I'm not a military guy but I believe our carriers are considered one of the most powerful mobile weapons platforms in the world. With the use of a carrier we depend less on fixed land bases since we never know if we are going to get permission to used them. Plus I am not sure that we build carriers to match the enemy but to give us more mobility and flexibility to move around the world. Plus, just like our sub fleet, we scatter and keep them mobile so it is a more difficult target. Although you cannot hide a carrier group like a sub, they are not in the same place day to day

The US Carrier Battlegroup is a projection of power, North Korea acting up....park a carrier group off their coast. Iran rattling the sabre, sail a carrier group through the gulf. Need some close air support in Afghanistan, use some carrier aircraft from the Arabian sea. They are a projection of power where the US doesn't have bases or troops.
The US and France are not the only countries with carriers, the UK has their helo/harrier carriers, with plans for 2 normal CV carriers, Spain has a V/STOL carrier, Brazil is just getting rid of their 1950's era carriers they have been using (could be purchased on Ebay!!!), India is probably the 3rd largest carrier borne navy in the world now, they have taken possesion of the old Varyag from the Soviet Union, Russia's only working angled deck carrier, as well they have a couple of old V/STOL carriers from the UK.
However only the US, UK and France use their carriers to project force where they wouldn't have troops or bases.

Frankly I would love to see the Canadian Navy get a couple of the older US Amphibious Assualt ships like the Iwo Jima and Nassau which will soon be retired in leu of newer Wasp ships that will replace them. One for each coast, we could buy a handful of Harrier IIs for each ship and use them as a mini carrier/helo ASW carrier. Hell the USS Enterprise and USS Nimitz are due to be retired in the not too distant future, and those ships still have a useful life span left, Canada could project their own power world wide with a couple of supercarriers themselves.....mind you we would have to buy a few more CF-18s to out fit them, as one carrier would pretty much take up our active fleet of CF18's in service.

With no major superpower against the US, it seems that putting a lot of the taxes on star wars projects quite inappropriate. I guess the government is just cutting losses. Hi tech doesnt actually mean victory all the time. Vietnam. For the former Soviets Afganistan.

The Osprey is very innovative, but still is a widow-maker. The Raptor is sleek, but anything that has a lot of gizmos needs a lot of fixing too, plus there is the x-plane project which seems to promise to deliver more than the Raptor.

If the big bad B-52's could still make the bad guys soil their pants after nearly 50 years, I guess the little guys could still do more in the years to come with updated mods.

But I have to agree those birds are beautiful.

well, how about this?

1. Commanche, a project I liked actually, isobsolete because of the UAV and the UCAV. My brother in law is working on some aspects of these projects out at Dryden NASA and they really work well, and are a good replacement for the scout setups.

2. Carriers project power, are VERY expensive to maintain in money and manpower, and need to be refitted fairly often, so you need a lot to keep the flag flying.

In all seriousness, only the US has a real carrier force...helo copters and 40 plane floating boxes don't cut it in a real war...they are only good for "brush-fires", blowing up guerillas with RPG's etc. The US needs them , seriously, to keep all the vultures from eating us alive not only in the oil rich fields of the middle east, but also to keep other countries from building forces...IE the Japanese don't need a big navy as the US is protecting their deep waters, not only from N. Korea and China, but elsewhere. So they can use their money on other things and we don't have competition ( I see this as good by the way) Kinda a non-proliferation setup.

Also, the US has a VERY large merchant fleet that does need protecting from piracy, a real problem still in the caribean and South China Sea to name a few. We also help others as well, so this is a good thing.

As for other countries being kept in check, well, only the ex-soviets could have really pulled off a US style amphib invasion. In the most recent China-threat analysis, they are only deemed a local land and local sea threat...they cannot really project power beyond their shores. Sure, they could slam Taiwan if we were not there, but they could not, say, take over Australia or Japan. And Brazil, France, and Britain do not have credible threats either.

and by the by, the US $502B in defense is larger than the rest of all the worlds defense budgets combined...makes you wonder...maybe the US is in the safe world BIZ and should start charging for services? #:-)

Hey all,

Canada will not have a carrier in the foreseeable future, hell, we're lucky we are getting new helo's... sad as it is to say. Based on the law of percentages, Canada can't support the type of defense spending required to field such equipment. Canada's role has changed from being a full fighting force at the end of WWII to a small deployable force whose main role is acting as a cog in an international force. The CF has always been well trained but extremely under funded, which will not change as long as the Liberals are in power.

The Comanche , as stated earlier, is just one of the items the US Gov't is axing, or closely scrutinizing. I have had the opportunity to read several articles casting doubt on the Stryker program as well, sighting the fact that other than speed, it offers nothing by way of advantage over a tracked veh.

I am defiantly going to disagree with Scott on the issue of Canada being a "feared force" the Nazis may have feared the Canadian Forces during WWII but we where never "feared" by the international community, then or now. Having recently spent time in the Mid East it was almost comical to hear the USN Officers tell their men to “act like Canadians” (what exactly does a Canadian act like?). There was no way to maintain a fighting force the size we had at the end of the 2nd World War. No way, and to think so is ludicrous. I also have to disagree with the CIS being able to move a large fighting force through Europe. The former Soviet Union can't pay its troops, its kit is falling apart and many of its surrounding areas of influence are contemplating or in the act of breaking away. They have been facing a civil war in Chechnya for several years now which is sucking up most of their available land based resources.

Other than that, speaking of Osprey’s. I was en route to the local hobby shop today when my son yelled out that an osprey was flying around, me thinking of a bird replied “that’s nice” but when I looked up…. there it was flying down the harbor, I guess there is one here conducting icing trials for the next month or so….. may have to travel with the camera for a while to snap off a few!

Keefe,
The Sikorsky helo you refer to , is called the S-92 . Upon attending the 03' Helo Symposium in Florida last year, with my ex-employers helicopter (S-61) Carson Helicopters,
This is the outcome: Our 50's technology helo, will outfly, outlift, and out perform the so
called latest and greatest thing Sikorsky has to offer.(S-92) Carson presently owns the manufacturing rights to the S-61 and has just been awarded a FAA license to manufacture
composite blades for this helo. (of which we had on the S-61 we had on display in FL)
After returning home from the show, the FAA inspectors paid Carson a visit to see our
development and test the system. After 13 tests and scrutiny, the FAA gave Carson the rights to manufacture the blades we developed. TAKE NOTE: Carson is a private one man owner, that has a BIG reputation in North America and abroad with his fleet os HELOS. He is not like the DOD or government redtape system. No taxpayers money or government official votes on his venture, so that is a big differance with the current state of Military spending and procurment of $$$$.
The Navy also came to visit to buy the blades for there SH-3 fleet, currently in use.
I ROTFL every time I see the SO CALLED little guy, stick it to the BIG name manufatures like
Boeing and Sikorsky, when they can build something 10X better at half the cost.

AS for the Commanche: It was supposed to be the eyes and ears for the Apache, and give a fwd battlefield advantage to air operations,.............but with the concurrent development of the Apache Longbow system, the Commanches days were numbered.
The OH-58D and the AH-64 were a team for forward air capability. The 58 being the searcher, the 64 being the killer. Now the Longbow Apache can perform the task of the 58D,
and survive on the battlefield, which the 58 cannot do. ( not enough armor or teeth ,ie missles)
The cancellation of the Commanche is the direct result of what happens when you have two projects that are related in scope continuing at the same time. When we try to improve
one system and start a new system at the same time they are BOUND to overlap and ROB
Taxpayers money. One of them.....is going to get the AXE.
This problem is wides spread thru out the whole Department of Defense, and our Military suffers from the consequenses of Poloticians.
Thats my ARMY member Franklin's OPINION.