Re: The End of the Carrier Age?
I had always supposed that it would have required the US to suffer a Military Disaster involving its Carriers before the point was hit home. I do therefore give the US credit if they have indeed decided to bit the bullet in advance. If so it could be fair to say the current economic condition of the US may well have provided the final level of rationale.
So, has America suddenly decided to play the game the Chinese way?
You have opened Pandora's box by even suggesting that Carriers may soon be obsolete .
Any causal observer reading similar threads here may well be led to believe that US Naval Carriers are unsunkable ...LOL
But look at the reality , Even if US planners come to realize that the aircraft carrier battle groups (which are the mainstay of the US Navy and the main instrument of US power projection worldwide), have been rendered
vulnerable or obsolete by a changing naval landscape , can it ever be acknowledged ?
The US cannot simply change strategy or discard such a weapons
system. To change strategy or "retool" would mean wasting
hundreds of billions of dollars invested in those highly
sophisticated systems. The strong lobbying of influential defense
contractors making those systems would make change extremely
difficult.
For defense authorities to admit the strategic blunder constitutes
an almost insurmountable barrier to a change of strategy. And
finally, the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs related to those
systems may be politically and economically unbearable for any
US administration to bear should the program for the aircraft
carrier battle groups be scrapped.
Because of these factors,America may be stuck with an obsolete system that is too expensive to maintain but will may not best serve US interest when
employed in a major conflict.
We'll well into the 21st century . Yet there are 19th Century mindset & relics hovering around ; and some of them sincerely believe that US Naval Carriers cannot be sunk.
The Chinese Admirals must be very happy ...:rofl:
