ORIGINAL: irrelevant
Weapons untested in battle do not render other weapons obsolete.
True. But the potential of a new weapon has to be taken into account. Most navies ignored Billy Mitchell in the 1920s. In fact he pushed his case so hard against such entrenched resistance he got court martialed.
You are essentially describing the situation facing the USN as they closed in on the Home Islands in WWII. It was indeed very expensive. But while coast defense weapons are very useful for poor powers with no navy of their own, any maritime nation must have a blue-water fleet that includes capital ships. A maritime nation without such a navy can continue to exist as a maritime nation only at the pleasure of a nation that does possess such a navy. Read up on your Mahan.
I am familiar with Mahan. The world also changes. What is proven to be true in one age sometimes becomes an obsolete concept.
The US Navy was only able to survive the kamikaze threat because the kamikazes rarely broke through the armor and almost always hit the upper structure of the ship, leaving the water tight compartments and machine spaces undamaged. If Japan had had kamikazes capable of punching through the belt armor at the waterline on carriers, the US would have lost Essex class carriers. Possibly quite a few.
Every single Essex class carrier that sailed into Japanese waters was hit by at least one kamikaze. The Franklin was the only one that came close to sinking and it was mostly because the kamikaze hit her at a very vulnerable momenet. Her decks were full of loaded and ready aircraft. Even though the damage was extremely severe, the Franklin her machinery spaces and other areas below the waterline were unaffected and she was able to steam back to Brooklyn under her own power.
The US is an unusual maritime power. It is the only one I can recall that is/was both a continental and maritime power. Why do maritime powers need a capital ship navy? To protect economic assets arriving into the country.
Most maritime powers have been small countries with a limited resource base. They have had a large merchant fleet that needed protection to keep their economies running.
The US no longer has much of a merchant marine. From the end of WW II to the early 1970s, the US had no strategically valuable goods it imported. The decline of the Texas oilfields did change that. The US is now dependant on foreign oil.
The US capital ship navy had no classical purpose from 1945 to 1970. It was big and powerful because of the potential threat from the USSR and politics. Today, the navy needs to keep the oil flowing. Protecting foreign tankers bringing oil to US ports.
Iran has been building a navy to attempt to deny the Persian Gulf to the US. Neutralizing US carriers is a major part of their strategy.
The US suffers from success. It hasn't fought a naval opponent in 60 years. A lot of technology has changed during that time. Anti shipping weapons have changed quite a bit. If the US fights Iran or China, it will be faced with a naval threat armed with modern kamikazes: smart missiles. These kamikazes aim for the waterline.
Modern US carriers are tougher than the Essexes were, but can they actually take several hits from modern anti shipping missiles and survive? The lesson of the kamikazes was that no matter how good your defences, if the enemy hurls enough missiles at you, some will get through. You may shoot down 99%, but if they throw 1000 at you, that still means 10 got through.
There is the saying that generals (and admirals) always fight the last war. This is especially true if they won. Germany was able to defeat France as quickly as it did in 1940 because the French generals hadn't learned the lessons of WW I and stayed up to date on the concepts of mobile warfare. Germany, having lost the war, studied the technology available and came up with a new style of fighting that was much more effective than WW I tactics.
The US Navy is deeply entrenched in tactics that haven't changed much since 1945. The navy as it is built now, is what Nimitz and Halsey dreamed about. The current navy has three main forces, the sub force, the amphibious navy, and the CVs. The amphibious navy is the ultimate force for conducting a 1940s style amphbious action. Something that the Navy hasn't been called on to do since Inchon in 1950.
The carrier fleet is the ultimate anti carrier force. The only problem is, nobody else has any carriers to fight. China might in 10 years or so and the UK has the small VSTOL carriers, but currently there are no blue water navies to fight.
The US Air Force ran into one of these last war problem in Vietnam. It got rid of its small, tactical bombers during the 1950s, focusing on a SAC-centric force of nuclear bombers who might drop a conventional bomb or two. When they ended up in Vietnam, they realized that needed something capable of ground attack and ended up bringing into service a hodge podge of aircraft considered obsolete such as the Skyraider and A-26.
The Navy had a similar, though not as severe problem in the Vietnam war. Just before the war, they figured that destroyers would not have to be armored, so they stripped the armor out of destroyers and replaced much of the super structure with aluminum to save weight. Then they got into a fight that required destroyers to go in close to the coast and duke it out with enemy shore emplacements.
I know someone who was on one of these modernized destroyers. He said that small arms fire could be very dangerous. Apparently the aluminum could fracture and blow out from a fairly small caliber hit. With similar results to a tank held together with rivets taking a hit on one of the rivets. Aluminum shrapnel would fly around on the opposite side of the hit. He said he still has PTSD nightmares about it.
The US Navy has not fought a naval battle in 60 years. Even without deep analysis, it is almost certain they have overlooked something. Probably something critical. History shows that any force that hasn't been tested in its primary role for a long time will tend to get complacent and will have out of date tactics when they engage the enemy. This is especially true if they won the last war.
Back 20 years ago I recall seeing something on one of those news magazine shows about Navy wargaming. They said one of the parameters in their wargaming was that the US carriers were unsinkable. In war games with the Soviets, they always won. Some young lieutenant reprogrammed the simulation to make US carriers tough, but sinkable and the Navy lost every scenario to the Soviets. I don't think he made commander.
I don't know how prevalent that unsinkable notion is among the Navy today, but I wouldn't be surprised if it still exists. I know the Navy sank the USS America about 6 months ago to see how she stood up to attack. I haven't heard anything about the results. Even if it did show the carriers to be vulnerable, few of the battleship admirals believed Billy Mitchell's claims until they were demonstrated in WW II.
I hope the US Navy will never have to be tested again. I'm concerned about the outcome if it is.
Bill
