US Navy wants to homeport carrier in Hawaii or Guam

On Wed, 6 Apr 2005 10:49:28 -0700, "Mike Kanze"
wrote:

Dave,

The biggest conflict I've heard is the fact that they sold Barber's Point
to the state, Ford Island is housing, and K-Bay can't handle a whole
carrier wing.

I'm not sure the Air Wing needs to stay in the Hawaiians with the boat. It
might work as well for the Air Wing to stay on the mainland, with its
training opportunities like NAS Fallon not available in the Hawaiians. This
is different from being forward-deployed to Japan and having access to
Misawa, etc.

Well, maybe.

It seems to me that a carrier without it's airwing close at hand is
just a very large, not very well defended target.

Another option might be for the Air Wing to be forward-deployed elsewhere in
the Pacific basin: Japan or Guam, if space permits. They could pick up the
ship in transit from Hawaii to whatever hot spot she's headed.

This works, unless the "hot spot" is in South America or other points
east.

Bill Kambic