I'm going to guess somewhere in there WWII has something to do with the above?
Are there any Navel ring nockers in here who can shed some light on this?
Anyone?
Yeah sorry--I get so full of inside snide references only I know what I am talking about. (its ok , I know I am a full on blow-hard)
What I consider (and of course I am an expert--just ask me) the last great Naval Conflict was U.S vs Japan during WW2. Every other conflict since then there has been no naval presence from our opponents.
Our tactics and current Navy is essentially and extension of the 3rd/5th fleet from WW2 which was our Fleet Carrier Strike Force--which was in turn modeled on Japan's Kido Butai ("Mobile Fleet") of 6 Fleet Carriers that dominated early Naval Conflict of WW2. (Which wiped out all of our battleships (esentially all of our building from 1910 to 1940), learning the lessons of the British at Taranto who wiped out Italy's Battleships. But Japan blew their load by losing 4 fleet carriers at Midway because we were reading their code--they got cocky--just like we were pre-Pearl Harbor and the previous 15-20 years of air operations experience and ship building is sitting at the bottom of the Pacific.
However,. our Modern Navy appears to be Modeled on the early WW2 Amercian Tactic of Single Carriers Operating a Strike Group as opposed to late WW2 tactics of Multiple Carriers (to be fair, there is not much fleet on fleet action, so why form an modern Strike Group). Again, I'm just a dude who reads a lot and thinks too much.
Our Modern Navy has never faced a serious threat from Jet Based Anti-Ship attack or land based Anti-Ship attack. It is essentially unproven. If you look at the Falklands Conflict, Argentina posed a serious threat to the UK Carrier Group with Exocet missiles (and did serious damage to Destroyers). And Argentina is not exactly China or Russia. The USS Cole wasa nearly taken out by a single suicide boat. Now the Stark did survive a hit, so that gives me some comfort, but there are A LOT of unknowns.
Look at the Battle of Okinawa for how a future war might go. Kamikazies were esstially crude guided missles--they did a massively disporportial amount of damage--really worse than anything their Navy did outside of Pearl Harbor.
With the discussion of UAVs, they could really push the Carrier Group out of range with a cheap "swarm" attack--again missles are cheap (relatively) compared to Carriers.
I don't want to knock the US Navy. We're top dog right now and everyone is gunning for us. China is not some boogey man that is suddenly develop super powers, but on the other hand we severely underestimated the Japanese, who were clearly our equal during WW2. If you look at modern scholarship on the Pacific War--Japan esstially squandered its advantage--its mobile striking force and got caught in a grinding brawl late 1942 and 1943. The problem was the last thing they needed was a grinding battle--they couldn't out build the US. The United States didn't care, we could build and train our way out of our losses, Japan Couldn't. However, China is becoming our equal in Manufacturing. That means a grinding brawl is no longer a guaranteed victory.
Its not all doom and gloom--we always thought the Russian Tanks were going to kick our ass across Germany too, but learning from Gulf War I (yes, it wasn't frontline Russian Troops), we had our shit together and went through them like hot butter. Fingers crossed Navy guys are doing the same thing. All I can do is sit here and worry and fret on what's public. They aren't gonna tell me about the latest greatest super weapon that turns Chinese Destroyers into swiss cheese.