ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Defense Tropes Quarterly announced the publication of yet another article claiming the aircraft carrier is vulnerable, obsolete, and prohibitively expensive. The piece is the latest in a long series of articles in professional military journals questioning the utility of the carrier which literally dates back to the carrier’s very inception nearly a century ago.
In 1922, two Navy lieutenants dismissed the concept of an aeroplane-carrying vessel, writing, “We have far more aircraft carriers than aircraft to put into them, and before any more money is spent on improving the carrier fleet it would be well to make sure that a sufficient complement of planes will be available for these ships if ever they are called upon for active service.”
For decades, military academics have justified their miserable existences teaching at the various war colleges by declaring the aircraft carrier is vulnerable and obsolete in the era of dirigibles, atomic bombs, nuclear torpedoes, ballistic missiles, sea-skimming guided missiles, suicidal explosive-packed motorboats, electromagnetic pulses, DF-21 “carrier killer” missiles, hypersonic weapons, and railguns.
Oddly, no author has suggested an entire aircraft carrier could be taken out of commission by microscopic germs, despite the fact that communicable diseases have devastated militaries for thousands of years.
