[Heibges]

Originally Posted by Puster Bill

Leaving aside the last sentence, you're wrong.

Here is why:

Assuming a full blown, non-nuclear war, you'd still need surface assests.

Submarines are lousy for escort duty. They are, for all intents and purposes, an offensive weapon. Even given the capabilities of a modern nuclear sub, they are vulnerable to aircraft. One of the big lessons of WWII is that while aircraft carriers are vulnerable to submarines, submarines are more vulnerable to aircraft. This still holds true today: Ask a modern submariner what they fear most in a shooting situation, and it won't be a surface ship or other submarine (they have comparable performance, and you can shoot back at them), but a helicopter or fixed wing aircraft configured for ASW. You can't outrun them, and except for a very few experimental systems installed on very few subs, you can't shoot back at them.

Additionally, at some point in such an all-out war you will need to project power. Submarines are great for preventing the other guy from projecting power, but lousy at doing it themselves. You need to be able to put boots on the ground. Submarines suck at that, except for stealthy insertions of very small units. You will also have to provide air cover for those troops, which submarines are incapable of providing. That means troopships, or failing that (say you airlift the troops), you still need to send their equipment by ship, protection for those troop/supply ships in the form of a carrier battle group. A CBG is well equipped to protect the ships, fight for air superiority, and perform ground attack missions in support of invading troops.

If you posit that we should only fight a defensive war, then you have already lost it mentally before you start. True, the preferrence is to not attack first. But once you are in the fight, you don't fight it defensively, you force the other side to fight defensively. Otherwise, you are bound to lose.

While I respect people like Hyman Rickover, and the person who wrote the article above, I suspect that they suffer from 'Hammer Syndrome' (ie., when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail). We need a full toolbox.

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.

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.

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.

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.