Re: carriers

They're big, bad motherfuckers to be sure. But how hard is it to rig about 300 Cigarette boats, hell Chris Crafts even, with a fairly cheap and primitive missile launch system, and create essentially katyusha fleets? Thing is, a carrier doesn't disappear. Everybody on earth who wants to know where a carrier is and has some satelittes in orbit knows exactly where it is. Once you know where something is, modern munitions make it a dead duck. In any serious naval conflict for the foreseeable future, submarines are kings.

As to why the USN keeps investing in carriers, well, there's a few reasons for that. First, they really do smack the hell out of weedy little third world hellholes that get uppity. Given that seems to be the US military's primary mission in Anno Domini 2010, carriers are assured of a spot in the navy. Second, bureacratic inertia. We've built our navy around the carrier for 68 years now. Changing that will take a herculean effort of a generation, or disastrous performance in a shooting war. Third, where does the naval top command come from? I can assure you it is not the logistical support arm of the navy, or the submarine force. Top admirals come from the carriers. Ambitious naval officers try to get billeted to carriers. You think, 30 years in, they're going to have an epiphany which points out the majority of their experience as an officer as totally outdated?