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Originally Posted by Heibges
I'm a firm believer in combined arms warfare, but we can really never fully agree, because I do not believe the United States should fight limited wars that do not directly threaten our security. But I do see the point of folks who argue for a "Pax Americana".
I fully agree what once you go to war, you should be fully offensive. To paraphrase Napolenon, defensive war dooms you to defeat. But as you say the submarine is a fully offensive weapon.
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This is true, but being offensive doesn't mean just striking from the sea. You have to have guys on the ground with guns, which means you have to support them with food, ammunition, and equipment. You have to have all of that capability *BEFORE* the shooting starts. You have to be able to get the stuff there, which means cargo ships, which means you need air cover to protect the convoy from things like aircraft firing anti-ship missiles, which of course means you need carriers, and by extension you need ships to protect the carrier.
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Originally Posted by Heibges
Rickover came to his conclusions in a manner similar to Doenitz: through wargames. Doenitz tactics were proven in WWII, so unless we have WWIII we will never really know who was the right when it comes to modern naval warfare.
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Doenitz *FAILED* in WWII. His tactics remained pretty much static, and when they did change they were in response to Allied technical and doctrinal advances. In fairness, though, he was hobbled by a leadership that didn't understand what the submarines of the time were capable of, and not capable of.
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Originally Posted by Heibges
But I would say that WWII taught us that like the submarine, the aircraft carrier can be extremely vulnerable to the aircraft. I'm just not convinced you could defend a fleet from a barrage of nuclear cruise missles fired from a submarine a thousand miles away. Or land based aircraft with in-air refueling.
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Currently, the US and the UK, but mainly the US, are the only forces capable of staging long distance sustained refuelings to hit targets half a World away. It really isn't that much of an issue.
As for a barrage of nuclear missiles, again I was talking about a non-nuclear conflict. If you start talking nukes, then even submarines aren't going to help.
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Originally Posted by Heibges
I don't think we will every see a ReForGer situation again where huge numbers of American troops go overseas to fight an all out war. The Army hasn't trained for that eventuality since 1987. But you could say that the First Gulf War and Second Gulf War were super-ReForGers, but we weren't exaclty fighting the crack Soviet troops either.
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Don't be too sure: Europe in the 1920's didn't see WWII coming, and Europe in 1900 didn't see WWI coming. You really don't know what is going to happen.
As far as fighting crack Soviet troops, they weren't all they were cracked up to be. Even back in the 1980's, it was well known that they had some serious deficiencies that they attempted to cover up, but that were patently obvious to an outside observer who cared to look.
