Take Care Of Your Tools And They'll Take Care Of You

The United States is blessed with the most capable navy ever to sail the seven seas. The backbone of today's navy is the aircraft carrier. These ships - and their crews - enable America to project our influence and might around the world.

But aircraft carriers are tremendously complex and expensive. In these challenging economic times there is pressure on the military to reduce costs, and the navy is not exempt. There is talk of reducing the number of carriers from 11 to 10.

... The Washington Times reports, citing unnamed sources, that the U.S. Navy may be trying to cut one of its 11 carriers to save money.

Congress has mandated by law that the Navy maintain 11 carriers. But the Pentagon is also under orders from the Obama administration to cut $488 billion from its budget within the next 10 years, Rowan Scarborough reports in the Times.

Cutting a carrier, along with the other forces that make up and support a carrier battle group, could save the Navy billions of dollars, according to the Times report.

While doing so would certainly save money, it would place more stress on the remaining carriers and crews. Deployment times would be lengthened. Repair and refit times would be reduced. Our ability to project force and influence events would be degraded.

More troubling, it would also make the carriers more valuable targets. And our potential competition is definitely taking steps to upgrade their anti-carrier capabilities.

The USS Gerald R. Ford was supposed to help secure another half century of American naval supremacy. The hulking aircraft carrier taking shape in a dry dock in Newport News, Va., is designed to carry a crew of 4,660 and a formidable arsenal of aircraft and weapons.

But an unforeseen problem cropped up between blueprint and expected delivery in 2015: China is building a new class of ballistic missiles designed to arc through the stratosphere and explode onto the deck of a U.S. carrier, killing sailors and crippling its flight deck.

China has also built up its submarine force, to the extent that a Chinese submarine surfaced in the middle of a U.S. carrier group.

When the U.S. Navy deploys a battle fleet on exercises, it takes the security of its aircraft carriers very seriously indeed.

At least a dozen warships provide a physical guard while the technical wizardry of the world's only military superpower offers an invisible shield to detect and deter any intruders.

That is the theory. Or, rather, was the theory.

American military chiefs have been left dumbstruck by an undetected Chinese submarine popping up at the heart of a recent Pacific exercise and close to the vast U.S.S. Kitty Hawk - a 1,000ft supercarrier with 4,500 personnel on board.

By the time it surfaced the 160ft Song Class diesel-electric attack submarine is understood to have sailed within viable range for launching torpedoes or missiles at the carrier.

According to senior NATO officials the incident caused consternation in the U.S. Navy.

That last line is a classic example of British understatement (the news account is from a U.K. paper).

Granted, the incident occurred a few years ago. I'm sure the Navy has strengthened its antisubmarine defenses since then. But I doubt if the Chinese have been standing still, either. Reducing the number of U.S. carriers would be putting our most valuable eggs into fewer baskets. I'm not convinced that's a smart idea.

Another concern: the raison d'être of aircraft carriers is, as the name implies, to carry aircraft where they are needed. But the effectiveness of a carrier is to a great deal dependent on the effectiveness of the planes it carries. It does no good to ferry aircraft to a distant locale only to watch them get shot out of the sky. That brings us to the military's new F-35C Joint Strike Fighter, a state-of-the-art warplane designed to replace several aging airframes.

The F-35C is intended to be both an air-to-ground strike aircraft and an air superiority fighter. I understand the arguments in favor of standardization - the twin sirens of efficiency and economy. But efficiency and economy is not the same as effectiveness. In striving for efficiency and economy, compromises must be made.

For example, the F-35C will replace the A-10 Warthog. The A-10 is arguably the best ground support airplane ever devised. It's basically an airplane built around a gun. It's hard to fathom how a jet plane can fly as low-and-slow, and deliver a stream of depleted uranium slugs at 4200 rounds per minute, as well as the Warthog.

Similarly, the F-35C is slated to replace the F/A-18 Hornet strike fighter and the STOVL (short take-off and vertical landing) Harrier. That's a lot of versatility to build into a single airframe. However, versatility in and of itself is not necessarily a good thing.

An illustration: I own a Swiss Army Knife. It's a handy, convenient little tool. But if I want to do some serious stabbing I'd much rather have a Ka-Bar in my hand. If I'm going to open multiple bottles of wine or beer, give me a traditional corkscrew or bottle-opener designed for that specific purpose.

Yes, having specialized tools for specific jobs is more expensive, and requires more managing, but like my dear old Daddy told me, "Use the right tool for the job." (Of course, that didn't stop me from using a screwdriver as a chisel a couple of times, but after botching the job I figured out the Old Man just might have a point.)

And to top things off, there are reports that there is a design problem with the F-35C  that will prevent it from landing on carriers.

As for the F-35C, reports have begun circulating that the aircraft the military says is "the most affordable, lethal, supportable and survivable aircraft ever to be used by so many warfighters across the globe" won't be able to land on aircraft carriers, apparently because its tailhook is too short and is situated too close to its landing gear for the plane to properly grab the arresting cables that enable planes to land on aircraft carriers.

The report was first seen last week on the website aviationintel.com and was backed up by a report in London's Sunday Times that has been picked up by press across Britain.

Aviationintel.com reported that the design flaw is not fixable because there's just not enough space on the belly of the F-35C to move the tailhook back.

Let me make this perfectly clear. I am not an expert on either aircraft carriers or airplanes. But I do have, IMHO, a little bit of common sense. And unlike many of the weasels currently wasting oxygen in Washington D.C., I'd like to ensure that the United States maintains its military advantage over current and future enemies.

I don't think that reducing the number of our carriers and relying on a flying Swiss Army Knife will do so...