Originally Posted by
JamesNoBrakes
Logistically, it might be easier/cheaper to rotate subs than resupply carriers, I don't know, but it's a mess of man and machine. It's maybe a ways off before we don't need carriers, but I can see the future for manned aircraft is bleak.
Take it from an expert, it's not. We don't have enough subs to "rotate" and we couldn't do it fast enough to cover even a day or two of flights ops from one carrier and even if we did we don't have enough missiles...we have a limited NATIONAL arsenal of TLAMs, and it would get used up very quickly in any major contingency.
Cruise missiles are small jet airplanes...meaning they are far more expensive (orders of magnitude) than iron bombs. They are specialty weapons with specific uses, but they're totally impractical as a replacement for tacair bombs.
We are seriously talking orders of magnitude on the cost delta alone, not to mention all the issues with launch platforms and reloading...it takes days or even weeks in most cases to reload a TLAM platform (including transit time)...it's takes minutes to reload an F-18.