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"The aircraft carrier(s), that were on the scene were unable to project power inland."

So how well would battleships replace carrier air in Fallujah and Khandahar?

Unless I'm mistaken, the near term range requirement for NGFS is 41 nmi and the far term requirement
is 97 nmi. Since both Fallujah and Khandahar are greater than 300 miles inland…...I'll let you figure it out.

But while we're on the subject or carriers and how effective they aren't, the cost of substituting carrier
air for NGFS is very expensive. The GAO published a report that stated that annual operation cost of a
CVN was $444 million in FY 1997 dollars. This does not include the cost of operating the air wing, just
the ship. The cost of the six escorts and support ship is also quite high. The VAMOSC figures for these
ships along with cost adjusted to FY2008 dollars are as follows:


This is actual operating costs and doesn't include hidden cost of operating nuclear powered ships or
disposing of them at the end of there life as shown in the GAO report nor does it include the cost of
ordnance. The air wing costs are based on an optempo of 19.0 hrs. flight time per month per crew
for an air wing comprised of 85 aircraft which was what the navy averaged in 2006.

What can be expected from this HUGE annual expenditure of capital, in the way of strike capabilities….:



The answer is: NOT MUCH!

The Navy tried to show better sortie rates in a staged event called SURGEX. This "single carrier demonstration"
resorted to using ground based refueling aircraft. They added 25 "EXTRA" pilots from other air-wings to
increase sortie rate, pre-built and stored enough bombs for two full strike missions, and added 255 support
personnel to the air wing to facilitate turning the aircraft around. The sorties were pre-planned prior to
beginning execution. No calls for fire or other distraction that would have slowed the pace of operations
were allowed. Virtually all targets were within 200 n.mi. of the carrier, which means that if the carrier were
based 100 n.mi. off-shore the strikes could only reach 100 miles inland. The results of this completely
contrived set of circumstances was the generation of 771 "strikes" sorties in 98 hours. Only 727 were
actually able to attack a target. Forty-four of these were flown by EA-6B's. Only 262 of these were in support
of ground troops, however fictitious they may have been. This amounts to about 2.67 CAS sorties per hour.
The vast majority of these sorties carried only two bombs, either two 500-lb or two 1,000-lb bombs. All
the ordnance was dumb bombs. This was done because the bomb crews couldn't build and arm the
aircraft with sophisticated, larger or greater numbers of weapons in the given time. Large bombs weren't
used because the extra time it took to arm the aircraft with them. The split on bombs was 918 500-lb.,
413 1,000 lb. and 5 Rockeye cluster munitions. Had there been calls for larger weapons the sortie rate
would have plummeted because the bombs couldn't have been manually loaded onto the aircraft as was
the case with the smaller ordnance.



The total ordnance delivered for this exercise was ~391 long tons or about 4 tons per hour. Since 36%
of strike sorties were close air support it is reasonable to assume that 36% of all ordnance was delivered
in support of troops (no break down was given in the report). Therefore a single carrier can be expected,
under the best possible circumstances, to be capable of delivering a total of 2.67 CAS sorties per hour
carrying two deliverable bombs with a total average weighting of 1.44 tons. A PATHETIC SHOWING for
such an expensive array of warships and the HUGE number of personnel involved (in excess of 7,000).

This sortie rate IS NOT sustainable. During normal combat operations under identically contrived
circumstances the number of sorties would be cut in half or less as shown in the next graphic. It should
be noted that the flight distances for these strikes were about the same as for SURGEX.



If the distance to the target were longer, lets say to Khandahar, this cuts the sortie rate to one quarter
of that figure. This is why the Navy made so few strike sorties on the opening day of Operation Enduring
Freedom. The bulk of the strike power came from USAF aircraft. It should also be pointed out that
carrier-air are only capable of doing this in a low threat environment.



The only method that's more expensive and less responsive than carrier air is using missiles. E.G.




Just so you understand my position: Carrier based airpower may be a nice thing to have if its your only option,
but its not a substitute for "REAL" airpower. Nor can it fill the need for 24/7 fire support. Period!

You and the fighter Mafia at the Navy might be able to blow smoke up the average joe's @$$, but your
not going to do it to anyone who has actually taken the time read the numbers.

"IOW, batttleships did no more to advance national objectives in Lebanon than ships still in the fleet
so lets spend billions of dollars to reactivate them. Lets also ignore any current or planned advances
in strike technolgy, both air and missile, since 1984."

Are you suggesting that getting planes shot down, pilots killed, and hostages taken advances the
national objectives more effectively than actually completing an assigned mission?

Guns are, by far, the most effective and least costly solution to the problem. Carriers and carrier- based
aircraft are not! E.G. The carrier battle group has HUGE manning requirements, and an even larger
appetite for money.

"Carriers also solve problems battleships cannot even begin to address."

So what?

So do submarines. But nobody is asking the submarines to provide close supporting fires for amphibious
assualts!

"In fact, battleships address only one problem, that of NSFS, and that not very efficiently compared to
purpose built solutions."

Which "purpose built solutions" are you referring? ERGM?? LRLAP+DDX??

This statment needs repeating:
The Navy has spent billions and billions of dollars and years of effort trying to provide NGFS with no results.

"And no adverse consequences to show for it."

I guess you don't see any "adverse consequences" to wasting billions of dollars and 14 years
of time while producing no results. Or spending $1.4B annually on ships that have no purpose in life
other than amphibious assault. Which, by the way, have no chance of completing their mission with out
proper fire support

Some of us actually like to get value from our tax dollars! To me this means that if we are spending
hundreds of billions of dollars to build and maintain an amphibious fleer, the Marines, and all the special
gear that's required to perform such operations, then the Navy should arrange their priorities such that
they have a reasonable chance of meeting thier obligation. If they see fit to continue avoiding them, I see
no reason to continue to maintain the amphibious fleet or any of its supporting research and acquisitions!

Regards,

Zen

"Now look at it with Super Hornet and every legacy Hornet capable of toting PGMs. If legacy Hornets can hit 4 aimpoints and Super Hornets 6 aimpoints, and each is doing is capable of two sorties per day, that's a hell of a lot of targets that they can hit"


I suggest you reread my post and then look at what the requirments are, I think you'll find that
Hornets/not-so-super or otherwise don't even have a chance of meeting the requirments,
as the Navy has already demonstrated

The split on bombs was 918 500-lb., 413 1,000 lb. and 5 Rockeye cluster munitions. Had there been calls for larger weapons the sortie rate
would have plummeted because the bombs couldn't have been manually loaded onto the aircraft as was the case with the smaller ordnance.

"And how often do you need two thousand pound bombs?"

If what is purchased is any indication of what is going to be dropped then the numbers for the last three years are:

5,000 lb -----350
2,000 lb - 37,051
1,000 lb --- 3,399
--500 lb --- 7,142

You'll notice that the two sets of number don't match well. Therefore SURGEX can add one more flaw to its rather lengthy resume.

"BS…."

"Too little range and too little HE."

"Far cheaper just to pay for some gas and drop a JDAM."

I think you need to review what it cost to delivery ordnance by air as well as it's many other
drawbacks that make it unsuitable as a replacement for NGFS. While your at it you should read a
good manual on weapons effectiveness.

Regards,

Zen