THE NAVY MAY ACTUALLY HAVE A GOOD IDEA HERE

by Bob Walsh

Kenneth Braithwaite is the Secretary of the Navy.  He has what is IMHO a pretty good idea.  He wants the Navy to build a half-dozen light, small, relatively cheap aircraft carriers.

The idea isn't new.  The navy built them during WWII.  They were called Escort Carriers or Jeep Carriers and they carried a relatively small number of aircraft solely for the purpose of providing air cover for convoys.  It worked.

These new ships will carry drone aircraft.  No live air crews.  

The current fleet has 10 Nimitz class aircraft carriers and one Gerald R. Ford class carrier.  The Ford cost $13 billion to make and has a crew of 5,000.  

The smaller carrier would be capable of supporting fewer sorties in a given period of time, but they could be more numerous and the navy could more easily get them where they needed to go without abandoning other duties.

Intelligence suggests the ChiComs are setting their in-process aircraft carriers up to operate unmanned aircraft.