Exactly - but notice in the offical world of Navy Ops Analysis they used
the Enterprise - (1) still trying not to go head on with the "law" that
all big carriers will be nuclear even when any such littoral ship would
be banned from most allied harbors and sea ports because it is a nuclear
ship and (2) trying to find budget and a home for the Enterprise so
there can be another CVN-21 put into production. Hence an argument
could be made about that option also.

You see the Navy concept as explained still has the Navy leading the
show, the Marine LHA(R) scenario is a Marine one with the Navy driving
the buses and making chow. Can you see the infighting in the literature
just by who is writing it. Now go to the Marine Corps Gazette and you
would wonder if there was even a Navy.



"Henry J Cobb" wrote in message
...
Flashnews wrote:
So we could modernize the JFK and make it a conventional assault
aviation ship, take on new F/A-18E/F and G's, and modernize Marine
aviations with the generals digging in their heals - its possible and
may be done in the next administration.
The savings are enormous and we need the cash now and we need to look
to the advanced threats down the road a bit and we need to deal with
COIN which we have put off for 5 years with this intramural
sparring - if the JFK is not sunk like the Oriskany, then there is
always a chance and the Kitty hawk could follow, one per fleet. This
also doubles MV-22 production and you can see the vulnerability still
exists low to the ground but the Iraq and Afghan wars have all but
ended the helicopter as a combat attack platform - we need a new
platform a cross between the A-10 and the Apache - a Blitz Fighter as
some call it - and guess what - the simple fact that nothing could
directly escort the MV-22 right now is paramount to the fact that the
planning was selectively biased against doing what is needed for
COIN.

Like this?

http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/0...fleet_070422w/
Among ideas it proposes are converting the aging aircraft carrier
Enterprise into an “afloat forward staging base” for special
operations forces with embarked joint air wings. He also proposed
converting four more Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines into
multimission guided missile subs, for a force of eight SSGNs.

-HJC