Retiring USS Nimitz and How Aircraft Carriers Fight (From CBS Radio)

War with China could easily start in the Philippines, so how do U.S. Navy aircraft carriers at sea survive and fight? 

The upcoming retirement of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz prompted discussion of combat attrition, the new Ford-class, and carrier tactics by hosts John Batchelor and Gordon Chang and guest Rebecca Grant on CBS Radio’s “Eye on the World” with John Batchelor.  Full clip here and highlights below. 

“I think it probably would start in the Philippines, by the way,” commented Chang, “but if there’s a war anywhere, we’re going to lose ships, and we’re probably going to lose carriers,” he said.  “It would be nice to have an additional carrier, and I don’t see why the Navy just doesn’t keep the Nimitz tied up at Bremerton, in a state where it can go out to sea on short notice, in the likely case we do lose a carrier in the Pacific.”

Gordon Chang asked if the USS George Washington, at the pier in Yokosuka, is vulnerable to attack in wartime, adding perhaps another reason not to deactivate CVN-68.

Rebecca Grant: The USS Nimitz is now the oldest nuclear powered aircraft carrier we have, and I know the Navy’s plan is to deactivate her in 2026, and have the new CVN-79 John F. Kennedy coming on later this year.  Your concern is valid, because it’s been decades since we thought about attrition of aircraft carriers.  Now Yokosuka is in Japan, which has tremendously good missile defense, so if someone’s going to try to hit a carrier, they’re going to have to get it through Japan’s defenses and our U.S. Navy ballistic missile defense at sea.  But your point overall is well taken; we know the risks are much higher than they have been in the past.

John Batchelor: There was a TV science fiction tale I remember vividly all these years later called Battlestar Galactica, where the robots take down all the new big battle stars except Galactica which is under the rubric of being too old to use in the fleet, and so therefore it’s being retired as the series begins.   That comes to mind when you and Gordon tell me about the plan to retire the Nimitz.  Why now?  

Rebecca Grant: I remember Battlestar Galactica with Lorne Greene, and I loved it; and your point is well taken. 

However, the Navy needs the capability that the Ford-class gives them, to fight a modern war; not just up to 2027, but beyond.   The Ford-class has new nuclear reactors with 25% more power, the deck is bigger, it’s easier to move bombs around, and, most importantly, they have a new electric catapult system that allows them to launch drones.  The steam catapults on the Nimitz and the others are great for slamming big hunks of metal like a Super Hornet fighter into the sky, but they’re awfully rough on lighter and smaller aircraft, like our modern drones.  The Navy has to be ready to fight now, but they also have to think about this fight in the decades to come, and for that, they are absolutely going to need the Ford-class.

Gordon Chang asked: So if you’ve got a carrier at sea, how vulnerable is it to the Chinese at this moment?

Rebecca Grant: The carriers at sea are highly survivable.  First, they move very, very fast.  They can steam at about 35 knots, and when you look at that over the area that they can cover in a period of time, they can cover literally thousands of square miles. The targeting problem means that even if the Chinese get the coordinates of the ship, by the time they plug in the target coordinates, get the drone or the missile launched, and the missile flies out in the long-range kill chain, this is a lot of time passing and in those minutes and maybe even hours that elapse – the carrier you are targeting? She is 100 miles or more from the coordinates that you were given.  They’re also shock tested, so they’re highly survivable, and don’t forget that the Navy does some pretty sneaky deceptive electronic tactics to complicate the inbound strike of a Chinese weapon even more.  So it’s a serious threat, but the Navy is all over this.

John Batchelor:  We’re told again and again this vivid anecdote that the Chinese probe with the bayonet as long as they don’t hit steel.  When they do, they stop. Does the Navy believe that?

Rebecca Grant: 100% they believe it.  The exercises in the Philippines helped demonstrate this. But remember U.S. aircraft carrier is an offensive weapon system.  It is meant to take the fight to the enemy, in this case the Chinese, to sail into harm’s way to launch that incredible air power and to damage Chinese ships.  You know, if I was China, I’d be worried about their aircraft carriers.