Access denied | www.basenotes.net used Cloudflare to restrict access
Please enable cookies.
What happened?
The owner of this website (www.basenotes.net) has banned your access based on your browser's signature (3db0e8eb-ua98).Jan 5, 201810:24 AM ESTNov 16, 20171:06 PM ESTJan 6, 201810:32 AM ESTDec 27, 20176:21 PM EST
Menu Jan 5, 201811:19 AM ESTJan 4, 201810:00 AM ESTJan 1, 20181:39 PM ESTDec 25, 20171:37 PM ESTDec 23, 20177:31 PM ESTDec 16, 20174:16 PM ESTDec 6, 20177:59 PM ESTDec 5, 20177:36 PM EST Jan 9, 20183:05 PM ESTJan 9, 201812:30 PM ESTJan 7, 201810:19 AM ESTJan 6, 20185:01 PM ESTJan 6, 20182:07 PM ESTJan 6, 201810:32 AM ESTJan 5, 20181:10 PM ESTJan 4, 201812:55 PM EST Jan 9, 20187:02 PM ESTJan 8, 20181:16 PM ESTJan 5, 20187:02 AM ESTJan 4, 20187:05 AM ESTJan 3, 20188:02 AM ESTDec 27, 20172:53 PM ESTDec 22, 20175:12 PM ESTDec 22, 20173:26 PM EST Jan 9, 20189:07 PM ESTJan 9, 201811:46 AM ESTJan 9, 20189:37 AM ESTJan 8, 20189:03 PM ESTJan 8, 201812:48 PM ESTJan 5, 20188:00 PM ESTJan 5, 20187:01 PM ESTJan 5, 201812:29 PM EST Jan 1, 201812:38 PM ESTDec 21, 20173:54 PM ESTDec 16, 20171:44 PM ESTDec 8, 20179:08 PM ESTDec 1, 20172:38 PM ESTNov 24, 20171:54 PM ESTNov 18, 201711:19 AM ESTNov 10, 20174:39 PM EST安全检查! | 百度云加速
请打开cookies。
为什么需要输入验证码?
输入验证码证明您不是机器人，输入后可以暂时浏览网站。
如何避免？
如果您使用私人电脑，可以下载杀毒软件，进行全盘扫描保证没有中毒。
如果您使用公用电脑，可以请网络管理员修正配置选项或查找病毒来源。James Hasik: A review of three articles on life after the supercarrier
Every few years, someone writes an interesting article decrying the concept of the aircraft carrier. Vitaliy O. Pradun, a PhD student at my alma mater, the University of Chicago, has done just that in the latest issue of Naval War College Review, with "From Bottle Rockets to Lightning Bolts: China's Missile Revolution and PLA Strategy Against U.S. Military Intervention". As I explain below, it's a bit outlandish, but it's quite timely.
That is, what's different this time is the Chinese, who have, or seem to have, that new anti-ship version of the DF-21 ballistic missile. Pradun argues that the missile is essentially unstoppable, and that only a few are needed to sink a supercarrier. In response, he suggests that the United States invest more heavily in submarines, passive defenses for (presumably) smaller surface ships, and longer-range land-based aircraft for the USAF.
I found the argument overwrought and insufficiently supported. More plausibly, the situation seems disconcerting, but not a disaster. The Chinese only have a few DF-21 anti-ship missiles, and they're building (Pradun thinks) just about ten annually. The weapon has a maximum range of about 800 nautical miles, which outranges the Navy's Super Hornets by about 200 miles, but that's not by itself unmanageable. He says that the weapon maneuvers and throws off decoys as it descends as hypersonic speeds, and (as noted) claims that it's virtually assured to hit its target, but that's still speculation. The Chinese have lots of supersonic antiship cruise missiles, and that's disconcerting as well, but the US Navy has a lot of aircraft to bring to bear on the aircraft and surface ships that might launch them.
At some points, the whole article descended into a simple bean-counting exercise, like the antiseptic nuclear weapons analyses of the 1970s and 80s; I kept waiting to see the words "throw weight" in print again. Indeed, if the situation were really as grim as he suggests, the US Navy could rightfully stop building not just aircraft carriers, but air defense ships as well. There would be no point. Flotillas of frigates relying on massive quantities of chaff, flares, and harsh language would be as sensible, and certainly cheaper.
I find the writing unfortunate, however, because Pradun would otherwise have a solid point. I thought that Robert Haddick, managing editor of Small Wars Journal, had a better, shorter, and more measured argument on his blog at Foreign Policy this week. The article "Chinese missiles are sinking the Navy's long-range plans" simply stated that large targets probably are getting more vulnerable to fast-flying precision weapons, and that the service had better figure out what to do about that. He cites Pradun's article without falling in love with it, but does similarly argue for new stealth bombers, supersonic cruise missiles, and long-range drones (a point that Northrop Grumman's Analysis Center notably and skillfully made a few years back). For dealing with those inbound hypersonic missiles, he was also keen on something we like to call a "laser". Right.
So, with all this background, the recommendations in this month's Proceedings seem a rather modest proposal. In "Twilight of the Superfluous Carrier" (Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, May 2011), Henry J. Hendrix and Noel J. Williams make an
argument more conservative than Pradun's, or even Haddick's. They similarly conclude that optimal fleet structure is shifting towards submarines and a broader distribution of assets on more, smaller surface ships. And they don't decry carriers without programmatic recommendations. Rather, they simply argue that USS Gerald Ford, the first of the next class of super carrier, should also be the last.
That is, they don't recommend scrapping the supercarriers. Rather, they see lingering value, arguing that manned aircraft at sea will likely have a lot of value for a long time. There is an analogy with big guns, the previous arbiter of disputes on the oceans. Some of the battleships built in the 1940s served on-and-off until the 1990s, and with good effect against Iraqi troops in Kuwait. But only a handful of diehard gunfire enthusiasts argued after 1945 that anyone should build more: they simply consumed too many men and too much money for what they offered. Indeed, it is notable that the US Navy today is buying a new 6-inch gun for its Zumwalt-class (and possibly Arleigh Burke Flight III) destroyers, and that other navies are thinking of ways to take 155 mm ordnance to sea. That's all well and good, but it's not itself an argument for dusting off the plans for the Montana-class (motto: "when nine sixteen-inchers just aren't enough"). Armies used to use railroad guns, too, but no one wants anything bigger than those ubiquitous one-five-fives anymore.
Similarly, Hendrix and Williams want to keep building carriers, but to put less money into them. They note that an America-class carrier could take to sea a few dozen F-35B (STOVL) Lightning IIs, but would cost just one-third as much as a Gerald Ford. That's partly because it's half the displacement and lacks a reactor suite, but it's an important observation several years into the realization that the Navy's long-range shipbuilding plan, such as it is, is unworkable. In the long range, they'd equip all the Navy's carriers with some new jet-powered drones that could outrange China's missiles. To make that possible through saving some more money, they'd cancel the F-35C, and leave the Navy's fighter-bomber squadrons to rely on further purchases of F-18E/F Super Hornets.
That's all an interesting set of ideas, though I should point out four problems with it:
1. The F-35B is still on double-secret probation. I tip my hat for that one to both Dean Wormer and a friend at Naval Air Systems Command, but the point is solid: if we were all sure that the problems would work out, it wouldn't be in hoc. Planning on the airplane is still premature. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, and the Corps will be calling the Navy and the USAF for close air support.
2. If said F-35B does get out of the hangar, it will have a useful range of about 300 nautical miles. It could be very useful over the front lines after an amphibious assault, but the standoff problem would be much worse. One might consider, at that point, just landing them on Taiwan and running them aloft from stretches of highway.
3. If it's really China about which one is worried, then a better idea is canceling the F-35A, which is useless over Taiwan, unless based on Taiwan. It just doesn't have the range to get there from enough American airfields. If the USAF wants some fighters, it can fly F-35Cs off carriers (like the RAF), or not at all. And if one is instead worried mostly about Al Qaeda, the Qaddafyists, and other People With Funny Hats, then canceling the whole F-35 program is reasonable, though that's a whole other story.
4. That drone they prefer is totally unspecified, and must presumably be capable of getting on and off the Americas without catapults or arresting wires. That's armchair admiralship, and rather a lacuna in a Proceedings article.
And yet, for all these issues, like Pradun and Haddick, they have a point. With all the effort that the Navy puts into refurbishing them in those Refuelings and Complex Overhauls (RCOHs), supercarriers seem to wear out only one each five years. So, if the Navy stopped buying them with the Ford, in twenty years, the service would still have seven of them—plus whatever smaller carriers it had built in the interim. I needn't begin to suggest where the leftover billions could go: it's enough to note that even the SSBN(X) program might have enough cash at that point.
In next month's Defense and Security International, I will have a long article on the future of the military shipbuilding industry in the United States. Rather than reprise that analysis here, I will just offer a few targeted thoughts about what Hendrix and Williams' end of the supercarriers would mean for the industry. The first-order effect naturally falls upon Huntington-Ingalls Industries (HII), which is currently building both the Ford and the America. More Americas but no more Fords means less money for HII, simply because the replacement of steel would not be ton-for-ton. That would defeat the point of the economizing, and the economizing rather comes at HII's expense.
But the second-order effect, on potentially every other builder in the country, would also be impressive. There would just be more money to pass around for more ships. HII could recover some of this, for both Newport News and Ingalls are capable of building ships other than aircraft carriers. Newport News hasn't built a cruiser or destroyer in years, but there's no reason it couldn't. But more money for submarines and frigates would bring true happiness to Austal, to Marinette, and particularly to General Dynamics Marine, whether at Bath, Electric Boat, or NASSCO.
As ugly as the budget battles could get in a few years, we may see some serious lobbying for sufficiency in the carrier fleet. It has been a long time, after all, since GD sold that fighter factory in Fort Worth. That is, anyone without a stake in supercarriers might have good reason to argue against them, for that's-where-the-money-is. Now, if someone could just make a supersonic drone that flies a thousand miles from a carrier deck without a catapult shot...
Please enable JavaScript if you would like to comment on this blog.
James Hasik is a senior fellow at the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security at the Atlantic Council, and an associate professor of the practice of industrial studies at the Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy, a college of the National Defense University in Washington DC. Since September 2001, he has been studying global security challenges and the economic enterprises that provide the tools to address them. His opinions are not necessarily those of the NDU, the Defense Department, or the US federal government at all.
,in RUSI Journal, October-November 2016 (vol. 161, no. 5)
,in Defense and Security Analysis, September 2016 (vol. 32., no. 3)
, in Joint Force Quarterly, April 2016 (no. 81)
,in Small Wars and Insurgencies, October 2014 (vol. 25, no. 5/6)
,in Defense Acquisition Research Journal, July 2014 (vol. 21, no. 2), pp. 694–714
,in Contemporary Security Policy, December 2013 (vol. 34, no. 3), pages 583-599
in Defense and Security Analysis, September 2013 (vol. 29, no. 3), pp. 203–217
,in Defense and Security Analysis, January 2004 (vol. 20, no. 1), pp. 55-67
More on the brilliance of the feasible“The Army’s failure to effect greater progress [in armored vehicle programs] may have seemed tragic, but retrospectively, it was almost fated: programs like FCS and GCV were doomed before they were begun. For had the future been more readily foreseen from within the department, technological trajectories like those would have called long ago for more modest investments. The Army’s leadership is just recognizing the art of the possible, and investing accordingly.”
in Breaking Defense, 16 October 2017
On the brilliance of the feasible“There’s actually no reason to dislike the program today. I haven’t noticed yet any meaningful cost overruns on JLTV. I think with fixed-price contracts — as they have — you’re not going to get them. From what I can tell it is a great deal. It does basically exactly what it’s supposed to do, and at a pretty reasonable price.”
, in National Defense magazine, 9 October 2017
On staying out of the way“In 2014, Russian signals intelligence drones and Russian artillery worked quickly and efficiently to target Ukrainian troops by triangulating their radio emissions. And as the Ukrainians learned, emitting in any pattern that says headquarters will attract lots of cannon and rocket fire.”
in Space News, 28 September 2017
On dubious vertical integration“Building boosters and satellites are very different businesses. No one seems to think that Elon Musk is in a world of hurt because he doesn't have his own satellites, but he's got contracts to lift a lot of them.”
, on Fox Business, 18 September 2017
, in the Wall Street Journal, September 2017
, on the Voice of America Persian Service, September 2017
, in The Age of Aerospace, Discovery Channel, September 2017
, in National Defense, June 2017
, in National Defense, April 2017
Inauguration 2017: Fifteen smart locals on how Donald Trump could change Washington, in Washingtonian magazine,
January 2017
, in the Wall Street Journal, 12 December 2016
, on Defense News TV (WJLA Washington DC), 21 August 2016
, on Defense News TV (WJLA Washington DC), 21 August 2016
, in National Defense, August 2016
, in National Defense, 1 August 2016
, in Popular Science, 17 June 2016
, in National Defense, April 2016
, on Bloomberg Business, 8 March 2016
, in Inside Defense, 26 February 2016
, in Breaking Defense, 18 February 2016
, on Federal News Radio (1500 AM, Washington DC) 4 November 2015
, in Inside Defense, 28 October 2015
, in Washington Business Journal, 21 October 2015
Washington Business Journal, 7 October 2015
, in the Ottawa Citizen, 6 October 2015
, in National Defense, October 2015
, in Defense News, 12 September 2015
, in Washington Business Journal, 9 September 2015
, in Defense News, 23 August 2015
, in the Wall Street Journal, 24 July 2015
, in Defense News, 24 July 2015
, in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 19 June 2015
, in Defense News, 8 June 2015
, in Breaking Defense, 8 June 2015
, in Defense News, 1 June 2015
, in the Wall Street Journal, 29 March 2015
Who Killed The Ground Combat Vehicle? The Army's Answer Is Still Vexing, in Inside the Army, 27 February 2015
, in Defense News, 19 February 2015
, in Army Times, 11 December 2014; and , in
Defense News, 10 December 2014
Joint Vehicle Program Showcases The Tricky Math Of Intellectual Property, in Inside Defense, 25 November 2014
, in Military Times, 8 October 2014
, in Stars & Stripes, 3 October 2014
, in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 22 September 2014
, on Defense News with Vago Muradian, WJLA (ABC) Channel 7, 21 September 2014
, in Defense News, 15 September 2014
, in Inside Defense, 3 September 2014
, on VilaWeb (Catalonia), 28 July 2014
, in the Wall Street Journal, 28 July 2014
, in Defense News, 7 July 2014
, in Defense News, 19 May 2014
, in The Diplomat, 8 May 2014
, in the Wall Street Journal, 7 May 2014
, in Defense News, 20 April 2014
, in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 19 April 2014
, in the Mobile Press-Register, 25 March 2014
, in the Mobile Press-Register, 28 February 2014
, in the Financial Times, 28 February 2014
Laissez Les Bons Temps Roullez [on the defense budget before Mardi Gras], in Politico Morning Defense, 25 February 2014
, in Defense News, 18 February 2014
, in Crain’s Detroit Business, 2 February 2014
, in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 27 January 2014
in Defense News, 27 January 2014
in the Wall Street Journal, 23 January 2014
in Defense News, 23 January 2014
on DoD Buzz, 22 January 2014
Worrying Too Much About Sustaining the Industrial Base? in Defense Industry Daily, 22 November 2013
on In Depth with Francis Rose, Federal News Radio, WTOP 1500 AM, Washington DC, 12 November 2013
in Defense News, 20 September 2013
interview on Fox News, 15 August 2013
in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 31 July 2013
on In Depth with Francis Rose, Federal News Radio, WTOP 1500 AM, Washington DC, 14 May 2013
in Foreign Policy, 9 April 2013
BAE Prods Congress For Bradley Funding Unwanted By Army, on Bloomberg, 1 April 2013
, on Bloomberg, 23 February 2013
BAE Develops Green Fighting Machine for $32 Billion Army Program, on Bloomberg, 15 January 2013
in Federal Times, 1 January 2012
in Defense News, 27 October 2012
, in Defense News, 3 September 2012
, in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 23 August 2012
, in Defense News, 5 August 2012
, in Defense News, 21 May 2012
, in Defense News, 21 May 2012
, in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 12 February 2012
in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 9 January 2012}