WASHINGTON, April 8 (UPI) -- "The bigger they are the harder they fall" is a principle that doesn't just work in heavyweight boxing; it also applies to nuclear-powered aircraft carriers faced with swarms of attacking diesel-powered submarines.
The myth that gigantic, 80,000 ton nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carriers are unsinkable is not believed by any serious naval officer or analyst, but it has become a deeply ingrained assumption in the American public consciousness, including among most senators, congressmen and their staffs on Capitol Hill.
This is in large part because neither the United States nor Britain has lost a major fleet aircraft carrier in action since the first half of World War II. During World War II, the United States did not lose a single one of its more than 40 fast Essex-class aircraft carriers to enemy action.
This was in part due to the extraordinarily inept and passive combat operations record of the Japanese submarine force, in striking contrast to the magnificent gallantry and operational skill of Japan's aircraft carrier-based striking arm, and the cruisers and destroyers of the Imperial Navy's surface forces.
But the main reason was that Essex-class carriers were fast and Japanese submarines operating in the Pacific Ocean were slow. The USS Yorktown at the Battle of Midway in 1942 and the British aircraft carriers Ark Royal and Eagle operating off the coasts of Europe in 1941 and 1942 were both sunk by torpedoes fired by German U-boats.
The fact that no U.S. aircraft carrier has been seriously threatened in combat in any of the wars the United States has fought since 1945 has added to the mystique of the carrier admirals. They continue to dominate the Navy, greatly influencing its procurement decisions to this day. And arguably, in the 21st century, the political power and prestige of the carrier admirals is greater than ever.
The presumptive Republican nominee for president of the United States this year is Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a heroic carrier combat pilot during the Vietnam War and the son and grandson of U.S. Navy admirals. His grandfather in fact commanded one of the U.S. Navy's main carrier strike forces against Imperial Japan in the closing months of World War II.
However, the real reason none of America's magnificent aircraft carriers has faced serious threat over the past 60 years is for the very good reason that the United States has never fought any war during all that time in which they faced any enemy with significant naval forces.
North Korea and the People's Republic of China did not have them during the Korean War of 1950-53, and North Vietnam did not have them during the Vietnam War, where major U.S. ground forces were committed from 1965 to 1972. In neither of the Gulf wars -- in 1991 and 2003 -- did Iraq have significant naval or anti-ship air launched weapons systems with which it could threaten U.S. aircraft carriers operating in the Persian Gulf or the Indian Ocean.
Through the Cold War, the only naval force in the world capable of potentially sinking U.S. aircraft carriers by hostile action was the Soviet navy from the late-1960s on. Even today, that threat is not widely understood, yet it greatly influenced Chinese naval planners who have developed 21st century asymmetrical responses to threaten U.S. carrier battle groups currently operating in the Western Pacific Ocean.
--
Next: How aircraft carriers became vulnerable
