ASSESSING THE US NAVY'S ‘LIGHTNING CARRIER' CONCEPT

In recent years, there has been much debate over the future of the United States Navy’s aircraft carrier force. Voracious have been the critics over the cost and vulnerability of America’s nuclear-powered large-deck carriers (CVNs) in the face of modern anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) systems such as China’s much-vaunted anti-ship ballistic missiles.

- Ben Ho

Pundits maintain that concentrating significant combat power in a single 90,000-odd ton supercarrier makes it too big and expensive to fail. The concept of ‘distributed’ operations is the zeitgeist of present-day American naval discourse. Various commentators aver that the US Navy should focus on smaller (read cheaper and more numerous) flat-tops to hedge against the A2/AD threat. To this end, the idea of the ‘Lightning carrier’ was birthed. Simply put, this is about Wasp- and America-class amphibious assault ships deploying a full complement of some 20 F-35B Lightning short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) fighters to function as a small-deck/light carrier. So let’s make a comparison between the ‘Lightning carrier’ and its larger brethren of the Nimitz- and Ford-classes.

The starkest difference between the two types of carriers is their fighter complements. A supercarrier typically deploys with over 40 F/A-18E/F Super Hornets (and in the future F-35Cs), which is twice that of the smaller carrier.