USS Ronald Reagan and Force Z

Consider:  USS Ronald Reagan, CVN-76, is forward deployed and home ported in Yokosuka, Japan along with some escort ships as part of the troubled 7^th Fleet.  Yokosuka is just over 1000 miles from Shanghai, China – easy cruise or ballistic missile distance.

Consider:  Force Z was a British task force consisting of two battleships, HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse, and four destroyers.  Leaving Singapore, the group was sent to sea where it was quickly spotted by Japanese submarines and aircraft and subjected to repeated attacks by land based aircraft.  Four attack waves of aircraft sank the two battleships on 10-Dec-1941 just a few days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  On paper, Force Z was a powerful group but it found itself operating in enemy territory, at the start of the war, without air cover.  It had no chance.

HMS Prince of Wales

HMS Repulse

So, what’s the link between the USS Ronald Reagan and Force Z?  Well, the parallels should be obvious.  When war with China starts, the Reagan will be forward deployed in enemy territory or, at least, within enemy reach, and if it attempts to move it will have limited air cover.  If Japan is part of the war, the Japanese Air Force will be too busy defending their homeland to provide aerial coverage for a carrier at sea.  If Japan is not part of the war, there will be no Japanese air cover at all.  Guam’s aircraft will be fully occupied (or destroyed!) defending their base and will be unable to provide air cover.

USS Ronald Reagan

No matter how you look at it, the Reagan will have limited air cover. 

Wait, what now?  Limited air cover?  It’s a carrier!  It has its own air cover.  Well, that’s technically true but for all practical purposes it’s nearly irrelevant.  You’ll recall that we’ve discussed the fact that carriers in war will operate in groups of 3-4 (4 being ComNavOps preferred number).  It will require 3-4 carriers operating together to mass sufficient air power to survive in combat.  A single carrier with, currently, only around 38 Hornets (another half dozen are required for tanking and unavailable for combat) is not exactly a powerful air force and would have a very hard time defending itself for very long against a sustained Chinese assault.  Those aircraft will be quickly attrited in combat or due to simple mechanical failings. 

The Reagan is forward deployed to Japan and would be faced with two unpalatable choices at the outset of war.

1. Stand and fight – and be sunk.
2. Run for safer waters around Guam or Pearl Harbor.

Running, the only real choice, would subject the carrier to repeated submarine, anti-ship cruise missile, and, possibly, anti-ship ballistic missiles.  The odds of successfully escaping are not great.

If running is the preferred, albeit poor, option, it leads to the question, why have the carrier based in Japan to begin with?

Is it for the carrier’s deterrent effect?  We’ve often discussed the concept of deterrence and concluded that there is no evidence that deterrence works.  In fact, the recent evidence is absolutely conclusive that deterrence does not work.  China, the obvious deterrence target of a Japan based carrier, has flouted international law and treaties, built illegal artificial islands and militarized them, used military intimidation against Vietnam and Philippines, seized the entire South China Sea, and begun laying the groundwork for seizing the second island chain.  If that’s deterrence at work, I’d hate to think about what China would have done without it!  Clearly, deterrence is not a valid reason to have a carrier forward based.

Is it for the carrier’s rapid response to a sudden outbreak of war?  As we just noted, there is nothing a single carrier can do in a peer war except go down fighting.  On a related note, if China opts to attack Japan at the outset of war, the addition of 38 Hornets to the total Japanese defensive effort isn’t going to make any big difference even assuming that the carrier isn’t sunk pierside in the opening shots.  Clearly, rapid response is not a good reason to have a carrier forward based.

So, why do we have a carrier forward based?  It makes no sense.

Now, just because a carrier is forward based in Japan doesn’t mean that it can’t be pulled out to safety in the run up to a war.  Peer wars simply don’t start with no warning.  However, if the plan is to pull the carrier out prior to a war and if deterrence isn’t effective then why is it there to begin with?

Bagikan Artikel ini