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http://www.knightsbridgeuniversity.com/documents/is%20the%20us.%20navy%20overrated.pdf

The Author
Roger Thompson is Professor of Military Studies at Knightsbridge
University and a Fellow of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces
and Society.

In 1981, The NATO exercise Ocean Venture ended with much embarrassment for
the U.S. Navy, and more specifically, its enormously expensive aircraft
carrier battle groups.

During the exercise, a Canadian submarine slipped quietly through a
carrier's destroyer screen, and conducted a devastating simulated torpedo
attack on the ship. The submarine was never detected, and when the
exercise umpire, a U.S. Navy officer, pronounced the carrier dead, his
official report was promptly stamped classified to minimize the potential
fallout. Unfortunately, a Canadian submariner leaked the story to a local
newspaper, and indicated that this successful Canadian attack on an
American supercarrier was by no means an isolated incident. This news
caused quite a stir in Congress, and the U.S. Navy had a lot of explaining
to do. Why indeed had a small, 1960s-vintage diesel submarine of the
under-funded Canadian Navy been able to defeat one of America s most
powerful and expensive warships, and with such apparent ease?

There are several possible answers. Firstly, Canadian submariners are
extremely well trained and professional. Secondly, at that time, the
Oberon submarines used by the Canadian Navy were probably the quietest in
the world. A third possible reason, not so commonly stated, and with all
due respect, is that the mighty U.S. Navy is simply overrated. It is my
humble contention that the U.S. Navy is not all it's cracked up to be, and
that is the focus of the present article.

Diesel Subs Feast on U.S. Carriers

While Canadian submarines have routinely taken on U.S. Navy carriers,
other small navies have enjoyed similar victories. The Royal Netherlands
Navy, with its small force of extremely quiet diesel submarines, has made
the U.S. Navy eat the proverbial slice of humble pie on more than one
occasion. In 1989, naval analyst Norman Polmar wrote in Naval Forces that
during NATO s exercise Northern Star, the Dutch submarine Zwaardvis was
the only orange (enemy) submarine to successfully stalk and sink a blue
(allied) aircraft carrier Ten years later there were reports that the
Dutch submarine Walrus had been even more successful in the exercise
JTFEX/TMDI99.

During this exercise the Walrus penetrates the U.S. screen and sinks many
ships, including the U.S. aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt CVN-71. The
submarine launches two attacks and manages to sneak away. To celebrate the
sinking the crew designed a special T- shirt. Fittingly, the T-shirt
depicted the USS Theodore Roosevelt impaled on the tusks of a walrus. It
was also reported that the Walrus also sank many of the Roosevelt's
escorts, including the nuclear submarine USS Boise, a cruiser, several
destroyers and frigates, plus the command ship USS Mount Whitney. The
Walrus herself survived the exercise with no damage.

Not to be outdone by the Canadians and Dutch, the Australian submarine
force has also scored many goals against U.S. Navy carriers and nuclear
submarines. On September 24 2003, the Australian newspaper The Age
disclosed that Australia's Collins class diesel submarines had taught the
U.S. Navy a few lessons during multinational exercises. By the end of the
exercises, Australian submarines had destroyed two U.S. Navy nuclear
attack submarines and an aircraft carrier. According to the article: The
Americans were wide-eyed, Commodore Deeks (Commander of the RAN Submarine
Group) said. They realized that another navies knows how to operate
submarines. They were quite impressed.


The Russians mug the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk

These examples provide ample evidence of the vulnerability of U.S. Navy
carrier battle groups to attacks from diesel submarines, but of course
there are other ways to sink a carrier, as the Russian Air Force knows
well. In October 2000, the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Kitty Hawk was mugged
by Russian SU-24 and Su-27 aircraft, which were not detected until they
were virtually on top of the carrier. The Russian aircraft buzzed the
carrier s flight deck and caught the ship completely unprepared. To add
insult to injury, the Russians took very detailed photos of the Kitty Hawk
s flight deck, and very courteously, provided the pictures to the American
CO via e-mail. In the December 7, 2000 edition of WorldNetDaily, Jon E.
Dougherty said that the Russian photographs made it clear that there was
panic aboard the Kitty Hawk. As one U.S. sailor quipped, The entire crew
watched overhead as the Russians made a mockery of our feeble attempt of
intercepting them.

Russia's air force is now only a faint shadow of what it once was, but
even now, they can demonstrate that they can, if necessary, do significant
damage to the U.S. Navy. It's little wonder then that a Russian newspaper
gloated that If these had been planes on a war mission, the aircraft
carrier would definitely have been sunk. Perhaps they are right. But it s
not just the Russians, Canadians, Dutch and Australians who think the U.S.
Navy s carrier battle groups are over-rated, expensive and extremely
vulnerable. Admiral Hyman Rickover himself didn t think much of the
American carrier-centered Navy, either. When asked in 1982 about how long
the American carriers would survive in an actual war, he curtly replied
that they would be finished in approximately 48 hours.

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