“Is there savings you could harvest if you built a smaller version of that ship, but you had essentially the same technologies in it?” said Bryan Clark, a retired submariner who co-authored a report on future fleet architecture this year for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
“There’s not an easy answer to it.”
Proponents of a light carrier say a supercarrier’s service life is wasted when ISIS-bombing sorties are flown off its decks. Such a mission could be completed via a re-jiggered amphibious assault ship, Clark said. “Is that worth building a $14 billion ship to go do?” he said. “You build a $14 billion ship to fight a big war, or at least deter a bigger war.”
Clark points to the America as the model for a potential future light carrier, a vessel that could handle “bombing mud huts in Syria” while supercarriers perform more conventional war duties.
Part of the Senate’s defense bill directs the Navy to conduct a multi-million dollar engineering study to explore what leaning toward a small carrier would entail.
CSBA’s fleet architecture study called for deploying large amphibious assault ships like the America as a light aircraft carrier.