Originally Posted by SASless
And The US Navy insists on keeping their Ships deployed....steaming around the World and wearing them out doing so. That mindset has been under review since the 80's and was part of the Briefings I was privvy to regards the differences between the Soviet and American Navies.
Surely deploying to sea is what a Navy is for? You cannnot influence world events from your home port!
I have heard a rumour that the number of US carriers will fall. The AV-8B equipped amphibious vessels can help fill this gap, embarking a decent number of jets and acting as light (sic) carriers. If CVN numbers do decline, then surely the continued development and procurement of F-35B will enable the small (in relative terms - 40 000 tons is not small) carriers to mitigate against the risks caused by having less supercarriers.
I read a suggestion from an American Gentleman that politics was perhaps part of the UK's decision to revert to F-35B for CVF, as it would strengthen the USMC's hand in Washington.
I seem to remember discussing these issues
back here in September:
An American gentleman once pointed out that (in his view) the United States uses AV-8B equipped amphibious ships in a similar fashion to the way it used its smaller carriers (eg the Essex class) during the Cold War (and they can embark up to twenty Harriers to act as a light (sic) carrier). In other words, it gives the US an option short of sending a CVN, and of course more ships with a fixed wing capability is useful. As such, it offers Washington a degree of political dexterity. Consider the deployment of USS Kearsarge during operations in Libya last year.
Additionally, the reason the USMC wanted the Harrier back in the 70s was that it provided them with firepower only a short flying time from the shore, making up for the loss of the six inch and eight inch gun cruisers that provided naval gunfire support during the Cold War conflicts in Korea and Vietnam.
Both arguments seem sound to me, and relevant today to a future of (relatively) small scale, littoral engagements.