Seapower - December 2007

No ‘Simmering Debate’ On Big-Deck Carriers As a life member of the Navy League and a long-time admirer of Seapower, I am most disappointed at the grossly incorrect statement on the index page of November Seapower [introducing the cover story, “Illustrious Embark”].

To write at the beginning of a special report on naval aviation about a “… long-simmering debate within the Department of the Navy about the possible cost and capability merits of building smaller carriers with short takeoff/landing aircraft (STOVL) instead of traditional big-deck carriers” is wrong and misleading. There is no such “simmering debate.”

The combatant commanders, the four-stars in charge of regions around the world, are … the ones who will have to fight wars or operate to deter wars. Each and every one of them is on record as needing more large-deck aircraft carriers and their embarked aircraft than are now in the inventory.

The Defense Department and Navy Department staffs are in total agreement with the combatant commanders that more are needed, but 11 is the absolute minimum number of American large-deck aircraft carriers that can be afforded and still meet current warfare and deterrent obligations, to meet anticipated threats and to fulfill treaty obligations.

Backing up those positions are study after study over the course of almost 60 years that have shown that only a large-deck aircraft carrier has the capability, the staying power and the flexibility to meet the nation’s requirements for air at sea and from the sea.

By far most important has been the demonstrated potency, capability and flexibility of large-deck aircraft carriers in combat from Korea to Iraq and Afghanistan and all wars and crises in between. Beyond com-

bat performance, large-deck carriers have been equally effective in deterrence operations and humanitarian missions, all efforts that would have been much more difficult, if not impossible, had not a large-deck aircraft carrier been involved.

Seapower’s article quoted an advocate for smaller ships and air wings made up of STOVL aircraft. This is a very short-range view with, apparently, only the support of a landing force in mind.

The large-deck carrier can support a landing force more effectively than can a small carrier, and it can carry out many more missions, often simultaneously. Even for support of a landing force, the large deck with conventional takeoff and landing aircraft (CTOL) is far better. That’s because [it] provides space for operating more aircraft, better economies of scale, better endurance, better survivability and better seakeeping. Also, due to its size, a large-deck aircraft carrier can consolidate and better provide maintenance and supply of a large number of aircraft.

By operating more aircraft, more can be placed over a target or a widely dispersed range of targets in a given time period and more targets can be hit simultaneously or nearly so. Likewise, a larger air-sea domain can be patrolled and controlled.

When it comes to the type of aircraft to be carried on large-deck carrier, it really matters not. Some advocates of smaller carriers get this fact confused. STOVL aircraft have been, and can be, operated from large-deck aircraft carriers. However, the problem is that the existing STOVL aircraft cannot compare in range or load-carrying capability with the CTOL aircraft customarily used.

Even the F-35B (the STOVL version of the Joint Strike Fighter) won’t change that. A short takeoff and a vertical landing will always use more fuel than a comparably loaded CTOL aircraft. It’s a matter of physics.

There is, indeed, a need for smaller carriers operating STOVL aircraft and, later, unoccupied air vehicles, but they can never match the potency and staying power of the big deck. National, Defense and Navy Department leadership know this. There is no simmering controversy.

Robert F. Dunn

Vice Adm., USN (Ret.) President, Association of Naval Aviation Alexandria, Va.

Editor’s note: The intent of the article was to highlight the debate about operating more STOVL aircraft from large-deck carriers, not building small-deck carriers. The way in which that issue was introduced, as Mr. Dunn correctly states, was misleading.