The three Gerald Ford class aircraft carriers are now projected to cost, at a minimum, over $13.5 billion dollars per ship. Knowing the way that cost is controlled on shipbuilding contracts, it's likely to be way over that. The third ship, CVN-80, won't enter service until at least 2025; that one will probably cost over $20 billion.
For one ship.
That's not counting the aircraft.
How is this sustainable? Assuming that these three ships do get built, how are we going to be able to afford CVN-81?
And how can we ever conceive of the idea of sending a thirteen, fifteen or twenty billion dollar ship into harm's way?
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Monday, April 5, 2010
9 comments:
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Don't forget that these are projected military budget costs at a time when we have no enemies at a level that could possibly merit this expense.
ReplyDeleteOf course, we're making them as quickly as possible.
Thanks for covering this incomprehensible reality.
Unreal.
S
__________
Yo!
ReplyDelete-MB1
Aircraft carriers are a way of projecting air power in regions of the world where we have no friends willing to let us use airfields there. So they're certainly useful. Nuclear aircraft carriers have the advantage that you don't need to have a buncha oil tankers in your task force to keep the carrier churning ahead, 100K tons of displacement takes a lot of energy to move thru the water.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that in case of a shooting war with a real enemy, there are two kinds of navy vessels: submarines, and artificial reefs. Of course, we don't have any real enemies, and aren't likely to have one anytime soon... and no, I don't consider a buncha bandits hiding in caves to be a real enemy. A nuisance, yes, but hardly an existential threat...
This makes me think about that Chinese anti-ship ballistic missile program. In a shooting war, they could use a -$10 million missile loaded with MIRVs to take out a $20 billion dollar ship. As a deterrent, with an 1100 mile range they could force carriers so far offshore all Chinese targets would be outside the combat radius of carrier-based aircraft. I've no doubt this missile is giving the Chinese a nice confidence boost with regard to the dream of a Taiwan invasion.
ReplyDeleteIt makes me wonder what the US is doing to defend against that threat, considering it's nothing we can really simulate on our own.
M1, I like your blog. I've had it `rolled for awhile.
ReplyDeleteBadtux, yes, but only while the ship is transiting. The CGs, DDGs and FFGs all need refueling. And when the carrier starts air operations, the need for the carrier to resupply JP-5 is still there.
WP, the DF-21 ASBM may be one of the reasons why the Navy is configuring missile shooters to employ the SM-3.
ReplyDeleteWicked, the ASBM is a red herring. If a shooting war over Taiwan started, realistically the only scenario now where the U.S. takes on a real military power, it's China's submarine fleet that will be the real problem. They are diesel-electric and capable of extended running underwater on ultra-silent electric motors. They have a disturbing habit of popping up in the middle of our task forces as they're in maneuvers, utterly undetected. They can't operate thousands of miles from China's coast the way that nuclear submarines could, but that's not why China has them. They're perfectly capable of blockading the Taiwan Straits and the backside of Taiwan too, keeping U.S. carriers far back enough that they can provide little support to Taiwan.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest vulnerability of submarines is to aircraft when they're in port or just leaving port. Most of the German submarine fleet was sunk that way. China has a real air force, however, unlike the Taliban, and unlike Saddam they have defensive depth and numbers.
China's Taiwan obsession is really inexplicable. Taiwan was part of the Chinese Republic for less time than the Philippines were an American territory, yet you don't see Americans ranting about how the Philippines should be the 51st state because of its historical ties to the United States. Still, it's a real obsession. I don't see the current gerontocracy launching an invasion during their remaining lifespans, they are very comfortable and very conservative and not at all interested in disrupting their lives in such a manner, but if things turn sour for the next generation due to peak oil and other such things coming down the pike, maybe they, like George W. Bush, will decide that a little military adventurin' will distract the citizenry from the fact that they're completely and totally f*cked. At which point, you will see a multi-billion dollar American aircraft carrier at the bottom of the Pacific, a huge portion of the American economy up in smoke, and the end of American hegemony in the western Pacific... everybody out there will scramble to become a Chinese client state ASAP. With the exception of Japan. But Japan will be alone.
BadTux, China has two situations that might make a little foreign adventure look feasible.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, the artificially low valuation of the Yuan is not sustainable in the long term. Japan depressed the value of the Yen for as long as it could, but that eventually could not be kept up and their economy has never fully recovered.
Second, their population control policies have resulted in a large surplus of males and one of the time-tested ways to dispose of excess men is as cannon-fodder.
I don't see the more developed nations of eastern Asia rushing to be Chinese vassals, though. I'd be more on them developing nuclear deterrents.
I don't expect the current generation of Chinese leaders to do anything abrupt, but as you point out, there are building pressures that are troubling in the mid to long term.
ReplyDeleteAs for rushing to become Chinese vassals, most of the leaders of East Asian nations are quite pragmatic, even those that have long-term disagreements with the Chinese such as the Vietnamese. They aren't likely to be happy about the situation, but once they see China sinking U.S. carrier task forces, it's not as if they're going to spend much time thinking about how they can fight the Chinese. It'll be more along the lines of, "congratulations on your successful invasion of Taiwan, how can we be of help to you?" I'm not saying they'd become outright client states of China, but you'd definitely see something akin to the relationship that Finland had with the Soviets during the Cold War.
-Badtux the Geopolitical Penguin