I like ‘em big

Everyone here knows my opinion of our shipbuilding habits over the last 15 years, well one place that I am on the same sheet of music with Big Navy is on Big Deck Carriers. I ignored retired Admiral/Director of CIA Stansfield Turner (Carter’s CIA Director, credited with destroying our covert capability and HUMIT that we are still paying the price for – he thought technology could do it better), but I could another technology fetish type has come out in the Virginia Pilot – and I can’t help myself.

First of all, I am not going to go 2,000 words telling you the sky is blue and the grass is green. A big deck carrier is power projection, SeaBase, force multiplier, and floating island of sovereign territory all wrapped up in one nice package.

Secondly, we have small deck carriers already, they are they have an L in their designator had have all sorts of jets and helos and stuff on them. They have an island…looks like a duck….

Anyway, if the other side of the argument wants to have any credibility, they need to move beyond WBB and Thomas Group PPT and pipedreams.

Bob Work, a retired Marine colonel who now analyzes Navy programs at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, said Architzel and other Navy witnesses "argued quite forcefully and, I thought, effectively" on behalf of large carriers at Bartlett's roundtable.

But Work, among several independent analysts who also spoke at the session, said he thinks the Navy should cut its carrier fleet to 10 ships and experiment with smaller "escort carriers," to take on some carrier missions.
... if the aircraft they will carry, including remote-controlled unmanned drone, perform as advertised, the escort carriers might take on some missions beyond the reach of today's flattops,
... have the potential to transform naval aviation. If both live up to boosters' expectations, a smaller carrier may approach...

“Think…if…might…may…” Bob Work (Col. USMC Ret.); Shipmate, that don’t flush. The last paragraph is just damning.

There's no disputing the value of big carriers, but Work worries that "the Navy's being too dogmatic," in its advocacy of CVN-21, he said. "I wouldn't argue for anything until we have a little more experimentation."

“More experimentation,” indeed. The burden is on your shoulders to
prove, (1) You have 40 hour UCAV that can fly a strike mission in a
non-permissive environment with a strike sustainment capability on par with a Carrier Strike Group (TLAM on CG/DDG/SSN/SSGN included). (2) Get a real on just to fly 40 hours in International airspace…etc…etc.. Back to the drawing board.

Check Lex as well.