{"id":33151,"date":"2019-05-06T15:35:46","date_gmt":"2019-05-06T15:35:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2019\/05\/06\/twilight-of-the-flattop\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T19:28:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T19:28:11","slug":"twilight-of-the-flattop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/your-navy\/2019\/05\/06\/twilight-of-the-flattop\/","title":{"rendered":"Twilight of the flattop?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For much of the 20th century, the American aircraft carrier was a swaggering symbol of naval power, a floating city that ferried fighter jets across the globe to wage war or threaten it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the world changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. military spent much of the early 21st century mired in counterinsurgency conflicts, with Navy strike aircraft spending precious hours in the skies of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and other hot spots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During those years, Beijing modernized its forces, building weapons like the so-called \u201ccarrier killer<\/a>\u201d missile, which is designed to punish flattops launching jets too close to potential Chinese targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now a carrier strike group must fight from the periphery of Beijing\u2019s ballistic missile range if war erupts in the Taiwan Strait or South China Sea<\/a>, perhaps as far as 1,200 nautical miles out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s beyond the reach of today\u2019s carrier air wings, experts told Navy Times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe air wing of the future is going to have to be focused less on attacking terrorist training camps and huts in Syria, and more focused on killing ships and submarines at sea \u2014 dealing with naval capabilities and island-based littoral capabilities,\u201d said Bryan Clark<\/a>, a retired submariner and now a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments think tank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clark\u2019s warning echoes a 2018 CSBA report that concluded Navy aircraft don\u2019t have the range, endurance or survivability to carry out the operational concepts designed to defeat the forces of great powers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The paper<\/a> urged Navy leaders to \u201creconsider whether to continue investing in carrier aviation or shift the fleet\u2019s resources to more relevant capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the Pentagon is moving to mitigate the effectiveness and quantity of Chinese missiles by embracing a wide range of emerging technologies \u2014 everything from robot warships to laser beams \u2014 strategists have been forced to ask a hard question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is investing in carriers worth it when there are so many alternative vessels and systems to fund?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur biggest capital asset is pricing us out of the game right now, and that\u2019s the aircraft carrier,\u201d Navy Undersecretary Thomas Modly said during a Feb. 25 forum hosted by the nonprofit Searching for Solutions Institute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sailors search for foreign object debris on the flight deck aboard the aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush on Dec. 4 while the flattop was underway in the Atlantic Ocean. (Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Apprentice Sophie Pinkham\/Navy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The newest Gerald R. Ford-class flattops ordered by the Navy will cost about $13 billion each, more than triple the price tag for a Nimitz-class carrier back in Modly\u2019s midshipmen days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow long can we continue to afford that? Do we need to start thinking about a different way to distribute lethality or do we still want to concentrate on that big ship?\u201d Modly asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur adversaries are figuring out ways to keep us farther and farther away from where we need to be to maintain freedom of navigation of the seas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Donald J. Trump\u2019s administration initially appeared to agree with his concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During an April 10 hearing on Capitol Hill, Navy Secretary Richard Spencer defended a Pentagon plan to scrap an air wing and retire a Nimitz-class carrier, Harry S. Truman, ahead of its scheduled 2024 nuclear refueling in Norfolk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those measures were expected to generate $30 billion in savings over a quarter-century, but the plan sparked a rare moment of bipartisan outrage, with lawmakers questioning why the Navy would shelve a carrier only midway through its 50-year service life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sailors fight a simulated fire during an April 5 drill on the flight deck of the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser Normandy (CG 60). Part of the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group, Normandy was underway in the Atlantic Ocean for training on sustained combat operations. (Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jordan Twiss\/Navy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Vice President Mike Pence ended the administration\u2019s efforts to shelve Truman on April 30 when he appeared on board the carrier to tell the crew it wouldn\u2019t be mothballed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the same date, Vice Chief of Naval Operations Bill Moran appeared before senators mulling his proposed promotion to CNO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After noting that the Navy\u2019s newest force structure assessment designed to outline the vessels and capabilities it needs to win future wars won\u2019t be finished until later this year, Moran declared the aircraft carrier \u201cthe most survivable airfield that we have today and we project it\u2019ll be that way well into the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the career aviator Moran also conceded that \u201cTruman is a big bill\u201d and the Navy must \u201cmodernize our force in a way we haven\u2019t thought of in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Selling senators on scrapping Truman was always going to be tough, according to James Holmes, a retired surface warfare officer who now teaches strategy at the Naval War College and studies the threats posed by China\u2019s rapidly expanding fleet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow do you convince people in Congress who may not be specialists in naval warfare, and who may represent states that benefit from shipbuilding, that you want to do this one-off decommissioning of a ship with half its service life remaining?\u201d Holmes said. \u201cThe case may make perfect sense yet not persuade.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Holmes added in an email to Navy Times that the debate over Truman\u2019s future hinted at a looming day of reckoning for all carriers in an age of long-range and precise missiles, stealthy jets and silent submarines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe great Yogi Berra said, \u2018When you come to a fork in the road, take it,\u2019\u201d Holmes said. \u201cIt almost feels as though Yogi is designing our future fleet and strategy; we\u2019re conflicted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman sails the Atlantic Ocean on April 7. (Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Maxwell Higgins\/Navy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Few defense analysts are calling for the wholesale retirement of America\u2019s carrier strike groups and Holmes is no exception. But he dares to ask if the flattop has been relegated to second-string duties in the next war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He foresees a conflict where much of the initial fighting is waged by a combination of subs, \u201cswarms of unmanned vehicles of all types, land-based aircraft, and of course, missiles in bulk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carriers and their surface warfare escorts would enter a combat zone after the battle was won in order to control the sea lanes and project power ashore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis would be a serious role reversal,\u201d Holmes said. \u201cThe inexpensive and plentiful craft would do most of the fighting and the expensive and specialized craft would wait in reserve until the sea and sky were safe enough to go in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Retired Navy Capt. Jerry Hendrix, a defense consultant who has written about the future of the carrier, predicts sea battles will feature a \u201chigh-low mix\u201d of American forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That means more subs brimming with strike missiles for the \u201chigh-end war-winning capability\u201d and, on the low end, new frigates slicing through the waves to provide a persistent threat to unleash lethal missiles from ranges Chinese weapons can\u2019t match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To CSBA\u2019s Clark, if carrier air wings can\u2019t evolve to operate at farther ranges, unmanned surface vessels might be the best replacements for the flattops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUSVs could be more distributed and more closely approach targets than manned surface combatants, and therefore use cheaper, smaller weapons than manned ships,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd since USVs are cheaper than manned combatants, the Navy could establish a \u2018conveyer belt\u2019 of USVs to maintain loaded ones on station and rotate empty USVs back to a secure area for reloading.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ford-class carriers promise to generate up to 25 percent more combat sorties than today\u2019s Nimitz flattops can manage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But without longer aircraft operating ranges and improved survivability, the warships will need to enter the Chinese ballistic kill zone to launch the planes before sailing back to safety, perhaps ending up too far away to retrieve the jets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat approach will not generate very many sorties at the ranges needed and will put the carriers at risk,\u201d Clark said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Navy’s unmanned X-47B launches from the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt in 2014. The unmanned aircraft evolved into the current MQ-25 Stingray tanker program, but the Navy will need to step on the gas in the unmanned realm to save the carrier from irrelevance. (U.S. Navy photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As a stopgap measure, Clark has championed the Navy\u2019s MQ-25 Stingray project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year Boeing won an $805 million contract for the first four midair refueling drones but Clark estimates the sea service needs up to eight Stingrays in each air wing for today\u2019s jet fighters to strike their targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each Stingray promises to enable a pair of Super Hornets or two F-35C Joint Strike Fighters to go 1,000 nautical miles and back, the edge of China\u2019s anti-ship missile ranges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Bob Work, the former deputy secretary of defense in President Barack Obama\u2019s administration, said the MQ-25 isn\u2019t a long-term solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey are going to be able to drag some forces out pretty far, but [the air wing is] not going to be able to sustain a large number of aircraft at 1,000 nautical miles,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\t