It's time once again for our regular Open Thread. Talk about whatever you want, so long as it isn't Culture War.
The LA meetup last month was excellent, and everyone seemed to have a great time. Next year, the plan is to go to the Air Force Museum in Dayton. There may not be ships, but it is a really impressive museum, and unlike museum ships, I have much less concern about the size of the group. You should plan to come.
Overhauls are Battleship Aviation Parts One and Two, FFG(X) and for 2024, reviews of Bovington Tank Museum, museums around Boston, places we went during last year's meetup and my piece on Eagle.
Comments
When is the Dayton trip?
Probably May of next year.
Greetings from a longtime lurker--as a brief aside, probably my favorite series of yours is the Falklands.
Tangential to the SYWTBAMN series: what if an island country on the borderline of being able to afford a carrier or two (whether CATOBAR or STOVL) decided to forgo carriers and focus on surface warships? Being able to fly planes off carriers has many advantages, but it's obviously incredibly expensive--both in terms of ships, planes, and the amount of personnel (and training of the personnel!) needed. Carrier-based fixed-wing aviation does a lot of different things: strike, recon, AEW, CAP, etc. But virtually all of those can be handled (although not always as well) in other ways. Strike can be done by Tomahawks (or something similar). Recon by drones. AEW by helicopters. And with enough SAMs, you can protect the airspace over your ships without needing your own fighters.
I'll admit that my experiences are probably based too much on playing CMO and not enough on analysis of the real-world, so there may be things I'm overlooking. But I'd always get annoyed when playing scenarios when my carrier-based fighters have shorter-range missiles than my opponents; why fly a CAP if your fighters are just going to get shot down? Let the SAMs handle anything they throw at you. Missiles aren't free, of course, but you could buy a lot of them for the cost of two carriers and their air wings.
@KM, at the strategic decision making level I would say that you build a carrier if you think at some time you will want to send your airforce into someone else's airspace.
If you only have a defensive fleet and no desire to ever intervene in someone else's politics, sure just have aircraft based in your home country.
If you want to overthrow foreign governments who annoy you, you'll want aircraft carriers as it's very often difficult to persuade neighbours of the target government to let you base your aircraft in their airbases.
Tricky case is defending sea lines of communication, maritime trade. If you don't want to be an imperial power but you do rely on imports, an aircraft carrier may be necessary if you need to defend your ships a long way from home.