Headline of a Wall St Journal op-ed on Saturday. The writer, William Lloyd Stearman, long time National Security Council staffer, laments the fact the the US has not done an amphibious assault since Inchon, way back in the Korean War. He blames this on the existence of anti ship missiles that make it too dangerous to bring warships closer than 100 miles to land.
His solution a humongous 1000 foot long ship, displacing 125,000 tons, loaded with anti aircraft missiles and artillery, more artillery for shore bombardment, helicopter and VTOL fighter pads, and carrying Marines would be able to close up on the enemy coast, land the marines, and give them fire support. "This ship could be designed to make it virtually unsinkable." Yeah right. This concept has been kicking around in various issues of Naval Institute Proceedings for years under the name of "arsenal ship".
Sounds cool, but Mr Stearman seems to have forgotten WWII experience showing that if you put enough bombs and torpedoes into the biggest ships, they sink. Witness Bismark, Yamato, Roma, Prince of Wales, Lexington, Kaga, Akagi, Hiryu, Soryu, Zuikaku, and many more famous capital ships.
To do an amphibious assault, first you need air superiority, air craft carriers and their air wings. Once you have air superiority, you don't need an arsenal ship. The aircraft take out the anti ship missile sites. Then ships of ordinary size will do just fine.
I'm surprised that this guy was a National Security Council staffer for more than 15 years and has no better grasp of naval warfare than this op-ed shows.
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