A 21ST CENTURY GUIDE TO ECONOMICALLY MAINTAINING GLOBAL PRESENCE OF OUR NATION'S NAVY AND MARINE CORPS.

Recently the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Navy have wasted a tremendous amount of money acquiring the F-35 and the America Class LHAs. The fact is the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is one of the greatest failures ever produced by Lockheed Martin and quite frankly is an embarrassment to the company, our country and any and all of our allies who also were conned into purchasing this aircraft.  However, that's the subject for a whole other future blog. Building ships for the purposes of deploying the F-35 is just insane and the subject at hand!

The America Class LHA is a large amphibious ship that is used to deploy Marines to secure a beachhead and move inland. LHAs differ significantly from LHDs as they lack a well deck.  A well deck is used to conduct amphibious operations allowing the use of LCACs and other smaller assault craft/ vehicles to bring equipment and Marines ashore through lowering of the ship's stern and flooding the interior deck.


So image the newest LHAs not having a well deck. Instead, the Marines want to build eleven of these ships for purposes of.... ... Get this... deploying thirty or forty F-35s in a sea control posture or up to 42 helicopters  or 22 V22 Osprey to only be able to move troops inland by air.

If this isn't bad enough now you have ships that don't have well decks to land Marines ashore or the other necessary support equipment such as battle tanks, fighting vehicles or other support vehicles.  In essence,  the USMC wants to use these ships as small aircraft carriers to deploy these truly inferior/ useless F-35 fighter/attack jets.


My recommendation is that the future America Class ships should be discontinued.  Instead the blue prints from the Wasp calls should be modified by adding a full length hanger deck, a nine degree angled flight deck, three deck elevators, either two, three of four catapults, arresting gear and be potentially powered by two small nuclear reactors increasing tonnage to 48,000 and 54,000 tons while maintaining their well deck LHD capabilities would result in a successful hybrid ship.  Such a hybrid would provide the navy with a small, angled deck nuclear carrier that doubles as an LHD.

Such a ship would for the first time ever allow the United States to successfully provide both true aviation and amphibious capabilities to any region in a global crisis with a full Marine Expeditionary Unit, and a complete carrier air wing in support.

The ships would be able to carry two or three squadrons of F/A18 Super Hornets, four EA18s, two E2C Hawkeyes, two C2s, as well as the necessary mixed complement of helicopters such as CH-46, CH-53s, SH-60s and AH1 Sea Cobras and V22 Osprey; for a total complement of up to fifty to sixty aircraft. In addition, maintain LHD capabilities to accommodate 1800 fully equipped Marines, 20 MBTs and other support vehicles.


The reality is that the world has far more hot spots than ever before and we only have 10 Nimitz Class Carriers which were more than $5.5 Billion each.  The new Ford class carriers are almost $13B a piece Bottom line with only 10 nuclear carriers serving we do not have the luxury or money to God forbid lose any in a crisis.

 Most recently the navy used a Wasp Class LHD (has a well deck) and its twenty harriers to serve as a small carrier in a sea control posture in support of operations in Libya.  The reality is that if the situation got hot twenty harriers would not, I repeat twenty harriers would not have been enough aircraft to provide sufficient air power to obtain air superiority. 

In addition, Harriers do not have supersonic dog fighting capabilities nor are they able to carry the same heavy loads of ordnance as an F/A18 Super Hornet. 

However, having a CATOBAR (Catapult Assisted Take Off Barrier Assisted Recovery) small aircraft carrier would be able to deploy multi-mission aircraft cable of providing air superiority as well as the ability to launch and sustain strike missions. With control of the skies the marines would be able to launch amphibious forces inland to include 1,800 men,  eight M1A1 MBTs and supporting vehicles. 

 For  approximately $16 Billion the Marine Corps could have 11 brand new hybrid CATOBAR/LHDs with more than 550 aircraft operating on board to support their mission  while the navy would have their 10 carriers with a combined air wing of an additional 900 aircraft or more..

The cold hard reality is that in the 21st Century we have made some very bad decisions and even worse purchases that have hurt the safety of our nation and our allies.  Taking this approach is a very simple and cost effective methodology of bringing back the global presence of our Navy's and Marine Corps ability to project air power in a region at a moments notice and have a Marine Expeditionary Unit accompany the task force.