The aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford — the most expensive warship in history — was commissioned on July 22, entering the fleet amid renewed debate and questions about the role of “super carriers” in 21st century maritime warfare.
Does the sea service need more Goliaths like the Ford, or would smaller, cheaper “light carriers” be better able respond to the geopolitical realities of today?
On the light carrier side of the debate is the amphibious assault ship America, a new class of warship currently steaming across the Pacific on its first regularly scheduled deployment. While the big-deck amphib is not long enough to embark a full carrier air wing, it can deploy with a tilt-rotor V-22 Ospreys and will soon be able to carry F-35B Joint Strike Fighters.
Questions about future platforms for carrier aviation were rekindled earlier this year by Sen. John McCain who called for the Navy to pursue a new “high/low mix” in its carrier fleet. The Arizona Republican and Senate Armed Services Committee chairman called for the Navy to transition from “super carriers” like the Ford to smaller aircraft carriers — similar to the America-class ships — with the goal of delivering them to the fleet by the mid-2030s.
“Traditional nuclear-powered supercarriers remain necessary to deter and defeat near-peer competitors,” McCain wrote in January in his formal recommendations for the defense budget. “But other day-to-day missions, such as power projection, sea lane control, close air support, or counter-terrorism, can be achieved with a smaller, lower cost, conventionally powered aircraft carrier.”
Beyond the size of the ships, the cost of production is a key discussion.
The Ford, which for the first time will feature an electromagnetic launch system instead of the traditional steam-powered variety, carries a $13 billion price tag. The America-class ships, on the other hand, cost about $4 billion each.
“Is there savings you could harvest if you built a smaller version of that ship, but you had essentially the same technologies in it?” said Bryan Clark, a retired submariner who co-authored a report on future fleet architecture this year for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
“There’s not an easy answer to it.”
The push for light carriers tracks with a broader effort to expand the sheer size of the fleet. Many Navy officials are hoping to grow the fleet to upwards of 350 ships, far more than today’s 276. A larger fleet of smaller ships, many advocates say, will better position the Navy to maintain persistent presence and project power around the globe.
The debate is also fueled by changes in warfare. The need for advanced aircraft with exorbitant per-flight-hour costs are not necessary to destroy a pickup truck or mud hut linked to a militia like the Islamic State group.
Meanwhile, the near-peer rivals like Russia and China have vastly expanded the range of their anti-ship and anti-air missiles systems.
Proponents of a light carrier say a supercarrier’s service life is wasted when ISIS-bombing sorties are flown off its decks. Such a mission could be completed via a re-jiggered amphibious assault ship, Clark said.
“Is that worth building a $14 billion ship to go do?” he said. “You build a $14 billion ship to fight a big war, or at least deter a bigger war.”
Clark points to the America as the model for a potential future light carrier, a vessel that could handle “bombing mud huts in Syria” while supercarriers perform more conventional war duties.
Part of the Senate’s defense bill directs the Navy to conduct a multi-million dollar engineering study to explore what leaning toward a small carrier would entail.
CSBA’s fleet architecture study called for deploying large amphibious assault ships like the America as a light aircraft carrier.
While some are concerned about Marine amphibious assault capabilities, others note the limited utility of storming beaches with small landing crafts.
An amphib-turned-light carrier would better reflect how the Marines will operate along coastlines in the future by using aviation to rapidly land troops on the shore, Clark said. The V-22 Ospreys would transport troops in to secure a beachhead while F-35s could provide close-air support for those drops.
“They’ll probably do that hundreds of miles from the ship they came from,” Clark said. A traditional big-deck amphib “just isn’t doing much for them in the way they anticipate operating in the future.”
America’s successors — LHA-7 and LHA-8 — are in the process of being built. The Navy currently plans to build up to 11 of them. Yet McCain’s formal recommendation suggests the “small carrier” concept could get its own design and be produced in greater numbers.
Some Navy watchers urge caution about the thought that smaller is better.
The supercarriers’ unmatched sustainability, endurance and survivability should not be discounted, according to naval analyst Eric Wertheim, author of “Combat Fleets of the World.”
“Throughout history, very often, the warships that have proven the most useful and adaptable are those that are larger and have room for growth,” Wertheim said.
While light carriers could be well-suited for operations like the NATO mission in Libya in 2011, such ships won’t necessarily be more affordable when the Navy tries to cram more supercarrier technology into a smaller space, he said.
“The size of the ship is not necessarily proportionate to the cost,” Wertheim said, pointing to the littoral combat ship program’s notorious cost overruns as an example.
“I don’t have a problem with the smaller carriers, as long as we understand that they cannot do all of the same missions as the big carriers, and when you start adding more missions to them, there are limitations,” Wertheim said.
The future of America’s carriers need not be an either-or proposition, he said.
“We shouldn’t be having the big vs. small carrier debate,” Wertheim said. “We should have the big and small carrier debate, and what’s the right mix?”
Speaking from the new supercarrier, the Ford’s commanding officer, Capt. Richard McCormack, said the Navy and others should not underestimate the power of the Navy’s largest and most modern warship.
“It’s really about that capacity, that surge capacity, that endurance and persistence that a large carrier can provide you,” McCormack said.
While a carrier like the Ford can carry upwards of 30 aircraft, the smaller America-class warships can only carry about 15, and McCormack cautioned that real-world demands will render even fewer available for flight operations at any one time.
“Of those 15 airplanes, I got some that are in maintenance, I have different things I need to be doing with those airplanes, so they’re not available,” McCormack said.
“You can look at what the small carriers, the light carriers we had back in World War II and look at what they could and could not do — we were amazed at what the light carriers could do. I just want to make sure that were not short sighted, that we’re taking into account what a carrier this size can do.”
Geoff is the managing editor of Military Times, but he still loves writing stories. He covered Iraq and Afghanistan extensively and was a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. He welcomes any and all kinds of tips at geoffz@militarytimes.com.
