What Is The 'Worth' Of An Aircraft Carrier?

The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) transits up the Elizabeth River as it passes the downtown Norfolk waterfront after completing a successful and on-time six-month Planned Incremental Availability at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, VA. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Tyler Folnsbee/Released)

How To Measure An Aircraft Carrier’s Worth -- James R. Holmes, The Diplomat

If aircraft carriers aren’t used in battle it’s hard to justify their enormous price tag.

Time Magazine has its Man of the Year. The aircraft carrier must be the Ship of the Year for 2013, considering how many countries are fitting out such behemoths. Debates over these platforms customarily dwell on technical specifications. The size, configuration, and striking power of the air wing, a flattop’s main battery furnish grist, as do such characteristics as sortie rates. Those are a function of variables like catapult capacity, the design of the flight deck, and procedures for moving aircraft around what is, after all, a rather small airport. And then, of course, there’s cost.

Such discussions are entirely proper. Wrangling over tradeoffs among speed, armament, and protection — the basic attributes of any man-of-war — has been part of fleet design as long as there have been men-of-war. To me, though, the fundamental question is whether changes in maritime warfare have dethroned the carrier as a modern navy’s capital ship, the core of the battle fleet. How do carriers and their retinue of escorts fit into naval strategy in hotly contested settings? If they remain capital ships — ships able to take a pounding while pummeling peer navies — they’re worth their expense. If not, there may be cheaper and more effective ways to fulfill the same missions.

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My Comment: I will wager that the "use it or lose it" strategy will probably not be the strategy that US naval commanders will implement if a major conflict arises in which their aircraft carriers can be sunk.