the lash.
In fact, the career / sponsorship structure for both ratings and officers that he describes feels eerily similar to that of a modern day consulting firm! The book really brings the whole thing alive.
HMS Victory looks pretty from a distance; up close, a compact killing machine.
Fascinating 30 min. video on its design and workings.
Commissioned in 1914, USS Texas is the last of the WW1 era Dreadnoughts.
My father built naval missile launchers, installing them on all kinds of ships around the globe including the Iowa class BBs in the 80s. I still have USS Arkansas plankowner gear that he brought home from that ship’s shakedown and shock test. I’ll confirm based on his intimate knowledge of these systems that rearming VLS missile ships at sea isn’t possible. The older rail-launch systems (Mk 10, Mk 26) apparently could be rearmed at sea, but i have no further details to offer. A ship in port is far more vulnerable than a ship at sea since a stationary target in a known location is easier to hit even with an unguided munition.
WW2 actions demonstrated that mission kills or even hard kills were possible due to air attacks even when no hits were scored. Collisions resulting from evasive action and friendly fire are dangerous enough.
Would’t be the first time *cough*Eden*cough*. And I am not necessarily critical of the US for doing this. I want my country out of Eastern Europe.
I don’t think Eisenhower intentionally set up the French and the British to be mousketeers instead of musketeers ( Operation Musketeer, get it?). I get the hunch that Trump is actively setting them up this time, though.
hehe gotcha. But maybe result still the same? Dunno.
Time for lots of re-organisation of country alliances, none the same.
Yeah the activiely setting them up bit worries me……
I have friends who are UK born and bred of Chinese ethcicity who I went to uni with and certainly were no friends of Chinese CCP……..now I hear them say “UK is familyblogged and we’d do better sucking up to CCP”.
Kinda makes you think since these are not dunces. Consultants in medicine who read stuff I’ve recommended to them along with a lot of other stuff they read independently, and not “pro Chinese slanted”, so, e.g. Pettis criticisms etc. Makes you think.
Journalist Cecil Brown was on board the Repulse when it sank, his eyewitness account…
(CBS, December II, 1941. By permission of Cecil Brown.)
I was aboard the Repulse and with hundreds of others escaped. Then, swimming in thick oil, I saw the Prince of Wales lay over on her side like a tired war horse and slide beneath the waters. I kept a diary from the time the first Japanese high level bombing started at 11:15 until 12:31 when Captain William Tennant, skipper of the Repulse and Senior British Captain afloat, shouted through the ship’s communications system, ‘‘All hands on deck, prepare to abandon ship. May God be with you.”
I jumped twenty feet to the water from the up end of the side of the Repulse and smashed my stop watch at thirty-five and a half minutes after twelve. The sinking of the Repulse and the Prince of Wales was carried out by a combination of high level bombing and torpedo attacks with consummate skill and the greatest daring. I was standing on the flag deck slightly forward amidships when nine Jap bombers approached at ten thousand feet strung in a line, clearly visible in the brilliant sunlit sky. They flew directly over our ship and our anti-aircraft guns were screaming constantly.
Just when the planes were passing over, one bomb hit the water beside where I was standing, so close to the ship that we were drenched from the water spout. Simultaneously another struck the Repulse on the catapult deck, penetrating the ship and exploding below in a marine’s mess and hangar. Our planes were subsequently unable to take off. At 11:27 fire is raging below, and most strenuous efforts are under way to control it. All gun crews are replenishing their ammunition and are very cool and cracking jokes. There are a couple of jagged holes in the funnel near where I am standing.
https://medium.com/@tenormail26/cecil-brown-sinking-of-the-prince-of-wales-and-repulse-1b3fbe31a4bc
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nobody believed ships like these could be sunk from the air by Japanese forces, until a new paradigm hit them…
Opinions varied on survivability of battleships at sea in face of air attacks, even in 1920s and 30s, though. Billy Mitchell thought it feasible even in 1910s (he was very wrong, btw–his specific idea was a dead end). Many admirals in 1941 were at least fearful of what airplanes could do–they saw what the Luftwaffe did in the Mediterranean, often with their own eyes. Tom Phillips, apparently, was one of the dead enders and, notably, he lacked firsthand experience in modern combat, having been more of an administrator before being given the command of Force Z. Other admirals probably would have been more cautious (and racist bias towards Japanese competence in air operations probably played its part, too.)
Force Z was meant to include at least one aircraft carrier, more destroyer escorts, and some of the new cruisers with heavy AA armament.
The defense of Malaya was meant to based on airpower, and the British built several large modern aerodromes there.
But the British high command gave strategic priority to the Mediterranean (correctly, I think.) Therefore, those aerodromes received few planes. The fleet at Singapore was a fraction of what was meant to be. The best-trained and best-equipped troops from the Indian and Australian armies were sent to Africa or the Middle East.
Remember that the original Allied strategy was that the French navy would handle the Mediterranean. The sudden and severe defeat of the Anglo-French forces in 1940 radically altered the entire global situation.
While everybody knows that the fighting performance of the Italian forces in WWII, whether land, sea, or air, was usually poor, nevertheless the mere fact of Italian belligerence represented a major strategic victory for the Axis. That was the reason why there was such a thing as the Mediterranean theatre in the first place.
Why was Force Z sunk? Tactically, because of land-based aircraft operating near the limit of their range. Strategically, because of Mussolini.
Why did Malaya and Singapore fall? Because the planes and troops meant to deployed there instead were busy fighting around places such as Tobruk.
Besides, the need to divert merchant shipping around the Cape was by itself a loss of throughput equivalent to the sinking of two million GRT (about six months’ worth of average German submarine attack). The Italian navy inflicted a great deal of harm on the Allies, merely by staying in harbour, as a “fleet-in-being.”
Regarding Admiral Philips, he was aware of the risk he was taking. But if he could interrupt the Japanese landings, that might justify the sacrifice of two battleships. IMO he was an aggressive commander doing what he was supposed to do.
Unfortunately for the British, the Japanese air commander, whose name I don’t know, was also quite aggressive, and willing to risk the loss of his entire force, if they ran out of fuel. But that indicates just how serious a threat to their plans was posed by a couple of enemy dreadnoughts.
Proof-reading comment to the author: HMS Dreadnought is very definitely spelled with an “ou” whereas at several points both the ship and the class are interchangeably spelled “au”…..
Otherwise, a good summary of the issues with carriers!
A few weeks ago I finished reading Seymour Melman’s “After Capitalism: from Managerialism to Workplace Democracy”. It’s an older book ( (c) 2001) and I’m not confident that Melman’s optimistic “take”, that worker reaction to pro-alienation managerial initiatives would continue to make progress toward disalienation, would hold up well in light of the past 25 years. I mention it here because early in the book Melman discusses the nature of post-war US industrial policy, which is intimately connected with the present industrial conditions, which underlie the US armed madhouse.
Basically, IIRC, as Melman describes it, there was a conscious decision on the part of US policy-makers to privilege weapons research over state investment in or encouragement of improvements in basic industrial infrastructure (especially the machine tools industry). US gradually lost its industrial technology leadership while retaining pre-eminence in military technologies. The seeds of the present problem of costly but not especially effective weapons systems were planted in an early decision to employ “cost-plus” approach to weapons development and procurement.
One gets the sense that US ought to get out of the war business, at least in terms of waging (I suppose we could continue to produce weapons for export as a domestic jobs program. The arsenal of oligarchy.). We aren’t that good at it.
I’m not sure the battleship examples are well chosen. The point about Pearl Harbour is precisely that the ships were at anchor, and not expecting an attack. Moreover, they were sunk by torpedoes, and at the time nobody realised that the Japanese had developed, just a few months before, a torpedo that could arm itself in such shallow water. And there was no air cover either. I don’t think anyone was surprised that torpedoes could easily sink a stationary unprepared battleship under such conditions. The Prince of Wales and Repulse were actually intended to be accompanied by a carrier, but it broke down. In any event the ships were intended as a deterrent signal, they were not expecting to be attacked. And the Yamato was an acknowledged suicide mission from the beginning.
But as regards the main subject, I have been saying for years that the geek approach–strengths and weaknesses of individual technologies–is beside the point. What matters is the capability you want to have, whatever equipment you then decide you need to provide it. Here, the carrier has taken over from the battleship the role of force projection. What that means is simply the ability to project force anywhere reasonably close to the shore, which is most of the world. A carrier gives you perhaps 3-4 squadrons of aircraft, including Airborne Early Warning, several squadrons of helicopters, up to a battalion-size ground force including engineers, ground motor transport, small boats capable of beaching, a hospital, a command and control HQ, strategic communications with the home country and a considerable intelligence gathering capability. So the question is not whether you want carriers, but whether you want this set of capabilities, because you might need to do certain things in the future. More and more countries around the world are deciding that they do, but it’s a choice. It’s just that you can’t unmake that choice easily, so you are stuck with it.
You could theoretically supply some of the same capability with a series of vessels: troop-carrying and landing vessels (essentially small carriers with helicopters), a large command ship (a cruiser perhaps), lots of air defence ships, a hospital ship, lots of ships carrying drones with workshops and some means of gathering targeting intelligence, and so on. The combined cost would probably be greater than a carrier and less effective. Modern aircraft are too expensive and complex to forward-base just anywhere these days, and would have to fly long distances, probably from home territory and refuel, as the French did in Mali.
So it’s not about technology, it’s about what you want to do. At the end of last year, during the Israeli attacks on Beirut, the airpower, very close to the town, was almost closed. Only MEA were still flying, and the Israelis could have, but didn’t, put the airport out of action. If the situation had got worse, as it threatened to, tens of thousands of people would have had to be evacuated through the port, protected by the military and transported to safety.
It is very much about technology. The expeditionary capability of carrier groups operating “reasonably close to shore” can be nullified by an adversary with a large supply of potent missiles. The Chinese are pursuing a defensive strategy of area access denial, and they would not be able to do this without potential carrier killers like the DF-21. As this missile technology proliferates, carriers will become an endangered species worldwide.
To a large extent, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour was partly inspired by the British attack on the Italian Navy at Tarantino. A lot of the damage was done by 21 Fairey Swordfish biplane torpedo bombers from the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious despite the shallowness of the harbour-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Taranto
The US may not have expected this sort of attack but it was not unknown. And there was air cover but it was mostly destroyed on the ground at the various airfield. Those pilots that did get up caused all sorts of problems for the Japanese planes-
https://www.history.com/news/heroes-of-pearl-harbor-george-welch-and-kenneth-taylor
“Tarantino” . . . interesting Freudian slip there?
Stupid human autocorrect.
Rock, scissors, paper ?
Exactly. There has been “carrier killers” since 1970’s (I’m looking at you, P-500!), but we still have carriers among us, because no other system (or combination of systems) can replace it. At least not yet.
Actually, as many commentators have mentioned even in this discussion, fighters seem to be pretty good at hunting drones and missiles. Maybe carriers have a new role in this world of cheap, mass produced high-precision weapons.
I certainly can (and hope to) see dedicated air-defense frigates returning to replace these no-good multipurpose vessels pretending to be worth their price but actually being too big, too rare and too expensive to be risked in action.
Why China et al. are still building carriers may be answered by asking What do they want carriers for ? There are, of course, more uses for carriers than just battles on the high seas between peers. As Aurelien says in his essay “Stone, Scissors, Paper : Or, Europe after Ukraine” :-
{snip}
{snip}
Main battle carriers are weapons appropriate for a “context” now being questioned, for different “tactical and operational objectives”, for a different “strategic purpose” than today’s planners need to be preparing for.
I like this essay by Aurelien very much and commend it to all without reservation.
https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/stone-scissors-paper
Sorry, not buying it. First off, if the CV concept is dead, why is China working so hard to achieve it?
The naval history is a bit weak. The dreadnaught era ended with the post WW1 naval limitations treaties. This resulted in a stunted shipbuilding program until nations decided to blow out the treaty limits in the 30s. The resulting North Carolinas and following weren’t available until 1942 and later. Partly I think due to teething problems resulting from new designs. The same could be said about CV design; wasn’t until the Essex design which came on line in 1943 that the USN had an ideal design.
While it’s correct that the WWII strategic naval battles we mostly read of were carrier duels, that tends to ignore the operationally vital surface battles that were fought. The contribution of capital ships to anti-air defense also tends to be minimized in popular history.
I get the idea that swarm attack tactics could theoretically overload defenses; I’m not sure that’s a given in practice.
As far as the cultural importance of naval aviators, I’ll just say “what-evs” as a former black shoe destroyerman.
Note there are no “frigates” in the USN these days. The building Constellation (FFG-62) class will change that.
Also a significant fraction of those WWII capital ships were built in the public yards, with Newport News having to compete. IMO eliminating the USN Construction Corps and forcing the Naval Constructors into the line was a mistake.
Strictly speaking, the term dreadnought refers to a subtype of battleships that is nowhere near the largest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreadnought
For comparison, the namesake HMS Dreadnought was about 20,000 tons. Yamato, not a dreadnought, about 70,000 tons. Iowa, also not a dreadnought, about 50,000 tons.
Technically, all big gun battleships (ie post Dreadnought) is a dreadnought–uniform main armament, directed by centralized fire control, being the defining feature. It just so happened that once every battleship was technically a “dreadnought,” it became a bit pointless to call them a dreadnought. (Havibg said that, I don’t think “dreadnought” was ever the official classification in any navy.)
The post-1920 battleships were usually called “superdreadnoughts”.
There have been carrier killers for as long as there have been carriers. The US, Britain and Japan did extensive wargaming in the 1930’s, and all concluded that no carrier would survive a concentrated air attack, let alone an encounter with a battleship or heavy cruiser. But they still built them – why? Because of their obvious extreme usefulness for force projection. The response to the vulnerability to attack was to try to ensure that their carriers got the first strike in. In Midway of course, it was the US that got the attack in first. Admiral King went to extreme lengths to protect his carriers. Yamamoto was more careless, he never really seemed to fully understand how to use them strategically. Britain went a slightly different ways, building much more heavily armoured carriers, but the reduced air arm they could carry seriously reduced their strategic use.
After the war the ‘carrier killers‘ were nuclear subs, and then the super long range torpedoes designed by the Soviets. And then again, there were the long range ramjets powered ASM’s – the F-14 were a direct response to these. It’s a constant, and very expensive, game of tit for tat. Hypersonics don’t change this – they are just another challenge. They have their own issues, not least that they are very hard to guide to target (for the same reasons they are hard to intercept). Cheap drones will almost certainly not survive the intense electronic assault of a modern high tech battlefield and are unlikely to have the range to really threaten a carrier unless the operator is stupid enough to bring one too close to shore.
Anyone who thinks carriers are a thing of the past needs to answer the question as to why everyone who can afford them still wants to build them. The Chinese are spending vast amounts on what appears to be three different classes of vessel, one as large as the Ford Class. The Russians have been pursuing designs for years, and the French, British, South Koreans, Japanese, Egyptians, Thais, Turks and even Iran have projects. Of course, the tactical/strategic use of the carrier will change with technology, and the actual physical carriers themselves may change form and scale according to different strategic needs, but it is still very clear that every major power with force projection ambitions wants them. There is simply nothing else available that can do what a carrier can do. The ongoing (and cripplingly expensive) tit for tat of carrier killer vs yet more advanced defence (or first strike) responses is likely to go on for decades more.
A lot of modern hoopla about drone technology has been repeated several times, at least as early as 1880s: the Jeune Ecole school of thought being a prime example. The new technologies of the day, the auto motive torpedo, turbine propulsion, and the feasibility of practicla submarines, were thought to be making it possible for a swarm of cheap ships using these technology to overwhelm battleships and, to be fair, this was partially true when the little ships got lucky in favorable waters (e.g. Italian torpedo boats in the Adriatic during World War I), but the extent of threat to the battleship turned out to be much exaggerated. As far as I’m aware, the real argument was economic, rather than technological: the battleship, along with supporting vessels, could be properly fitted and their crews trained to deal adequately (but not completely, obviously) with the new emerging threats–if you are willing to pay the associated costs. The real problem was (and still is) whether that was worth the expense and the answer seems to have come down generally to, no it is not. It is indisputable that the carrier is and remains the ultimate tool for projecting power in faraway lands. Do you really want to pay the cost, though? That, in turn, brings the question back to the domestic poLITICS: who’s paying the price for who’s aims?
Yes, there really is nothing new under the sun when it comes to the cycles of military technology, especially with ships. Which is a good thing for military manufacturers as they always have a new threat they can hype for profit.
To an extent the cost of big carriers is part of the point – like battleships, they give a geopolitical edge to those rich enough to afford them. Or those who just want a fancy flagship (I like how the Thai English language press refer to their somewhat useless flat top as the Thai-tanic).
That said, there is a lot of interest in smaller flat tops among smaller countries. They give a lot of flexibility for both military and civilian/scientific use. The new Portuguese vessel as an example. The F-35B of course gives the option for turning them into mini aircraft carriers if the country is inclined to spend that much.
Thanks. My beef with them is largely with the costs and for want of a better term repairability. I don’t per se criticise the UK for building those 2 carriers. What annoys me is that we don’t have ability to fix them quickly like in WW2 and fly off them without the USA…., or these days without a certain defence subcontractor based in USA.
Here I admire France for staying out of US armed sphere of influence. We had that just after WW2. Then our “friends” cut us out of the nuclear project we gave to them etc. I don’t hear Starmer proclaiming that….. funny…..
BTW the UK right wing tabloids presented recent events as “UK unable to staff its carriers” when the real story was that the USA was so cash strapped that to fulfil its obligations regarding how many carriers at sea it had to borrow one of ours and put a load of its planes on it!
Arthur Marder, that prince amongst US naval historians, and a profound student of the late Victorian and early 20th century Royal Navy, made these observations of the double tragedy of December 1941:
“The destruction of the two capital ships marked the end of the period of sea power epitomised by Nelson and the teachings of Mahan. The battleship had been toppled from the lordly position it had retained for three centuries. More, it was patently clear that henceforth surface combat could take place only where aircraft were absent, out of range, or at night.”
And yet:
“The sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse was a disaster for the Royal Navy, one of the greatest it had ever suffered, and its prestige in consequence tumbled – but not in the Imperial [Japanese] Navy, in the Operations Division at any rate, where the high evaluation of the Royal Navy was not much affected. It was natural, it was thought, for the two British ships to be sunk, because they had advanced without air cover. But they had displayed ‘bravery’ in taking the offensive against the Japanese, whereas the US Asiatic Fleet had run away from the Philippines, to Java and Australia. Once the initial shock had worn off in the Royal Navy, there was an implacable determination to pay the enemy back in kind…What also came back into play then was a facet of the British temperament to which Mahan had called attention [in v. 2 of ‘The Influence of Sea Power’]: ‘But the English temper, when once aroused, was marked by a tenacity of purpose, a constancy of endurance, which strongly supported the conservative tendencies of the race…’.”
(Arthur J. Marder, ‘Old Friends, New Enemies: The Royal Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy: Strategic Illusions, 1936-1941’, 1981, at 514 and 520-21). However, I am not certain that Mahan’s or Marder’s confidence in British temperament can now still be relied upon.
>>>However, I am not certain that Mahan’s or Marder’s confidence in British temperament can now still be relied upon.
Maybe, but maybe not. The attempts to destroy the national characteristics of the various Western countries are deliberate, but not yet complete. What worries me most is the likely blowback as the various Western populations attempt to reverse the process. Successful or not, it will likely be prolonged and extremely violent.
If anything, the ancestor of the carrier is the 19th century gunboat. If you had some troublesome natives who defied your orders (cough*Yemen*cough) then you would bring in the gunboats to bombard one of their towns and cities. Here is one example-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardment_of_Kagoshima
These days carriers fulfill the same function. But where in this post it says ‘The carrier air wing includes early warning radar aircraft capable of detecting threats hundreds of miles away, and the carrier’s fighter aircraft can create a protective shield over a vast area’ that’s not entirely true. I would recommend the followig pdf files which shows how over the past decades the range of the aircraft of a carrier have shrunk dramatically meaning they will have far less time to react to a saturation cruise missile/drone attack-
https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/194448/CNASReport-CarrierAirWing-151016.pdf
Early in WW II Japanese aircraft carriers accompanied surface fleets to attack U.S. naval and air forces and when the naval action was consummated support for the landings. This was the order of battle at Midway. Four large carriers with the invasion/surface battle fleet.
In 1942 U.S. had 3 operating carriers. They engaged at Coral Sea and fought Japan’s carriers to draw which foiled the advance of the surface combatants.
At Midway the 3 surprised the 4 Japanese carriers, sank them all losing 1 U.S. carrier.
By Philippines campaign U.S. had 4 carrier task forces comprised of 2 big fleet carriers and 2 light carrier with supporting surface combatants. The navy had a Separate batch of surface combatant task forces in Philippines area. Two of three Oct 1944 engagements were primarily surface bc Halsey went North after the last Japanese carriers. By the Philippines U.S. carriers were also used to beat land based air power.
Late in WWII the U.S. subscribed to general mix carrier and surface combatant attacks.
The carriers to engage air power and surface combatants l
Today the carriers have bigger threats from the land and sea. A lot of tech out there after carriers.
WW II carrier only had to evade airborne human eye detection, in the vast ocean. Support ship were heavy with anti aircraft guns.
Thirty-odd years ago, my Dad drily observed; “The Navy is always prepared to fight the last war over again.” He went on to opine that the Navy didn’t want to understand that “next time they won’t have the whole South Pacific to hide (the carriers) in.” No doubt the political admirals of the Pentagon are fervently praying for the development of a direct energy defensive weapon.
All forms of bureaucracy are the optimal habitat for mediocre minds but (again quoting Dad) “the best place for them is a peacetime military.”
Re: cost of decommissioning CVN-65
It’s possible CVN-65 will be a bit more expense to decommission since it has eight small (sub) reactors rather than the two reactors found in the Nimitz class CVNs. It was might have been called “Building-65” during it’s ’79-82 overhaul at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, but it still can be heard refereed to unfondly as the “Enema-prise” by those old timers that worked at the yard on that overhaul.
And as to Trench 94 with the old reactor vessels, the spent fuel gets hauled somewhere else like this:
Nuclear fuel train on the Puget Sound & Pacific with an MRL SD70ACe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFI4E1kXEOM
I’m surprised no one has yet mentioned Billy Mitchell. He demonstrated in 1921 (!) the ability of aircraft to sink capital warships. And then was court martialed in 1925 for insubordination. It will take a lot for the US Navy to give up aircraft carriers.
“Sink The Bismarck!” was always on WGN Family Classics.
So now I understand why we maintain 750 overseas military bases: Planning ahead for the post-Aircraft Carrier era! Perhaps we need 750 more to maintain our hegemony?
To quote an unknown submariner, “There’s only two types of ships: submarines and targets.”
With the creation of the nuclear submarine, the capital ship is now the submarine.
Pork barrel carriers is exactly correct. Such carriers have been obsolete since drones became ubiquitous. There is no carrier on earth that can survive a sustained drone swarm attack. Their only reason to exist now is to pour money into certain key political districts.
It’s been coming for a long time. Ever since the Falklands war when a few Exocet missiles cost the Brits dear. A few more missiles and Argentina could have won the war.
I often wondered what they were thinking at the Pentagon when it happened.