Defense Secretary
‘s controversial
sparked intense debate amongst the defense community. In that document, Carter directs the Navy to procure more
and truncate the
program, among many other measures. Carter’s far-reaching proposal spawned an even more radical proposal by an esteemed naval analyst to shake up the US Navy’s force structure. Among the various suggestions that
to
Breaking Defense, the most controversial is the one to build more
(LHDs and LHAs) in the place of
(CVNs).
The Marines
One advantage of amphibians,
, is that the Marines embarked onboard the amphib allows it to carry out various peacetime missions that the carrier can’t. While he didn’t delineate what these missions are, in the post-Cold War period, Marines have been deployed in various
(OOTW) like non-combatant evacuation and
.
Is the LHD more capable than the carrier in handling such operations? Yes, but only to the extent that the amphibian, with some 1,900 Marines embarked, has a sizeable ground-troop complement that enables it to better handle operations short of war that necessitate a larger force ashore. In contrast, the carrier does not currently embark a battalion-sized ground force; indeed, the norm is for a small SEa-Air-Land (SEAL)
contingent to deploy together with it. However, a “light footprint” approach is more suited for many missions where there is no need for a substantial number of the 1,900 Marines onboard the LHD to
.
As a matter of fact, for smaller-scale OOTW missions that may have a kinetic element, such as counter-terrorism and Tactical Recovery of Aircraft and Personnel, the carrier’s small naval special warfare component would probably suffice. Even if more ground forces are needed, say to facilitate a large-scale non-combatant evacuation from a besieged US embassy, Marine Fleet Anti-terrorist Security Teams (FASTs) could augment or even replace the SEALs. Being forward stationed near geostrategically sensitive areas –
– these units could be deployed quickly to any carrier in the same locality.
That being said, there is a plan currently in the pipeline to
again, including carriers. The driver is the need to bridge the “
” caused by the relative paucity of amphibious warfare vessels. While further details of this initiative, such as the number of Marines to be deployed on each ship, have yet to be worked out, initial signs are encouraging with
the concept.
The Air Wing
Polmar also made the point that
in capabilities, especially range. Yes, it seems weak in the face of some of the modern
belonging to America’s potential peer and near-peer adversaries. But has Polmar considered the fact that
is decidedly weaker? He did acknowledge the fact that the carrier is capable of
, which the LHD is not. However, Polmar did not mention the flat-top has organic airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft —
— and electronic warfare (EW) planes —
— two areas that the LHD’s air wing is flagrantly deficient in.
While such capabilities may seem like overkill against terrorists and insurgents, it’s worth noting that sophisticated anti-aircraft and anti-ship weapons are proliferating even to non-state actors like
and the
. Indeed, “better to be safe than sorry” can never be truer than here, and having AEW and EW assets hedges against US forces being surprised. Furthermore, the carrier has a decent-sized complement of eight MH-60S Knighthawk utility helicopters with the vertical-lift capability required for a variety of OOTW missions. It is therefore rather surprising that Polmar said that the carrier can’t carry out as well many peacetime missions as the LHD.
The Numbers Game
Polmar, like many other critics of the large-deck carrier, maintained that it’d be better to have more light flat-tops rather than one heavy one. He even went as far as to imply that four small-deck carriers are equivalent to a big-deck one. When Polmar cited $3 billion being needed to build an amphib and $12-odd billion for a flat-top in general terms, he was arguably referring to the new
(LHA) and the upcoming
.
Had Polmar been more meticulous about the actual
unit cost of each platform, he would have realized that one Ford carrier is actually
cheaper than three America LHAs. According to the US Government Accountability Office, USS
America’s unit cost is
. On the other hand, the $12.9 billion needed for the upcoming USS
Ford is not merely the unit cost, but also includes some
for detailed design/non-recurring engineering purposes, which is the
one-off cost to research, develop, design and test a new product — something many critics of the
Ford fail to consider.
While the unit cost of USS
Ford is still a princely $9.6 billion, the unit cost of her sister ships is likely to go down as the
Ford program matures. And doing the math based on the figure of $9.6 billion, building just three
America amphibs would actually cost
more than getting one
Ford flat-top, and it’d be less bang for the buck at that, as shown earlier.
Last of all, Polmar failed to consider the fact that the more amphibious assault ships that the Navy acquires, the more surface ships needed to escort the amphibs. This is because each Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) centered on an LHA/LHD also consists of three or four
. The presence of these ships is essential considering the minimal self-defense capabilities of the amphibians. Create three new ARGs and you need around 10 destroyers and cruisers to join them — but the US Navy is already facing a numbers crunch with regard to its surface combatants.
The Case For Carriers
...
