I was in 7th fleet, the one surrounding China's coast and the south pacific. There's talk of bringing a second one in but currently that's the only naval force controlling that entire region. Knowing how it's manned/supplied/maintained, I have absolutely no confidence we'd be able to invade China by its coasts. Russia is friendly to them and hostile to the west so the easier approaches are off limits. They control global manufacturing to the point that I couldn't buy bullets in the US last year because the lead and primers come from China and a minor supply interruption sent the global economy into a panic. I don't even know if it's a paper tiger at this point after losing Afghanistan and Iraq, but the paper bobcat routine of the US military is going to look like the French military marching into World War 1 wearing blue when it loses its first aircraft carrier in a war with an actual navy. If Iran kicks off and they manage to USS Cole one or if a naval engagement with China results in one being hit by the weapons everyone immediately developed to counter them, all of the US power projection is limited to its land bases endangering third-party countries that hate us. We specifically can't win those wars which China will fund because they make everything now.
They're a neat idea in contrast to battleship fleets and I think CVNs could be a remarkable humanitarian platform if it was demilitarised. A floating international airport with a reactor that can power a city and desalinate water for it. That'd be great as climate change intensifies natural disasters hitting poor coastal regions. As a military platform, they were made obsolete as soon as hypersonic flight and nuclear torpedoes were developed. It's six thousand people concentrated in one place with a bunch of carcinogens, fuels, magnesium, and bombs. Damage control is the one area outside of combat medicine I'll give the Navy genuine credit for, but even then the USS Forrestal fire was a minor incident compared to what battle damage would mean. While the risk of that is mitigated by the carrier fleet's screener ships, 7th Fleet is the one where all the ships keep having major accidents. Its op tempo is so high that nobody can train or fully man units or maintain the ships to the standards of other fleets. The planes and helicopters we're supposed to be launching from those carriers/the surrounding airbases are noted for being the ones that fall out of the sky.
As long as every war is Desert Storm, damn impressive. If it's a Vietnam War decided by exhaustion, a carrier can enable more sorties and air superiority but you just run into the same problems as the WW1 howitzers and the WW2 Norden bombsights. More volume of an ineffective thing won't win you the war unless your goal is being king of ashes. If it's a modern war and drones and specific counter-weapons exist, they're floating radioactive sarcophagi.
I was in 7th fleet, the one surrounding China's coast and the south pacific. There's talk of bringing a second one in but currently that's the only naval force controlling that entire region. Knowing how it's manned/supplied/maintained, I have absolutely no confidence we'd be able to invade China by its coasts. Russia is friendly to them and hostile to the west so the easier approaches are off limits. They control global manufacturing to the point that I couldn't buy bullets in the US last year because the lead and primers come from China and a minor supply interruption sent the global economy into a panic. I don't even know if it's a paper tiger at this point after losing Afghanistan and Iraq, but the paper bobcat routine of the US military is going to look like the French military marching into World War 1 wearing blue when it loses its first aircraft carrier in a war with an actual navy. If Iran kicks off and they manage to USS Cole one or if a naval engagement with China results in one being hit by the weapons everyone immediately developed to counter them, all of the US power projection is limited to its land bases endangering third-party countries that hate us. We specifically can't win those wars which China will fund because they make everything now.
I love how the aircraft carrier is basically just the same idea as Pearl Harbor, but behind enemy lines.
"Hey guys, let's put $600billion worth of hardware onto a slow moving target the size of a town."
They're a neat idea in contrast to battleship fleets and I think CVNs could be a remarkable humanitarian platform if it was demilitarised. A floating international airport with a reactor that can power a city and desalinate water for it. That'd be great as climate change intensifies natural disasters hitting poor coastal regions. As a military platform, they were made obsolete as soon as hypersonic flight and nuclear torpedoes were developed. It's six thousand people concentrated in one place with a bunch of carcinogens, fuels, magnesium, and bombs. Damage control is the one area outside of combat medicine I'll give the Navy genuine credit for, but even then the USS Forrestal fire was a minor incident compared to what battle damage would mean. While the risk of that is mitigated by the carrier fleet's screener ships, 7th Fleet is the one where all the ships keep having major accidents. Its op tempo is so high that nobody can train or fully man units or maintain the ships to the standards of other fleets. The planes and helicopters we're supposed to be launching from those carriers/the surrounding airbases are noted for being the ones that fall out of the sky.
As long as every war is Desert Storm, damn impressive. If it's a Vietnam War decided by exhaustion, a carrier can enable more sorties and air superiority but you just run into the same problems as the WW1 howitzers and the WW2 Norden bombsights. More volume of an ineffective thing won't win you the war unless your goal is being king of ashes. If it's a modern war and drones and specific counter-weapons exist, they're floating radioactive sarcophagi.