Sunday, February 2, 2014

But what is the mission?

Interesting article over at War is Boring on whether or not the US Navy should phase out aircraft carriers.  Full disclosure, I spent almost four years on a carrier.  His argument boils down to cost effectiveness.  If it costs $13.5 billion to build a carrier and only $2 billion to build a destroyer, do you get more bang for your buck with seven destroyers than with one carrier.  His article raises fair questions and focuses on something that Captain Henry Hendrix, writing for the Center for a New American Security calls presence value.

I would think that the real question that has to come before presence value is what is your mission?  Are you just delivering ordinance to targets?  I suppose you could do that with drones launched from an LCS but is it more or less effective than having pilots to assess the situation and react accordingly?  I don't know the answers but the questions are definitely worth asking.


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