Trump Foreign Policy

[BigRedBuster]

I will throw something out about the aircraft carriers. First, the graphic above shows that we have 19 carriers. I have no clue how many of those are obsolete....if any. Without that info, pure numbers are less meaningful.

 

That said, I believe currently we have somewhere between 700-800 military installations around the world. I don't know exactly what all of those do. But, that just seems insane to me. I have been a proponent for a long time of building up our aircraft carrier fleet and at the same time, closing a large number of those installations.

 

My hope would be that we could create a system where our military is much more mobile, more efficient and occupies way fewer countries that many times pisses off people in the area. The carrier groups would operate in international waters...etc.

 

So, increasing the carrier fleet is something I can get behind. However, only if at the same time, we have major cut backs in military installations around the world. We would keep a small number of major installations in countries like Germany, Japan...etc. and touch the rest of the world from international waters.

[ZRod]

Those are 9 amphibious ships (which launch fixed wing aircraft), and 10 carriers. All active.

 

http://www.navy.mil/navydata/ships/carriers/cv-list.asp

[zoogs]

It's the Nimitz-class carriers that really stand out. A U.S. carrier fleet is an incredible projection of military power. I *think* the British carriers are more like our amphibious ships in that they can only launch STOVL aircraft (Harrier, F-35B in the future). IIRC, even aside from the numbers of carriers, nothing anybody else has compares in size and scale.

[BigRedBuster]

Sometimes I still wish i would have joined the Navy to serve on one of those. Almost did.

[BigRedBuster]

Well, this article is concerning.

 

So, the president gave a speach on the deck of a ship that doesn't work while bragging about how great it is.

 

[RedDenver]

Well, this article is concerning.

 

So, the president gave a speach on the deck of a ship that doesn't work while bragging about how great it is.

 

It's an interesting article, but the experts in it miss the mark. How do you project power without a carrier? Nothing else can gain air superiority far from an airbase.

 

And nobody should take war game results seriously.

[BigRedBuster]

I am a huge proponent of aircraft carriers. I have said many times on here that I believe we should be moving more towards them and closing down a major amount of our military installations around the world. However, if we are going to spend $36 BILLION on these ships...is it too much to ask that they actually work?

 

FAILING SYSTEMS

Trump did not mention that the ship’s builder, Huntington Ingalls Industries, launched the Ford more than three years ago, but the Navy has yet to commission it and put it into service because of severe flaws. Many of its new high tech systems failed to work, including such basic ones as the “arresting gear” that catches and stops landing jets.

The Navy says the ship will be commissioned sometime this year. But the criticism has continued.

In a written statement in July, John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, noted the cost overruns and cited a list of crucial malfunctioning systems that remained unfixed. “The Ford-class program is a case study in why our acquisition system must be reformed,” McCain wrote.

 

I find it extremely humorous that the article claims the F35C fighter jet is needed to make these as useful as they should be. When you look at these two projects together, they are a case study of how NOT to procure new military equipment.

[ZRod]

People have jobs. Corporations have money. That's all that matters for the military contract.

[knapplc]

^

 

In fact, that's about the ONLY way Congress can directly create jobs.

[BigRedBuster]

This is a recipe for disaster.

 

Mabus said that because of commitments made before he became Navy secretary, the Ford was loaded with high-tech equipment that had not even been designed yet. He also faulted awarding the shipbuilder a “cost plus” contract, under which it gets a fixed profit regardless of how much it costs to build the vessel. “There was no incentive to hold down costs,” Mabus said.

 

[ZRod]

How do you get people to care about this when the alternative is a bunch of people are out of a job in a particular sector/region?

[zoogs]

Faults in those specific projects aside, we need F35s for our carriers. Can't rely on the F18 fleet forever. Even the E/F models are 90s era stuff.

 

But the article does raise an interesting question. At some point is the strategic value of a carrier fleet no longer existent? I dunno. Maybe when all our planes are small and unmanned.

[BigRedBuster]

Here is what keeps coming to mind when I think about this. In the article, it talks about how some countries are still building and using older type vessels and being successful with them. They are fast to build and much cheaper.

 

Are we trying to be WAY too far on the cutting edge? We already dwarf the world in military might. Do we really need to push the limits of technology so much that we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on stuff that ultimately doesn't work?

Why not take the technology we KNOW works, modify it slightly to do what we want in the modern era and punch these things out quickly and cheaply?

 

THEN...if Northrup Grumman...etc....wants to develop something, test it, make sure it works and THEN sell it to the government....great.

[RedDenver]

 

I am a huge proponent of aircraft carriers. I have said many times on here that I believe we should be moving more towards them and closing down a major amount of our military installations around the world. However, if we are going to spend $36 BILLION on these ships...is it too much to ask that they actually work?

 

FAILING SYSTEMS

Trump did not mention that the ship’s builder, Huntington Ingalls Industries, launched the Ford more than three years ago, but the Navy has yet to commission it and put it into service because of severe flaws. Many of its new high tech systems failed to work, including such basic ones as the “arresting gear” that catches and stops landing jets.

The Navy says the ship will be commissioned sometime this year. But the criticism has continued.

In a written statement in July, John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, noted the cost overruns and cited a list of crucial malfunctioning systems that remained unfixed. “The Ford-class program is a case study in why our acquisition system must be reformed,” McCain wrote.

 

I find it extremely humorous that the article claims the F35C fighter jet is needed to make these as useful as they should be. When you look at these two projects together, they are a case study of how NOT to procure new military equipment.

 

Keep in mind that this is the first new carrier type since 1975, so there's always going to be problems with the first of anything.

 

Faults in those specific projects aside, we need F35s for our carriers. Can't rely on the F18 fleet forever. Even the E/F models are 90s era stuff.

 

But the article does raise an interesting question. At some point is the strategic value of a carrier fleet no longer existent? I dunno. Maybe when all our planes are small and unmanned.

Bolded is correct.

 

Here is what keeps coming to mind when I think about this. In the article, it talks about how some countries are still building and using older type vessels and being successful with them. They are fast to build and much cheaper.

 

Are we trying to be WAY too far on the cutting edge? We already dwarf the world in military might. Do we really need to push the limits of technology so much that we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on stuff that ultimately doesn't work?

 

Why not take the technology we KNOW works, modify it slightly to do what we want in the modern era and punch these things out quickly and cheaply?

 

THEN...if Northrup Grumman...etc....wants to develop something, test it, make sure it works and THEN sell it to the government....great.

Keep in mind that the US carriers and subs have nuclear reactors powering them. Do you really want to go quick and cheap?

 

No company is going to spend billions on researching anything when you're not sure if you can sell it at the end.

 

A lot of it comes down to whether you think throwing more "cheap" stuff at the enemy is better than throwing less "quality" stuff at them.

[ZRod]

Faults in those specific projects aside, we need F35s for our carriers. Can't rely on the F18 fleet forever. Even the E/F models are 90s era stuff.

But the article does raise an interesting question. At some point is the strategic value of a carrier fleet no longer existent? I dunno. Maybe when all our planes are small and unmanned.

F-15 still has a perfect record around the world. Sometimes new isn't always better. The Hornet could be more than serviceable for another decade with upgrades, and it would still probably be cheaper than the F-35. Same story with the A-10.