FINDINGS IN BRIEF

Aircraft carriers are the preeminent expression of Aircraft carriers cost less than 1% of the federal
U.S. military power. The United States is the only budget. Large-deck, nuclear-powered aircraft
nation that operates a fleet of large-deck, nuclear- carriers are the biggest warships ever built, and they
powered aircraft carriers. With unlimited range and have a price-tag to match. However, the entire defense
the capacity to destroy hundreds of surface targets per budget is only 15% of federal spending, and the Navy is
day, each of the ten carriers in the U.S. fleet is a secure a fraction of that. Even if all the costs of building and
base for protecting and projecting American power. operating carriers plus their aircraft are included, the
80% of the world’s population lives less than 100 miles cumulative cost is less than 1% of the federal budget.
from the sea, putting it within reach of carrier air wings That is still true if escort warships are included,
that can execute a diverse array of military options. although more destroyers and cruisers would be
needed in the absence of carriers.
Large-deck, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers are a
good fit for emerging threats. In the years since the None of the alternatives to carriers work as well.
Cold War ended, the world has seen a surge in new Carriers are not the only way of projecting U.S. air
threats empowered by information-age technologies. power abroad, but in many cases they are the most
Whether state-based or stateless, emerging adversaries effective option. Land-based tactical aircraft require
seek to deny U.S. forces access to their regions and access to local bases that might not be available, or
undermine America’s overseas allies. Aircraft carriers could be targeted by enemies. Long-range bombers
enable the U.S. to continuously exert military power flying from further away would still need support
in contested areas without having to rely on vulnerable from planes like tankers tethered to local bases. Using
land bases, and can be quickly moved wherever they standoff missiles rather than carrier-based aviation to
are needed. attack targets could raise the munitions costs of an air
campaign 50 times or more.
Carriers are in continuous demand from regional
commanders. Because the 60-75 aircraft in carrier air The new Ford class of carriers delivers increased
wings can perform a diverse array of military functions capabilities, decreased costs. The next generation of
from sustained strike warfare to counter-terror opera- carriers is called the Gerald R. Ford class and includes
tions to reconnaissance missions, carriers are in contin- a range of technologies aimed at making nuclear-pow-
uous demand from regional combatant commanders. ered carriers more lethal, survivable and efficient. The
However, the number of overseas deployments has number of daily aircraft sorties that can be sustained
risen since the Cold War ended while the number of under peacetime conditions will rise from 120 to 160,
carriers in the fleet has declined. The Navy needs and can reach 270 in wartime. But crew size will
more than ten carriers to avoid overstressing its ships shrink from 3,300 to 2,500 and air wing personnel
and sailors. from 2,300 to 1,800. Manpower and maintenance
costs will be greatly reduced.
Aircraft carriers are extremely difficult to defeat.
Aircraft carriers are much harder to target than land The Navy needs enough carriers to get the job done.
bases because they are continuously moving. With Aircraft carriers deliver unsurpassed versatility and
hundreds of watertight compartments and extensive flexibility in dealing with overseas threats. However, a
armoring, it would be difficult to sink a large-deck car- force of ten carriers is required to keep three forward
rier without using nuclear weapons. Carrier air wings deployed, and indications are that more than three will
are equipped to prevent hostile aircraft, surface com- be needed. The current mismatch between supply and
batants and submarines from getting near (carriers can demand wears out warships and sailors alike. Increas-
outrun submarines). Each carrier is defended by both ing the size of the force to eleven by keeping the Ford
its own missiles and guns and those on escort ships. class on track is essential, and further steps may be
needed to assure regional commanders get the support
they require.
Introduction
AIRCRAFT CARRIERS ARE AMERICA’S SIGNATURE COMBAT SYSTEM

Large-deck, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers are the military challenges America faces, and how heavily
preeminent expression of American military power. they are used on a daily basis by U.S. regional
Displacing 100,000 tons of water and standing 250 commanders around the world.
feet tall, they are the biggest warships ever built. The
ten Nimitz-class carriers in the current fleet are often It then describes the extensive defenses that make
referred to as “four and a half acres of sovereign U.S. large-deck, nuclear-powered carriers so difficult to
territory,” because that is the size of the flight deck defeat, and lays out the modest cost that Washington
from which they can launch over 100 aircraft sorties incurs for sustaining its current fleet of carriers (less
every day for months at a time. No other country than one day of federal spending per year). The study
in the world has even one warship capable of also explains why there are few viable alternatives to
accomplishing that feat. aircraft carriers in accomplishing a wide array of
combat operations, and how the Navy is working to
Aircraft carriers like the Nimitz class and the Ford field a new generation of carriers that will require far
class that will replace them are uniquely suited to the fewer personnel to operate while delivering big gains
strategic needs of the United States -- a country with in warfighting capability.
global interests that is cut off from Africa and
Eurasia by vast oceans. Nuclear power gives the The study concludes by stressing the importance of
carriers unlimited range, and large decks enable maintaining carrier production at a steady rate to
them to act as floating bases when it is not feasible assure the fleet is big enough to keep 3-4 carriers
or desirable to secure basing rights ashore. These are deployed at all times. That is the minimum number
important features in a world where 70% of the surface required to deal with all the demands imposed by a
is covered by water and 80% of people live less than a chaotic world in which America has many enemies.
hundred miles from the sea. Because nuclear-powered aircraft carriers remain in
service for half a century, it is only necessary to build
The air wings on U.S. carriers perform a wide array one every five years to sustain a force of ten.
of missions from deterring aggression to securing the However, a higher pace may be needed to comply
sea lanes to attacking terrorists. The carriers typically with congressional direction and meet the demand
operate in “strike groups” that include other warships for carriers from regional combatant commanders.
such as destroyers and submarines capable of defend-
ing against the full spectrum of undersea, surface and
overhead threats. In fact, U.S. aircraft carriers are the
most heavily defended military assets in the world,
which is what enables them to safely sustain offensive
operations against diverse adversaries.

However, many Americans do not understand why

large-deck, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers are need-
ed, how little they cost, or why they are nearly impos-
sible to sink. The purpose of this study is to provide
a concise explanation of why aircraft carriers are a
bargain for a maritime nation with far-flung responsi-
bilities like America. The study begins by detailing the
ways in which carriers are uniquely relevant to the

AIRCRAFT CARRIERS / 1
Large-deck, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers are the biggest
warships ever built, and pack a powerful punch that can be
delivered anywhere near the sea on short notice. Precision-
guided munitions and networked warfare enable each
carrier air wing to precisely attack hundreds of targets
per day for months at a time.
LARGE-DECK, NUCLEAR-POWERED AIRCRAFT CARRIERS ARE A GOOD FIT
FOR EMERGING THREATS

The U.S. Navy began experimenting with aircraft out and defeat threats like ISIS and Iran, it will need to
carriers shortly after World War One -- early enough do that mainly from bases at sea.
so that carriers could play a critical role in the Pacific
during World War Two. However, nuclear-powered The value of large-deck, nuclear-powered aircraft carri-
aircraft carriers did not become a reality until the ers in this kind of world is fairly obvious. Large-deck
U.S.S. Enterprise joined the fleet in 1961. Today, all of carriers providing several acres of deck space, extensive
the carriers in the active fleet are of the Nimitz class, storage area and in-depth logistical support are capa-
meaning they evolved from the design of the lead ble of delivering the same kind of sustained striking
ship, which was conceived in the 1950s and joined the power against distant targets that a land base could. A
fleet in 1975. The lead ship in the Ford class that will Nimitz-class carrier can launch over a hundred aircraft
replace Nimitz is thus the first all-new carrier the Navy sorties per day for months at a time. And because
has developed in half a century. nuclear-powered aircraft carriers have unlimited range,
they can be dispatched to wherever they are needed on
In other words, the Ford class is the only aircraft carri- short notice, operating continuously without access to
er the Navy has developed that from its inception was bases on land.
intended to deal with the threat environment of the
post-Cold War world. That new threat environment is Much has been made in recent years of the “anti-
not dominated by the Soviet Union and the possibil- access” strategies some littoral powers such as China
ity of nuclear conflict that preoccupied naval planners and Iran have embraced to discourage U.S. military
two generations ago. Instead, it is characterized by a presence in the areas they seek to dominate. There is
more diverse array of dangers that includes everything no question these strategies pose a potential danger
from terrorists to regional aggressors like Iran to rising to U.S. aircraft carriers. However, they pose a much
maritime powers such as China. greater danger to U.S. and allied military forces operat-
ing from land bases within reach of aggressors, because
All of these potential adversaries have been empowered the location of the bases is well known and cannot
by information technologies that make their reconnais- be changed. Aircraft carriers, on the other hand, are
sance more accurate, their weapons more lethal, and constantly moving and are heavily protected by both
their command structures more resilient. However, their own defenses and those of the other warships in a
in other regards they resemble the threats that earlier carrier strike group.
classes of aircraft carriers were conceived to address.
They typically concentrate their forces and resources The extensive defenses built into aircraft carrier combat
within a few hundred miles of the sea. They try to systems and operating plans are discussed later in this
exclude U.S. and allied forces from the areas where study. The important point to understand up front,
they seek influence. And in order for them to be de- though, is that a carrier air wing of up to 75 high-
feated, they require America’s military to project power performance aircraft can rapidly degrade the military
thousands of miles from its home bases in the Western capabilities of virtually any adversary it faces, especial-
Hemisphere. ly given the availability of smart weapons that enable
multiple target kills per flight. Whether the enemy is
During the Cold War, the United States sought to ISIS or North Korea, a single carrier and its air wing
contain aggression by the Soviet Union and its allies by can destroy over a thousand enemy targets per week
surrounding the Sino-Soviet periphery with military -- even if bases ashore in friendly nations have been
bases. There were dozens of major bases in Central rendered unusable by attacks.
Europe, the Middle East and the Western Pacific. That
basing infrastructure has now been largely dismantled,
and most countries resist allowing big U.S. force de-
ployments on their territory. So if the U.S. is to reach

AIRCRAFT CARRIERS / 3
An aircraft carrier is replenished by a supply ship. All of the
Navy’s aircraft carriers are nuclear-powered, and thus have
unlimited range. With timely replenishment at sea, the carriers
can remain deployed for many months, minimizing the need for
U.S. forces to rely on vulnerable land bases.
CARRIERS ARE IN CONTINUOUS DEMAND FROM REGIONAL COMMANDERS

Because of their unique capacity to sustain high-inten- carriers had to be placed in maintenance. As a result,
sity air operations against regional adversaries without the remaining ships were utilized even more heavily
depending on land bases, the Navy’s aircraft carriers -- meaning that the ripple effects of being used more
are in continuous demand from overseas combatant intensively than designs anticipated will extend many
commanders. The U.S. global military presence is years into the future.
organized into geographical commands responsible for
security in specific areas such as Europe, the Middle Although the Navy has generated a new, “optimized”
East and the Pacific. The leaders of these commands fleet response plan to better balance operations, train-
frequently request aircraft-carrier presence in their ing and maintenance, the service does not expect a
areas of operation to provide regional deterrence, return to traditional readiness rates in the current
protect sea lanes, prosecute air campaigns against decade. Problems will persist for a while after the lead
enemies ashore, and support other friendly forces. ship in the Ford class becomes operational in 2021
because the other carriers in the fleet have been driven
During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, six carriers too hard. Having an eleventh flattop in the fleet
were dispatched to the Persian Gulf region, contribut- (as required by law) will eventually allow the Navy to
ing to an air campaign that had largely defeated Sadd- return to a sustainable operating tempo, assuming no
am Hussein’s military before coalition ground forces new contingencies arise demanding extended overseas
engaged. Ten years later, four carriers were deployed deployments by four or more carriers simultaneously.
at the outset of the military campaign in Afghanistan.
And when Operation Iraqi Freedom, the invasion of What these trends point to is that the demand for U.S.
Iraq, commenced in 2003, six carriers were again sent. aircraft carriers from regional combatant commanders
The Navy’s fleet response plan keeps a small number of is greater than the current fleet can support. Carrier
carriers forward deployed at all times, with an addi- deployments must compete with training missions,
tional number ready to surge on short notice in a crisis. maintenance availabilities and the inevitable transit
times in a budget environment that is likely to
However, the number of operational carriers has de- remain constrained for the foreseeable future. While
creased since the Cold War ended while the demand this speaks volumes about how useful carriers are in
for their capabilities from regional commanders has supporting regional security objectives, it also signals
increased. In the 1980s, the Navy had 14 carriers and that any delay in the construction of new carriers or
kept an average of 2.5-2.75 forward deployed. The loss of a carrier in combat will hobble the U.S. ability
number of carriers declined to 11 in subsequent years, to execute its global defense strategy.
and then to 10 with the retirement of the U.S.S.
Enterprise in 2012. But demand for forward deploy-
ments actually grew during the same timeframe, to
an average of 3.5 in some years. In other words, the
percentage of the carrier force deployed on a typical
day nearly doubled.

That rate of utilization, which peaked in 2011-2013,

was not sustainable. The usual metric applied to carrier
availability is that a force of 10 carriers can sustain 3
forward-deployed carrier strike groups, while a force
of 11 can sustain 3.5. The Navy managed to stretch its
resources for several years by extending deployments
and deferring maintenance, but at the end of that time
it found the warships wearing out and fully half of the

AIRCRAFT CARRIERS / 5
An F-35C Lightning II fighter on the flight deck of the U.S.S.
George Washington during sea trials. The F-35C will provide
carrier air wings with greater reach, carrying capacity,
survivability and situational awareness. It will also enhance
the capacity of carriers to avoid being targeted by adversaries.
AIRCRAFT CARRIERS ARE EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO DEFEAT

Because aircraft carriers are crucial to America’s global deck, so the Navy has applied both its technology
military posture, the Navy has invested heavily in investments and operational planning to assuring that
defending them against attacks by enemies seeking few if any hostile weapons actually reach the carrier.
to drive U.S. warships from nearby seas. In fact, the
Navy’s current fleet of ten large-deck, nuclear-powered The carrier air wing includes radar planes that can
carriers are among the most densely defended assets in monitor surrounding air space for hundreds of miles in
the world. Each carrier is surrounded when it deploys search of airborne or ballistic threats, and then alert in-
by a layered defense designed to prevent hostile war- terceptor aircraft or missile batteries on Aegis warships
ships, aircraft and missiles from reaching the carrier. as circumstances dictate. Because the entire defensive
If any weapons managed to penetrate this shield, they architecture is networked, the warship that first detects
would be unlikely to cause disabling damage. a danger need not be the vessel that accomplishes its
destruction. An airborne radar plane from the carrier
The survivability of aircraft carriers derives first and might alert a missile defense destroyer to approaching
foremost from the fact that they are always moving. threats so that the potential for successful interception
Unlike land bases whose locations are well known and is maximized.
readily targeted, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier has
unlimited mobility and can move up to 35 miles in The carrier air wing also provides defense against hos-
an hour -- meaning if it is sighted, it can be anywhere tile submarines, which is bolstered by anti-submarine
in an area of 6,000 square miles within 90 minutes. systems on other friendly warships. For instance, the
Because no potential adversary has overhead reconnais- radar planes in the air wing can detect the periscopes
sance systems capable of continuously tracking carriers, of hostile submarines at considerable distance, and
this presents an extreme targeting challenge for even HH-60 helicopters organic to the wing are equipped
the most determined attacker. for anti-submarine, anti-surface and counter-mine
warfare. When there is significant danger from hostile
In the event of hostilities, U.S. naval forces would move submarines, the carrier will typically deploy with an
quickly to degrade whatever targeting capabilities attack submarine far exceeding the capabilities of
an enemy might possess, for example by destroying potential undersea adversaries. In addition,
over-the-horizon radars on land and drones operating nuclear-powered carriers can outrun submarines.
near the carrier strike group. Since aircraft carriers are
always accompanied by other warships such as destroy- Some of the capabilities developed to protect America’s
ers and attack submarines when they deploy, they are aircraft carriers are kept secret to complicate the chal-
not dependent solely on their air wings and on-board lenge faced by attackers, such as the passive defenses
weapons for protection. In fact, there are usually sev- built into the hull of the carriers. However, even a
eral Aegis destroyers or cruisers nearby with networked casual review of the capabilities resident in any carrier
sensors that can detect and destroy incoming weapons strike group will reveal extensive, multi-faceted defens-
long before they approach the carrier. es organic or adjacent to the carriers that few enemies
could overcome. When these defenses are combined
The carrier itself is equipped with extensive active and with agile tactics and the introduction of longer-range
passive defenses, including thousands of tons of armor strike aircraft allowing greater standoff distances, it
to mitigate damage from torpedoes or mines. Because is clear U.S. carriers are likely to remain lethal and
the carriers are very big and contain hundreds of survivable for a long time to come.
water-tight compartments, it would be nearly
impossible for anything other than a nuclear
weapon to actually sink one. But incoming missiles
and munitions might cause significant damage to
on-board sensors, command centers and the flight

AIRCRAFT CARRIERS / 7
 AIRCRAFT CARRIERS COST LESS THAN ONE-PERCENT OF THE
FEDERAL BUDGET

Aircraft carriers are well suited to the security needs of each carrier’s air wing. Naval aircraft are bought at a
a nation that must traverse thousands of miles of ocean much different pace than carriers, so it is complicated
to reach most of its major allies and trading partners. to assign a fully-loaded cost figure for both a carrier
However, large-deck, nuclear-powered carriers are the and its air wing. In general, though, the annual cost
biggest warships ever built, and have a price-tag to of buying both carriers and their aircraft is probably
match. This has led some observers to question wheth- equal to about one day’s worth of federal spending. It
er a force of ten or eleven carriers is affordable, no mat- should be noted that the Navy spends considerably
ter how useful they may be. The short answer is that all more on acquiring other types of warships than it does
aspects of aircraft carrier construction and operations on acquiring aircraft carriers. For instance, the service
combined consume less than 1% of the federal bud- plans to spend $28.6 billion on constructing attack
get, so the issue of carrier costs is more about political submarines between 2017 and 2021, which is more
priorities than it is about budgetary burdens. than twice the $13.5 billion it has programmed for
carrier construction.
Defense spending currently represents about 3% of
U.S. economic output and 15% of the federal budget. With regard to carrier operations, the most widely-
The Department of the Navy’s base-budget request cited estimate of what it costs to operate a carrier strike
for fiscal 2017 was $165 billion, accounting for about group is $6.5 million per day. However, that estimate,
4% of federal spending. But the Navy Department’s which was generated by retired naval captain Henry
budget includes funding for a vast array of activities J. Hendrix of the Center for a New American Security,
including the Marine Corps, and carriers consume only subsumes the cost of both acquisition and operations,
a fraction of the total. Some analysts contend that to and includes the budgetary burden of warships the
capture the full burden of being able to operate carri- Navy would likely buy whether it operated carriers
er strike groups, estimates should include the cost of or not:
surface combatants and submarines assigned to each
formation; however, in the absence of carriers the Navy Factoring in the total life-cycle costs of an associated
would probably need larger numbers of these other carrier air wing, five surface combatants and one attack
warship types, so that argument is misleading. submarine, plus the nearly 6,700 men and women to crew
them, it costs about $6.5 million per day to operate each
The real cost of the carrier force consists of two types strike group.
of spending: acquisition and operations. Acquisition is
the budgetary burden of designing, developing, build- Since the Navy has typically operated three or four
ing, modifying and refueling carriers. Operations costs strike groups at a time in recent years, this estimate
include manning, supplies, maintenance, and other suggests the Navy spends about $26 million daily
kinds of support, plus the significant cost of disposing on the carrier formations it has at sea. The cost of
of nuclear-powered carriers when they retire. With surface combatants and subs should not be included
regard to acquisition, the Navy plans to spend an av- because they would be needed in any event, but there
erage of $2.7 billion annually between 2017 and 2021 are additional costs associated with training missions,
on construction of carriers. The federal government maintenance and support activities for carriers that are
currently spends $11 billion per day, so carrier acquisi- not deployed. Even if that were to triple the carrying
tion consumes about six hours of government outlays cost of the carrier force, though, it would still total less
annually. The Navy needs to buy one new carrier every than a day’s worth of federal spending. The implication
five years to sustain a fleet of ten -- they remain in ser- is that aircraft carriers cost less than 1% of the federal
vice for 50 years -- so the cost of acquiring each carrier budget -- a cost that will fall steadily in future years
adds up to about 30 hours of federal spending (6 hours as the less manpower-intensive Ford class gradually
of spending per year times 5 years). replaces legacy carriers.

That cost does not include the additional expendi-

ture required to purchase planes and helicopters for

8 / AIRCRAFT CARRIERS
NONE OF THE ALTERNATIVES TO CARRIERS WORK AS WELL

Aircraft carriers exist to deliver sustained air power at the onset of war, precluding their use by friendly
overseas in support of U.S. security objectives. The forces. Although the tactical aircraft the joint force
appeal of air power since its inception a century operates on carriers have similar capabilities to those
ago has always been that it offered the possibility of operated on land, they are likely to be much more
achieving major military gains without sacrificing the useful in wartime because their bases can be moved,
lives of vast numbers of soldiers, sailors and marines. are very difficult to target, and are not subject to
As military aviation proponent Billy Mitchell put it, operational constraints imposed by local powers.
aircraft could fly over the front lines to strike at the
“vital centers” of enemy strength -- potentially winning Long-range bombers are sometimes the only way that
an early decision. key assets can be precisely targeted in the interior of
hostile states. However, bombers suffer from some of
It is no coincidence that the U.S. Navy christened its the same disabilities as other land-based strike aircraft.
first carrier, the Langley, at the same time Mitchell If they are forward-deployed, their bases can be readily
and other air power enthusiasts were formulating their targeted by peer or near-peer adversaries. If they are
theories. The Navy was an “early adopter” of the new flying from remote bases thousands of miles away, they
technology, which was to prove crucial in successfully will likely require support from aerial-refueling tankers
waging World War Two. Today, the unique war- and escort aircraft that rely on vulnerable bases close to
fighting leverage afforded by air power is universally the action. Carrier-based planes can contribute to the
acknowledged. Innovations such as precision-guided support of long-range bombers, but if the bombers are
weapons, stealth technology, digital networking and approaching an area of operations from thousands of
sensor fusion have continuously increased the effec- miles away, it will be difficult to sustain operations over
tiveness of military air power across the spectrum of protracted periods the way carriers can. In any event,
conflict, making it indispensable in U.S. war plans. the vast majority of important military targets will be
near the sea -- i.e., within reach of carrier aviation.
However, aircraft carriers are only one way in which
air power might be brought to bear against adver- Using precision-guided missiles fired from naval sur-
saries. Other approaches include land-based tactical face and undersea combatants in place of naval aviation
aircraft, long-range bombers, and missiles launched to attack land targets can work well against limited
from afar -- either air-breathing or ballistic. All of numbers of fixed targets. However, the cost of cruise
these weapons are typically employed by the joint force and ballistic missiles suitable for precisely attacking
in major military campaigns. Nonetheless, it is easy to distant targets typically exceeds a million dollars each,
demonstrate that in many, perhaps most, warfighting and it is not uncommon for major military campaigns
scenarios, the aircraft carrier is better suited to applying to involve strikes on many thousands of aim-points.
air power in support of U.S. security objectives. A brief Thus, the cost of munitions alone might exceed ten
review of the drawbacks associated with alternatives billion dollars in a campaign of any duration. In many
illustrates why carriers are likely to remain central to cases, the missile will be worth more than the intended
the employment of U.S. air power for many decades target. In addition, there simply aren’t enough missiles
to come. available to attack all the aim-points in an extended
campaign. Carrier-based strike aircraft use munitions
Substituting land-based tactical aircraft for aircraft costing 1-2% of what long-range missiles do, and
based at sea necessarily requires access to bases rel- unlike the missiles strike aircraft can search for
atively near the action. During the Cold War, the mobile targets, assess damage and perform other
U.S. operated dozens of major air bases around the useful functions.
Sino-Soviet periphery, but many of those bases have
been abandoned and few local governments today are
willing to permit unfettered use of those that remain.
Beyond that, well-equipped adversaries such as Russia
and China have the ability to destroy nearby land bases

AIRCRAFT CARRIERS / 9
An E-2C Hawkeye radar plane preparing to take off from the flight deck of the
U.S.S. George H.W. Bush. The Hawkeye monitors air space around carriers for any
sign of hostile aircraft and can vector fighters to intercept attackers long before they
are within range to release their weapons. It is linked with other warships in the
carrier strike group to provide integrated fire control.
THE NEW FORD CLASS OF CARRIERS DELIVERS INCREASED CAPABILITIES,
DECREASED COSTS

The ten large-deck, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers in As a result, the crew size will shrink from about 3,300
the current U.S. fleet are all based on the design of the sailors to 2,500 and the manpower required to support
U.S.S. Nimitz, which joined the fleet in 1975. Design the air wing will decline from 2,300 to 1,800.
of the Nimitz class commenced in the 1950s, at a time
when manpower was inexpensive due to conscription, These reduced manning levels help cut the cost of own-
electronics were still in the vacuum-tube era, and preci- ing and operating each carrier by about 15%, a savings
sion-guided weapons had not yet been conceived. The of over $5 billion across the lifetime of the warship.
Navy has gradually improved each successive carrier in However, those savings have not been achieved by
the class as new technologies and operating require- compromising any aspect of the carrier’s performance.
ments emerged, retrofitting key advances onto earlier In fact, the sortie rate for the on-board air wing under
hulls as necessary. However, the simple truth is that normal operating conditions will increase from the
the entire information revolution has unfolded since 120 per day typical of a Nimitz carrier to 160, and
the Nimitz was designed, so the fleet is overdue for a if necessary can be surged to 270 each day. Because
next-generation carrier. precision-guided munitions enable strike aircraft to
hit multiple aim-points in a single flight, it is feasible
Senior defense officials approved a Navy proposal to for one Ford-class carrier to hit 1,000 targets per day
begin detailed design work on a new generation of in a high-intensity air campaign. Few enemies could
carriers in 1998. The plan was to combine the most withstand such a pounding for long.
valued features of existing carriers -- large decks,
unlimited range, versatile air wings -- with capabilities Ford-class carriers will also be equipped with an
that only information-age technologies could deliver. extensive array of active and passive defensive features
Specifically, the Defense Acquisition Board approved to assure their survivability is not compromised while
development of a carrier similar in size to the Nim- executing air operations. In addition to the anti-
itz, but capable of supporting a larger air wing of 75 submarine, anti-surface and anti-aircraft capabilities
aircraft, powered by a more efficient nuclear propulsion delivered by various airframes in the air wing, the
system, and generating much greater electrical power carriers will have a new ship self-defense system that
for on-board sensors, computers, and other electronics. nets together advanced sensors, missiles, guns and
countermeasures to intercept or deflect attackers.
In 2007, Congress authorized the Navy to begin enter- The hull and superstructure will incorporate extensive
ing into construction contracts for the first three ships armoring, low-observable (“stealth”) technology and
in the new class, and construction of the lead ship in other features to further complicate the targeting
the class has now been completed. That ship, named challenge faced by enemies.
the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, will largely define the fea-
tures of the carriers that follow, and the entire class is Virtually every aspect of aircraft support and weapons
thus designated the Ford class. A second carrier named handling has been refined in the Ford design, which
the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy is being built, and con- contributes to the increase in the sortie rate. For
struction of a third will likely be authorized in 2018. instance, the horizontal distance that weapons must be
moved in loading strike aircraft for missions has been
Because aircraft carriers remain in service for half a reduced by two thirds, from about 1,200 feet to 400.
century, it will be a long time before the Ford class Even the air conditioning capacity has been doubled
becomes the dominant type of carrier in the U.S. fleet. over that of Nimitz carriers, which contributes to crew
The last Nimitz is not expected to retire until 2058. productivity during operations in warm climates. Some
Nonetheless, the design features of the lead ship in of the improvements in the Ford class are more subtle,
the new class illustrate why the Navy believed a better such as the reduced maintenance requirements and
carrier was needed. The U.S.S. Ford will incorporate increased operational availability that result from using
extensive automation thanks to the use of advanced advanced technologies. Collectively, though, the new
information technologies and an electrical system that technologies and processes incorporated in the Ford-
generates 300% of the output of Nimitz-class ships. class design make such vessels more lethal, survivable
and affordable than the carriers they will replace.
AIRCRAFT CARRIERS / 11
 Conclusion
THE NAVY NEEDS ENOUGH CARRIERS TO GET THE JOB DONE

As the preceding pages have demonstrated, large-deck, impossible to sink without using nuclear weapons,
nuclear-powered aircraft carriers are a good match there probably should be some provision for attrition
for emerging threats and as a result are in continuous in war plans given the long lead-times associated with
demand from U.S. combatant commanders around the carrier construction. So Congress probably got it right
world. Not only are aircraft carriers a more flexible when it mandated a force of twelve large-deck aircraft
and reliable means of using air power against America’s carriers. Getting back to that level of capability would
enemies than alternatives, but they are very difficult require accelerating carrier production beyond the cur-
to defeat and cost a miniscule portion of the federal rent pace of authorizing the construction of one new
budget. Although each carrier comes with a hefty vessel every five years -- a pace that actually was only
price-tag, compared with other ways of waging war in established in 2009.
an unpredictable world, they are a bargain. So aircraft
carriers will remain central to U.S. war plans for the At the time, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated
foreseeable future. that building a new carrier every five years was more
fiscally “sustainable” than doing so every four years, but
The big question military planners face today with as recent experience has demonstrated, demand for
regard to carriers is not whether they are effective or carriers is driven by threats, not fiscal considerations.
survivable, but whether there will be enough of them to In other words, if current global conditions continue
meet all of the nation’s far-flung security needs. Until and the Navy elects to stay with a force of ten or eleven
the last non-nuclear carrier was retired in 2009, the carriers, then some missions will not be accomplished
Navy was required by law to maintain a force of twelve and some threats will not be addressed. There is always
large-deck carriers. Today, following retirement a possibility that threats will recede, but in the absence
of the conventionally-fueled Kitty Hawk and the of a firm U.S. response to regional aggression, the more
nuclear-powered Enterprise, only ten remain in the likely outcome is that threats will increase.
active fleet. Because of maintenance and training
requirements, a force of ten carriers can only sustain At the very least, the Department of Defense should
three forward-deployed on a continuing basis. The continue its current plan to begin construction of
Navy has frequently sought to deploy more, and now additional Ford-class carriers in 2018 and 2023. But
is paying the price. serious consideration should be given to building
carriers at a faster pace, until a force of twelve carriers
Specifically, a large portion of the force has been tied can be sustained. With the man-hours required to
up in extended maintenance, and some regions where build the second vessel in the Ford class projected to
carriers were traditionally always present such as the fall 20% from those of the lead vessel, the budgetary
Persian Gulf have been left temporarily uncovered. consequences of building to a twelve-carrier force
The Navy predicted such problems would arise when would be relatively modest -- a few hours of additional
overseas demand for carriers surged after 9-11. That federal spending per year at most. The geopolitical
does not mean more carriers could not be made avail- consequences of failing to do so could be far more
able quickly in an emergency, but it does reflect the fact dangerous than the fiscal consequences of investing in
that there is an immutable relationship between how an adequate fleet.
heavily each carrier is used and how much maintenance
it will later require. The current problems thus cannot
be fully resolved until the U.S.S. Ford becomes oper-
ationally available in 2021, increasing the number of
active carriers in the fleet by 10%.

The current mismatch between carrier demand and

supply suggests that even eleven carriers may not be
sufficient to meet military needs if there is an increase
in threats. Furthermore, although carriers are nearly

12 / AIRCRAFT CARRIERS
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