Originally posted by Fairyland:
Sometimes it's basically what you see that's a deterent.........and so more effective as a means to project power.
Like in recent years, SAF has been pulling down it's swimming trunks more..........
I don't think you have quite the same effect with cruise missiles........ when buttons are pressed, ppl tend to go to save face mode and all hell break loose.
Having a carrier and it's planes buzz their air defenses once a while maybe a better way. Eg Libya.
As you mentioned, the days of the CBG maybe numbered as technology becomes more readily available to those being bullied and cannot guarantee their safety.
An alternative maybe UCAVs buzzing around, or a DD21 submarine..........that pops up once in a while.[/i]
Exactly, that's why we should not jump into this bandwagon and sink hundreds of millions, if not billions into getting such a capacity when the carrier concept lifespan itself if about to end in the next few decades. And even then, we would never get up any capacity anywhere near that of the Americans... it would be fantastically wasteful to sink so much money to build and defend a floating airstrip to launch a few JSFs and assorted aircraft.
Did I mention the upcoming obsolence of manned aircraft as a means of providing munitions to target versus the smart, fast UCAV and future cruise missile?
Air superiority, combat air patrol, and other assorted tatical air activities... have we noted that they are there to allow the air force to acomplish one thing? And that is to bomb the enemy and erode his war-making capability. All these incredibly expensive measures are there to make sure the system itself survives to give off bombs. And of course, on top of that, we have all these measures to make sure the carrier itself survives to launch these very planes!
In this case, it's that of David versus Goliath... Goliath was heavily armoured and could easily kill David within his zone of lethality, however he was slow and could not keep up, faster David could keep out of reach while he prepared to strike out with his sling, which could reach further then Goliath himself. As long as David stayed out of Goliath's reach, he was safe, and Goliath remained vulnerable.
The difference between David and Goliath was also that of military dogmatism, Goliath was heavily weighted down with the traditional notions of equipment superiority in terms of heavier and heavier weapons, thicker and thicker armour. While David himself was quite at odds with what they considered traditional superiority at that time, with his sling, but in the end, proved to be both tatically, logically and ecomically superior. Imagine what would had happened if the bebrew runt-boy-David had followed traditional military thinking and donned on heavy armour and a sword and went out to face Goliath the traditional way.
The carrier in all it's 97,000 ton bulk and fleet escorts, is the modern day epomity of Goliath, drawing heavily (if not the heaviest) on traditional notions of weapons superiority to win the day. But what if it was now faced with it's David? An elusive, faster, longer ranged weapons platform that could strike out at it at far longer range with impunity? Quite immediately the carrier ceases to be a credible diplomatic ploy when such technology gets around...
In the face of failure, military planners can do two things, come up with a new plan or sink deeper and deeper into tradition, both have their own time and merits, but I believe the time for now is to come up with a new plan simply because going into traditional notions of constructing more and more eleborate defences for traditional systems just so they can do their job in the face of brilliant new technology is simply too cost-prohibitive and in the long run, hardly improves the ability of the system to do it's job at all.
Imagine what we have to do to make a carrier survive in the future world of hypersonic smart munitions... stealth? Armour? More and more Aegis, decoys and escorts? All this increased defensive measures simply to launch a few manned aircraft to get bombs on target? And of course, could you afford the cost should the shield fail?