Will: Keeping Navy shipshape should be on candidates' radar (xpost from NSD)

http://tucson.com/news/opinion/column/guest/will-keeping-navy-shipshape-should-be-on-candidates-radar/article_f17d624a-9556-5fb9-8498-4f82778c4f01.html

Will: Keeping Navy shipshape should be on candidates' radar
10 hours ago

The Navy’s operations, on which the sun never sets, are the nation’s nerve endings, connecting it with the turbulent world. Although the next president may be elected without addressing the Navy’s proper size and configuration, for four years he or she will be acutely aware of where the carriers are. Today they are at the center of a debate about their continuing centrality, even viability, in the Navy’s projection of force.

~snip~

Henry J. Hendrix of the Center for a New American Security argues that, like the battleships which carriers were originally designed to support, carriers may now be too expensive and vulnerable. China has developed land-based anti-ship missiles to force carriers to operate so far from targets that manned aircraft might become less useful than unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) operating from smaller, less expensive carriers.

The newest carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, to be commissioned next year, costs $12.8 billion. Add the costs of the air wing, the support of five surface combat ships and one attack submarine, and 6,700 sailors. The bill for operating a carrier group: $2.5 million a day. China, Hendrix says, could build more than 1,200 of its premier anti-ship missiles for the cost of one Ford carrier, and one of the 1,200 could achieve “mission-kill,” removing the carrier from the fight for months.

The bad news is that America’s entitlement state is devouring the federal budget. The good news might be this axiom: As money gets scarcer, people get smarter.

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"America’s entitlement state is devouring the federal budget"

A minor correction to the cost on the USS Gerald R. Ford: We paid $13.9 billion, not $12.8 billion AND the fucking thing was only 80% complete.

Our Navy (or Congress or both) is/are out of control:

* $14 billion UNFINISHED aircraft carrier
* $7 ~ $9 billion Virginia-class submarines
* $5.6 billion stealth destroyers
* $1.8 billion Aegis-class destroyers

Here's a heads up you probably have not seen - the US has been at war now for 14 years. That's 14 years of wear and tear on pretty much everything we can fly. When this stuff starts falling out of the sky (http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/10/01/c-130-aircraft-crashes-in-afghanistan-casualties-expected/?intcmp=hpbt3) these folks will be bitching we need to ........