Just a few days later the christening of the USS John Fitzgerald Kennedy, second giant nuclear aircraft carrier of the Gerald Ford class, and second aircraft carrier of the US Navy to bear this name, the United States Congress has just dealt a hard blow to the US Navy by dividing the budget by 3 , however restricted, that it requested for the study of the future embarked combat aircraft intended to replace the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet currently arming the American flotillas. The explanation is not to be found in budgetary restrictions, or in a congressional preference for the F35C, but in deep questions from American parliamentarians about the very future of these giants of the seas.
While the US Navy requested an amount of $20 million for the 2020 fiscal year for the upstream studies of its new generation F/A-XX on-board fighter program, a very limited sum compared to the $25 billion invested each year. year for the acquisition of new equipment by the US Navy, Congress only authorized $7 million in credits for this study, under the cover of a significant distrust regarding the future of these ships in naval combat and force projection. Indeed, the appearance of hypersonic or ballistic anti-ship missiles, such as the Russian Tzirkon missiles due to enter service in 2020, the Chinese DF-17 hypersonic glider missile, and ballistic missiles with anti-ship capability (announced but not demonstrated) DF-21D and DF-26, again Chinese, many parliamentarians consider the aircraft carrier far too vulnerable in the face of such threats.
Therefore, the operational efficiency of aircraft carriers carrying thousands of men, and each costing more than $12 billion, to which should be added an onboard air group of $7 or $8 billion, seems, in their eyes , compromised. Deputy Secretary of Defense Michael Griffin publicly launched the debate a few months ago, by wondering about the benefit of having a fleet of 11 or 12 super aircraft carriers at $12 billion, or if it was not preferable to sacrifice one or two in favor of acquiring several hundred hypersonic missiles.
If this debate concerns in part the struggles for influence between the US Navy, the Air Force and the US Army, it is also based on objective observations concerning the profound evolution of the technologies used in naval combat. In addition to hypersonic missiles, against which there is currently no effective defense, the democratization of reconnaissance satellites and long-endurance drones capable of detecting carrier groups, or the imminent arrival of Rail Guns, risks indeed causing aircraft carriers are prime targets, especially since the destruction of one of these giants of the seas would probably cause significant trauma in American public opinion. These technologies will force American ships to operate at much greater distances from the adversary's coasts, even though neither the F18 nor the F35C were designed to have a particularly high autonomy.
This observation is also at the heart of the objectives of the F/A-XX program, which seeks above all to design a fast on-board device with a very long range, but also of the MQ-25 Stingray on-board drones, whose priority mission is the discreet refueling of US Navy weapons planes. Indeed, the presence of Tzirkon missiles mounted in coastal batteries would force a carrier group to operate more than 1000 km from the coast, i.e. the maximum range of the Super Hornet in a combat mission, and would significantly reduce the deep strike capabilities of the F35C and its 1200 km range. The DF-21D missiles have a range of almost 2000 km, while the DF-26 would exceed 4000 km. Under such conditions, the use of aircraft carriers to, for example, ensure the defense of the island of Taiwan, would not provide any significant advantage over the deployment of aircraft on the island of Guam or Japan.
So, is the aircraft carrier destined to disappear? It would be a bit hasty to conclude it. On the one hand, this is not the first time that aircraft carriers have faced lethal threats deemed critical. This was the case with the Kamikaze during the Second World War, then with the first guided missiles. During the Cold War, Soviet long-range bombers like the Tu-22, Tu-95 and Tu-16, each carrying two to four heavy supersonic anti-ship missiles, were considered one of the main threats against -with regard to NATO's strengthening capabilities. However, whether in the case of kamikazes, anti-ship missiles or raids by Soviet heavy bombers, each of the threats relatively quickly saw the emergence of countermeasures to reduce the risk: densification of anti-aircraft defense and missions remote interception systems guided by radar to counter Kamikaze, appearance of anti-aircraft missiles, close anti-missile protection systems such as the Phalanx, the Aegis system or the couple between the F-4 Tomcat onboard fighter and the long-range missile AIM-14 Phoenix anti-aircraft scope to counter Soviet bombers and anti-ship missiles.
Several research programs are currently underway, in the United States, Russia and even in Europe, to design means capable of intercepting or neutralizing hypersonic missiles, and the first operational systems should appear before the end of the next decade. . In fact, it is probable that the two new Ford-class aircraft carriers ordered this year will be equipped with effective protection systems against these threats, as will their escorts.
It is however possible, for example, that faced with the evolution of detection systems, or the capabilities of combat drones and aircraft, the format of aircraft carriers will be called upon to evolve, returning to ships closer to 60.000 at 70.000 tonnes than the current 110.000 tonnes of a Ford class ship, with a price decreasing accordingly, so as to have more ships for an identical embarked air force, and at a constant budget. Considering the size of modern air forces, like naval forces, and the capabilities of modern combat aircraft, a 60.000-ton aircraft carrier carrying 35 combat aircraft, a dozen drones and a few surveillance aircraft, represents a power of very large fire and largely sufficient to cover the vast majority of peacetime and wartime missions, including high intensity.
In any case, as long as there does not exist a technological offer more efficient than the aircraft carrier and capable of replacing its unique capabilities of power projection over time in isolated areas, it is very anticipated to bury this type of ship. However, the US Navy will need a lot of education to fight against erroneous, and sometimes somewhat manipulated, conceptual shortcuts and preserve this force which today conditions real American naval power. And the same goes for the Royal Navy, or even the French Navy.